1990s smart limited-animation self-indulgence: the Compleat DR. KATZ, PROFESSIONAL THERAPIST and DARIA

So, these, along with The Simpsons and scattered other bits here and there, were the most impressive sustained television animated series in the US in the 1990s, sitcoms featuring, respectively, a well-meaning but rather inadept psychologist (comedian Jonatan Katz) and his patients (an impressive array of standup commedians) and his friends, family, and receptionist Laura (Laura Silverman, late of the Sara Silverman Program) and an acerbic, disaffected intellectual teenager making her way in a typically bland and corrupt suburban high-school-dominated life, with the help of her bohemian artist best friend and occasionally that of her family, who all have their own crises and agendas to deal with, and infrequently her teachers and classmates.

Katz was the first major project from animator (not the talk-show host) Tom Snyder's "Squigglevision" company, which went on to offer the nearly as amusing Science Court and Home Movies series. A fine heir to The Bob Newhart Show in one way and in another a showcase for a lot of the best comedians of the latter '90s, who could do parts of their typical acts as complaints to Katz as their therapist, this ran from 1995-99 on Comedy Central cable...and is collected here with some interesting commentary, a few other extras (including a 2007 stage revival stunt featuring Katz, Silverman, H. John Benjamin reprising his role as Katz's son Ben, and Kathy Griffin, Maria Bamford, Andy Kindler and Paul F. Tompkins as patients...not a completely successful revival, as Katz seems a bit at sea [and since he's sporting a cane, might be so because he's feeling some serious chronic pain...elsewhere in commentary he refers to leg pain), and the other comedians all seem a bit overeager to compensate for that, including one blowing off a improv suggestion Katz makes altogether). The series is never worse than pleasant and is frequently casually brilliant.

Daria Morgendorfer was a character introduced in Mike Judge's Beavis and Butthead cartoons, a girl the goonish boys lusted after who in her turn found them fitfully if grotesquely amusing; the Daria series has no further input from the Judge characters, and in fact begins with the Morgandorfers relocating to the nondescript suburb of Lawndale (at about the same time that Buffy the Vampire Slayer was moving into Sunnydale); there's no lack of satiric targets for Daria and quickly acquired soulmate/best friend Jane to mock, including occasionally each other (Jane is more in touch with her physicality than Daria is, and Daria a bit more self-righteous, which are not always but can be the starting points for what ribbing they give each other, particularly as Daria quickly developes a crush on Jane's slacker rock-musician brother Trent). Easily and by far the best regularly-scheduled program in the history of MTV, 1997-2001 (as much as any program has ever been regularly scheduled on MTV, and given such rare but occasionally impressive competition as Austin Stories and The State), Daria like most MTV programs took advantage of the music rights the channel had to slather its soundtrack with current pop, which has now been denuded WKRP in Cincinatti-style for home video...it hurts less than with WKRP, because the music was usually more incidental to Daria, albeit it guts the REM "Everybody Hurts" video parody in an episode largely devoted to an ill-fated attempt to attend Lollapalooza (here given a parodic name). And the series-original music of Trent's band, and of the "Daria! The Musical" is retained...small favors, at least. The two feature-length telefilms, Is It Fall Yet? and Is It College Yet? are among the "extras"...though relatively skimpy coverage is given to behind the scenes.

I'm certainly enjoying them to overindulgence. Particularly the episodes I've missed (no few in both cases).

NPR: 'Mein Girl': Motown's Hits, Found In Translation

'Mein Girl': Motown's Hits, Found In Translation

Americans remember The Four Tops for classic hits like "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)." But Italians may know the same song under a different name: "Piangono Gli Uomini."

The Four Tops recorded their Italian-language version of "I Can't Help Myself" in 1966. In fact, they'd often record many of their hits in several other tongues.

More at the link, including the soundfiles, for several of the major Motown bands, including the pictured Temptations; this doesn't quite make up for botches like the Davis book interview, but it helps.

