Missions Unknown » Joe R. Lansdale

FORGOTTEN FILM: THE LAUGHING DEAD (1989)

Scott A. Cupp — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 19:09:58 +0000

Forgotten Films: The Laughing Dead (1989)

This is the 44th in my series of Forgotten Obscure or Neglected Films

Writing is such a visual thing that frequently writers want to try their hand at filmmaking, particularly if they have had a negative experience with the translation of their work to the screen (though, as far as I know, this week’s writer had not had a bad experience or any experience). Several of my writer friends have made a stab at this, including Joe R. Lansdale who produced a version of his novelette CHRISTMAS WITH THE DEAD. That film was shot last summer in Nacogdoches with writer Terrill Lee Langford in the director’s chair. Also Aaron Allston has been working on a film for the last few years. I am anxious to see the result of both writers’ efforts.

This week’s film was made by Somtow P. Sucharitkul (aka SP Somtow). Somtow wrote, directed, and scored the film in addition to playing one of the key roles.

It is the Day of the Dead in a small Mexican village. Father Ezekiel (Zeke) O’Sullivan is leading an archeological expedition with a choice group of weird people. Among his helpers are Frost (writer Gregory Frost) Dozois (named for Gardner Dozois the editor at Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine and played by Raymond Ridenour), New Agers Wilbur and Clarisse Lemming (Larry Kagen and Krista Keim), runaway teen Laurie who has a crush on him (Premika Eaton) and, much to his surprise, his former flame Tessie and her son Ivan (the Terrible) (Wendy Webb and Patrick Roskowick). Tessie used to be known as Sister Marie Therese until she got pregnant and had a child. The Good Father is, of course, the good father. Father O’Sullivan is having a crisis of faith. Seeing Tessie does not help this.

They arrive at the small Mexican village and bad things begin to happen almost immediately. While Frost is lounging in the tub, Dozois is murdered with his head chopped off is a vicious awing that sends it out the window into a basketball hoop where Ivan was shooting. Everyone decides that now might be a good time to leave when their bus begins to act weirdly running over the head of Jarvis the bus driver (exuberantly played by writer Edward Bryant). Father O’Sullivan is contacted by a lady whose daughter is possessed and he goes reluctantly to see her. There he encounters the evil Dr. Um-tzec. In a weird spasm of rage/insanity, the girl rips open her blouse, reaches inside her chest, pulls out her beating heart, reaches into Father O’Sullivan’s chest, pulls out his beating heart, inserts her diseased but beating heart into his chest, and puts his in hers. You know bad things are going to happen when you switch hearts with demon possessed women.

Dr. Um-tzec sees himself as a reincarnation of the Mayan God of Death also named Um-ztec and is ready to bring about a new era. To do this he needs a priest who has lost his faith and a fatherless boy. Ivan, who is a foul mouth little git, fills that second part and is appropriately kidnapped. The boy is dressed in a bizarre feathered outfit (Ivan – “I look life f…ing Prince!”). Laurie has hooked up with Cal (Ray Effner) who works on the dig they are supposed to join). He is able to translate some mysterious glyphs which predict the end of the world and sets everyone looking for Ivan. Eventually Um-ztec and Quetzalcoatl fight for the future of the world.

Amazingly this is not a bad film. Unfortunately it is not a good film either. Most of the actors were writer friends of Somtow. Premika Eaton is his sister and the character of Minquita (the possessed girl I think) was played by Vanina Sucharitkul.

If you look closely in the various scenes you will see writers such as Tim Powers, Len Wein, Forrest J. Ackerman, Arthur Byron Cover, William F. Wu and more as various zombies and corpses in the underground tunnels. All are wise not to quit their day jobs.

In the end I was glad to see it. I have watched it twice now (though there were 20 + years between viewings). My copy is a VHS tape which was purchased from Somtow by a friend of mine. It is autographed and says “DO NOT REVIEW THIS!* Just kidding!” I think after 20 years the Statute of Limitations has run out.

IMDB does not give an estimated budget for this film. I am guessing it is pretty low. I have seen some pretty good low, low budget films and some pretty sorry big budget films. This falls somewhere in the middle. It won’t make a top ten list but then, so few do.

It may be hard to find and I wouldn’t go looking for it, but does exist and if it calls to you, answer the call. Just don’t accept the charges.

Series organizer Todd Mason hosts more Tuesday Forgotten Film reviews at his own blog and posts a complete list of participating blogs.

Armadillocon brings sf authors, books and discussion to Central Texas

Sanford Allen — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 15:59:49 +0000

Looking for a geeky diversion this weekend?

There’s none we can suggest more highly than the 33rd annual ArmadilloCon, where variety of well-known sf, fantasy and horror writers will read works, sign books and debate weighty subjects ranging from what books belong on a college-level sf reading list and why people just can’t get enough of those wacky flesh-eating zombies.

Guests at the venerable Austin convention include Guest of Honor Paolo Bacigalupi, author of The Windup Girl, which has won the Hugo, Nebula, Locus and just about every other award you can think of; Artist Guest Vincent Villafranca, known for his vibrantly imaginative bronzes; Editor Guest Lou Anders, award-winning editorial director for Pyr Books; Fan Guest Fred Duarte Jr.; Toastmaster Mark Finn; and Special Guests Emma Bull and Will Shetterly.

I counted nearly 100 participants, including horror giant Joe R. Lansdale, off-the-wall short story writer Howard Waldrop and fellow Alamo City residents David Liss, Scott A. Cupp and myself. (Cupp, I believe, has attended every Armadillocon since the con was established.)

The convention is being held Friday, Aug. 26, through Sunday, Aug. 28, at the Renaissance Hotel Austin, 9721 Arboretum Blvd. Three-day memberships are $50. Individual daily passes are available for $20 (Friday and Sunday) and $35 (Saturday).

I have enjoyed every Armadillocon I have attended, and I appreciate the organizers’ continued focus on sf, fantasy and horror literature. Yes, folks, good old-fashioned books. That’s not to say no one dresses up in costume, bitches that Firefly was cancelled or huddles in a corner playing GURPS while nibbling on Cheetos, just that media and gaming are not the sole reasons for the con’s existence.

If you’re a reader, a writer or aspire to be either, it’s a con not to miss. Especially since it’s just an hour’s drive from the Alamo City.

For a full rundown, including a list of all the panels and participants, check out the Armadillocon website.

WorldCon 2013 is heading to the Alamo City

Mission Control — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 21:26:59 +0000

The World Science Fiction Convention will return to Texas — San Antonio to be precise — for the first time since 1997. On Aug. 20, voters at Renovation, the 2011 Worldcon, awarded the right to host the international conference to the Texas in 2013 bid.

LoneStarCon 3 -– the 71st World Science Fiction Convention -– will take place Aug. 29-Sept. 2, 2013, at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center. The Mariott Rivercenter and Mariott Riverwalk will serve as the host hotels.

The guests of honor list for LoneStarCon 3 includes Ellen Datlow, James Gunn, Norman Spinrad, Darrel K. Sweet and Willie Siros, with Paul Cornell serving as toastmaster and featuring special guests Leslie Fish and Joe R. Lansdale.

Founded in 1939, the World Science Fiction Convention is one of the largest international gatherings of authors, artists, editors, publishers and fans of science fiction and fantasy entertainment. The annual Hugo Awards, the leading award for excellence in the field of science fiction and fantasy, are voted on by Worldcon membership and presented during the convention.

