Blue Tyson's page

Shifty wrote:

Wow, ok....!

It's kinda sad that there's no PFS in Adelaide. I'd like to remedy that myself, but I don't think I'm really the guy for the job. Surely there's someone at the CBD game shop (I think it's called "Justice" or something now?) that's willing to step up to the task?

Not much RPG anything in Adelaide?

I'm kind of a Super gamer uber fan. Use to run Meanwhile...The Supers Gaming Podcast.

I prefer games like HERO System and GURPS but to get new players I fish with Mutants & Masterminds.

Are your podcast episodes still available?

Finally got around to starting this. Pretty good so far.

Are the others still on track?

I've been looking at bits of old Weird Tales mags - cover, contents and some letter reprinted in the Haffner Edmond Hamilton - and Seabury Quinn seems to have been popular in a very early UF sense.

I understand Lovecraft was not a fan, but lets face it, the man had issues with the publishing side of writing, so Quinn may be worth thinking about bringing back to the masses.

Nah, those stories are pretty bad. Remember seeing an article somewhere where Eric Flint at Baen was looking at this sort of thing of what might make an interesting collection, and I believe he also dismissed these as not of modern interest.

No story list for Sojan?

185: EPR-S-3.5 Anderson, Poul : The Virgin Of Valkarion
190: EPR-S-3.0 Anderson, Poul : Witch Of the Demon Seas
329: EPR-C-4.0 Barnes, Arthur K. : The Interplanetary Hunter
459: EPR-S-5.0 Brackett, Leigh and Ray Bradbury : Lorelei Of the Red Mist
472: EPR-S-4.0 Brackett, Leigh : The Blue Behemoth
476: EPR-S-4.0 Brackett, Leigh : The Citadel Of Lost Ships
480: EPR-S-3.5 Brackett, Leigh : The Dancing Girl Of Ganymede
481: EPR-S-4.0 Brackett, Leigh : The Demons Of Darkside
483: EPR-S-4.0 Brackett, Leigh : The Dragon-Queen Of Venus
484: EPR-E-4.0 Brackett, Leigh : Enchantress Of Venus
494: MPR-E-4.0 Brackett, Leigh : The Ginger Star
502: EPR-S-4.0 Brackett, Leigh : The Halfling
503: MPR-E-4.5 Brackett, Leigh : The Hounds Of Skaith
513: EPR-S-3.5 Brackett, Leigh : The Jewel Of Bas
524: EPR-S-4.0 Brackett, Leigh : The Moon That Vanished
528: EPR-S-3.5 Brackett, Leigh : Outpost On Io
540: MPR-E-4.0 Brackett, Leigh : The Reavers Of Skaith
573: EPR-S-3.5 Brackett, Leigh : Shannach The Last
579: EPR-S-4.0 Brackett, Leigh : The Stellar Legion
585: EPR-S-3.5 Brackett, Leigh : Thralls Of the Endless Night
588: EPR-S-3.5 Brackett, Leigh : The Vanishing Venusians
664: MPR-N-3.0 Bulmer, Kenneth : Transit To Scorpio
669: EPR-N-3.0 Burroughs, Edgar Rice : Carson Of Venus
708: MPR-N-3.0 Carter, Lin : Jandar Of Callisto
718: MPR-N-4.0 Chalker, Jack L. : Midnight At the Well Of Souls
896: EPR-S-4.0 Coppel, Alfred : The Rebel of Valkyr
1055: MPR-N-3.5 Drake, David : Surface Action
1087: ESO-N-3.5 Fennel, Erik : Black Priestess Of Varda
1097: NPR-S-4.5 Flinthart, Dirk : Angel Rising
1099: NPR-S-4.0 Flinthart, Dirk : She Walks In Beauty
1116: MPR-N-3.0 Fox, Gardner F. : Warrior of Llarn
1386: MPR-N-5.0 Herbert, Frank : Dune
1395: EPR-N-3.5 Howard, Robert E. : Almuric
1489: EPR-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : Clash By Night
1491: EPR-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : The Eyes Of Thar
1761: MPR-S-4.5 McCaffrey, Anne : Weyr Search
1887: EPR-S-3.5 Moore, C. L. : Yvala
1949: NPR-S-4.0 Nordley, G. David : Dawn Venus
2208: NPR-N-3.5 Roberson, Chris : Paragaea
2448: NPR-N-4.0 Schroeder, Karl : Sun Of Suns
2509: NPR-R-3.5 Shirley, John : Sky Pirates
2539: MPR-N-4.0 Silverberg, Robert : Lord Valentine's Castle
2587: EPR-S-4.0 Smith, Clark Ashton : The Immortals of Mercury
2751: NPR-N-3.5 Stirling, S. M. : The Sky People
2793: EPR-S-3.5 Troy, Conan T. : The Conjurer Of Venus
2869: MPR-N-4.0 Vinge, Joan D. : The Snow Queen
2917: EPR-S-3.0 Wellman, Manly Wade : Venus Enslaved
3054: NPR-S-4.0 Y Robertson, R. Garcia : Wife-stealing Time

Well the other day I happened to be walking by a used bookstore sadly closing up so like a vulture I descended into the stacks. Picked up quite a bit including one or two books by Brackett. Just finished The Big Jump which was quite enjoyable and started to wonder if there might be any plans to publish further Planet Stories featuring her work. Failing that anyone know any good sources to locate more of her stuff?

This will tell you more than you could want to know :)

Leigh Brackett (ology).

