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Post by Calenture on Mar 10, 2008 11:13:48 GMT
While Paperback Fanatic 6 is the most interesting issue yet, there are parts of it I'm still having problems getting my head around. I suppose I'm the Vault member least enthusiastic about Peter Haining's past output. I was astonished to see just how great that output was, but looking at his anthologies on my own shelves, it came back to me that I felt luke-warm about buying too many when they appeared because almost everything in them was reprinted - or that's how it seemed to me. I did appreciate his illustrated coffee-table book, Mystery, and Beyond the Curtain of the Dark was a strong anthology. But so much seemed just unnecessary.
I was very interested in Philip Harbottle's comment that: "I was not looking for space opera, or old-fashioned stories. I was not looking for a new variant of John Russell Fearn. I was looking for stories that were literate without being obscure, with strong human interest, modern and inventive". There's definitely a sense of a thrashing about in a struggle to establish an identity and survive. Later on, Harbottle comments that one of Peter Cave's stories marked him as "a writer with great potential"; that his novelette Rebel Planet reminded him of the great Eric Frank Russell. That story would be interesting to see today. Looking back now, Vision of Tomorrow's writers seem to be working on both sides of the SF old- and new-waves. Had things worked out, it would have been fascinating seeing how that magazine might have developed. Bitter thoughts, I know.
The fact that NEL then failed to persuade W H Smiths to stock Vision of Tomorrow which was then actually banned from the entire chain of shops, leaves a vile taste in the mouth.
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Post by pulphack on Mar 14, 2008 12:02:38 GMT
Well, thanks to a post-office manager, the return of a regular postie from his holidays, and men on overtime looking over their shoulders, Justin's replacement copy has arrived! Thanks, Justin.
Was it worth the wait? Hell yeah. The Haining interview I'd seen on pdf, but to easily flip back and forth to put together what the man was saying was great. Some good stuff about the industry back in the day. And perfectly complemented by Mike Ashley's piece, which is superb. A fitting tribute (although the scurrilous would say that if you claimed the Mike Ashley piece was new and exclusive, and didn't mention you'd taken it from a larger work, that's be more in character for PH. Hehehe...)
The Philip Harbottle interview was the best thing for me, though - perhaps because I'd already seen the Haining, so this was fresh. But to read about his experiences in the publishing jungle was fascinating. With Haining and Harbottle following on from Lory and Tralins, this is where the PF really excels. The articles on genres and authors are necessary to archive the form, but to get from the mouths of these guys is something no-one else is really doing, apart maybe from Gary Lovisi.
Cracking issue, and I read it one sitting because I couldn't put it down. Now all you need is some product placement, and it's the perfect pulp read...
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Post by pulphack on Mar 14, 2008 12:07:06 GMT
Oh by the way, Rog - I appreciate what you say about the Haining anthologies. As I read more widely, they did start to seem a little 'ho-hum' when you saw them crop up. But the crucial thing I remember is that the first horror anthologies I ever read were his, and by mixing lots of reprints with more unique stuff, he did draw me in. Perhaps this was so for many readers. Also, it has to be said that if he put a particular story in more than one anthology, these were designed for short shelf life, and although I later picked up anthologies that had stories I'd seen in other anthos of his, these were earlier than the ones I'd picked up out of Woolies or Smiths, the second-hand ones being long out of print. I think I'm the kind of reader that proved his point about that...
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Post by dem bones on Mar 14, 2008 13:12:22 GMT
I can see why people would find some of the early Haining unnecessary - something like Where Nightmares Are, for example, could be the work of anyone who'd read about twenty 'classic' ghost/ horror stories - it didn't take him long to get into his stride and so many of the reprints were inspired. I got into the whole Weird Tales thing through his collections, picked up a taste for the Penny Dreadful's and Gothic lunacy which would otherwise doubtless have escaped me, and generally got at least a bog-standard knowledge of horror fiction and its exponents. In later years, I thought he went off the boil some. I fumed at his renaming stories - poor Dracula's Guest seemed to cop it time and again - in the hope the reader would then snap the book up thinking they were getting something rare, although I had a sneaky appreciation for his audacity and he became something of a pantomime villain of the anthology caper to me. I still think the bulk of his essential work in the field of horror fiction was done in the 'seventies and don't feel too hard done by that I'm missing some of the William Kimber titles - but would still be delighted to get hold of them! And pulps: I've said this before, but I thought your Press Editorial piece was superb. What a terrific issue!
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Post by Calenture on Mar 14, 2008 13:57:56 GMT
Oh by the way, Rog - I appreciate what you say about the Haining anthologies... Probably the thing that makes Justin such a good editor is the way he focusses on a thing - the pulp of the Seventies and the editors and writers working then - and he's created a very sharp image of that time and a celebration of it with Paperback Fanatic. Me - my views always seem too scattered. If there's a celebration going on, I always have to look at things sideways and try to knock a few holes in things - holes which probably others were already aware were there anyway - and look at alternatives to celebrate. My own 'picture' of the time and the people then becomes too vague, too diffused. The nature of this site obviously lends itself to that scattergun approach. Haining's output was so great that a lot of it was almost inevitably unnecessary. The same thing's been said of Philip Jose Farmer - that if he wrote less he would have written better. Moorcock's another who started turning out sloppily-written efforts to feed a market. I do find these people - these and others like them - and their books, really quite wonderful. Obviously that feeling of awe for those people is confused by the sense that if so many of them hadn't produced such a glut, some of us now - who are producing work just as good, if not better - would have a real market. So my confused feelings about these things tend to emerge in an attempt to make sense of a time that I remember as a wonderful mess.