LoneStarCon 3 is sponsored by ALAMO, Inc., (Alamo Literary Arts Maintenance Organization), a 501(c)3 organization. Membership for LoneStarCon 3 may be purchased at www.LoneStarCon3.org. In addition to individual memberships, LoneStarCon 3 will also offer a family rate. For more information about LoneStarCon 3, memberships or hotel information, visit www.LoneStarCon3.org.

Guests of Honor

Paul Cornell is a writer of science fiction and fantasy in prose, television and comics, and is the only person to have been a Hugo Award nominee for all three media. He’s written Action Comics for DC Comics and Doctor Who for the BBC. His novels are Something More and British Summertime. His forthcoming novel, an urban fantasy, will be published by Tor in 2012.

Ellen Datlow has edited science fiction, fantasy and horror short fiction for three decades. She served as fiction editor of Omni magazine and SCI Fiction, and has edited many anthologies for adults, young adults and children. She has won multiple Locus, Hugo, Stoker, International Horror Guild, Shirley Jackson and World Fantasy Awards. She was the recipient of the 2007 Karl Edward Wagner Award for “outstanding contribution to the genre.”

Leslie Fish is one of the best-known authors of filk songs including “Banned from Argo,” a comic song parodying Star Trek which has spawned more than 80 variants since first performed.

James Gunn is a science fiction author, editor, scholar and anthologist. His most significant writings include fiction from the 1960s and 70s and his scholarly Road to Science Fiction collections. Gunn is a founding director of the Center for the Study of Science Fiction. He won a Hugo Award for non-fiction in 1983 and was honored in 2007 as a Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master by Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

Joe R. Lansdale is the author of more than 30 books and is known to his fans as Champion Joe, Mojo Storyteller. His is known for his horror stories, the Hap and Leonard mystery/thriller series and the theatrical film Bubba Ho-Tep. Lansdale’s many awards include 16 Bram Stoker Aawards, the Grand Master Award from the World Horror Convention, a British Fantasy Award and the American Mystery Award.

Willie Siros was instrumental in starting the long-running Austin science fiction convention, Armadillocon, serving as chair of the first three editions. Siros also contributed to the founding of the Fandom Association of Central Texas, the original LoneStarCon (the 1985 North American Science Fiction Convention) and Adventures In Crime & Space Books. He is a former para-librarian at the University of Texas Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center where he developed its speculative fiction collection.

Norman Spinrad is the author of more than 20 novels, including Bug Jack Barron, The Iron Dream, Child of Fortune, Pictures at 11, Greenhouse Summer and The Druid King. He has also published approximately 60 short stories collected in a dozen volumes. Spinrad has written teleplays, including the classic Star Trek episode “The Doomsday Machine.” He is a long time literary critic, occasional film critic and songwriter, and perpetual political analyst.

Darrell K. Sweet is an artist most famous for providing the cover art for the fantasy epic saga The Wheel of Time. He is also the illustrator for the well-known Xanth series by Piers Anthony, the Saga of Recluce series by L.E. Modesitt, Jr., and the Runelords series by David Farland. He is also the original cover artist for Stephen R. Donaldson’s series The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever.

FORGOTTEN FILM: STREETS OF FIRE (1984)

Scott A. Cupp — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 13:27:26 +0000

Forgotten Films: Streets of Fire (1984)

This is the 12th in my series of Forgotten Obscure or Neglected Films

This one is all Joe Lansdale’s fault. One year while visiting him at his home he asked if I had seen this film. I replied that I had not because it was savaged by the critics when it came out. After cursing critics for a few minutes, he showed me the film. I had enjoyed other Walter Hill films, especially HARD TIMES, THE WARRIORS, and 48 HOURS. So Joe introduced me to this rock and roll fantasy.

The film is set in some alternate earth (certainly not our own). The film starts with rocker Ellen Aim (a still pretty young Diane Lane – 19 when the film was released) returning home to the Richmond to play a benefit concert. A motorcycle gang, the Bombers, led by Raven Shaddock (Willem Dafoe chewing up every bit of scenery he can find in his first major role). Michael Paré plays Cody, a drifter who had been Ellen’s boyfriend in the past before running afoul of the law and joining the Army. He comes back and contracts with Ellen’s manager/boyfriend Billy Fish (Rick Moranis in a great smarmy role) to find and rescue Ellen. Cody is joined by McCoy (Amy Madigan in a superb role).

It has music and action and wonderful nourish sets. And, ultimately, it is a bad film. But it’s a fun bad film. The big musical numbers are written and produced by Mr. Bombastic Symphonic Overkill himself, Jim Steinman. The pieces are “Tonight is What It Means to Be Young” and “Nowhere Fast”. These are performed by a group called Fire, Inc. which featured Laurie Sargent on vocals and Rick Derringer on guitars. Collectible book publisher Joe Stefko of Charnel House is listed as “Drum Programming” with the band which included “The Mighty Max” Weinberg of the E Street Band on drums. The Attackers (Ellen Aim’s band in the film) was played by Laurie Sargent’s real life band Face to Face. Much of the rest of the music was produced by Ry Cooder.

The story is pretty disjointed and it takes hours to cross their home town once Ellen has been stolen back from Raven. They encounter a black R&B group, the Sorels (featuring Robert Townsend) when they hijack their bus. They do two numbers “Countdown to Love” and Dan Hartman’s “I Can Dream About You” which was a minor hit.

But it is the ending of the film which will really stick in your mind. Raven and Cody have a confrontation in the Richmond with the two going mano-a-mano with railroad spike hammers. This had to be well choreographed because you do not want to miss with one of these things. It’s a good fight and leads up to the final number. Diane Lane looks great in the backless shimmering red dress while she gyrates and lip synchs (badly) to the big number. Other musical pieces feature work by The Fixx, Marilyn Martin, Ry Cooder, and The Blasters.

Diane Lane got a Razzie nomination for her work in this film and The Cotton Club for 1984 but did not win (or is it a loss?).

Whatever. This is a film I have watched multiple times. I have listened to the soundtrack many times. It’s a guilty pleasure, but a pleasure nonetheless.

Series organizer Todd Mason hosts more Tuesday Forgotten Film reviews at his own blog and posts a complete list of participating blogs.

FORGOTTEN BOOK: SOJAN THE SWORDSMAN

Scott A. Cupp — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 12:00:19 +0000

This is the 35th in my series of Forgotten Books

Sojan the Swordsman by Michael Moorcock (Savoy Books)

The summer of 1967 was a traumatic one for me. I had finished my freshman year in high school and was about to move from Iowa Park, Texas (just west of Wichita Falls on the Oklahoma Texas border) to San Antonio. My dad was in the military and had been in Korea for more than a year. He was now back and we were moving again, though this was the first move in five years, a record at the time. I had already discovered science fiction and Edgar Rice Burroughs. I was just finding the fantasy worlds out there. As we prepared to move I had a copy of E. R. Eddison’s THE WORM OUROBOROS but had not yet read it. The first Conan paperbacks were coming out from Lancer with the iconic Frazetta covers. Within the coming year the gates of the Fortress Impenetrable Save for Sacknoth (to steal from Lord Dunsany) were about to thrown wide open. In that next twelve months I would discover the worlds of Barsoom, Thomas Burnett Swann’s ancient Greece, Elric and Melnibone, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Lovecraft’s cosmic fantasies, Hawkmoon, Tolkien, and more.

It was an amazing time and one of the most wonderful discoveries was Michael Moorcock. His STEALER OF SOULS and STORMBRINGER were earth shattering. I read THE JEWEL IN THE SKULL with it fabulous Gray Morrow cover in one sitting. And unlike most of the others noted above, he was just starting his career. Swann had a good ten years of work left and Leiber was just starting to go on the Gray Mouser stories again. But every two or three months there was a new Moorcock book.

