Wednesday's Short Stories (and related fiction): Abbott Vacation Edition: 30 October 2024

thanks to John Boston and Sandra Kisner for spotting linking errors in earlier drafts!

Brad Bigelow: "Five Star Final", a play by Louis Weitzenkorn

John Boston: Amazing Stories, November 1969, edited by Ted White

Ben Boulden: "Battered Spouse" by Jeremiah Healy, The Armchair Detective, Fall 1990, edited by Allen J. Hubin; Eight Very Bad Nights edited by Tod Goldberg

Brian Busby: Barnabas, Quentin and the Crystal Coffin by "Marilyn" (W. E. D./Dan) Ross, and other Dark Shadows tie-in literature; "Woman-handled" by Arthur Stringer, The Saturday Evening Post, 2 May 1925, edited by George Horace Lorimer

Eric Compton/Tom Simon (Paperback Warrior): Killer Delivery by Calum France, e-chapbook

Will Errickson: Night Visions 1 aka In the Blood edited by Alan Ryan

Paul Fraser: "A Thing of Beauty" by Norman Spinrad, Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, January 1973, edited by Ben Bova

Rich Horton: Miss Pickerell and the Geiger Counter by Ellen MacGregor (with a long comment by Jerry House)

Jerry House: Astounding Science Fiction, October 1949, edited by John W. Campbell, Jr. (a birthday post); Miss Pickerell short novels

Kate Jackson: The Shadowed Circle Compendium edited by Steve Donoso

JJ: Wicked Spirits edited by Tony Medawar

Kaggsy: El informe de Brodie/Doctor Brodie's Report by Jorge Luis Borges (translated by Andrew Hurley)

George Kelley: Murder Most Delectable edited by Martin Harry Greenberg; Final War and Other Fantasies and In the Pocket and Other Science Fiction Stories by Barry N. Malzberg

David Levinson: Venture Science Fiction, November 1969, edited by Edward Ferman

Evan Lewis: "The Unspeakable Affair" by "Robert Hart Davis" (apparently Dennis Lynds, in this case), The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Magazine, April 1966, edited by Cylvia Kleinman and Alden H. Norton

Steve Lewis: "Fly Paper" by Dashiell Hammett, Black Mask, August 1929, edited by Joseph Shaw; The Big Knockover and Other Stories by Dashiell Hammett, edited by Lillian Hellman

Robert Lopresti: "Shakedown Street" by James D. F. Hannah, Friends of the Devil: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of the Grateful Dead edited by Josh Pachter

Todd Mason: Swords and Deviltry by Fritz Leiber; Night's Black Agents by Fritz Leiber; The Aleph and Other Stories 1933-1969 by Jorge Luis Borges (translated by Borges and Norman Thomas diGiovanni)

Fiona Moore: New Worlds, November 1969, edited by Michael Moorcock

Neeru: 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff (our token epistolary memoir)

John O'Neill: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Summer 2024, edited by Sheree Renée Thomas; Analog Science Fiction and Fact, September/October 2024, edited by Trevor Quachri; Asimov's Science Fiction, September/October 2024, edited by Sheila Williams

"MPorcius": World's Best Science Fiction: 1968 edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Terry Carr

James Reasoner: Battle Birds, February 1940, edited by Harry Steeger; Texas Rangers, February 1952, edited by Jim Hendryx; "Hero Stuff" by Frederick C. Davis, Wings, February 1928; Fighting Western, October 1946; Exciting Western, December 1944; Weasels Ripped My Flesh! The Illustrated Men's Adventure Anthology edited by Robert Deis, Wyatt Doyle and Josh Alan Friedman; Looking for Lost Streets and High Fliers, Middleweights and Lowlifes by Cullen Gallagher; "Lair of the Serpent Queen" (a novella) by James Reasoner

Jack Seabrook: "11 O'Clock Bulletin" by Robert Turner, Bluebook, February 1955, edited by André Fontaine; adapted for Alfred Hitchcock Presents: with a teleplay by Evan Hunter as "Appointment at Eleven"

Robert Silverberg: The Worlds of Robert F. Young (in review column "The Spectroscope")

Victoria Silverwolf: Fantastic Stories, October 1969, edited by Ted White

Kevin Tipple: Sex and Violins: An Erotic Crime Anthology edited by Sandra Murphy

"TomCat": "The Oblong Room" by Edward D. Hoch, The Saint Magazine July 1967, edited by Hans Stefan Santesson

*Performance: Joyce Carol Oates's "Pumpkin Head" performed by Bill Connington

*J. Kingston Pierce's report on the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest

Happy All Hallows!

