A Bit of Early Fantasy, Sometimes Frustrating... "The King of Elfland's Daughter," by Lord Dunsany

What an odd read this one was. I was thinking I haven’t done almost any fantasy except for Raymond Feist books, so I went looking for an influential piece of old fantasy that I didn’t know much about.

I stumbled onto this 1924 novel by Lord Dunsany, a.k.a. Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany, and found something unique, weird, and often frustrating.

What Twenty Years Can Do to an Author... Checking Out Two Jack Williamson Stories!

Finding a New Author

I was looking around through some of the pulps that I had grabbed Poul Anderson stories a few weeks ago, and one name kept popping up: Jack Williamson. Well, the name was vaguely familiar but I didn’t remember reading any of his stuff, so I took a look at “The Equalizer,” and then I got curious.

Turns out Williamson was a huge sci-fi writer, working from 1926 all the way up through at least 2005, mere months before he passed away in 2006. He coined terms like “genetic engineering” and “terraforming,” according to various sources.

So I thought I’d check out one of his early works, and then one of his later (but still free to read) works. I found a copy of the 1929 novel The Alien Intelligence over at the Gutenberg Project, and I decided on his July 1947 novelette With Folded Hands… as his later work.

And wow, you really can tell the difference that comes from almost 20 years of experience.

Perfect Halloween Reading. "More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary," by Montague Rhodes James!

I had a few candidates on my mind for this week, but then I realized that Halloween was already coming up on Saturday! That narrowed things down a little, but not all the way. Then, as I was flipping through some books, I realized that I had never read the second part of Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, published in 1911, from the pen of Montague Rhodes James!

Well, the first part was good, so surely the second part would be all right…

But I was wrong, because I think I might like the second part even more than the first! And that’s a high bar to cover!

And We Feared the Night Sky (short story, about 4600 words)

I was cowering under my blankets when I felt a rough hand shake me gently by my shoulder. I pulled the blanket back away from my head, and as I expected, there was Father, looking at me sadly and silently, pointing out my window.

Even before he entered my room to wake me, I knew something awful was going to happen. That chilly autumn night, I was already awake, and I had seen what was in the sky. Looming up there was something I had learned to be afraid of, something I had seen many times, even though now it was only a few weeks after my twelfth birthday.

The moon was red. The red of a hot iron at the forge.

A Classic in Some Circles, Solid Sci-Fi Despite Flaws: "The Probability Broach"

If you’ve watched my reviews, you’ve seen the Ludwig von Mises poster in the background. So reading one of the most famous pieces of what you might call "libertarian science fiction" is something you might expect. I’ve never read The Probability Broach before, but I finally got my hands on a copy recently and read it last week.

It was originally published in 1980, then again by Tor in 1996 and once again by Orb in 2001. I couldn’t find any clear information about the 1980 printing. It did win a Prometheus Award in 1982 for best libertarian science fiction, but Smith himself created the Prometheus Award previously, so who knows if there was any inside baseball in there.

In any case, this book stands in stark contrast with practically any famous science fiction you’ve read, and that’s notable at the very least.

Short but Solid: "Jimmy and the Crawler" Ends the Riftwar Legacy Saga!

I didn’t even know this book existed until I was doing research for my review of Tear of the Gods. When I was working on that, I discovered that there were originally plans for one or two more games after Return to Krondor, which was extended and novelized by Feist after the game came out.

This book, Jimmy and the Crawler, takes place almost immediately after the end of Tear of the Gods, and after the games were cancelled, there was not enough interest or money. Feist had originally planned to write two novels to round out the Riftwar Legacy Saga, but in the end all we got was one novella.

A Poul Anderson Sampler! Eight Shorts from 1947 through 1950

I’ve heard the name Poul Anderson here and there, and often in a positive light, yet I don’t think I’ve ever read anything from him, up until last week!

I was having a heck of a time looking at all the books he wrote, and how they were often out of order or intertwined, and I came up with an alternative solution:

A Short Story Sampler!