Thorgal: The Archers, Part One

Thorgal: The Archers

By Van Hamme and Rosinski

1985
Part One

First published in 1985 as 'Thorgal: Les Archers', this English translation was issued in 1986 by The Donning Company. Printed to the same dimensions as the European versions of Thorgal, on glossy paper with very good color separations, it's a nice book.

'The Archers' features some fine artwork from Grzegorz Rosinski, and a plot from Jean Van Hamme that showcases one of the more sadistic archery contests I've ever encountered......along with double-crossing bandits, for good measure.

I'll be posting this story in two parts.

Book Review: New Writings in SF 1

Book Review: 'New Writings in SF 1' edited by John Carnell

2 / 5 Stars

'New Writings in SF 1' (147 pp) first was published in the UK in 1964; this Bantam Books edition was released in April 1966. The cover illustration, 'Cosmograph #28', is by Photo-Lettering, Inc.

This was the inaugural volume of what would eventually be 30 'New Writings' anthologies. All of the stories in this first volume were written exclusively for the anthology.

In his Forward, editor Carnell invokes the term 'speculative fiction' as a necessary and appropriate substitute for the term 'science fiction'. This is one of the first instances I can recall of seeing this term employed in the sci-fi literature. Carnell states that the New Writings series will serve as a bridge between the older, outdated field of sci-fi and the innovative and forward-looking discipline of speculative fiction.

In reviewing the entries in 'New Writings' I try to adopt a more forgiving attitude, as these stories come from the mid-60s, when the writing skills of the majority of sci-fi authors were not as.........adroidt.........as they were in the following decades.

My capsule summaries of the contents:

Key to Chaos, by Edward Mackin: this novelette features Mackin's recurring character 'Hek Belov', who is something of a con man. Here, Belov teams up with a so-called inventor named Frank Tetchum to swindle a wealthy magnate by selling him a machine capable of manufacturing military hardware.

Even by the standards of 1964, this story is quite lame in its efforts at satiric humor. Reliant on frequent passages of stilted dialogue, 'Key' was a chore to get through.

'Two's Company' by John Rankine (the pseudonym of Douglas R. Mason): Dag Fletcher, a square-jawed spaceman (and a recurring character in Rankine's short stories), is assigned to duty on a planet undergoing terraformation. His co-worker is a stunning blonde named Meryl who - gasp ! - shows no inclination to sleep with him. Of course, by the story's end, this aberration will be rectified. What can I say ? Even by the standards of 1964, this story had an un-Woke character to it.

Man on Bridge, by Brian Aldiss: in a near-future Europe, the Lumpen Proletariat have come into power, and bourgeoise intellectuals are interred in camps. The opening pages are very effective in portraying an Orwellian, dystopian milieu, but as the story progresses the plot takes some unconvincing turns. It's too bad, because this could have been a memorable entry from Aldiss.

Haggard Honeymoon, by Joseph R. Green and James Webbert: the planet Haggard is blessed with an unusually rich deposit of uranium. The problem is, the men who mine it tend to go insane if they are employed for more than five and one-half months......

A competent novelette, although I thought the revelation behind the mystery of the 'insane' miners was a bit contrived.

The Sea's Furthest End, by Damien Broderick: an early novelette from Australian writer Broderick. In the far future, the grim and unforgiving Emperor Malvara seeks to unite the galaxy by force, but his son, Prince Aylan, is adamant that force is counterproductive. Which vision ultimately will prevail ?

This story is very very earnest, and at time overwrought, in its efforts to imbue the 'Galactic Empire' trope with a heavy dose of humanism. The closing passage tries to expand the plot to the 'cosmic' realm, but with mixed success.

Summing up, 'New Writings in SF 1' shows a genre slowly advancing towards the New Wave era and in that regard remains a viable snapshot of sci-fi in a particular time and place. For that reason, completists may want to pick up a copy. 

TISWAS with Robert Plant, 1981

TISWAS with Robert Plant
1981

This is.......bizarre. But very British.

