Friday, November 9, 2012

FFB; Harlan Ellison: 4 collections, 1 anthology: THE BOOK OF ELLISON, SLEEPLESS NIGHTS ON THE PROCRUSTEAN BED, STALKING THE NIGHTMARE, STRANGE WINE, MEDEA: HARLAN'S WORLD


Harlan Ellison's achievements are at least three-fold: he has written excellent work in prose and in scripting comics and a/v work; he has been an inventive and energetic editor, for publishers and of anthologies (and, early on, in fanzines); and he has demonstrated new means and approaches for writers to promote themselves, in an environment in which publishers (and others) certainly have consistently been less than intent on promoting writers who don't seem to be the flavor of the moment...and if he's come off not as grandly as he might in this last on occasion, one might simply point to the public self-promotion of the likes of Norman Mailer to see that there are great depths which Ellison at his most thoughtlessly prankish has not come close to plumbing.  Meanwhile, here are some quick takes on five books, two of which have been out of print for some years, and the other three spottily in and out of print, now available as ebooks and all available in either their original or omnibus forms (from the Edgeworks series).  





The Book of Ellison, edited by Andrew Porter (Algol Press, 1978)

Contents
  • Introduction (by Isaac Asimov)
  • The Book About Ellison
    • Essence of Ellison (by Lee Hoffman)
    • Harlan Ellison (by Ted White)
    • The Jet-Propelled Birdbath (by Robert Silverberg)
    • 7,000 More Words About Harlan Ellison (by David Gerrold)
    • Harlan Ellison and the Formula Story (by Joseph Patrouch Jr.)
  • The Book By Ellison
    • Ellison on Ellison
    • School for Apprentice Sorcerors
    • Getting Stiffed
    • A Time for Daring
    • A Voice From the Styx
    • The Whore with a Heart of Iron Pyrites; or, Where Does a Writer Go to Find a Maggie?
    • Voe Doe Dee Oh Doe
    • Hardcover
    • A Walk Around the Block
  • Harlan Ellison: A Nonfiction Checklist (by Leslie Kay Swigart)
The first collection of nonfiction by and about Ellison aside from the two volumes gathering his regular column, The Glass Teat, television criticism for the LA Free Press and elsewhere. The appreciations at the front of the book are of varying quality, with Gerrold's being the least, and Silverberg's perhaps the best (certainly the most dramatic in incident). "Ellison on Ellison" might be his first quick survey of his own life at length, up through the mid-'70s; other essays address his standing in the sf/fantasy community, accounts of his work at the Clarion writers' workshops and similar bits of instruction, and a returned favor of an appreciation of Robert Silverberg. This item was already hard to find in the pre-WWWeb days of the earliest 1980s when, as a high-school student, I was able to locate a copy at the University of Hawaii's more comprehensive Hamilton Library; Ellison and editor/publisher Andrew Porter (neither the most temperate of personalities when irked) had some sort of falling out over the book and little of its content has been reprinted since, particularly a pity given some of the rarity of some of its initial publication sources (fanzines such as Inside and Abstract, special publications for conventions, etc.).

Sleepless Nights in the Procrustean Bed: Essays by Harlan Ellison, edited by (Ms.) Marty Clark (Borgo Press, 1984)