I remember like it was yesterday that Ken Bettencourt gave me a copy of THE STEALER OF SOULS and said “I think you’ll like this.” Truer words were never spoken. Over the years I have acquired a remarkable number of Moorcock books, read most of them. Met the man on several occasions and even bought a story from him for CROSS PLAINS UNIVERSE. Mike and Linda are among the most interesting and gracious people I know.

And every writer starts somewhere. At age 15 Mike was writing for the juvenile boys adventure magazines in England and would soon be editing them. Magazines with titles like BURROUGHSIANA and TARZAN ADVENTURES. These stories appeared between 1954 and 1958 by which time Moorcock had reached the hoary age of 19. They are the stories of Sojan, a swordsman travelling the planet Zylor serving his friend Nornos Kald the War King of Hatnor. Together they fight foes, internal and external and set out to avenge the wrongs done to them.

Sojan the Swordsman by Michael Moorcock (Planet Stories)

These are thrilling tales with much bravado and manly swaggering. Are they well written? No, at times they are embarrassing as juvenilia so often is. But they are the herald of much that is to come later so we forgive them their faults. To see where the Eternal Champion originates you must go to these stories. Here is their beginning. That series was still another 8 to 10 years away from bearing any fruit, but you do not mind. This should be in the library of every Moorcock fan so they can see the growth and maturity of the fantasy character sequence. I read these in the recent PLANET STORIES edition which is slightly revised and expanded from the earlier Savoy edition which I no longer own.

In that recent PLANET STORIES edition of SOJAN THE SWORDSMAN, there is also a novella from mystery and horror Grandmaster Joe R. Lansdale entitled UNDER THE WARRIOR STAR. This is your true Burroughs pastiche. A young athletic man (an Olympic fencer) is transported to a faraway planet under dubious scientific principles, where the weaken gravity allow his to leaps large buildings in a single bound and to out fight the mere mortals of this new world. He must learn to cope with new terrain, flora and fauna, and deadly traps while learning the lay of the land. He meets and befriends the soul brother who shows him the ropes and then is introduced to the most beautiful and intelligent woman he has ever known. Their love is immediate, permanent, and unbreakable. The enemy they fight together is devious and superior but they find a way to defeat it and all is good when, suddenly, he is whisked away and brought back to Earth. The final scene is always looking at the night sky in the direction of this lost world and love and vowing to return. It, like the Moorcock, appears to be early Lansdale. It has his passion but not yet his command of language. It is a fun read, particularly when Brax, our hero, talks about his faithful beetle stead and companion Butch.

Good clean solid fun in both halves of this volume.

Series organizer Patti Abbott hosts more Friday Forgotten Book reviews at her own blog, and posts a complete list of participating blogs.

Mission: What’s the funniest sf, fantasy or horror book?

Sanford Allen — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 18:05:38 +0000

This go-round, we asked friends and contributors to name their favorite humorous science fiction, fantasy or horror book. Novels, collections, graphic novels or even single short stories were fair game. Did your choice, we inquired, win its spot on your bookshelf with withering wit, silly slapstick, stinging satire or punishing puns? Here are the answers we got from authors Bill Crider, Scott Cupp, R.L. Ugolini, Joe McKinney and Sanford Allen; illustrator John Picacio; tech geek Paul Vaughn; filmmaker Pete Barnstrom; and fan Gilder McCarroll.

John Picacio — Illustrator

The question isn’t whether Joe R. Lansdale is the author of the funniest book I own; it’s a question of WHICH Lansdale book is the funniest I own. He’s one of the first authors I ever cover-illustrated and that goes way back to the mid ’90s. I’ve known him ever since. I would have to say FREEZER BURN is the funniest Lansdale book I own. Don’t get me wrong — this is a DARK book and not exactly the kind that Joe could’ve kept writing to capture the mainstream audiences he now enjoys. How dark, you ask? Try this out for the book’s first line: “Bill Roberts decided to rob the firecracker stand on account he didn’t have a job and not a nickel’s worth of money and his mother was dead and kind of freeze-dried in her bedroom.” And the book only gets darker from there. Freeze-dried relatives, losers, and circus freaks aren’t necessarily high comedy in the hands of another author, but with Lansdale, I nearly hurt myself laughing so hard. Joe can do that to you.

Honorable mention for funniest sf/f/h book: this one’s not a novel, but it’s MAD Magazine’s 1981 issue that parodies THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. I was 11 when I pulled this off the newsstand and took it home. It’s hard for me to recall when my sister and I laughed harder. We both loved STAR WARS as kids, and the cover art alone is enough to start me up all over again. Ballantine/Del Rey has collected this STAR WARS parody and many more into a book called MAD ABOUT STAR WARS: THIRTY YEARS OF CLASSIC PARODIES, written by Jonathan Bresman and with a foreword by George Lucas himself. I may have to gift this one to myself for Christmas.

R.L. Ugolini — Author

Humor can humanize the fantastical by convincing readers that they share the same conventions of irony, sarcasm and wit as do fairy kings, magicians, undead maidens, and Napoleon. Using her own brand of dry, sometimes subversive humor, Susanna Clarke draws us into the historical fantasy of JONATHAN STRANGE AND MR. NORRELL. The texture of the narrative has been likened to Austen, Conan Doyle and Dickens, but the humor is uniquely of her own making, often found hiding in the delicious British subtext of the satirized footnotes. I particularly enjoy this work as an example of humor in fantasy because not only do the lighter elements add to the richness of the story, but also because I believe in some subtle way, the author is having her own little fun with us.

Bill Crider — Author

There are really so many great humorous SF books that I hate to name just one, but I’ll go with THE SNARKOUT BOYS AND THE AVOCADO OF DEATH by Daniel Pinkwater. The title alone is reason enough for me to choose it, and the character names are also good for a smile (Osgood Sigerson, Winston Bongo, Uncle Hades Terwilliger, Genghis Khan High School, etc.). There’s no use to try to explain any plot that involves a computer made from and avacado and called the Alligatron (a name I have a great fondness for), so let’s just say that it involves a master detective, a master criminal and his gang of trained orangutans, snarking out, old movies, underground streets, secret warehouses, and space-realtors. It’s hilarious from the first page and proves that Daniel Pinkwater is some kind of mad genius. Read the book and see if you don’t agree.

Scott A. Cupp — Author

My favorite humorous SFF is always a loaded question. As I thought about it, I went down the list – RA Lafferty short stories, De Camp and Pratt’s Harold Shea stories, Philip Jose Farmer, P.K. Dick’s GALACTIC POT HEALER, Harry Harrison’s STAR SMASHRS OF THE GALAXY RANGERS. They were all on the initial short list. But it came down to two works which I think pretty much tied for a variety of reasons. Robert Sheckley’s DIMENSION OF MIRACLES and Poul Anderson and Gordon Dickson’s Hoka stories (most notably the collection EARTHMAN’S BURDEN).

DIMENSION OF MIRACLES blew me away the first time I read it (and the similarly themed MINDSWAP) those many years ago. The story is basic enough: an Earthman, Carmody, wins a prize in the galactic lottery that he did not know he had entered. Which in fact, he had not entered. The computer supervising the lottery was accurate to 1 in 5 billion transactions. The computer explains that Carmody won because it was time to make that error. The real prizewinner wants the prize and Carmody is about to oblige him when the prize itself tells him not to do it. Together, they cross the universe is absurdist fashion while the prize winner pursues them. The book is full of wonderful bureaucratic humor. And I love the cover by Paul Lehr, which will be mine next year when I finish paying it off.