FFB/"forgotten" stories: UNCOLLECTED CRIMES edited by Bill Pronzini & M. H. Greenberg; UNCOLLECTED STARS edited by Barry N. Malzberg, Piers Anthony, Charles Waugh, & M. H. Greenberg; FINE FRIGHTS edited by Ramsey Campbell

from the Contento indices: 

Fine Frights: Stories that Scared Me ed. Ramsey Campbell (Tor 0-812-51670-2, Aug ’88 [Jul ’88], $3.95, 309pp, pb) Anthology of 12 horror stories.

• ix · Introduction · Ramsey Campbell · in
• 1 · Child’s Play · Villy Sørensen; trans. by Maureen Neiiendam · ss Strange Stories, 1956
• 15 · More Sinned Against · Karl Edward Wagner · ss In a Lonely Place, Scream/Press, 1984
• 43 · Lost Memory · Peter Phillips · ss Galaxy May ’52
• 67 · The Fifth Mask · Shamus Frazer · nv London Mystery Magazine #33 ’57
• 91 · The Horror at Chilton Castle · Joseph Payne Brennan · nv Scream at Midnight, New Haven, CT: Macabre Press, 1963
• 119 · The Clerks of Domesday · John Brunner · nv *
• 157 · Thurnley Abbey · Perceval Landon · ss Raw Edges, Heinemann, 1908
• 187 · Cutting Down · Bob Shaw · ss IASFM Dec ’82
• 219 · The Necromancer [as by Ingulphus] · Arthur Gray · ss The Cambridge Review Oct 17 ’12
• 235 · The Greater Festival of Masks · Thomas Ligotti · ss Songs of a Dead Dreamer, Silver Scarab Press, 1985
• 251 · The War Is Over · David Case · ss *
• 269 · Upon the Dull Earth · Philip K. Dick · nv Beyond Fantasy Fiction #9 ’54

Uncollected Stars ed. Piers Anthony, Martin H. Greenberg, Barry N. Malzberg & Charles G. Waugh (Avon 0-380-89596-X, Feb ’86 [Jan ’86], $3.50, 312pp, pb) Anthology of 16 previously uncollected stories, with a foreword by Anthony and an afterword by Malzberg.

• 1 · Introduction · Piers Anthony · in
• 6 · Time Enough · Lewis Padgett · ss Astounding Dec ’46
• 26 · The Soul-Empty Ones · Walter M. Miller, Jr. · nv Astounding Aug ’51
• 62 · Defender of the Faith · Alfred Coppel · ss Science Fiction Quarterly Nov ’52
• 76 · All of You · James V. McConnell · ss Beyond Fantasy Fiction Jul ’53
• 82 · The Holes · Michael Shaara · ss Fantastic Jun ’54
• 91 · Beast in the House · Michael Shaara · ss Orbit #4 ’54
• 102 · Little Boy [as by Harry Neal] · Jerome Bixby · ss If Oct ’54
• 116 · Unwillingly to School [Lizzie Lee] · Pauline Ashwell · nv Astounding Jan ’58
• 163 · Brother Robot · Henry Slesar · ss Amazing May ’58
• 178 · The Risk Profession · Donald E. Westlake · nv Amazing Mar ’61
• 205 · The Stuff · Henry Slesar · ss Galaxy Aug ’61
• 211 · Arcturus Times Three [Jerry Norcriss] · Jack Sharkey · nv Galaxy Oct ’61
• 244 · They Are Not Robbed · Richard M. McKenna · nv F&SF Jan ’68
• 275 · The Creatures of Man · Verge Foray · ss If May ’68
• 291 · Only Yesterday · Ted White · ss Amazing Jul ’69
• 301 · An Agent in Place · Laurence M. Janifer · ss Analog May ’73
• 311 · Afterword · Barry N. Malzberg · aw

---

Update: the FictionMags Index TOC:

Uncollected Crimes ed. Bill Pronzini & Martin H. Greenberg (Walker US, 1987, 0-8027-0967-2, $15.95, 203pp, hc, an)     Also available in pb (Berkley June 1989). ix · Introduction · Bill Pronzini & Martin H. Greenberg · in 1 · Two O’Clock Blonde · James M. Cain · ss Manhunt August 1953 11 · Riddle of the Marble Blade [Hildegarde Withers] · Stuart Palmer · nv Mystery November 1934 34 · The $5,000 Getaway · Jack Ritchie · ss Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine May 1959 49 · Squealer · John D. MacDonald · ss Manhunt May 1956 60 · The Cackle Bladder · William Campbell Gault · nv Detective Tales March 1950, as “The Corpse and the Cackle-Bladder” 83 · Everybody Needs a Mink · Dorothy B. Hughes · ss The Saint Mystery Magazine (UK) June 1965 90 · I Still See Sally · John W. Jakes · ss Shell Scott Mystery Magazine July 1966 108 · Homecoming · Michael Collins · ss Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine September 1964, as by Dennis Lynds 115 · The Deadly Mrs. Haversham · Helen Nielsen · ss Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine October 1957 128 · The Problem of the County Fair [Dr. Sam Hawthorne] · Edward D. Hoch · ss Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine February 1978 148 · The Tree on Execution Hill · Loren D. Estleman · ss Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine August 1977 156 · Bank Job · Bill Pronzini · ss Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine August 1978 167 · Discount Fare · John Lutz · ss Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine April 1979 175 · Consolation · Ed McBain · nv Mystery Monthly June 1976

and from the original post:

 from the Paperback Swap citation (which refers to "Manjunt" magazine) 

Uncollected Crimes, edited by Bill Pronzini and Martin Harry Greenberg, 

fiction contents (w/o accounting the introduction, etc.) 

Publisher: Berkley Pub Group Book Type: Paperback ISBN-13: 9780425116135 - ISBN-10: 0425116131 

Publication Date: 6/1/1989 

Pages: 240 (after the Walker hardcover, 1987) 

[original publication sources taken from Contento/Stephensen-Payne indices and The Thrilling Detective citations of the individual stories, for the most part, when I could find such citations.]  

Two O'Clock Blonde -- James M. Cain (Manhunt, August 1953) 

Riddle of the Marble Blade -- Stuart Palmer ([Hildegarde Withers], nv Mystery, Nov 1934; reprinted The Saint Detective Magazine [UK] Nov 1962) 

The $5,000 Getaway -- Jack Ritchie (ss AHMM May '59) 

Squealer -- John D. MacDonald (Manhunt, vol. 4 # 5, May 1956) 

The Cackle Bladder -- William Campbell Gault (originally as “The Corpse and the Cackle-Bladder”, nv Detective Tales Mar 1950; reprinted Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine [Australia] Jan 1961)

Everybody Needs a Mink -- Dorothy B. Hughes (ss The Saint Mystery Magazine [UK] Jun 1965; The Saint Mystery Magazine [US] Jul 1965) 

I Still See Sally -- John Jakes 

Homecoming -- Michael Collins 

The Deadly Mrs. Haversham -- Helen Nielsen (AHMM, Apr. 1958) 

The Problem of the County Fair -- Edward D. Hoch ([Dr. Sam Hawthorne], ss EQMM Feb 1978) 

The Tree on Execution Hill -- Loren D. Estleman (ss AHMM Aug 1977) 

Bank Job -- Bill Pronzini (August 1978, EQMM) 

Discount Fare -- John Lutz (Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, April 1979) 

Consolation -- Ed McBain (1976, Mystery Monthly) 

