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Category: Vintage Treasures

The Novels of Michael Shea: In Yana, The Touch of Undying

The Novels of Michael Shea: In Yana, The Touch of Undying

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In Yana-smallAround Christmas in 1985, I walked into The House of Speculative Fiction in Ottawa, Ontario, and after browsing the shelves for a while, selected a volume. The man behind the counter that Saturday was Rodger Turner, who years later would head up the Hugo and World Fantasy Award-nominated SF Site. But back then, Rodger was a humble bookseller — and a very good one.

I asked Rodger what he thought of my selection. He shrugged. “It won’t change your life,” he said. That was one of the marvelous things about Rodger: he always gave his honest opinion. And his taste was excellent.

“You know what will change your life?” he asked. And without another word, he handed me a copy of In Yana, The Touch of Undying. That was my first exposure to the magical worlds of Michael Shea, but it was by no means my last. Today, In Yana is considered a classic of darkly humorous fantasy; it is well worth seeking out.

Bramt Hex is a student of ancient lore until a chance meeting at an inn opens infinite pathways of possibility and, touched by destiny, Bramt abandons his ivory tower for the greater world, hoping to become a maker of legends in his own right.

But the world is a fearful place peopled by cunning nobles and wily wizards, demons and ogres, vampires and vengeful ghosts, sword-wielding warriors and flesh-craving giants. And soon, Bramt’s quest for fame and wealth becomes a battle for survival — and a desperate, magic-led search for a treasure far greater than gold… the secret of immortality which can only be found in the dangerous, illusive realm called Yana…

In Yana was published by DAW Books in December 1985. It is 318 pages, priced at $3.50. The cover is by Terry Oakes. It has never been reprinted.

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Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Island of Fu Manchu, Part One

Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Island of Fu Manchu, Part One

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PanamaLibFuNextSax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu and the Panama Canal was first serialized in Liberty Magazine from November 16, 1940 to February 1, 1941. It was published in book form as The Island of Fu Manchu by Doubleday in the US and Cassell in the UK in 1941. The book serves as a direct follow-up to Rohmer’s 1939 bestseller, The Drums of Fu Manchu, and is again narrated by Fleet Street journalist, Bart Kerrigan.

The previous book in the series was published just prior to the outbreak of the Second World War in Europe. Rohmer chose to portray characters such as Hitler and Mussolini under thinly disguised aliases. More critically, he chose to have these threats to world peace removed by the conclusion of the book as he naively believed a Second World War would be avoided at all costs. Over a year into the war, Rohmer had to address these issues for his readers. His excuse was a brilliant one. The prior narrative had been censored by the Home Office. Bart Kerrigan was forced to alter names and events. Hitler and Mussolini yet lived.

Interestingly, Rohmer chose to pick up the story some months after the last title and reflect changes in the lives of his characters. The Si-Fan has fallen under an unnamed pro-Fascist president who counts Fu Manchu’s duplicitous daughter among his closest allies. The Devil Doctor himself has fallen from grace within the Si-Fan, as he opposes fascism at all costs. This rift threatens to tear the secret society apart as much as the war was doing the same to governments around the world.

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Swords and Edgar Rice Burroughs

Swords and Edgar Rice Burroughs

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Burroughs-MarsERB is probably best known to people who enjoy Fantasy and SF as the creator of the John Carter of Mars series, the Carson of Venus books, and the Pellucidar world-in-the-centre-of-the-earth stories. Then, of course, there’s Tarzan, probably second only to Dumas’s Three Musketeers as a source of movies, TV shows, and comics.

Following up on my recent sword-fighting posts, I’d like to talk about two ERB novels that are much less well-known than the ones I refer to above, and yet which have the same spirit of adventure and, for me almost more important, the same emphasis on sword play.

Both The Outlaw of Torn (1914) and The Mad King (1915) are what used to be called “romantic adventures.” This wasn’t because there was a love interest (though everyone familiar with ERB’s work knows there was), but because of the extraordinary demands placed on the hero, usually for extreme action, courage, fortitude, and sacrifice.

The Indiana Jones films are probably the closest deliberate modern equivalent to this genre, and while it’s hard for us to think of Iron Man, or Spiderman, as romantic adventurers, in the way the term was understood back then, that’s exactly what they would be.

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Vintage Treasures: Doc Sidhe by Aaron Allston

Vintage Treasures: Doc Sidhe by Aaron Allston

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Aaron Allston Doc Sidhe-smallWe lost prolific game designer and author Aaron Allston last week and, as often happens after we lose someone of importance in the industry, I find myself dwelling on their contributions. By the time of his death, Allston was renowned chiefly for his popular Star Wars books. But the first of his novels I ever purchased — and indeed, the one I still think of first — was his homage to Doc Savage, the 2001 novel Doc Sidhe. Doc Sidhe is an unabashed salute to thirties pulp fiction. Here’s the book description:

Olympic kickboxer Harris Greene’s career has just self-destructed, and both his manager and his fiance, Gaby, have dumped him. While looking for Gaby, he interrupts a bizarre trio as they are kidnapping her, and he is hurled into another, very weird, universe. His only hope is Doc Sidhe, this Art Deco universe’s greatest champion of justice.