The Hoka stories are absurd in a totally different way. The Hokas are an alien race of sentient teddy bears with big imaginations and an insatiable desire to absorb earthly things. They hear of an earthly idea and the race tries to relive the experience. This may mean they all want to be Sherlock Holmes and Moriarity, or Cowboys and Indians, or Napoleon, or pirates, or something else. The Hokas are aided (or restricted) by Ensign Alexander Jones of the Interstellar Survey Service, who often unwittingly introduces the Hokas to some new concept. There are several collections of Hoka stories, of which EARTHMAN’S BURDEN is the first, and it sets up the tableau for all future adventures. My copy also includes wonderful illustrations from the delightful Edd Cartier and a cover from Vaughn Bode.

Joe McKinney — Author

For me, the funniest SF story has to be Cyril M. Kornbluth’s THE MARCHING MORONS. At first, I was tempted to say something by William Tenn, because his stuff was consistently funny, but THE MARCHING MORONS takes first place. I guess what does it for me is the layers of frustration built into the narrative. We’ve all felt this. Everybody is frustrated with everybody else, and few people are willing to feel frustrated with themselves. Sometimes the only sufficient response is to laugh, and this story provides that in spades.

Sanford Allen — Author and Musician

Since John Picacio already staked a claim on Joe R. Lansdale’s FREEZER BURN, I decided to take a different approach and select what may be the funniest, darkest, weirdest and all-around greatest graphic novel ever published: Chester Brown’s ED THE HAPPY CLOWN.

Brown’s elaborate absurdist fantasy gets underway with childlike Ed finding a severed hand under his bed. Assuming the Tooth Fairy inadvertently left it behind, he turns it in to the police — and Ed’s world being a dystopian one — the good deed earns him a trip to the pokey. And that’s just where things start getting weird. Before it’s all over, the discovery leads Ed down a rabbit hole of midnight-black comedy, scatological nightmares, bizarre sexual compulsions and enough body horror to fill a China Mieville novel (with some left over for the next David Cronenberg flick).

During the course of the book, Ed learns just how inhumane humanity is capable of being, but he also discovers that, amid life’s cruel absurdities, there is at least one thing that makes it worth living. How strange do his travels get? One key character is a man who, for unexplained reasons, cannot stop shitting — even after he dies. The poor sap’s asshole even turns out to be a portal to another dimension.

If unexplained crapping conditions and trans-dimensional assholes sound offensive, this book obviously isn’t for you. But if you’ve ever been entertained by the absurdist leanings of David Lynch, Monty Python or some of the more extreme writers in the New Weird literary movement, ED THE HAPPY CLOWN may take you on a bizarre journey you won’t soon forget.

Pete Barnstrom — Left Foot Red Video

Twin political satire with science fiction? What???

Well, yeah, that’s probably not all that uncommon, really. Hell, most space opera is political satire, intentional or not. But surprisingly sophisticated political satire? From an insider’s point of view? With a sly and cutting sense of humor? That’s worth another look.

Author Keith Laumer served in the US Foreign Service in the late ’50s as vice consul in Burma: a diplomat. And he brought that experience with him in his few dozen stories and novels featuring JAME RETIEF, pride of the CDT — which stands for the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne. If like me, you don’t speak French, know that means he’s part of Earth’s diplomatic outreach to other planets. And, more often than not, that puts him in the position of swindling warring alien cultures into becoming grudging allies, and more often than that, pits him against his superiors in the Corps, who resent his unorthodox methods and politely politic insubordination.

My introduction to (and still favorite version of) the Retief stories are the Mad Dog Comics adaptations written by Jan Strnad and elegantly illustrated by Dennis Fujitake.

Gilder McCarroll — Fan

I can answer immediately. It was a self-published novel, a gift from a well-meaning relative.

The author, a third party who shall remain nameless, did not have a good grasp on English mechanics. That was initially annoying, but I eventually decided to treat his errors as ironic comedy and continue reading.

Bottom line: I remember the book not for its deliberately preposterous plot but for the fact that it was apparently neither proofread nor edited.

Poor guy.

Paul Vaughn — Ding.us Design

Having just taken a flashback tour of high school favorite National Lampoon’s BORED OF THE RINGS and their much less successful DOON, I left recalling that other book I read around the same time, one that holds up much better over the years, Douglas Adams’ THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY. My first exposure to this series, and I’m sure I’m not alone here, was through the BBC’s radio play (rebroadcast on NPR) as that was how it was first conceived in 1978. Adams then novelized the adventures of Arthur Dent, the last human to escape the Earth before it was obliterated to make way for a hyperspace bypass. Arthur is accompanied on his adventures by Ford Prefect, a human-looking alien researcher helping to compile entries for the galaxy’s most popular and useful travel guide; rogue galactic president Zaphod Beeblebrox, Marvin the paranoid android with a brain the size of a planet and Trillian, the only other survivor of the destruction of Earth.

These books are a perfect blend of zany British comedy and planet-hopping, time-traveling space opera that has captured the imagination of millions. The story intersperses the narrative with excerpts from the Guide that envelopes the reader in Adams’ smart, crazy galaxy.

While starting life as a radio program, the series has spawned a 1981 BBC TV series, video games, comic books, a 2005 Hollywood movie, additional radio plays and stage productions. Adams expanded the original Hitchhiker’s Guide into a five-book trilogy, all of which are worth reading. Eoin Colfer (author of the Artemis Fowl series) wrote a sixth book to the series in 2009. If your only exposure to this comic masterpiece is through the 2005 movie stop reading right now, grab your towel and head to the bookstore for the funniest book you will read all year.

Forgotten Book: DREAD ISLAND by Joe R. Lansdale

Scott A. Cupp — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 11:00:11 +0000

This is the 17th in my series of Forgotten Books

"Dread Island" by Joe R. Lansdale

This week we are going to look at a book that is not so much “Forgotten” as “Not Yet Known”. Theoretically this book is not yet out. IDW decided to get in on the whole literary mashup thing. You know books like PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES and ANDROID KARENINA and the like. They asked several writers to take part in a series to be called CLASSICS MUTILATED. According to the PR, these folks included Nancy Collins, Rick Hautala, Tom Piccirrilli, Mike Resnick and many more. Take two or more literary ideas and smash them together and see what ticks. I could see something like THE OLD MAN, THE SEA, AND MOBY DICK where a philosophical sailor goes to find meaning in life and gets smashed up by the White Whale. Or perhaps THE GREAT DRACULA where all the beautiful jazz age people are really vampires. I mean, who would notice? They were never out in the daytime anyway.

So, here we have Joe R. Lansdale. I feel it is necessary to say up front that I have a hard time being unbiased about Joe’s work. He and I are good friends. We have been for a long time. This is true of many of the books I review here. I know these folks. I have known many of the writers of science fiction over the last 40 or so years. I have met hundreds, gotten many autographs, become friends with more than a few. Among my favorites have been that unholy quartet of Texas writers – Joe Lansdale, Neal Barrett Jr,. Bill Crider and James Reasoner. We have all known each other a long time and had many fine adventures. Joe has bought stories from me. I have bought from Neal, Bill and James. Joe has bought from them too.

Anyway, just so the record is clear. We are good friends and I will not write bad things about him. Fortunately I never need to. Joe’s fiction is entertaining and wild and inventive and messed up. Given your choice of all literature to mash up, you might pick on Mark Twain. That would be right. One of the greatest of all American writers. So who to mash with? How about Dante? The Divine Comedy would really be funny then. Or Dashiell Hammett? That might be fun combining The Maltese Falcon and Puddin’head Wilson. Does Joe get sensible here and do that? No! He decides to combine Twain and Harris. And not even Frank Harris! That would be a new CATCHER IN THE RYE. No, we are talking Joel Chandler Harris. Unce Remus.
Huck and Jim are approached by Becky Thatcher. It seems Tom and another guy have gone off in search of Dread Island, a magical place that appears in the Mississippi on the first night of the full moon. The island is inhabited by the Brer People, who may not really be people.