While Ramsey Campbell was recalling the "lost" stories that had made the greatest impression on him, Martin Greenberg and his collaborators sought out the stories that had never been collected in book form (I could dig out online the magazine appearances for the Unollected Crimes stories faster than I could dig out my copy from storage and copy from the acknowledgements page, I suspect, though maybe not--the only one I'd read in its original magazine appearance was Pronzini's own "Bank Job," in one of the first Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazines I purchased off the newsstand)...so the average quality of the Campbell is greater, but all three books will amply reward the Forgotten Books reader's efforts in finding them...it's almost but not quite an inevitable irony that all of these have fallen out of print, in their efforts to revive interest (Barry Malzberg, never one to let an irony slip away from him, has noted that this was the first book published under Piers Anthony's byline not to earn out its advance--I certainly picked up my copy from a huge remaindered stack in a bookstore, a relative rarity for a mass-market paperback...and, I note, nearly a quarter century later [time does fly] Anthony is now a less potent commercial force than he was in the '80s and has less presence in the marketplace than Greenberg, if still a fair amount in print--and, in a 2021 note while reformatting--thanks a lot, Blogspot, btw--now Greenberg fades from view). The notion that these might be rare treasures or near-(enough-)treasures, often from writers whose careers (at least in the fields the anthologies collect) were unfairly and/or unfortunately brief, is perhaps just not a sufficient motivation to the casual readership, however much it might draw readers such as you or me. The supporting material is useful and interesting in each volume, if thinner than one would like in a few instances (and most amusingly the editors of Stars are not afraid to disagree with and correct each other in their notes.) All three, in the paperback editions (Crimes had a hardcover edition, too...from Pronzini's publisher Walker & Co. in 1987) were produced using acid-soaked paper, undistinguished at best covers (see above), and rather weak bindings (even for paperbacks of their era), so somewhat battered examples of the books are more likely than near-mint ones. But any books that will give you examples of solid work by good, and sometimes even continuingly famous, artists in the fields, and such bonuses in the Campbell as the best unfamous story by Joseph Payne Brennan I've read (and one of the best by him, better than such well-known items as "Gavagan's Back Yard") and Philip Dick's brilliant "Upon the Dull Earth" (I first read it here), are worth the quick search and reasonable expense online or at your favorite well-stocked second-hand store. For much more prompt Friday "Forgotten" Books, see George Kelley's blog, where the vacationing Patti Abbott has apparently made her displeasure with Suicide Girl mascots for the FFB known...

May's "Forgotten" Music: Miriam Makeba (and some mid-'90s women in punk rock)

It seems unlikely that Miriam Makeba, who died in 2008 after a life devoted to music and activism for pan-African liberation and more, and who was perhaps the most eclectic performer (and among the most influential) to come out of Africa in the '60s, could be considered forgotten...but she was also, by the careless and foolish, often not accorded sufficient respect. The documentarians who made the boxing film When We Were Kings, for example, in offering a view of the culturual and political events around the Ali/Foreman fight in Zaire in 1974, managed to throw in every scrap they could find of James Brown sweating backstage while waiting to go on (and give a rather distracted performance)...while repeatedly running only a few-seconds clip of Makeba, singing part of a click song, and meant by the fillmmakers to represent the "evil spirits" congregating over the event. A woman who had stood against apartheid, been exiled from her home country because of it, but who had also helped inspire interest around the world and particularly in the other nations of Africa in their folk song traditions (and those of others) was thus insulted; the clowns who conduct the Chicago-based radio nerdfest Sound Opinions, in attempting to eulogize Makeba, managed to mispronounce both of her names, as "Mariam Makeeba" (the surname error, for "mah-Kay-bah," is common; you have to work, as an English-speaker, to mispronounce Miriam) and to screw up the title of her biggest commercial hit in the US, "Pata Pata" (as "Pato Pato" for no earthly reason). They also, rather than running the studio/hit recording of the song, found one of the muddiest live performances they could've dug up to then play in part.

Here's "Pata Pata," apparently in a performance for Brazilian television:


...but while a fine and danceable song, such others on that first album I heard by her (her eleventh released in the US, and her second for Warner/Reprise) as "Yetentu Tizaleny," "Maria Fulo" and "Saduva" were even better...and her plainspoken protest song "A Piece of Ground" made it's point clearly. Happily, the album Pata Pata, among several others, is still pretty easy to find on cd or as a download.

Makeba's career was slightly parallel to that of the Weavers in the US...eclectic folk and folkish repetoire, sometimes some pop commercial sweetening to tempt "crossover" listeners, oppression on the part of their national governments, and yet the basic appeal of their work allowed them to reach wide audiences around the world. Certainly both the Weavers and Makeba had some success covering Solomon Linda's "Mbube" before the Tokens or Disney got their hands on it...