Short Story (and Novella) Wednesday: Fritz Leiber: SWORDS AND DEVILTRY (Ace Books, 1970) #1970Club

The 1973 second edition, the version I've had for some decades:

Swords and Deviltry collects, in terms of narrative or internal chronology, the first three fantasy stories of the swordsmen, thieves and mercenaries Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, the former a tall hulking figure from the barbarian North of the planet Nehwon (which is a reversal of "No when", a bit of tribute to Samuel Butler's Erewhon), the latter a short, slight man of great agility and speed, from points southerly; they eventually meet in their world's largest city, Lankhmar. The first novella, "The Snow Women" (1970), gives Fafhrd's origin story, as the magical-apron-string-bound prince of the Snow Clan finds love with visiting young actress, touring up north with the annual visitation of outlander traders and show people; Fafhrd being a sort of analog of Leiber himself, who was raised largely by aunts while his parents were touring the country with their Shakespearean troupe. "The Unholy Grail", a novelet written a decade earlier, gives the early years of Mouse, who would become the Mouser, their innings; Harry Fischer, a great friend of Leiber, and direct collaborator on several of the earliest-written stories in the F&GM series, was the model for Mouse/the Gray Mouser. And "Ill Met in Lankhmar", a 1970 novella which won both the Hugo and Nebula awards for Leiber (in those years where there was, for a while, no regular award for fantasy fiction), brings the two men and their womenfriends together for the first time...and binds them with even greater tragedy than they faced earlier. The first and third stories had been written in the wake of the rather early death of Leiber's wife, Jonquil, which had sent him into probably his most profound alcoholic tailspin, a recurring problem for Leiber; he would often use the writing of Fafhrd and Mouser stories to help overcome the worst bouts of his addiction to some degree. Of all the Ace paperback volumes which initially gathered the sword and sorcery fiction of Leiber, this one has always been the dearest to me, even given the relative lack of heft of "The Unholy Grail"--more than made up for by both the novellas...which notably appeared in the same cover-dated issues for the two most notable English-language fantasy-fiction magazines in 1970, Fantastic and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Most of the other Ace volumes would mix stories of varying quality, from readable at worst to utterly brilliant, but "Ill Met" is one of the best, if not the best, of the stories in the series, and "The Snow Women" is funny and sharply observed, almost as deft in its satire of sexual politics (from an essentially pro-feminist, but not at all obsequiously so, point of view, not unlike his brilliant first novel, Conjure Wife...and incorporating some of the resentment Leiber would express for the restrictiveness of his upbringing, and its consequences, in other stories, such as "Gonna Roll the Bones"). 

First edition, art by Jeff Jones.

The 1957 hardcover first collection devoted to (older) Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories.

Swords and Deviltry by Fritz Leiber (Ace Books, May 1970, pb) [Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser]
• Author’s Introduction · in 
• Induction · vi Two Sought Adventure Gnome Press 1957
• The Snow Women · na Fantastic Apr 1970
• The Unholy Grail · nv Fantastic Oct 1962
• Ill Met in Lankhmar · na F&SF Apr 1970

First US hardcover edition, Gregg Press 1977

April 1970

April 1970

October 1962

Ill Met in Lankhmar Fritz Leiber (White Wolf/Borealis 1-56504-926-8, Oct ’95 [Sep ’95], $19.99, 337pp, hc, cover by Mike Mignola & Sherilyn Van Valkenburgh) [Fafhrd & Gray Mouser] Omnibus of the first two Ace Books collections featuring Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, Swords and Deviltry (Ace 1970) and Swords Against Death (Ace 1970). There is a new introduction by Michael Moorcock. The introductory material by Leiber himself is taken from the 1977 Gregg Press editions, and includes pieces dated 1962, 1973, 1974, and 1977.

