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Post by andydecker on Feb 18, 2020 20:05:39 GMT
Hi Richard, those Whitehead stories sound like an amazing find, and it's a pity they were not included in a revised edition of the book you mention. I'd seen Whitehead's name here and there since my teenage years but never read anything by him until 2018 when I became curious from reading HPL's letters around the time of Whitehead's sudden death in the early 1930s. There are some interesting blog articles out there about Whitehead. I've been able to read a couple of the stories that are available online and the folkloric elements are so well used in those. He sounds like such an offbeat character. It's hard to know if there is "profiling" going on with his exclusion from anthologies due to certain things about his life and interests, or if what he wrote simply doesn't stimulate modern sensibilities in the way that other authors from that period and circle have done. cheers, Steve Do you really think so? The only WT writers which got a nice definite edition in the last decade were Clark Ashton Smith and Seabury Quinn. Not counting these kitchen-sink Ebook editions of writers like Merritt or Howard where you get all for .99 cent. It is not a market which promises a big profit. I don't see someone doing the complete Hugh Cave or August Derleth in hardcover.
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Post by helrunar on Feb 18, 2020 22:00:28 GMT
Funny about Seabury Quinn. I find him to be REALLY uneven, and to be almost as relentless an advocate of the cookie-cutter approach to story writing as Dan "Marilyn" Ross. (I.e. take one plot and knock off 19 copies of it with really minor variations.)
In the library which employs me, we have a copy (a CIRCULATING copy, believe it or not) of this volume put out by Centipede Press, one of those boutique establishments where the books go instantly out of print and become collectors items within six months of seeing the light of day. It's an anthology of writers in the Weird Tales circle. I checked it out and was fascinated by the number of writers represented who I knew only by name, or not at all. Each one has some kind of short biographical note as well as a sample tale. The thing is the size of a doorstop ... it could seriously maim a person if dropped from a height of six feet or so. Gorgeous, of course. The shipping fees even within the US must have been formidable.
So yes, you have a point. Thanks as always for your thoughts.
cheers, Steve
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Post by Knygathin on Feb 19, 2020 0:51:49 GMT
The only WT writers which got a nice definite edition in the last decade were Clark Ashton Smith and Seabury Quinn. Not counting these kitchen-sink Ebook editions of writers like Merritt or Howard where you get all for .99 cent. It is not a market which promises a big profit. I don't see someone doing the complete Hugh Cave or August Derleth in hardcover. It is about time they take on A. Merritt. He deserves it. Enough books published by Lovecraft. Job well done, but now it's enough. He is quite established in the collective consciousness. Let Merritt take his place on the bookstore shelves. Take the bad with the good; accept Merritt's pulp side, and enjoy his incomparable imagination.
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Post by cromagnonman on Feb 24, 2020 2:19:29 GMT
The War of the Weeds: [Thrilling Wonder Stories February 1939]: An extraterrestrial projectile impacts on a Minnesota farm. Inside are found alien plant seeds. Boffin on the spot Professor John Calthay - supposedly a genius but judged on the evidence of all his subsequent actions actually a dangerous moron - concludes that the sensible approach for dealing with the stuff is to plant it where it landed. Not subject them to any kind of tests or take the precaution of germinating them in a lab or any sort of wishy-washy science of that nature. Nope, just scatter it about and see what happens. And lo and behold up sprout alien weeds which prove to emit some sort of undefined energy which literally drives people mad. Of course this only comes to light after our resident genius has arranged a concert at the local sports stadium to demonstrate to a defenceless and unsuspecting public the weird harmonics that the wind causes the weeds to emanate.
The military potential of the space flora isn't lost on August Strausvig, dictator of the evil Middle European Empire, who contrives to steal the remaining seeds. This in spite of the stringent security precautions that come from them being stashed in the barn. In no time at all a tide of brain disintegrating plants are advancing across the United States. Nothing seems able to stop them so we are gravely informed (although no evidence is given either of the obvious solution of pesticides and flame throwers even occurring to anyone). Bizarrely the US Department of Agriculture begs Calthay to assume command of the fight against the alien infestation, generously overlooking the fact that this reckless d**khead is singularly responsible for the entire farrago in the first place. But Calthay is far too preoccupied with his work at the observatory, concluding that the plants are weapons of biological warfare sent by an alien race. Why Einstein bothered to leave his job in the patent office with this intellectual colossus at large I can't imagine.
