Long time no post. During that time, I've pretty well scrapped a novel I'd been tinkering with for eons. (May try to salvage some of it later, as there are a couple of characters in it that I'd like to find homes for one of these days.) Having scrapped that project, I tried another novel. It's a time-travel story and it still needs some work, but I'm hoping to have it ready some time in January. There are a couple of new short stories in the works too. So I might actually have a few new titles out there in the Kindle store soon.
Of the titles that are currently out there, one will be free this Halloween weekend -- my short ghost story "They're Waiting" is free in the Amazon Kindle store Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. If you haven't read it already, either as a single or in my collection THE OTHER IRON RIVER, AND OTHER STORIES, check it out this weekend while the price is right. Find the free story at: They're Waiting-ebook
Speaking of good Halloween reading, check out the following big collections of horror stories: Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural, a classic anthology from Modern Library; The Dark Descent, edited by David Hartwell; The Arbor House Treasury of Horror and the Supernatural, edited by Bill Pronzini, Barry Malzberg, and Martin Greenberg; The Weird, edited by Jeff and Ann VanDerMeer. Huge collections all, each one covering decades of work in the horror field, and there isn't nearly as much overlap between them as you might expect. Of these, only The Weird is available as an ebook -- the others are print only, and the Arbor House Treasury is out-of-print (but well worth looking for).
Finally, on November 1, a five-foot shelf of Peter Beagle's work will be released in ebook formats. Included will be the novels The Last Unicorn and A Fine & Private Place, as well as a number of terrific short story collections such as Lila the Werewolf & Other Tales and We Never Talk About My Brother. Good stuff. Check the list at: Peter Beagle ebooks in Kindle Store
Friday, October 30, 2015
Sunday, February 1, 2015
Almost (Though Not Quite) An Essential Harlan Ellison
In 1987, Nemo Press published a huge (huge? an understatement) volume called The Essential Ellison, a 35-year retrospective of Harlan Ellison's work. Stories. Essays. A screenplay. A later edition updated that book, covering 50 years of his writing.
That book is now out of print, but Subterranean Press has just released The Top of the Volcano: the Award-Winning Stories of Harlan Ellison, a superb selection of Ellison's short fiction -- it's not quite an essential Ellison, but if you've never read his fiction before this is a great place to start.
Every story in this book is an award-winner, and Ellison's won a LOT of awards -- there are 23 stories here covering most of his career. These stories have received science fiction's Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Poll awards, the Mystery Writers of America Edgar award, the Horror Writers of America Bram Stoker award, and more. In this book, you'll find Ellison at the top of his game, and it just doesn't get better than that (and if it does, well, as John Wayne said in Rio Bravo, "I'd hate to have to live on the difference").
So why do I say this is almost, but not quite, an essential Ellison? Because one of this book's strengths is also a weakness when it comes to assembling an "Essential" or "Best of" volume of a writer like Ellison, who has written in so many areas. The fact that all these stories are prize-winners means that you're getting stories that readers and writers declared best in their class in those years; it also means that powerful work done in areas where such awards were not being given simply isn't included. With a book as strong as this one, that's a minor quibble. As I said, if you've never read his fiction before, this is a great place to start -- just bear in mind that you won't want to stop here.
Unlike most of Ellison's collections, The Top of the Volcano contains no new introduction, no notes on the selections. The fiction stands alone. Other reviewers have noted that this is perhaps as it should be. While author introductions and comments are part of nearly all his books, the stories are the point. The Top of the Volcano is straight Ellison fiction, and nothing else.
So, what's in The Top of the Volcano? Here's the table of contents:
‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream
The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World
A Boy and His Dog
The Region Between
Basilisk
The Deathbird
The Whimper of Whipped Dogs
Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans: Latitude 38° 54’ N, Longitude 77° 00’ 13” W
Croatoan
Jeffty is Five
Count the Clock That Tells the Time
Djinn, No Chaser
Paladin of the Lost Hour
With Virgil Oddum at the East Pole
Soft Monkey
Eidolons
The Function of Dream Sleep
The Man Who Rowed Christopher Columbus Ashore
Mefisto in Onyx
Chatting with Anubis
The Human Operators with A.E. Van Vogt
How Interesting: A Tiny Man
Now, if you know Harlan Ellison's work at all, that list is all you need to make this book an immediate purchase; if you don't, be aware that The Top of the Volcano contains stories that will chill your blood and others that will break your heart (and some that will do both), and even the oldest stories here ("Repent, Harlequin!" and "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream") remain as fresh and new and compelling as they were the day they were first published. This is fiction made to last, by one of the great short story writers of our time.
**
Speaking of made to last, Subterranean Press does a terrific job on its books, and the hardcover edition of The Top of the Volcano is a thing of beauty. Get a description at: http://subterraneanpress.com/store/product_detail/the_top_of_the_volcano_the_award_winning_stories_of_harlan_ellison
And in case you don't already have some idea of Ellison's range, check out the titles listed at: http://www.openroadmedia.com/harlan-ellison
That book is now out of print, but Subterranean Press has just released The Top of the Volcano: the Award-Winning Stories of Harlan Ellison, a superb selection of Ellison's short fiction -- it's not quite an essential Ellison, but if you've never read his fiction before this is a great place to start.
