Browsed by
Category: Vintage Treasures

Vintage Treasures: A Midsummer Tempest by Poul Anderson

Vintage Treasures: A Midsummer Tempest by Poul Anderson

Comments 9 comments
A Midsummer Tempest Poul Anderson-small A Midsummer Tempest Poul Anderson-back-small

Cover by Luis Bermejo

Poul Anderson formed a pretty consistent part of my paperback SF diet in the late 70s and early 80s. Novels like Mirkheim (1977) and classic tales like the Hugo Award-winning “No Truce with Kings” (1963) made me an early fan. But I always thought of Anderson as an SF writer, and as a result I never paid much attention to his fantasy. It wasn’t until my fellow writers here at Black Gate educated me that I learned what I was missing:

Ryan Harvey on The Broken Sword
Fletcher Vredenburgh on The Whole Northern Thing: Hrolf Kraki’s Saga by Poul Anderson
Gabe Dybing on Poul Anderson and the Northern Mythic Tradition: An Introduction
Gabe Dybing on Chaotic and Lawful Alignments in Poul Anderson’s Three Hearts and Three Lions
Gabe Dybing on Northern Matter in Poul Anderson’s “Middle Ages” of The Broken Sword and in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-Earth
Gabe Dybing on Sex and Violence in Poul Anderson’s Rogue Sword

I’ve recently started exploring more of Anderson’s fantasy back catalog, and last month I purchased a copy of A Midsummer Tempest, an alternate world fantasy in which William Shakespeare was an historian, rather than playwright, and the events he recorded were all factual. While the plot draws from multiple Shakespearean plays, as the name implies it is chiefly based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest. It was nominated for both the World Fantasy Award and a Nebula, and won the 1975 Mythopoeic Award for Best Novel.

…

Read More Read More

Birthday Reviews: Marcos Donnelly’s “As a Still Small Voice”

Birthday Reviews: Marcos Donnelly’s “As a Still Small Voice”

Comments 2 comments
Full Spectrum 2-small Full Spectrum 2 flap-small

Cover by Peter Stallard

Marcos Donnelly was born on March 18, 1962. He has published a handful of short stories, mostly dealing with religious themes and three novels, Prophets for the End of Time, Letters from the Flesh, and The Mostly Weird Chronicles of Steffan McFessel, the last in collaboration with Ted Wenskus.

Donnelly’s debut story, “As a Still Small Voice,” appeared in 1989 in Full Spectrum 2, edited by Lou Aronica, Shawna McCarthy, Amy Stout, and Pat LoBrutto. It has never been reprinted.

Father Jim is a priest at a small seminary where the rumors that one of the students, Danny, actually hears God’s voice. Jim has mixed views about Danny’s gift and sees him as an innocent child who needs to be protected, particularly from one of the other students, Bob, an older man who has come to the seminary after servicing in the marines. Jim can only see Bob as a bad influence on Danny, although the reasons for Jim’s mistrust don’t seem to be fully justified by anything aside from Jim’s own biases.

…

Read More Read More

Birthday Reviews: James Morrow’s “The Fate of Nations”

Birthday Reviews: James Morrow’s “The Fate of Nations”

Comments 0 Comment
Cover by John Picacio
Cover by John Picacio

James Morrow was born on March 17, 1947. In addition to the novels in his Godhead trilogy, beginning with Towing Jehovah, Morrow has written several other books, including Galápagos Regained and The Last Witchfinder.  Many of his works deal with the role of religion in a rational society.  He has also edited three volumes of Nebula Award anthologies as well as the SFWA European Hall of Fame, the last with his wife, Kathryn Morrow.

James Morrow won the Nebula in 1989 for his Short Story “Bible Stories for Adults No. 17: The Deluge” and again in 1993 for the novella City of Truth. His novel Towing Jehovah and novella Shambling Towards Hiroshima were nominated for both the Hugo and the Nebula.  Towing Jehovah and Only Begotten Daughter both received the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel and Shambling Towards Hiroshima won a Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. A translation of Towing Jehovah received the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire.

“The Fate of Nations” was originally published in Ellen Datlow’s Sci Fiction on May 14, 2003.  Morrow included it in his 2004 collection The Cat’s Pajamas & Other Stories and it was also reprinted by Paula Guran in Future Games.

