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Post by helrunar on Jul 31, 2020 20:14:09 GMT
I looked at the new Price book on that popular retail site but only the final 2 or 3 pages of the preface were viewable with the "Look Inside" utility. What I read sounded more like an irate blog post or social media rant. Couldn't see much that related to Sword and Sorcery or specific authors such as Howard and Kuttner though both were name-checked.
From what I was able to read, the preface was a ghastly misfire. Something about why we still enjoy tales written in this genre would have been more appropriate. To say the least.
It would seem from a comment I saw somewhere on social media a couple of weeks ago that Price has a colossal chip on his shoulder around "gender issues." Have no idea why and don't need to know.
Richard, I am very sorry the book has been withdrawn. I'm sure your tale was very colorful and entertaining.
Best, Steve
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Post by helrunar on Jul 31, 2020 20:15:47 GMT
Interesting to think that Price might have been attempting a pastiche on Lin Carter. It seemed way too angry and not nearly urbane enough for that, but I haven't read any of Carter's intros to his Conan books--for some reason, I never had any interest in those as a teen.
H.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Jul 31, 2020 20:15:52 GMT
I have read the novel, and am not ashamed to admit it! I was 12 at the time. But the introduction obviously stuck with me. Even at that tender age I knew something was not quite right about it. I don't have this excuse Last time I read a few chapters I was 59. Still think that both Carter and de Camp are tone-deaf when it comes to Howard and write a terrible Conan. But I have a soft spot for the novel. It was among a few others my introduction to Howard when I was 14 or 15, and it left an impression. It has something of a Sinbad movie, and the ending is well done. The translation missed the foreword, I think. Or I skipped it. I see. You have read the German translation, but not the original. For a minute there I thought you were confessing to having lied about never opening the book . . .
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Post by andydecker on Aug 1, 2020 9:32:38 GMT
I see. You have read the German translation, but not the original. For a minute there I thought you were confessing to having lied about never opening the book . . . Nah, never about such little things. I used to be a bit of a Howard collector. Different editions. Lancer, Sphere, Tor, Del Rey, translations, too many mostly complete comic versions. Nice to see that there is still new stuff to discover in these. The b/w comic adaption of BUCCANEER is very well done and often reads better than the novel.
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Post by mcannon on Aug 1, 2020 11:05:41 GMT
I looked at the new Price book on that popular retail site but only the final 2 or 3 pages of the preface were viewable with the "Look Inside" utility. What I read sounded more like an irate blog post or social media rant. Couldn't see much that related to Sword and Sorcery or specific authors such as Howard and Kuttner though both were name-checked. From what I was able to read, the preface was a ghastly misfire. Something about why we still enjoy tales written in this genre would have been more appropriate. To say the least. It would seem from a comment I saw somewhere on social media a couple of weeks ago that Price has a colossal chip on his shoulder around "gender issues." Have no idea why and don't need to know. I've seen a couple of interviews with Price over the years in which he indicated that he held political and social views that were quite reactionary by modern standards. I have a vague recollection that he once commented that Fox News was "too Left Wing" for him! However I don't think he ever provided any details of his views. That was probably quite sensible, given the understandable reaction to this particular Introduction. I wonder what possessed Price to suddenly vent so spectacularly. Surely he couldn't be so naive as to expect it wouldn't generate exactly this sort of controversy and reaction? Mark
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Post by andydecker on Aug 1, 2020 12:58:15 GMT
I wonder what possessed Price to suddenly vent so spectacularly. Surely he couldn't be so naive as to expect it wouldn't generate exactly this sort of controversy and reaction? Mark Guess he wants the controversy. This is the same nonsense which made the HUGO Award so toxic. But this is in all media. In comics, crime fiction, etc. Here is a link about the same struggle in American crime fiction. therapsheet.blogspot.com/2020/07/penzler-strikes-back.html It is no wonder historicals in crime fiction have such a boom. The writer is relatively safe from any "cultural issues", which can prompt a publisher to request large and costly re-writes.
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Post by helrunar on Aug 1, 2020 13:25:56 GMT
Thanks, Andreas, for the interesting blog entry about Penzler. I don't follow the industry at all as you do, but I think that this kind of behavior has become quite widespread, both on the Right and the Left, in so many spheres of activity now. Both sides have their own version of "call-out culture," a year-round sport avidly pursued via social media and the blogosphere. It is all quite wearying.
