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Post by justin on May 14, 2012 13:26:30 GMT
I'm appealing to The Vault Brains Trust to help with a future issue of The Paperback Fanatic! I'm planning a Weird Tales special, but not so much WT the magazine but related paperbacks.
To expand, I want to run details of anthologies which primarily consisted of selections from Weird Tales i.e. pretty much everything from Kurt Singer and Peter Haining. As well as the more natural material such as the Lin Carter continuation of the series at Zebra.
Also, for every legendary author out of WT such as Bloch, Bradbury, Lovecraft, who were the ones that plummeted into obscurity but deserved wider attention? Did they ever receive paperback anthologisation?
Open to other suggestions, but I'm keeping it to paperbacks up to the early-80s.
If you could all post lots of stuff, I'll cut and paste it into an essay, slap in a few low-res scans downloaded from the net, print it in The Fanatic and claim credit for your hard work. Welcome to the world of fanzines!!
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Post by dem bones on May 14, 2012 13:47:17 GMT
Here are some to be getting along with (relax, i had a tip-off): Credited to Leo Marguiles but likely ghost-edited by Sam Moskowitz The Ghoul Keepers (Pyramid, 1961) The Unexpected (Pyramid, 1961) Weird Tales (Pyramid, 1964) Worlds Of Weird (Pyramid, 1965) Peter Haining - Weird Tales. Originally issued in hardcover (Neville Spearman, 1976), contents drifted over Sphere paperbacks Weird Tales & More Weird Tales in 1978. Contrary to appearances, he dioesn't seem to have published anything else that was WT specific, though he sure revived a lot of stories from the magazine. Mike Ashley - Weird Legacies (Star, 1977) at least two pages worth of Kurt Singer's efforts .... Lin Carter revived Weird Tales as a Zebra paperback in 1980. It ran for four issues. Robert Weinberg edited six volumes of Seabury Quinn's 'Jules De Grandin' adventures for Popular in 1976. Details here. Another Weird Tales regular, Robert Bloch's several contributions to Weird Tales are spread over a number of anthologies, primary among them House Of The Hatchet (Panther, 1975: 11 stories), The Opener Of The Way (Panther 1976, 7 stories of 10) and The Skull Of The Marquis de Sade (Pyramid 1965, Corgi 1976: 6 stories of 7). Panther's '60's/ 70's Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, REH, Carl Jacobi and Frank Belknap Long paperbacks are Weird Tales-centric in varying degrees, as will be the forthcoming collection, Voodoo Tales: The Ghost Stories of Henry S. Whitehead, (Wordsworth, August 2012). The stripped down Ballantine 1962(?) edition of August Derleth's Not Long For This World(12 from Weird Tales, remaining 5 from Strange Stories) Christine Campbell Thomson's three Not At Night selections for Arrow are heavy on the WT content. Not At NightMore Not At NightStill Not At Night
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Post by jamesdoig on May 15, 2012 1:12:49 GMT
I guess Far Below and other Horrors ed Weinberg doesn't count because it was a hardcover. Some of those Donald Wollheim anthologies of the 50s and 60s might qualify, eg Macabre Reader, and August Derleth anthologies, though that might be mixing up Weird Tales with Arkham House.
That Lin Carter Weird Tales revival really got a caning from Karl Edward Wagner in Fantasy Review back in the day.
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Post by doug on May 15, 2012 9:45:11 GMT
Hey all, and don't forget that most of the Derleth edited anthologies relied quite a bit on Weird Tales reprints.