Every story in this book is an award-winner, and Ellison's won a LOT of awards -- there are 23 stories here covering most of his career. These stories have received science fiction's Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Poll awards, the Mystery Writers of America Edgar award, the Horror Writers of America Bram Stoker award, and more. In this book, you'll find Ellison at the top of his game, and it just doesn't get better than that (and if it does, well, as John Wayne said in Rio Bravo, "I'd hate to have to live on the difference").
So why do I say this is almost, but not quite, an essential Ellison? Because one of this book's strengths is also a weakness when it comes to assembling an "Essential" or "Best of" volume of a writer like Ellison, who has written in so many areas. The fact that all these stories are prize-winners means that you're getting stories that readers and writers declared best in their class in those years; it also means that powerful work done in areas where such awards were not being given simply isn't included. With a book as strong as this one, that's a minor quibble. As I said, if you've never read his fiction before, this is a great place to start -- just bear in mind that you won't want to stop here.
Unlike most of Ellison's collections, The Top of the Volcano contains no new introduction, no notes on the selections. The fiction stands alone. Other reviewers have noted that this is perhaps as it should be. While author introductions and comments are part of nearly all his books, the stories are the point. The Top of the Volcano is straight Ellison fiction, and nothing else.
So, what's in The Top of the Volcano? Here's the table of contents:
‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream
The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World
A Boy and His Dog
The Region Between
Basilisk
The Deathbird
The Whimper of Whipped Dogs
Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans: Latitude 38° 54’ N, Longitude 77° 00’ 13” W
Croatoan
Jeffty is Five
Count the Clock That Tells the Time
Djinn, No Chaser
Paladin of the Lost Hour
With Virgil Oddum at the East Pole
Soft Monkey
Eidolons
The Function of Dream Sleep
The Man Who Rowed Christopher Columbus Ashore
Mefisto in Onyx
Chatting with Anubis
The Human Operators with A.E. Van Vogt
How Interesting: A Tiny Man
Now, if you know Harlan Ellison's work at all, that list is all you need to make this book an immediate purchase; if you don't, be aware that The Top of the Volcano contains stories that will chill your blood and others that will break your heart (and some that will do both), and even the oldest stories here ("Repent, Harlequin!" and "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream") remain as fresh and new and compelling as they were the day they were first published. This is fiction made to last, by one of the great short story writers of our time.
**
Speaking of made to last, Subterranean Press does a terrific job on its books, and the hardcover edition of The Top of the Volcano is a thing of beauty. Get a description at: http://subterraneanpress.com/store/product_detail/the_top_of_the_volcano_the_award_winning_stories_of_harlan_ellison
And in case you don't already have some idea of Ellison's range, check out the titles listed at: http://www.openroadmedia.com/harlan-ellison
Friday, January 23, 2015
And More Rod Serling and Gerald Kersh Reissues
A year ago, I posted some comments on ebook reissues of titles by the late great Rod Serling; collections of his Twilight Zone and Night Gallery adaptations were available and so was his collection of novellas The Season to Be Wary. In closing I wrote:
"If we're lucky, these volumes will be followed by ebooks gathering some of Serling's other work for television. In the late 50s, a collection was published that included "Patterns," "Old MacDonald Had a Curve," "The Rack," and "Requiem for a Heavyweight," and Serling's comments on each -- it would be nice to see that one available again. Ditto some of his other scripts, such as "A Storm in Summer" and "Slow Fade to Black." (And I for one would pop instantly for an ebook containing both the television and the feature film scripts of "Requiem for a Heavyweight" with any available notes from Serling.) Contemporary audiences know Serling mostly through Twilight Zone and Night Gallery, but there's a lot of terrific work by Rod Serling that doesn't get as much air time these days as it should; here's hoping that we'll see some of those scripts restored to print as well."
And that's happening. Patterns, that collection of four plays for television, has been reissued. So has Requiem for a Heavyweight. The original television script for "Requiem" is included in both these volumes, but anyone interested in Serling's work will want to pick up both of these in spite of that duplication. The ebook Requiem for a Heavyweight is a reissue of the Bantam paperback movie tie-in and it includes not only the original script but a "reading version" blending the original and the feature film scripts; Mark Olshaker notes in his introduction that the reading version is something of a hybrid between a novel and a screen treatment, and that's true. Further, in his blending of the original teleplay and the feature film script, Serling included material that (to my knowledge) didn't make it into the final cut of the film version, and it's dynamite material. Even if you've read the teleplay and seen the movie version often enough to be able to quote scenes from memory, you'll want to check out this reissue.
Another nice thing about the reissues of Patterns and Requiem for a Heavyweight -- their Amazon listings note that these are books one and two of the early works. Which implies that more are coming, and that is welcome news indeed.