Editor's Introduction (by Marty Clark)
  • You Don't Me, I Don't Know You
  • Stealing Tomorrow
  • Down the Rabbit-Hole to TV-Land
  • Revealed at Last! What Killed the Dinosaurs! And You Don't Look So Terrific Yourself
  • Epiphany
  • Rolling Dat Ole Debbil Electronic Stone
  • A Love Song to Jerry Falwell
  • Science Fiction: Turning Reality Inside-Out
  • Defeating the Green Slime
  • How You Stupidly Blew $15 Million a Week, Avoided Having an Adenoid-Shaped Swimming Pool in Your Back Yard, Missed the Opportunity to Have a Mutually Destructive Love Affair with Clint Eastwood and/or Raquel Welch, and Otherwise Pissed Me Off
  • Fear Not Your Enemies
  • Face-Down in Gloria Swanson's Swimming Pool
  • From Alabamy, with Hate
  • Leiber: A Few Too Few Words
  • Serita Rosenthal Ellison: A Eulogy
  • Centerpunching
  • Voe Doe Dee Oh Doe
  • Robert Silverberg: An Appreciation
  • Cheap Thrills on the Road to Hell
  • True Love: Groping for the Holy Grail
  • Notes
  • Index
A rather more comprehensive collection of the work in nonfiction Ellison was proudest of, as also selected by Marty Clark, who essentially served as his administrative assistant through the '70s; "Voe Doe Dee Oh Doe" reappears from The Book along with a more conventionally-titled take on Silverberg, and some of the same matter addressed in the earlier collection is dealt with in newer essays here, such as his fraught relation with his more importunate fans and other literary sorts ("You Don't Know Me...").  The Eulogy for his mother is followed by a profile of Steve McQueen; and "How You Stupidly Blew..." was his formal announcement of withdrawal from the fantasy/sf community (as with most such announcements of withdrawal and/or retirement, as from Ellison's friends Silverberg and Barry Malzberg or Donald Westlake or even Kurt Vonnegut, it didn't take). I'm finally replacing my copy of this one, having essentially traded it for a copy of the hardcover of Shatterday (one of Ellison's retrospective collections) with my aunt Beverly, a certified Ellison fan who was visiting and had never heard or nor seen the Borgo Press item, but happened to have the fiction collection with her for re-reading. I was happy to be able to pick up for her a signed copy of the first collection from Harlan Ellison's Dream Corridor, the comics title, a few years later; Ellison wasn't quite sure what to make of my Spitboy t-shirt, and gently mocked my first published short story, in the same issue of Algis Budrys's Tomorrow Speculative Fiction magazine as Ellison's "Attack at Dawn." 

Stalking the Nightmare Harlan Ellison (Phantasia 0-932096-16-6, 1982, hc)
  • 1 · Foreword · Stephen King · fw
  • 15 · Introduction: Quiet Lies the Locust Tells · in
  • 25 · Grail · nv Twilight Zone Apr ’81
  • 55 · The Outpost Undiscovered By Tourists · ss F&SF Jan ’82
  • 63 · Blank... · ss Infinity Science Fiction Jun ’57
  • 75 · The 3 Most Important Things in Life · ar Oui Nov ’78
  • 95 · Visionary · Harlan Ellison & Joe L. Hensley · ss Amazing May ’59
  • 111 · Djinn, No Chaser · nv Twilight Zone Apr ’82
  • 135 · Invasion Footnote [as by Cordwainer Bird] · ss Super Science Fiction Aug ’57
  • 145 · Saturn, November 11th [installment 6 of An Edge in My Voice] · ar Future Life Mar ’81
  • 159 · Night of Black Glass · ss Beyond #1 ’81
  • 171 · Final Trophy · ss Super Science Fiction Jun ’57
  • 187 · !!!The!!Teddy!Crazy!!Show!!! · ss Adam Oct ’68
  • 199 · The Cheese Stands Alone · ss Amazing Mar ’82
  • 217 · Somehow, I Don’t Think We’re in Kansas, Toto · ar Genesis Jun ’74; revised
  • 237 · Transcending Destiny [revised from “School for Assassins”, as Ellis Hart] · nv Amazing Jan ’58 
  • 265 · The Hour That Stretches · ss F&SF Oct ’82
  • 289 · The Day I Died [inst. 10 of The Harlan Ellison Horn Book] · ar Los Angeles Free Press Jan 5 ’73
  • 301 · Tracking Level · ss Amazing Dec ’56
  • 313 · Tiny Ally · ss Saturn Oct ’57
  • 319 · The Goddess in the Ice · ss Adam Bedside Reader Dec ’67
  • 327 · Gopher in the Gilly · ss *
This was by no means the first Ellison collection to mix fiction and nonfiction by him to a considerable degree (that might've been Partners in Wonder) but it was the first to do so in such a ratio (albeit some of the essays become by design more speculative and fictional, such as "The Day I Died"...or include, one hopes, some fictionalized aspects, such as the murder described in "The 3 Most Important Things..."). "Somehow..."  is Ellison's first extended take on his protracted battles with the producers of the quickly-cancelled Canadian tv sf series The Starlost;  "Saturn, November 11th" is rather straightforward, and excellent, participant reportage of the Voyager mission encounter with that planet and its satellite system. Frankly, the fiction in this collection, as good as it can be, has difficulty in matching the best of the nonfiction and borderline nf here; "Grail" is an exception (and even such less than superb Ellison fiction as "The Hour That Stretches" remains charming, in this case in part due to the setting in the Pacifica Radio series Hour 25, a Los Angeles institution Ellison helped to preserve for some years after the death of founding producer and host Mike Hodel).