Anyway Tom is missing and it is late and Huck and Jim have to go rescue him. Seems a little tight on the time frame, so it must be winter when the night is longer. They reach the island, encounter Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, Brer Bear, and others of Chandler’s creations. But that is not all. There are some surprises including special guest stars. Similar in tone to ZEPPELINS WEST, that insane tale of airships, Ned the Seal, Wild Bill, Annie Oakley and the head of Buffalo Bill, DREAD ISLAND is a short rollicking trip through the mad landscapes of Lansdale’s mind. It is highly recommended.

The official publication date is October 2010, I think. The website is a little confusing on the date, but IDW put out an edition of 400 copies for ComicCon in July. I heard about this after the fact and thought I would not be able to get that edition without shelling out huge shekels. Not so! IDW still had it on their website the other day for the issue price of $15 plus shipping. A pretty fair bargain. Theoretically there are 900 copies of the various editions – 400 ComicCon trade paperbacks, 500 signed hardcovers, and 100 Signed and Numbered leather bound copies. I may not have mastered the new math of the 1960’s but that sounds vaguely like 1,000 copies rather than 900 to me, but never mind that. Get yourself a copy before they are gone. It’s only about 90 pages and $15 can’t be beat for that.

Series organizer Patti Abbott hosts more Friday Forgotten Book reviews at her own blog, and posts a complete list of participating blogs.

Mission: What’s Your Favorite ‘Weird Western’?

Mission Control — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 06:22:59 +0000

The new Jonah Hex movie shoots up the big screen this weekend and that got us thinking about one of our favorite SF subgenres…the Weird Western. San Antonio and South Texas have borne witness to hundreds of years of western weirdness so we decided to ask about your favorite Weird Western: book, movie, comic whatever. We rustled up favorites from the likes of Joe R. Lansdale, Scott Cupp, Sanford Allen, Paul Vaughn, John Picacio, Mike Fisher, Erik Bosse, James Hartz, Mistah Pete, Ross Ruediger and Drew Mayer-Oakes.

Put your boots on…it’s fixin’ to get weird.

The Secret of San Saba | Curse of the Undead | Jonah Hex

Paul Vaughn – Techno Geek

Several years after moving to San Antonio I discovered the Texas tales of Jack Jackson, published under the pen name Jaxon. Jaxon was one of the original underground comix artists in the 1960s and co-founded Rip Off Press. His historical graphic novels focused on the native people of Texas and their interactions with newer settlers from both Europe and Mexico. Many, like Comanche Moon and Lost Cause: The True Story of Texas Gunslinger John Wesley Hardin, are straight historical accounts, but the book that stands out for me is THE SECRET OF SAN SABA, published in 1989.

Subtitled A tale of phantoms and greed in the Spanish Southwest, this was the Texas weird tale I was looking for. Jaxon mashes up Indians and Cthulhu into a powerfully spicy stew guaranteed to win any South Texas chili cook-off. His meticulous illustrations of the interior of Natural Bridge Caverns (just North of San Antonio) as the otherworldly temple to the Native Americans’ alien god “Zulthu” will stay with you every time you visit this popular tourist attraction. San Saba, in the Texas Hill Country, may be known now as the “Pecan Capital of the World,” but apparently 300 years ago it was a hotbed of giant alien slug worship. And Zulthu’s worshipers were willing to go to great lengths to keep invaders away from their god.

Truly weird, by a master of graphical story telling. This book is now out of print, but it is so worth snatching up if you see one.

Joe R. Lansdale – Author

CURSE OF THE UNDEAD was my favorite Weird Western film as a kid. It’s dated, but I still have a soft spot for it. Favorite comic was JONAH HEX, which, frankly, was more wild than weird. It became weird when I wrote it and Tim Truman drew it. A lot of what we did has become the template for Hex these days, good and bad. Weird Western novel. Huh? Nothing jumps to mind. But, I also liked THE PHANTOM EMPIRE with Gene Autry, an early serial with cowboys and underground invaders. Lots of fun. MONTANA GOTHIC is good, but for some reason can’t remember the author right now (editor’s note: Dirck Van Sickle is the author in question).

Montana Gothic | Yellow Black Radio Broke-Down | Sukiyaki Western Django

Erik Bosse – Eyewash Pictures

His name is the Loop Garoo Kid, and he is the African-American protagonist of Ishmael Reed’s second novel, YELLOW BACK RADIO BROKE-DOWN (1969). He’s a trickster in the Yoruba tradition of Africa. After running afoul of Drag Gibson, the racist land baron in the old west town of Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down, the Kid sets out to destroy his adversary through intrigue, hoodoo magic, and good old-fashioned violence.

Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down gleefully throws itself into a weirdness that is more unfettered surrealism than what one would expect from contemporary slipstream novels, or any of those books umbrellaed under the term “new weird.” In this western we have anachronistic rock groups with electric fiddles, detectives who carry ray guns, and there’s even a scene where the Pope arrives astride a monstrous “loud red bull in front of a great stagecoach full of attendants.” As Life magazine put it in a contemporary review: “Literary surrealism has invaded Marlboro Country.” This skinny book make’s Alejandro Jodorowsky’s mind-bending psychedelic western movie, El Topo, appear by comparison as stodgy as a Republic Pictures horse opera.

James Hartz – Artistic Director, Overtime Theater / Film Classic Productions

My favorite Weird Western Tale is SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO directed by Takashi Miike. It is a mashup of homages to Sergio Leone’s Man With No Name films, Kill Bill, Akira Kurosawa, William Shakespeare and anime. The film is a glorious example of taking a time-tested plot (a nameless gunslinger plays both sides of a gang war) and reinvigorating it by abandoning limitations of realism and replacing with a world that constantly adapts to the emotions of those in it.

Beautifully shot as a blend of Kurosawa’s slow motion, Leone’s long shots, and Miike’s hyper-kinetic action all of which is reinforced by the climatic showdown between sword and gun. The film is more than a pastiche, but rather the all-too-rare joy of watching old ideas come together to create something new.

Zeppelins West | Deadman's Road | High Plains Drifter

John Picacio – Illustrator

When a book offers Buffalo Bill Cody as a head in a jar attached to a mechanical body and mixes it with zeppelins, sharks, Captain Nemo and Frankenstein’s monster, it’s hard not to pay attention. Joe R. Lansdale’s ZEPPELINS WEST isn’t a straight-up Weird Western in the way that his DEAD IN THE WEST might be, but it’s no less a cult classic. Lansdale’s latest Subterranean Press release DEADMAN’S ROAD collects the zombie classic DEAD IN THE WEST along with four other stories, one never before collected, one brand new. It releases in October but Subterranean is taking preorders now.

Don’t make Joe come to your house and do this.

Ross Ruediger – The Rued Morgue

When the “Missions Unknown” shout-out was issued for this entry, the first weird western that popped into my head was HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER. I tried to think of something else – something even odder and bolder (like El Topo) – but “High Plains Drifter” wouldn’t stand for it. It kept coming back to me as the only logical answer to the question. On the surface, there’s doesn’t appear to be anything particularly strange about the piece, or at least no stranger than the “Man With No Name” trilogy directed by Sergio Leone. This was only Clint Eastwood’s second feature film as a director, and once you start watching it becomes clear that, after acting in countless western productions throughout the fifties and the sixties, Eastwood really wanted to do something different with the genre. And so he turned out a violent, supernatural tale of a town inhabited by cowardly people, and one nameless stranger (Eastwood) who demands justice. But what for? That you don’t actually find out until near the end of the piece, long after the Stranger subjects the townsfolk to one humiliating display after another, renames the town Hell, and has it painted red (literally). Eastwood is as unlikable as he’s ever been, and referring to this character as an antihero is generous. The payoff is creepy and disturbing and yet the movie probably asks more questions than it answers, so if you’re looking for a nice, tidy bow on top of the gift, this probably isn’t the movie for you. Of course you are reading a piece on weird westerns, so what are you waiting for?