Morrow produces a short, clever conspiracy story in “The Fate of Nations.” It’s written as a diary entry by Carlotta, who explains something she’s just learned that has surprised her.  Her husband has developed an avid interest in sports, cheering on all sorts of teams and watching games to the detriment of their relationship. When she asks him to attend a marriage counselor, she learns the truth about a conspiracy of all men with interstellar ramifications.

…

Read More Read More

Birthday Reviews: P.C. Hodgell’s “Knot and the Dragon”

Birthday Reviews: P.C. Hodgell’s “Knot and the Dragon”

Comments 3 comments
Cover by Tom Wood
Cover by Tom Wood

P.C. (Patricia Christine) Hodgell was born on March 16, 1951. She has written the eight volume Chronicles of the Kencyrath, which began with God Stalk and continued most recently with The Gates of Tagmeth in 2017. God Stalk was nominated for the Mythopoeic Award as was its follow-up, Dark of the Moon.

“Knot and the Dragon” was originally published in Esther Friesner’s Chicks and Balances, the most recent addition to her long-running Chicks in Chainmail series. The story has not been reprinted.

One of the common tropes in fairy tales is the step-daughter whose father has died, leaving her with an unloving mother. Hodgell uses this set up for “Knot and the Dragon,” with Knot living with her step-mother, Marta, and her two step-sisters. Everyone in town makes it clear to Knot that she doesn’t fit in with them.

Knot’s character comes across as a mixture of a Cinderella-type mixed with Belle from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, for Knot is constantly striving to learn more about the world in which she finds herself, lamenting the death of her father, with whom she had things in common, but also accepting her current life.

Reports of nearby dragon attacks further bring out the town’s character, with the villagers firm in their belief that since they haven’t done anything wrong, there is no reason the dragon would punish them. Naturally enough, this conviction is enough (narratively) to bring a dragon down on their village, and they decide that Knot should essentially be a sacrifice to the dragon.

Rather than do as she was instructed, Knot seeks out the witch who lives nearby ever since she was forced from her home by the dragon. Although the witch’s first inclination is to flee with her son, who was accidentally turned into a pig during her last encounter with the dragon, the witch agrees to offer (dubious) help to Knot.

…

Read More Read More

Vintage Treasures: Maske: Thaery by Jack Vance

Vintage Treasures: Maske: Thaery by Jack Vance

Comments 3 comments
Maske Theary-small Maske Theary-back-small

Here’s a Jack Vance novel I haven’t read: Maske: Thaery, a science fiction adventure first published in hardcover in 1976. The Wikipedia entry does a fine job of summarizing how the book fits into Vance’s catalog, I thought.

Maske: Thaery is a science fiction novel by American writer Jack Vance, set in his Gaean Reach milieu… Maske: Thaery marks the beginning of the period when Vance’s novels were published exclusively straight to paperback, whereas prior to this the majority had first appeared in science fiction magazines, the last such examples being Durdane trilogy, serialised in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction from 1971 to 1973, The Gray Prince, serialised in Amazing Science Fiction in 1974, and Marune: Alastor 933, also serialised in Amazing Science Fiction in 1974. The twofold title of Maske: Thaery, with its separating colon, would suggest that it was originally intended to be part of a serial, similar to the Alastor novels (Trullion: Alastor 2262, Marune: Alastor 933, and Wyst: Alastor 1716), although no further volumes were written… Maske: Thaery continues Vance’s interest in richly textured, strongly xenological settings, in which an outsider protagonist comes into conflict with a bewilderingly complex social hierarchy, other examples being Emphyrio (1969) and the Durdane trilogy.

Maske: Thaery placed 12th on the annual Locus Award list for Best SF Novel in 1976. After Jack Vance’s death in 2013, I read the following tribute/review at Speculation…, which called the book “one of his best.”

…

Read More Read More

Birthday Reviews: Tad Williams’s “Go Ask Elric”

Birthday Reviews: Tad Williams’s “Go Ask Elric”

Comments 7 comments
Elric Tales of the White Wolf-small Elric Tales of the White Wolf-back-small

Cover by Brom

Tad Williams was born on March 14, 1957. He published the Memory, Sorry & Thorn fantasy series beginning in 1988 and followed up with the Otherland series in 1996 and Shadowmarch in 2004. Williams has also published a handful of stand alone novels, including Tailchaser’s Song and Caliban’s Hour. He collaborated with Nina Kiriki Hoffman on Child of an Ancient City.

