Category Archives: Books

Forgotten Book: The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet by Eleanor Cameron (1954)

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The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet sets the wayback machine to 1954.

By Scott A. Cupp

This is the 174th in my series of Forgotten Books.

This week we have a book that shares some similarities with last week’s Shell Scott adventures. No, The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet is not a humorous detective novel. But like the Prather novel, I missed Eleanor Cameron’s Mushroom Planet novels when I was much younger.

This first novel in the series should have been in my school libraries when I was in grade school and, had they been, I would have found them. But, in those formative years, I was in Alaska and then in small-town Texas. The libraries were small – heavy on reference books and some fiction. In several, there was not a formal library, just collections of books in each teacher’s room and whatever was there was what you got. It was not until junior high in Iowa Park, Texas, that I really found out about libraries and what wonders they held.

The Iowa Park town library was small and featured many older titles. I got to read my first Edgar Rice Burroughs books there and Tom Swift (not the Tom Swift Jr. titles that were coming out when I was at that age; these were the older things). And, since the junior high was in the same building as the high school, we had a more formal library at the school, and there I found Heinlein, Wells and Verne. Those were exciting days of discovery.

But, the Mushroom Planet was never in the galaxies I roamed. I don’t believe I ever heard of those books until I got to college and took a course in children’s literature (kiddy litter, as we called it). And I was not about to read them then.

Somewhere along the way, I acquired the first volume of the series and it has been on my shelves for a while. The other day I decided to pick it up and read it.

It’s a fast read and definitely a kid’s book. There are some attempts at science-y things but not much. And that is deliberate. The first chapter tells you what you need to know with the strange green ad in the paper

WANTED

A small space ship about eight feet long, built by one or two kids. The ship should be sturdy and well made and should be of materials found at hand. Nothing need be bought. No adult should be consulted as to its plan or method of construction. An adventure and a chance to do a good deed await the boys who build the best space ship.

Yep, you’ve got to be imaginative and a risk taker and your own person. David and his buddy Chuck are the boys who meet up with Mr. Tyco M. Bass, a peculiarly odd person who wants the boys to travel to Basidium X, a small planetoid located 50,000 miles above Earth that only he can see because he has a special filter. He can make a fuel to power this ship and send two boys to it in two hours, and there they can help out the residents of the tiny mushroom planet. They need to bring some food, capture some Basidium air and bring a mascot, for which Mrs. Pennyfeather, David’s chicken serves the role.

They travel to the planet and meet two wise men, Mebe and Oru, and the great King Ta help them solve a problem and return home, all in one night. Of course, no one believes them because they are kids and things happen to their proof.

It was a fun enough book. If I had preteen kids or grandkids, I might have subjected them to this. I think they would have enjoyed it. But I find that for myself, the one book will do. I don’t really care to return to the Mushroom Planet.

What about you readers out there? Someone have a fond spot for these books, or some other ones. As a kid I read a lot of Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew and Tom Swift. Then I found ERB. I was lost from that point on. And at 14, Conan began to appear and Elric the following year or so. And Philip K. Dick. I was doomed.

I hope your new year is going well. I’ll be back with another book next week, certainly one more age appropriate, I think.

Series organizer Patti Abbott hosts more Friday Forgotten Book reviews at her own blog, and posts a complete list of participating blogs.

 

Speculative San Antonio: Science Fiction Author KB Rylander

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San Antonio author KB Rylander has won the Jim Baen Memorial Award.

I met KB Rylander a couple years ago at Armadillcon, simply excited to run into yet another San Antonio author at the convention.

Turns out KB wasn’t just another emerging writer from the Alamo City, but a very good emerging writer from the Alamo City. By the time I sat down at the bar with her at the next Armadillocon, her short story “We Fly” had won the 2015 Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award.

The work I’ve read from her so far explores some familiar sf tropes like uploaded consciousness and generation ships, but always with an engaging focus on the humanity of its characters. The people in her stories feel real and idiosyncratic — and as a result it’s easy to become absorbed in her prose.

Make no mistake, KB Rylander is a writer to watch.

In addition to being your first professional publication, your story “We Fly” won the Jim Baen Short Story Award. Could you talk a little about what the award is, about your story and why it appealed to the judges?

The Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award is sponsored by Baen Books and the National Space Society and is for near-future science fiction involving manned space exploration. Anyone can enter who hasn’t already won and there is no entry fee, so check it out!

My story “We Fly” is about a woman whose consciousness was uploaded into an interstellar probe to search for habitable planets. After decades of travel she awakens at her destination but something is wrong. She has unknown errors in her processors and her memories are giving her contradictory clues.

My idea for this story came from the logistics of exploring planets outside our solar system and how probes make sense given the extraordinary travel times. That said, since communication with earth might take years those probes are going to have to be highly intelligent and self-sufficient. When I decided to use an uploaded human mind the central idea for this story popped into my head. I can’t say what that idea was because it spoils the ending, but it allowed me to have a lot of fun writing memories that the character experiences within the story and give clues within those flashbacks.

I think it appealed to the judges because the reader is anchored close to the human struggles of the characters while still having a cool science fiction premise. I suspect it also did well because of the strength of the last couple of lines. That last image you leave a reader makes a huge impact in their overall satisfaction of the piece. I lucked out on this one because “We Fly” was one of those stories that just gave me the right ending before I’d even finished the first draft.