Valancourt Books has released two more collections of Gerald Kersh stories: On an Odd Note, and Clock Without Hands. If you've not yet read Kersh, you're missing the work of one of the great 20th century storytellers. Unavailable for years, a number of his books have been brought back into print (Valancourt's done some and Faber has reissued others). The newest reissue, Clock Without Hands, contains in the title story an amazing bit of description that I first saw more than 40 years ago in Harlan Ellison's introduction to Kersh's Nightshade and Damnations (also available now from Valancourt). Look at this:
"A man has a shape; a crowd has no shape and no color. The massed faces of a hundred thousand men make one blank pallor; their clothes add up to a shadow; they have no words. This man might have been one hundred-thousandth part of the featureless whiteness, the dull grayness, and the toneless murmuring of a docile multitude. He was something less than non-descript —he was blurred, without identity, like a smudged fingerprint. His suit was of some dim shade between brown and gray. His shirt had gray-blue stripes, his tie was patterned with dots like confetti trodden into the dust, and his oddment of limp brownish mustache resembled a cigarette butt, disintegrating shred by shred in a tea-saucer."
And the rest of that story is every bit as good as that description. Trust me on this.
"If we're lucky, these volumes will be followed by ebooks gathering some of Serling's other work for television. In the late 50s, a collection was published that included "Patterns," "Old MacDonald Had a Curve," "The Rack," and "Requiem for a Heavyweight," and Serling's comments on each -- it would be nice to see that one available again. Ditto some of his other scripts, such as "A Storm in Summer" and "Slow Fade to Black." (And I for one would pop instantly for an ebook containing both the television and the feature film scripts of "Requiem for a Heavyweight" with any available notes from Serling.) Contemporary audiences know Serling mostly through Twilight Zone and Night Gallery, but there's a lot of terrific work by Rod Serling that doesn't get as much air time these days as it should; here's hoping that we'll see some of those scripts restored to print as well."
And that's happening. Patterns, that collection of four plays for television, has been reissued. So has Requiem for a Heavyweight. The original television script for "Requiem" is included in both these volumes, but anyone interested in Serling's work will want to pick up both of these in spite of that duplication. The ebook Requiem for a Heavyweight is a reissue of the Bantam paperback movie tie-in and it includes not only the original script but a "reading version" blending the original and the feature film scripts; Mark Olshaker notes in his introduction that the reading version is something of a hybrid between a novel and a screen treatment, and that's true. Further, in his blending of the original teleplay and the feature film script, Serling included material that (to my knowledge) didn't make it into the final cut of the film version, and it's dynamite material. Even if you've read the teleplay and seen the movie version often enough to be able to quote scenes from memory, you'll want to check out this reissue.
Another nice thing about the reissues of Patterns and Requiem for a Heavyweight -- their Amazon listings note that these are books one and two of the early works. Which implies that more are coming, and that is welcome news indeed.
Valancourt Books has released two more collections of Gerald Kersh stories: On an Odd Note, and Clock Without Hands. If you've not yet read Kersh, you're missing the work of one of the great 20th century storytellers. Unavailable for years, a number of his books have been brought back into print (Valancourt's done some and Faber has reissued others). The newest reissue, Clock Without Hands, contains in the title story an amazing bit of description that I first saw more than 40 years ago in Harlan Ellison's introduction to Kersh's Nightshade and Damnations (also available now from Valancourt). Look at this:
"A man has a shape; a crowd has no shape and no color. The massed faces of a hundred thousand men make one blank pallor; their clothes add up to a shadow; they have no words. This man might have been one hundred-thousandth part of the featureless whiteness, the dull grayness, and the toneless murmuring of a docile multitude. He was something less than non-descript —he was blurred, without identity, like a smudged fingerprint. His suit was of some dim shade between brown and gray. His shirt had gray-blue stripes, his tie was patterned with dots like confetti trodden into the dust, and his oddment of limp brownish mustache resembled a cigarette butt, disintegrating shred by shred in a tea-saucer."
And the rest of that story is every bit as good as that description. Trust me on this.
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Late to the Party Again
Any reader of horror fiction probably checked out the work of Thomas Ligotti years ago.
Any reader of horror fiction except me, that is. I read Ligotti for the first time just a few nights ago. I knew he was out there, of course, but he was just another one of the multitude of writers I hadn't read yet.
Then I picked up his latest ebook release, DEATH POEMS. It's just what it sounds like -- a collection of poems dealing with death and mortality. It's a short book, and if you're one of those who looks at the ratio of page count to price, maybe you'd be inclined to pass it by, but you shouldn't skip this one. The selections here are lean and mean and very dark. One Amazon reviewer noted that it might be a good idea to avoid this book if you're given to depression. Usually I write such comments off as hyperbole, but in this case maybe not. There is some awfully grim work here -- I'm thinking in particular of "Writing Home," the piece that closes the book, but there are several others just as dark as the closer.
If you're already a fan of Ligotti's fiction, you'll probably want this book even if you don't usually care for poetry -- a number of these poems read like short stories stripped down to the shortest possible length, among them "Memento," "The Note," "Voices," and "Writing Home."
Finally, there are a number of poems here that are not only dark but almost laugh-out-loud funny as well ("Hospital" and "Birthday" for instance) -- though that depends on just how dark your sense of humor happens to be.
In Barry Malzberg's THE ENGINES OF THE NIGHT, there's a short essay on the last days of the great noir writer Cornell Woolrich, with a quote from Woolrich near the end: "Life is death. Death is in life. To hold your own true love in your arms and see the skeleton she will be; to know that your love leads to death, that death is all there is, that is what I know and what I do not want to know and what I cannot bear." Now, that's bleak. Ligotti's DEATH POEMS approach that bleakness, and maybe even surpass it a bit in some of the poems -- Woolrich, nearing the end, recoils from that vision, but I don't get the impression that Ligotti recoils from it at all, at least not yet.