Strange Wine Harlan Ellison (Harper & Row, 1978, hc); Also in pb (Warner Jun ’79), includes author’s introduction to each story.

· Introduction: Revealed at Last! What Killed the Dinosaurs! And You Don’t Look So Terrific Yourself · in




  • · Croatoan · ss F&SF May ’75
  • · Working with the Little People · ss F&SF Jul ’77
  • · Killing Bernstein · ss Mystery Monthly Jun ’76
  • · Mom · nv Silver Foxes Aug ’76
  • · In Fear of K · ss Vertex Jun ’75
  • · Hitler Painted Roses · ss Penthouse Apr ’77
  • · The Wine Has Been Left Open Too Long and the Memory Has Gone Flat · ss Universe 6, ed. Terry Carr, Doubleday, 1976
  • · From A to Z, In the Chocolate Alphabet · ss F&SF Oct ’76
  • · Lonely Women Are the Vessels of Time · ss MidAmeriCon Program Book, Kansas City, MO., 1976
  • · Emissary from Hamelin · ss 2076: The American Tricentennial, ed. Edward Bryant, Pyramid, 1977
  • · The New York Review of Bird [original version] · nv * (a heavily edited version appeared in Weird Heroes)
  • · Seeing · nv Andromeda 1, ed. Peter Weston, London: Futura, 1976
  • · The Boulevard of Broken Dreams · vi Los Angeles Review #1 ’75
  • · Strange Wine · ss Amazing Jun ’76
  • · The Diagnosis of Dr. D’arqueAngel [“Doctor D’arqueAngel”] · ss Viva Jan ’77
A collection of Ellison's stories from the mid 1970s that only occasionally demonstrates Ellison at his absolute best, and yet his mastery of the short-story form allows his work to be powerful even when it hasn't quite achieved all his ambitions. For example, the opening passage of the title story, Ellison's contribution to the 50th anniversary issue of Amazing, is a devastating account of a father brought to an auto accident scene to identify the corpse of his daughter, killed in the mishap, with the interior monolog revelation that the father, wracked with grief, at least believes himself not to be in the proper situation, beyond the obvious..."This should be happening to a human." The rest of the story, while making its point, has difficulty in matching the opening passage, which frankly I haven't spoiled even by giving this revelation, so deftly is it observed and constructed. Ellison can be seen to be challenging himself as well as the reader in most of what's collected here, whether technically (can one write a genuinely engaging and cohesive set of 26 vignettes such as "From A to Z..."? Yes, one can, particularly with wit and sharp observation, even if some are inevitably much more slight than others...can one sensibly challenge even some of the most deeply held beliefs of most of the audience, at very least? Yes..."Hitler Painted Roses" is both memorably and justly provocative, somewhat in the way Lenny Bruce's routine about Hitler and the MCA is, and in somewhat deeper ways, as well). And the introduction is among Ellison's best polemic writing.