She was married for a while to her fellow expat Hugh Masekela, and they were likely to collaborate throughout their careers:



And here's a performance in Ghana in 1973, about which I know nothing, including the name of the song she's performing, but it's wonderful stuff despite some decidedly anti-professional camera work (worth putting up with DailyMotion's ads):



And to wrap up this brief gloss of her career, a jazzy bit of singing with the staff of the anti-apartheid newspaper Drum, from the film Have You Seen Drum Lately?.



Briefly noted:
In the early 1990s, there were at least two schools of feminist women's punk rock, one of which was growing in visibility as Riot Grrl (or Grrrl, add Rs to taste or anger), which among other aspects featured usually young women hoping to reclaim their girlhood when they felt that it had been stolen from them, and otherwise find a way of making feminism comfortable and fun for themselves...and their most prominent cheerleaders were the band Bikini Kill:



While more likely to apply feminist critique in macro and micro circumstances without resort to nostalgia, and representing more what Alice Walker called a "womanist" perspective, were a number of bands who might offer more direct insight, and at least as forcefully, none moreso than Spitboy:






I was wearing a Spitboy t-shirt when I met birthday man Harlan Ellison, age 76 tomorow (he was signing Dream Corridor issues and didn't ask); I met Spitboy lead singer Adrienne Droogas once; she was a bit distracted at the time, considering as she was at the time, if I'm not mistaken, leaving the band (which would gain another member and become Instant Girl; Droogas would go on to the Pennsylvania-based Aus Rotten). Kathleen Hanna, most common lead singer of Bikini Kill, was pretty consistently rude to me when we'd meet in DC in the '90s, but that didn't worry me too much; the music was still good (up till the bland last album and its attempt at pop; Le Tigre, her next band, was an improvement over the last BK album, if not over Bikini Kill itself).

See the roundup of May "forgotten" music posts at Scott Parker's blog, where various forms of Star Wars has been the subject of the week...

For some reason the Comments "button" below has only intermittently been visible unless one is in this post specifically...ah, sweet mysteries of Blogspot. Which gives me another chance to plug the wonders of the CBS's continuing series (even doing well in the ratings), The Good Wife, which is probably minute by minute the best serial drama on US television right now. And on commercial broadcast. Amazing.

Friday's "Forgotten" Books: BEST SF '71 ed. by Harry Harrison & Brian Aldiss (Berkley 1972); YEAR'S FINEST FANTASY ed. by Terry Carr (Berkley 1978)

More landmarks, personally at least














Courtesy the Contento/Locus/Homeville indices:

Best SF: 1971 ed. Harry Harrison & Brian W. Aldiss (G.P. Putnam’s LCC# 74-116158, 1972, $5.95, 253pp, hc); In the UK as The Year’s Best Science Fiction No. 5 (Sphere 1972).
9 · Introduction · Harry Harrison · in
14 · Doctor Zombie and His Furry Little Friends · Robert Sheckley · ss Can You Feel Anything When I Do This?, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1971
25 · Conquest · Barry N. Malzberg · ss New Dimensions I, ed. Robert Silverberg, Doubleday, 1971
31 · Gehenna · Barry N. Malzberg · ss Galaxy Mar ’71
37 · A Meeting with Medusa · Arthur C. Clarke · nv Playboy Dec ’71
83 · The Genius · Donald Barthelme · ss New Yorker Feb ’71
90 · Angouleme · Thomas M. Disch · ss New Worlds Quarterly, ed. Michael Moorcock, London: Sphere, 1971
108 · If “Hair” Were Revived in 2016 · Arnold M. Auerbach · fa The New York Times, 1971
110 · Statistician’s Day · James Blish · ss Science Against Man, ed. Anthony Cheetham, Avon, 1970
120 · The Science Fiction Horror Movie Pocket Computer · Gahan Wilson · ms The National Lampoon Nov ’71
124 · The Hunter at His Ease · Brian W. Aldiss · ss Science Against Man, ed. Anthony Cheetham, Avon, 1970
144 · The Cohen Dog Exclusion Act · Steven Schrader · ss Eco-Fiction, ed. John Stadler, Washington Square, 1971
149 · Gantlet · Richard E. Peck · ss Orbit 10, ed. Damon Knight, G.P. Putnam’s, 1972
162 · Report · Kingsley Amis · pm The New Statesman, 1971
163 · Fisherman · Lawrence Sail · pm The New Statesman, 1971
164 · The Ideal Police State · Charles Baxter · pm The Little Magazine, 1971
165 · The Pagan Rabbi · Cynthia Ozick · nv The Hudson Review, 1966
198 · (Untitled) [from Cancerqueen] · Tommaso Landolfi · ex, 1971
200 · An Uneven Evening · Steve Herbst · ss Clarion, ed. Robert Scott Wilson, Signet, 1971
210 · Ornithanthropus · B. Alan Burhoe · ss If Dec ’71
224 · No Direction Home · Norman Spinrad · ss New Worlds Quarterly 2, ed. Michael Moorcock, London: Sphere, 1971
242 · Afterword: A Day in the Life-Style of... · Brian W. Aldiss · aw

