Out Today: Queen of the Martian Catacombs

Trouble is brewing on Mars... With civil war about to erupt, Eric John Stark has been sent to investigate an apocalyptic warlord recruiting mercenaries. More disturbing than the promise of a full-scale war to unify the Martian city-states is the claim that Delgaun's ally, Kynon of Shun, has at his disposal ancient sorceries that grant him powers of life and death.

When Kynon's mistress, the beautiful Berild, takes an interest in Stark, the mercenary swordsman finds himself caught in a web of betrayal and evil magic. Can Stark unravel the mysteries of the lost Martian tribe and pull Mars back from the brink of war? The mysterious Berild is prepared to kill to keep the secret buried in the deserts of Mars--or offer it up on a plate to stark if he will help her conquer the Red Planet!

An all-new, fully-illustrated edition of Leigh Brackett's classic Sword & Planet adventure! 

This 6″ x 9″ volume contains Queen of the Martian Catacombs, by Leigh Brackett, fully illustrated by Star Two, with an introduction by Nathan Housley.

Amazon (Print)

Amazon (eBook)

Barnes & Noble

Team Stark: Only One Day Away

Only one day remains before Queen of the Martian Catacombs, by Leigh Brackett, releases in paperback and Kindle. Get your copy of the pulp classic, brought to life with illustrations by Star Two.

Cirsova Publishing Announces Fully Illustrated 70th Anniversary Edition of Leigh Brackett’s Stark Trilogy

Little Rock, AR, 4/1/2019— Cirsova Publishing has teamed up with StarTwo to create an all-new, fully illustrated 70^th Anniversary Edition of Leigh Brackett’s original Eric John Stark Trilogy. Cirsova Publishing aims to bring the action, adventure and romance of Leigh Brackett to a new generation of readers.

First published in the Summer of 1949, Queen of the Martian Catacombs introduced the world to Eric John Stark, the black mercenary swordsman. Stark’s adventures continued on Venus in 1949’s The Enchantress of Venus, and the swordsman returned to the Red Planet in 1951’s Black Amazon of Mars. While Brackett would revisit the character in 1970s with the Skaith trilogy, the original novellas are significant as one of the last iconic Sword & Planet cycles of the pulp era.

These stories will be presented like never before, featuring all new original artwork, including new covers paying homage to Allen Anderson’s originals for Planet Stories and 33 interior illustrations. Each has been checked and corrected against the original texts as they appeared in Planet Stories magazine and will feature introductions by Nathan Housley, aka the Pulp Archivist, Jeffro Johnson, the author of the critically acclaimed Appendix N: The Literary History of Dungeons & Dragons, and culture commentator, critic, and pulp enthusiast Liana Kerzner.

The 70^th Anniversary Illustrated Stark will be released as individual volumes, in a softcover omnibus, and in a coffee-table hardcover art edition.

·         Queen of the Martian Catacombs + Illustrated Stark (Hardcover) – 4/30/2019

·         The Enchantress of Venus – 5/31/2019

·         Black Amazon of Mars – 6/28/2019

·         The Complete Illustrated Stark (Paperback) – 7/31/2019

Our end-goal is to put these classic works of science fiction back in the hands of readers, young and old.

Little Rock, Arkansas based Cirsova Publishing was founded in 2015. Its flagship publication Cirsova Heroic Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine was a 2017 Hugo Award finalist for Best Semi-Pro Zine.

For More Information, visit http://cirsova.wordpress.com/Illustrated-Stark

StarTwo: http://www.startwo.net/

Warnings from Hamilton and Brackett

The final look at Tangent Online's 1976 interview with Leigh Brackett and Edmond Hamilton ends with some warnings for science fiction writers. #PulpRev would do well to consider them.

BRACKETT: I would hate to see the field become introverted; to see it become kind of an in joke where everybody's using each others stuff...writing for each other, instead of the public...which can happen. I hope it will always retain that openness and freedom to move in any direction. You have new talent coming out all the time; you have new ideas, great new paths. And I think this is good. I would hate to see anything happen to it to close it in. 