And Ligotti's other books go to the Amazing Colossal To-Be-Read Pile.
Speaking of noir...
I suffer from what might be called New Management Aversion Syndrome. Say you've been going to the same bakery for years, and the head guy retires, and the family keeps it running and it's still good but it's not quite the same. Maybe the new management isn't even trying to be the same, but you can't get around the awareness that the bakery's different now.
So Joe Hill's horror fiction doesn't do it for me the way Stephen King's does. Peter Leonard's suspense novels don't do it for me the way Elmore Leonard's did. Ditto a few others.
Which brings me to Trent Zelazny.
I started noticing his name out there a couple of years ago, and deliberately stayed clear. I was and am an admirer of Roger Zelazny's science fiction and fantasy, and didn't want to find a favorite restaurant open under new management and not quite the same. So for a long time I stayed clear.
That was a major dumb on my part, because Trent Zelazny's not working the same street; he's writing noir. His new novel, VOICELESS, moves like a bullet and so does the previous novel TOO LATE TO CALL TEXAS -- both are fast-paced dark delights; I'm a few chapters into his novel DESTINATION UNKNOWN and so far it looks like the same can be said for that book as well. Shorter works such as "Shadowboxer," "People Person," and "Fractal Despondency" are just as strong. For too long a time, I avoided his work -- he's now one of the writers whose books I'll pre-order the day I see them listed.
Trent Zelazny has reviewed a couple of David Goodis's books on Amazon, and said in one of those reviews that if he hadn't found Goodis he wouldn't be writing the stories he's writing now. There are echoes of Goodis in his work, I think; of Woolrich too. And now and then it seems to me there's a faint flavor of the non-series titles of John D. MacDonald and Bill Pronzini. That's not to say he's an imitator -- he isn't -- but he's from the same neighborhood, and it's a terrific neighborhood to be from.
If you enjoy noir fiction, if you've been thinking that they just don't write 'em like that any more, if you've enjoyed Goodis and Woolrich and Lansdale, take a look at Trent Zelazny's work. I don't think you'll be disappointed -- this guy's good.
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Stanley Ellin Novels Coming to the US Kindle Store
On July 8, four novels by the late great Stanley Ellin will be made available as ebooks in the US. The four titles are: DREADFUL SUMMIT, THE KEY TO NICHOLAS STREET, HOUSE OF CARDS, and THE DARK FANTASTIC. If we're fortunate, they'll soon be followed by the rest of Ellin's work.
If you've not read Ellin, be advised that the man was a giant in mystery and suspense fiction, a three-time Edgar Award winner (for his short stories "The House Party" and "The Blessington Method" and his novel THE EIGHTH CIRCLE) whose work was frequently adapted for television (most often for ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS and Roald Dahl's TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED) and also for films by Joseph Losey, Claude Chabrol, and others.
His novel THE DARK FANTASTIC was a controversial piece of work, rejected by a number of publishers before being picked up by Otto Penzler's Mysterious Press. If memory serves, Ellin had contracted with his publisher for a new suspense novel and the novel was going to deal with racial themes. Ellin delivered, and the publisher rejected it, and so did nearly a dozen more before Otto Penzler picked it up for Mysterious Press. It was reported, again if memory serves, that some of those houses that rejected the book might have been willing to take a chance on the book if it hadn't been written by a white writer.
Why the rejections? My guess is that Ellin's portrayal of his villain, retired professor Charles Witter Kirwan, is simply devastating -- a truly Dangerous Vision, to borrow the title of Harlan Ellison's anthology.
I don't recall ever running across a character quite like Charles Witter Kirwan in fiction before, and I'll bet you don't either. What makes the character of Kirwan a dangerous vision is the fact that Ellin doesn't portray him as a surly bigoted clod or as a figure of ridicule like ALL IN THE FAMILY's Archie Bunker. Such characters were so obviously in the wrong that nothing they said could be considered for a nanosecond.
Kirwan isn't presented in that manner. He's a retired college professor, still living in the neighborhood he's lived in for decades. He has his house, and he owns the apartment building next door, and he still does a lot of maintenance work in the apartments. He has watched the decline of the college in which he taught, the deterioration of the neighborhood in which he lives and the building he must maintain, and for this he blames the almost-entirely black residents of the neighborhood. Kirwan is terminally ill, but has no intention of waiting for the cancer -- he intends to blow up his apartment building at a time when nearly all the tenants are home. Kirwan's chapters are made up largely of his taped confession and testament, and they are not the words of an Archie Bunker. Kirwan is concise, articulate, and horrifyingly persuasive, and reading his sections you'll find yourself thinking, "Yeah, I can see that," and then smacking yourself in the head muttering, "What am I thinking?" Ellin will put you inside the skin of someone moving calmly and deliberately toward a racist act of mass murder. The description on the book's page in the Kindle store refers to his tapes as the ravings of a lunatic racist, but Kirwan isn't raving at all -- he's setting down coldly and meticulously the details of what he intends to do and explaining why he intends to do it. It's rough reading, but like all Ellin's work it's wonderfully well done, and highly recommended.
