Vintage Treasures: Galactic Derelict by Andre Norton

Vintage Treasures: Galactic Derelict by Andre Norton

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Galactic Derelict-smallI came too late to science fiction and fantasy to catch Andre Norton’s true heyday in the 50s and 60s, when she published over two dozen novels — including early classics like Star Man’s Son (1952), Star Rangers (1953), Star Gate (1958), The Time Traders (1958), The Beast Master (1959), Witch World (1963), Three Against the Witch World (1965), and Year of the Unicorn (1965).

True, she continued to publish books steadily throughout the 70s, 80s, and even the 90s — though by the last decade of her life (she died in 2005), she was writing almost solely in collaboration with other authors. But it was her early Ace paperbacks that really stirred my collector’s soul. Perhaps it was the splendid covers. Here’s the back cover copy from the 1961 Ace paperback Galactic Derelict — with one of those splendid covers — reprinting a review from Galaxy:

“All the classic elements are present in full measure in Galactic Derelict. It suffers not at all in being a sequel to Andre Norton’s excellent Time Traders.

“The U.S. Army’s race with the Russians through and against Time remains Norton’s background. Both search for abandoned wrecks of a race that had interstellar travel back in man’s infancy.

“Travis Fox, Apache, joins Ross Murdock and Dr. Gordon Ashe, time agents, in attempting the transfer, intact, of an alien ship through 20,000 years to present. Inadvertently, controls are activated and the group is launched on an involuntary galactic tour. Their efforts to return to Here and Now constitute a top-notch science-adventure yarn.” – Galaxy Magazine

Galactic Derelict is part of Norton’s Forerunner universe. The other books in the series include The Time Traders (1958), The Defiant Agents (1962), Key Out of Time (1963), and others.

Galactic Derelict was published in 1959 by the World Publishing Company and has been reprinted in eight different editions over the last half-century. It first appeared in paperback from Ace Books in 1961. It is 192 pages in paperback, priced at 35 cents. The cover is by Ed Emshwiller. If I have a few moments this weekend, I may assemble some of the other covers to display them here.

So We Were In This Bar . . .

So We Were In This Bar . . .

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White HartThere’s a long tradition in western literature of the “framing device” – think Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales … or the Thousand Nights and a Night if we want something more obviously in our genre. Or Asimov and his Black Widower Mysteries.

My personal favourite among short story framing devices, however, is the bar story -– and I don’t mean the kind that starts, “We were in this bar…” Though, come to think of it, that’s how all my vacation stories start. Hmmm.

The device itself is fairly straightforward. The bar is a gathering place of disparate, but like-minded, people who exchange stories and anecdotes, usually involving people not present at the time. Sometimes the patrons of the bar take turns telling tales and sometimes, as with PG Wodehouse’s collections Meet Mr. Mulliner and Mr. Mulliner Speaks, one person in particular is the storyteller.

Undoubtedly because the storytellers are in a bar, the stories themselves can get a bit far-fetched, leading to such well-known formats as the Shaggy Dog Story and even the Tall Tale itself.

Which seems tailor-made for SF and Fantasy stories, don’t you think?

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The Resurrection of Dr. Mabuse, Part Two

The Resurrection of Dr. Mabuse, Part Two

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etipomarMabuseLess than six months ago, I reviewed indie wunderkind Ansel Faraj’s 21st Century update of Dr. Mabuse. The Rondo-nominated film garnered more attention from genre fans for Faraj’s stunt casting of veterans of the 1960s Gothic soap opera Dark Shadows than it did for his faithful recreation of Expressionism in the digital age of indie filmmaking.

I won’t claim Faraj is the equal of Fritz Lang or that his Hollinsworth Productions offers the resources of UFA at its peak, but this is a young man who impresses in spite of the limitations of budget and time. There is a dreamlike quality to his work which is helped rather than hindered by the Spartan production values. One wonders just what he would be capable of rendering given studio backing.

Faraj’s latest production, Etiopomar, is the second half of his Dr. Mabuse reboot and deftly blends elements of Norbert Jacques’s original novel that Fritz Lang and his screenwriter wife Thea Von Harbou jettisoned from their 5-hour two-part adaptation of the book in 1922, while incorporating characters from Lang and Von Harbou’s Metropolis (1927). When one considers Lang’s silent masterpieces, the visionary Metropolis easily supersedes his Mabuse pictures. Metropolis is a stunning sci-fi epic that is still influential nearly 90 years on.

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Mary Stewart, September 17, 1916 – May 10, 2014

Mary Stewart, September 17, 1916 – May 10, 2014

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The Hollow Hills-smallMary Stewart, my wife’s favorite author, died last week.

I’ve read only a handful of Stewart’s novels. Her Merlin Trilogy — The Crystal Cave (1970), The Hollow Hills (1973), and The Last Enchantment (1979) — is one of the top-selling Arthurian sagas of all time, hitting bestseller lists around the world. It was her only fantasy series, but it instantly made her one of the most popular fantasy authors of the 70s.