For some peculiar reason Strausvig shares the DoA's high assessment of Calthay's abilities and twice tries to have him assassinated. The first time by planting a bomb under the farmhouse which is only foiled by Calthay's assistant developing a spontaneous and unexplained interest in poking around in such places. On the second occasion Calthay is shot at through a window. His response to this attempt on his life is to go recklessly chasing after the assassin who instead of standing his ground and calmly gunning the unarmed crackpot down inexplicably scarpers.
Events culminate with a drone attack on the farmhouse which unleashes a fresh crop of virulent weeds. This time our cerebral paragon is completely flummoxed and all seems lost. Fortunately diligent assistant Lawson Gage has been burning the midnight oil on extra-curricular research of his own and trundles to the rescue on a contraption straight out of Heath Robinson.
Up to now I've avoided reviewing the SF stories which constitute the main bulk of the contents of this book. My tolerance threshold for even the best SF is pretty low and Jacobi's efforts by and large are simply dire: robot colonial administrators on Venus, sentient space wrecks, alien pied pipers and things of that sort. But I felt I had to make an exception in this case because it is simply so bloody mindnumbingly awful. I had thought "Cosmic Teletype" in REVELATIONS IN BLACK marked the extent of Jacobi's descent into hilarious ineptitude but this one plunges to new depths entirely. Even allowing for its composition coming at the very dawn of Campbell's Golden Age it would surely have appeared utter crap even to its audience then. Jacobi might have possessed an erratic gift for the macabre but he hadn't a scooby when it came to SF. Alien space weeds do not rot the human brain but reading Carl Jacobi's attempts at SF certainly might.
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Post by helrunar on Feb 24, 2020 17:22:26 GMT
Thanks for the hilarious review, Richard. I'm sure it was 500 percent more fun reading what you wrote than slogging through Jacobi's amazingly poor plotting.
I really need to look up Heath Robinson--I think this is the third mention I've seen of that name in recent months. Haven't a clue.
cheers, Steve
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Post by helrunar on Feb 24, 2020 17:25:39 GMT
Short entry about Mr. Robinson's life and work: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Heath_RobinsonInteresting to read that a Heath Robinson Museum opened a few years ago somewhere or other over yonder. The death-dealing device deployed by the Devil Doctor ( that's enough with the D's now--ed.) in Brides of Fu Manchu definitely has a Heath Robinson look to it. cheers, Steve
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Post by David A. Riley on Feb 24, 2020 20:45:38 GMT
Thanks for the hilarious review, Richard. I'm sure it was 500 percent more fun reading what you wrote than slogging through Jacobi's amazingly poor plotting. I really need to look up Heath Robinson--I think this is the third mention I've seen of that name in recent months. Haven't a clue. cheers, Steve I agree. I loved that review. One of the best and funniest I've read in a long time. Sounds like Jacobi was a forerunner of Chetwynd-Hayes.
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Post by cromagnonman on Feb 28, 2020 22:10:20 GMT
Finished! At last. Sweet Jesus, I thought this damn book was never going to come to an end. But finally we're there. Finished not so much with a flourish as with an exhausted exasperated bellyflop across the line. How hollow my predictions for this book proving a treat now ring. Ye gods; this piece of tripe was unquestionably one of the worst story collections I've ever read in my life.
Had to wade and wallow through three final SF stories to get here, each one worse than the last. The copy-writer's chutzpah in trying to pass off Jacobi as a "meticulous craftsman who writes with economy of prose style" beggars belief; economy of intelligence and talent would be nearer the mark. I can concede that there is some excuse for finding Victorian societal leftovers in the SF of the EE "Doc" Smith era but Jacobi was still writing about pipe smoking colonials on asteroids in the 1950s. Its as if the Golden Age was just something that happened to other people. Poor ideas, amateurish execution and a hopelessly dated style conspire to cast Jacobi as surely one of the worst SF writers ever.
But as I said in an earlier post he did have a haphazard talent for horror-fantasy. Three out of the five examples of such collected here are excellent. Those stories should simply have been substituted for others in a reissue of REVELATIONS IN BLACK or added to a reprint of PORTRAITS IN MOONLIGHT. The irony is that Derleth probably thought he was doing his old friend a final favour by bringing out this book. As it transpires he couldn't have been any crueler if Jacobi had been his worst enemy.