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Post by David A. Riley on Mar 14, 2008 14:49:57 GMT
That's an interesting perspective on the times and one I hadn't really thought about before.
At the time, the sheer output of stuff was amazing. That's the one thing I do remember vividly. New paperbacks were appearing each week, sometimes all series of them, like the Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan books (and his other series). Moorcock's output was phenominal. I used to look forward to a new Moorcock and read it in a couple of days. Of course they were only very short novels. Nowadays I'm not too sure if I could get into any of them, though I did reread my old Moorcocks about ten years ago.
It was something I took for granted then. Try and find any mass market paperback anthology these days that's new is not easy. As for single author collections, that's a daydream unless you're talking King.
David
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Post by Calenture on Mar 16, 2008 14:04:44 GMT
John Richards Vargo Statton Science Fiction Magazine # 1 January 1954 Beyond Zero (novel) by Vargo Statten March of the Robots (short novel) by Volsted Gridban The Super Disintegrator by Simpson Stokes The Inevitable Conflict by E C Tubb The Copper Bullet by John Wernheim Breathing Space by D Richard Hughes The Pendulum of Power by Armstrong Alexander "Vargo Statton", along with "Volsted Gridban", must have been the unlikeliest pseudonym ever created, used by John Russell Fearn and Ted Tubb. This first issue was sent as a review copy to Terry Jeeves, for mention in his long-running Erg fanzine, and has a note signed by Alisdair Paterson, the magazine's associate editor, paper-clipped inside, expressing the hope that Terry "will find its contents reasonably acceptable to your critical eye and still more critical mind." I bought the first three issues from Terry in the 'Seventies or 'Eighties. Patterson's letter includes a comment that "I do want to stress that we are as yet not aiming at any other market than the junior section of science fiction enthusiasm." This posted naturally as another footnote to the Philip Harbottle/ Vision of Tomorrow interview in Paperback Fanatic 6.
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Post by justin on Mar 16, 2008 20:22:53 GMT
Glad the mag has created some discussion/reminescing around the 70s pulp fiction industry.
Andy's article has created some very interesting feedback, including a couple of ex-Baker employees sharing their experiences. All will be revealed in the next issue...
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Post by killercrab on Jun 2, 2008 1:35:30 GMT
Justin won't thank me - but if Paperback Fanatic was 100 pages longer - it wouldn't be enough - this issue exemplifies everything that is essential about the mag.
Fanatical Thoughts sets the tone perfectly - editorials - good editorials add so much character to a magazine and combining this with reader comment makes for a meaty opening gambit.
From Beyond The Grave is undoubtedly the centre piece - illustrated by candidly humorous snaps - the interview added a new dimension to the Peter Haining volumes on my bookcase - getting to know what made Peter tick through questions *we* probably all wanted answers too.
Peter Haining's Web of Terror - though abridged - I think will become a useful resource. I was hoping the Haining anthologies I'd bought scattershot might be the more celebrated tomes! I haven't done too badly - buying blind.
RBH in British paperback - nice intermission piece between the bigger features.
Vision of Tomorrow - this near dammit beat the talk with Peter - a fascinating study of publishing pitfalls - full of juicy detail and opinion. In fact I think I level peg this with the first interview!
And that's as far as I've got so far - no slight on Andy's piece intended .I think every issue should include an interview or two - that said I'm sure that isn't an easy task to pull off. Perhaps Justin could talk to Chris Achilleos at some juncture for an artist expose?
ade
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Post by pulphack on Jun 7, 2008 17:54:34 GMT
no, i'm with you on this, ade - i think the interviews are far and away the best bits, and i feel that justin is doing vital work in talking to these guys. ph's sad demise just proves how close to the wire we are for these things: these guys are getting to that age, and while 'serious' literarture is always well documented, popular fiction is very rarely recorded in such a way. i'd like to see more, much more, of ageing writers, editors and artists while they're still around. for instance, wouldn't a bob tanner interview have been great?
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Post by justin on Jun 7, 2008 18:56:29 GMT
Inmterviews with Peter Leslie and Terry Harknett in the bag, and will be appearing in issues 8 and 9.
Contact details for Jack Adrian and Peter Tremayne sat around gathering dust- must pull finger out!
Agreement from John Harvey to talk- sort it you slacker!
James Herbert is the big game I crave...
PH makes a good point re timing- there's so many questions I want to ask Peter Haining that will no go unanswered. I did speak with one pulp author recently and unfortunately his mental health was evidently declining to the extent it wasn't right to continue the interview. Very sad.
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Post by killercrab on Jun 7, 2008 21:24:21 GMT
James Herbert is the big game I crave... >>
Yeah but doesn't JH kind of want to forget his early horror tag? If you could get him he might wanna design the cover too! Congrats on hitting three nine Justin.:-)
ade
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Post by carolinec on Jun 8, 2008 10:18:43 GMT
James Herbert is the big game I crave... Have you actually tried contacting him re doing an interview, Justin, or is it that you haven't contacted him? I can tell you, with my autograph-hunting hat on, he's very friendly and approachable via his agent when it comes to signing books for people if they send them to him - so I can't imagine that he wouldn't be just as approachable about doing an interview. But if, as Ade says, he's not happy to talk about the kind of things you'd want to talk about, then that obviously is a problem. My own attitude to approaching people to interview is "if I don't do it now, I never will" so I just go for it. I'm really quite shy (I am, honest!) and would have thought twice about doing this kind of thing a few years ago, but now I just push my nerves to one side and go for it. I'd do the same if I were you!
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