On the other hand, if I were a kid looking for a weird western, I’d have to go with THE VALLEY OF GWANGI, because, well, you can never go wrong with dinosaurs and cowboys.

The Valley of the Gwangi | El Topo

Sanford Allen – Author & Musician

When it comes to Weird Western cinema, there’s nothing weirder than Alejandro Jodorowsky’s EL TOPO. Released in 1970 but unavailable on DVD until 2007, the film follows a mysterious gunslinger in black as he rides across a wasted landscape littered with religious symbols and copious amounts of corpses. Through the gunman’s travels, Jodorowsky forces the viewer’s eye to a kaleidoscope of disturbing images, from eviscerations and brutal torture to a menagerie of physically challenged characters, among them amputees, dwarves and people with Down syndrome. The movie is reminiscent of Dali and Fellini but also Leone and Peckinpah, serving up a bloody surrealist fantasy that’s so seeped in religious symbols that it’s difficult to know how they all fit together. Whether you watch to unlock the puzzle of Jodorowksy’s imagery or simply take in the eccentricity of his vision, it’s an unforgettable travel across a Wild, Wild West as no director before or since has imagined it.

Mistah Pete – Left Foot Red Productions

Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, The Virginian: in the early 1960s, Zane Grey might as well have owned America’s only Neilsen book. But TV is always hot to jump on a trend (a few years late), and by the middle of that decade, Bond-mania had hit the airwaves. Get Smart and The Man From UNCLE had taken the place of Have Gun, Will Travel and Rawhide, but Bonanza was still number one. It didn’t take Faith Popcorn to see where this trend would lead — CBS debuted THE WILD WILD WEST in September of 1965.

The animated opening lets you know not to take this too seriously. This was produced in the era of Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie, but what really veered this into the realm of “Weird Western” were the insane plots the villains threw at the President Grant’s favorite Secret Service agents, Jim West (played by diminutive ball-of-muscle Robert Conrad) and master-of-disguise Artemus Gordon (Ross Martin, Emmy-nominated for the role). They ran up against steam-powered earthquake-machines and cyborgs and crystal brain-implants and a circus of assassins and (no kidding) a drug that shrinks men to six-inches tall. Their recurring nemesis was Dr. Miguelito Loveless, a dwarf mad scientist who exhausted too much of his genius on death-traps for Jim and Artie.

The show was eventually taken off the air not for ratings but as a sop to watchdog groups despairing over TV violence. Each episode included at least two impressive fight scenes pitting Agent West against a veritable sea of burly cowpokes (Conrad famously had his skull cracked in one, which shut down shooting for two weeks), and often also just happened to require Jim to be stripped of his snazzy little blue bolero jacket and pose bare-chested and bound in leather as he’s caressed by some ‘60s wild-eyed hellcat in an exploding garter-belt.

So next time you despair that television panders to the 18-35 year old male, remember there once was a time when they were willing to deprive us of this little nugget of kinky fun simply because some blue-haired prudes complained loud enough.

The Wild Wild West | The Twilight Zone - "The Hunt"

Mike Fisher – Goofa Man Productions

This weird western is a Twilight Zone episode that involves hillbillies and a man’s love for hunting and his dog. The episode is called THE HUNT.

It involves a man who, along with his dog, is killed in a hunting accident. He eventually realizes that they are dead. The man and dog come to a gate that is the gate to heaven. But the gatekeeper won’t let the dog in!

The hillbilly says, any place that is too high falutin for Rip is too fancy for me!

Then he finds the REAL gate to heaven. See? See what was happening? Awesome episode and I saw it only a year or two ago for the first time.

The Phantom Empire | The Weird Western Adventures of Haakon Jones | Time Rider

Scott A. Cupp – Author

The field of the weird western is one that is very dear and close to my heart. I have written the occasional weird western and there are books which I would love to mention but cannot because I have a stake in them. Books like RAZORED SADDLES, THE NEW FRONTIER, and CROSS PLAINS UNIVERSE. I’m in those and helped select the contents for one.

But one I wish I had written is THE WEIRD ADVENTURES OF HAAKON JONES by Aaron B. Larson (1999, Battered Silicon Dispatch Box). Larson came into Adventures in Crime and Space when it was open promoting his book. My partner Willie Siros knew I would love it and purchased it for me. Unfortunately in the great book purge of 2007 it was lost to me, so I cannot even refer back to it. I know there were 36 or so stories in it and that they covered a multitude of genres – western, horror, science fiction, fantasy, detective (I think). They were short but definitely weird. In looking out on the web, I see the hardback is available if you want to part with serious cash. There is a paperback available from Battered Silicon Dispatch Box for either $25 or $30 (both prices are listed). I may have to restock this on my shelves. It’s good, it’s odd, it’s a western.

While others may be discussing Joe Lansdale books like DEAD IN THE WEST, ZEPPELINS WEST, or even THE MAGIC WAGON, I am going to go back to the weirdest western of them all, THE PHANTOM EMPIRE, a 1935 serial from Mascot Films starring Gene Autry as himself, a singing cowboy from Radio Ranch who broadcasts daily so there can be a song in each chapter. Out on the ranch is the hidden passage that leads to Murania, an underground kingdom descended from the lost tribes of Mu. Gene and his boys (his musicians and background singers) team up with two teenagers played by Frankie Darro and Betsy King Ross and go after the fiends who are intent on driving Gene away from Radio ranch. The story is convoluted and on close examination makes little sense but what more do you need. You have Thunder Riders (and Junior Thunder Riders!), killer robots, lost civilizations, a beautiful but evil Queen, ray guns, gangsters, radium, six guns, airplanes, skyscrapers, super fast elevators, and super science. What more could you want? The film is available in several inexpensive formats.

Drew Mayer-Oakes – Director, San Antonio Film Commission

TIME RIDER would be my pick. It stars Fred Ward, Peter Coyote and Belinda Bauer and it was produced by ex-Monkee Michael Nesmith.

Taking in scary flicks with Joe R. Lansdale

Sanford Allen — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 11:29:19 +0000

Looks like you’ll have to drive about 75 miles outside of Loop 1604 to attend this one, but it’s just too cool not to mention.

Austin’s FERAL CINEMA is presenting a screening of movies based on the work of Texas horror legend JOE R. LANSDALE, which will be attended by none other than Joe, his ownself.

The screening takes place Wednesday, June 16, at the United States Art Authority in Austin (part of the Spider House/I Luv Video compound at 2908 Fruth St.). Doors are at 6 p.m., and the first movie starts at 7.

In addition to Don Coscarelli’s “Bubba Ho-tep” and “Incident On and Off a Mountain Road,” Feral Cinema will screen Lansdale-scripted episodes of “Batman: The Animated Series” and “Superman: the Animated Series.”

Entry is five bucks or free with a copy of Joe’s “The Complete Drive-In: Three Novels of Aliens, Anarchy and the Popcorn King.” And it just so happens Joe will be at AUSTIN BOOKS & COMICS on Thursday, June 17, doing a signing for said volume.

