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Post by dem bones on Apr 23, 2008 7:40:28 GMT
Stanley Schmidt - Unknown (Baen, Oct. 1988) Tom Kidd Stanley Schmidt - Introduction
Anthony Boucher - The Compleat Werewolf Lester del Rey - The Coppersmith Theodore Sturgeon - A God In A Garden Malcolm Jameson - Even The Angels Fritz Leiber - Smoke Ghost L. Sprague de Camp - Nothing In The Rules Robert Bloch - A Good Knight's Work Henry Kuttner - The Devil We Know Frederic Brown - The Angelic Anglewormblurb: Once upon a time the single most influential SF editor who ever lived started a fantasy magazine. Its name: Unknown. Its purpose: to provide a home for fantasy with backgrounds and roles of magic as rigorously and consistently drawn as the science fiction that appeared in Astounding.
Did John W. Campbell succeed?
Unknown was "The best fantasy magazine that ever existed or, in my opinion, is ever likely to exist..." — ISAAC ASIMOV
This is the best from that best. In Arthur Metzger's introduction to his An Index & Short History of 'Unknown' (TK Graphics, 1976), the author quotes from Ray Bradbury's appreciation of the first issue of the magazine in March 1939: "What many of us ... have wanted in the way of fantasy has come true. AND CAMPBELL DID IT FOR US. No more house of dripping blood, grinning harridans with butcher's knives, bodies dangling from razor-bladed rafters." Man, I've gone right off Bradbury! Someone else can review this junk and tell us why it was "the best" because, other than Boucher's intermittently amusing lycanthrope detective number and Leiber's enduring modern ghost story, it looks a right load of goblins to me.
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Apr 23, 2008 8:00:44 GMT
I've never read it but I'd have a fair guess it's crap. The only one who could ever write a proper 'fantasy' short story was Howard. To me the medium just doesn't suit short.
But don't knock Bradbury -he still liked bodies hanging from rafters and so - he was probably thinking of his next writers cheque when he wrote that
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Post by David A. Riley on Apr 23, 2008 9:24:54 GMT
And Smith. Don't forget Clark Ashton Smith. His fantasy short stories have a unique flavour all their own and can't be bettered for their atmosphere of doom.
David
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Post by Johnlprobert on Apr 23, 2008 10:17:37 GMT
Boucher's Compleat Werewolf is a fun story from his fun collection of the same name, The Leiber is a classic. I've not heard of any of the others & they don't really sound worth seeking out.
I'm a huge fan of Clark ashton Smith, btw - I'm currently reading the Night Shade series of reprints of his stuff
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Apr 23, 2008 10:35:25 GMT
You're right David. i did forget Smith.
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Post by David A. Riley on Apr 23, 2008 10:59:25 GMT
I remember first coming across Smith when I bought a copy of Zothique, with its beautiful George Barr cover, at an SF convention in Chester years ago. I started reading it on my long train journey home. Never did a journey like that pass more pleasantly!
Smith is certainly up there with all of the greats.
David
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Post by dem bones on Apr 23, 2008 11:10:23 GMT
But don't knock Bradbury -he still liked bodies hanging from rafters and so - he was probably thinking of his next writers cheque when he wrote that I know, Craig. Sometimes I am nice kev and other times I am horrible kev and when I wrote that I was being the most horrible kev ever nearly! How are we to define "fantasy" here? Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy - the only trilogy I am ever likely to bother with no matter how long I live - is, I presume, "fantasy" which makes me a huge fan of the genre by proxy although God knows, there's enough horror in there to keep most of us ghouls busy. I tend to lump 'Sword & Sorcery' in with "fantasy", but many of R. E. Howard's Conan adventures are unquestionably top notch horror stories in their own right. Clark Ashton Smith. Some traditional, earthbound pure horror, albeit in exotic locations ( Seed From The Sepulchre, A Rendezvous In Averoigne) although the stuff on imaginary planets with contrived names strikes me as "fantasy" no matter how many Necromancers and Isles of the Torturers he cames to drag into the proceedings. This is unquestionably a failing of mine, but by and large, if the action takes place in a setting I can't find in an Atlas I tend to lose interest and banish it to fantasy island although, I hasten to add, there are outstanding exceptions. Anyway, in it's brief history (39 issues from 1939-42), Unknown gave first publication to some more than decent horror stories including Jane Rice's The Idol Of The Flies, Robert Bloch's The Cloak, Manly Wade Wellman's The Devil Is Not Mocked and When It Was Moonlight, Theodore Sturgeon's It, Fritz Leiber's Smoke Ghost and The Hill And The Hole, Jack Williamson's Darker Than You Think, Anthony Boucher's They Bite, Frank Belknap Long's Grab Bags Are Dangerous, Cleve Cartmill's No News Today ....
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Post by marksamuels on Apr 23, 2008 11:43:00 GMT
Mention of Clark Ashton-Smith reminds me that I first read his tale "The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis" over twenty years ago whilst going through a tunnel in a narrowboat. And the captain of the vessel was Redbrain.