take care. Doug
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Post by dem bones on May 15, 2012 11:01:49 GMT
I guess Far Below and other Horrors ed Weinberg doesn't count because it was a hardcover. Some of those Donald Wollheim anthologies of the 50s and 60s might qualify, eg Macabre Reader, and August Derleth anthologies, though that might be mixing up Weird Tales with Arkham House. That Lin Carter Weird Tales revival really got a caning from Karl Edward Wagner in Fantasy Review back in the day. That sounds very interesting. Was KEW down on the paperback format or the whole idea of reviving the magazine? In view of what was to come, i reckon Carter made a respectable fist of it. A good place to start with Derleth's anthologies is the selection fculled from The Sleeping And The Dead published as The Unquiet Grave (Four Square, 1964). Nine of the fifteen stories originally appeared in Weird Tales. Of the fifteen stories in companion volume, The Sleeping & The Dead (Four Square, 1964) only six originate from Weird Tales. Other Derleth's you might also consider are Night's Yawning Peal (Consul, 1965: seven stories of fourteen), When Evil Wakes (Corgi 1963, 1965, 1971; seven of sixteen), The Night Side (Four Square, 1966: excellent selection, but only a paltry five of nineteen), Sleep No More (Panther 1964, 1965: five of twelve) In keeping with the preferred time frame, Henry S. Whitehead's Jumbee & Other Voodoo Tales and The Black Beast, (Mayflower, 1976), but get the forthcoming Wordsworth as there will be much more of it!
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Post by cauldronbrewer on May 15, 2012 11:27:24 GMT
That Lin Carter Weird Tales revival really got a caning from Karl Edward Wagner in Fantasy Review back in the day. That sounds very interesting. Was KEW down on the paperback format or the whole idea of reviving the magazine? In view of what was to come, i reckon Carter made a respectable fist of it. Here's what KEW has to say in the introduction to The Year's Best Horror Stories Series X: An effort to revive Weird Tales yet again, this time as a paperback series, resulted in three disastrous anthologies from Zebra Books. Dismal collections of creaky reprints and inept offerings by old hands, the series was saved from total mediocrity by a number of superior horror stories by the genre's newer writers. I have the first two. They include some solid stories--Ramsey Campbell's "Trick or Treat" and "Down There"; Joseph Payne Brennan's "Fear"; and Tanith Lee's "When the Clock Strikes" all stand out in my memory. On the other hand, the stories by Carter himself are weak, and his "posthumous collaborations" with Clark Ashton Smith are regrettable. I've always been surprised that Carter could be a reasonably good anthologist while being such an uninspired writer. Was Carter the fantasy version of August Derleth? That's probably unfair to Derleth, who shared Carter's taste for literary necrophilia but was a better writer in his own right. The first book also includes a story by the one and only Nictzin Dyalhis, whose writing is so awful that it takes on a peculiar grandeur.
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Post by David A. Riley on May 15, 2012 12:25:06 GMT
You really had to try and read some of Carter's Thongor the Barbarian novels to see just how bad he was as a writer. He also continually published bits from some epic fantasy novel he was writing on in his anthologies - I forget the title of it, but it was something portentious.
As an editor, though, he was brilliant and his reprints of so many fantasy novels in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series were highlights for me at the time.
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Post by cauldronbrewer on May 15, 2012 12:49:30 GMT
You really had to try and read some of Carter's Thongor the Barbarian novels to see just how bad he was as a writer. He also continually published bits from some epic fantasy novel he was writing on in his anthologies - I forget the title of it, but it was something portentious. As an editor, though, he was brilliant and his reprints of so many fantasy novels in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series were highlights for me at the time. I recently read the full run of The Year's Best Fantasy Stories, and the Thongor short stories included in the Carter-edited volumes were more than enough for me. The odd thing was that Carter's own stories were typically the worst in each volume. Those first six books included excellent stories by the likes of Jack Vance, Lloyd Alexander (something of a personal hero to me), Tanith Lee, Poul Anderson, Ramsey Campbell (in fantasy mode!), Roger Zelazny, and John Brunner (I wanted to add Fritz Leiber to the list, but his Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories were in a slump at that point).
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Post by Craig Herbertson on May 15, 2012 13:00:57 GMT
You really had to try and read some of Carter's Thongor the Barbarian novels to see just how bad he was as a writer. He also continually published bits from some epic fantasy novel he was writing on in his anthologies - I forget the title of it, but it was something portentious. As an editor, though, he was brilliant and his reprints of so many fantasy novels in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series were highlights for me at the time. He was indeed a brilliant editor. I admit I enjoyed the Thonger novels as a kid but I have a suspicion they would be utterly unreadable now.
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Post by andydecker on May 15, 2012 18:04:03 GMT
I admit I enjoyed the Thonger novels as a kid but I have a suspicion they would be utterly unreadable now. Not exactly unreadable. Compared to some D&D cliche feast it is a low level fantasy. A mixture of Conan as envisioned by DeCamp and concepts lifted of Burroughs. With a sprinkle of C.A.Smith worldbuilding. He was a great editor. Unfortunatly as a writer he just liked to copy what he knew. And I guess what he was a fan of.