I am relatively certain that the size of this book (and the first and last books in the "series") has more to do with these stories remaining out of print than any other factor. Printing a book like this is expensive!

But so, so worth it. I really enjoy this one. It's a super-fun read, and goes remarkably quickly for a book of its size.

So how many words is this one, Erik?

I brought three issues of Wolheim's old Avon Fantasy Reader on my current vacation. One of the cover stories was Nictzin Dyalhis's The Sapphire Siren. I was VERY excited to read this novella, since it's a very early S&S story. Unfortunately, it wasn't really all that good. Nowhere near as strong as Howard, Smith, or Moore in terms of facility with the English language. It was ok. Sort of like low-grade Henry Kuttner. Indeed, given the subject matter, the author's fake-sounding name, and the use of the word "avid", I half-seriously wonder if Dyhalis is yet another Kuttner pseudonym.

Except Kuttner would have written a better story.

At least one frequent poster will be pleased to learn that the very same issue contains a rare story by Wallace West..

That one I didn't like much, I agree.

However, as far as Dyalhis goes I really did like 'The Sea Witch'

http://www.archive.org/details/TheSea-witch

Perley Poore Sheehan's Captain Trouble

http://gutenberg.net.au/plusfifty-n-z.html

I recently finished Palos of the Dog Star Pack and its first sequel, The Mouthpiece of Zitu. I question lumping them into the Sword & Planet genre, is there is very little derring-do and a much greater focus on firearms then swords.

I found them a bit harder to get into than Burroughs and Kline, as the pacing is a bit slow at times and it suffers from "too many alien word syndrome".

Of course, I read them immediately following Kline's Venus series, so nearly anything would pale in comparison. ;)

No, you are right, they aren't remotely as good as Burroughs or Kline.

I recently ran across a copy of The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: War of the Worlds, written by Manly Wade Wellman and his son, Wade Wellman. Have any of you read this?

Yeah. It is pretty reasonable.

Blue Tyson wrote:

It is also un-Australian to take your bat and ball and go home and sulk, too, as I am sure you are aware. :)

Hey, Blue, please chill out. We're all friends here (or ought to be), and there are not so many pulp enthusiasts that we can afford to alienate each other over distinctions the rest of the world wouldn't even recognize.

Jaq - as Erik said, thanks for the comments, and if you still want to talk about Planet Stories, we're around.

Sure, no problem.

Remember though that Americans constantly make references they assume others will understand.

But there's also the point that he was suggesting you do lots more work - and you at the moment don't seem to be even able to manage the supposed bimonthly schedule - so not a good idea from that point of view, either.

As far as I'm concerned,the only pastiche/homage that I ever read that was actually any good was the Elric series (Conan). His Michael Kane series was very ordinary. Well,of course,Brackett's Mars stuff was sort of a homage to Burroughs,but she totally managed to come up with something different and dare I say it,better!(I love ERB,but Brackett's characterisation was just better for me) On the subject of people who got hundreds of books published,have a look at the total rubbish that hacks like Lin Carter used to churn out...he tried to do everyone's style,including Brackett,Burroughs,Howard,CAS etc etc.,but he was just not at all in the same league,talentwise. But for some reason,he got hundreds of books published by major publishers. He even used the pseudonym H.P.Lowcraft at one stage...at least he seemed to realise his deficiencies! I know everyone loves Kuttner and Hamilton,but I would put both of them in the same category...people who could sort of write ok,and got millions of stories published,but they just didn't have the talent or the original ideas that for instance,their respective wives had. There just can't ever be another Leigh Brackett...or CL Moore...or Robert Howard...or Clark Ashton Smith...or...A.Merritt...or Francis Stevens!!

Kuttner's a considerably better writer than Carter/Bullmer etc whose top level is average, basically. I don't think you can fairly say his wife came up with everything, either - quite unlikely, apart from the earlier work he did on his own, too. I've come across a couple of decent Carter short stories, for example - that's the probability thing.

Part of Hamilton's appeal is that while not particularly good in comparison with the rest of the list, he was rather better than the contemporaries - e.g. he started writing in the 20s. Also wrote a lot and came up with a lot of stuff, so on probability likely to come up with the odd better piece - e.g. The Monster God Of Mamurth speaking of Lovecraft.

Francis Stevens doesn't impress me like the rest though, Johnny Elflock. ;-) Although certainly of interest.

Tyson wrote: "As far as the Ryder Hook books go, you'd be the only one that thinks they were any good. Getting published a lot is doing something right as far as getting published goes, yes. Obviously he must have written some work that was better than that tripe - and I've even read some."

Yeah, in the whole world I'm the only person who liked the Ryder Hook novels.
You really use a wide brush when you sweep don't you?

Listen, I'm kinda past dealing with egos on forums, so I'm out of here.

Erik: I wish you all the best with Planet Stories and I'll keep an eye out for those new authors and their books when you publish them.

Adios: Jaq.

Yes, you are right, someone else probably likes them. I just have never seen anyone else say so. Or say that Bulmer is a very good writer.

It is also un-Australian to take your bat and ball and go home and sulk, too, as I am sure you are aware. :)

I'm three chapters from the end of Matthew Hughes's book Majestrum, which is all kinds of excellent.

You should probably get his collection, too. Quite sure you'll like those stories, too.

If fact, I would imagine you could probably get one autographed, now. :)

Tyson

Just to make one thing absoulutely clear, old son...I've never pleaded for anything in my entire adult life, writing or otherwise.

You probably didn't mean any offence but your comment came across as pleading equals begging equals grovelling.

