Friday, January 26, 2018

Friday's "Forgotten" Books and more: the links to the reviews and more

This week's books, unfairly (or sometimes fairly) neglected, or simply those the reviewers below think you might find of some interest (or, infrequently, to be warned away from)--certainly, this week we have no shortage of not at all forgotten titles. Patti Abbott will host again next week.

Rest in Glory: Ursula K. Le Guin, Julius Lester, Dallas Mayr.

Walter Albert: The Alienist by Caleb Carr

Yvette Banek: The Ponson Case by Freeman Wills Croft


Bernadette: Fierce Kingdom by Gin Phillips


Les Blatt: The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie; The Sunken Sailor by Patricia Moyes


John Boston: Amazing: Fact and Science Fiction Stories, February 1963, edited by Cele Goldsmith

Brian Busby: The Heiress of Castle Cliffe by May Agnes Fleming 


Bill Crider: The Winter is Past by Harry Whittington

Martin Edwards: The Deadly Dove by Rufus King


Peter Enfantino, Jack Seabrook and Jose Cruz: EC Comics, September 1954

Barry Ergang (hosted by Kevin Tipple): The Case of the Sleepwalker's Niece by Erle Stanley Gardner


Will Errickson: The Tribe by Bari Wood (among her other work); Dallas Mayr (aka Jack Ketchum)

Curtis Evans: The White Cockatoo by Mignon G. Eberhart

Elisabeth Grace Foley: The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk 


Paul Fraser: Astounding Stories, February 1938, edited by John W. Campbell, Jr.

Barry Gardner: Night Prey by "John Sandford" (John Camp) 


John Grant: Malice by Keigo Hagashino (translated by Alexander O. Smith); Beware the Young Stranger by "Ellery Queen" (in this case, Talmage Powell)

Rich Horton: Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin; Rainbow's End by Vivian Radcliffe; Planet of No Return by Poul Anderson; Star Guard by Andre Norton; Rocannon's World by Ursula K. Le Guin; The Kar-Chee Reign by Avram Davidson


Jerry House: An Earth Gone Mad by Roger Dee [Aycock] 


TracyK: Death Wears Pink Shoes by Robert James

Colman Keane: Crime Syndicate, January 2016, edited by Michael Pool and Eric Beetner

George Kelley: The Great SF Stories (1964) edited by Robert Silverberg and Martin Harry Greenberg


Joe Kenney: Logan's World by William F. Nolan

Margot Kinberg; Killer Instinct by Zoë Sharp


Rob Kitchin: Blood Curse by Maurizio de Giovanni

B. V. Lawson:  Mrs. Knox's Profession by Jessica Mann


Ursula K. Le Guin: early writing 



Evan Lewis: The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara


Steve Lewis: "Dyed to Death" by K. G. McAbee; The Blind Side by Patricia Wentworth


Brian Lindenmuth: Iron Men and Silver Stars edited by Donald Hamilton 


Gideon Marcus: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1963, edited by Avram Davidson

Todd Mason: The Dark Side edited by Damon Knight (et al.); SF Horizons edited by Harry Harrison and Brian W. Aldiss

Steven Nester: Hollywood and LeVine by Andrew Bergman 


James Nicoll: Hammer's Slammers by David Drake

John F. Norris:  The Other Passenger by John Kier Cross


John O'Neill: The Machine in Shaft Ten by M. John Harrison

Matt Paust: Present Danger by Stella Rimington


James Reasoner: "Ki-Gor--And the Temple of the Moon-God" by "John Peter Drummond"


Jack Seabrook and Peter Enfantino: DC War Comics 1971 

John Self: The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas (translated by Elizabeth Rokkan)

Steven Silver: "Lost Paradise" by Catherine L. Moore 

Victoria Silverwolf: Fantastic: Stories of Imagination, February 1963, edited by Cele Goldsmith (featuring Le Guin's "second story")

Kerrie Smith: The Murder at Sissingham Hall by Clara Benson


Kevin Tipple: Mexico Fever by George Kier


"TomKat": The Vampire Tree by Paul Halter (translated by John Pugmire)


Prashant Trikannad: Merrick by Ben Boulden




Thursday, January 25, 2018

AOL and Yahoo News, your alternate history news sources...

Image may contain: 1 person






[Reagan's Watergate coverage courtesy Gordon Van Gelder]


 from a Yahoo News sidebar today, this photo (since somehow "scrubbed" so replaced with similar Mary Tyler Moore photo) and headline together:
 

Mark E. Smith, frontman of British post-punk band the Fall, dead at 60

Friday, January 19, 2018

FFB: HEAVEN AND HELL edited by Joan D. Berbrich (McGraw-Hill 1975); SUPERFICTION, OR THE AMERICAN STORY TRANSFORMED edited by Joe David Bellamy (Random House/Vintage 1975)


Two 1975 textbooks, more or less.