'Tiswas' ('Today Is Saturday: Watch And Smile') was a Saturday morning kid's TV show that ran in the UK from 1974 to 1982. In the clip posted below, the female hostess is Sally James; the mustached man is co-host Gordon Astley. 

It was not at all unusual for British rock stars - including the Clash, Queen, Duran Duran, the Who, Genesis, and Sting ('which town [in America] was Stewart Copeland born in ?') - to come onto the show to promote their projects, as well as participate in the hijinks. 

Some acts would film sketches for later airing. From 1980, here is a surreal clip of The Pretenders singing the TISWAS 'Bucket of Water' theme song..........and then dousing each other ?! When they appeared on set, of course, Pete Farndon, Martin Chambers, and Chrissie Hynde wound up getting pie-ed............

[The show apparently places special emphasis on the 'Midlands' region of the UK, but I'm not sufficiently familiar with Brit culture to know the significance of this.]

 

In this episode from 1981, the tiny set is overwhelmed with kids and adults who are eating cereal and toast (presumably with marmalade on it). 

Robert Plant (!?) is the guest star, who, to his credit, seems to take it all in good fun, even the pie-throwing. Also with him on the set is Cozy Powell (the stage name of Colin Trevor Flooks), a well-known drummer in the UK music scene of the 70s and 80s. At the time this episode was taped, Plant and Powell were working on the former's first solo album, Pictures at Eleven (1982), although both Powell and Plant play it coy when Sally James asks for an inside scoop.

I can't fully grasp the Britishness of the show's content, such as the boys with slogans written on their bare chests (likely would not pass muster nowadays), or Plant's shoutout to the 'Queen's Head Sports and Social Club', or the congratulations to 'Anne Dooley and her husband Bob Welsh on the birth of their baby boy', but I gather they would make sense to Brits.............?

Book Review: The Best of Modern Horror

Book Review: 'The Best of Modern Horror' edited by Edward L. Ferman and Anne Jordan

3 / 5 Stars

‘The Best of Modern Horror’ (403 pp) was published in the UK by Penguin Books in 1990. The cover illustration is by Max Schindler.

The 24 stories in this anthology first were published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction during the interval from 1951 to 1986.

My capsule summaries of the contents:

Window, by Bob Leman (1980): a secret government experiment leads to an astonishing discovery……or so it seems. Featuring a nasty little plot twist, this is one of the best stories in the anthology.

Insects in Amber, by Tom Reamy (1977): after a storm washes out a road in rural Kansas, a group of travelers are forced to spend the night in a haunted house. 

This novelette starts off as a standard haunted house tale but introduces various sci-fi tropes, albeit not very successfully, in my opinion.

Free Dirt, by Charles Beaumont (1955): Mr. Aorta is devoted to getting something for nothing – usually at the expense of others. His comeuppance is due…..

Rising Waters, by Patricia Ferrera (1987): Rory enjoys lazing on the bank of the river and taking the occasional dip. One afternoon he sees something interesting out in the river………….what could possibly go wrong ? Well-written, with a creepy conclusion, this entry was author Ferrera’s first published story.

The Night of the Tiger, by Stephen King (1977): a traveling circus is troubled by a conflict between its lion tamer, Mr. Indrasil, and the mysterious Mr. Legere…….King’s prose gets overly purple at times, but this remains an effective story.

Poor Little Warrior, by Brian W. Aldiss (1958): a variation on the time-traveler-hunts-dinosaurs theme. Aldiss relates this short story using a strange argot of hipster and Beat prose, which makes things truly awful:

Never mind ! Quaff down your beakers, lords, Claude Ford has slain a harmless creature. Long Live Claude the Clawed ! 

Nina, by Robert Bloch (1977): Watch out for those South American jungle girls…..a short, but effective, tale from Bloch.

Werewind, by J. Michael Reaves (1981): struggling actor Simon Drake finds that the Santa Ana winds can have a sinister aspect. Making things worse is the fact that a serial killer, called ‘the Scalper’, is loose in Los Angeles……

Dress of White Silk, by Richard Matheson (1951): a short-short story that essentially recycles the plot of Matheson’s 1950 tale ‘Born of Man and Woman’. 