Writing is sort of a family business, from what I understand, as your mom also wrote (or still writes) fiction. How did growing up around a writing parent prepare you for what you’re doing now?

My mother is a writer and was writing seriously when I was a kid. She has unfortunately taken a twenty year break but I’m trying to nudge her back into it!

Even though I wasn’t planning to be a writer myself, I often attended writing conferences and lectures with my mom and occasionally sat in on her writers group listening to everyone give critiques.

We were a family of readers and my mom always talked about what was good writing and what wasn’t, and I listened and learned.

Needless to say, she has been a huge influence on my writing.

I think part of my hesitance to pursue it myself was seeing how difficult it is to succeed, but that has also prepared me to have realistic expectations.

How long have you been writing and when did you start sending out work for publication?

I never thought I wanted to be a writer, but looking back all the signs were there. I’ve been writing stories for fun my whole life, but got serious about it five years ago after my daughter was born.

My whole childhood I thought I was going to be a scientist, but by college my interests had shifted to history and linguistics. I kept running into the same problem that I hated the idea of specializing in any one field. At some point I realized a writer can do All The Things.

That said, it felt like an impossible goal because there are so many people trying to make it in this field and so few people succeed. I decided to give it my all and gave myself permission to fail, which I needed.

I spent the first couple of years of serious writing working on novels and shifted over to short stories in 2013. I started submitting them in 2014.

So far, I’ve only read short work from you. Are you working on any novel-length projects?

I have a young adult novel in the works.  It’s near future science fiction about a genetically engineered teenage girl trying to keep her siblings alive after 99% of Earth’s population drops dead.

I wrote the zero draft in 2011 and 2012 and put it aside. I rewrote half of it in November and hope to get it ready for submission this year.

Do you only write science fiction or do you work in other genres as well?

Most of what I write is science fiction but I write some fantasy.  I dabble with non-speculative fiction as well.

I feel most comfortable with middle grade and young adult because I’ve read so much more of it. I can’t picture myself writing a novel that isn’t MG or YA but you never know.

Who are some of the writers whose work inspired you, and what have you learned from them?

This is a tough question because there are so many wonderful books and short stories that have inspired me in different ways.

Honestly I think it’s teachers who inspired me more than anyone else.  My mother is one.  Another is my eighth grade English teacher Kim McIntire who introduced me to a ton of classic science fiction. We spent a whole semester just on Ray Bradbury works. We read The Martian Chronicles and Dandelion Wine and dozens of his short stories.

My high school English teacher Tess Morris was probably the best teacher I ever had, college included.  She challenged me and we read a lot of great literature.  My favorite was As I Lay Dying. I loved Faulkner’s use of POV and how he tossed rules out the window. One of our assignments was to write missing chapters of the novel. I had a lot of fun playing with strange POVs and stream-of-consciousness. From there I went on a Faulkner binge and was first introduced to the concept of a circular structure reading Light in August. Frankly, I hated that novel, but it started me thinking about writing in a different way.

In college I devoured the Harry Potter series and loved it much as I loved Lord of the Rings as a kid. In those books the writing just needs to get out of the way so the reader can immerse in the story.

The Book Thief is one of my favorite books and I put it right up there with To Kill a Mockingbird. The writing is just so darn beautiful. If I could write half that well one day I’ll die happy.

What’s next for KB Rylander? Where else can readers find your work?

I’ve got a short story coming out in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction sometime this year.  It’s called “Last One Out.”  It’s about the last woman on Earth and her robot companion and is set in Sweden, where I spend a lot time.  It’s one of my favorite things I’ve written.

 

Forgotten Book: Everybody Had a Gun by Richard Prather (1951)

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Everybody Had a gun features Richard Prather's private eye Shell Scott.

By Scott A. Cupp

This is the 173rd in my series of Forgotten Books.

This week is special across the various blogs that constitute the Forgotten Books group. Check out the listing at Patti Abbott’s blog by clicking the link at the end of the column. Friday, January 15, has been designated Richard Prather Day, when as many of the bloggers as are inclined will discuss the work of this quintessential ’50s paperback writer.

I will confess up front that I have not read much Prather. I didn’t discover his works when I was at the impressionable age where I would have read everything multiple times. By the time I had found Prather’s work, I was already reading Hammett, Chandler, both McDonalds, Charles Williams and more. Prather was entertaining, but the others were more representative of what I wanted to read. Still, I thought I would give one a try this week.

Prather is best known for his Shell Scott series of detective novels. Scott is a California private eye, tall with blond close cropped hair, a veteran of WWII and able to get into some truly interesting situations.

This novel begins with action on the first page. Shell is walking down the street when someone starts shooting at him. He almost doesn’t even notice it since he is reading the paper about a local hood named Lobo who had contracted a fatal dose of lead the previous night. But when he does, he has no idea who or why is after him.

He cautiously approaches his office and begins running down the list of people who might have a grudge. It might be Marty Sader, who runs a local nightclub and who had hired Shell to check out a horse betting parlor and to get an idea of the take. Shell takes the job but finds out very little, as Lobo approaches him and tells him to stop. This is something he would normally ignore, so he continues his research, but Lobo is a little more insistent the next time. And Lobo is a right hand guy for a bigger fish named Collier Breed with whom Shell does not want to tangle.

