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Selling SF & Fantasy: 1969 Was Another World

Selling SF & Fantasy: 1969 Was Another World

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seas-with-oystersI think what many aspiring writers today fail to grasp — very much as a result of not having been there — is that 1969 was another world.

Books were sold and distributed very differently. Big chain bookstores barely existed. There were many times more distributors than there are today. Science fiction mass-market paperbacks could be found in drugstores or bus stations, as could the digest magazines.

It was the time of the much maligned “science fiction ghetto” but really a time of innocence, in which we tended to assume that if you made it into the pro ranks, you were there for life. (How else could a writer as unimportant as, say, Robert Moore Williams have continued to publish over 40 years?)

There were no post-novelist writers, i.e. good, respected writers still writing but unable to sell novels anymore.

As somebody commented in one of those very early SFWA Forums I have been reading (I have them back to issue #3), “It’s a seller’s market. We’ve never had it so good.” This from about 1968.

It was a time in which a writer did not have to worry about selling his fourth novel because of the sales record of the previous three.

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New Treasures: Who Killed Science Fiction? by Earl Kemp

New Treasures: Who Killed Science Fiction? by Earl Kemp

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who-killed-science-fictionIn 1960, only 34 years after the launch of Amazing Stories, the first true science fiction magazine, fan Earl Kemp mailed a set of questions to 108 SF writers, editors, artists and fans. 71 responded, including Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Hugo Gernsback, E.E. “Doc” Smith, Poul Anderson, Ray Bradbury, Fritz Leiber, Andre Norton, Kurt Vonnegut, Robert Silverberg, John W. Campbell, Horace Gold, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and many others. The questions were:

1) Do you feel that magazine science fiction is dead?
2) Do you feel that any single person, action, incident, etc., is responsible for the present situation? If not, what is responsible?
3) What can we do to correct it?
4) Should we look to the original paperback as a point of salvation?
5) What additional remarks, pertinent to the study, would you like to contribute?

Kemp published the results in his one-shot fanzine SaFari Annual #1 in 1960. Only 125 copies were printed, and it instantly became a collector’s item. A candid dialog on the flaws and fate of the genre between most of its brightest lights, Who Killed Science Fiction? achieved near-legendary status in the SF community, and SaFari Annual #1 won a Hugo Award in 1961 based on that sole issue.

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Vintage Treasures: Science Fiction in the Golden Age

Vintage Treasures: Science Fiction in the Golden Age

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sf-golden-ageJames Van Hise, renowned comic and pulp expert and editor of The Rocket’s Blast ComicCollector magazine, has compiled a terrific collection of non-fiction articles from the dawn of the science fiction pulp era.

Science Fiction in the Golden Age arrived in the mail a week ago, and I’ve been mesmerized by it ever since. It gathers articles, letters, interviews, advertisements and artwork that appeared in pulps, fanzines and other sources between 1908 and 1955, including a H. G. Wells piece in a 1908 issue of Cosmopolitan speculating about life on Mars – with four illustrations, all reproduced here in color – a 1938 report on John W. Campbell’s plans as the new editor of Astounding Science Fiction, a review of E.E. “Doc” Smith’s Galactic Patrol from 1950,  a report from “Inside the Graf Zeppelin” from Science & Invention (1929), and a lot more.

Authors include Hugo Gernsback, Leigh Brackett, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Thomas Sheridan, and Ray Bradbury, and the vintage art from pulps and fan magazines includes classic work by Frank R. Paul and others, as well as unused art intended for the first edition of The Skylark of Space. I particularly enjoyed the house ads for magazines and novels, including Amazing Stories and Otis Adelbert Kline’s The Planet of Peril.

This is clearly a labor of love from someone who spent years reading and gathering literary gems and curiosities from some extremely rare sources, including Air Wonder Stories, Fantastic Adventures, Scientifiction, Fantasy Review, Boys Magazine, Writers Digest, Fantasy Advertiser, and many other pulps and fanzines. The only criticism I have is that the page numbers in the TOC are rather useless, given that most of the magazine isn’t paginated.