Year’s Finest Fantasy ed. Terry Carr (Berkley/Putnam, 1978, hc)
· Introduction · Terry Carr · in
· Jeffty Is Five · Harlan Ellison · ss F&SF Jul ’77
· The Bagful of Dreams [Cugel; Dying Earth] · Jack Vance · nv Flashing Swords! #4, ed. Lin Carter, Dell, 1977
· The Cat from Hell · Stephen King · ss Cavalier Jun ’77
· Black as the Pit, from Pole to Pole · Steven Utley & Howard Waldrop · nv New Dimensions 7, ed. Robert Silverberg, Harper & Row, 1977
· The Kugelmass Episode · Woody Allen · ss New Yorker May 2 ’77; F&SF Dec ’77
· Manatee Gal Ain’t You Coming Out Tonight [Jack Limekiller] · Avram Davidson · nv F&SF Apr ’77
· Getting Back to Before It Began · Raylyn Moore · ss F&SF Aug ’77
· Descent of Man · T. Coraghessan Boyle · ss The Paris Review Spr ’77
· Probability Storm · Julian Reid · nv Universe 7, ed. Terry Carr, Doubleday, 1977
· Growing Boys · Robert Aickman · nv Tales of Love and Death, Gollancz, 1977

So, here are two books which, along the horror anthologies and the Hitchcock antologies and the humor anthologies and eventually the Judith Merril anthologies (among much else, of course), helped shape my view of what literature could do, and why attempts at hard and fast distinction between "genre" fiction and (most pathetically) "literary" fiction are useless at best and pernicious and destructive at worst...they've certainly helped limit and end careers for talented writers throughout the previous century, at least.

It's difficult to read "The Genius" by Donald Barthelme side by side with "Angouleme" by Thomas Disch and say that the first is literary art and the second a mere entertainement written to preconceived limitations, and even if that was remotely true of the Disch, one would have to wonder why it was assumend no preconceptions were at play in the compostion of the Barthelme. As it was, these were two of the stories which utterly floored me in the book, even in the presence of such major work as the Clarke, and the duo from Malzberg, the Spinrad and one of the best stories, slightly time-displaced in a Best of 1971 volume, by Ozick. "The Genius" certainly spoke to me as I reread it on a school bus, on the long hike back from a field trip to the New England Seaquarium as I recall, with my busmates in my vicinity wondering why I was so engrossed in that odd book. What are the responsibilities of being a genius? Can one choose not to be one? A compelling set of questions; nearly as memorable, the convocation of geniuses, several hundred geniuses in one room, reminding our protagonist of his less than utter uniqueness and putting him in a bad mood for several days.

Landolfi's Cancerqueen excerpt haunted me ("Cancroregina" in the language of the author and my grandfather's family), even as Wilson flowchart guide to monster movies (reptinted illegibly in the Sphere edition, even when I had good eyes) blew me away even among the many funny shorter bits, and the acid not so short Sheckley lead-off, included here.