That's not the Aussie way as I'm sure you'd agree.

And Ken Bulmer's Ryder Hook novels weren't crap, it's just that you didn't like them, whereas I thought they were very good. The third book in the series was the weakest but the other three were good, fast paced sci-fi action reads.
Opinions are just that, an individuals likes and dislikes.
I like Ken's writing, you don't.
Doesn't mean Ken wrote crap. A bloke who had more than 200 novels published in his lifetime must have been doing something right.

No suggestion of grovelling certainly, but what you said wasn't logical, as far as the new writer thing.

As far as the Ryder Hook books go, you'd be the only one that thinks they were any good. Getting published a lot is doing something right as far as getting published goes, yes. Obviously he must have written some work that was better than that tripe - and I've even read some.

Also, if you have churned out 200 novels in not so long, it is pretty much guaranteed that some of them will be bad. Or crap. However you prefer to put it. :) In fact, it is more than likely that a rather large number of them will be. By crap, I mean get 100 sf readers now to read them and see how many say they are bad. My money's on the large majority. Definitely not on the very good end, certainly.

If Brackett's style isn't that hard to copy, then you should be able to do it?

There's style, and then there's talent. Look at the huge number of Sherlock Holmes pastiches - none of which measure up to the best, just as another example.

Maybe you haven't been reading a lot, but there's actually quite a bit of hardboiled SF type stuff around. Has been for quite a while. So, clearly publishers as whole are fine with that sort of thing in general stylistically - there's even been the odd full on, deadset fairdinkum planetary romance recently. So they aren't averse to that either, if they get something they like. SF publishing has a long history of being interested in revisitation. There's actually a current era Sword and Sorcery take anthology coming out next year, too. Such stories still appear occasionally. The suggestion that just because Planet Stories won't look at new ones they will die out is just wrong, given this evidence.

As for writers not wanting to copy, maybe not, unless it is in one of those homage type anthologies etc. when there is some incentive to do so and people aren't going to be as harsh about how poor you are in comparison. e.g. Songs Of the Dying Earth as a recent example.

However, homages most definitely do exist. Michael Moorcock has done them for both Burroughs and Brackett - and isn't as good as either. Now, if someone of this extreme talent level finds it hard (or impossible) to do, then the chance of some mediocrity pulling it off is just as likely as me doing it, and I'm not going to try, that is certain.

Erik Mona wrote:

Thanks for the links, but when I said "prominent" I meant PROMINENT. :)

Ok, I got it :

Tom Clancy's Jack Burrauer : Mars 24:40

:)

Excuse the long response time, been on holiday for a few months.

/I mentioned re-printing Ken Bulmer's novels and Erik asked me to recommend some.
That's a bit of a chore because he wrote about 200 novels and I've read about 100 of them and that was back when I was a teen. Most of them have been out of print ever since.
Writing as Tully Zetford his Ryder Hook novels, the first of which was Whirlpool of Stars...the Hook series was popular, people pointing out that Ken included a lot of sci-fi stuff we see on a regular basis today for the first time back then./

--I've read two of those Ryder Hook books. They are terrible. I read his couple of Vorkunsaga? sword and sorcery books, those were just poor to mediocre. Rich Horton has looked at a bunch of Ace Doubles, don't think he has mentioned any of note. Any other suggestions? Always happy to try more fun stuff.

/Now I have to say that I question the re-printing of a lot of books people have mentioned here that are freely available on the internet.
From a publisher's point of view why publish a novel that anyone can download and read off their computer or print out for free?
Doesn't make economic sense that I can see./

-- Stephen King is freely available on the internet too. Pretty much all of. Leigh Brackett, Kuttner et. al. too. So that all depends. Plus, not paper. For a limited resource publisher doing one book every 2 months (and not even that, recently) then spending countless hours on a slush pile definitely makes zero economic sense. Not when Mr. Mona may have a couple of dozen people tell him 'Hey, Hughesy's got a book you might like, this guy's got proven ability.' It's even edited etc. Or whoever else might be in the new projects he just mentioned.

/And Erik...I really believe that you should be printing novels by new authors as much as by those who have passed on.
I'm not saying this because I write...I'm saying this because the genre's of sword and sorcery and sword and planet and pulp style sci-fi will eventually die out if there are no new authors writing new books.
Wouldn't it be great to find people who could produce brand new adventure tales equally as good and well written as anything Leigh Brackett or ERB or E.E. Doc Smith wrote?
The only way to do that is to actively go looking for, and accepting subs from, new authors./

-- You are so saying this because you write. :) It would be great to find more Bracketts. You will find a zillion people who can write as well as Smith technically, even if not ideationally - just not those that can do it first, or are capable of becoming a phenomenon in the same way. Alastair Reynolds exists, though. So does Neal Asher, or S. M. Stirling, or Peter F. Hamilton - there's your 'new writer competition'. Or Elizabeth Bear, Cherie Priest, Justina Robson, Chris Moriarty, Karen Traviss etc.

Clearly, frying your brain with the horrible crud in a slushpile is not the only way to do it. Erik has proved this to the tune of quite a few books. So has Hard Case Crime, as another example. There are actually lots of out of print books that are good (or even occasionally outstanding), that some people already like. Same with the collectible limited edition deal too a la Template.

I've read thousands of sf/fantasy books - have found one Brackett. In her case, I'd imagine any editor anywhere with an interest in that sort of thing would be happy to find another, or modern equivalent of.

