The Weird of Cornell Woolrich: “Jane Brown’s Body”

The Weird of Cornell Woolrich: “Jane Brown’s Body”

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harry-clarke-upon-the-bedIt might surprise regular readers of this website that Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard are not my favorite pulp writers. They rank among the authors who have influenced and inspired me the most—and they provide endless material to discuss and analyze. But my favorite pulper, perhaps my favorite writer of all time, is Cornell Woolrich.

I haven’t written anything about Woolrich on Black Gate before because his genre doesn’t intersect with the dominant focus of the magazine, except maybe in the broad way that Black Gate readers are usually interested in the pulps in general. Woolrich wrote suspense and mystery stories, and the majority of his work appeared in crime magazines like Dime Detective, Detective Fiction Weekly, and the legendary Black Mask. His specialty was the “emotional thriller,” harrowing trips into fear and paranoia with suspense set pieces that no author has equaled. Often called by admirers and critics “the literary Hitchcock” and “the twentieth-century Edgar Allan Poe,” Woolrich could wring more palpitating dread out of everyday life than any writer I’ve encountered. His style is defining of noir, the existential crime tale. Eventually, Hitchcock and Woolrich did merge, when Hitchcock turned Woolrich’s short story “Rear Window” (originally published as “It Had to Be Murder”) into a film that you might have heard of.

But there is one part of Woolrich’s oeuvre that falls into the compass of Black Gate: he made occasional forays into stories of the fantastic. He was actually ideally suited for the horror story, but the market for such tales was not as strong as the crime fiction market (just ask anybody to whom Weird Tales owed money). Woolrich had a personally dismal view of existence—universe and fate are essentially hostile to humanity, and the inevitability of death made life pointless—that could transfer perfectly to the supernatural, where those malign forces of the universe manifest in the unnatural occurrences. The idea that the world doesn’t care for you is one also found in H. P. Lovecraft, although visualized in a different way. If the two men had ever met, there would have been a strange, strange discussion. (Woolrich, however, could rarely be budged from his hotel room in Manhattan. H. P. Lovecraft was a partying socialite in comparison.)

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The Year’s Best SF & Fantasy 2009, edited by Rich Horton

The Year’s Best SF & Fantasy 2009, edited by Rich Horton

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years-best-2I’m supposed to be putting the finishing touches on BG 14, figuring out how to use Google Ad words, and about a million other things tonight. But man, I am beat.

Besides, the copy of Rich Horton’s The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2009 I ordered finally arrived a few weeks ago, and it’s been sitting there on my desk, unopened. That’s just criminal. So I packed it in early tonight, and curled up with it in the big green chair.

As we’ve established here already, Rich Horton is some kind of crazy person.  It all started with his newsgroup at SFF Net, where he was reviewing every single magazine in the entire universe.  Or as close as damn is to swearing, as they used to tell me while growing up in Nova Scotia.

Then he began compiling lists of his selections of the best short fiction of the year, and we started reprinting them on the BG website (in 2005, 2006 and 2007.)

In between, he knocked out detailed articles exploring the rich history of the SF & Fantasy genres for virtually every issue of Black Gate, starting with Building the Fantasy Canon: the Classic Anthologies of Genre Fantasy: Part One, (BG 2) and continuing with things like an exploration of The Big Little SF Magazines of the 1970s (BG 10), and Fictional Losses: Neglected Stories From the SF Magazines (BG 11).

Now he’s turned his talents to something closer to home: making books.  He’s become an anthologist of note, with over half a dozen Best SF and Best Fantasy volumes to his credit, chiefly from Prime Books.  This year Prime has re-launched the series, with a snappy new cover design and a big bump in size and page count (to 540 pages).  This is a hefty volume, with 37 short stories, detailed author biographies, and Honorable Mentions.

There are a great many Best of the Year books in the genre, but so far this is my favorite.  More later as I make my way through the book.