Bill Crider recently reprinted George Kelley's contemporary review of the Carr volume for Paperback Quarterly, and while I commented extensively there, I'd still like to note here that while this volume wasn't quite as unworried about going "outside" the "boundaries" for its contents, it still kept alive the traditions Carr had established with his fine New Worlds of Fantasy trio of anthologies back in the latest '60s and earliest '70s (more directly contemporaneous with the Harrison/Aldiss volume above); this first volume of his annual, which would continue as Fantasy Annual after moving with Carr's publisher's editor David Hartwell from Berkley to Pocket Books, after a second volume with B/P) would've contained Jorge Luis Borges's "The Book of Sand" as well, if Carr was willing to pay the stiff reprint fee demanded. As it was, this volume stands as an iterestingly mixed bag, with excellent stories (unsurprisingly) from Vance, Aickman (which got across to adolescent me the potentially creepish aspects of parenthood), Ellison (not his best fantasy, but just a cut below) and Davidson (though it took me longer to warm up to the Limekiller stories than it did to some of Davidson's more flashily erudite and hilarious work). Ir also, with the inclusion of "The Cat from Hell," confirmed for me that I often found King's work suprisingly dull, crude, and generally dismal, particularly given how much people seemed to love it (while also finding the occasional story, such as "Children of the Corn" as collected in a contemporary Year's Best Horror Stories annual volume, suprisingly good, leaving me to wonder why dreck such as "Cat" was being written, published, and lauded); the (bad sort of) ridiculously smug and cutesy "Descent of Man" was the first exposure, I believe, I had to Boyle, who has tended in his shallow and striving way to appear in magazine issues and anthologies I often otherwise enjoy with appalling frequency over the decades since, usually offering a sort of sub-Ellisonian attempt to be clever and challenging and failing dismally...I have read one, and only one, decent story by him, in Zoetrope All-Story several years back, which just makes me wonder what he might achieve if he didn't so consistently attempt to be so clumsily ironic and fashionably broad in his affect. The Woody Allen story of sorts is typical of his literay work, a series of some good and other jokes barely stuck together as a narrative...a sketch in prose rather than a truly realized story. The early Utley/Waldrop, like the Reid, is more promising than indicative of what the former duo, at least, could do...Utley was already producing better work, and Waldrop would really flower in the next decade. The Moore has most of the flaws of the Boyle, as most of her work did, without being quite as impressed with itself. Oddly, I remember reading some of this one for the first time in the Hirschorn Museum in DC, as I was resting after taking in a good chunk of the collection that day, in a month or so I spent in DC in '78.

All in all, interesting books, not perfect ones, and they did nothing to quell my continuing habit of picking up annuals, even in the rare occasion that I've read most of the contents.

For more "forgotten" books, please see George Kelley's blog...at least he and Bill Crider are highlighting books this week by the late Manly Wade Wellman, whose birthday anniversary is today.

On the newsstands: WORLD LITERATURE TODAY International SF issue; ASIMOV'S SF, ELLERY QUEEN'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE

World Literature Today, that fine, if at times a bit slight, magazine, has put together an issue on international sf that looks good enough to at least take a close look at (I have just picked it up, haven't had time to read it yet)...



The July Asimov's would be all but necessary reading even if it only contained Alice Sola Kim's "The Other Graces," an excellent evocation of the life of a Korean-American teen facing not a few challenges...with a bit of the fantastic rather organically woven in. Would that this would reach the Twilight audience, as opposed to the poorly-written glop they get instead. If wishes were hobbyhorses, I'd ride even longer than I do.



The July Ellery Queen's features an almost ridiculous lineup, so as is often the case with EQMM, some of the key names were left off the cover for no good reason, but be aware that along with the cover folks, Bill Pronzini and Ed Gorman have stories in this issue, and Bill Crider's as well as Jon Breen's columns continue...and there's something by whoever's calling themselves "Dixon Hill" these days, and Phil Lovesey, and more...and EQ might be overdoing it on the consistency of use of the retro covers, but I hope they're helping...