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Post by Craig Herbertson on Oct 17, 2012 12:10:18 GMT
If you're looking for money I wouldn't take up writing as a career. It's not normally a very lucrative job and to become remotely successful usually takes years of patient effort, ingenuity and mental stamina - or the kind of luck found in a pot at the end of the rainbow.
As to the journey of self awareness go for it. We all have our demons - in fact we have loads of them here.
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Post by andydecker on Oct 17, 2012 13:11:17 GMT
Did you ever check out Leigh Brackett, Craig? I think you would love her work. thanks for the tip. I've seen her name on book shelves for years but having looked at her bibliography I don't think I've read a thing by her. Is there anything in particular you'd recommend? Sword of Rhianon, a Mars story, and Road to Sinharat a Erik John Stark story comes to mind. Paizo Publishing has re-issued a lot recently. but there are also some cheap Ebooks reprints of some of her novelettes.
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Post by andydecker on Oct 17, 2012 13:21:41 GMT
If I may borrow this thread for a question: dear Thana, will From Hell to Eternity be released as a Ebook? Well, I just asked the publisher and he said he wasn't sure about them, that he prefers hard copies and the alternative felt "a bit like not-publishing". So I suppose that in the short term that's a no but he did say he's open to persuasion. I prefer real books too but I'm a recent convert to the convenience of eBooks for long-haul flights and holidays. Thanks! So I ordered the last copy from Amazon Germany. (which prompted me to ask, just one copy left as of today) After Dems recommendation I am very curious. I am not fond of Ebooks myself, I hate their instubstantiality (spell?) and their inherent cheapening of the content, not to mention the atrocious coverart. And they are the slow death of the bookstore. But for reading foreign material cheap - and fast as in next minute - it is hard to find an argument against them. If you can buy the complete The Spider pulp without having to pay those ridiculous prices for magazine reprints, it is hard to say no ;D
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Oct 17, 2012 13:38:03 GMT
thanks for the tip. I've seen her name on book shelves for years but having looked at her bibliography I don't think I've read a thing by her. Is there anything in particular you'd recommend? Sword of Rhianon, a Mars story, and Road to Sinharat a Erik John Stark story comes to mind. Paizo Publishing has re-issued a lot recently. but there are also some cheap Ebooks reprints of some of her novelettes. The Sword of Rhiannon, also known as Sea-Kings of Mars (I don't know off the top of my head if they're two different versions of the same story or identical) is a great place to start. All of the original Stark stories are excellent, as well; "Enchantress of Venus" might be my favorite among them. The later Skaith novels, also featuring Stark, are good but maybe a notch lower. "Lorelei of the Red Mist" is an interesting case--Brackett wrote the first half and then Ray Bradbury finished it. If you can find it, the Gollancz Fantasy Masterworks collection, Sea-Kings of Mars, is a treasure trove. I also love the Paizo reprints.
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Post by Knygathin on Oct 17, 2012 14:02:49 GMT
What kind of imagination does Leigh Brackett have? Is it Edgar Rice Burroughs-kind of stuff? Or is there more to it?
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Oct 17, 2012 14:43:36 GMT
What kind of imagination does Leigh Brackett have? Is it Edgar Rice Burroughs-kind of stuff? Or is there more to it? I would describe her work as taking Burroughs' subject matter and filtering it through a noir sensibility. I'm not certain that she would be to your tastes--not because she's a woman, but because her fiction tends to be action-oriented and plot-driven. It includes plenty of wonderful mood and atmosphere, with a running theme of strange civilizations that were once grand but are now decaying, but it's not what I would call visionary if that's what you're seeking. I could be wrong about your tastes, however; I would have pegged you as liking C. L. Moore more than you seem to do.
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Post by Knygathin on Oct 17, 2012 15:00:31 GMT
What kind of imagination does Leigh Brackett have? Is it Edgar Rice Burroughs-kind of stuff? Or is there more to it? I would describe her work as taking Burroughs' subject matter and filtering it through a noir sensibility. I'm not certain that she would be to your tastes--not because she's a woman, but because her fiction tends to be action-oriented and plot-driven. It includes plenty of wonderful mood and atmosphere, with a running theme of strange civilizations that were once grand but are now decaying, but it's not what I would call visionary if that's what you're seeking. I could be wrong about your tastes, however; I would have pegged you as liking C. L. Moore more than you seem to do. Yes, C. L. Moore is probably much closer to my soul mentality, with a similar perspective attitude on life, than Edgar Rice Burroughs (I liked him as a teen). As I have stated elsewhere, I am not a person who needs a "story", "ekshun"*, or "adventure"; I merely enjoy profound, rich writing, charged with color and atmosphere or some kind of mystic or weird significance. * C. A. Smith's term for shallow action forced by publishers upon his stories.
