I love Saki. And Leiber. And deCamp & Pratt. Maybe I need to give Brown a try!
Re: Kuttner, I found The Dark World to be a tiresome retread of A. Merritt's much superior Dwellers in the Mirage (also in Appendix N!).
There's a Best of Kuttner collection out there that's worth reading. One of the stories was co-written by C.L.Moore (and turned into a totally weak kids movie) and another talks about "televisors" because they hadn't named television yet.
You remember how I was saying (on another thread) that the impressive thing about Leiber is the span of his relevant life in print? Kuttner could have been like that, he just died to early.
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Stanley G. Weinbaum is the next read on the Appendix N. Tor re-read challenge. I've never heard of him before.
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I am wondering if Weinbaum critters might eventually end up in a Pathfinder bestiary. Almost all his work is out of copyright, and his martian stuff would be right at home on Akiton
Wow, not only haven't read Weinbaum, but don't even remember him being listed in the Appendix. I'll have to find some of his stuff now. Although starting every other sentence in the review with the words, "Oh, did I mention..." was really starting to annoy me -- YES, already! You mentioned it! About 16 times!
And, of course, the obligatory pot-shots at deCamp & Pratt continue.
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I'd run across Weinbaum in the old Science Fiction Hall of Fame anthology. MMCJawa is right, and not just for Akiton. He's got short stories taking place on a number of other planets, back before astronomers hadn't gone completely buzzkill on the idea of other human-habitable planets in the Solar System. I think I have an anthology of his short stories around the house somewhere--have to dig that up again.
I haven't been very impressed with the Tor reviewers, though they do give us an excuse to talk about these books and authors again--no bad thing.
He's got short stories taking place on a number of other planets, back before astronomers hadn't gone completely buzzkill on the idea of other human-habitable planets in the Solar System.
I think this very thing is why Golarion's solar system interests me like it does: it brings back this mentality, this somewhat more optimistic (even if unrealistic) view of the extraplanetary universe.
yeah the more recent reviews have been much less review and more train of thought. I think there was barely any sort of plot synopsis in the last couple.
I need to get out more... I'd read all of the ones they've reviewed so far. Hope they do Bellairs' The Face in the Frost next -- possibly the best book about wizards ever written.It has been FOREVER since I've read John Bellairs! I read all of the Anthony Monday and Lewis Barnavelt books when I was in middle school. Wow. That takes me back. I've got to re-read and see if they hold up now that I'm an adult with my "sophisticated" Eng Lit degree.
I read these as a kid and now am re-reading them with my daughter. They are fun and she loves them but simple stories not really for adults I don't think. It is great to relive them though through mu daughter's eyes. They remain a good read.
They are fun and she loves them but simple stories not really for adults I don't think.
That's true of the later, youth-oriented books that Bellairs had so much success with. The Face in the Frost was written for adults; a lot of the sly humor in it would be lost on kids.
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Introducing the next Appendix N read: Manly Wade Wellman!
I think one of the commentators on the Tor message-board is correct in saying that the reviewers have it backwards: they are judging the books by their latter imitators (such as the X-Files) and not appreciating them as progenitors.
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Wellman is great, not only for the John the Balladeer stories, but also for coauthoring an excellent pastiche piece in which Conan Doyle's two greatest creations--Sherlock Holmes and Professor Challenger--face HG Wells' Martian invasion. Although to be honest Watson's steadfast refusal to notice that Holmes was boinking the landlady did get old.
Have to admit that I'm a much bigger fan of Wellman's novels than his short stories -- the perfect folksy Appalachian vernacular of the "Silver John" tales is beguilingly appropriate for stories that take their time getting to where they're going.
I never did like Thunstone much, compared to John; the latter is more down-to-earth and less "Oh Look How Awesome This Guy Is!", so his knowledge and talents always pop up as welcome surprises, instead of being met with groans of "Oh, of course he's an expert fencer/occultist/linguist/ladies' man/whatever."