Gladys’s Gregory, by John Anthony West (1962): Mordant humor regarding obesity suffuses this story.

By the River, Fontainebleau, by Stephen Gallagher (1986): something strange is going on in an impoverished farm in rural France. A disturbing ending makes this story one of the better entries in the anthology.

Pride, by Charles L. Grant (1982): in Oxrun Station, someone has brutally murdered five young men. Lawyer Brian Farrell is convinced it’s not his client, Syd Foster. But then, if Syd isn’t the culprit, who is ? Grant takes care in setting up his plot, but his denouement opts for ambiguity and vagueness, making ‘Pride’ another ‘Quiet Horror’ misfire. 

Longtooth, by Edgar Pangborn (1969): something with sharp teeth and an appetite is loose in the snowy Maine woods……..

While at times overwritten, this novelette, with a well-defined plot and an ending that avoids contrivance, is one of the best entries in the anthology. Pangborn is as good as, if not better, than Stephen King in depicting rural Maine and its people.

Glory, by Ron Goulart (1986): two Hollywood hustlers make a fateful decision to investigate the grave of a Silent Era legend. This story relies on mordant humor, rather than horror.

Bug House, by Lisa Tuttle (1980): Ellen Morrow travels to a lonely, dilapidated house by the ocean to see her aging Aunt May. And something, it turns out, is very wrong with May………an effective tale that lives up to the implications of the title.

Hand in Glove, by Robert Aickman (1978): while touring a strangely arrayed churchyard, a woman contemplates life without her unpleasant boyfriend. Like those other few stories of Aickman’s that I have read, the plot is meandering and the prose style ponderous (the boyfriend’s full name, we are told, is ‘Nigel Alsopp Omasthwaite Ticknor’........).

Stillborn, by Mike Conner (1981): a young, newly-wedded bride is obliged to make friends with the elder women of a 19th century mining town. There is something disturbing about the underground chamber where they gather to socialize………..a competent tale, with a bit of a steampunk flavor.

Balgrummo’s Hell, by Russell Kirk (1967): Rafe Horgan, a self-confident thief, decides to plunder the dilapidated old mansion where Lord Balgrummo, it is rumored, has some very valuable paintings hanging on the walls………Kirk’s ornate prose pads what is, at heart, a rather conventional story. 

The Old Darkness, by Pamela Sargent (1983): when the power goes out, bad things start to happen to the inhabitants of a city apartment complex.

The Night of White Bhairab, by Lucius Shepard (1984): set in Nepal, this story features an American expatriate named Eliot Blackford, who looks after the abode of Mr. Chatterji when the latter is out of town. Things get complicated when a ghost decides to make an appearance. This story is less horror than a humorous fantasy, and seems more than a little out of place in this anthology. 

Salvage Rites, by Ian Watson (1986): Tim and Rosy, an English couple of modest means, take a trip to the town dump…….which, they discover, has its problems.

Set among the depressing landscapes of contemporary Britain, with its horror content surfacing in a deliberate manner, this tale starts off much as a Ramsey Campbell story might. However, author Watson carefully avoids mimicking Campbell’s florid prose and oblique plotting, and delivers a genuinely creepy ending. In so doing, ‘Salvage’ stands as something of a homage to Clive Barker’s style of horror writing, and is one of the better stories in this anthology.

Test, by Theodore L. Thomas (1962): short-short story with an ending I found to be unconvincing.

The Little Black Train, by Manly Wade Wellman (1954): Wellman’s recurring John the Balladeer / Silver John character encounters a cursed abode in the North Carolina Hills.

The Autopsy, by Michael Shea (1980): Dr. Winters travels to Bailey, a Western mining town, to perform autopsies on the bodies of 10 miners who died in a cave-in. However, the circumstances of the cave-in have raised suspicions that something quite unusual has been happening in Bailey…….