Science Fiction in the Golden Age is the first in a planned series, although since this one came out in May 2005 and no new volumes have followed, I’m not sure about the state of those plans. Volume One is 160 pages, 8 1/2 x 11 (side-stapled) with full color front and back covers by Frank R. Paul. I bought mine from the author on eBay for $20; additional copies are still available.

Celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Excalibur on Blu-ray

Celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Excalibur on Blu-ray

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excalibur-blu-ray-cover1Excalibur (1981)
Directed by John Boorman. Starring Nigel Terry, Nicol Williamson, Helen Mirren, Nicholas Clay, Cherie Lunghi, Paul Geoffrey, Patrick Stewart, Liam Neeson, Gabriel Byrne.

One land! One king! 1080 lines of resolution!

Did you know that there is a re-make of Excalibur is in pre-production? Apparently, the lawyers at Legendary Pictures have forgotten that Le Morte d’Arthur and its associated characters are in the public domain and have been since the bleeding Dark Ages. No more about the re-make (for now).

The original, Once and Future Excalibur, is a crowning piece of high fantasy from the 1980s. It is also my favorite film version of the Arthurian legends. (Apologies to Monty Python and the Holy Grail.) Most movies about King Arthur, especially those before Excalibur upped the ante, are tatty costume dramas lacking magic, either cinematic or literal, and which feel like they were adapted from children’s editions of the story. (Apologies to Howard Pyle.) None of these movies connect to the sensations that the original telling of the legends, from Geoffrey of Monmouth, to Chrétein de Troyes, to Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, create in me when I read them. A sense of dark mysticism pervades through the oldest versions of King Arthur’s myth: a mixture of paganism and early Christianity, a connection to Faerie, the eternal struggle between chaos and civilization. Excalibur, ignoring attempts to either look “realistic” or to resemble the generic expectation of a Hollywood costume drama, drives into the spiritual heart of King Arthur and emerges with something fantastic and often breathtaking.

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OF SECRET WORLDS INCREDIBLE: A Psychedelic Journey into Clark Ashton Smith’s Poetic Masterpiece

OF SECRET WORLDS INCREDIBLE: A Psychedelic Journey into Clark Ashton Smith’s Poetic Masterpiece

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smith2What a TRIP…

In the world of epic fantasy, poetry often gets a bad rap. In the world of legendary fantasists, one name that continues to be revered is Clark Ashton Smith. As one of the “big three” WEIRD TALES writers from the 1920s and 30s, Smith gained a reputation that rivaled that of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard for fantastic fiction. His superbly dark fantasies set in realms such as Zothique, Hyperborea, Atlantis, and Averoigne set a new bar for weird fantasy. With his lush language, poetic sensibilities, and lyrical style, he was a word-wizard of the highest caliber. Any scholar of classic fantasy is sure to sing Smith’s praises. He is certainly one of this author’s favorite writers (especially his Tales of Zothique, my favorite of all his story cycles).

However, Smith thought of himself first and foremost as a poet. He wrote weird fiction because it paid well (yes, there was a time when short stories paid well). The key to his dark genius is probably to be found in his thousands of stanzas of verse…his poetry seeped into his weird fiction and made his tales baroque and lyrical. Smith denied the archetype of the conquering hero…his main characters were more likely to meet hideous doom than to defeat the eldritch monsters they encountered. His wizards were diabolical megalomaniacs or hermetic iconoclasts who explored forbidden mysteries and unlocked terrible powers.

Smith’s greatest piece of verse is (arguably) the epic poem entitled THE HASHISH-EATER or THE APOCALYPSE OF EVIL. It is a phantasmagoric tour de force through jeweled realms of fantasy laced with cosmic horror. It is a masterwork of fantasy, but is usually overlooked in favor of his short stories. It is also probably my very favorite poem. Ever.