• vii · Introduction · Michael Moorcock · in
• 1 · Original Author’s Introduction · in
• 21 · The Gray Mouser: 1 · pm
• 22 · The Gray Mouser: 2 · pm
• 23 · Induction · vi 
• 25 · The Snow Women · na Fantastic Apr ’70
• 85 · The Unholy Grail · nv Fantastic Oct ’62
• 107 · Ill Met in Lankhmar · na F&SF Apr ’70
• 160 · Author’s Foreword · fw
• 161 · The Circle Curse · ss Swords Against Death, Ace, 1970
• 171 · The Jewels in the Forest [“Two Sought Adventure”] · nv Unknown Aug ’39
• 199 · Thieves’ House · nv Unknown Feb ’43
• 225 · The Bleak Shore · ss Unknown Nov ’40
• 235 · The Howling Tower · ss Unknown Jun ’41
• 249 · The Sunken Land · ss Unknown Feb ’42
• 263 · The Seven Black Priests · nv Other Worlds Science Stories May ’53
• 285 · Claws from the Night [“Dark Vengeance”] · nv Suspense Magazine Fall ’51
• 307 · The Price of Pain-Ease · ss Swords Against Death, Ace, 1970; F&SF Oct '71
• 317 · Bazaar of the Bizarre · nv Fantastic Aug ’63

The UK corresponding volume, Gollancz 2001

The First Book of Lankhmar Fritz Leiber (Orion/Gollancz 1-85798-327-0, Jun 2001, £6.99, 762pp, tp, cover by Chris Moore) [Fafhrd & Gray Mouser] Fantasy omnibus of the first four “Swords” books: Swords and Deviltry (Ace, 1970); Swords Against Death (Ace, 1970); Swords in the Mist (Ace, 1968) and Swords Against Wizardry (Ace, 1968). Volume 18 in the “Fantasy Masterworks” series.

• 1 · Swords and Deviltry · co New York: Ace, 1970
• 5 · Induction · vi
• 7 · The Snow Women · na Fantastic Apr ’70
• 81 · The Unholy Grail · nv Fantastic Oct ’62
• 108 · Ill Met in Lankhmar · na F&SF Apr ’70
• 171 · Swords Against Death · co New York: Ace, 1970
• 177 · The Circle Curse · ss Swords Against Death, Ace, 1970
• 188 · The Jewels in the Forest [“Two Sought Adventure”] · nv Unknown Aug ’39
• 225 · Thieves’ House · nv Unknown Feb ’43
• 258 · The Bleak Shore · ss Unknown Nov ’40
• 269 · The Howling Tower · ss Unknown Jun ’41
• 284 · The Sunken Land · ss Unknown Feb ’42
• 302 · The Seven Black Priests · nv Other Worlds Science Stories May ’53
• 328 · Claws from the Night [“Dark Vengeance”] · nv Suspense Magazine Fall ’51; Also published as ‘Claws in the Night’.
• 354 · The Price of Pain-Ease · ss Swords Against Death, Ace, 1970
• 367 · Bazaar of the Bizarre · nv Fantastic Aug ’63
• 393 · Swords in the Mist · co New York: Ace, 1968
• 399 · The Cloud of Hate · ss Fantastic May ’63
• 413 · Lean Times in Lankhmar · nv Fantastic Nov ’59
• 454 · Their Mistress, the Sea · ss Swords in the Mist, Ace, 1968
• 458 · When the Sea-King’s Away · nv Fantastic May ’60
• 484 · The Wrong Branch · ss Swords in the Mist, Ace, 1968
• 491 · Adept’s Gambit · na Night’s Black Agents, Arkham, 1947
• 577 · Swords Against Wizardry · co New York: Ace, 1968
• 581 · In the Witch’s Tent · ss Swords Against Wizardry, Ace, 1968
• 587 · Stardock · nv Fantastic Sep ’65
• 652 · The Two Best Thieves in Lankhmar · ss Fantastic Aug ’68
• 669 · The Lords of Quarmall · Fritz Leiber & Harry Fischer · na Fantastic in two parts: Jan and Feb ’64 

The Centipede Press trade edition, 2017

Submitted for the #1970Club roundelay, gathered at 

Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings

and Stuck in a Book.

Laurie Kilmartin: Stand Up At THE TALK (CBS 11 October 2024)

A good short set!

Philadelphians and visitors can see Laurie Kilmartin at Helium 2 November...and Maria Bamford on several days in late October in the same club. And, with luck, you won't be seated next to the door near the dishwasher as I was at one afternoon show (Jimmy Pardo and Matt Belknap of Never Not Funny) a few years back.