This story is considered by some observers as the first true ‘splatterpunk’ story, because of its detailed recounting of the process of performing an autopsy. Be that as it may, this is one of the weaker stories in the anthology: badly overwritten, with passages that are so poorly worded that I failed to understand them even after multiple re-readings. The science-fiction sub-plot is awkwardly introduced in the closing pages, and I found it unconvincing. 

Summing up, there are enough worthwhile stories to give ‘The Best of Modern Horror’ a three-star score. While I wouldn’t go searching for it, if you happen to see it on the shelf, it’s worth picking up.

Second Story Books Warehouse

Second Story Books
Rockville, Maryland Warehouse

During October I took a couple of day trips to the Second Story Books warehouse in Rockville, Maryland.

Second Story is an institution in the metropolitan Washington, DC area. I have fond memories of regularly visiting their store in the Greenmount neighborhood of Baltimore during the late 80s and early 90s, and I was saddened when it closed in the early 90s (the neighborhood was 'transitioning' into a ghetto). 

But the last time I had been to the warehouse in Rockville was February of 2009, so I was way overdue for a visit.

The warehouse is located in an industrial area of Rockville, set back from Parklawn Street. With cooperative traffic conditions, it was about a 2 1/2 hour drive from my house to the warehouse. (But keep in mind that these were mid-week, off-peak trips, and the traffic on I-66 was humane, for the most part.)

The interior is cavernous, with almost every square foot of floor space occupied by shelving, along with the occasional chair or table. You could easily spend the entire day wandering around inside (there is a restroom in the back that is available for customer use; you may want to bring your own toilet paper). Due to Covid-19 conditions, customers are obligated to wear a mask and gloves (they have a box with gloves for you to use if you didn't bring your own).

The organization of books by subject is a bit haphazard, with some subjects occupying different areas of shelving scattered around the confines of the warehouse, rather than all being lumped into one discrete area.

There is a decent selection of science fiction paperbacks to be had. There are large numbers of science fiction hardbacks, which are shelved in multiple areas of the warehouse. You can find quite a few titles from the 60s, 70s, and 80s in the hardback inventory. 

One thing I noted after 90 minutes of shopping is that I didn't see a section dedicated to Horror paperbacks and hardbacks, although on the far side of the warehouse there is a large section of shelving for Mysteries. I also didn't see any dedicated shelving for Westerns or Fantasy paperbacks. 

There is a modest selection of vinyl records and CDs. There is a 'listening station' available so you can check your picks to make sure they are audible before buying.

The days I visited, Second Story offered a 50% discount on 'regular priced' books, but only at this Rockville warehouse location. So the majority of the paperbacks I bought just were a couple of dollars each, and ranged in the 'good' to 'very fine' condition categories.

Below are the titles I picked up during my trips. 

In conclusion, if you are seeking books (and hardbound books in particular) of all genres for bargain prices, then making a trip to the Second Story warehouse in Rockville certainly is worthwhile.

Book Review: Whispers

Book Review: 'Whispers' edited by Stuart David Schiff

4 / 5 Stars

'Whispers' was a semi-professional magazine published by Stuart David Schiff (b. 1946), a dentist and resident of Binghamton, New York. 

'Whispers' was a labor of love for Schiff, who produced the magazine in his spare time, and sf writer David Drake, who served as editor. The first issue appeared in July, 1973 and the last (No. 11) in October 1987. In addition to the magazine, Schiff edited six anthologies, Whispers I - VI, which were published by Doubleday and Jove in hardbound and paperback versions from 1977 - 1987. The Best of Whispers, a limited-edition deluxe anthology, was published by Borderlands Press in 1997.

All of the original magazines and the anthologies can have rather steep asking prices; I was fortunate to collect some of the anthologies when they first were printed, and my review of 'Whispers II' is here. 

I also was able to procure the very first anthology, 'Whispers', in hardback, as a used library book, for an affordable price. The rather unremarkable cover illustration is by Tim Kirk. 

So........ what do you get in 'Whispers' (226 pp., Doubleday, 1977), the first anthology ?