Medea: Harlan’s World ed. Harlan Ellison (Phantasia 0-932096-36-0, Jun ’85 [May ’85], $50.00 signed numbered 475-copy special edition; $20.00 725-copy trade edition, 532pp, hc) [Medea] This small-press version is simultaneous with the one from Bantam Spectra and is the only hardcover. The special edition is sold out. It’s a fine job of bookbinding and should be a highly prized collector’s item. (Charles N. Brown)
Fletcher Pratt had attempted something similar to this project in the early 1950s, with The Petrified Planet, only, in that case, after John D. Clark had worked out the world in which the stories for the anthology were meant to be set, Pratt, H. Beam Piper and Judith Merril contributed a novella each. This, in comparison, was a much more hands-on effort by a wide range of contributors, even including, as not quite noted in the table of contents above, audience participants at a public seminar discussing the shared world setting for the stories commissioned. These stories were appearing in the first year I was regularly reading the sf and fantasy magazines, and I generally found them quite entertaining...particularly in seeing how differently Jack Williamson, Frederik Pohl and Thomas Disch might take on the same raw material of setting and to some extent incident...unlike most so-tagged "sharecropper" fiction since, the contributors were encouraged to be as much themselves in the work in question as the project allowed, and for the most part they succeeded, though none of the stories would qualify as the best work by the writers involved...a number of the better "shared-world" projects since have emulated this aspect. And for some folks, such as former planetary science majors who had been thinking about writing fiction for years even at the time of this book's publication, the essays and discussion transcripts laying out the groundwork had their own fascination...a fascination that I think would be shared by most fans of all or any of the writers participating. I'm not sure why this volume has been out of print since its initial editions, but it's a pity it's so. (For that matter, The Petrified Planet deserves reprinting...)

For more of today's books, please see Patti Abbott's blog.  Contents listings from the Contento/Locus indices and the Islets of Langerhans site.
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Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Tuesday's Overlooked Films and/or Other A/V: the links, and THE CANDIDATE (1972) and SLATTERY'S PEOPLE

A Walk on the Moon
Election Day is upon us in the US, and I have to go vote, so will thank quickly those of you who have provided the reviews, clip links and citations below, and those of you who read these, and ask as always that if I've overlooked your or anyone else's link, please let me know in comments.

Enjoy your franchise, or the conscientious abstention from it if you choose...but don't think Not Voting doesn't encourage Them, too...

Bill Crider: Get the Gringo
The Web

Brian Arnold: Hallowe'en Wrap-up;  The Monkees on The Hy Lit Show (1968)

Dan Stumpf: The Web

Ed Gorman: Born to Be Bad

Elizabeth Foxwell: "The Debt" (Suspense [1952; television]; based on Lawrence Treat's "Twenty-Dollar Debt")

Evan Lewis: The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse

George Kelley: The Rachel Maddow Show

Iba Dawson: A Walk on the Moon

The Seventh Victim
Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.: The 7th Victim 

Jack Seabrook: Ray Bradbury on TV: "The Life Work of Juan Diaz" (The Alfred Hitchcock Hour)

James Reasoner: Islands in the Sky

Jeff Flugel: Phenomena

Jerry House: Vampire Over London (1952, aka a panoply of titles)

John Charles: Arachnid (2001)

The Voice of the Turtle
John F. Norris: Hallowe'en Light Show

Kate Laity: Berne

Laura: The Voice of the Turtle and others

Marty McKee: Deep Rising

Michael Shonk: more Harry O

Patti Abbott: Checkmate

Prashant Trikannad: Do Aankhen Barah Haath (1957; aka Two Eyes, Twelve Hands)

The Thing (from Another World)
Randy Johnson: The Thing (from Another World)

Rick: Hammer Horrors: An A to Z Appreciation

Ron Scheer: Homicide: Life in the Streets

Scott Cupp: Rubber

Sergio Angelini: Blake Edwards's crime drama

Stacia Jones: November Movies to watch for
Homicide: Life on the Street

Stefan Blitz: The Heathcliff and Dingbat Show

Stephen Gallagher: The Killing

Todd Mason: The Candidate (1972) and Slattery's People: please see below;  Pat Paulsen for President

 Yvette Banek: Favorite Political Films for Those of You Who Haven't Overdosed on Politics Yet; Dancing at the Harvest Moon