The Seventies Flashing Swords books--my copies went astray during a rather too vigorously mobile period of my life in the 1980s--are fondly remembered by me as gems with a wonderful mix of classic established authors and new names. Say what you will about Carter's literary talents, I think he had a very keen nose for talent as an editor. He knew his stuff.
It's a shame that when the title is mentioned at the moment, giggling and awkward silences are likely to be the reactions.
I hope the stories can be reassembled under different auspices minus the Price contributions.
cheers, Steve
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Post by Dr Strange on Aug 1, 2020 14:06:29 GMT
I wonder what possessed Price to suddenly vent so spectacularly. Surely he couldn't be so naive as to expect it wouldn't generate exactly this sort of controversy and reaction? Guess he wants the controversy. Maybe, but it still seems a remarkably stupid way of going about things. Maybe he just wanted to make it clear that the book wasn't some sort of "reconstructed" S&S, that it was true in spirit to its forebears, or whatever; I don't know, but I expect most people who would buy it would already have a pretty good idea of what they were going to get in the stories - and wouldn't really have needed any "reassurances" from the editor that it wouldn't be some watered-down, PC version of S&S. And I imagine that most readers (of whatever genre of fiction) would also argue that there is absolutely no link between their genre preferences and their political views. But what Price seemed to be telling potential readers was "if you like this sort of stuff then you must agree with my political views - and here they are", which is just so stupid and obviously going to put people off that it verges on self-sabotage.
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Post by helrunar on Aug 1, 2020 15:49:45 GMT
All very good points Dr Strange. I am quite far Left, as it happens, but have come to detest the whole notion of ideological rectitude--especially when it gets into this ridiculousness of throwing out books by Marion Zimmer Bradley or Lovecraft or whoever simply because they were predators, enablers, racists or what have you. In a community I'm starting to feel some distance from, we have a roadway named after Walt Whitman inside the property and people are arguing that the name should be changed because Whitman made racist comments in his Civil War letters (or elsewhere). It just gets absurd because let's face it, you'd have to look really hard to find anyone who wasn't some stripe of racist prior to circa 1980.
Which is why I'm quite unapologetic in my love for the works of such writers as Sax Rohmer and Simon Raven... Life is too short not to enjoy whatever it takes to get through what we are living under with a smile on one's face that isn't too rigidly fixed (Sardonicus anyone?)
cheers, Steve
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Post by andydecker on Aug 1, 2020 17:37:48 GMT
All very good points Dr Strange. I am quite far Left, as it happens, but have come to detest the whole notion of ideological rectitude--especially when it gets into this ridiculousness of throwing out books by Marion Zimmer Bradley or Lovecraft or whoever simply because they were predators, enablers, racists or what have you. In a community I'm starting to feel some distance from, we have a roadway named after Walt Whitman inside the property and people are arguing that the name should be changed because Whitman made racist comments in his Civil War letters (or elsewhere). It just gets absurd because let's face it, you'd have to look really hard to find anyone who wasn't some stripe of racist prior to circa 1980. Which is why I'm quite unapologetic in my love for the works of such writers as Sax Rohmer and Simon Raven... Life is too short not to enjoy whatever it takes to get through what we are living under with a smile on one's face that isn't too rigidly fixed (Sardonicus anyone?) cheers, Steve You are right, Steve. It has become wearysome and off-putting. I share the unapologetic love for Lovecraft, Howard, Quinn and the others. Except for Lovecraft who never cared for the market they wrote what the majority of the society wanted to read, it reflected their views for good or ill and never rocked the boat. They produced exciting dreams to escape a dreary life for a while, to tickle a repressed sexuality. For every pulp man's magazine there was a pulp woman's magazine which cemented the same prejudices of the time. To list each and every -ism they included 80 or 90 years ago - in the case of Rohmer nearly 100 years ago - in their work is a fool's game.
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Post by andydecker on Aug 1, 2020 18:00:38 GMT
The Seventies Flashing Swords books--my copies went astray during a rather too vigorously mobile period of my life in the 1980s--are fondly remembered by me as gems with a wonderful mix of classic established authors and new names. Say what you will about Carter's literary talents, I think he had a very keen nose for talent as an editor. He knew his stuff. I have them right before me. #1 + #2. I will do the scans tomorrow. With a nowaday iconic Frazetta cover, #1 includes a Fritz Leiber Fafhrd and Grey Mouser story, Jack Vance with the Dying Earth and Poul Anderson with a Viking fantasy. (And Carter but we will ignore this.) #2 has de Camp with a Poseidonis tale, Morrcock with an early Elric tale, Andre Norton with the Witch World and John Jakes with a Brak tale. All tales were originals written for these volumes. With hindsight - at the time Moorcock was an unknown British rebel in America and Jakes on the move to mainstream success - if you want to compare this with today I guess you have would to fill your book with new tales by Stephen King, George R. Martin, JK Rowling and ... who is still popular enough? Back than this was as good as it could get, no doubt about it.