/There's plenty of new writers out there that are quite capable of producing works just as good as the old masters, one just has to give them a chance./

-- There's that 'I'm a writer pleading, again'. :)

To reply to that, no, there are not. There are plenty of writers who can churn out mediocre/competent to decent by modern day standards. Very large numbers, even. There are uncountable numbers of them with delusions of being published that are actually worse writers than I am. I've lost count of the number who have emailed me asking me to read their stuff. Lots of whom clearly don't even read, so they have no chance of ever writing a decent sentence.

Just think about it logically. If there are large numbers of such, then many would have survived from Smith's time that we would be talking about. They haven't.

Out of millions of books and billions of submissions over time, they've still only found one Brackett.

I'd say it is even risky to publish Hughes, who has evinced a few 'WTH' reactions already, even if expressed rather more eloquently and politely than that.

Erik and I had been chatting about the Rhada series - and I have finished 2/3 of the 'Starkahn' book, and it is pretty reasonable. Descendant of barbarian Star Kings is in a military fleet organisation and is really only a titular royal, discovers a 17,000km long starship with a silver eyed girl (think Storm) in cryostatis. He discovers it with his 15 tonne manta-form cyborg survey partner. The ship promptly blows up a sun and vanishes. When you've got stuff like that lying around, who needs slush?

Brian Stableford's Hooden Swan, similarly. Just as a couple of examples of actually decent out of print work that fits the stable - and there will be many others. The number of books published keeps increasing, so Erik would have to take Perry Rhodan's immortality treatments many times to run out of stuff I think. Likely the Earth will be burned up by the sun first though. ;-)

Thanks for the links, but when I said "prominent" I meant PROMINENT. :)

Well, I'd be pretty surprised if you got Stephen King or James Patterson to do you one? They are the sort of people that deserve prominent with a capital PROMINENT!

I'd believe James Rollins perhaps. :)

Coz one of his Sigma Force books had naked camel riding psionic nanotech controlling leopard mistress cultist assassins in a secret hidden city.

We also will announce an AMAZING new project with two new sword and planet novels from two VERY prominent modern authors, and have two additional similar projects currently in development.

Ok, so it is your fault that Scott Lynch's serial dropped off the face of the err...planet then, is it? :)

Queen Of the Iron Sands Here = http://www.scottlynch.us/ironsands.html

(An author that is the exact opposite of a paragon of 21st century communication)

John Shirley also has something along those lines, Sky Pirates - http://freezineoffantasyandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2009/07/sky-pirates- part-1.html

I probably should have researched his other stories and books before contributing to the conversation, but I wanted to give my first impression (and that of my father.)

For the record, I did like what I read.

Quote:

You should definitely say what you think, that is good! Some people of course would have no idea who he was and might just buy the book, etc.

Robots Have No Tails is most definitely goofy and not serious, barring a few dead bodies there and there. :)

There's a list for you :-

So the other Planet Stories books are definitely recommended. Can be impossible tell who wrote what with Kuttner and Moore some of the time.

SF-N-4.0 Kuttner, Henry and C. L. Moore : Destination Infinity - FREE
SF-S-4.0 Kuttner, Henry and C. L. Moore : Vintage Season
SF-S-4.0 Kuttner, Henry and C. L. Moore : We Kill People
SF-S-4.0 Kuttner, Henry : Beauty and the Beast - FREE
SF-C-4.0 Kuttner, Henry : The Best Of Henry Kuttner
SF-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : Clash By Night - FREE
SO-N-4.0 Kuttner, Henry : The Dark World - FREE
SO-S-4.0 Kuttner, Henry : Dragon Moon
SO-C-4.0 Kuttner, Henry : Elak Of Atlantis
SF-N-4.0 Kuttner, Henry : Fury - FREE
SU-S-4.0 Kuttner, Henry : A Gnome There Was - FREE
SH-S-4.5 Kuttner, Henry : The Graveyard Rats - FREE
SU-S-4.0 Kuttner, Henry : Housing Problem - FREE
SH-S-4.0 Kuttner, Henry : I The Vampire
SF-S-4.5 Kuttner, Henry : Mimsy Were the Borogoves - FREE
SF-C-4.5 Kuttner, Henry : Mutant - FREE
SF-S-4.0 Kuttner, Henry : Three Blind Mice - FREE
SF-S-4.0 Kuttner, Henry : Two-Handed Engine - FREE
SF-S-4.0 Kuttner, Henry : We Guard the Black Planet! - FREE
SF-S-4.0 Kuttner, Henry : What Hath Me? - FREE
SF-S-4.0 Kuttner, Henry : The World Is Mine

Lots of whom you will find :-

http://henrykuttner.bravehost.com/index.html

And some of the others online too.

Kuttner died in 1958, so public domain in a lot of the world like Canada etc.

There'll be more you can find here if you feel like it :-

http://freesflist.blogspot.com/

So, Matthew Hughes is a contemporary writer? Who's in the know about him?