The Candidate (1972) is my favorite of US political films, a sly satire of the political process and all its temptations and corruptions, particularly when one is dealing with the Big-Time races such as for a US Senate seat from a state such as California. Bill McKay (Robert Redford) is the son of an old-style wheeler-dealer former governor (Melvin Douglas), but who has more progressive and populist ideas than those of his father, an exemplar of political-machine pragmatism. When no more conventional Democrat is willing to challenge popular blowhard GOP incumbent Crocker Jarman (the one bit of rather overbroad nomenclature in the film), younger McKay, with the proviso that he can actually put forward the message he wants to in his campaign, takes up the challenge...and how the process, and Bill McKay's ego, both propel and thwart his passage through the campaign are the heart of the film. The segment below is not the most subtle nor telling segment, but is the most substantial bit online, and is relatively demonstrative of the skill of the filmmaking and critique in this project, from writer Jeremy Larner and director Michael Ritchie, probably the height of both men's film careers:
The Candidate:


Meanwhile, I've never seen a complete episode of Slattery's People, the fondly-remembered season and a half series that ran on CBS in the mid-'60s, with little exposure since; but the key fragments of an episode below do leave me wishing I could see more of the series, particularly outside the gray market...it seems like the kind of balance between naive and knowing that marked such contemporary series as The Defenders and NYPD, and even with the fact of Fred Freiberger in on the production (he was the producer responsible for the atrocious third season of Star Trek), I'd certainly give it a look...interesting parallel in the episode excerpted below and the film above, between the attempts of younger reformers to push back against politics-as-usual vested interests, though The Candidate is unsurprisingly much more ambiguous and less hammy than the teleplay...which could also be the working model for A Few Good Men...
Slattery's People:

with subsequent segments (alas, not the complete episode) here and here.
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Monday, November 5, 2012

On-ballot candidates for US President and VP, and their parties, when they have such:

The Green ticket at the National Press Club:









The engaging website Politics 1 has links to these campaigns' websites, etc.:


DEMOCRATIC PARTY:
President Barack Obama (Illinois)
Presidential Nominee

Vice President Joe Biden (Delaware)
Vice Presidential Nominee


REPUBLICAN PARTY:
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (California)
Presidential Nominee

Congressman Paul Ryan (Wisconsin)
Vice Presidential Nominee


THIRD PARTY and
INDEPENDENT CANDIDATES:
(Note: Parties with ballot status in at least one state -- based on either 2008 status or preliminary 2012 status -- listed first, then all others under the INDEPENDENT & WRITE-IN CANDIDATES header)


AMERICA'S PARTY:
Tom Hoefling (Iowa)
Presidential Nominee

J.D. Ellis (Tennessee)
Vice Presidential Nominee


AMERICAN THIRD POSITION PARTY:
Merlin Miller (California)
Presidential Nominee

Harry Bertram (West Virginia)
Vice Presidential Nominee


CONSTITUTION PARTY:
Former Congressman Virgil Goode (Virginia)
Presidential Nominee

Jim Clymer (Pennsylvania)
Vice Presidential Nominee


GRASSROOTS PARTY:
Jim Carlson (Minnesota)
Presidential Nominee

George McMahon (Iowa)
Vice Presidential Nominee


GREEN PARTY:
Dr. Jill Stein (Massachusetts)
Presidential Nominee

Cheri Honkala (Pennsylvania)
Vice Presidential Nominee


JUSTICE PARTY:
Former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson (Utah)
Presidential Nominee

Luiz Rodriguez (Illinois)
Vice Presidential Nominee


LIBERTARIAN PARTY:
Former Governor Gary Johnson (New Mexico)
Presidential Nominee

Former Superior Court Judge Jim Gray (California)
Vice Presidential Nominee


OBJECTIVIST PARTY:
Tom Stevens (New York)
Presidential Nominee

Alden Link (Florida)
Vice Presidential Nominee


PARTY OF SOCIALISM AND LIBERATION (PSL):
Peta Lindsay (California)
Presidential Nominee

Yari Osorio (New York)
Vice Presidential Nominee
NOTE: THE PSL MAY ALSO USE SURROGATE PSL NOMINEES IN SOME STATES, WHERE NEEDED FOR BALLOT ACCESS PURPOSES, AS LINDSAY (AGE 27) AND OSORIO (AGE 26 & FOREIGN BORN) ARE NOT CONSTITUTIONALLY QUALIFIED TO SERVE IF ELECTED.


