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This is my blog which I intend to use for the new group that I am joining |
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I November 2012, I decided that I would like to join a blogging community on WDC. It basically required that we write blog entries according to specific prompts. Here is the result Edit: the stuff from 2012 is still there, but i have a new use for this blog, namely my thoughts on old pulps. . . |
| Beatrice was another story which Atheling complained was too much like a detective story. He's right, to a point, but unlike Man in the Dark, this is actually a Science Fiction story in that it takes place in the future where all kinds of strange electronic devices are available. The plot revolves around an unfortunate man who finds out that his wife is cheating and plots a revenge. Like I said, it's kind of familiar. Atheling disliked this story because all of the characters were underdeveloped types.He's not wrong. In fact, some of the weird futuristic devices kind of steal the show from the characters. And in a way, that's what I liked about it. it's almost reminiscent of Philip K. Dick with the absurdism. To be fair, it's not nearly as good as what Dick would have done with a similar premise.. |
| Atheling-Blish's next target was the Fall 1952 issue of a magazine called Fantastic. The first story he attacked was Man in the Dark by Roy Huggins. I had never heard of Roy Huggins , but when I Googled him I learned that he was a television writer producer who created, among other things, The Fugitive The story is about a man who receives word that his wife's car has met with a fatal accident. One problem. He spoke with his wife on the telephone just a few minutes before the police called. As Atheling pointed out, this is a mystery. Unlike Atheling, I found it an enjoyable one. Sure as Atheling mentions, there is a great deal of prose spent describing smoking. That was a pet peeve of Atheling. Also there is a horny female character in it for no good reason, but there is also some interesting deduction and clues to learn about what happened. That said, I have to agree with Atheling's main complaint which can be paraphrased as, "How the Hell did a story like this get into a Science Fiction magazine?". The editor's introduction implies that the mysterious phone call has a supernatural explanation in which case it would be a ghost story, but SPOILER ALERT: it turns out to be perfectly rational. Atheling reviewed four more stories from that issue of the magazine. Stay tuned for entries about them. |
| So now, I have read Cold Awakening, the story which William Atheling--James Blish quietly praised. I agree with him that it's not nearly as overwritten as The Face of the Enemy but it is overplotted. It's about the countdown to the first interstelllar flight. The plan is to cryogenically freeze all of the colonist for a trip that will last five hundred years. However, three men have been given the unenviable assignment of being woken up early if something goes wrong. It's unenviable because if they are woken up, they will not go back to sleep and be forced to spend the rest of their natural lives on the ship alone. There's a lot of discussion and grim speculation about what could go wrong. Eventually, there is a suspicion of mutiny and sabotage. As Atheling points out, the story becomes a detective story which is kind of hard to follow. I basically agree with Atheling that it's an easier read then some of the previous stories, but it also lost me after a while. |
| It took a while, but I have finally read The Face of the Enemy by Thomas Wilson. One reason it took me s long is that William Atheling--James Blish was quite right about it being overwritten. The story has almost two plots. It deals with a spaceship from Earth landing on a seemingly Utopian planet called Kellane. While there, one of the crew--the chaplain of all things--turns up dead presumably having committed suicide because of some religious issue with the Kel culture. The Captain, Brazil, investigates and this story is more like a detective story. But Brazil is also in love with a member of the Kel race and that leads to all sorts of complications. Atheling mentions that the story is overwritten and even goes so far to make an interesting specific observation that the story uses bad metaphors. A bad metaphor is one where the author compares something concrete to something abstract. For example, "She was first love, last love.. . ." Atheling adds that you know this is bad because if it were a simile, you would immediately see the problem. "She was like first love and last love" sounds silly. A good metaphor is one where the author compares abstract things to concrete things. for example when Shakespeare said that "love is a red rose.. ." I never thought of metaphor this way and it's an intriguing observation. Anyway, something Atheling doesn't mention is that this purple prose makes the character Brazil in particular seem like kind of a whiny hero because the story is more or less from his point of view, so it's hard to take him seriously. That said, I don't hate this story as much as Atheling did. I doubt that I'll ever hate a story as much as Atheling. I'm just too nice a person if I do say so myself, but one thing that I did like about the story is the revelation about why Kel is such a happy planet and the philosophical ambiguity of that., but it was a hard read to get there. |
"Night Talk" is a very short story penned by an obscure fellow named Charles Fritch. William Atheling {James Blish} specualated that Fritch was a pen name for Ray Bradbury. It seems that he was wrong about this. Fritch was a real person, but Wikipedia has very little to say about him. Anyway, the story is what we might call a short-short and Atheling suggests that it was bought mainly to fill some space in the September 1952 isasue of Startling Stories. It's actually a sort of Christmas story about a time when Earth has become overcrowded and people have begun immigrating to Mars en masse to the point where there's no room in th hotels. An unnamed traveler meets an unnamed hotel owner. The owner is guilty because he recently turned away a preganant couple and they ended up giving birth in a barn. Can you guess where this is going? Atheling faulted the story for giving us almost no information about the two characters. I don't know. I think it kind of worked with all the characters being a little bit mysterious. Atheling also suggested that critics would be too kind to the story simply because it's short. He then declares that brevity is not an excuse for being bad. I can sort of see his point, but I can also see the other side. This story is an enjoyable read because it can be quietly aborbed in a few moments' time. Atheling's next target was the August 1952 issue of Astounding which he states contains a very good piece called "Cold Awakening" and a very bad piece called "The face of the Enemy".Reviews of both are forthcoming. |