I've read a bit, at least as far as sf/fantasy goes

He's got a bit of a Vance thing going on - you can find a Matthew Hughes collection at webscriptions for one, with samples :-

SE-S-3.0 Hughes, Matthew : Bearing Up
SF-S-3.0 Hughes, Matthew : The Devil You Don't
SO-S-3.5 Hughes, Matthew : Falberoth's Ruin - FREE
SF-S-3.5 Hughes, Matthew : Finding Sarjessian - FREE
SF-S-3.5 Hughes, Matthew : Fulbrim's Finding
SF-C-3.5 Hughes, Matthew : The Gist Hunter and Other Stories
SO-S-4.0 Hughes, Matthew : The Gist Hunter
SF-S-3.5 Hughes, Matthew : Go Tell the Phoenicians
SF-S-3.0 Hughes, Matthew : The Hat Thing
SU-S-4.0 Hughes, Matthew : Hell Of A Fix
SO-S-3.5 Hughes, Matthew : Help Wonted
SO-S-3.5 Hughes, Matthew : The Helper and His Hero - FREE
SF-S-3.5 Hughes, Matthew : A Herd Of Opportunity
SF-S-3.0 Hughes, Matthew : The Hero and His Helper 1
SO-S-3.5 Hughes, Matthew : The Hero and His Helper 2
SF-S-3.5 Hughes, Matthew : Hunchster
SO-S-3.0 Hughes, Matthew : Inner Huff
SF-S-3.5 Hughes, Matthew : A Little Learning - FREE
SF-S-3.5 Hughes, Matthew : Mastermindless - FREE
SF-S-3.5 Hughes, Matthew : Passion Ploy - FREE
SF-S-3.5 Hughes, Matthew : Petri Patrousia
SF-S-3.5 Hughes, Matthew : Relics Of the Thim - FREE
SH-S-3.0 Hughes, Matthew : Shadow Man
SO-S-3.5 Hughes, Matthew : Sweet Trap
SF-N-3.5 Hughes, Matthew : Template
SF-S-3.0 Hughes, Matthew : ThwartingJabbi Gloond

I've read Template, that is pretty reasonable. Pretty new, too! :)

Erik Mona wrote:

Wow. I really disagree with a lot of what you say about Kuttner.

I think a lot of what one thinks of Kuttner may have to do with how high your absurdity index is. I lend my father my copy of 'Robots Have no Tails,' and he read a story and a half, then turned it back to me as being too goofy. He likes his fiction mostly serious business.

I, on the other hand, was rather fond of it. But I've been accused of being a silly, silly person.

Err... grant you, Robots Have No Tails is the only stuff I've read by him, so take that with a grain of salt.

A grain? Rather silly to form an opinion of someone with double figure books and triple figure stories based on one short series. Especially given even Paizo has two other examples that are completely nothing like that. :)

As mentioned I think, he ranges from goofy SF humour to Planetary Romance to the Cthulhu mythos and dark fantasy to crime stories, even.

However, did read one today that may be of possible interest for reading :-

That Halcyon Drift, by Brian Stableford

First of a series

http://www.librarything.com/series/Hooded%20Swan

A guy crashlands his ship on a planet - ends up with an alien mental parasite - is rescued, by then is indentured to go on missions to pay this off.

First one is to find a Lost Star in a strange nebula.

Certainly better than Fanthorpe, but a similar era - early 70s.

I happen to be half-way through a pretty bad one at the moment by this guy as Karl Zeigfeid,'Barrier 346'

Yes, you may have got lucky and found an upper tier work of his with the other one. :)

The Rebel of Rhada is a novel-length expanded and partly rewritten version of that story published by Coppel under the name Robert Cham Gilman. I think it's better than the story, and it spawned three sequels (which I haven't read).

Haven't got this one yet, but I fortuitously stumbled across 'The Starkahn of Rhada' today at a market. The fourth of the series or sequence or whatever it is going by the list at the front. So will see if that one is any good shortly.

Blue Tyson wrote:

Elflock wrote:

Anyone read any John E. Muller? 'Edge of Eternity' and 'The Negative Ones' were both cool.

Nope, never heard of him. What sort of books are those?

'Edge of Eternity': Sun goes nova,mankind sets off in untested hyperdrive ships for Alpha Centauri. It's a good one! 'The Negative Ones': Brilliant nuclear physicist staggers home,a pathetic wreck of his former self,raving about flying saucers and a strange being called Ravan...there are ancient legends about this Ravan and his 'Vimana'(you know,a flying car from the ancient Hindu myths).

John E Muller was actually a pseudonym of R.L.Fanthorpe,a British guy (I think) writing in the 60's. Check out that Fantastic Fiction site for Muller's books,there were quite a few.

Ok, well people make fun of Lionel Fanthorpe for being highly prolifically bad, in general. Look him up, you might be amused.

Anyone read any John E. Muller? 'Edge of Eternity' and 'The Negative Ones' were both cool.

Nope, never heard of him. What sort of books are those?

You should have, if you have been researching early fantasy!

You can see Project Gutenberg Australia for some stuff.

Hey, Tyson, you should read the story entitled "Home is the Hunter". There's also one called "Camouflage" that's really quite good. Both are in a collection called "Ahead of Time" that includes several of the other stories on your list ("Year Day," "Ghost," etc.) that I didn't think were quite as good.

Everyone loves John Campbell, but a part of me thinks he made science fiction a lot more boring. Some of the "best" Kuttner stories, according to public opinion 25 years ago, aren't nearly as fun as some of his pulpier stuff.

What did you think of The Power and the Glory? I quite enjoyed it.

Also, what do the codes mean on the list of stories you posted?

Home is the Hunter is certainly good.

Thanks for the collection tip, never come across that one.

As for codes, sorry, here :-

NOT FREE SF READER AND FREE SF READER GENRE AND RATING GUIDE

First Position

SH = Scary Horror
SF = Science Fiction
SI = Shootist
SO = Sorcery Fantasy
SU = Supernatural Fantasy
SL = Sleuth
SD = Soldier
SE = Speculative
SP = Sport
SY = Spy
ST = Study
SP = Superhero
SW = Swords

Second Position

N = Novel
C = Collection
A = Anthology
M = Magazine
O = Omnibus
S = Short Story
E = Excerpt
R = Serial
X = Non-Fiction

Third Position

Rating out of 5 stars

End Position

FREE after the work title indicates it was available free online at the time

Blue Tyson wrote:

Lots of Hamilton is crappy, certainly. The Star Kings is ok, Starwolf is decent. Hamilton himself is just not that talented, writingwise, though.