Some of Ellin's books have been available as ebooks in the UK for quite some time; among these is THE SPECIALTY OF THE HOUSE AND OTHER STORIES: THE COMPLETE MYSTERY TALES, 1948-1978. If you enjoy the short stories of Poe, Shirley Jackson, John Collier, and Roald Dahl, you don't want to miss this collection; in it you will find, among other gems, a lovely little blood-freezer called "The Question" which centers on a conversation between an executioner and his son and is all by itself worth the price of the book.
When more Ellin appears in the US Kindle store, I'll note it here -- especially the short stories. (And if you're lucky enough to be able to buy from the UK Kindle store, grab that short story collection now -- you won't be disappointed.)
The novels are being ebooked by Otto Penzler's MysteriousPress.com and Open Road, and Penzler deserves a BIG round of applause for making Ellin's work available as ebooks here, as well as for all the other terrific work he's published over the years.
Update July 6: I've received word that three other Ellin titles will be released on the 8th by Open Road, but those three titles will NOT be made available as ebooks in the USA. One of them is the short story collection THE SPECIALTY OF THE HOUSE; the other two are his novels THE EIGHTH CIRCLE and STRONGHOLD. A disappointment for US ebook readers, but if you're in the UK you'll want to grab these ASAP.
Update July 9: And file this one under What We Got Here Is Failure to Communicate ---
Just a few days after I received notice from Open Road that Stanley Ellin's STRONGHOLD, THE EIGHTH CIRCLE, and THE SPECIALTY OF THE HOUSE would not be available as ebooks in the USA, guess what three titles were listed available in the US Kindle store this morning? Not sure where the mixup was but I don't much care. I ordered them immediately.
And if you're only going to buy one short story collection this summer, THE SPECIALTY OF THE HOUSE is the one to get. Trust me.
Now if the rest of his books will be coming as well, I'll be one happy camper.
If you've not read Ellin, be advised that the man was a giant in mystery and suspense fiction, a three-time Edgar Award winner (for his short stories "The House Party" and "The Blessington Method" and his novel THE EIGHTH CIRCLE) whose work was frequently adapted for television (most often for ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS and Roald Dahl's TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED) and also for films by Joseph Losey, Claude Chabrol, and others.
His novel THE DARK FANTASTIC was a controversial piece of work, rejected by a number of publishers before being picked up by Otto Penzler's Mysterious Press. If memory serves, Ellin had contracted with his publisher for a new suspense novel and the novel was going to deal with racial themes. Ellin delivered, and the publisher rejected it, and so did nearly a dozen more before Otto Penzler picked it up for Mysterious Press. It was reported, again if memory serves, that some of those houses that rejected the book might have been willing to take a chance on the book if it hadn't been written by a white writer.
Why the rejections? My guess is that Ellin's portrayal of his villain, retired professor Charles Witter Kirwan, is simply devastating -- a truly Dangerous Vision, to borrow the title of Harlan Ellison's anthology.
I don't recall ever running across a character quite like Charles Witter Kirwan in fiction before, and I'll bet you don't either. What makes the character of Kirwan a dangerous vision is the fact that Ellin doesn't portray him as a surly bigoted clod or as a figure of ridicule like ALL IN THE FAMILY's Archie Bunker. Such characters were so obviously in the wrong that nothing they said could be considered for a nanosecond.
Kirwan isn't presented in that manner. He's a retired college professor, still living in the neighborhood he's lived in for decades. He has his house, and he owns the apartment building next door, and he still does a lot of maintenance work in the apartments. He has watched the decline of the college in which he taught, the deterioration of the neighborhood in which he lives and the building he must maintain, and for this he blames the almost-entirely black residents of the neighborhood. Kirwan is terminally ill, but has no intention of waiting for the cancer -- he intends to blow up his apartment building at a time when nearly all the tenants are home. Kirwan's chapters are made up largely of his taped confession and testament, and they are not the words of an Archie Bunker. Kirwan is concise, articulate, and horrifyingly persuasive, and reading his sections you'll find yourself thinking, "Yeah, I can see that," and then smacking yourself in the head muttering, "What am I thinking?" Ellin will put you inside the skin of someone moving calmly and deliberately toward a racist act of mass murder. The description on the book's page in the Kindle store refers to his tapes as the ravings of a lunatic racist, but Kirwan isn't raving at all -- he's setting down coldly and meticulously the details of what he intends to do and explaining why he intends to do it. It's rough reading, but like all Ellin's work it's wonderfully well done, and highly recommended.
Some of Ellin's books have been available as ebooks in the UK for quite some time; among these is THE SPECIALTY OF THE HOUSE AND OTHER STORIES: THE COMPLETE MYSTERY TALES, 1948-1978. If you enjoy the short stories of Poe, Shirley Jackson, John Collier, and Roald Dahl, you don't want to miss this collection; in it you will find, among other gems, a lovely little blood-freezer called "The Question" which centers on a conversation between an executioner and his son and is all by itself worth the price of the book.
When more Ellin appears in the US Kindle store, I'll note it here -- especially the short stories. (And if you're lucky enough to be able to buy from the UK Kindle store, grab that short story collection now -- you won't be disappointed.)