| Welcome. I have a new blogging topic. I just recently discovered a wonderful old book called The Issue at Hand by William Atheling Jr. with an introduction by James Blish. Now, in the very introduction, we learn a little secret. You see, William Atheling Jr. doesn't exist and was just a pen name used by James Blish when he wrote a column criticizing magazine science fiction at the time. The book is a collection of those columns and Atheling was a truly no-holds-barred kind of critic. He showed mercy to no author--not even James Blish. Anyway, one thing about reading this book is that it makes you want to read the stories which Atheling so harshly criticized. And in this digital age, that is not too difficult.Most of the magazines are available somewhere on the Internet. So why not do just that? I am going to begin reading my way through the book pausing to seek out and read the stories in question. I will offer up my own two cents here. The first story Atheling attacked is a story called Night Talk by Charles Fritch first published in the September 1952 issue of Startling Stories. Tune in tomorrow for my review of that story. |
| So this is the first entry for the tournament and the prompt is whether I prefere being in citys or forests. Not the most exciting topic in my opinion, but I'll give it a try. I love being in forests. No really. I love hiking up the trails and enjoying the privacy of the trees, and the best part is sometimes seeing wildlife. On the other hand, I don't love getting lost, and feeling that I'm wandering aimlessly, and then eventually getting sore feet, and wishing that I could sit down, but there's no place where I can. On the other hand, I love citys too. There's just something about taking a walk in downtown Manhattan, Boston, or Hong Kong which makes you feel so much more alive. It's like the city is one big unit and you're a part of that unit. Plus, I love getting on a subway and letting it take me to whatever stop I happen to be looking for. I haven't really answered the question here, but I guess my answer is that I love both things.  |
First, an announcement. I have just won a contest here at WDC.  The contest was to see who could write the best story about elves. The story I came up with was rather long, but it won!
Okay, now to the prompt. They are asking what one word I would like to strike from the language. Honestly, I can't think of one word in particular, although I can think of some phrases that I would like to get rid of. The big one that makes me laugh is "not unlike". It's redundant. In fact, all "not un-" anything is redundant. "Not unkind" means kind. "Not unfamiliar" means familiar, but "not unlike" seems to be particularly pernicious. Perhaps, it's because people feel the need to avoid the word, "like". Like is kind of a tricky word, because it means identical. Since very few things in this universe are identical using "like" too often can mark you as the sort of shallow person who doesn't notice subtle differences. Somehow people feel that by adding two syllables to the expression they are leaving the door open for there to be some differences between the things compared. They aren't. The definition of "not unlike" is actually exactly like the definition of "like". Maybe these people should consider saying "similar to". The definition of "similar to" is similar to the definition of "like", but the latter means identical while the former implies that the things compared are different in some way. Oh well. End of rant. Don't forget to check out the story. |
| Well. Today's prompt asks how I feel about vampire fictioon. Hey, just a few weeks ago, I finished a contest where I had to write a new vampire story every week for eight weeks, so sure I love vampire fiction. In a way, my response to this question is "What's not to love?" Well, I don't love that the Twilight books are so long. I've never had any interest in reading them for that reason, but otherwise I think vampire stories are great. You know, not too long ago, I heard a very strange theory about vampires as well as about zombies. That theory is that stories about vampires are more popular during Democrat administrations while zombies are more popular when there's a Republican in office. Think about it. The original Night of the Living Dead came out back during the Nixon administration. When Jimmy Carter was president. There was a brief period of vampire interest and they made that Frank Langellla version of Dracula. Then there were twelve years of Reagan followed by the older George Bush. This produced Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, and Revenge of the Living Dead. Then with Bill Clinton vampires came back. First, with the Gary Oldman version of Dracula and then Anne Rice. Then when the younger Bush became president we got a remake of Night of the Living Dead, 28 Days Later, I am Legend. Now, the Obama adminstration is causing us to start up with Twilight The exact reason for this is a little hard to say, but the basic idea is that during a Republican administration people are afraid that the public will turn into a bunch of mindless zombies while during a Democrat administration, people are more afraid that the country will descend to sexual deviance. One other opinion about vampire fiction. I think it's good, but I think werewolves are much cooler. Funny thing is that somehow werewolves have not been nearly as popular for writing as vampires. I should probably write about werewolves sometime, but I never get around to it. |
| What events happened the year I was born? Well, the big one was the Watergate scandal which culminated in the resignation of Richard Nixon. It actually caused a bit of confusion because every once in a while someone asks who was president when I was born and the answer is technically Richard Nixon, but I was just a few weeks old when he was replaced by Gerald Ford. My father sometimes says jokingly that I picked a very good time to be born. Of course, this gives these events a somewhat more personal side for. I remember back in 2004, some newspaper announced that the thirtieth anniversary of Watergate was this year and then went into a diatribe about what that meant for the nation, but I didn't care what that mean for the nation. I only cared what that meant for me, which was that I was turning 30. |
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