When he gets to his office, Shell sees an attractive redhead tentatively approaching the building. When she sees Shell at his window, she crosses over the street headed toward his office. Meanwhile, a short skinny guy with a gun enters the office and attempts to take Shell away. There is a fight and he knocks the hood out. The redhead shows up and recognizes him as one of Sader’s guys.  She says Sader wants to kill them both and that she has just escaped from him. She won’t talk until Shell gets rid of the hood, so he sends her down to the bar below his office and takes the hood to a nearby cop.

When he gets back to the bar, he discovers the girl never made it there. He finds her purse and learns her name is Iris Gordon. He tracks down her address. He meets her barely clothed roommate, Mia, and finds that they both work for Sader. Figuring that if she escaped from Sader earlier, perhaps she has been taken back there. He tries Sader’s house first and finds a drunken Mrs. Sader shooting a big gun at bales of hay.

Soon he is involved with two gangs, lots of people with guns, some fast talking and quick thinking — and lots of dead bodies. It’s a fast-moving, quick read about attempted takeovers, murder and more.

Overall, I enjoyed it. I would have probably loved it when I was a teenager, but it wasn’t bad. It had a fair bit of skewed humor, which was OK, but a little can go a long way. If you’ve not read Prather, this isn’t a bad one to start with. Chronologically, it was the third Shell Scott adventure and the series was starting to get its quirky feel.

Check out the other Prather reviews on Friday and give him a try. As always, your mileage may vary.

Series organizer Patti Abbott hosts more Friday Forgotten Book reviews at her own blog, and posts a complete list of participating blogs.

 

Speculative San Antonio: Kij Johnson reading and signing at The Twig

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Next weekend, The Twig Book Shop will host a reading and signing by one of contemporary sf and fantasy’s most respected authors.

Multi-award winning writer Kij Johnson will read from her short story collection At the Mouth of the River of Bees on Friday, Jan. 15, at 6 p.m. The Twig is located at 306 Pearl Parkway, Ste. 106, San Antonio TX 78215.

Kij Johnson is a winner of the Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Awards. In addition to her World Fantasy Award-nominated At the Mouth of the River of Bees, her books include the novels Fudoki and Fox Woman. Each summer, she teaches the prestigious Intensive Novel Workshop for the Center for the Study of Science Fiction; she has also taught at the summer science-fiction workshops Clarion, Clarion West and Odyssey. In the past, she has worked at Tor Books, Dark Horse Comics, Wizards of the Coast and TSR; currently she is an assistant professor of creative writing  at the University of Kansas.

In advance of her San Antonio appearance, I asked Kij to discuss her twin careers of writing and teaching writing.

You’ve spent quite some time teaching writing both in workshops and in university settings. What advice can you give emerging genre writers, and what are the most common mistakes you see them make?

There are lots, but here are a couple!

* Retreading other peoples’ work. Often we try to recreate a work we love understanding that what we should be doing is trying, not to reproduce the work but the way that work made us feel. Instead of trying to reproduce Peter Beagle’s Last Unicorn, or George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones, we would be better off analyzing what the original did for us — broke our hearts, made us yearn, made us feel vicariously wise or dangerous or full potential — and then write a different story that does the same thing emotionally, instead of the same thing as far as the plot or genre goes.

* Writing as though movies, TV, and comics are the same as books. In fact, everything about the experience is different: the tools, the process, the degree of autonomy, the scale, the strengths….

Can you pinpoint specific books or stories that were pivotal in you choosing to write fiction yourself? What were they?

Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey and Maturin books opened my eyes to just how much is possible in fiction, a sweeping narrative saga about complex characters behaving imperfectly in a gorgeous global setting.

John Myers Myers wrote a book that changed everything for me: Silverlock. It was written a lot of decades ago, and the general conceit is that there is a Commonwealth (of letters), where a shallow, embittered person can discover worlds of possibility. This doesn’t even touch the book’s charm and strength; but after reading it twenty years ago, I started to engage with works I loved as a writer — what would I do differently? How would I insert myself into the story?

Stylistically, your short stories range from the elegant to the disturbing. Do you decide to adopt a different narrative approach before you start a story, or is that more likely to evolve as you begin drafting the piece?

I often know from the very beginning that a work will have a specific stylistic aim: cool and elegant; classic and emotionally detached; angry and sexy; over-the-top lavish. However, that often changes as I go. The novella I just handed in to tor.com, The Dream-quest of Vellitt Boe, started out intending to be a Lovecraft pastiche as far as voice went and changed to something much more American-letters-y.

Your novels The Fox Woman and Fudoki take place in Medieval Japan. How difficult is it to research such a complex setting, and do you plan to return to that time and era in future work?

It was hard! I read everything — and I do mean everything — that was available in translation, in all available translations. I read a lot of scholarly papers, as well. I’m not sure whether I will return to the place and time: I have another book I could tell that takes place a couple of hundred years sooner, but it depends on some business-type stuff.

You’ve said you spend a lot of time working and reworking your stories. Why is that and how many incarnations is each story likely to see?

I seldom get everything right off the bat. Even if I am close, there is almost always something very delicate I can do to tweak it — basically, the equivalent of using not just the 220-grit sandpaper, but the 600. Rewrites can range from five or six to scores of rewrites of different levels of intensity.

What else are you working on right now? Any new books or stories you can tell us about?

I just turned in a novella for tor.com, The Dream-quest of Vellitt Boe, which will be out as part of their new novella line sometimes in 2016. I also have a novel coming out in 2017 from Small Beer Press. Thanks for asking!