Though Joe David Bellamy's anthology SuperFiction was published in Random House's "prestige" paperback line Vintage (and to be published in 1975 as a slightly beefy mass-market paperback with a pricetag of $4.95, without color plates inside or anything else very expensive about its production, was to trade very heavily on that notion of prestige), and was available in at least some bookstores as a regular trade item, it clearly was from inception meant to be sold primarily to a limited audience, and often as not as a textbook (in 1975, a mass-market paperback from Random House's recently-acquired Ballantine paperback line, of similar dimensions and page count, would be printed on slightly thinner, less acid-free paper and probably go for $1.50). It, however, is a rather charming anthology demonstrating some of the various means US fiction had been exploring fantasticated approaches, in form and content, to cope with the world and the human condition since mid-century.  

Anatole Broyard didn't like this book. But, even as late as 1975, perhaps except at Vintage's sales department (and even there maybe with mixed emotions), it wasn't really expected or hoped that Broyard and (perhaps even more) those he could be seen to represent in the cultural establishment would like the book or the fiction it hoped to showcase, even given that the contributors were often not the youngest of young lions, even if on average a bit younger and more untraditional than even such peers as Saul Bellow or Mary McCarthy or Philip Roth. 

While (with this third example of the high school-oriented "Patterns of Literary Art" series of textbooks I've dealt with over the last three weeks, as examples of of what McGraw-Hill and other explicit textbook publishers decided they had latitude to experiment with by the 1970s), Joan Berbrich was attempting something perhaps even a bit more "subversive" than what Bellamy hoped to suggest, in moving in her book  from religious texts and similar matter to various sorts of intentional fantasy fiction, and treating with folklore and myth also treated as such at time of writing, to both engage young student readers and also to get at the underlying currents of literature, and, like Bellamy, to demonstrate how this fantasticated material was taking on, in its various ways, the largest questions facing humanity that are or can be explored by art. And doing so via the inclusion, in a 1975 text, of not only a poetical play for voices by Robert Frost, but also a radio play, classics by Tolstoi and Dante (as translated by John Ciardi) and Benet and Beerbohm and John Collier  (and less-well-known gems by Alice Laurance and Robert Arthur and Stephen Goldin and Bruce Elliot),  and Julian Lester's retelling of the Stagolee/Stackolee/Stagger Lee folktale...Lester having just died yesterday, after an eventful and accomplished life and a short illness. Berbrich also includes a fine "first story" by Joyce Winslow, "Benjamen Burning" (the name as presented), which had been in the 1969 Best American Short Stories, after publication in a University of Michigan campus magazine and reprint in R. V. Cassill's "best of the young writers" anthology Intro 1 the previous year. (Most sources cite the Cassill as the source of the story, which is incorrect, as I was able to confirm with Ms. Winslow yesterday; after her own rather impressive career so far, focusing in large part on various sorts of public relations nonfiction writing, she's looking forward to seeing in print her first collection of her short stories for adults, to include this and other Pushcart Prizes-reprinted, National Press Club Prize-winning and other short stories she's been publishing over the years.) It's also notable how this book recapitulates the "multiple stories from one source" trope evident in the Leo P. Kelley volumes in the series: the Laurance and the Goldin stories come from the same all-originals anthology Protostars; amusingly, between the two 1975 books considered this week, the Joyce Winslow and the Joyce Carol Oates stories were in the same 1969 volume of BASS. 

More to come about all this, as personal events are intruding on each other...and I wasn't even able to finish the the revised index of the Berbrich anthology yesterday, though I did improve considerably and correct a few omissions in the Contento Anthology Index listing for the Bellamy.

