Thursday, November 7, 2024

Wednesday Short Stories (on Thursday, due to recounts): Avram Davidson, Harlan Ellison, Thom Jones, John Sladek, Gahan Wilson, Isaac Asimov, et al: THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION, March 1973, edited by Edward L. Ferman

A redux post from 31 July 2009. Comments can be seen here.

Cover painting by Leo and Diane Dillon. This issue can be read here.

From the F&SF index--not a perfect tool, as one of the mistakes in Ellison's citations refers to the misbegotten television series The Starlost, which abused Ellison's "bible" and groundwork, as The Starcrossed, also correctly noted as Ellison collaborator Ben Bova's parodic novel about the travesty:

Dean McLaughlin, The Trouble With Project Slickenside nv
Avram Davidson. Books, reviewing:
Donald A. Wollheim (ed): The 1972 Annual World's Best SF; Terry Carr (ed) The Best Science Fiction of the Year; Robin Scott Wilson (ed): Clarion II; Lester del Rey (ed): Best Science Fiction Stories of the Year
Gahan Wilson, Cartoon ct
Thom Jones. Brother Dodo's Revenge ss
Edward Wellen, Chalk Talk vi
Baird Searles, Films: Return to Cobra Island
reviews Cobra Woman (1944), starring Maria Montez; The Undead (1957)
Chris G. Butler, A Coffin in Egypt ss
Gahan Wilson, The Zombie Butler vi; 6th story in Moral Vignettes series;
Waldo Carlton Wright, Spirit of the White Deer ss
John Sladek, Solar Shoe-Salesman by Ph*l*p K. D*ck ss
andrew j. offutt, Sareva: In Memoriam ss
Isaac Asimov, Science: Down From the Amoeba essay
Michael G. Coney, The Manya ss; 1st story in Finistelle series
Walter H. Kerr, poem
Harlan Ellison, The Deathbird nv (Winner-1974 Hugo, Jupiter, Locus Awards; Nominee-1973 Nebula award)

So, I'd picked this issue up off a stack and browsed the Table of Contents, and realized I couldn't remember reading the Avram Davidson book review column...Davidson, the brilliant fiction writer and former F&SF editor, would occasionally drop back in during the 1970s to offer a book column, one which otherwise would be conducted in those years by a rotating group including James Blish till his final illness, Algis Budrys with ever-greater frequency in the latter '70s, Joanna Russ, Barry Malzberg, and others from time to time (the best lineup any fantastic-fiction magazine has ever had in this wise, F&SF in the 1970s, even if Damon Knight didn't publish reviews again in F&SF after 1960, and Fritz Leiber in the 1970s published most of his in longterm "rival" magazine Fantasticinstead). Sadly, this consideration of three of the Best of the Year annuals and a Clarion writing workshop anthology is unusually slight and terse for a Davidson review, if gracious and witty. Oddly enough, one of Harlan Ellison's few book-review essays for F&SF, a year before, was also a rundown of the available BOTYs, and a very good one.

But, quite aside from offering a gorgeous wraparound cover by Leo and Diane Dillon, one of the best the magazine has published (and it's a pity the Dillons and Ellison don't seem to work together any longer [by the 2000s]--a falling out, or is it simply that the Dillons are too expensive for most of Ellison's publishers these days?), for the best Harlan Ellison story I've read so far (both in terms of its power and breadth and even its flaws being so much of the Ellison geist)...quite aside from that, this issue also contains the one Thom Jones contribution to F&SF, a story which The Pugilist at Rest writer might be ashamed of (or he might've feared that being associated with fantastic fiction or the magazine might tar him somehow, the Vonnegut Perplex or the Hortense Calisher flitter). As it is, it is a reasonably deftly written if rather heavy-handed Orwellian animal fantasy; rather than Lenin and Trotsky with trotters, we have a convocation of Black Panthers and the American Indian Movement and the Young Lords as a Pogo-esque mixture of human-hating animals, including insects and an ill-fated "Tomming" martyr to the Revolution in the form of a cow, sacrificed not altogether accidentally to further the cause (which is greater than the fate of any one constituent, doncha know). Like myself, only fifteen years or so earlier, Thom Jones was a University of Hawaii dropout who took his degree elsewhere.