PEACE & FREEDOM PARTY:
Rosanne Barr (Hawaii)
Presidential Nominee

Cindy Sheehan (California)
Vice Presidential Nominee


PROHIBITION PARTY:
Lowell "Jack" Fellure (West Virginia)
Presidential Nominee

Toby Davis (Mississippi)
Vice Presidential Nominee


REFORM PARTY USA:
Andre Barnett (New York)
Presidential Nominee

Ken Cross (Arkansas)
Vice Presidential Nominee


REFORM PARTY OF KANSAS:
Chuck Baldwin (Montana)
Presidential Nominee

Joseph Martin (North Carolina)
Vice Presidential Nominee
NOTE: THE REFORM PARTY OF KANSAS IS NOT AFFILIATED WITH THE REFORM PARTY USA.


SOCIALIST PARTY USA (SP-USA):
Stewart Alexander (California)
Presidential Nominee

Alejandro "Alex" Mendoza (Texas)
Vice Presidential Nominee


SOCIALIST EQUALITY PARTY:
Jerome "Jerry" White (Michigan)
Presidential Nominee

Phyllis Scherrer (Pennsylvania)
Vice Presidential Nominee


SOCIALIST WORKERS PARTY (SWP):
James Harris (New York)
Presidential Nominee

Maura DeLuca (Nebraska)
Vice Presidential Nominee
NOTE: THE SWP MAY ALSO USE A SURROGATE VP NOMINEE IN SOME STATES, WHERE NEEDED FOR BALLOT ACCESS PURPOSES, AS MAURA DeLUCA (AGE 33) IS NOT CONSTITUTIONALLY QUALIFIED TO SERVE IF ELECTED.

***INDEPENDENT CANDIDATES WITH BALLOT STATUS IN AT LEAST ONE STATE:

Jeff Boss (Independent-New Jersey)

Richard Duncan (Independent-Ohio) - No Campaign Website

Nelson Keyton (Independent-Virginia)

Jerry Litzel (Independent-Iowa) - No Campaign Website

Jill Reed (Twelve Visions-Wyoming)

Randall Terry (Independent-West Virginia)

Sheila "Samm" Tittle (We The People-Virginia)

Mike Vargo (Independent-Ohio)


The Peace and Freedom ticket, 2012:
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Sunday, November 4, 2012

Howard/World Fantasy Awards 2012

The World Fantasy Convention 2012: Toronto, Canada. The Winners and Shortlisters:

(Tor.com: Photos from the event here. [Courtesy Bill Crider's link])

 Life Achievement
winner Alan Garner
winner George R.R. Martin

Novel
winner Osama, Lavie Tidhar (PS Publishing)
Those Across the River, Christopher Buehlman (Ace)
11/22/63, Stephen King (Scribner; Hodder & Stoughton as 11.22.63)
A Dance with Dragons, George R.R. Martin (Bantam; Harper Voyager UK)
Among Others, Jo Walton (Tor)

Novella
winner “A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong”, K.J. Parker (Subterranean Winter 2011)
“Near Zennor”, Elizabeth Hand (A Book of Horrors)
“Alice Through the Plastic Sheet”, Robert Shearman (A Book of Horrors)
“Rose Street Attractors”, Lucius Shepard (Ghosts by Gaslight)
"Silently and Very Fast", Catherynne M. Valente (WSFA Press; Clarkesworld)

Short Story
winner “The Paper Menagerie”, Ken Liu (F&SF 3-4/11)
“X for Demetrious”, Steve Duffy (Blood and Other Cravings)
“Younger Women”, Karen Joy Fowler (Subterranean Summer 2011)
“A Journey of Only Two Paces”, Tim Powers (The Bible Repairman and Other Stories)
“The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees”, E. Lily Yu (Clarkesworld 4/11)

Anthology
winner The Weird, Ann & Jeff VanderMeer, eds. (Corvus; Tor, published May 2012)
Blood and Other Cravings, Ellen Datlow, ed. (Tor)
A Book of Horrors, Stephen Jones, ed. (Jo Fletcher Books)
The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities, Ann & Jeff VanderMeer, eds. (Harper Voyager US)
Gutshot, Conrad Williams, ed. (PS Publishing)