Have to admit that I'm a much bigger fan of Wellman's novels than his short stories -- the perfect folksy Appalachian vernacular of the "Silver John" tales is beguilingly appropriate for stories that take their time getting to where they're going.
I never did like Thunstone much, compared to John; the latter is more down-to-earth and less "Oh Look How Awesome This Guy Is!", so his knowledge and talents always pop up as welcome surprises, instead of being met with groans of "Oh, of course he's an expert fencer/occultist/linguist/ladies' man/whatever."
I agree with you about John vs. Thunston, but I think there were more short stories than novels about The Balladeer. (Silver strings on his guitar? That thar is how bards are Holy Awesome, Batman!)
It's a separate issue, but back when writers were writing for a living ("One short story a week, and a novel in my spare time...") I think there was a better quality of product across the board. Then again, as we have talked about on other threads, that's just my own snobbery writ large, right?
It's a separate issue, but back when writers were writing for a living ("One short story a week, and a novel in my spare time...") I think there was a better quality of product across the board. Then again, as we have talked about on other threads, that's just my own snobbery writ large, right?
Nope. I think you may be onto something...
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Yeah I agree with TheJeff. It seems like writing back then was better, because time has filtered out all the crap. I suspect a lot of stuff currently crowding shelves won't be in print in 50 years.
I suspect that the exact same percentage of stuff crowding the shelves won't be in print in 50 years; given the quality of writing these days, that means more crappy books for the rest of us. Mind you, the problem was never how many crappy books we can access.
Ye gods jeff, don't get over sensitive!
I'm saying that, back in the middle of the Twentieth Century (1930 to 1960-ish) there was a market in periodicals for short stories. Asimov, Bradbury, even Sturgeon, who the Law is named for, could earn grocery money week to week writing short stories for pulp magazines.
That market doesn't really exist anymore. There's no entry level short story writer job market in this day and age. You disagree?
Yeah their are still short story avenues, although some are online only. There is also a large anthology market.
As far as I know, Stephen Jones "Best New Horror" anthology series, as well several equivalent series for fantasy and science fiction, still exist. So there is still a market out there, it just might be less profitable.
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Yeah I agree with TheJeff. It seems like writing back then was better, because time has filtered out all the crap. I suspect a lot of stuff currently crowding shelves won't be in print in 50 years.
I remember reading a list of the best-selling singles of the 1960s.
Needless to say, it wasn't wall-to-wall Beatles. Cilla Black seemed to sell a lot of records though.
Hmmm.
I thought that was a pretty credible reading of a pretty good tune.
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Hmmm.
I thought that was a pretty credible reading of a pretty good tune.
Yeah, her first hit was by far the best thing she did.
I was just too lazy to dig up the real cheese.
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Knode and Callahan review Fletcher Pratt's The Blue Star. They don't like it (well, Callahan doesn't like it; Knode likes the world-building but not the story it tells).
Which is a shame because I thought the cover was really cool. I probably won't read this book either, because they said it was boring and even the poster in the comments section said so.
If anyone here has read Fletcher Pratt and/or this book, tell us what you think. Is it boring or is there anything besides the world-building to recommend it?
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More Brit chicks singing Bacharach
Jimmy Saville's presence on the video gives that song's title a sinister new meaning.
I have never read that, but, as I said above, I have read the Harold Shea stories, which were far from boring, and The Well of the Unicorn, both of which I thought were very good indeed.
Interestingly, as per world-building, the former is set in multiple dimensions based on Earth-world fantastical literature (the Norse Eddas, the paladins of Charlemagne, the world of Cuchulainn, etc.) and the latter, according to what I read in the preface, is set in a world created by Dunsany, whom I've never read.
The sixties were pretty awesome.
Ag, the hate-fest on Pratt continues! I read Blue Star a year or two ago and recommended it to Comrade Doodlebug, because the main characters stage a French-revolution type coup and end up with tribunals and executions and all of that good stuff. Vive le Galt!