Ed Ferman's editorship was at least as notable as those around his for the occasional contributions from fiction writers better known for work in other modes...the first F&SF I ever perused, but decided against buying since I had only so many quarters on hand and the magazine was a buck, was the Janauary, 1976 issue...led off by and perhaps best remembered for Joanna Russ's "My Boat," but also featuring Stuart Dybek's disturbing "Horror Movie." Ellen Gilchrist would place her "The Green Tent" with F&SF a decade later.

Some quick notes: Edward Wellen's vignette is one of the few linguistics fantasies, Chonskyite deep structure and all, that I've come across. Wellen, much like such others as Herny Slesar, Fredric Brown, and Miriam Allen de Ford, was a crime fiction/fantastic fiction amphibian, and like them a multiple-story contributor to F&SF and its shortlived sibling magazine Venture Science Fiction. In fact, he was enough of a favorite with Edward Ferman, editor of both magazines from the mid '60s to the turn of the '90s (well, the Venture revival lasted only a year or so at the turn of the '70s), so that Ferman took Wellen's long novella/short novel GOLDBRICK and ran it, despite it having essentially no sf nor fantasy content, in the November, 1978 issue...it was more a crime fiction, but the only cf magazine running any long stories at this point was Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, and the only long-form fiction it wanted to run were the ghosted Shayne novellas.

John Sladek's Dick parody was one of a series of short lampoons that Sladek was publishing in those years...I don't have the issue at hand at this moment, but it's a rich and dense parody, and if there's an indispensible line in it, it would be (paraphrased from memory, to be corrected later): "This was the end of existence, they all agreed."

Gahan Wilson contributed a cartoon to every issue of F&SF for 17 years, from Edward Ferman's first issuue till Ferman and Wilson had a falling out...a loss all around, particularly since Wilson's occasional fine fiction for the magazine also ceased.

andrew j. offutt often made a point of using all miniscules in his signatures in those years, and his story is almost a parody of Fritz Leiber's Conjure Wife at the point where I've broken off (I will slog through soon). offutt is probably best known these days for the rather bad relation he's had with his writer son Chris Offutt (who likes capitals). (The whole story is about how much less your kids like you than your spouse does, as well as pulling in some heavy winks about Bewitched the television series, as well.)

Baird Searles was the film, television, and general A/V club reviewer for F&SF from 1969 till moving over to be the book reviewer in Asimov's after the recently late Charles Brown left, in the early '80s. He and his life partner Martin Last ran The Science Fiction Shop in NYC in the '70s, as well. Searles had been preceded in the late 1950s by Charles Beaumont as film reviewer (with William Morrison also submitting at least one stage review), and was succeeded by Harlan Ellison, Kathi Maio, and Lucius Shepard.

Dean McLaughlin was one of the folks who did consistently good, and occasionally great, work for various magazines starting around the turn of the '60s...the last time Davidson, Ellison, and McLaughlin had been in the same issue was a decade before, when Davidson had been editing.

Walter Kerr the poet eventually started adding his middle initial to his F&SF contributions to stave off confusion with the NYC stage critic. F&SF contributor Paul Darcy Bowles felt a similar responsibility.

Isaac Asimov eventually wrote 399 monthly pop-science essays (a few touched only peripherally on science) for F&SF, and credited that series, and the predecessor column in the shortlived first run of stablemate Venture Science Fiction, with inspiring his most prominent public career, as a pop science writer.


Wednesday, October 30, 2024

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!

Monday, October 14, 2024

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.


























    • 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
































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 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


















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.


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