Ah, the end of the year. When social media — and my email in-box — are filled with Best of the Year lists. I’m not complaining. I love ’em. But the ones I most enjoy are (of course) lists that include delightful old paperbacks finds. Or are maybe, I dunno, exclusively old paperbacks, since that’s about 90% of my own reading these days. This year I especially enjoyed old books by Lin Carter (Flashing Swords 2), Jerry Pournelle (West of…
This interview was transcribed from a Zoom meeting of the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society on June 14, 2024, conducted by Darrell Schweitzer and hosted by Miriam Seidel. Miriam Seidel: Betsy Wollheim has been a leading figure in SF and fantasy publishing for many decades, beginning as an editor at DAW Books in 1975, and taking over the company as president of DAW Books in 1985 from her father Donald A. Wollheim. She ran DAW with co-publisher Sheila E. Gilbert until…
We all have our favorite obscure or neglected authors, writers we get touchy about and on whose behalf we’re instantly ready to jump on top of a table, ball up our fists and yell at the top of our voices, “HEY!! Don’t forget THIS GUY!!!” For me, Avram Davidson is at the top of that list. I’ll knock over the Parcheesi board for him any day of the week. As is often the case with such semi-forgotten writers, he wasn’t…
My fellow Canadian James Nicoll continues to be one of my favorite SF bloggers, probably because he covers stuff I’m keenly interested in. Meaning exciting new authors, mixed with a reliable diet of vintage classics. In the last two weeks he’s discussed Kate Elliots’s The Witch Roads, Axie Oh’s The Floating World, Ada Palmer’s Inventing the Renaissance, and Emily Yu-Xuan Qin’s Aunt Tigress, all from 2025; as well as Walter Jon Williams The Crown Jewels (from 1987), Wilson Tucker’s The…
Flashing Swords! #2, 4, & 5 (Science Fiction Book Club, September 1973, May 1977, and December 1981). Covers by Frank Frazetta, Gary Viskupic, and Ron Miller It’s time to take a look at another Sword & Sorcery anthology series I really love: Flashing Swords, edited by Lin Carter. It is second in my affections only to the Swords Against Darkness 5-book series edited by Andy Offutt that I wrote about here last year. Flashing Swords! came out of the group…
A1-4: Scourge of the Slavelords by David “Zeb” Cook, Allen Hammack, Harold Johnson, Tom Moldvay, Lawrence Schick, and Edward Carmien (TSR, 1986), and Oriental Adventures: Night of the Seven Swords by Jon Pickens, David “Zeb” Cook, Harold Johnson, Rick Swan, Edward Carmien, and David James Ritchie (TSR, 1986). Cover art by Jeff Easley and Clyde Caldwell Always a writer, the first significant things I wrote were role-playing adventures, some for old-school Dungeons & Dragons, but mostly for what the kids…
The Gate of Ivory, Two-Bit Heroes, and Guilt-Edged Ivory (DAW Books, 1989-1992). Cover art by Richard Hescox Doris Egan is a successful screenwriter and producer with a very impressive resume. She’s worked on dozens of shows since the early 90s, with screenwriting credits on Dark Angel, Smallville, Numb3rs, House, Torchwood, Black Sails, and The Good Doctor. She was a producer for Smallville, NCIS, Skin, Tru Calling, House, Krypton, Swamp Thing, and many others. But before Hollywood came calling, she was…
Paperback editions of Flashing Swords! #1-5 (Dell Books, 1973-1981). Covers by Frank Frazetta (1 & 2), Don Maitz (3 & 4), and Richard Corben Lin Carter is best remembered these days as the editor in charge of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy line, which was by any measure a monumental achievement, bringing back into print a truly impressive array of important fantasy books, many in serious danger of being forgotten. But Carter’s career extended beyond that. He was a very prolific…
Ancestral Night and Machine (Saga Press, March 2019 and October 2020). Covers by Getty Images and Jae Song Elizabeth Bear is chiefly known as a fantasy writer these days. She won the 2005 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and she’s had a hand in more than eight acclaimed series in the years since, including The Edda of Burdens trilogy, the Eternal Sky trilogy, and The Lotus Kingdoms trilogy, all from Tor. When I wrote about her new…
Deathweave and Darkloom (Ace Books, 1998 & 1999). Covers by Royo I bought a collection of vintage paperbacks on eBay a while back (I do that a lot), and buried in the mix was one I knew nothing about, a midlist ACE SF adventure titled Deathweave by Cary Osborne. Now, I love midlist paperbacks. They’re basically an undiscovered country. If you’re an entry-level author, the theory is that if you work long enough, like countless writers before you, you’ll eventually build…