The novels are being ebooked by Otto Penzler's MysteriousPress.com and Open Road, and Penzler deserves a BIG round of applause for making Ellin's work available as ebooks here, as well as for all the other terrific work he's published over the years.
Update July 6: I've received word that three other Ellin titles will be released on the 8th by Open Road, but those three titles will NOT be made available as ebooks in the USA. One of them is the short story collection THE SPECIALTY OF THE HOUSE; the other two are his novels THE EIGHTH CIRCLE and STRONGHOLD. A disappointment for US ebook readers, but if you're in the UK you'll want to grab these ASAP.
Update July 9: And file this one under What We Got Here Is Failure to Communicate ---
Just a few days after I received notice from Open Road that Stanley Ellin's STRONGHOLD, THE EIGHTH CIRCLE, and THE SPECIALTY OF THE HOUSE would not be available as ebooks in the USA, guess what three titles were listed available in the US Kindle store this morning? Not sure where the mixup was but I don't much care. I ordered them immediately.
And if you're only going to buy one short story collection this summer, THE SPECIALTY OF THE HOUSE is the one to get. Trust me.
Now if the rest of his books will be coming as well, I'll be one happy camper.
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
And a Little Something Else for National Short Story Month -- 12 Robert Sheckley Collections from Open Road
If you enjoy good sf short stories, you want to read Robert Sheckley if you haven't already. Don't take my word for it. Among the comments on Sheckley at Amazon and Wikipedia, we find the following:
** "Science fiction’s premier gadfly." —Kingsley Amis
** “If the Marx Brothers had been literary rather than thespic fantasists, they would have been Robert Sheckley.” —Harlan Ellison
** "Let’s say you are a devoted fan of Kurt Vonnegut’s books, love the sardonic comeuppance stories of John Collier and Roald Dahl, own all of Edward Gorey’s little albums and enjoy watching reruns of 'The Twilight Zone.' Where else can you find similar instances of sly, macabre wit, of such black-humored, gin-and-tonic fizziness in storytelling? The answer may be unexpected: among the many masters of satirical science fiction and fantasy. Robert Sheckley...is certainly a leading example."—Michael Dirda, The Washington Post
** "I had no idea the competition was so terrifyingly good." - Douglas Adams
** "Probably the best short-story writer during the 50s to the mid-1960s working in any field." -- Neil Gaiman
Those sound like pretty good recommendations, don't they?
On May 13, Open Road will release a dozen short story collections by the late great Robert Sheckley. A number of these titles have been fairly hard to come by for years. E-Reads had begun reissuing Sheckley's work prior to that publisher's acquisition by Open Road; it's nice to see Open Road continue with those releases. The collections that will be released are:
Can You Feel Anything When I Do This?
Citizen in Space
Divine Intervention
Is That What People Do?
Notions: Unlimited
The People Trap
Pilgrimage to Earth
The Robot Who Looked Like Me
Shards of Space
Store of Infinity
Uncanny Tales
Untouched by Human Hands
And at just over three bucks each, they're a real bargain. You'll find a lot of great sf in these collections; don't take my word for it -- listen to those other guys I mentioned at the beginning of this post.
(I'd like to note one of my favorite Sheckley stories -- it's not science fiction or fantasy, but it's got that nice macabre feel that Michael Dirda refers to in his comment. The story is a lovely little blood-freezer called "Fear in the Night," and you'll find it in Is That What People Do? and also in Pilgrimage to Earth. If you liked John Collier, Roald Dahl, and the old Alfred Hitchcock Presents tv shows, you'll like this one. Worth the price of the book all by itself.)
** "Science fiction’s premier gadfly." —Kingsley Amis
** “If the Marx Brothers had been literary rather than thespic fantasists, they would have been Robert Sheckley.” —Harlan Ellison
** "Let’s say you are a devoted fan of Kurt Vonnegut’s books, love the sardonic comeuppance stories of John Collier and Roald Dahl, own all of Edward Gorey’s little albums and enjoy watching reruns of 'The Twilight Zone.' Where else can you find similar instances of sly, macabre wit, of such black-humored, gin-and-tonic fizziness in storytelling? The answer may be unexpected: among the many masters of satirical science fiction and fantasy. Robert Sheckley...is certainly a leading example."—Michael Dirda, The Washington Post
** "I had no idea the competition was so terrifyingly good." - Douglas Adams
** "Probably the best short-story writer during the 50s to the mid-1960s working in any field." -- Neil Gaiman
Those sound like pretty good recommendations, don't they?
On May 13, Open Road will release a dozen short story collections by the late great Robert Sheckley. A number of these titles have been fairly hard to come by for years. E-Reads had begun reissuing Sheckley's work prior to that publisher's acquisition by Open Road; it's nice to see Open Road continue with those releases. The collections that will be released are:
Can You Feel Anything When I Do This?
Citizen in Space
Divine Intervention
Is That What People Do?
Notions: Unlimited
The People Trap
Pilgrimage to Earth
The Robot Who Looked Like Me
Shards of Space
Store of Infinity
Uncanny Tales
Untouched by Human Hands
And at just over three bucks each, they're a real bargain. You'll find a lot of great sf in these collections; don't take my word for it -- listen to those other guys I mentioned at the beginning of this post.