All of the 20 stories compiled in 'Whispers' saw print in the interval from 1971 - 1977; about half of them first appeared in the magazine, while others were written exclusively for this anthology. Along with the stories, there are black-and-white and halftone illustrations from Lee Brown Coye, Stephen E. Fabian, George Barr, and others.

Perhaps the best story in 'Whispers' is 'Goat', by the UK writer and playwright David Campton. It is adept in bringing folk beliefs into a modern setting and features a memorable villain.

Other well-composed and readable stories include Karl Edward Wagner's 'Sticks' (Lovecraftian horror in rural New York State), David Drake's 'The Barrow Troll' (medieval souls sold for gold), Hugh Cave's 'Ladies in Waiting' (stay away from the haunted house), Brian Lumley's 'The House of Cthulhu' (old-school Lovecraft), John Crowley's 'Antiquities' (a tale told at the Traveler's Club), and Joseph Payne Brennan's 'The Willow Platform' (Lovecraftian horror in rural New England).  

Also worth reading are Manley Wade Wellman's 'The Dakwa' (stay away from the haunted lake) and Charles Fritch's 'Pawnshop' (don't make a deal with the Devil). Robin Smyth's 'The Inglorious Rise of the Catsmeats Man' takes the Sweeney Todd legend and updates it to 20th century Britain.

Horror of a traditional style is represented by Fritz Leiber with 'The Glove', Robert Bloch and 'The Closer of the Way', Richard Christian Matheson's 'Graduation', William F. Nolan in 'Dark Winner', and Ray Russell's 'Mirror, Mirror'. Basil A. Smith's lengthy 'The Scallion Stone' is modeled on the classical English Ghost Story.

The remaining entries in 'Whispers' all suffer from thin plots deeply drenched in wordy prose:

Robert Aickman's 'Le Miroir' features the phrases 'sedulously eschewed' and 'aged tricoteuse'; as well as the aphorism 'Time flies when we watch it, but has no need to fly when we ignore it'. 

Dennis Etchison's 'White Moon Rising', about a campus serial killer, employs his usual style of oblique prose and a denouement that is too contrived to be effective. 

James Sallis and David Lunde's 'The Weather Report at the Top of the Stairs' is based on a cartoon ('And Then We'll Get Him !') by Gahan Wilson about vengeful toys, but neglects to inform the reader of this. Accordingly, the reader is left on their own to intuit the backstory, which is not helpful. Even with the knowledge of the Wilson cartoon, 'Weather Report' is too overloaded with determinedly poetic prose to be very effective.

Even Ramsey Campbell's most ardent fans are going to find 'The Chimney' to be a disappointment, as its melodramatic prose cannot inject much energy into its plot about a neurotic British boy who suspects the Boogeyman is hiding in his bedroom's chimney. But, in the interests of objectivity, I direct you to another review of this story at the 'Too Much Horror Fiction' blog. 

Summing up, 'Whispers' provides a good overview of the state of horror and fantasy fiction as it was in the mid-70s. None of its entries are particularly groundbreaking or imaginative, but they are competently written. Those readers who are comfortable with the traditional horror story model will find 'Whispers' to their liking.

Down and Out with William Burroughs

Down and Out with William Burroughs
from Laid Bare by John Gimore

John Gilmore (July 5, 1935 - October 13, 2016) was an actor, director, sleaze paperback author, true crime author, and chronicler of Hollywood Excess. Laid Bare, his 1997 memoir of his career during the 1950s and 1960s, is filled with anecdotes and reminiscences about a variety of fellow actors and L. A. citizens and is well worth reading.

On pages 147 - 149 of Laid Bare (Amok Books, 2003), Gilmore writes about his encounters with the riffraff staying at the so-called 'Beat Hotel' in the Latin Quarter of Paris in 1959, and the times he spent with the writer William Burroughs:

William Burroughs was also at the hotel, genuinely in pain - he seemed to shriek with every breath. A sad man, all static like a radio on the fritz, he'd shot his wife in the head with a gun in Mexico, killed her, though he claimed to have only been showing off his marksmanship. The police were always looking for him. Emaciated and desperate, he was a lecherous spook. Another post-Beat American, Gregory Corso - a loud and obnoxious poet - shouted that he had to keep pulling Burroughs out of public cans, where "he's always on his knees giving blowjobs to anyone who'll whip it out !" Burroughs made him sick, he said, and he'd have to "kill Bill" sooner or later; he'd have to "beat him to death" and turn Burroughs' face into a "flattened mass of burger."