And here’s Blue Tyson’s spot-on review:

Imagine if there was a counter earth, stuck in the 30s, where, basically, elves and trolls are real. The coolest thing, however, is that Doc Savage is real, too. Except for the fact he is a Daoine Sidhe sorcerer, and has a higher mortality rate for his crew.

A down on his luck kickboxer and his girlfriend end up there, via a conjurer’s circle, and a plot to change the magical rules of relations between the two worlds. Oh, and the evil villain is Doc’s son. This is an excellent homage, a good urban fantasy, and a bit of The Untouchables, to boot…

Doc Sidhe had one sequel: Sidhe-Devil, published by Baen in 2001. It was published by Baen Books in May 2001. It is 352 pages, originally priced at $5.99. It is currently out of print; there is no digital edition. See all of our recent Vintage Treasures here.

Year of the Unicorn by Andre Norton

Year of the Unicorn by Andre Norton

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Andre Norton Year of the Unicorn-smallOn the first day of the Year of the Unicorn, twelve and one young women are to be delivered to the Wastelands beyond High Hallack and into the hands of sorcerous shape-changers known as the Were Riders. In battle, they change their forms into those of fierce animals, instilling terror in their opponents, then ripping them apart with tooth and claw.

The lords of High Hallack turned to the Riders in their desperate search for any defense against the unstoppable invaders from Alizon across the sea. The Riders agreed, but demanded payment of those brides-to-be, due on the first day of the new year following the war’s end.

Andre Norton’s novel, Year of the Unicorn, introduces Gillan, an orphan relegated to a dreary future in the abbey of Norstead, who instead exchanges herself in secret for one of the appointed brides. In disguise, she rides into the Wastes in search of any life beyond the one she seems fated to. There she finds her beastly groom and discovers her magical powers.

Since discovering how good Andre Norton’s Witch World series is, I’ve been slowly making my way through its sixteen books. (There are later books by other writers, but it’s Norton’s original writing that has hooked me.) The four novels and dozen or so stories I’ve read so far have ranged in style from wild science-fantasy to swords & sorcery to Gothic mystery. Some have even read like fairy tales from a world catty-corner to our own. Year of the Unicorn, first novel in the High Hallack sequence, is one of those.

As a child, Gillan was rescued at sea from Alizon raiders by a High Hallack nobleman. She was too young to know where she was from or how she came to be captured, but her dark hair leads him to believe she’s from the East. Deciding that if she was worth the Alizoners’ trouble she might have some future value, the nobleman raises her in his own household.

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Vintage and New: Revisiting The Night Land with James Stoddard

Vintage and New: Revisiting The Night Land with James Stoddard

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nightland-1William Hope Hodgson (1877-1918) was an English author and poet who died in Flanders Fields (how poetic) at the age of 40, his career cut short by an artillery shell. Perhaps you’ve heard of him?

Maybe not. Though the recognition will be significantly higher among readers of this site, for the general public his is a pretty obscure name (at least until a major HBO series drops references to his work, a la True Detective and Robert W. Chambers).

If you have heard of him, it’s likely because H.P. Lovecraft considered Hodgson’s novels to have been among the most brilliant works of weird horror, and more recent writers like Gene Wolfe and China Mièvelle concur.

Ironically, Lovecraft himself was once nearly forgotten — like Hodgson, he was well served by literary executors who worked tirelessly to keep his work alive until he could be more widely recognized and take his rightful place in the canon.  Hodgson’s widow and his sister-in-law both managed to keep his works in print so that the likes of Lovecraft could discover him. Unlike Lovecraft, much wider recognition has not been — and likely will not be — forthcoming, and that is largely Hodgson’s own fault.

Most new readers of Hodgson come to him through recommendations by influential popular writers; two of the most influential cheerleaders have been Lovecraft and C.S. Lewis. Although there could hardly be two more different authors than Lovecraft and Lewis, and though their fan base probably does not much overlap, both were struck by the power of Hodgson’s weird, startling imagination and had the highest praise for two novels in particular: The House on the Borderland (1908) and The Night Land (1912).

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The Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series: The Wood Beyond the World by William Morris

The Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series: The Wood Beyond the World by William Morris

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The Wood Beyond the World William Morris-smallThe Wood Beyond the World
William Morris
Ballantine Books (237 pages, June 1969, $0.95)
Cover art by Gervasio Gallardo

With this installment in my reviews of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, we come to the first volume by a man who has one of the worst reputations for prose in the series.