Williams was a nominee for the John W. Campbell, Jr. Award in 1986 and the next year Tailchaser’s Song was a nominee for the William L. Crawford Award. Two of his novels have been nominated for Germany’s Phantastik Preis.

“Go Ask Elric” was published in 1994 in Elric: Tales of the White Wolf, a Michael Moorcock Festschrift which allowed other authors to play with Moorcock’s settings, characters, and themes. The story was translated into French for inclusion in an abridged version of the anthology as a whole. Williams later included it in his collection Rite: Short Work, which also included an essay Williams wrote as an introduction to Moorcock’s novel Gloriana.

Williams manages a successful homage to Michael Moorcock in “Go Ask Elric,” pulling in elements from Moorcock’s stories “Elric at the End of Time” as well as “the Vanishing Tower” and “Sailing to the Future.” Rather than focusing on Elric, William’s main character is Pogo Chapman, a young kid who worships Jimi Hendrix in the mid-1970s. During an acid trip, Pogo is sucked into the multiverse where he meets up with an imprisoned Elric and helps him escape. As Moorcock did in “Elric at the End of Time,” Williams switches between Elric’s point of view and Pogo’s, allowing the reader to see just how much Elric misreads the situations he is in.

…

Read More Read More

Heinlein Across the Waters

Heinlein Across the Waters

Comments 3 comments

The Green Hills of Earth and Robert Heinlein-small

One of the things that I love about collecting old paperbacks is the surprises they sometimes contain. You just never know what you’ll find. It’s almost a Forrest Gump box of chocolates kind of thing.

For example. I live in Germany, and several years ago I won a Lin Carter paperback on eBay that contained a business card from a used book store in Columbus Ohio, near OSU, called the Monkey’s Retreat. The very same Monkey’s Retreat that I’d frequented back in 1984/85. So suddenly thirty years later, I’m pulling one of their cards out of a paperback sent from Essen. I have always wondered how that paperback made its way across such gulfs of space and time. I mean, 30 years and thousands of miles. The reality is probably mundane, a G.I. leaving it at his girlfriend’s apartment and having it end up on the table at a flea market, where a dealer snatched it up for a few Pfennigs.

There was another time when I found — inside an old Scholastic Book edition of Bernhardt J. Hurwood’s “true horror stories” — a lovely little hand drawn initiation to a young girls birthday slumber party. You can read about that one here.

But the latest surprise trumped all the others, and came as such a shock that it drove me out of the comfort of my warm feather bed at 11:00 P.M. on a chilly Bavarian night to spend the next few hours sending messages, doing research, taking photos and making scans.

…

Read More Read More

Birthday Reviews: Harry Harrison’s “The Mothballed Spaceship”

Birthday Reviews: Harry Harrison’s “The Mothballed Spaceship”

Comments 0 Comment
Cover by John Sposato
Cover by John Sposato

Harry Harrison was born on March 12, 1925 and died on August 15, 2012.

He is perhaps best known for his Stainless Steel Rat and Bill, the Galactic Hero series. Other series include The Hammer and the Cross, Deathworld, Stars and Stripes, and Eden. Before publishing science fiction Harrison worked as a comic book artist, often collaborating with Wallt Wood. In 1950, he left comic art to begin writing and editing, although he occasionally did return, and wrote the Flash Gordon newspaper strip in the 50s and 60s.

Harrison wrote the novel Make Room, Make Room, which served as the basis for the Nebula Award winning film Soylent Green. In collaboration with John Holt, he won the Italia Award for The Hammer and the Cross and the entire trilogy was nominated for a Sidewise Award. He was the Guest of Honor at ConFiction, the 1990 Worldcon. Harrison was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2004 and was named a SFWA Grand Master in 2009. In addition to Holt, he has also collaborated with Robert Sheckley, David Bischoff, Jack C. Haldeman II, Marvin Minsky, and others.

With Brian W. Aldiss, Harrison edited several anthologies and published SF Horizons, the first serious journal of science fiction criticism. Harrison often made use of Esperanto in his fiction.