Heaven and Hell edited by Joan D. Berbrich (McGraw-Hill 0-07-004837-1, Patterns in Literary Art series, 1975, 268+vii pp, trade paperback)

vi · General Introduction · Joan D. Berbrich · in

· Heaven and Hell and All That · Joan D. Berbrich · es

· The Last Judgment · Cynewulf · pm
· African Heaven · Francis Ernest Kobina Parkes · pm · New World Writing #15 1959
12 · Stagolee · Julian Lester · folktale Black Folktales (Grove Press 1969)
25 · What Price Heaven?  · Howard Maier · radio play
48 · The Last Ghost · Stephen Goldin · (ss) Protostars, edited by David Gerrold and Stephen Goldin (Ballantine, 1971)
56 · Chances Are · Alice Laurance · (ss) Protostars, edited by David Gerrold and Stephen Goldin (Ballantine, 1971)
67 · The Grey Ones · J. B. Priestley · (nv) Lilliput Apr/May 1953
85 · The Dead · Denise Levertov ·  (pm) With Eyes at the Back of Our Heads (New Directions, 1959)

89
 · The Paths of Good and Bad Intention · Joan D. Berbrich · es
93 · Our Lady's Juggler · Anatole France · (ss) Mother of Pearl (translated by Frederic Chapman; John Lane/The Bodley Head 1909)
100 · Benjamen Burning · Joyce Madelon Winslow · (ss) Generation V. 19 N. 2 1968
118 · The Devil Grows Jubilant · Daniel B. Straley · (pm) Said the Devil to His Wife and Other Poems (Normandie House 1944--Chicago-based vanity press?)
120 · How the Devil Redeemed the Crust of Bread · Leo Tolstoy · folktale (translated by Leo Weiner) What Shall We Do Then?... (The Complete Works of Count Tolstoy, V. 42)(The Colonial Press, 1904)
124 · The Happy Hypocrite · Max Beerbohm · (nv) The Yellow Book October 1896
150 · A Ballad of Hell · John Davidson · (pm) 

157 · Bargains with the Devil · Joan D. Berbrich · es
160 · Ballad of Faustus · Anon. 
· song
164 · The Devil and Daniel Webster · Stephen Vincent Benet · (ss) The Saturday Evening Post Oct 24 1936
180 · Satan and Sam Shay 
· Robert Arthur · (ss) The Elks Magazine Aug 1942
196 · The Devil and the Old Man · John Masefield · (ss)  The Green Sheaf #6, 1903
203 · Thus I Refute Beelzy · John Collier ·  (ss) The Atlantic Monthly October 1940 (third and final ending version...Collier kept adding to the last lines)
209 
· The Devil was Sick · Bruce Elliott ·  (ss) The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction April 1951

221 
· Reward and Retribution · Joan D. Berbrich · es
224 · The White Stone Canoe · Henry Rowe Schoolcraft and John Bierhorst · folktale/myth (The Fire Plume: Legends of the American Indians, Dial Press 1969)
228 · Go Down, Death! · James Weldon Johnson · pm (God's Trombones, The Viking Press, 1927)
232 · from The Inferno, Canto V, The Carnal · Dante Alighieri · The Inferno (translated by John Ciardi; Mentor Books/New American Library 1954)
239 · The Devil and Tom Walker · Washington Irving  · (ss) Tales of a Traveller, John Murray, 1824
252 · Right and Wrong · Hesiod · pm (translator?)
254 · A Masque of Reason · Robert Frost · verse play (Henry Holt, 1945)




Revised from the Contento Index:

    • Fantasy • Fabulation • Irrealism
    • 23 · Unready to Wear · Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. · ss Galaxy Science Fiction April 1953
    • 40 · The Elevator · Robert Coover · ss Pricksongs & Descants (Dutton 1969) --possibly reprinted rather than first published here
    • 54 · Quake · Rudolph Wurlitzer · ex Quake (Dutton 1972)
    • 76 · Chiaroscuro: a Treatment of Light and Shade · Ursule Molinaro · ss TriQuarterly Winter 1974
    • Neo-Gothic
    • 91 · By the River · Joyce Carol Oates · ss December 1968
    • 113 · The Universal Fears · John Hawkes · ss American Review #16,  February 1973 (Bantam)
    • 129 · Manikin · Leonard Michaels · ss Massachusetts Review Winter 1968
    • 137 · In Which Esther Gets a Nose Job · Thomas Pynchon · ex V (Lippincott 1963)
    • Myth • Parable
    • 157 · Queen Louisa · John Gardner · ss The King’s Indian (Knopf 1974)
    • 173 · Order of Insects · William H. Gass · ss The Minnesota Review 1962
    • 182 · One’s Ship · Barton Midwood · ss The Paris Review Winter 1966
    • 187 · Saying Good-Bye to the President · Robley Wilson, Jr. · ss Esquire February 1974
    • Metafiction • Technique as Subject
    • 197 · Life-Story · John Barth · ss Lost in the Funhouse (Doubleday 1968)
    • 213 · Sentence · Donald Barthelme · ss The New Yorker, March 7, 1970
    • 221 · The Moon in Its Flight · Gilbert Sorrentino · ss New American Review #13 1971 
    • 234 · What’s Your Story · Ronald Sukenick · ss The Paris ReviewFall 1968
    • Parody & Put-On
    • 259 · The Loop Garoo Kid · Ishmael Reed · ex Yellow Back Radio Broke Down (Doubleday 1969)
    • 274 · A Lot of Cowboys · Judith Rascoe · ss The Atlantic Monthly November 1970
    • 282 · At the National Festival · John Batki · ss Fiction, Fall 1972
    • 289 · Under the Microscope · John Updike · ss The Transatlantic Review. #28 Spring 1968 · illustrations by Ann Haven Morgan
For more of today's books, please see Patti Abbott's blog.