I’m talking of course about William Morris. Lin Carter published four of Morris’s works in five volumes; The Well at the World’s End came in at two volumes. Carter appears to have had plans for another four volumes.

In his introduction, Carter makes the claim that Morris invented the modern quest fantasy. Personally, I think that may be stretching things a bit. Morris did invent a number of things, including the Morris chair, but I’m not sure he should get sole credit for modern fantasy.

I must admit I came to this book with some trepidation. After the Adult Fantasy line was canceled, the Newcastle Forgotten Fantasy Library published 24 volumes, with five by Morris. I attempted to read one, the collection Golden Wings and Other Stories, about ten or twelve years ago. I didn’t get very far.

Fortunately, The Wood Beyond the World isn’t a long book. Furthermore, it’s broken up into short chapters, with a line break and a heading before every paragraph or two. Of course with Morris, paragraphs can be more than a page long.

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Travel the Magic Highways with The Early Jack Vance, Volume Three, edited by Terry Dowling and Jonathan Strahan

Travel the Magic Highways with The Early Jack Vance, Volume Three, edited by Terry Dowling and Jonathan Strahan

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Magic Highways The Early Jack Vance-smallLast February, I wrote about how excited I was to find a copy of Dream Castles: The Early Jack Vance, Volume Two in the Dealer’s Room at Capricon. I had purchased Volume One, Hard Luck Diggings, when it was released in 2010; it is now long out of print and new copies start at around $450 at Amazon.com. Dream Castles is now sold out as well and prices are already starting to creep up, so I was pretty jazzed to find a copy when I did.

When I wrote enthusiastically about Dream Castles last year, I said:

Jack Vance, who at 96 years old is still with us, is one of the last remaining writers from the Golden Age of Science Fiction (the only other one I can think of is Fred Pohl). He is the author of some of the most celebrated SF and fantasy of the 20th Century, including “The Dragon Masters,” “The Last Castle,” and The Dying Earth novels.

Jack Vance died on May 26th of last year, and Frederik Pohl passed away less than four months later, robbing us of two of our genre’s brightest lights.

Still, their words are still with us — and what words they are. I have no idea how many volumes are projected in The Early Jack Vance (Volume Four, Minding the Stars, is scheduled to be released this month), but every one is a delight.

Part of that is the gorgeous covers by Tom Kidd; part is the high quality production and design from publisher Subterranean, and of course part of it is simply finally having the early pulp fiction of one of the greatest fantasy writers of the 20th Century collected for the first time.

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Unearthing Solomon’s Vineyard

Unearthing Solomon’s Vineyard

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latimersolomonslatimer_solomons_vineyardJonathan Latimer is sadly forgotten today. There was a time when his screwball private eye series featuring the rarely sober Bill Crane were bestsellers and even made the transition to the silver screen in the late 1930s, courtesy of Universal Pictures, in a fun trio of B-movies. Latimer was a respected Hollywood screenwriter of the 1940s who crossed over to television from the 1950s through the early 1970s, writing for such series as Perry Mason and Columbo. He also achieved instant notoriety as the author of the hardboiled detective novel, Solomon’s Vineyard, which was banned almost upon publication in 1941 and remained unavailable in its original form in the U.S. for decades.

The general consensus is with Solomon’s Vineyard, Latimer turned up the heat on hardboiled detective fiction and blurred the line between pulp and pornography. Most critics will claim that even today, readers would be hard-pressed to find a tougher or more shocking private eye novel. While public domain copies riddled with typos are easy to come by, I finally tracked down an affordable copy of an earlier edition and read the book for myself. I was shocked as well, not by the content, but to learn the book is clearly intended as yet another of Latimer’s laugh-out-loud farces, despite its reputation.

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One Arthurian Film to Rule Them All: John Boorman’s Excalibur

One Arthurian Film to Rule Them All: John Boorman’s Excalibur

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John Boorman's Excalibur-small

“I’m trying to suggest a kind of Middle Earth, in Tolkien terms. It’s a contiguous world; it’s like ours but different.”
— John Boorman, on Excalibur

As I began poking around into the history of Arthurian film adaptations, I was surprised to find a lot less of this sort of thing than I was expecting.

Good old Wikipedia lists 36 “relatively straightforward adaptations” made between 1904 and 2009. Many of these are rather obscure, to say the least, and quite a few deal with tangential aspects of the core legend, such as the stories of Arthurian knights, Parsifal, Launcelot, Gawain, and Galahad.

The earliest so-called adaptation is one of those tangential ones, Parsifal (1904), in which Thomas Edison’s thriving production company essentially just filmed a few scenes from Richard Wagner’s 1882 opera of the same name. Over at IMDB, they list a total of 46 features which star King Arthur. He seems to have first appeared on film in Launcelot and Elaine (1909), which explores a thwarted romance involving Launcelot, as detailed in Lord Alfred Tennyson’s epic poem, Idylls of the King.

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