On the plane last night I read half of an Ace Double called "THE SUN SMASHER" that was actually pretty darn good. It was short (110 pages), but there were a lot of cool descriptions of a fallen imperial throne world and the emperor's spidery servitor creatures. Reminded me a bit of Coppel's "The Rebel of Rhada" and parts of C. L. Moore's "Judgement Night".

I thought it held up well with the flip side of the book, which was Robert Silverberg's "Starhaven." It's interesting to read between two covers one story by an author nearing the end of his long career and another from a modern giant of the genre when he was just starting out (in this case, 1958).

You should try to hunt that one down if you haven't already read it.

I haven't read The Rebel of Rhada, but if it is like The Rebel of Valkyr, which I like a lot, I would like to.

I have read The Sun Smasher and thought it was ok.

SF-N-3.0 Kuttner, Henry and C. L. Moore : Beyond Earth's Gates
SF-N-3.0 Kuttner, Henry and C. L. Moore : Chessboard Planet
SF-S-3.0 Kuttner, Henry and C. L. Moore : The Cure
SF-N-4.0 Kuttner, Henry and C. L. Moore : Destination Infinity - FREE
SF-N-2.5 Kuttner, Henry and C. L. Moore : Earth's Last Citadel
SF-S-3.0 Kuttner, Henry and C. L. Moore : Ex Machina
SF-N-3.0 Kuttner, Henry and C. L. Moore : The Fairy Chessmen
SF-N-3.0 Kuttner, Henry and C. L. Moore : The Far Reality
SF-N-4.0 Kuttner, Henry and C. L. Moore : Fury - FREE
SF-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry and C. L. Moore : Home Is the Hunter - FREE
SF-S-3.0 Kuttner, Henry and C. L. Moore : Home There's No Returning
SF-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry and C. L. Moore : Jesting Pilot
SF-S-4.5 Kuttner, Henry and C. L. Moore : Mimsy Were the Borogoves - FREE
SF-S-3.0 Kuttner, Henry and C. L. Moore : Open Secret
SF-S-3.0 Kuttner, Henry and C. L. Moore : Paradise Street
SF-N-3.0 Kuttner, Henry and C. L. Moore : The Portal In the Picture
SF-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry and C. L. Moore : The Prisoner In the Skull
SF-S-3.0 Kuttner, Henry and C. L. Moore : Project
SF-S-5.0 Kuttner, Henry and C. L. Moore : Quest Of the Starstone
SF-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry and C. L. Moore : Rain Check
SU-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry and C. L. Moore : Rite Of Passage
SF-S-3.0 Kuttner, Henry and C. L. Moore : This Is the House
SF-S-4.0 Kuttner, Henry and C. L. Moore : Vintage Season
SF-S-4.0 Kuttner, Henry and C. L. Moore : We Kill People
SF-S-3.0 Kuttner, Henry and C. L. Moore : Wild Surmise
SH-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry and Robert Bloch : Grab Bag
SF-S-3.0 Kuttner, Henry : 50 Miles Down
SF-S-3.0 Kuttner, Henry : Absalom - FREE
SF-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : Android
SF-S-3.0 Kuttner, Henry : Atomic
SF-S-2.0 Kuttner, Henry : Avengers Of Space
SF-S-3.0 Kuttner, Henry : Baby Face
SF-S-4.0 Kuttner, Henry : Beauty and the Beast
SF-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : Beggars In Velvet - FREE
SF-C-4.0 Kuttner, Henry : The Best Of Henry Kuttner
SF-C-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : The Best Of Kuttner 1
SO-S-3.0 Kuttner, Henry : Beyond the Phoenix
SF-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : The Big Night
SF-S-3.0 Kuttner, Henry : The Bloodless Peril
SU-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : By These Presents
SF-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : Call Him Demon
SF-S-2.0 Kuttner, Henry : Carry Me Home
SF-S-2.5 Kuttner, Henry : Children's Hour
SO-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : The Citadel Of Darkness
SF-C-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : Clash By Night
SF-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : Clash By Night - FREE
SF-S-3.0 Kuttner, Henry : Cold War
SF-R-2.5 Kuttner, Henry : The Creature From Beyond Infinity 1 - FREE
SF-R-2.5 Kuttner, Henry : The Creature From Beyond Infinity 2 - FREE
SF-R-2.5 Kuttner, Henry : The Creature From Beyond Infinity 3 - FREE
SF-R-2.5 Kuttner, Henry : The Creature From Beyond Infinity 4 - FREE
SF-R-2.5 Kuttner, Henry : The Creature From Beyond Infinity 5 - FREE
SF-R-2.5 Kuttner, Henry : The Creature From Beyond Infinity 6 - FREE
SF-R-2.5 Kuttner, Henry : The Creature From Beyond Infinity 7 - FREE
SF-N-2.5 Kuttner, Henry : The Creature From Beyond Infinity - FREE
SF-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : A Cross Of Centuries
SO-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : Cursed Be the City
SF-S-3.0 Kuttner, Henry : Dark Dawn
SO-N-4.0 Kuttner, Henry : The Dark World - FREE
SF-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : The Disinherited
SF-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : Don't Look Now - FREE
SF-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : Dr. Cyclops
SO-S-4.0 Kuttner, Henry : Dragon Moon
SF-S-3.0 Kuttner, Henry : The Ego Machine
SO-C-4.0 Kuttner, Henry : Elak Of Atlantis
SF-S-3.0 Kuttner, Henry : The Elixir Of Invisibility
SF-S-3.0 Kuttner, Henry : Endowment Policy
SF-S-3.0 Kuttner, Henry : Exit the Professor
SF-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : The Eyes Of Thar
SF-S-3.0 Kuttner, Henry : Gallegher Plus
SU-S-3.0 Kuttner, Henry : Ghost
SU-S-4.0 Kuttner, Henry : A Gnome There Was
SH-S-4.5 Kuttner, Henry : The Graveyard Rats
SF-S-3.0 Kuttner, Henry : Happy Ending
SF-S-3.0 Kuttner, Henry : Hercules Muscles In
SU-S-4.0 Kuttner, Henry : Housing Problem
SF-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : Humpty Dumpty - FREE
SH-S-4.0 Kuttner, Henry : I The Vampire
SF-S-3.0 Kuttner, Henry : Improbability
SF-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : The Iron Standard
SF-S-3.0 Kuttner, Henry : Juke-box
SF-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : Later Than You Think
SF-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : Line To Tomorrow - FREE
SF-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : The Lion and the Unicorn - FREE
SF-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : Margin For Error
SF-N-2.5 Kuttner, Henry : A Million Years To Conquer - FREE
SF-S-3.0 Kuttner, Henry : The Misguided Halo
SF-C-4.5 Kuttner, Henry : Mutant - FREE
SF-S-3.0 Kuttner, Henry : Noon
SF-S-3.0 Kuttner, Henry : Nothing But Gingerbread Left
SF-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : Or Else
SF-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : Piggy Bank
SF-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : The Piper's Son - FREE
SF-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : The Power and the Glory
SF-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : Private Eye
SF-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : The Proud Robot
SF-S-3.0 Kuttner, Henry : Reader I Hate You
SF-S-3.0 Kuttner, Henry : Red Gem Of Mercury - FREE
SF-C-2.5 Kuttner, Henry : Return To Otherness
SF-C-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : Robots Have No Tails
SH-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : The Secret Of Kralitz
SF-S-2.5 Kuttner, Henry : See You Later
SH-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : The Shadow On the Screen
SF-S-3.0 Kuttner, Henry : Shock
SF-S-2.5 Kuttner, Henry : The Sky Is Falling
SO-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : The Spawn of Dagon
SF-S-3.0 Kuttner, Henry : Sword Of Tomorrow
SF-S-3.0 Kuttner, Henry : This Is the House
SF-S-4.0 Kuttner, Henry : Three Blind Mice - FREE
SO-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : Thunder In the Dawn
SF-N-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : The Time Axis - FREE
SF-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : Time Enough
SF-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : Time Locker
SF-S-3.0 Kuttner, Henry : The Time Trap
SF-S-4.0 Kuttner, Henry : Two-Handed Engine
SF-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : The Twonky
SF-N-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : Valley Of the Flame - FREE
SF-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : The Voice Of the Lobster
SU-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : We Are the Dead
SF-S-4.0 Kuttner, Henry : We Guard the Black Planet!
SF-N-3.0 Kuttner, Henry : The Well Of the Worlds
SU-S-3.0 Kuttner, Henry : Wet Magic
SF-S-4.0 Kuttner, Henry : What Hath Me?
SF-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : What You Need
SF-S-3.5 Kuttner, Henry : When the Bough Breaks
SF-S-4.0 Kuttner, Henry : The World Is Mine
SF-S-3.0 Kuttner, Henry : World Without Air
SF-S-3.0 Kuttner, Henry : Year Day