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Post by helrunar on Aug 1, 2020 20:13:03 GMT
Those Frazetta paintings were so beautiful for those first two volumes. The first one was eerie and powerful and the second one held an erotic potency that came back to me as I just looked at the paintings online.
I read an article that had two statements from two of the authors in the now deleted FS volume edited by Price. Unfortunately the blog that printed this material was so advertisement-heavy that I don't feel comfortable posting the link here. The blog was called something like "Bleeding Cool." One of the authors quoted is a US media fandom old-timer named Cliff Biggers. I wonder if he is a descendant of Earl Derr Biggers who of course was famous for creating Charlie Chan. No mention of this is made in Biggers' Wikipedia entry.
Thanks Andreas for listing the contributions. For some reason, I think I was already aware of Moorcock's work when that first volume came out, but that could be a false memory. The Moorcock series that tickled me a little later in the decade was the Dancers at the End of the Time confection. Looking back, it seems very much prophetic of some of the more banal/decadent aspects of 21st century media culture.
Best, Steve
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Post by andydecker on Aug 2, 2020 12:20:24 GMT
Here are Flashing Sword 1+2 in all their glory. The famous Frazetta painting Death Dealer for #2 is maybe its first publication. Interestingly there were book club editions for the SFBC a few month earlier of both FS, which in this case had a different Frazetta cover. It was new (and creepy) to me that the Death Dealer has become a mascot for the US military. DD has no nipples, so I guess this was okay. 3-5 were less iconic in terms of the coverart. But the line-up for #5 (1981) shows that Carter really was a good editor who recognized a trend when he saw it and knew the market. There are Diane Duane, Tanith Lee and C.J.Cherryh, the rest is Zelazny and C.S.Gardner. With the exception of Gardner, whom I really wouldn't describe as a trendsetter in the Fantasy field, most of the woman were established writers who sold. Cherryh had published 10 novels at the time, Lee 17, some of which became her major works like Tales of the Flat Earth. Only Duane was new to the game as this was her second published story, but she became a successful novelization writer for Star Trek and others. I guess you could argue if this was still true S&S in the Howard/Leiber mold, but Carter saw that the genre was developing and had no problem with feminist voices.
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Post by helrunar on Aug 2, 2020 12:28:55 GMT
Thanks, Andreas! The Science Fiction Book Club editions had different Frazetta paintings, which I did find scans of online when I looked yesterday. So, no Death Dealer on my old copy (long since gone with the wind).
Interesting that Carter promoted those women writers. I loved Tanith Lee's scripts for Blake's 7.
This was a great series! I think I only ever got hold of those first two volumes but memory fails.
cheers, Steve
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Post by andydecker on Aug 2, 2020 12:55:49 GMT
Thanks Andreas for listing the contributions. For some reason, I think I was already aware of Moorcock's work when that first volume came out, but that could be a false memory. The Moorcock series that tickled me a little later in the decade was the Dancers at the End of the Time confection. Looking back, it seems very much prophetic of some of the more banal/decadent aspects of 21st century media culture. The first Elric's in the US were The Stealer of Souls by Lancer in 1967 and Stormbringer by Lancer also in 1967. The later is a fix-up novel of four earlier novellas published in the British magazine Science Fantasy in the early 60s. (Like Stealer of Souls). Moorcock is very confusing as the whole Elric saga later was in parts re-written and chronologized after the gaps had been filled, so that Stormbringer nowadays is vol 6 and the content of Stealer is now included in The Weird of the White Wolf.
So your memory can be correct.
Dancers at the end of Time first volume came out in 1972, first US paperback only in 1977. And your quite right about it; Moorcock did a good job with it. It is still amusing in parts, but also drags. After Howard and Lovecraft Moorcock is the third (and last) writer I was a bit of a collector and try to re-read him now and then. Aside from the fact that he is the first to acknowledge that a lot of of his voluminous output was kind of fast hackwork, some of it has aged better than others IMHO, and I like his more original genre-hopping work often better than his fantasy. Novels like The Brothel in Rosenstrasse or Byzantium Endures still are major literary works and as far removed from Elric or Hawkmoon as is imaginable.
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