Forgotten Book: The Will to Kill by Robert Bloch (1954)

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Robert Bloch's The Will to Kill is full of twists and turns.

By Scott A. Cupp

This is the 172nd in my series of Forgotten Books.

After enjoying a Fredric Brown book last week, I thought it might be nice to try a novel from another classic writer. So I pulled my copy of Screams by Robert Bloch off the shelf. That volume contains three early suspense novels by the Psycho master, so I decided to go with the earliest novel, The Will to Kill.

I had read a lot of Bloch over the years, mostly his short fiction. His horror for Weird Tales was spectacular and he was an early acolyte/friend of H. P. Lovecraft. In fact, the two writers each did a story where they killed the other off by horrific means. Such a fun group.

The Will to Kill was, for many years, a legendary Bloch novel, available only as an Ace paperback original that was very hard to come by. Over the years, I searched for copies of this novel in many states. I did eventually find one in the late 90’s in Springfield, Missouri, at a small paperback house. I locates a lot of great titles that day, including the first five 84th Precinct novels by Ed McBain. I was about to check out when I saw this one behind the counter. The clerk said they were holding it for some customer but he had never come in. I asked when he was going to pick it up and the clerk said if it was still available on Friday, I could have it for $2. Come Friday I picked it up.

Screams collects three early Robert Bloch novels, including The Will to Kill.

I never got around to reading it before my Big Book Sale of 2007, when it went away to land on someone else’s shelves. So this last week, I decided to remedy that situation.

Tom Keller is a Korean War veteran suffering from PTSD, even though that phrase did not exist at the time. He has come home from the war to a loving wife. Sometimes Keller suffers from blackouts, fugue states where he wanders and does things that he does not remember. Following one of those episodes, he wakes up with scissors in his hand and a dead wife at his feet. Her throat had been cut … by scissors. He is jailed but eventually released when forensics prove he could not have performed the murder.

Now in another town, he runs a stamp, coin and book store where he works with his new girlfriend. He wants to be with her, but he still has his own doubts about the murder of his first wife. As the novel opens, Keller is recovering from a blackout and has no idea what he has done. He soon finds that he has told his girlfriend Kit about his fears and this drives her away.

While Kit is gone, Keller deals with a fat man with an obviously stolen stamp collection. He chooses the high road and does not buy the material, even though he could turn it into a quick profit. The seller is upset and leaves.

Soon, Keller encounters the fat man again at a bar, where he is abusing a woman and making threats. When Keller steps in, a knife comes out. But Keller is a veteran and disarms the man, ejecting him from the bar.

The girl he has saved, Trixie, invites him over and frantic sex happens at her place. Keller falls asleep, and when he wakes up, Trixie is dead. In circumstances similar to the previous murder he was involved with.

Keller is, of course, arrested and the earlier case is brought up. A blind man identifies Keller by his walk and the taps on his shoes as the killer. The murder weapon is identified as a poniard, a French style stiletto. And, of course, Tom has one in a case at his store. Or, had one, since the store has been broken into and the knife taken. The only possible lead is Trixie’s roommate. When the police go to ask her questions, she is found dead also. But, Tom was in police custody when the roommate was killed. And, of course, the same knife was used.

Kit shows up with a lawyer, Anthony Mingo, for whom she used to work and had been romantically involved. Tom, already unsure of himself, takes this new twist poorly and begins to doubt Kit’s affection for him.

The story takes several good turns and eventually resolves itself, but not before several unusual items from Tom’s and Kit’s past are revealed.

I really enjoyed this novel and read it in one sitting. And, with Screams, I still have two more early Bloch novels waiting for my attention, specifically Firebug and The Star Stalker. Bloch was really crafting his style at this point, leading up to his 1959 novel Psycho.

So, if you can find the Ace paperback, buy it. If not, get Screams and have three fun books. And, as with all such titles, your mileage may vary, but I doubt it. Bloch is fabulous.

Series organizer Patti Abbott hosts more Friday Forgotten Book reviews at her own blog, and posts a complete list of participating blogs. This week Todd Mason is hosting the listing.

 

Forgotten Book: Night of the Jabberwock by Fredric Brown (1950)

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Nick of the Jabberwok is fast, fun and full of surprises.

By Scott A. Cupp

This is the 171st in my series of Forgotten Books.

As I mentioned in the last Forgotten Book column, I recently discovered a cache of old Unicorn Mystery Book Club books at the local Half Price. I bought six volumes while I was there. The Memoirs of Solar Pons was in one of the volumes. But the one that really pushed me over the edge was Night of the Jabberwock by Fredric Brown — not that it took much of a push.

There was a time when I had a very nice collection of Fredric Brown’s work. I had hardback firsts of all his science fiction, including a nice, signed Space on My Hands and much of his mystery work. I believe I had all the mystery novels and most of the short stories. I did not have The Case of the Dancing Sandwiches, but I did have the original pulp that the story had appeared in. And I had read most of his work. Somewhere along the way, I did an article about Ed and Am Hunter that appeared in a non-fiction work about 100 great detectives, and I had read all those novels.

At his worst, Brown was always worth reading. And at his best, he was fantastic. Here, in Night of the Jabberwock, he was at the top of his form.