Black Gate 14 Sneak Peek, Part II: “Dark of the Year” by Diana Sherman

Black Gate 14 Sneak Peek, Part II: “Dark of the Year” by Diana Sherman

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dark_of_year_smallWe kick off Part II of the Black Gate 14 Sneak Peek with an excerpt from the issue’s lead story, Diana Sherman’s “Dark of the Year.”

“Dark of the Year” is the tale of a man wandering through a landscape ravaged by sorcerous war, desperately searching for a dying man or war-mage who can read his granddaughter’s true name, in the last few days before the Shadows come… before the Dark of the Year.

Diana Sherman has been published in Talebones and Polyphony, and a has sold a play to The Exquisite Corpuscle anthology from Fairwood Press.

Art by Mark Evans.

You can read the excerpt here.

Matai’s grandaughter doesn’t have a name, and soon, she will be susceptible to the Shadows when moondark comes.  Less than a fortnight distant, when the year turns on the longest night.  The Shadows and their darklings will come creeping through towns and cities, calling for children to come.  Most will be safe, their ears cottoned against those whispers by the knowledge of their own true names. 

But the orphans with no womb names, they’ll be gone of a morning.  No sight nor sound of their passing.  But someday, some other dark night, you might spy a lost child creeping through the village, a darkling servant now, whispering and beckoning.  You know them by their black lips, burnt by the Shadow that stole the souls out of their mouths.  That, and their angry eyes.

The complete version of “Dark of the Year” appears in Black Gate 14, on sale in February.

Stay tuned over the next few weeks, as we post excerpts from each of the stories coming in BG 14.

Short Fiction Beat: Become a Citizen

Short Fiction Beat: Become a Citizen

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citizen3I just stumbled upon this spin on a subscription plan to support Clarkesworld Magazine, which has been providing its content online for the past three years. For a $10 or more donation, you can become a citizen; although the privileges of citizenship are still being defined, the folks at Clarkesworld suggest it might include discounts on their print publications, as well as the satisfaction of supporting an endeavor that publishes authors such as, in the current January issue, Peter Watts and Megan Arkenberg. Clarkesworld hopes to naturalize 400 citizens out of the 10,000 or so it counts as regular readers to reach its financial goals.

On another note, Torque Control has published the 2009 BSFA (British Science Fiction Association) Awards shortlist. The nominees for short fiction are:

“Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast” by Eugie Foster (Interzone 220)
The Push by Dave Hutchinson (Newcon Press)
“Johnnie and Emmie-Lou Get Married” by Kim Lakin-Smith (Interzone 222)
“Vishnu at the Cat Circus” by Ian McDonald (in Cyberabad Days, Gollancz)
“The Beloved Time of Their Lives” [pdf link] by Ian Watson and Roberto Quaglia (in The Beloved of My Beloved, Newcon Press)
“The Assistant” by Ian Whates (in The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction 3, ed. George Mann)

Once again, I’m reminded of how out of the loop I am: I’ve only read two of these.
Animated A Boy and His Dog Remake on the Horizon

Animated A Boy and His Dog Remake on the Horizon

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a-boy-and-his-dog-don-johnson-and-tiger1I just saw some news via SFSignal and SciFi Squad about plans to create and animated version of Harlan Ellison’s A Boy and His Dog, with a tentative 2012 ETA. As a fan of the Hugo-winning 1975 film with Don Johnson (yes really, Don Johnson) and the original Nebula-winning Ellison novella, I think this could be a terrific project. For those of you unfamiliar with the story, it’s a post-apocalyptic tale featuring a misogynist young man and his super-intelligent telepathic dog, with a skewed, satirical edge that one expects from the best Ellison.

It isn’t really clear if the film, to be helmed by David Lee Miller, is taking the original 1975 script as its starting point, or planning a fresh adaptation of the Ellison novella. Either way my rule of thumb has always been that the more post-apocalyptic films, and the more movies based on works of the giants of the field, the better off we as a society are. Plus it just looks cool.