“The Mothballed Spaceship” was written for Astounding: John W. Campbell Memorial Anthology, which Harry Harrison edited. It was later reprinted in Harrison’s collections The Best of Harry Harrison and Stainless Steel Visions. Set in the same universe as Harrison’s Deathworld trilogy, the story was included in an omnibus edition of that series published by BenBella Books in 2005 (earlier omnibus editions of the trilogy do not include this story). In 1985, it was translated into Croatian for publication in the magazine Sirius.

Harrison provides a puzzle story with “The Mothballed Spaceship.” A derelict space battleship has been found five millennia after it was abandoned, however its automatic defense systems are still active. Jason dinAlt, Kerk, and Meta have been hired to figure out how to get on board and take control of the ship, which has destroyed all other attempts to approach it, and are given thirty days to solve the problem.

…

Read More Read More

Birthday Reviews: F.M. Busby’s “Tundra Moss”

Birthday Reviews: F.M. Busby’s “Tundra Moss”

Comments 2 comments
Cover by Paul Swendsen
Cover by Paul Swendsen

F.M. (Francis Marion) Busby was born on March 11, 1921 and died on February 17, 2005. In 1960, Busby, along with his wife Elinor, Burnett Toskey, and Wally Weber, won the Hugo Award for Best Fanzine for Cry of the Nameless, which was nominated a total of three times. In 1943, he joined the US Army and was assigned to work on the Alaska Communication System, which forms the background for his alternate history “Tundra Moss.” Busby served as the Vice President of SFWA from 1974-6. His novels include the Demu trilogy, the Rebel Dynasty books, and the Rissa Kerguelen series.

“Tundra Moss” appeared in the third volume of Gregory Benford’s What Might Have Been series of alternate history anthologies with the theme Alternate Wars. Its only reprints have been in subsequent editions of that book.

Set during World War II, the Alaska Communication System (ACS) outpost on Amchtika Island is an integral part of the United States war efforts in the Pacific theatre, made more important by the fact that in this timeline, the US is concentrating its power on the Japanese. They figure they can worry about the European theatre later, with the exception of a small force there led by Dwight Eisenhower.

While the story focuses on Buster Morgan’s activities in Amchitka, Busby also allows peeks into the actions of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a band of Japanese saboteurs operating on Amchitka, and scouts in the area as the Japanese attempt to destroy the communications lines and the Americans are trying to relay orders which will support a major offensive far to the south.

Alternate history stories often teach the reader something about a relatively unknown and seemingly minor part of history, and the ACS certainly qualifies in the regard. The fact that Busby was stationed on Amchitka brings a level of detail and realism to the story which would have been difficult to match with just research. The disjointed nature of the story, jumping back and forth between the different characters, tends to work against it. It would have been stronger with fewer viewpoint characters and a more singular focus.

…

Read More Read More

The Origin Stories of Tempus, Niko and the Sacred Band: Tempus With His Right-Side Companion Niko, by Janet Morris

The Origin Stories of Tempus, Niko and the Sacred Band: Tempus With His Right-Side Companion Niko, by Janet Morris

Comments 4 comments
Tempus with his right-side companion Niko-small Tempus with his right-side companion Niko-back-small

Relive the iconic adventures of Tempus the Black and his Sacred Band through the eyes of Nikodemos, his right-side companion, as Niko seeks his spirit’s balance on Bandara’s misty isles. Five early tales of the Stepsons in a world of thieves, novelized with additional stories available nowhere else. Ride with Tempus and his Sacred Band once again, or for the first time. PUBLISHER’S NOTE: Parts of this work have been published in substantially similar form in several volumes of the Shared Universe Series, Thieves World.

This book contains the original stories first written about the Sacred Band of Stepsons, as well as some new stories that expand on their adventures, and  Niko’s quest to regain his spiritual and mystical balance. Meet the characters who made the Sacred Band famous: Abarsis, the Slaughter Priest Abarsis, who first formed the Sacred Band and from whom Tempus took over the Band; Niko, Critias, Straton, hazard-class and allergy prone mage Randal “Witchy Ears.” Meet Roxane the witch and her death squads, Ischade the Necromant and her cadre of undead servants, and Cime, Tempus’ wizard-slaying sister. Witness the might of the storm god Vashanka and his immortal god-ridden avatar, Tempus as they battle against sorcery, betrayal and corruption, alongside his Sacred Band of Stepsons. Meet legendary immortals Askelon, the Dream Lord of Meridian, and Jihan the Froth Daughter of Lord Storm.

…

Read More Read More