It’s a novel with a lot of stuff going on. The hero is Doc Stoeger, the editor and publisher of a small town weekly newspaper. He has a PhD and his dissertation was on Lewis Carroll. He is nuts for Lewis Carroll. But no one in the town really cares. He has one or two friends he can play chess with, but no one to really discuss the things he loves most. And after 23 years running the paper, he is down. Just once, he would love something to happen on Thursday night so that when the paper came out on Friday morning it would have real news.

Well, Doc soon discovers you should be careful what you wish for. In the course of one night, he has many adventures. There’s a messy divorce case, the bank is broken into, several men are murdered, Doc and his friend Smiley are kidnapped by gangsters, there’s an explosion in the Roman candle department of the local fireworks factory, there’s an escapee from the local loony bin. Oh, and Doc is the prime suspect in two of the murders and is involved in a manhunt in his small town. Doc sees and witnesses all of these and yet, he cannot write about them.

The series of events begins with a man named Yehudi Smith who asks about the Vorpal Blades, a Lewis Carroll appreciation society. That society wants Doc to meet them at a nearby haunted house to discuss the possibility that Lewis Carroll was writing about real worlds in the Alice books.

This is fast paced like a Cornell Woolrich novel and, at times, just as unbelievable. But the prose is lean and clean, and the reader has the adventure of a lifetime.

I read this book many years ago and had forgotten most of it, so it was wonderful to sit back in my reading chair and renew my friendship. I ran across a passage that I loved on the original reading and again last night:

“Two walls of my living room are lined with them (books) and they overflow the bookcases in my bedroom and I even have a shelf of them in the bathroom. What do I mean, even? I think a bathroom without a bookshelf is as incomplete as would be one without a toilet.”

Can I get an “Amen”?

It’s a quick and wonderful read and, while it used to be impossible to find when I first started looking, there are plenty of editions and copies around online or in eBooks now. You have no excuse. Go forth and slay the jubjub bird and have some fun.

Series organizer Patti Abbott hosts more Friday Forgotten Book reviews at her own blog, and posts a complete list of participating blogs.

 

Forgotten Book: The Memoirs of Solar Pons by August Derleth (1951)

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Mystery fans shouldn't ignore Derleth's Solar Pons books just because they're pastiches.

By Scott A. Cupp

This is the 170th in my series of Forgotten Books.

Not long ago I was in Half Price Books looking to see what might be malingering for me to find, when I ran across a stack of old Unicorn Mystery Book Club titles. If you are not familiar with the Unicorn Mystery Book Club, it was a club similar to the Mystery Book Club that published omnibus volumes with four titles in each volume. The Unicorn Mystery Book Club was generally edited by Hans Stefan Santesson (according to an article I read) and frequently they contained unusual entries. The volumes I picked up had Fredric Brown and Anthony Boucher in them, so I know I got some solid stuff.

This week’s book had The Beautiful Stranger by Bernice Carey, Fish Lane by Louis Corkill, Hangman’s Hat by Paul Ernst and The Memoirs of Solar Pons by August Derleth. I have had the Derleth Solar Pons books at various times in my collection, but they’d slipped from my fingers by the time I ran across this book. I picked it up and decided to read.

August Derleth is a puzzle to me. I love him as an editor and publisher of Arkham House and for preserving (with Donald Wandrei) the legacies of Lovecraft, Smith and Howard. As a horror writer, I find him pretty close to unreadable, particularly when he takes on the Lovecraft Mythos.

The Solar Pons books, however, I enjoy. Partly because they are somewhat formulaic. Solar Pons is Sherlock Holmes. No one even remotely tries to deny it. His assistant, Dr. Lyndon Hardy, is Dr. Watson (the Doyle Watson, not the movie one). Derleth’s pastiches are good, very relaxing and enjoyable. Not near the equivalent of the originals but better than many things which followed Doyle and Derleth.

Derleth wrote more Solar Pons stories than Doyle ever did for Holmes — eight volumes of short stories and one novel. The collection in question this week contains 12 stories and is chronologically the second volume published.

The stories included are all pretty clever, especially “The Adventure of the Broken Chessman,” which features Russian spies in London during the 1920s, and “The Adventure of the Six Silver Spiders,” which references some of the famous occult volumes such as The Necronomicon and Unausprechlican Kulten, which are familiar to Lovecraftian fans. I also really enjoyed “The Adventure of the Proper Comma,” which features Pons’ Praed Street Irregulars and “The Adventure of the Five Royal Coachmen,” which combines politics, spies and trout fishing.

Some stories were easy to figure out, such as “The Adventure of the Circular Room” and “The Adventure of the Paralytic Mendicant,” while others were not as easy. And how could you not love a title like “The Adventure of the Tottenham Werewolf”?

Each story ran about 20 pages for a quick and easy read. This was not my first encounter with Mr. Pons and Dr. Parker nor will it be my last. Paperback copies exist of most of the Derleth titles, since Pinnacle did a reprint series in the 1980s, as well as including the four volumes Basil Copper continued with the character after Derleth’s death. I have not read those, but I may have one or two hanging around. I’m not sure, but perhaps I will check around and see.

Online book marketplace AbeBooks has quite a few of the paperbacks for under $5, plus shipping. EBay has also has a large number for various prices, including some of the original hardcover published by Arkham House’s mystery imprint Mycroft and Moran.

There are never enough great detective short stories. These may be very good. I don’t know if I’d call them great, but I enjoyed the collection all the way through.