Goth Chick News – Our Common Fright

Goth Chick News – Our Common Fright

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secret-annex1I have had the distinct good fortune of traveling to twenty-three countries and have, as I mentioned in prior posts, engaged in various ghost-hunting activities in more than a few of them.

But honestly, these expeditions are largely tourist-driven and aimed mainly at US and British travelers, which makes total sense. We started as a British colony so it follows that what scares the crap out of them would have translated across the pond to us.

But what about elsewhere in the world?

That got me to thinking about what scares people from other cultures and what, if anything, do those spooks have in common with ours? So I reached out to the many friends I have made along the way to ask them what haunts they grew up with.

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Post-Birthday Leftover Cake: Robert E. Howard’s “Wolfshead”

Post-Birthday Leftover Cake: Robert E. Howard’s “Wolfshead”

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weird-tales-april-1926Last week, when I answered the call to a group celebration of Robert E. Howard’s birthday, I originally chose to write about his breakthrough short story, “Wolfshead.” Somehow, I got sidetracked and ended up typing out a personal reflection on the first Howard story that I ever read, “The Fire of Asshurbanipal.” But I still have my notes about re-reading “Wolfshead” (now easily available in The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard from Del Rey) and it seems a shame to waste them. So here are some thoughts on this early and often reprinted work and how it helped set off the Great One’s career.

Plus, today is my birthday, and I get to do whatever I want. (Told you it was close to Howard’s. Please also wish Jason M. Waltz, Australia, and Paul Newman a happy birthday as well. A bit tough in Paul’s case . . . oh well.)

One reason that “Wolfshead” occurred to me as a topic is that a re-make of the classic Universal film The Wolf Man (elided into The Wolfman) comes out in theaters next month. The film has gone through enormous production and post-production hell and numerous delays, so I’m skeptical about its quality. I hope—fervently hope—that the film works beyond expectations, because right now werewolves need a boost. Vampires and zombies seem to run the horror world right now—they have always been far more budget-friendly than werewolves—but I would joyfully welcome a werewolf Renaissance. Of all the classic European monsters, the werewolf has always been my favorite. “Wolfshead” was a story that was ahead of its time in the way that Howard changes around the shapeshifter myth; in many ways, current werewolf stories haven’t quite caught up to him.

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Black Gate 14 Sneak Peek

Black Gate 14 Sneak Peek

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bg-14-cover3Black Gate 14 is a landmark issue — and at 384 pages, it’s also the largest in our history. 

It celebrates the growth and success we’ve seen over the last year, and it’s a big “Thank You” to all the readers who’ve supported us while so many small press magazines are struggling. We worked hard to get it out in 2009, but its sheer size and complexity (over 150,000 words of fiction, and nearly 25 full pages of art) made that impossible.  The issue shipped in March.

Special thanks are due to Contributing Editor Bill Ward, who assembled a huge 32-page review section, and Managing Editor Howard Andrew Jones, for a 20-page gaming section.  Thanks also to Rich Horton, for his lengthy article on Modern Reprints of Classic Fantasy, and to Bruce Pennington for a magnificent cover.

What awaits you in BG 14? A young girl confronts an ancient evil on the rooftops of a decaying city, armed only with her father’s sword… A band of desperate men pursue the slave traders who stole their families across cold barrows where a dread thing sleeps… An ambitious witch finds her schemes for revenge may not be quite treacherous enough… And New York’s first karma detective discovers a simple case to re-unite two lovers conceals a sinister conspiracy. Includes new fiction from John C. Hocking, Michael Jasper & Jay Lake, Pete Butler, Martin Owton, Chris Braak, and a Morlock novella from James Enge!

Buy this issue — ­ only $18.95 plus postage and handling!
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SKULLS: Chapters 1-3

SKULLS: Chapters 1-3

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skulls-sadpromo

Hi, All,

The first three chapters of the SKULLS webcomic are available for reading right now.

Just type SKULLS into the “Search” field to the left and all three chapters will pop up.

Chapter 4 goes live this Wednesday, with 7 more chapters to follow, one each Wednesday after that.

Cheers,

John R. Fultz