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Post by doug on May 15, 2012 18:04:27 GMT
You really had to try and read some of Carter's Thongor the Barbarian novels to see just how bad he was as a writer. He also continually published bits from some epic fantasy novel he was writing on in his anthologies - I forget the title of it, but it was something portentious. As an editor, though, he was brilliant and his reprints of so many fantasy novels in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series were highlights for me at the time. When I was very very young I thought that Lin Carter was the greatest writer in the world! Now if you want to have some fun, go on over to the Robert E. Howard and make a post stating that Lin Carter and L. Sprague DeCamp were the greatest things to ever happen to Bob Howard and his works! Hilarity will ensue!
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Post by doug on May 15, 2012 18:13:20 GMT
You really had to try and read some of Carter's Thongor the Barbarian novels to see just how bad he was as a writer. He also continually published bits from some epic fantasy novel he was writing on in his anthologies - I forget the title of it, but it was something portentious. As an editor, though, he was brilliant and his reprints of so many fantasy novels in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series were highlights for me at the time. And I still own a few! Take care. Doug
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Post by doug on May 15, 2012 18:14:49 GMT
I admit I enjoyed the Thonger novels as a kid but I have a suspicion they would be utterly unreadable now. Not exactly unreadable. Compared to some D&D cliche feast it is a low level fantasy. A mixture of Conan as envisioned by DeCamp and concepts lifted of Burroughs. With a sprinkle of C.A.Smith worldbuilding. He was a great editor. Unfortunatly as a writer he just liked to copy what he knew. And I guess what he was a fan of. I read an interview with him once and he admitted that he wrote the stuff he loved to read as a kid. Take care. Doug
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Post by doug on May 15, 2012 18:55:39 GMT
I'm appealing to The Vault Brains Trust to help with a future issue of The Paperback Fanatic! I'm planning a Weird Tales special, but not so much WT the magazine but related paperbacks. To expand, I want to run details of anthologies which primarily consisted of selections from Weird Tales i.e. pretty much everything from Kurt Singer and Peter Haining. As well as the more natural material such as the Lin Carter continuation of the series at Zebra. Also, for every legendary author out of WT such as Bloch, Bradbury, Lovecraft, who were the ones that plummeted into obscurity but deserved wider attention? Did they ever receive paperback anthologisation? Open to other suggestions, but I'm keeping it to paperbacks up to the early-80s. If you could all post lots of stuff, I'll cut and paste it into an essay, slap in a few low-res scans downloaded from the net, print it in The Fanatic and claim credit for your hard work. Welcome to the world of fanzines!! "Half in Shadows" by Mary Councilman Most of the Frank Belknap Long Anthologies. (Hounds of Tinalos, Strange Beasts, Night Fear.) "Night Chills" edited by Kirby McCauley "Horrors in Hiding" and "Horrors Unseen" edited by Sam Mosowitz "Weird Tales" and "Worlds of Weird" editied by Leo Margulies "Harvest of Fear" edited by Charles M. Collins "One Foot in the Grave" by Davis Grubb "Horror Hunters" edited by Roger Elwood and Vic Ghidalia "Weird Legacies" edited by Mike Ashley "The Graveyard Reader" edited by Groff Conklin "A Feast of Blood" prepared by Charles M. Collins "Boris Karloff's Favorite Horror Stories" Carl Jacobi's "Revelations in black" and "The Tomb from Beyond" all of these have at least a few Weird Tales reprints. I have them in my collection if you need any nice scans. Take Care. Doug
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Post by andydecker on May 15, 2012 21:27:59 GMT
Now if you want to have some fun, go on over to the Robert E. Howard and make a post stating that Lin Carter and L. Sprague DeCamp were the greatest things to ever happen to Bob Howard and his works! Hilarity will ensue! Or you could shove your tongue into a beehive ;D When I started reading fantasy, back when I had a lot more hair, I also loved Carters work. Still think his first Green Star novel has some very well written scenes. Even if it is a lame Burroughs pastiche.
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