Kilmartin's website 

Jackie Kashian's website (as podcast partner of LK and great friend of both her and Maria Bamford)

Bamford's website

Short Story Wednesday: "Angels and Saints" by Bobbi A. Chukran (Undertaker Press 2024 e-chapbook); "Chessboard" and "The Mirror" by Emmy Li, THE MAILER REVIEW 15, 2021, edited by Philip Sipiora and Michael Shuman

"Angels and Saints" is one of the first stories to be offered, as a free download, from an upcoming sequel ebook/bound paper anthology to the Undertaker Books anthology Stories to Take to Your Grave, Volume One. It's by Bobbi A. Chukran, a veteran writer of nonfiction and some fiction and plays (including a novel in 2006, and the continuing "Nameless, Texas" series of short stories) who is now turning some of her efforts to "weird western" fiction and related fantastica. The Mailer Review's 15th anniversary issue similarly arrived yesterday in the mail, as a surprise, after managing editor Michael Shuman's kind offer of the previous issue, a while back, to members of the FictionMags email discussion list. So, friendly netquaintances are the source of this week's texts.

"Angels and Saints" is a finely-detailed short story, set in Texas in the 1920s, involving a minister out riding his horse in open country to help, among other things, formulate the next sermon he'd deliver, who gets caught up in a storm and finds shelter at an isolated house, occupied solely by a caretaker while the other residents are away, who has his own sort of religious expression, carving icons such as the one pictured above, which is one Bobbi owns and which inspired this story. The arc of the story is a familiar one, but it demonstrates Bobbi's love of the setting and deft employment of small details. 

Bobbi Chukran is a professional writer expanding her palette; while Emmy Li, in the 2021 volume (and latest so far) of The Mailer Review, largely devoted to the work of Normal Mailer, gives us two examples of the very young writer showing promise. "Chessboard" is also a ghost story, involving a young woman's last game with her late grandfather's spirit, who had engaged her in the game from early childhood, and it had been a goal for her to finally win a game with him. "The Mirror" is a less cozy sort of ghostly horror, which gives away its author's youth in the slightly rushed set-up, in which a doppelganger manages to gain access to the life of the protagonist (albeit surfiction by elders can also take a similarly "OK, why not?" tack). She wrote well for a 9th grader, and presumably is now a high-school graduate likely on her way to college (her desire was to become a professional educator, the contributors' notes indicate...there was no headnote on her two short stories, that lead off the fiction and poetry in this issue of the Review, to suggest her mid-teens status at time of composition, and the work is certainly of the better sort for a writer of her years).

For more of today's Short Story Reviews, please see Patti Abbott's blog.

Short Story Wednesday+: links to the reviews for the week of 14 August 2024

Short Story Wednesday:

Patricia Abbott: "How to Talk to Your Mother" by Lorrie Moore, first published in her collection Self Help (1985). The story can be read here.

Jerry House: "Gynecologia" by Gilbert Cannan, first published in his collection Windmills: A Book of Fables (1915). The story can be read here.

George Kelley: Margolyam by Matthew Hughes (reviewed as a collection of linked stories, though Hughes considers it a novel), 2024.

Todd Mason: "She-Bear" by Janet Fox, an "Arcana" story, Fantastic Stories, January 1974, edited by Ted White. Can be read here.

Plus:

John Boston: Amazing Stories, September 1969, edited by Ted White

Rachel Cordasco and "Joachim Boaz": "Drugs'll Do You" by Kathinka Lannoy, translated by Joe F. Randolf, for publication in Terra SF edited by Richard D. Nolane

Will Errickson: "Talent" by Theodore Sturgeon, Beyond: Fantasy Fiction, September 1953, edited by H. L. Gold; "Naturally" by Fredric Brown, Beyond, September 1954, edited by Gold

Rich Horton: Peace by Gene Wolfe (and the stories "retold" in it); Olivia (a novella) by "Olivia" (Dorothy Strachey Bussy)

Jerry House: A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

Tracy K: Tales from the Café by Toshikazu Kawaguchi; Nearly Nero by Loren D. Estleman

Steve Lewis: Weird Tales, January 1949, edited by Dorothy McIlwraith; Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, August 1967, edited by John W. Campbell, Jr.