As usual, depending on your fanatical devotion to the canon, your mileage may vary. Don’t ignore them just because they are pastiches.

Series organizer Patti Abbott hosts more Friday Forgotten Book reviews at her own blog, and posts a complete list of participating blogs.

 

Haunting Question: What’s your favorite holiday-themed sf/fantasy/horror

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Alex Ross' Justice League Christmas was one contributor's holiday fave.

From Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol to the recently released horror movie Krampus, the holiday season has long been a fertile source of material for creators of the fantastic.

Of course, many of us have favorite holiday-themed sf, fantasy and horror we turn to this time of year. As I posted on Monday, mine’s “The Chimney,” a 1975 short story by Ramsey Campbell that zeros in on childhood fears with chilling alacrity.

I decided to put the question to other authors and fans to see what books, stories, comics, movies and TV episodes bring them holiday cheer. While the results include a number of tried-and-true classics, many were new to me. I hope the list holds some surprises for you as well.

Happy holidays — and keep reading!

Patrice Sarath: Patrice Sarath is an author and editor living in Austin, Texas. Her novels include the fantasy series, Books of the Gordath (Gordath Wood, Red Gold Bridge and The Crow God’s Girl) and the romance The Unexpected Miss Bennet. She has been published by Penguin in the US and Robert Hale Ltd. in the UK. She is the author of numerous short stories that have appeared in magazines and anthologies.

The Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe when Narnia is under the White Witch’s thrall, and it’s always winter and never Christmas. I grew up in New England and used to go skating on a small pond in the woods, about a mile hike from the house. In the winter the pond would freeze and you could skate in and out among the trees, and the snow lay in billows on the ground. The only thing missing was a lamppost.

John Picacio: John Picacio is a two-time Hugo Award-winning illustrator of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. His works have illustrated the covers of books by Michael Moorcock, Harlan Ellison, Robert Silverberg, L.E. Modesitt, Jr., Dan Simmons, Joe R. Lansdale, Jeffrey Ford, Frederik Pohl, James Tiptree, Jr., Mark Chadbourn and many more.

DC Comics’ Justice League of America at Christmas / Artwork by Alex Ross. I’m not sure where this Alex Ross artwork first appeared, but it’s one of my favorite things he’s ever done. He’s illustrated more epic pieces, but I love the compact storytelling here. It’s Ross doing Norman Rockwell, and he’s doing it well. The circular composition moves your eye through the characters’ interactions. I’m not sure what Aquaman’s problem is, but he’s not the star here. Batman frames the composition and his outsider view tells you EVERYTHING you need to know about that character in one glance. Factor in his origin story and the image tugs your heart strings a bit — or at least mine. Even better yet — add in the way Superman is inviting him to join the merriment. It’s a hinge moment, framed by that mullion that cuts across the circle. Your imagination plays out whether Batman pops in for some eggnog or slips back into the shadows, spending another Christmas Eve bereft and alone atop a Gotham skyscraper.

A Christmas Carol scored high for several contributors — both in written and celluloid form.

Renee Babcock: Renee Babcock is an avid reader who has been active in Texas fandom since 1999. She has chaired or co-chaired 4 ArmadilloCons, was the co-chair of the 2006 World Fantasy in Austin, and is the co-Chair of the 2017 World Fantsy to be held in San Antonio. She’s also currently on the Board of Directors of FACT, Inc.

I love the Dr. Who A Christmas Carol. I love the story for it’s theme of redemption, and this adaption is so wonderful, with its use of music, its pathos, and the joyful ending for him. For some reason I really connect with this adaptation on an emotional level.

Don Webb: Don Webb has written horror, science fiction and mysteries professionally since 1986. He was born in a hospital that was on Route 66. He has only been in one documentary about weapons grade plutonium (Youtube it: Plutonium Circus).

Ramsey Campbell’s “Christmas Present” is an unending grind. It begins harsh — just gets grimier. This shouldn’t work in a tale, but in Campbell’s masterful hands it does.

Nicky Drayden: Nicky Drayden is a Systems Analyst who dabbles in prose when she’s not buried in code. She resides in Austin, Texas where being weird is highly encouraged, if not required.

The Stupidest Angel has to be my go-to Christmas themed Horror-Comedy. I ran across it while browsing at Half Price Books, saw the title and the cute image on the cover, and was like “I need to read this!” It was my first introduction to Christopher Moore, and he has me hooked. What’s more fun than an angel who is so absolutely horrible at his job that he accidentally raises zombies and causes a Christmas party massacre? And I have to note, while we’re on the subject of Christopher Moore, Lamb is one of my all-time favorite reads, holiday themed or not. It chronicles the early life of Jesus as told by his best friend Biff. Not exactly genre, but if you ever thought the Bible could be spiced up by a generous helping of hilarity and sprinkling f-bombs on every other page, then this one is for you! Plus you get to find out what the H in “Jesus H. Christ” stands for.

Lee Thomas: Lee Thomas is the Lambda Literary Award and Bram Stoker Award-winning author of more than 20 books, including The Dust of Wonderland, In the Closet, Under the Bed, The German, Torn, Ash Street, Like Light for Flies and Butcher’s Road. Writing as Thomas Pendleton and Dallas Reed, he is the author of the novels Mason, Shimmer and The Calling from HarperTeen. He is also the co-author (with Stefan Petrucha) of the Wicked Dead series of books for young adults.