Friday, January 12, 2018

Friday's "Forgotten" Books (and more): the links to reviews and more

This week's books, unfairly (or sometimes fairly) neglected, or simply those the reviewers below think you might find of some interest (or, infrequently, to be warned away from). Patti Abbott will probably be hosting again next week, watch this space for further developments...

Frank Babics: The Fiction Desk 10: Separations edited by Rob Redman

Mark Baker: The Forgotten Man by Robert Crais

Yvette Banek: Triple Zeck: And Be a Villain; The Second Confession; In the Best Families by Rex Stout

Les Blatt: The Bar on the Seine by Georges Simenon (currently in-print version, as The Two-Penny Bar, translated by David Watson)

Robert Briney: The Three Coffins by John Dickson Carr


Brian Busby: "Nemesis Wins" by Grant Allen

Bill Crider: The Long Haul by Anthony Johnston and Eduardo Barreto

Jose Cruz, Peter Enfantino, Jack Seabrook: EC Comics, August 1954

Martin Edwards: Burn This by Helen McCloy

Barry Ergang (hosted by Kevin Tipple): Hardy Boys: Secret of the Red Arrow by "Franklin W. Dixon"

Will Errickson: Descent by Ron Dee

Curtis Evans: Hours to Kill by Ursula Curtiss

Paul Fraser: Science Fiction Monthly, March 1976, edited by Julie Davis

Barry Gardner: Pictures of Perfection by Reginald Hill

John Grant: The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa (translated by Stephen Snyder); God's Spy by Juan Gomez-Jurado (translated by James Graham); Dear Fahrenheit 451: Love and Heartbreak in the Stacks: A Librarian's Love Letters and Breakup Notes to the Books in Her Life by Annie Spence

Rich Horton: Lieut. Gullivar Jones: His Vacation, by Edwin L. Arnold

Jerry House: Lieut. Gullivar Jones: His Vacation, by Edwin L. Arnold

Tracy K: Where There's a Will by Rex Stout

George Kelley: Rise of the Terran Empire by Poul Anderson

Joe Kenney: Venus on the Half-Shell by "Kilgore Trout" (Philip Jose Farmer)

Margot Kinberg: The Fortunate Brother by Donna Morrissey

Rob Kitchin: Midnight in Berlin by James McManus; A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

Evan Lewis: The Oscar by Richard Sale

Todd Mason: Fantasy: The Literature of the Marvelous edited by Leo P. Kelley; Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery MagazineAugust 1964, edited by Richard Decker, with Victoria S. and Ned Benham, G. F. Foster and Patricia Hitchcock

James Nicoll: Anthonology by Piers Anthony

John F. Norris: Bill "Ironsides" Cromwell and Johnny Lister novels by "Victor Gunn" (Edwy Searles Brooks)

Juri Nummelin: Night Film by Marisha Pessl

John O'Neill: First World Fantasy Awards, edited by Gahan Wilson; The World Fantasy Awards, Volume Two, edited by Fritz Leiber and Stuart David Schiff   [Mason on First World Fantasy Awards; The World Fantasy Awards, V. 2]

Matt Paust: The Fever Tree by Richard Mason  [Neeru on The Fever Tree]

Mildred Perkins: Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt; A Very British Murder by Lucy Worsley

James Reasoner: "The Lost End of Nowhere" by Gordon McCreagh

L. J. Roberts: Bryant & May: Wild Chamber by Christopher Fowler

Gerard Saylor: Britten and Brulightly by Hannah Berry

Steven H. Silver: "A Thousand Deaths" by Jack London; "The Holes Around Mars" by Jerome Bixby

"TomKat": Cat's Paw by Dorothy Blair and Ellen Page

Prashant Trikannad: 2017 reading in review

David Vineyard: "Flight to Singapore" by Donald Barr Chidsey

Morgan Wallace: Three Miles from Murder by Frederick C. Davis (aka Clark Aiken)