I don’t know about you, but this sure sounds like an excuse for a road trip and some popcorn-fueled nightmares.

Made in S.A.: Neal Barrett Jr.

Sanford Allen — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 14:31:23 +0000

Neal Barrett Jr. shows off some of his earliest publications, including Yellow Hair.

Last month, when the SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY WRITERS OF AMERICA honored NEAL BARRETT JR. as Author Emeritus, he wanted to meet New Weird icon CHINA MIEVILLE. To Barrett’s surprise, once the two were face-to-face, it was Mieville who wanted his autograph.

Call it the New Weird meeting the Original Weird.

During his 50-year career, Austin-based Barrett has published more than 50 novels and 70 shorter pieces, a good number of them best described as a little weird. Hell, some of them are a whole lot weird.

Barrett’s short stories have regularly landed in the pages of ASIMOV’S and yearend “Best of…” collections. A couple of his books have even grabbed serious literary praise – the Washington Post called The Hereafter Gang “one of the great American novels.” Along with his “serious work,” he’s also cranked out everything from adult westerns (yep, smut on the plains), Hardy Boys books (as Franklin W. Dixon, of course) and movie novelizations (who knew there was one for Pam Anderson’s “Barb Wire?”).

We caught up with San Antonio-born Barrett at his home in South Austin just before a party honoring his SFWA recognition. In attendance were his friends JOE R. LANSDALE and SCOTT A. CUPP, themselves no strangers to Texas weird.

You were born in San Antonio. Do you have much recollection of it?

Neal: No, we moved when I was very young. I’m not even sure why my folks were in San Antonio. It must have been something to do with my father’s business. He was in the radio business. They were flat out of there pretty quick, though. I’ve been back a few times. I was toastmaster at Worldcon in San Antonio. When was that?

Scott: That was in ’97.

Scott told me that you got to meet a lot of famous people when you were a kid because your dad did radio, but the people were often in their underwear.

Neal: Yeah, they just happened to be. I’d go see Gene Autry backstage and he’d come out of the restroom in his underwear and he’d have on garters. Men had sock garters in those days. Roy (Rogers) would come out like that too. My worst mistake meeting them was I asked the wrong guy about the wrong horse. I asked Roy how Champ was. (Laughs.) Roy said, “Well, I guess he’s probably alright. You probably should ask him.” I just got the wrong horse. I also met Bing and Bob Hope. Met them and my dad played golf with them. A lot of famous people came through in those days, and when they’d appear on the radio, I got to meet quite a few of them. Later, I went hitchhiking out to Hollywood. That was the year I graduated high school. Went out there and stayed with (Western actor) Tim Holt. He showed me how he really was the fastest gun. People like Cary Grant would be walking down the street. I was just amazed to see that. But, (Holt) was the first one I got to meet and talk to and got to know. He had a knife that he’d just twirl all the time.

Were you interested in acting in the pictures, or did you just go out there to see what it was all about?

Neal: About four of us went out there, and some of them ended up joining the Marine Corps. We also went to Galveston and slept on the beach there, worked on carnivals. That was ’48. Galveston was a wild town back then, with gambling and everything else. I think I ran a shooting gallery while I was there. My friend was with the acrobatic lady. It was a real interesting time. I remember one morning we were walking down the street and these prostitutes asked us, “You boys had anything to eat?” And they bought us breakfast. We didn’t do any business with them, but they fed us. If you were hitchhiking, black people would pick you up, but white people would pass you by. I remember a car full of real nice black people picked us up, and we said, “Why, that was nice of you to pick us up.” One of them said, “Well, we can’t read and we need you to help us with the signs.” I met a lot of nice people down there, a lot of strange people. In Corpus Christi, there was this parade and a huge Hispanic guy was riding on a horse. I asked him, “Are you going to give me a ride on that horse?” He said, “Sure,” so I hopped on ended up riding behind him in the parade. We went back his trailer afterward and his girlfriend was even bigger than him. He took me to a bar in Corpus where I probably would have died if he hadn’t been with me. At the time, the coastal bars were really dangerous places to be, but I knew they wouldn’t do anything to me if he was around. It was a real honor. The thing I learned most from all that, though, was that common folk treat you right, and uncommon folk frequently don’t.

From there you went back to back to Oklahoma, ended up in school. You had a writing instructor whom I understand was pretty influential.

Neal: There several writing people there. One of them was Walter Campbell, who wrote under the name of Stanley Vestal, about rivers and things. He was a godson of Sitting Bull. He’d tell us stories about the other side of some of these historical things. Sitting Bull would tell him, “We couldn’t figure out what Custer and those idiots were doing. We just had no clue what they had in mind.”

Joe: Who was your other writing instructor there? I was trying to remember.

Neal: Dwight Swain. Dwight Swain and Foster Harris. Foster Harris wrote for the Saturday Evening Post. Now, I’ve got to tell you, I love Oklahoma, but I tried several years to get in touch with those people up there. I worked for the Oklahoma Publishing Co., owned by the Gaylord family, when I got out of college. Ed Gaylord was just a kid my age back then, and we’d have coffee together. Now, they’ve got the Ed Gaylord Journalism school up there. It’s a pretty big deal. So, I tried to get in touch with (the school) and give them my archives, and they said, “Well, we’ll get in touch with you.” Now, Texas State, they were happy to have my archives. I don’t mind telling that out loud because –

Joe: Because you got dissed by Oklahoma.

Neal: I’ve not no great feelings about that because I was close to all those people at the school. I majored in professional writing. At that time, when you took that major, you took the short story one semester and you wrote a short story. The next, you took the novel and you wrote a novel. You didn’t screw around with those creative writing exercises.

Joe: That’s the way I teach. You make ‘em write.

Neal: Well, you can’t get a job now as a writing teacher unless you have your master’s. I tried to do that several times, tried to get a teaching job. I’d say, “Well, I’ve written 50 books.” “You don’t have a master’s now do you? Need to get that degree.”

Neal gets his party on at the Austin celebration following his SFWA award.

Did you set out to write science fiction originally?

Neal: It’s funny because people ask that and I never really set out to write anything, to be anything. Joe will tell you, what writers do is read. There are no writers that have ever come up not reading. I just read everything in the little drug stores I could get my hands on. I started out writing little comic books but I found out I couldn’t draw, so I’d just write the (speech) balloons. That’s how I invented prose. (Laughs.) Because I knew I couldn’t make it with the art.

Do you remember your first fiction sale?

Neal: Of course. The first thing I sold was for $7.50, and it was to Writer’s Digest. It was a series of rejection letters to Mark Twain, Tolstoy and Burroughs. I can remember they told Tolstoy, “Cut this. We need it at about 5,000 words.” I know the Mark Twain rejection was, “We don’t want to encourage our children to ride around on rafts in the river.” That was the first thing. In science fiction, I sold about four things at once. I thought, “What a scam. Are you serious? I can actually do this?” I sold one to Galaxy, another to Galaxy, sold one to Amazing and then I sold one to the Toronto Star. The Toronto Star at that time had a tabloid fiction section. That story was called “Yellow Hair.” It was about a blonde cave girl who conquered one of the stone-age guys and straightened them all out. Years later, a woman made a lot of money writing that book. What was that?

Clan of the Cave Bear?

Neal: That was it.

(Neal goes to retrieve several magazines containing his early stories, including the supplement with “Yellow Hair.”)

Neal: Here it is: “Yellow Hair.” (He reads from the cover promo.) “The great hunter brought her back to his people instead of meat. Would she fit in, this girl from the land of great water?” God, I hope so! (Laughs.)