Burroughs knew where to find the best absinthe in a section of Paris he called " the sewer", and I went with him and another poet named Frank Milne, from Hoboken, who wore some sort of turban on his head.....Burroughs kept staring at my crotch and almost obscenely licking his lips, or making strange remarks about a "penis colony in the desert." He drank quickly, painfully, and at one point began sweating and shaking. His eye rolled up like an epileptic's, and he seemed to go into a kind of fit. I got up and away from him when he started frothing at the mouth and shitting his pants.

Frank Milne's turban fell off as he tried to pull Burroughs back into a sitting position and get him out of the cafe. The turban was dirty inside and I didn't pick it up, but as I followed them outside I noticed Frank's bald head had a square scar like a flap on the crown, as though he had a metal plate in his head, or his skull had been operated on.

Burroughs died on August 2, 1997, aged 83..............who would have thought he would have lived that long ? Just goes to show, sometimes those who are the most down and out, stick around the longest...........

Book Review: Demon Summer

Book Review: 'Demon Summer' by Elaine Booth Selig

1 / 5 Stars

'Demon Summer' (224 pp) was published by Pocket Books in June 1979. The cover artist is uncredited.

Elaine Booth Selig wrote a number of novels during the 70s, including 'Mariner's End' (1977) and 'Scorpion Summer' (1977).

'Demon Summer' has an attention-getting cover, but alas, it's really a pretty lukewarm novel.

'Demon' is set in the late 70s, and as the novel opens, the Spencer family - John, wife Kathy, and infant son Christopher - are aboard the ferry from Bayshore to Fire Island, where John has just secured a job as pastor of the Unitarian Universalist church.

It seems like a plum assignment, but John is a soyboy - ambivalent about his decision to enter the ministry, and impatient with what he sees as the outmoded and simplistic theology and doctrines of mainline Unitarians. He anticipates conflict with the congregation, who are accustomed to a more traditional interpretation of Unitarian theology.

There also are tensions with Kathy, over John's impotence (back in '79 there was no such thing as Viagra). While John blames his service in Vietnam as the cause of his Limpness, there may be other reasons (let's wink and snap our fingers !) why he finds it difficult to have sex with his wife. Kathy does her best to be the Understanding Spouse who supports her husband through all his difficulties, but for her, the absence of physical intimacy is becoming more and more disheartening.

The residents of Fire Island are very welcoming to the Spencers, although the village eccentric, an elderly woman named Ida Leighton, speaks knowingly of the 'dangers' of witches and the ability of bells to ward off 'evil spirits'. She also imparts a troubling anecdote: the previous pastors at the Fire Island Unitarian church have a habit of dying in accidents, or going mad, soon after taking office........

As the Spencers settle into the parsonage and go about building their ministry, their first Summer on the island seems to offer the promise of a rewarding life. But when Kathy begins having erotic dreams in which she is possessed by a demonic horse (?!), it's a signal that all might not be what it seems, among the idyllic dunes fronting the Atlantic coast.....

While it's a well-written book, 'Demon' disappoints by failing to live up to the potential of its premise - modern-day Satanists living large in a resort town - and squanders much of the narrative in documenting marital melodrama. It's never a good sign when the most appealing personality in the entire novel is that of 'Punk', the Satanic Kitten, nor when the first overt appearance of any truly occult plot point doesn't happen until page 166, a good four-fifths into the novel.

The closing chapter tries to redeem the indolence of the earlier portion of the narrative by abruptly layering on some 'Rosemary's Baby' - style antics, but they seem forced, and I finished 'Demon Summer' thinking that it tried, unsuccessfully, to straddle the ground between a Gothic Romance and the modern horror story. This novel can be passed on without penalty.