Keeping track of whether something is Kuttner or Kuttner/Moore is way beyond me, I pretty much just put down whatever was in the book or website etc. I happened to be reading when I got to it!

I thought Atmoic was quite better than average. I enjoyed the unreliable narrator aspect of it, and thought it was a fun short story. Certainly not on the level of "The Graveyard Rats," but still good.

Everything else has ranged from decent to incredible.

There's a lot of decent, certainly. Not so much on the incredible though, for Kuttner. The Graveyard Rats approaches that end.

Although I've read a lot more SF stories than you have - and my scale takes them all into account, so we may look at it differently.

I really liked Kuttner's "The Fairy Chessmen," btw, so obviously tastes differ.

I haven't read any of the Hogben "hillbilly" stories yet, though I will soon and I promise to report here with my impressions of them.

Obviously, I liked the robot stories we reprinted in "Robots Have No Tails," and most of the comments we've gotten on them have been quite positive.

I'll go with inbetween you and johnny on The Fairy Chessmen - I thought that was average. The Hogben stories are okish. The yank rural thing has to be pretty superior to appeal to me I think - REH, Manly Wade Wellman, etc.

Fury, The Prisoner In the Skull, The Time Axis, The Valley Of the Flame - those are all decent.

By about the late 30s (from my sampling), he'd figured out that the more stories he could crank out the more money he could make, and virtually all of the joy has been squeezed out of his writing.

Some of the Captain Future material I've read is enjoyable, though hardly classic.

I have not read his oft-reprinted Starwolf series or much of what he put out in the 50s and 60s. I did read a story of his called "Babylon in the Sky" that I found so politically reprehensible that it actually made me angry, and while I've got a huge pile of Edmond Hamilton to go through I prefer to stick with other authors for the time being.