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Post by doug on Oct 18, 2012 12:07:43 GMT
What kind of imagination does Leigh Brackett have? Is it Edgar Rice Burroughs-kind of stuff? Or is there more to it? I enjoy thinking of LB's stories as "Barsoom from the gutter up". Her Mars stories are Barsoom as seen from the outside by some one at the bottom and after Barsoom has been colonialized. So yeah, I guess that "noir" is a good description for her stories. plus you have to add a good dose of sensousness. Don't forget that John Carter went native from day one and never once questioned the mores of the society he found himself in. A LB character, on the other hand, thinks "WTF? Are these people crazy?". LB also has extemely strong female characters. That was why she was howard Hawks favorite screenplay writer. Here is a paragraph from the opening of "The Sword of Rhiannon"...... Carse walked beside the still black waters in their ancient channel, cut in the dead sea-bottom. He watched the dry wind shake the torches that never went out and listened to the broken music of the harps that were never stilled. Lean lithe men and women passed him in the shadowy streets, silent as cats except for the chime and whisper of the tiny bells the women wear, a sound as delicate as rain, distillate of all the sweet wickedness of the world."They paid no attention to Carse, though despite his Martian dress he was obviously an Earthman and though an Earthman's life is usually less than the light of a snuffed candle along the Low Canals. Carse was one of them. The men of Jekkara and Valkis and Barrakesh, are the aristocracy of thieves and they admire skill and respect knowledge and know a gentleman when they meet one."I think that that is one of the best openings that I have ever read. I also think that Bradbury learned a lot from her. take care. Doug
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Oct 18, 2012 13:23:22 GMT
What kind of imagination does Leigh Brackett have? Is it Edgar Rice Burroughs-kind of stuff? Or is there more to it? I enjoy thinking of LB's stories as "Barsoom from the gutter up". Her Mars stories are Barsoom as seen from the outside by some one at the bottom and after Barsoom has been colonialized. So yeah, I guess that "noir" is a good description for her stories. plus you have to add a good does of sensousness. don't forget that John Carter went native from day one and never once questioned the mores of the society he found himself in. A LB character, on the other hand, thinks "WTF? Are these people crazy?". LB also has extemely strong female characters. That was why she was howard Hawks favorite screenplay writer. Here is a paragraph from the opening of "The Sword of Rhiannon"...... Carse walked beside the still black waters in their ancient channel, cut in the dead sea-bottom. He watched the dry wind shake the torches that never went out and listened to the broken music of the harps that were never stilled. Lean lithe men and women passed him in the shadowy streets, silent as cats except for the chime and whisper of the tiny bells the women wear, a sound as delicate as rain, distillate of all the sweet wickedness of the world."They paid no attention to Carse, though despite his Martian dress he was obviously an Earthman and though an Earthman's life is usually less than the light of a snuffed candle along the Low Canals. Carse was one of them. The men of Jekkara and Valkis and Barrakesh, are the aristocracy of thieves and they admire skill and respect knowledge and know a gentleman when they meet one."I think that that is one of the best openings that I have ever read. I also think that Bradbury learned a lot from her. take care. Doug must admit that looks definitely like my kind of poison. I will be scouring the usual sources. Thanks for the tip.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Oct 18, 2012 13:32:01 GMT
I love much of Brackett's SF (but definitely not her other stuff), but she used some ill-advised naming strategies. I mean, "Rhiannon"? "Barrakesh"?
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Post by doug on Oct 18, 2012 14:00:11 GMT
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Post by ramseycampbell on Oct 18, 2012 21:05:52 GMT
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Oct 19, 2012 0:58:43 GMT
Thanks! Fascinating. Thought the opening scene was tremendous. Near the end I couldn't avoid the question - 'does she write 'I am your father Luke Skywalker' - but apparently not.
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Post by doug on Mar 5, 2013 16:30:18 GMT
I'll always have fond memories of the 1980s Del Rey/Ballantine paperback HPL collections. After I finished the local library's copy of Arkham House's The Dunwich Horror and Others, I bought and read all of them. For years, I assumed that the same artist did these covers and the ones for Michael McDowell's Blackwater series (which I've never read but have long been tempted to try), but I was wrong: Michael Whelan did the HPL covers, whereas Wayne Barlow did the Blackwater covers. Also: The Murray Tinkelman HLP covers posted by Doug on his blog are fantastic. Hey all!
I've just updated my blog with an article on Murray Tinkelman. He was so kind as to speak with me on the phone for almost an hour! Flat rate long distance can pay off at times. A Converstion with Murray tinkelman
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Mar 5, 2013 22:19:57 GMT
Interesting read, Doug. His perspective on the decline of book design dovetails with some comments I've seen here lately.
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