Seriously.
Mark S.
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Post by David A. Riley on Apr 23, 2008 11:44:24 GMT
Having started my early reading as an avid SF fan (Asimov, Heinlein, Bradbury, etc), I don't have the same problem with alien place names. I don't read much SF now (I tend to prefer crime these days), but certain types of fantasy I like, particularly in the short fiction form. I do have a bit of a phobia when it comes to endless series of overlong fantasy novels, (Trilogies, quadrilogies, quintilogies, blah, blah, blah) with the noble exception of the Gormenghast books, of course, and good old Lord of the Rings.
David
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Apr 23, 2008 12:00:59 GMT
Rog jump in quick, Dem seems to have let his guard down.
For me there are about nine really class fantasy works/authors:
Gormenghasy trilogy
Anything by E R Eddison Dunsany William Morris Kenneth Morris R E Howard C A Smith Jack Vance LOTR Tolkein (It has to be there despite its tendency to proliferate mishapen children) David Lindsay Voyage to Arcturus
I might have missed out a few but if you confine yourself to this you will be safe enough.
I like the otherworld, the realm of darkness, the epic stage for moral conflict. Essentially, anywhere that isn't here.
The problem with the genre is that it quickly descends from high fantasy to low puerile garbage. Sadly, not puerile in the sense of gratuitously violent, saucy, so bad its good or tacky enough to be interesting.
If I read about another cardboard castle, insipid talking dragon or sorceress with a smug cat I will effectively go insane. But there are moments in some fantasy books where one is elevated far beyond the mundane which is what i am after. I would contrast this kind of escape with the pleasure I get out a ghost story - which is often merely the brilliance of the author in creating a chilling moment, a scene of past tragedy or whatever, and the chilling revulsion experienced in a well told horror story.
I would add to this package anything saucy, laughably bad, or pulpy enough to be read in half an hour with the good guys being obviously good and the bad guys being irredeemably bad.
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Post by Johnlprobert on Apr 23, 2008 12:16:40 GMT
I first read 'Vaults of Yoh-Vombis' many years ago during one of those rainy holidays where you were confined indoors and which somehow added to the atmosphere. I lost the book it was in and for some reason I spent years being convinced it was a Frank Belknap Long story. I read an awful lot of FBL before coming across it again in (I think) the Fantasy Masterworks 'Emperor of Dreams'.
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Post by Calenture on Apr 23, 2008 12:52:22 GMT
Wasn't Unknown the magazine that Shirley Jackson swore was the best? That Bradbury quote seems very odd to me; houses of dripping blood and harridans with knives (etc) was usually just his scene, as we all know. Boucher also wrote They Bite and Nellthu (in My Favourites in Suspense and 5th MayFlower Book of Black Magic Stories respectively). Sturgeon, Kuttner and Brown rarely let a reader down. I wouldn't feel inclined to try the Bloch story, I admit - I've read too many stories punning on "Knight", and I rarely enjoy Bloch anyway. "Fantasy" is becoming as dubious a category as the tired and worn out "dark fiction" *yawn*. I suppose the rot set in with Stephen Donaldson and Piers Anthony - though both those writers have written decent short horror. I don't agree that fantasy doesn't work in short fiction. Lovecraft's early stories after Dunsany, for instance - I loved those when I was a kid. Mind you, it's been a while... Smith, Howard. How about Merritt? Oh, and Jack Vance?
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Post by Johnlprobert on Apr 23, 2008 13:13:05 GMT
Well I'm a big fan of Robert Bloch but I can understand how some might find him a bit annoying after a while.
I'm rather a fan of Stephen Donaldson' Thomas Covenant books, mainly because I felt he was trying to turn epic fantasy on its head by having a thoroughly dislikeable central character who refused to believe (in fact had to refuse to believe - clever) in what he was experiencing. At the time I read it I felt so cynical about Tolkein-type fantasy that it worked perfectly for me.
Has anyone mentioned Michael Moorcock yet? He's one of my favourites as well
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Post by David A. Riley on Apr 23, 2008 13:19:16 GMT
Moorcock was brilliant, in his day at least. When he used to churn his trilogies out I used to devour them in a weekend (which is about how long it took him to write them allegedly). The good thing about them was that they were very fast moving, vividly described in an amazing economy of words, with some outstanding characters - and were never overly long.
I reread all my Moorcocks some four or five years ago and thoroughly enjoyed them.
I haven't read anything new by him in decades, though. And I must admit I hated his experimental stuff that he used to serialise in New Worlds.
David
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Post by Johnlprobert on Apr 23, 2008 13:24:19 GMT
David - those are the books I mean - those lean, economical, insanely quickly written trilogies that somehow felt so much more adult than a lot of fantasy of the time. You could almost imagine the smoke coming out of the typewriter as he crammed his ideas onto the paper.
I'm not to into the New Worlds stuff, but I love Behold the Man, which I think is a tremendously clever piece of work
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