(I'd like to note one of my favorite Sheckley stories -- it's not science fiction or fantasy, but it's got that nice macabre feel that Michael Dirda refers to in his comment. The story is a lovely little blood-freezer called "Fear in the Night," and you'll find it in Is That What People Do? and also in Pilgrimage to Earth. If you liked John Collier, Roald Dahl, and the old Alfred Hitchcock Presents tv shows, you'll like this one. Worth the price of the book all by itself.)
Saturday, May 3, 2014
A Few Suggestions for National Short Story Month
So. May. National Short Story Month. And that's been going on for a few years now. And if I noticed in previous years that May was National Short Story Month, I'm bleeped if I remember...
So. National Short Story Month. And is there a ton of good stuff out there to load up your Kindle? Jeez, is there ever. For instance...
One of the best deals out there at the moment is Irwin Shaw's SHORT STORIES: FIVE DECADES, Shaw's own selection of his best short work; Shaw is perhaps best remembered for his best-selling novels such as THE YOUNG LIONS, VOICES OF A SUMMER DAY, and RICH MAN, POOR MAN, but if memory serves Shaw's short stories were regarded more favorably than his novels. In long form or short, Shaw was a terrific story-teller, and SHORT STORIES: FIVE DECADES is an excellent collection. Some of the stories, like "The Eighty Yard Run" and "Girls in Their Summer Dresses," will probably be familiar already, having been standards in literature classes for some time now, but many of them will not. There are only a couple of things wrong with this collection -- first, it's too bad it didn't include the introductions Shaw wrote for the books in which the stories were first collected, and second, it would have been nice if Open Road Media had gathered all of Shaw's short fiction for this ebook rather than sticking to the contents of the original print edition of the title. But those are extremely minor quibbles. This book is $2.99 this month, and believe thee me, for the amount of good reading included, it's an absolute steal.
If you're into classic short fiction, Delphi Classics is a name to watch for -- this publisher tries to put an author's complete works into a single ebook. In some cases, US copyright terms keep later work out of the volume (a few of the last Kipling titles, for instance), but usually it's all there. And their prices are delightfully low, usually under $4.00. All of Henry James, all of Dickens, all of Hawthorne, all of Chekhov, and many more. And Delphi includes extras: for example, the Henry James collection includes not only his short fiction (as well as his novels, criticism, autobiographical writings, a selection of his letters), but also a number of short titles about James by other writers. Finally re: James -- if you couldn't get through his novels, try his short stories. He's one of those writers who gets better as you get older. Some years back I went to a library conference and the schedule left me with nearly a full day at the hotel in Wichita waiting for my bus to leave late the next morning. I settled back with a couple of collections of James' short stories -- high point of the trip.
They're not ebooked, but a while back the Library of America put out a nice set in three volumes of Isaac Bashevis Singer's short stories. The New England Science Fiction Association has been doing complete-stories sets of major sf and fantasy writers for years, among them Poul Anderson, William Tenn, Roger Zelazny, and C. M. Kornbluth.
I've already mentioned some of the collections by Robert Silverberg, Jack Finney, Ray Bradbury, and Gerald Kersh in previous posts.
To return for a moment to Open Road Media: the company recently acquired E-Reads and is reissuing E-Reads titles under its own imprint. Included are nearly all of Fritz Leiber's titles -- Leiber was equally adept at science fiction, heroic fantasy, and horror, and if you've missed stories like "Smoke Ghost" or "The Girl with the Hungry Eyes" you should stop reading this post and grab yourself a whole bunch of Leiber (if you don't snatch up everything available from Open Road, go for the Night Shade Books SELECTED STORIES volume with the Neil Gaiman intro).
Also formerly from E-Reads and now from Open Road is the work of Harlan Ellison. Even if you don't know his name, chances are you've noticed his work. The best episodes of the original OUTER LIMITS, "Soldier" and "Demon with a Glass Hand," were his. The best episode of the original STAR TREK, "City on the Edge of Forever," was his (and Ellison's original script was much stronger than the version that aired). The best episodes of the 1980s TWILIGHT ZONE series, "Shatterday," "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty," and "Paladin of the Lost Hour," were adapted from his stories. Novelist, essayist, screenwriter, short story writer, editor -- he's one of the writers who can do it all. I can remember a time when finding many of his titles required a LOT of scrounging through second-hand book stores; E-Reads and now Open Road have made most of his backlist easily available. I've started to write a post on Ellison for this space half a dozen times and trashcanned it every time -- Ellison's work has been important to me since I was in high school nearly fifty years ago and found a copy of I HAVE NO MOUTH AND I MUST SCREAM on the drug store spinner rack, and I just don't know how to do even a little bit of justice to the subject. The title story of that book, and the even better stories that followed in other collections through the years, blew this kid away. If you'd like a good sample of fiction from one of the absolute powerhouse short story writers of our time, try the following: DEATHBIRD STORIES, I HAVE NO MOUTH AND I MUST SCREAM, SHATTERDAY, GENTLEMAN JUNKIE, SLIPPAGE, and LOVE AIN'T NOTHING BUT SEX MISSPELLED; ANGRY CANDY and MIND FIELDS are also must-reads, but they're not available as ebooks. Many of his stories are fantasies, but you'll find he's a terrific writer of mainstream fiction as well -- check out "Daniel White for the Greater Good," "No Fourth Commandment," "Neither Your Jenny Nor Mine," "All the Lies That Are My Life," and "The Resurgence of Miss Ankle-Strap Wedgie." A writer not to be missed, and if you've not read him before, what better time to discover his work than during National Short Story Month?