But I got used to seeing the covers of her romantic mystery novels. My wife re-read them constantly. Alice is a voracious reader and she’s read widely in both mystery and contemporary fiction, but at least once a year she pulls out one of her tattered Mary Stewart paperbacks.

“Why are you constantly re-reading those, when you have so many others to choose from?” I asked her once, shortly after we were married.

“Because these are the best,” she said simply.

Mary Stewart’s Merlin Trilogy eventually extended to five novels, including The Wicked Day (1983) and The Prince and the Pilgrim (1995), but her gothic romance included Madam, Will You Talk? (1954), Thunder on the Right (1957), Nine Coaches Waiting (1958), My Brother Michael (1959), The Moon-Spinners (1962) — made into a 1964 Walt Disney film starring Hayley Mills, This Rough Magic (1964), The Gabriel Hounds (1967), Touch Not the Cat (1976), Thornyhold (1988), Stormy Petrel (1991), and her final novel, Rose Cottage (1997).

Mary Stewart lived in Edinburgh, Scotland. She died on May 10th at the age of 97.

A Knight Dies in Bed

A Knight Dies in Bed

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Marshall Versus the Assassins-small
(Nobody but I know what really happened during the Marshal’s last two missing years in the Holy Land.)

This week, in AD 1219, Sir William the Marshal died in his bed.

The Marshal was old by the standards of the time — 72! — and made a good end: heard his daughters sing, gave alms to the poor, made sure his knights would get their Christmas cloaks, bade his much-younger wife farewell, then joined the Order of the Temple to die in seclusion a few hours later.

So, 795 years ago a knight succumbs to old age. What of it?

The Marshal died in his bed, not because he avoided hazarding himself in battle, but because when he did take the field, no man might withstand him.

Two years previously, at the grand age of 70, the Marshal led the charge into the City of Lincoln.

It was a key battle in one of those messy civil wars the Middle Ages did so well. Lords who had rebelled against King John now fought on against the young King Henry III. Worse, they had French backing and Prince Louis of France was rampaging around England with a large army.

When the council named the Marshal as the King Protector, the old knight had wept. He’d literally fought his way up from landless tournament knight to powerful magnate (think Conan meets William Thatcher from Knight’s Tale), had won a reputation as the Greatest Knight, but now History would remember him as — I translate liberally from the Norman French — “That stupid old codger who lost England to the French.”

However, he took up the challenge and, along with a gang of aging action heroes, set out to put to bed the results of a generation of misrule.

The turning point was the Siege of Lincoln, a strategic city in the Midlands. (If you play Medieval II Total War, think “Nottingham, but to the north east.”) The French had carried the town, but the castle still held.

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Goth Chick News: 2013 Bram Stoker Award Winners

Goth Chick News: 2013 Bram Stoker Award Winners

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Doctor SleepBack in March, we gave you the list of nominees for the The Horror Writers Association’s 2013 Stoker Awards for superior literary achievement in horror, in a variety of categories. The Bram Stoker Awards were instituted in 1987 and the eleven award categories are: Novel, First Novel, Short Fiction, Long Fiction, Young Adult, Fiction Collection, Poetry Collection, Anthology, Screenplay, Graphic Novel, and Non-Fiction.

The 2013 awards were distributed at the Association’s annual award banquet on May 10, 2014, at the World Horror Convention in Portland. Black Gate and Goth Chick News would like to congratulate the following authors and editors for their superior achievements and suggest you start loading up your Amazon wish list immediately.

Lifetime Achievement Awards

  • R.L. Stine
  • Stephen Jones

For Superior Achievement in a Novel

  • Stephen King – Doctor Sleep (Scribner)

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New Treasures: End of the Road edited by Jonathan Oliver

New Treasures: End of the Road edited by Jonathan Oliver

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End of the Road Jonathan Oliver-smallBack in March, we saluted Solaris and their rapidly expanding line of anthologies — a rare thing in today’s market — in a post titled “Is the Original SF and Fantasy Paperback Anthology Series Dead?”

In researching that article, I discovered Solaris had released a standalone anthology of original fantasy fiction in December: End of the Road. I ordered a copy, it arrived last week, and I’m very happy to say that I’m not disappointed.

Each step leads you closer to your destination, but who, or what, can you expect to meet along the way?

Here are stories of misfits, spectral hitch-hikers, nightmare travel tales and the rogues, freaks and monsters to be found on the road. The critically acclaimed editor of Magic, The End of The Line and House of Fear has brought together the contemporary masters and mistresses of the weird from around the globe in an anthology of travel tales like no other. Strap on your seatbelt, or shoulder your backpack, and wait for that next ride… into darkness.

An incredible anthology of original short stories from an exciting list of writers including the bestselling Philip Reeve, the World Fantasy Award-winning Lavie Tidhar and the incredible talents of S. L. Grey, Ian Whates, Jay Caselberg, Banjanun Sriduangkaew, Zen Cho, Sophia McDougall, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, Anil Menon, Rio Youers, Vandana Singh, Paul Meloy, Adam Nevill and Helen Marshall.