Collection
winner The Bible Repairman and Other Stories, Tim Powers (Tachyon and Subterranean Press)
Bluegrass Symphony, Lisa L. Hannett (Ticonderoga)
Two Worlds and In Between, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Subterranean Press)
After the Apocalypse, Maureen F. McHugh (Small Beer)
Mrs Midnight and Other Stories, Reggie Oliver (Tartarus)

Artist
winner John Coulthart
Julie Dillon
Jon Foster
Kathleen Jennings
John Picacio

Special Award—Professional
winner Eric Lane, for publishing in translation – Dedalus books
John Joseph Adams, for editing – anthology and magazine
Jo Fletcher, for editing – Jo Fletcher Books
Brett Alexander Savory & Sandra Kasturi, for ChiZine Publications
Jeff VanderMeer & S.J. Chambers, for The Steampunk Bible

Special Award—Non-professional
winner Raymond Russell & Rosalie Parker, for Tartarus Press
Kate Baker, Neil Clarke, Cheryl Morgan & Sean Wallace, for Clarkesworld
Cat Rambo, for Fantasy
Charles Tan, for Bibliophile Stalker blog
Mark Valentine, for Wormwood

Past Award Winners & Nominees

Full listing 1975-2011
1975197619771978197919801981198219831984
1985198619871988198919901991199219931994
1995199619971998199920002001200220032004
2005
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Late for Hallowe'en Music Club: Sinister Jazz

Hallowe'en celebration was delayed till this weekend in many locations in the Northeastern US, including mine.

 Lambert, Hendricks and Ross: Hallowe'en Spooks
Brubeck Quartet: Sixth Sense
"Jelly Roll" Morton: Dead Man Blues
Gil Melle: Night Gallery
Nina Simone: I Put a Spell on You


Artie Shaw Orchestra: Nightmare
Billie Holiday Strange Fruit


Lalo Schifrin: Jaws

Vince Guaraldi Trio: The Great Pumpkin Waltz
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Friday, November 2, 2012

GHOSTS AND THINGS, edited by Hal Cantor (Berkley, 1962); Harold Q. Masur, editor: ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS: STORIES TO BE READ WITH THE DOOR LOCKED (Random House, 1975)












1st printing, 1962; Berkley #F666 (coincidence?). 
Contents:
"The Lovely House" by Shirley Jackson

This, with its Richard Powers cover painting (the greenish version of the presentation was less common than the more violet, though not rare; mine is a copy of the violet), was the first anthology of horror fiction aimed at adults (and adventurous young readers) I purchased, when I was eight, and was thus introduced to Henry James, Algernon Blackwood, Richard Middleton, Oliver Onions, Andre Maurois, and Shirley Jackson...it was Bierce and Saki and probably Benson (though this might've been my introduction to his work, as well) that sold me on it, and I was not disappointed...I thought James took his time in telling his story, but that was fine, and "Running Wolf" among the stories by writers new to me really actually raised the hairs on the back of my neck, particularly in the middle passage of the story (something I was unused to at the time, since most horror fiction I'd read to that point built blatantly or slyly toward a frisson at the end), and in an anticipation of my current state of incipient Alzheimer's I've usually managed to forget Blackwood's title when trying to recall this story, and assumed incorrectly that I was thinking of "The Willows"...Cantor, a staff editor at Berkley at time of publication, is barely credited with this selection, in small type on the copyrights page, and its notable that he did select not quite the most obvious chestnuts from the writers in question, for the most part, but instead the next or one of the several next stories that one might read or certainly be amenable to reading after "The Lottery" or "Gabriel-Ernest" (or "The Interlopers" among so many) or "The Middle Toe of the Right Foot" (among so many) or "The Wendigo" (among...) or "The Beckoning Fair One" or "The Turn of the Screw"...which is probably why this modest, well-turned book sold so steadily that Berkley kept it in print for at least fifteen years and I'm not sure how many reprintings. It was hard to miss, for a while, and I'm eminently glad I didn't miss it. 