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Post by andydecker on Feb 29, 2020 12:14:38 GMT
As it transpires he couldn't have been any crueler if Jacobi had been his worst enemy. A lot of those SF stories are unreadable today. But they are a nice reminder how good people like Heinlein, Asimov or Silverberg could be on a good day. I love Ashton Smith for instance, his Fantasy and Horror. But his SF stories I just browse, because I just can't take them earnest. Not so long ago I bought two collections of Frank Belknap Long. I only knew this two Mythos contributions, and I have to confess that his later fate moved me. But I just read a few of his early tales and thought them thoroughly dull and mediocre. And I didn't even expect hidden gems here.
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Post by cromagnonman on Feb 29, 2020 14:15:43 GMT
As it transpires he couldn't have been any crueler if Jacobi had been his worst enemy. A lot of those SF stories are unreadable today. But they are a nice reminder how good people like Heinlein, Asimov or Silverberg could be on a good day. I love Ashton Smith for instance, his Fantasy and Horror. But his SF stories I just browse, because I just can't take them earnest. Not so long ago I bought two collections of Frank Belknap Long. I only knew this two Mythos contributions, and I have to confess that his later fate moved me. But I just read a few of his early tales and thought them thoroughly dull and mediocre. And I didn't even expect hidden gems here. Try though I might I have yet to discover one single redeeming virtue in anything Frank Belknap Long ever wrote. He was an incorrigible hack of the first rank and a self-important bore who dined off his association with Lovecraft for decades. As well he might I guess because without it no one would be remotely interested in him or the drivel he concocted. I defy anyone to read "The Space-Eaters" without hoots of derisive laughter. And that's lauded as one of his gems. "There are few things so superfluous as an introduction to a collection of ghost stories" Derleth wrote in SOMEONE IN THE DARK. Too true. Long's introduction to the Jove paperback reissue of THE HOUNDS OF TINDALOS drones on for 25 bloody pages.
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Post by helrunar on Feb 29, 2020 15:42:19 GMT
Re Frank Belknap Long, I've hardly read anything by him. I have revisited "Hounds of Tindalos" a couple of times over the years, and found it effective for what it sets out to do. A couple of years ago I added a collection of his tales to my "device" so that I could re-read "A Visitor from Egypt," which I'd read as a teen and loved. It still hit the mark for me as a 59 year old (at the time).
But then I tried reading other tales in the book, including a somewhat celebrated one about Chaugnar Faugn, Long's contribution to the "Mythos" pantheon, and was unable to finish it. I tried a couple more and couldn't get on with them. I might have read "The Space Eaters" but if so, have no memory of it.
I couldn't figure out if I bore easily or if the stories just weren't all that original or interesting. From your comments, I'm inclined to think the latter.
As for Carl Jacobi, I read an article recently about Donald Wandrei in the early Seventies by someone who knew him, and the guy also mentioned Jacobi. Wandrei seems to have been severely depressed (and possibly had been so since the early death of his brother Howard in the late Fifties), rarely leaving his home which was shrouded in perennial darkness with heavy drapes and towering piles of books, papers and quidnuncs (the description sounded like one of those "hoarders" shows on "reality" television). Jacobi had lost his voice and also injured his right hand and thus was unable to communicate except, I suppose, via semaphore. Presumably the book publication came about because Derleth wanted to do something charitable but had to disguise it as "oh Carl, your old tales from the Fifties are so incredibly good... let's include a bunch of them in the next book!"
You have considerably more fortitude than do I, Richard, in getting through those sci-fi things--I think by halfway through that tome, the book would have found its way into the bag I now keep in a corner of the hall for periodic trips to a shop where I donate volumes I no longer desire to keep on the shelves.
cheers, Steve
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Feb 29, 2020 16:14:31 GMT
A couple of years ago I added a collection of his tales to my "device" so that I could re-read "A Visitor from Egypt," which I'd read as a teen and loved. It still hit the mark for me as a 59 year old (at the time). Ha! Incredibly, this is my story too. Except I acquired a very expensive copy of THE EARLY LONG in order to reread "A Visitor From Egypt."
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