Every couple of years as Christmas approaches, I revisit Peter Straub’s Ghost Story. Though not technically a holiday-themed novel, the contemporary timeline of the book spans the holiday season. Brief scenes revealing the behavior of Milburn’s townsfolk in the days leading up to Christmas emphasize the desperation and claustrophobia of an isolated populace under siege by supernatural forces. The book is a wonderful read any time of the year, but particularly so when the nights are long and cold.

Some like their holiday-themed lit darker than others, and Straub’s Ghost Story is very dark indeed.

Patrick Sullivan: Patrick Sullivan is a published short story author. A screenwriter who has been a finalist in AFF and Final Draft competitions, semi-finalist in many more. An abuser of software. A martial artist. A fanboy who has met Harlan Ellison several times and has not been yelled at once.

The first movie that comes to mind besides the obvious Gremlins, which is far darker than people might remember, is Rare Exports. First, Rare Exports is a Spielbergian horror/kids adventure set in Lapland, so it isn’t something you’ve possibly seen before. Second, it is satisfying and has a real sense of joy to it. The filmmakers clearly had a good time which makes it so fun for the audience.

Lawrence Person: Lawrence Person is a science fiction writer living in Austin, Texas, and owner of Lame Excuse Books.

I think I’m going to have to go with Arthur C. Clarke’s “The Star.” Which is ironic, since it’s more an anti-Christmas story. But nothing else has stuck in my memory nearly as well, with a true gut-punch in the final line.

Benjamin Cartwright: Benjamin Cartwright lives in Spokane, WA. His writing has appeared in Sentence, The Stinging Fly, Midwestern Gothic, Prick of the Spindle, and other fine places. He teaches at Spokane Falls Community College, though his past haunts include Tianjin (China), Topeka (Kansas), Lawrence (Kansas), Moscow (Idaho) and the underside of various railroad bridges.

Nothing recreates my abject, early-childhood terror of Santa Claus quite like the “Xmas Story” episode of Futurama. What strikes me, on re-watching the episode for about the 1,000th time this year, is how plausible it all still seems. Of course a robotic Santa Claus would turn murderous because of faulty programming. Of course the human population of the future would live in fear. The movie poster for Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) I saw when I was seven created the nefarious Santa of my imagination, but the creators of Futurama gave it its best, most memorable, tangible form. Also, I love that John Goodman does the voice for the robotic Santa Claus. Ever since Barton Fink, his voice has given me chills when he’s playing an unhinged character.

The Stupidest Angel was a new one on me.

Scott A. Cupp: Scott A. Cupp is a writer from San Antonio who has been associated with the science fiction community for more than 40 years. He has been a regular reviewer at Mystery Scene magazine, where he reviewed western and horror novels, and at Missions Unknown blog, where he did columns on Forgotten Books and Forgotten Films. His most recent fiction, “Monikins of the Montgolfiers,” appeared in July 2015 in Story Emporium magazine.

This was a lot harder to answer than I initially thought. Would I go with music? I have bad memories of hearing the Bing Crosby Christmas album for many listens with my folks. Nope! Not going to be it. How about a film? I saw White Christmas when I was eight and loved it but that’s not going to be it. Other films – I could go all geek and say it isn’t Christmas until Hans Gruber falls off of Nakatomi Towers. Good choice or even the second Die Hard is also a Christmas film, and it has the wonderful scene where Bonnie Bedelia zaps William Atherton on the plane. Or I could talk about Santa Claus vs. the Martians. But, let’s not. How about comics? There’s the Batman story “Santa Claus: Wanted Dead or Alive,” which featured Frank Miller’s first Batman. No, that’s a little schmaltzy. How about the classics “Christmas on Bear Mountain,” which introduced the world to Carl Barks’ Uncle Scrooge McDuck. That’s pretty good. Or even the follow-up, “A Christmas for Shacktown,” which has great heart. Good choices both. But how about in the SF world? Connie Willis has done several great Christmas pieces. But, after much thought, it can only be Mr. Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. The original Scrooge finds the spirits of Christmas in a great ghost story that is so well done that everyone knows the story and still watches it. Instantly adaptable to whatever universe you work it into – the Muppets, Mr. Magoo, every cartoon or drama ever! “Marley was dead, to begin with!” Some of the most famous words ever written. And powerful too. So, for Christmas, go to the Dickens.

Joe McKinney: Joe McKinney, a two-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award, is an author in many genres, including horror, zombie apocalypse tales, ghost stories, virus thrillers, crime and science fiction. He has written 17 novels, developed two collections of short stories, created a tale for a comic book, and been both published in and edited numerous anthologies.

Well, I was going to say Die Hard, but you went and specified horror, science fiction or fantasy. Grrrr. I guess my second favorite would be a toss up between Henry James’ Turn of the Screw and the George C. Scott version of A Christmas Carol. Of the two, A Christmas Carol is obviously a Christmas themed tale, while Turn of the Screw is simply a frame story told on Christmas Eve, so I guess A Christmas Carol would have to win out. There have been lots of fine versions of the Charles Dickens classic, but George C. Scott brings is basically the human version of Grumpy Cat, and his screen presence is just perfect for the part of Scrooge. Also, and this is really what makes it, Scott is able to convey the essence of Scrooge’s redemption. He brings to life the fact that the book is not so much about fear of the grave, but fear that the heart may never love again. That’s why I like that version of the story so much.