Joe: Boy, that just leads you right in. (Laughs.) Do you remember the name of the first short story you sold to Galaxy?

Neal: I think it was called “Made on Arterius” or something. About some illegal alien, you know. (Laughs.) H.L. Gold was the editor at the time. The first thing I got at the time that really excited me was around then was a fan letter from Andre Norton. I thought, “Oh, my God!”

Scott: I remember the story you told me about the first time you showed your mother your name in print.

Neal: It was the first book I showed her. She said, “Neal, do you have to use the Barrett name?” (Laughs.) Dad never said much about it, but I found out that he was going down and buying all the Neal Barrett books he could and showing them to his friends.

What was the first Neal Barrett book that came out?

Neal: Kelwin. It was about an antique dealer, a future antique dealer. He was going around trying to find stuff that we’d left behind from this period. You know, a Coke bottle would bring you a few bucks or whatever. I found out later that the reason the book was so popular was because the artist on the cover was so great. I was real disappointed. I thought everybody liked my book, but they were buying if for the cover.

Could you talk about the Aldair series? How did that come about? It seems like an unusual idea, to have a quest fantasy with a piglet as the protagonist.

Joe: (Laughs.) You think?

Neal: I just took a certain period, pretty much the Dark Ages, and men were pigs. I made the Germanic people in the north wolves and the people in the south lizards. There were some other animals in there too.

Joe: You know, I love those books. They’re a union between that old Jules Verne and Edgar Rice Burroughs stuff and more modern characterization. And they also had that Mark Twain kind of flavor and satire. The stuff that I really first started to think of as Neal Barrett was Stress Pattern and the Aldair series.

Neal: If I’ve been called unique or unusual in any way, a lot of that unusual bit came from people like Cordwainer Smith. People who seemed to have their own thing going, that no one else was trying to do. Cordwainer Smith didn’t seem that tied down to anything, and I pretty much grew into that business of not being tied down.

Joe: Yeah, you pretty much ruined my life. I coulda had a big career, but I ended up being influenced by you. (Laughs.)

Scott: (Points at Joe.) He was pretty much gone before you met him.

Let’s talk about The Hereafter Gang. That’s a book that’s gotten some pretty nice critical attention. Can you talk about how the ideas for that book came about?

Neal: I guess it was a book of my life. It was just the book I was meant to do. It was everything I wanted to say. Totally unrestricted and full of all the strange things I wanted to think about. I don’t remember exactly how that it came about, just that it was me.

Joe: I remember when you were writing it, you were reading a lot of Thomas McGuane. Since I know that background, when I read that book, I can see that contemporary literature welded to the old stuff like the pulps and Cordwainer Smith. But there’s also a lot of Clifford Simak and that coming-of-age novel in it, all sort of blended together. We were both reading the same books, so I’m trying to remember who else—

Neal: Jim Harrison.

Joe: Yep. Jim Harrison, because we were all reading the same stuff around then.

Neal: A large portion of my own feelings and my own childhood went in there too. A lot of nostalgia and crazy stuff is in there too. I would do things that I wasn’t supposed to do – that were sort of against the rules to do – like bring in a whole character who had nothing to do with anything else. Of course, the religious part was from all different religions. Every possible religion was in there, and it just all came out how it wanted to. Jesus was No. 2 on the basketball team.

Joe: Marvelous stuff. And the girl who smelled like Dr. Pepper. What was her name?

Neal: Sue Jean. Dr. Pepper and Fritos.

Joe: Dr. Pepper and Fritos, the true way to a man’s heart.

Neal: She was the sex interest. Of course, after she –

Joe: Don’t go giving too much away. We wanna see this thing sold again. Why haven’t they made a movie of that book yet?

Scott: It would be perfect for the movies.

Neal: But can you really imagine someone doing it without messing with it?

Speaking of movies, ever had anything optioned? Anything come close to being made into a movie?

Neal: Well, I had one, a mystery called Pink Vodka Blues, which was picked up by David Brown, the producer. It was optioned. And Whoopi Goldberg and Ted Danson were together at the time, and she was going to do it. They got a really expensive screenwriter to write it up, and the girl in it sounded an awful lot like Whoopi. But, at any rate, nothing ever came of it, except that one day the agent I had called me up and said, “Listen, I’ve got an enormous check here for you.” And it was enormous. I asked him why, and he said, “Paramount bought it.”

Bought it outright?

Neal: Yes. End of story. They bought it and never made the movie.

Scott: They’d have screwed it up really badly anyway.

Joe: Whoopi Goldberg would have been way wrong for the part.

Neal: I got a lot of money for it anyway. (Laughs.) I did work with Joe on one of the best scripts ever done, which hasn’t done anything yet.

Joe: All kinds of nibbles but no firm bites yet.

Can you talk about what it is?

Neal: What it is? You mean what it’s called? It’s called “The Nightrunners.”

Joe: An old novel of mine. Boy we jacked that baby up.

Neal: It was a hot script.

If someone hasn’t experience your brand of fiction, would you recommend the collection Slightly Off Center as a good starting place?

Neal: Well, that and Perpetuity Blues.

Scott: They’re both in print.

Joe: There’s one coming out, man, that’s going to be the ultimate Neal Barrett collection. It’s coming out on Subterranean. What are they calling that? “The Best of…?”

Neal: I don’t know what they’re calling it. It’s supposed be out next year. We haven’t even settled on contents yet, but it’s supposed to be 150,000 words.

Joe: THAT will be the one.

One of the most memorable pieces in Slightly Off Center is the one about the woman who lives in the structure that’s kind of like an anthill. People just stacked on top of each other.

Neal: The name of that one is “Stairs.” What you’re hopping around for there is that I never did say whether she’s in an anthill or an apartment building or up in a balloon or anything. I never said where it was, never intended to say where it was, just that it had stairs. And that was intentional.

Joe: That book’s also got the one about the woman living in the birth-control device. (Laughs.) What’s the name of that?

Neal: Uteropolis. It was an abandoned birth- control device. From a large person. A very large person.

At any point in your career, did anyone recommend that you tone down the weirdness, try to rein some of that in?

Neal: No, they just didn’t buy it. I was up against George Alec Effinger for a Nebula Award for “Ginny Sweethips’ Flying Circus.” George won instead, but at that time, publishers began to notice short stories I’d written. They wanted me to write things like that, but what they didn’t realize was that while they liked the short stories, when I did novels, maybe that would be too much for them. They wanted it straight. When it came to novels, they didn’t like the weird, unique and odd.

Joe: You know, you did both novels and short stories, but don’t you think there were a lot of writers of your generation that were primarily short story writers but ended up writing novels? Think of all the SF writers – Theodore Sturgeon, people like that – who did write novels but were primarily known for, and seemed to be oriented to, writing short stories.

Neal: Including me. I’ve written novels, but I’m a short story writer. Any reputation I may have gained has come from short stories, although some of the novels worked out. But everybody knows me from the short stories. Asimov’s has been kind to me. Both editors have loved me. Short stories is really where it all has been.

You’ve done a lot of work over the years, anything you wish you hadn’t? Anything you wish you could take your name off of?

Neal: Not too much. No. I did all kinds of interesting things over the years: comic books, adult Westerns, novelizations (of Judge Dredd, Barb Wire and Dungeons & Dragons). I’ve always said, and people like Joe believe this, even if you write the silliest comic book or if you write something like an adult Western – and, of course, you know what’s in there – you do your very damned professional best. The minute you write down to people, you go under. You don’t write down, you write something – no matter what it is – the way it should be. The lady who was editor of one of those adult Western series told me, “Neal, you write the very best books in our series.” I said, “Well, thank you. Does that mean I get paid more now?”