Neeru: Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren (translated by Edna Hurup) A children's novel, therefore basically a novella (a woman's work in translation entry)

James Reasoner: Texas Rangers, July 1949, edited by ?G. B. Farnum

Steven H. Silver: "Cronus" by Marianne Puxley, Interzone, May-June 1989, edited by Simon Ournsley and David Pringle

Victoria Silverwolf: Fantastic Stories,August 1969, edited by Ted White 

and:

Evan Lewis: some 1934 Spicy Detective covers

K. A. Laity: "Murder, Surrealism, Women’s Rage, and Les Abysses"

William Gibson and Malcolm Edwards: On Neuromancer

 

SSW: "She-Bear" by Janet Fox, a "lost"/unreprinted Arcana story, FANTASTIC STORIES, January 1974, edited by Ted White: Short Story Wednesday

The FictionMags Index entry for this issue:

Fantastic Stories [v23 #2, January 1974] (60¢, 132pp, digest, cover by Esteban Maroto) 

• 6 · The Earth of Nenkunal · Howard L. Myers · na; given as by Howard L. Meyers except on the cover.
• 50 · Alien · David R. Bunch · vi
• 52 · …And Another World Above · Ted White · nv
• 76 · She-Bear [Arcana] · Janet Fox · ss
• 87 · The Interview · J. J. Russ · ss
• 98 · Network · Barry N. Malzberg · ss
• 106 · Heartburn in Heaven · Susan Doenim · ss

The ISFDB index entry:

4 • Editorial (Fantastic, January 1974) • [Editorial (Fantastic)] • essay by Ted White

• 6 • The Earth of Nenkunal • [Econo-war • 1] • novella by Howard L. Myers [as by Howard L. Meyers]
• 7 •  The Earth of Nenkunal • interior artwork by Jeff Jones
• 50 • Alien • short story by David R. Bunch
• 52 • ... And Another World Above • novelette by Ted White
• 53 •  ...And Another World Above • interior artwork by Michael Nally
• 76 • She-Bear • short story by Janet Fox
• 77 •  She-Bear • interior artwork by Michael Kaluta [as by Mike Kaluta]
• 87 • The Interview • short story by J. J. Russ
• 98 • Network • short story by Barry N. Malzberg
• 99 •  Network • interior artwork by Joe Staton
• 106 • Heartburn in Heaven • short story by George Alec Effinger [as by Susan Doenim]
• 107 •  Heartburn in Heaven • interior artwork by Gray Morrow
• 119 • ... According to You (Fantastic, January 1974) • [According to You (Fantastic)] • letter column conducted by Ted White

The story can be read here, in its issue of Fantastic.

There were, unfortunately, only three stories in the late Janet Fox's series about Arcana, a young witch who becomes also a somewhat reluctant warrior in narratives that deserved a bit more exploration, and a collection, but Fox only published two collections of her short fiction during her lifetime, and the other two stories, one each, were collected from first publication in Fantastic in the '70s, in her 2003 volume A Witch's Dozen and 2004 (and final) collection Not in Kansas. I'd read and very much enjoyed the last, "Demon and Demoiselle" in the October, 1978 Fantastic, which I purchased and read when it and I were new...along with the Barry Malzberg and Bill Pronzini story, "Another Burnt-Out Case", they were the best things in the issue, and have read the initial story "A Witch in Time" (1973) some years back in Not in Kansas, but somehow never got around to reading the middle story, even though I have a copy of that issue somewhere.

If her work in sword & sorcery fiction resembles anyone's, it most closely (in my experience) matches a slightly more plainspoken version of Fritz Leiber's, and his wasn't the worst model to emulate, in fact essentially the best. Perhaps I've been putting off reading "She-Bear" since we'll have no more of her, nor Fox's other fine work.

In this story, Arcana is seeking a magic-driven sword, in the company of a pony which has been possessed by a hobbled demon under her control, and having found it, meets a displaced northern band of a warrior culture (women and children as well as men), and seeks out (with one of their male warriors) the troll that forced them away from their settlement. Thus, nothing in outline Too surprising in s&s, but written with grace, wit, and an acute sense of women's estate (in our society as well as the northern band's). 

I'm glad I've finally read it, and am sorry Fox didn't choose (or wasn't able) to write more of Arcana.

For more of today's short fiction, please see Patti Abbott's blog.

Christopher Rowe's blogpost about Fox's Arcana stories.

My memorial post for Janet Fox from 2009