HAMILTON: Some years ago the late Schuyler Miller, writing in Astounding Stories I think, warned of that danger. He pointed out that the detective story had almost gotten itself into a straitjacket, the mystery story around 1930 when the rules were laid down, where things must be done this way or that way. By the late 20's they were trying to formalize it. And then along came Chandler and Hammett and broke all the rules and gave it new life. 

BRACKETT: Remember that ultimately though, the editor, whether a book has a beginning, a middle, and an end—or has none of these—will not buy it if it does not sell. That is the final word on what editors eventually do. 

Remember in the 50's there was a particularly vocal group in the science fiction community that impressed all the editors in New York that science fiction had changed, it was totally different, and now it's this and nothing else. And they tried publishing this kind of thing and the magazines died. Remember Howard Brown's long “Folks I'm Bleeding” editorial? It was like there aren't enough of you out there to keep the magazine going and I've just got to publish the stuff that sells. It eventually settles itself that way. 

HAMILTON: Of course with these “revolutions” in science fiction it always comes out to about the same thing. Somebody comes along and breaks all the rules, and they're successful at it, like Hammett and Chandler did long ago in the detective story. Ray Bradbury I think was good for the field in that sense. What he was writing was not science fiction, but it was so damn good that it had to be included in science fiction. I think you'll always have this cycle, where somebody tries to formalize it, and becomes High Priest or Priestess of the Cult, and as you say, Leigh, it becomes an in joke. People can have a delightful time writing for each other but they lose the public. That doesn't mean you have to pander to low taste, it just means that science fiction ought to have a thousand different doors to go through and not be confined to anybody's idea.

Part of the text of Howard Browne's March 1955 editorial is reproduced below:

 "Not enough readers will buy the magazine to justify the tremendous costs involved. It was your editor’s argument that a magazine containing the best of everything in the science-fiction field — best paper for best reproduction of the best artwork illustrating the best stories, plus the use of color — would bring a couple of hundred thousand steady readers every issue. We were wrong — and the figures were not long in arriving to prove us wrong. Sure, circulation mounted, but nothing like it had to justify the expense involved. We stuck to our guns as long as we could, but the day arrived when retrenchment was in order. We hated to back down; but in view of the circumstances it would have been foolhardy not to."

(A quick reminder on circulation numbers: the average SFF magazine brought in 50,000 readers every issue. Amazing set records at 200,000 per issue. Browne was betting that the hardcore approach of a small but vocal group of readers would translate into record appeal. As usual, it did not.)

More Brackett and Hamilton from Tangent Online

Last week, I linked to Tangent Online's 1976 interview with pulp and science fiction giants Leigh Brackett and Edmond "World Wrecker" Hamilton. While that excerpt described the treatment of women in science fiction and science fiction by women, the authors of the adventures of Eric John Stark and Captain Future had much to say about their inspirations, the science fiction genre, and John Campbell.

Regarding their influences:

TANGENT: What other influences did you have besides Burroughs and Merritt? 

BRACKETT: I'd say Burroughs of course was the first one. I was introduced to Edgar Rice Burroughs at a very young age. And of course I immediately took the plunge and that changed the course of my life right there. 

HAMILTON: That was true of nearly all of us of that generation. We sort of grew up on Edgar Rice Burroughs. I had read much other science fiction; I totally admired H. G. Wells. But Burroughs seemed to be the one we all tried to model after. I think Ray told us his first story was written because he couldn't―his family being hard-up at that time―he couldn't afford to buy the new Burrough's Mars novel that came out. He'd seen it in the bookstores but he couldn't afford to buy it, so he sat down and wrote it. 

BRACKETT: I think my first writing effort was somewhat the same. I was a great fan of Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. I saw every one of his films over and over and over, and just loved Fairbanks. My favorite was The Mark of Zorro or something, and I wanted a sequel and there wasn't any, so I started writing one on little scraps of paper. Burroughs influenced me more―well, the Mars stories, all my Mars stories came out of Burroughs―I tried never to exactly copy his Mars, I tried to make it my own, but I think my fascination for Mars came from the fascination for his Mars. 