I have read that his very late work on the 'Star Kings" was considered a creative renaissance for Hamilton, but I haven't read it yet so I can't tell you what I thought of it.

My favorite early Hamilton stories are "The Metal Giants" and "The Comet Doom," both of which are included in the first volume from Haffner.

Lots of Hamilton is crappy, certainly. The Star Kings is ok, Starwolf is decent. Hamilton himself is just not that talented, writingwise, though.

The City At World's End novel I rather liked though. That one is a little more sophisticated. Suspect some possible advice from the spousal unit on that one maybe?

Captain Future is fun in a crazy old fashioned super cheesy way, although that varies a fair bit too.

I'm on vacation this week (so naturally I'm posting to the Paizo boards), and I've had a chance to read a lot of Kuttner while stranded at airports and on planes. So far I've read the following novels and stories, none of which have (to my knowledge) ever been reprinted:

Way of the Gods
The Power and the Glory
Atomic!
A God Named Kroo

The proto-X-Men story sounds interesting, he did like that sort of thing a little.

Of those, only read Atomic - which was average.

Erik,I just found a Merritt story called,'The Last Poet And The Wrongness of Space'. Do you have that? I'd never even heard of it before. It's another classic!

I have read The Last Poet and the Robots, which was poor - is this the same thing?

Sure, that one is one of the best every horror stories.

Robert A. Heinlien is not on the list? WHAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

~sniffs~ OTOH, that is a good list.

WHAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

Heinlein, not so much with the aliveness.

jmidd wrote:

Guys - I'd love to take out a subscription, having read the Kuttner and Moore stuff, and starting to enjoy Brackett.

Here's the thing: living in the arse-end of the world makes shipping tough. If I can combine cleaning up the backorder of older titles with subecription orders for a while, thats great (but I dont know if your systems can handle an order "on hold" for a while).

Once I chew that up though, I'm happy to take an order shipment every 3-4 books to cut the shipping rate - is that possible?

I don't know if that's actually doable, since it involves a lot of careful record-keeping by our frantic warehouse folks, but it's worth a shot. Still, it's worth contacting customer.service@paizo.com and seeing if they can work something out. Thanks!

-James

I did ask about that a while back, and the answer was 'not really'.

Zuxius wrote:

I found it! Bought it!

Awesome! Yeah, it's a really fun read, and a great value... I love mixed-author short story collections!

Otherwise known as anthologies. ;-) (but I do agree)

We're on top of the Brackett material. My main priority is to polish off the remaining Eric John Stark stuff (one more book of odds and ends, really), after which I would prefer to move on to stuff like The Nemesis from Terra. A lot of what you mention falls into that category. Much of it was recently reprinted in hardcover from Haffner, and out of respect I'd prefer not to tread to carelessly through his garden.

I am totally with you on the longer series, largely for the reason that agreeing to publish that material would fill up virtually all of our slots and leave no room for anything else. Plus, many of those really long series have loving homes with micro publishers who clearly are in it for the love, so that community (at least as far as Akers is concerned) is relatively well served.

At the current frequency of six books a year even a trilogy is claiming a significant chunk of an annual offering, and I suspect just about everyone (ourselves included) appreciates variety.

Yeah, variety is is fine. You are planning to do Black Amazon Of Mars, etc., do you mean?

Actually the book being as wide as it is, don't mind the two columns at all.

However, what other people have said goes - actually a couple of fairly cool wintrer days and the cover did curl as someone else said. Flimsy pages mentioned too, one of mine actually had a tear in the middle of it, looked like a slight production glitch as can happen.

The fake ads at the back are entertaining.

Like the title says. I really like the new catalogs. Thumbs up. :)

I can't believe I collect Paizo catalogs. :P

Dunno about collecting them, but this one is good! :)

Merritt was obviously a huge influence on Kuttner, who is all the better for it.

I'm currently reading a never-republished Kuttner fantasy novel called "The Lands of the Earthquake," from a 40s edition of Startling Stories. It's very obviously inspired in tone and set-up by the work of A. Merritt.

The Dark World is often called an homage to Merritt's "Dwellers in the Mirage," (which is almost next on my to-read pile), and it seems to come from a period during which Kutter was writing long tales very much in the Merritt tradition.

I can't wait until you guys get a look at The Ship of Ishtar. It is absolutely fantastic.

Yep, definitely some similarities between the Dark World and Dwellers in the Mirage and even Black Priestess Of Varda. :)

I like that one more than The Ship of Ishtar, certainly.

Could use an Avatarable Planet Stories logo, still.

Honestly speaking, launching a science fiction imprint has been a LOT more difficult than I had anticipated, largely because we...

On the promo front - not sure about how you go about choosing books - but are you listed in the various writer's market things? As in - if you have old stuff here that might suit, send me one?

I never look at such things, so wouldn't know, but just an idea on the promo front.

You have the rights to some old mags I think - Amazing? If you do, you could pluck the occasional story that fits from there that isn't going to be published otherwise, and put on website as promo to get people to come look.

Baen basically has a supporters club for the magazine, where people pretty much give them money because they like them - over and above the subscription (and do get the odd thing like swag, talks with people at conventions, etc.) No idea if you do that sort of thing with the RPG stuff already.

If you are trying to cross over into the gaming crowd, apart from more modern books I guess you have to have gaming material - where I'd be fine with mini Brackett Mars adventures at the end of books - not sure if others would hate it?