So. National Short Story Month. And is there a ton of good stuff out there to load up your Kindle? Jeez, is there ever. For instance...
One of the best deals out there at the moment is Irwin Shaw's SHORT STORIES: FIVE DECADES, Shaw's own selection of his best short work; Shaw is perhaps best remembered for his best-selling novels such as THE YOUNG LIONS, VOICES OF A SUMMER DAY, and RICH MAN, POOR MAN, but if memory serves Shaw's short stories were regarded more favorably than his novels. In long form or short, Shaw was a terrific story-teller, and SHORT STORIES: FIVE DECADES is an excellent collection. Some of the stories, like "The Eighty Yard Run" and "Girls in Their Summer Dresses," will probably be familiar already, having been standards in literature classes for some time now, but many of them will not. There are only a couple of things wrong with this collection -- first, it's too bad it didn't include the introductions Shaw wrote for the books in which the stories were first collected, and second, it would have been nice if Open Road Media had gathered all of Shaw's short fiction for this ebook rather than sticking to the contents of the original print edition of the title. But those are extremely minor quibbles. This book is $2.99 this month, and believe thee me, for the amount of good reading included, it's an absolute steal.
If you're into classic short fiction, Delphi Classics is a name to watch for -- this publisher tries to put an author's complete works into a single ebook. In some cases, US copyright terms keep later work out of the volume (a few of the last Kipling titles, for instance), but usually it's all there. And their prices are delightfully low, usually under $4.00. All of Henry James, all of Dickens, all of Hawthorne, all of Chekhov, and many more. And Delphi includes extras: for example, the Henry James collection includes not only his short fiction (as well as his novels, criticism, autobiographical writings, a selection of his letters), but also a number of short titles about James by other writers. Finally re: James -- if you couldn't get through his novels, try his short stories. He's one of those writers who gets better as you get older. Some years back I went to a library conference and the schedule left me with nearly a full day at the hotel in Wichita waiting for my bus to leave late the next morning. I settled back with a couple of collections of James' short stories -- high point of the trip.
They're not ebooked, but a while back the Library of America put out a nice set in three volumes of Isaac Bashevis Singer's short stories. The New England Science Fiction Association has been doing complete-stories sets of major sf and fantasy writers for years, among them Poul Anderson, William Tenn, Roger Zelazny, and C. M. Kornbluth.
I've already mentioned some of the collections by Robert Silverberg, Jack Finney, Ray Bradbury, and Gerald Kersh in previous posts.
To return for a moment to Open Road Media: the company recently acquired E-Reads and is reissuing E-Reads titles under its own imprint. Included are nearly all of Fritz Leiber's titles -- Leiber was equally adept at science fiction, heroic fantasy, and horror, and if you've missed stories like "Smoke Ghost" or "The Girl with the Hungry Eyes" you should stop reading this post and grab yourself a whole bunch of Leiber (if you don't snatch up everything available from Open Road, go for the Night Shade Books SELECTED STORIES volume with the Neil Gaiman intro).
Also formerly from E-Reads and now from Open Road is the work of Harlan Ellison. Even if you don't know his name, chances are you've noticed his work. The best episodes of the original OUTER LIMITS, "Soldier" and "Demon with a Glass Hand," were his. The best episode of the original STAR TREK, "City on the Edge of Forever," was his (and Ellison's original script was much stronger than the version that aired). The best episodes of the 1980s TWILIGHT ZONE series, "Shatterday," "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty," and "Paladin of the Lost Hour," were adapted from his stories. Novelist, essayist, screenwriter, short story writer, editor -- he's one of the writers who can do it all. I can remember a time when finding many of his titles required a LOT of scrounging through second-hand book stores; E-Reads and now Open Road have made most of his backlist easily available. I've started to write a post on Ellison for this space half a dozen times and trashcanned it every time -- Ellison's work has been important to me since I was in high school nearly fifty years ago and found a copy of I HAVE NO MOUTH AND I MUST SCREAM on the drug store spinner rack, and I just don't know how to do even a little bit of justice to the subject. The title story of that book, and the even better stories that followed in other collections through the years, blew this kid away. If you'd like a good sample of fiction from one of the absolute powerhouse short story writers of our time, try the following: DEATHBIRD STORIES, I HAVE NO MOUTH AND I MUST SCREAM, SHATTERDAY, GENTLEMAN JUNKIE, SLIPPAGE, and LOVE AIN'T NOTHING BUT SEX MISSPELLED; ANGRY CANDY and MIND FIELDS are also must-reads, but they're not available as ebooks. Many of his stories are fantasies, but you'll find he's a terrific writer of mainstream fiction as well -- check out "Daniel White for the Greater Good," "No Fourth Commandment," "Neither Your Jenny Nor Mine," "All the Lies That Are My Life," and "The Resurgence of Miss Ankle-Strap Wedgie." A writer not to be missed, and if you've not read him before, what better time to discover his work than during National Short Story Month?
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