Now, Hammett and Chandler were very strong influences, and James Cain, whose style I greatly admired. I tried to use what I considered to be very good and very powerful in the detective story genre and use it in science fiction. “The Halfling” is very much in the detective story style, which seems to me to work out very nicely.

Notice that with the exception of Wells, all the stories, authors, and movies mentioned are found in the pulps. But not all of them were science fiction. Brackett in particular drew heavily from the detective pulps that inspired noir and the general adventure pulps like Zorro. Both drew from many wells, not just that of science fiction.

On the long term biases of science fiction awards:

TANGENT: What do you think of the different awards that have sprung up that they didn't have in the early days? Do you feel a sense of loss or anything since both of you have never won one? 

BRACKETT: No. I'm always happy for the people who get the awards. You know, I'd be delighted if I ever got one. I was up for a Hugo once on The Long Tomorrow. I don't know...I just don't worry about it.

HAMILTON: I'd be delighted to get one, too. I was also nominated for one, but most of our science fiction has been in the adventure/entertainment scene. If you don't have Big Thinks in it the people who vote on these things are not greatly impressed. If they can understand every word of it then it can't be great, you know? That's their attitude.

The more things change...

On working with John Campbell:

HAMILTON: Yes, he did try to do that, and that is one of the chief reasons I didn't like to work for John Campbell. I sent him one story and never again. He bought it, but I could not subordinate every idea I had into the Campbell formula. Added to which, he didn't particularly like his writers to be writing for the lesser science fiction magazines. Damn few could make a living writing for John Campbell. 

I admired Campbell. I testified to this the other night when we were talking about the old days. In fact, he was one of the great pulp magazine editors. Yet, science fiction did not begin with John Campbell. There were other editors, who may not have had as big an influence, although I think Tremaine was right up with Campbell there, in the early Astounding Stories. But, Campbell had kind of a dogmatic, rigorous mind; it has to be this way or that way, but it can't be that way. He was a difficult chap to work for. She sold her first stories to him. 

BRACKETT: And I still don't know why he bought them. They weren't very good stories. Unless he hoped he was discovering a new writer. Unfortunately I didn't go the right direction. I kept trying to sell him things because he was the top market, but when you wrote a Campbell-type story and it didn't sell then you had no place else to go with it.

They later pointed out that, despite all his efforts, Ray Bradbury never sold to Campbell. These comments, as well as those of Manly Wade Wellman's, require an article on their own.

On the pulps:

TANGENT: Were the pulps ever taken seriously by critics?

HAMILTON: They were, as a whole, cheap lowdown magazines and nobody cared much what was printed in them, but they gave science fiction a chance to expand its wings into all kinds of ideas. If you were writing for The Saturday Evening Post you found all kinds of taboos, whereas in the pulps, which few people cared about, anything went, just so long as it was effective. I think they were very good. 

The only time a serious critic paid any attention to the science fiction magazines was in 1930. A famous British essayist of that time, William Balitho (sp) came to New York to write articles for The New York World about the American scene. He was absolutely fascinated by the pulp science fiction magazines and he wrote a beautiful article, on that long ago day, on the pulp science fiction magazines. He was probably the first serious critic to mention Lovecraft's name. He said Mr. Lovecraft was a lot better than most of the serious novelists that they gave acclaim to. He added that a man who could read Galsworthy about society and Arnold Bennett about marriage and who can't read these crude little magazines is completely unliterary, without realizing it. And he ended up predicting; he said someday these magazines, or the tattered copies of them that remain, will sell for more money than the first editions of our most famous novelists of today. And that is true.

"Anything went, so long as it was effective."  This only serves to heighten the parallel between tradpub and indie with the old-fashioned slicks and pulps. But that, too, deserves another article.

On husband and wife collaborations in writing:

TANGENT: You mentioned this as your first formal collaboration. Why have you never collaborated before, in what ways were you an influence on each others work, and was there ever any feeling of competition between you? 

BRACKETT: No. 