Eugene Fischer: Eugene Fischer is a writer living in Austin, Texas. His latest novella, “The New Mother,” was named a best story of the year by io9, and has been optioned for television by Plan B Entertainment.

The two things that come to mind for me are both short stories. One is “Santa Claus vs. S.P.I.D.E.R.” by Harlan Ellison, a late 60s superspy romp that happens to star Kris Kringle as the free world’s most deadly secret agent. The other is “In The Late Decemeber” by Greg van Eekhout, a story that takes the grand human tradition of celebrating our resilience in the face of a long, cold winter to its logical conclusion by showing Santa’s struggle to spread cheer in an old, tired universe consumed by entropy.

 

Cocktail Hour: The Black Santa, inspired by Ramsey Campbell’s “The Chimney”

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The Black Santa promises a merry Christmas to all, and to all a terrifying night.

To my mind, there may be no better writer of horror short stories than Britain’s Ramsey Campbell.

Beyond his beautiful — sometimes oblique — prose, Campbell is a master at tapping into the subconscious fears we all carry from childhood. His stories are full of shadows that stalk us, frightening figures watching from a distance and unknowable things that slither in the dark.

His Christmas-themed short story “The Chimney” is a perfect example.

Its 12-year-old protagonist is a sensitive soul, afraid of the strange noises that lurk in the darkness of his family’s house. Among the scariest are those from the drafty chimney in his bedroom. In Campbell’s hands, the boy’s nightly lights-out becomes a surreal trip into a tunnel of horror — and likely similar to ones we experienced in our own childhoods as we awaited slumber.

"The Chimney" is available in Campbell's Alone with the Horrors collection.

“The shadows moved things,” Campbell writes. “The mesh of the fireguard fluttered enlarged on the wall; sometimes, at the edge of sleep, it became a swaying web, and its spinner came sidling down from a corner of the ceiling. Everything was unstable…”

Of course, the boy’s parents are no help. He’s coddled by his smothering mother, while his fear becomes an embarrassment for his no-nonsense father. Both are unable, for their own reasons, to break the news to him that Santa Claus doesn’t exist — even though he’s quickly drawing his own conclusions.

With his imagination left to wander, the young protagonist frets that Father Christmas — or some dark version of Father Christmas — is the source of the mysterious noises. While Campbell could take the theme in a campy direction, he never does. He lets our imaginations fill in the blanks, and the dark figure that finally appears to crawl from the flue is truly terrifying.

Campbell is a master of gut-punch endings, and “The Chimney” packs one. Don’t worry, I won’t give it away. Suffice to say you won’t see it coming, but when it arrives, it works within everything he laid out in plain view during the story’s set-up.

“The Chimney” is a great, gruesome antidote for forced holiday cheer, and precisely the kind of story that warrants reading with a good cocktail in hand. May I suggest the Black Santa, which combines the mystery of black vodka with seasonal flavors.

Black Santa

1/4 cup orange juice
1/4 cup cranberry juice
1/2 ounces Triple Sec
1 1/2 ounces black vodka, such as Blavod, or make your own
Rosemary sprig, for garnish

Shake the juices and strain into a glass. Using the back of a spoon, pour black vodka slowly into a glass so it rests menacingly atop the juice mixture. Carefully slip the rosemary sprig into the glass for a garnish.

Tune in Monday when I ask other writers, fans and artists to sound off on their favorite holiday-themed horror, fantasy and sf stories.

 

 

Forgotten Book: Harry O. Morris by Harry O. Morris (2015)

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Harry O. Morris

By Scott A. Cupp

This is the 169th in my series of Forgotten Books.

Years ago I first encountered the force of nature that is Harry O. Morris in the pages of the long gone and deeply missed fanzine Nyctalops. I received an issue for my birthday and it was filled with more information and visual stimulation than you should legally be allowed to have. The issue I got was devoted to the work of Clark Ashton Smith, though Lovecraft was the fanzine’s primary focus.

Then I saw some of his art at the World Fantasy Convention in Ft. Worth in 1978. It was so wildly different from everything else on exhibit there that, broke person which I was, I ended up buying two photo collages for my personal collection. I know that I still have one of them and maybe the second too.

I later met Harry in person at ArmadilloCon and he was every bit as weird and cool as you could expect. Eventually he married my friend Christine Pasanen and they were a lovely match. I visited them once in Albuquerque and it was great!

Recently, Jerad Walters, the madman behind Centipede Press, published this amazing artbook/biography of Harry. Filled with literally hundreds of photos of artwork from fanzines and book covers. And the introduction from Thomas Ligotti, a writer I first encountered through Harry’s work, is worth the price of admission alone.

One of Morris' book covers

I’m not going to talk much about the book. It is extraordinary and out of print from the publisher, though a few copies are still floating around out there in Webland. It’s a little expensive (not really) because it is filled with lots of heavy paper and color pictures. I’m going to post a photo of Harry and some of his work. This does not really begin to give you an idea of its brilliance. He works with pens, ink, colors, collage, photo emulsions and maybe magic.

If you are looking for the perfect present for that weird friend (who may even be yourself), give them this book. Offer a double or nothing deal if they don’t like it. You won’t have to pay up.

Happy Holidays to everyone out there. And remember, if it ain’t weird, you’re not trying hard enough.

Series organizer Patti Abbott hosts more Friday Forgotten Book reviews at her own blog, and posts a complete list of participating blogs.