[As I noted in May 2008, but went little farther:]

This certainly wasn't the first "Hitchcock" anthology that I read, but it is the first that I owned a personal copy of, a Doubleday Book Club edition. How could any young reader (I was 11 at the time) manage to not have their doors blown off by a selection such as this:

First edition:
Random House, 1975, USA.
Contains:
"Royal Jelly" by Roald Dahl
"Hijack" by Robert L. Fish
"Tomorrow and Tomorrow" by Adobe James
"Funeral in Another Town" by Jerry Jacobson
"A Case for Quiet" by William Jeffrey (Bill Pronzini and Jeffrey Wallman)
"A Good Head for Murder" by Charles W. Runyon
"The Invisible Cat" by Betty Ren Wright
"Light Verse" by Issac Asimov
"The Distributor" by Richard Matheson
"How Henry J. Littlefinger Licked the Hippies' Scheme to Take Over the Country by Tossing Pot in Postage Stamp Glue" by John Keefauver
"The Leak" by Jacques Futrelle
"All the Sounds of Fear" by Harlan Ellison
"Little Foxes Sleep Warm" by Waldo Carlton Wright
"The Graft is Green" by Harold Q. Masur
"View by Moonlight" by Pat McGerr
"There Hangs Death!" by John D MacDonald
"Lincoln's Doctor's Son's Dog" by Warner Law
"Coyote Street" by Gary Brandner
"Zombique" by Joseph Payne Brennan
"The Pattern" by Bill Pronzini
"Pipe Dream" by Alan Dean Foster
"Shottle Bop" by Theodore Sturgeon
"The Magnum" by Jack Ritchie
"Voices in the Dust" by Gerald Kersh
"The Odor of Melting" by Edward D. Hoch
"The Sound of Murder" by William P. McGivern
"The Income Tax Mystery" by Michael Gilbert
"Watch for It" by Joseph N. (aka Joe) Gores
"The Affair of the Twisted Scarf" by Rex Stout

The eclecticism which Robert Arthur particularly had brought to his volumes of the "Hitchcock" anthologies he edited, both in the young readers' line for Viking and the adult-oriented series for Random House (which were paperbacked by Dell, who split the RH compliations into two volumes for their purposes, while Dell also published the "best-of" volumes from Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine in the same years, inspiring much confusion which others and I have addressed repeatedly on this blog and many other places) was ably continued by Masur, after Arthur's death...and Masur even added a few recurring contributors, such as gallows humorist John Keefauver and "Adobe James" with his slightly perfervid men's-magazine tales, to the band of Arthur's recurring favorites (Gerald Kersh, Rex Stout, and other worthies). This volume, I see in retrospect, is slimmer on women's contributions than at least some of Arthur's, but it does include at least three stories which genuinely stuck with me and really shook me up at the time, in the Sturgeon (not the first time I'd read his brilliant early work, but the first time I'd encountered "Shottle Bop," which goes from cocksure whimsy to jarring, touching sobriety masterfully), Joe Gores's "Watch for It" and Richard Matheson's "The Distributor" (I'm not sure I've read a better Matheson), and a number of the others came close to making such a strong impression...the closest to a bad story was Alan Dean Foster's pleasantly slick contribution, or the similar "James"--and the Jacobson, published in the last issue of the first Weird Tales revival, is a little too recursively about the predicament that magazine itself faced ...and this volume introduced me to a number of its contributors, since it was at latest the second of the AHP:  adult volumes I read, at time of purchase; I'd picked up the likes of Alfred Hitchcock's Haunted Houseful (one of Arthur's double-handful of YA anthologies) and at least one other Presents: volume previously at the Enfield Central Library, that trove of my youth.

Along with Henry Mazzeo's Hauntings, and the extent to which Les Daniels's Living in Fear was an anthology (the fiction there being almost illustrative examples to the critical/historical survey of horror in art), these were probably the most influential anthologies aimed at adults that I encountered in my early reading.

For more of this week's books, please see Patti Abbott's blog (though her machine is giving her difficulties).
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