Tales From the Magician's Skull Blog Mar 2022 Round-Up-1
Feb-24: Adventures in Fiction: Arkham House, Ithaqua, and In-Jokes: The Influence of August Derleth by Bradley K. McDevitt
Most of you probably know the name H.P. Lovecraft, but do
you know August Derleth? Bradley K. McDevitt reminds you that you
have a good reason to remember him. Without August Derleth (1909-1971), you
probably wouldn’t have that Cthulhu bumper sticker on your car, that Cthulhu
for President poster, and certainly not that Plushie Cthulhu you have staring
down at you from your geek-memorabilia shelf. Not that Cthulhu would not
exist, but he (it?) would be just one more forgotten character in a series of
stories by an author unknown except to the most ardent of horror literati.
Howard Phillips Lovecraft’s greatest creation and most if not all of his
fiction would have passed into obscurity if not for August Derleth’s founding
of Arkham House publishing.
Feb-25: Classic Covers: Arkham House
When one thinks of legendary pulp publishers, names
like Weird Tales, Black Mask, and Planet
Stories leap to mind — beautiful magazines as sadly transitory as the
era of popular literacy they defined. But it was for an indie book publisher to
emerge as one of the leading lights of preservation for the best in the weird
and fantastical horror of the age, and add its own legendary name to the rolls
of honored pulpsters: Arkham House.
Mar-3: Appendix N. Archaeology: Arthur Machen by Bradley K. McDevitt
This article is part of a series where the spotlight shines
on some authors that inspired the writers we acknowledge today as influencing
the creation of Dungeons and Dragons. For those unfamiliar with his
fiction, the late Victorian era Welsh author Arthur Machen was admired by
contemporaries like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and William Butler Yeats. Further
relevant for this article, his work is an acknowledged influence by Appendix N
authors such as Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, and H.P. Lovecraft.
Lovecraft even cheerfully admitted appropriating details like the god Nodens
and reality-destroying language Aklo from Machen to be parts of the Cthulhu
Mythos.
Mar-4: A Look at Andre Norton’s Witch World by Fletcher Vredenburgh
Born in 1912, Alice Mary Norton worked as a teacher, a librarian, and finally a reader for Gnome Press before becoming a full-time writer in 1958. By then she’d already had a dozen books published, including such classics as Star Man’s Son, 2250 A.D. and Star Rangers. Based on their easy style and simpler characterizations, most of her early books would probably be classified as YA today. It was with 1963’s Witch World that Norton first wrote a full-fledged sword-and-sorcery book steeped in pulp gloriousness. Sadly, for one of the most successful and prolific women to write fantasy and science with a career that last over fifty years, her books seem sorely neglected today.
Mar-8: Classic Covers: Andre Norton
Alice Mary Norton — best known to the world by her pen name Andre Norton — was the author of over a dozen series in the
genres of fantasy and science fiction, as well as a host of standalone works,
including everything from young adult stories and historical adventures to wild
science-fantasy mashups and sword-and-sorcery. Her best known and most enduring
work is Witch World, itself consisting of story cycles running the gamut from
portal fantasies incorporating science fiction to straight up high fantasy. Her
long and varied publishing career would influence many a future writer, result
in Norton being honored as the first woman to receive the SFWA Grand Master
Award, and, of course, inspire dozens upon dozens of evocative book covers.
Mar-11: Jack Vance’s Influence on Dungeons & Dragons
Did you know that ‘Vecna’—he of the disembodied hand and
eyeball—is a deliberate anagram of ‘Vance?’ Gary Gygax made no secret of his
love for the work, and person, of Jack Vance, and Vance’s Dying Earth stories
in particular were often cited (see Appendix N) by Gygax as a major influence
on the genesis of Dungeons & Dragons. Most prominently, of
course, in what came to be known as the ‘Vancian magic system’—a term that
emerged from the world of RPGs rather than any literary fandom—but there are
many other elements, and indeed a prevailing tone, in D&D that
are inspired in whole or in part by the works of Jack Vance.