Yeah, it's tedious by Conan or Fafhrd standards because most of the action is political rather than sword-and-sorcerery -- but the lack of lots of overt magic was a draw to me where it was a flaw according to the reviewers. I saw it as Pratt saying, "I can introduce the very minor-est possible tinge of a hint of magic, and still envision an entire society built around suppressing it," and I thought that was pretty cool.
Was Blue Star a great book? No; it wasn't even as good as the "Harold Shea" stories, for that matter. But I thought it had a lot more to it than the reviewers were willing to cede it.
Dunsany was awesome. The King of Elfland's Daughter should be required reading for anyone before they're allowed to look at any other fantasy. The way he contrasts the nature of time in the Elflands vs. in "the fields we know" (Earth) as seen through the eyes of a half-idiot troll lying in an old barn is one of the most magical expositions ever written, IMHO -- and is simultaneously a commentary on how adults vs. children perceive time.
[Rewatches all the Britchicks (and Dionne) and cries, copiously]
Review of H.P. Lovecraft is up, and two things surprised me:
1. This is the first review that did not feature pot-shots at deCamp and Pratt, and in fact didn't mention either name. Hallelujah!
2. The reviewers spend as much time talking about a biography of Lovecraft as they do talking about anything by Lovecraft. Mostly because one of the reviewers hadn't read him at all, and quick skimmed a story or two midway through the blog post so he could feel like he was with it.
Their review of Abraham Merritt's The Moon Pool is finally up. They have forgotten about capping on deCamp & Pratt, thankfully, and are now taking dumps on Lost, which is totally fine with me, because that show was stooooopid.
And apparently they liked Merritt as much as I do.
Really, though, the whole thing is totally a dungeon crawl with odd NPCs and surprises and even a love story of the type you might find in a classic D&D adventure where one of the characters falls for the daughter of the alien king.
Sometime around 2002, I adapted Merritt's Dwellers in the Mirage directly into a D&D adventure. We had a freaking blast with it! One of the high points of that campaign.
I know that's in the library, so I think I'll snap it up. The Metal Monster and The Ship of Ishtar were both pretty good, after all - only the Lost reference put me off that one (I've not seen it, but it didn't sound interesting at all so I wasn't keen on reading up on its inspiration. Silly me)
I liked MM and SoI a lot less than I did DitM and TMP. I liked all of them a zillion times better than Lost.
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Since no one has yet mentioned it, I will post that the review of Lord Dunsany is up on Tor.com.
"King of Elfland's Daughter" seems way more trippy than I expected. I'll have to see if I can get it at my local public library.
I bought "King of Elfland's Daughter" just because of its obvious influence on "Lord of the Rings". You know. A mortal heir to royalty falls in love with an elven princess and persuades her to leave her magical land to marry him.
Never got on with Lord Dunsany. All that turgid Edwardian fayke olde englysshe prose... (well, I found it turgid). Possibly I wasn't paying attention when I read it, since the review makes it sound pretty decent. Plus, he was related to (Sir?) Richard Burton, which is a plus point.
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King of Elfland's Daughter is one of my all-time favorites; its description of how time works differently between the Elflands and "the fields we know" is unbeatable in its beauty, and it just breathes pure fantasy. And the novel has also got trolls, will-o-wisps, towns taken over by fey, magic swords made of lightning, unicorn hunts, quests led by madmen, extraplanar borders that shift around... all that is hard to beat. Naturally, the idiots at TOR didn't read it (one of them said he gave up after 20 pages). And they said they wouldn't want to play in it because it seemed to "Spenserian," although if they'd bother to read "The Mathematics of Magic," they'd know that Spenser's Faerie Queene is a perfect game setting... oh, wait, that was deCamp and Pratt, who wrote MoM. Never mind.
Now up: Mordecai goes on about PJF's The Maker of Universes while talking about his old D&D campaigns.
I never got to read World of Tiers, although I did read one of the Riverworld books and one or two of the Dungeon series he oversaw.
Plus, he was related to (Sir?) Richard Burton, which is a plus point.
The one who married Liz or the one who translated Scheherazade?