Rather than attempt to explain why the poem is so magnificent, I thought I’d simply present it here at BLACK GATE, one stanza at a time, with a paragraph of analysis/commentary between each stanza. For those who prefer to read the poem without annotations first, I recommend a visit to my favorite CAS tribute site The Eldritch Dark, where the entire poem is posted without comments or analysis: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/572/the-hashish-eater–or–the-apocalypse-of-evil

You may want to light some candles and put on a stick of incense…I suggest the heady aroma of jasmine…maybe some old Black Sabbath in the background. Now…let us begin our celestial excursion into the depths of darkest fantasy…let us delve without fear into the eerie depths of a gorgeous nightmare…let us travel stanza by stanza through Clark Ashton Smith’s greatest poem….

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Frank M. Robinson’s Legendary Pulp Collection for Sale

Frank M. Robinson’s Legendary Pulp Collection for Sale

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incredible-pulpsOne of the largest and most impressive pulp collections in the world is now for sale.

Pulp historian and author Frank M. Robinson, whose books on pulps include The Incredible Pulps, Pulp Culture: The Art of Fiction Magazines, and Science Fiction of the 20th Century: An Illustrated History, is selling his collection of nearly 10,000 pulps magazines. The sale will be conducted through John Gunnison’s Adventure House Auctions.

Adventure House has prepared a YouTube video showing a small sampling of the pulps in the collection, including Weird Tales, Spicy Mystery, The Thrill Book, Submarine Stories, Pirate Stories, and Doc Savage, here.

Highlights of the collection include rare pulps such as Ghost Stories, Miracle Science Fiction and Fantasy, Tales of Mystery and Imagination — and ultra-rare gems such as Gun Molls, Courtroom Stories, Saucy Movie Tale, Mystery Adventure, and the only only known copy of the June 1929 issue of Zeppelin Stories, which includes the near-legendary tale “Gorilla of the Gasbags.” 58 of the rarest issues in his collection are included in the MagazineArt Gallery (do a search on Frank M. Robinson).

I’m not sure how I feel about this. I’m glad the collection appears to be being kept together. But there’s no way I can buy it without winning a lottery.

I wonder if Patrick Rothfuss will offer to buy it for me.

Happy 100th Birthday, C. L. Moore!

Happy 100th Birthday, C. L. Moore!

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shambleau1Catherine Lucille (C.L.) Moore, one of the great pulps writers of the 20th Century and author of Judgment Night, Shambleau and Others, Northwest of Earth, and Jirel of Joiry, was born 100 years ago today, on January 24, 1911.

Moore’s first story, “Shambleau,” the tale of a beautiful alien vampire, introduced interplanetary adventurer and pulp hero Northwest Smith  in the November 1933 issue of Weird Tales. The next year she published “Black God’s Kiss,” the first tale of Jirel of Joiry. They remain two of the most famous stories Weird Tales ever published.

Much of Moore’s early science fiction and fantasy stories were collected by Gnome Press in handsome volumes that are still highly collectible today, including Judgment Night (1952), Shambleau and Others (1953), and Northwest of Earth (1954).

Moore married fellow science fiction author Henry Kuttner in 1940, and they collaborated on many classic tales for the pulps, including “Mimsy Were the Borogroves,” (filmed in 2007 as The Last Mimzy), “The Twonky,” and “Vintage Season.” Much of their work together appeared in Astounding Science-Fiction,  usually under the name Lewis Padgett or Laurence O’Donnell.

judgment-nightMoore published three novels before her death in 1987: Doomsday Morning(1957), and two with Kuttner: Earth’s Last Citadel (1943) and The Mask of Circe (1948).

Unlike most pulp authors, C.L. Moore’s fame continued to grow after her death, and the past decade alone has seen several major collections of her work including two Planet Stories editions from Paizo: Black God’s Kiss (2007) and Northwest of Earth (2008); as well as Volume 31 in the Fantasy Masterworks series from Gollancz, Black Gods and Scarlet Dreams (2002); and two huge retrospectives: Two-Handed Engine (Centipede Press, 2006) and Detour to Otherness (Haffner Press, 2010).