HAMILTON: No, I don't feel that. Our collaboration has been more or less unofficial in this sense...she has done more for me than I have done for her. For years I worked on comics and I had a pretty heavy schedule. When I'd be trying to do a story I'd call her on over and say, “Leigh, nobody can do a scene like this but you.” (Laughing) But I never was as fortunate as Henry Kuttner. We were out visiting Henry and Catherine at Laguna Beach, and he was telling me he'd been having a hard time doing a novel; one chapter defeated him. And he sat there at his desk all day beating his brains out and couldn't get that chapter started, so he thought he'd go out and walk up and down the beach for several hours. The air was good but he got no ideas. So he walked wearily back to the house, got sat down, and there was the chapter, all written there beside his typewriter.(Laughing) I love to tell that story, so then I can accuse her. Actually, that was the best chapter in the book. It was a detective novel called The Brass Ring. When I talked to him just after the novel had been published, I said, “It was a good story, Henry, but the crowning point is the chapter where the man is murdered in the dark. You get the feeling of violence and sudden death in the dark. Terrific.” He said, “Thank you. My wife wrote it.” 

I said the same thing to Doc Lowndes up in New York years ago. He said there was one part in my Valley of Creation that was the highest point in the book. I told him the same thing, “Thank you for nothing. My wife wrote it.” She wrote just those three chapters.

Anyone know where I can find the modern version of Miss Moore?

Tangent Online Interview with Leigh Brackett and Edmond Hamilton

Here is an excerpt of a 1976 interview with Leigh Brackett and Edmond Hamilton, covering the treatment of women in science fiction and Hollywood.

TANGENT: Leigh, there were very few women writing science fiction during the 30's, 40's, and 50's. Were there any special problems you had to face being a woman? 

BRACKETT: There certainly wasn't with me. They all welcomed me with open arms. There were so few of us nuts that they were just happy to receive another lamb into the fold. It was simply that there wasn't many women reading science fiction, not many were interested. Francis Stevens sold very fine science fiction stories to Argosy back in 1917, back around that period. 

HAMILTON: Her name, you see, could have been a man's name and Leigh's name could have been a man's name. Catherine Moore, who wrote SF long before you did, and a dear friend of ours, wrote under the name of C. L. Moore. Now, I don't think there was much real bias on the part of women's libbers-- 

BRACKETT: I never ran into any. On some of the first few stories I sold people would write into the letter columns and say Brackett's story was terrible, women can't write science fiction. That was ridiculous, there were women scientists you know, there's no problem there. What they were complaining about was that I didn't know how to write a story (chuckling). When I learned a little better I stopped hearing this. What they were complaining about was the quality really, not...you know. The editors certainly, there was never any problem with them. 

HAMILTON: Hedda Hopper, in her column that she had, went into how Howard Hawks wanted to do this movie on Raymond Chandler's novel The Big Sleep. Hawks had picked up this detective story and so he told his agent, you know, this chap would make a good screenwriter on this, so get Mr. Brackett. So in this newspaper column it was reported how astonished he was when this fresh-faced girl that looked like she had just come from a school-girl tennis court suddenly turned up. He gulped and went right on with it (chuckling). 

BRACKETT: But no, there was never actually any discrimination against women screenwriters. The first job I ever got was at Republic and the highest paid person on the lot was a woman. The discrimination against women came in later, much later, when television came along with all these male-oriented western series and detective series, and they figured a woman wouldn't be able to write that kind of thing. Which is where the problem came in. Dorothy Fontana gave a very concise, intelligent discussion of that one night out there at UCLA. This is breaking down now. In other words, they are reading the script to see if it's a good script and not who wrote it. 

TANGENT: What about in science fiction? Has it changed at all? 

BRACKETT: As I say, there never was any discrimination as far as I know of, but a great many more women are writing science fiction than ever before. 

TANGENT: What about the women's libbers in the field now, say Joanna Russ for instance? 

BRACKETT: Well, Joanna's got her own axe to grind. She's got her own way of looking at things, but I never worried about it much one way or the other. 

TANGENT: It's like she and others assume the problem existed and are working from there.

Unfortunately, that general methodology of assuming a problem exists instead of verifying is now endemic.

As Brackett and Hamilton have unique insights into pulp fiction and John Campbell's editorialship, I will return to this interview later this week.