Jonathan Oliver is the editor-in-chief of Solaris and Abaddon. He has two novels out with Abaddon Books, The Call of Kerberos and The Wrath of Kerberos, and three other anthologies: House of Fear, The End of the Line, and the World Fantasy award nominee Magic: An Anthology of the Esoteric and Arcane.

End of the Road was published by Solaris Books on December 15, 2013. It is 304 pages, priced at $7.99 in paperback and $6.99 for the digital edition. The moody and effective cover is by Nicolas Delort.

The Thrill of Writing, the Agony of Revision

The Thrill of Writing, the Agony of Revision

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Revising cartoon-smallComposing a new story, especially a novel, is a thrilling experience filled with highs and lows, slow days and fast ones, sweat and tears (and occasionally a little blood). In a lot of ways, the writing is the “fun part” of being an author. However, that wonderful time is always followed by the worst part of being a writer.

Revision.

All right, I’m being a little hyperbolic. Revision isn’t all bad. It’s certainly a challenge to take a pile of words and try to shape them into something that sort of resembles art, or at least an interesting story. But it’s also a lot of work. And, for me, the worst part is getting started.

Right after I finish the first draft of a manuscript, I put it away for a couple weeks. The goal is to forget what I wrote as much as possible so that when I sit down with it again, I can attempt to see it with fresh eyes. But here’s the problem. There is an immutable law of writing that first drafts always suck. Always. There was a time when I didn’t think so, when I thought my first drafts were pretty damned good. Yeah, I was too stupid to know better.

Now that my blissful ignorance has worn off, I approach these “first re-reads” of a manuscript with equal parts of excitement and dread. And the excitement part evaporates quickly after reading the first few pages, leaving me with only dread, growing over my head like a cloud of impenetrable darkness as I wade deeper and deeper in to the morass which I’d like to think has the potential to be a decent novel.

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Weird Tales 362 on Sale Soon!

Weird Tales 362 on Sale Soon!

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Weird Tales 362-smallOur roving correspondent — and new Online Editor for Weird Tales magazine — Douglas Draa reports on the latest issue of the world’s oldest (and arguably greatest) fantasy magazine.

Weird Tales magazine and Nth Dimension Media are pleased to announce the pending publication of the Spring 2014 issue of Weird Tales magazine. Continuing the successful concept of themed issues, #362 is our unsettling, but entertaining, Undead issue.

And as always, there is also a sizable amount of un-themed fiction included in this issue. Issue #362 contains a mixture of themed and un-themed weird fiction and poetry along with sprinkling of non-fiction. Some of the Contributors to Issue #362 “Undead Issue,” along with many other talented writers, are Ron Goulart, Ramsey Campbell, Brian Lumley, Darrell Schweitzer, Jane Yolen, M. R. James & Helen Grant, and James Aquilone.

This issue also contains an exclusive interview with Joyce Carol Oates, and a new short story written for Weird Tales by Minimum Wage comic book artist, Bob Fingerman, whose work influenced Walking Dead creator, Robert Kirkman. The front cover art is by Danielle Tunstall with a Richard Matheson tribute painting on the rear cover by Jeff Wong.

This is the third issue produced by Nth Dimension Media, under new editor Marvin Kaye. We’re told the issue has gone to the printers and will be on newsstands (and in subscribers mailboxes) in the very near future. We have an electronic reviewer’s copy in our hot little hands and we’ll be reporting on it shortly.

In the meantime, here’s a peek at the complete table of contents.

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Viking Art, Magic, and Wisdom at the British Museum

Viking Art, Magic, and Wisdom at the British Museum

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The Hunterston Brooch, c. 700, Hunterston, Ayrshire, Scotland. Gold, silver, amber. Diam. 12.2cm. Runic inscription says, ''Melbrigda owns this brooch'. Copyright National Museums Scotland.
The Hunterston Brooch, c. 700, Hunterston, Ayrshire, Scotland. Gold, silver, amber. Diam. 12.2cm.
Runic inscription says, ”Melbrigda owns this brooch.’ Copyright National Museums Scotland.

 

They journeyed boldly;
Went for gold,
Fed the eagle
Out in the east,
And died in the south
In Saracen land.
— Gripsholm Runestone (AD 1000-1100)

 

The British Museum has come up with another blockbuster with its new exhibition, Vikings: Life and Legend. Bringing together hundreds of artifacts from around the world, this massive exhibition tells about Norse life, art, and beliefs through everyday objects, works of art, magical objects, and even an entire Viking ship.

There are many surprises. For example, a whalebone axehead from Greenland dating to 1000-1300 AD shows that far-flung Norsemen in harsh regions used whatever material they had at hand. I’m sure the owner of this axehead wanted a real one of iron — the axe appears to have broken at the socket! There are also charming reminders of family life, such as some wooden toy boats from Dublin dating to around 800-1050 AD.

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