Over the years we’ve done our own tributes to C.L. Moore, including Ryan Harvey’s Jirel of Joiry: The Mother of Us All, Paul Di Filippo’s review of Judgment Night, and C.S.E. Cooney’s recent Jirel, Ma Joie!

Celebrate the life of one of our finest writers this week — pick up and enjoy a C.L. Moore story. You’ll thank us later.

[Thanks to Stephen Haffner of Haffner Press for the tip.]

A Review of Jhereg by Steven Brust

A Review of Jhereg by Steven Brust

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jheregJhereg
By Steven Brust
Ace (224 pages, $2.50, April 1983)

I’ve played in a lot of tabletop RPGs, including a couple of homebrewed systems and homebrewed worlds. I’ve never encountered one that goes into the culture-changing potential of resurrection, though. It’s treated as an acceptable break from reality, a way to keep things fun, one that has little effect on the world besides providing a way for the campaign’s archnemesis to keep coming back.

Jhereg, by Steven Brust, the first book in his 12-volume Vlad Taltos series, takes the notion of reliable magical resurrection and creates a society around it.

Vlad Taltos is an Easterner and a gentleman, which isn’t a common combination. Easterners are an underclass compared to Dragaerans. The Dragaeran clan called House Jhereg allows anyone, even Easterners, to buy in — a distinct advantage, since it allows them access to the Dragaeran Empire’s sorcery. Unfortunately, the Jheregs may be the most egalitarian family in the Empire, but they also operate a lot like the mafia. Citizenship is not cheap.

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The Collecting Game: Urban Legends and What Entropy Means to Me

The Collecting Game: Urban Legends and What Entropy Means to Me

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entropy2There are indeed urban legends at work in the Collector’s market. For example, the entire print order of George Alec Effinger’s first novel, What Entropy Means to Me (Doubleday, 1972) was supposedly pulped before publication (almost certainly untrue).

We associate Doubleday with very short print-runs, quickie pulpings, and fabulously high collector’s prices. Many of the most expensive books in our field are Doubledays. (Specifically, early Heinlein, early Zelazny, early King.)

What Entropy Means to Me is not a rare book, even in non-ex-library copies. I have one. It may be that the price is still low because the demand is low, but this is not a hard book to obtain.

What I have always heard is that it was Zelazny’s Creatures of Light and Darkness which was mistakenly pulped prematurely. Apparently they planned to pulp something else, most likely Nine Princes in Amber, and pulped the wrong one, which resulted in Creatures only being in print a few months.

Meanwhile, most copies of Nine Princes were sold to libraries and were either defaced or destroyed. In retrospect this became a very sought-after title, and thus one of the great collector’s items of SF. There is one on Abebooks right now for $8,500.

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A Return to The Village of Hommlet (4E Style)

A Return to The Village of Hommlet (4E Style)

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hommlet4eHow cool is this? Wizards of the Coast has released an updated version of Gary Gygax’s 1979 classic The Village of Hommlet, one of the most celebrated AD&D adventures and the first part of the notoriously difficult Temple of Elemental Evil mega-campaign, revised to run in the 4th Edition of Dungeons and Dragons. The new version was updated by Andy Collins and is suitable for fourth level characters.

Oh, wait. “Released” is too strong a word. The module was actually a free giveaway WotC mailed to RPGA  members as a DM Reward, and is not available for sale (unless you count eBay, where copies are currently selling for around $50.) Curses!

If you’re the creative sort, Familiar Ground is offering a free copy for one lucky winner, selected randomly from all those who leave a comment with a “gaming or RPG related joke or funny incident.” Deadline is Aug 31.

The original module is still played today by die-hard fans.  It’s been converted to a popular computer game, and the back-story behind it all is annually re-enacted as a tabletop miniatures game at Garycon.  Not bad for a module that’s been out of print for over two decades.

I have fond memories of the original.  And when I’m 80, I hope to have fond memories of tracking down this one.  Let the search begin.