Great video mate. Im gonna binge your channel now. Rays poetry is impeccable

An excellent story! One of my favorite Lovecraftian tales not written by Lovecraft. And yeah, that anthology is fantastic.

i remember reading this when it came out ... great book

I read the novel version quite recently and thought it was a blast! The weird xenobiology was very imaginative.

Thanks! I like Farmer stories.

Sounds like a fun read. A **** wizard conjures a **** ******** (No spoilers) at the perfect location, what a coincidence!

I love Stephen King but escpecially his short story collections. To me they have some of his best work like 1408, Man in the Black Suit, 1922 and this one might be my new favorite. Great characters including the villain, and a sympathetic protagonist. The work of a literary master hopefully we get another collection

Alien Cats vs Snake sounds fun to me!

I Loved Rattlesnakes. Didn't like that it spoiled Duma Key since I haven't read it yet but absolutely loved it.

Very fascinating story and excellent work, but could you add the subtitles pls

Great video explaining your different offerings. I'm curious - how did you two connect initially? Maybe an origin story video? =)

Great conversation on an important topic! Here's an additional fun aspect to author intent: What about those instances when the author doesn't know or really understand their own intent? Philip K. Dick (1978): "You cannot legislate an author into correctly labeling his product, like a can of pudding whose ingredients are listed on the label… you cannot compel him to declare what part is true and what isn’t if he himself does not know." Perhaps more convincing (since PKD could get pretty out there) is Sting and "Every Breath You Take." At first the lyricist laughed at the public enjoying his 1983 hit as a love song, telling interviewers that he "really" meant it as a stalker song. But when the song skyrocketed even higher in popularity, he started saying he "really" meant it as a love song. And then Sting's opinion much later was that it was both kinds of songs -- or that it was whatever you want it to be. It goes to show the author's intent is not always a stable, single thing you can easily point to. Of course, authorial intent is a big deal with originalist theory of constitutional law. We hear about George Washington or Benjamin Franklin approving the U.S. Constitution, but what about Jacob Broom, the little-remembered Founding Father from Delaware? I don't know anything about Jacob Broom (and apparently neither does anyone else much!), but I've always imagined that there was probably at least one Founding Father who was drunk the morning of the signing, rubbing sleep crumbs out of his eyes, and thinking to himself, "Well, if Benjamin Franklin is signing this, I probably should too!" Meaning that at least one forgotten-to-history Founding Father's vaunted "intention" was just to imitate whenever Ben Franklin was doing while nursing a hangover. Kinda deflates all the pomp and circumstance. I think authors can still have pretty clear intent in many cases. Sometimes, though, it's a blurrier thing then usually understood. I've heard of cases like Theodore Sturgeon's "Bianca's Hands" or Marc Laidlaw's "Cell Call" where, if memory serves, the author wrote the entire story extremely quickly in the white heat of a flash of inspiration, and then stuck it in a drawer for months or years, too unsettled by the manuscript to submit it to publishers. In those cases, whose intention is really steering?

Sounds like a great story! Thanks for the wonderful review!

Thanks for reading works by L. Sprague de Camp!

The only Disch I've read is, The Genocides, which I really loved. I've been meaning to read more but wasn't sure where to go. I also heard of a 'choose your own adventure' he wrote for the old c64 computer which I intend to try someday. That cover of Fantastic is... fantastic! Never read any of the Grey Mouser stuff, but I've got a compilation of short stories. You have a very nice and relaxing voice, by the way! Enjoyed listening whilst I had my lunch :D

That’s a beautiful edition you’ve got there.

I didnt read it myself yet but your video made me want to read it! If ill remember ill leave a comment what I thought on it after I read it.

Fantastic video. Really dig your Star Wars passion.

I had flown back to Texas from Western Australia on emergency leave in July 1991, so I knew nothing about STAR WARS book releases. While home, I saw this book and bought it immediately. I started reading it the day before I boarded the plane back to Oz and had it finished by the time I landed in Sydney. It was so good! I recommend it to everyone who wants something great to read. IMHO, you were expecting too much because you let your feelings dictate the outcome. Also, you may have been biased toward the book due to the movies. The two are NOT interchangeable and should be approached the same way. You would've had a better experience had you cleared your mind of all presumptions and just read it for fun. That said, do as I told you and go read the two other books in the series.

I love almost everything by Zahn. This series is the pinnacle of the expanded universe to me, I think you're missing out if you give up on the trilogy but either way, enjoyed the review, happy reading.

I read it, and it’s quite a dark and sinister story-especially the part where you discover that the taxidermist actually stuffed an African man into a coat hanger.

Your content is great and I'm looking forward to more! Good luck with House of Leaves, I both loved and was very frustrated with that book. Looking forward to the Ballard as well.

Happy New Year! I always enjoy following your book discussions and reviews. Keep up the good work

Easily my favorite urban fantasy story ever and it's left a permanent impression on my development as a writer despite reading it in my 20s. I just don't like medieval fantasy and a lot of urban fantasy just feels so uncreative unless it's science fantasy, which I also enjoy a lot. Would love to see someone take a stab at prehistoric/neolithic fantasy or maybe fantasy from antiquity when religion/gods were both incredibly diverse and much more grounded in fundamental beliefs about the world.

Great video! Weinbaum's short stories definitely need to be republished. If the literary world takes the history of science fiction more seriously then they will probably deserve a penguin edition in the coming years. Weinbaum's stories often have romance in them, this one and the Lotus Eaters I like because the couples are already together and fighting for each other. A lot of the others, they meet over the course of the story and often spend a lot of the story initially disliking each other. Although I do want to say that the female character's role in this story was particularly weak, which is especially evident whenever the male starts explaining everything to her. But this one really stood out for its imagination and the thrust that the story had.

It's about the circular, not entirely successful, seduction of Eugene Allerton (real life counterpart Lewis Marker) and Lee's search for real love and the ultimate schlupp..

A related excellent book: 'Dominion' by Matthew Scully.✌️

I've read this bizarre early story, and it has stayed with me! I agree that it is a very unsophisticated work, lacking the insight, nuance and polish of Bradbury's later, professional work. I can't say I remember now how the story ended. But the nightmarish eternity the guy spends swinging forever in that pendulum has always haunted me. Even in such an odd story, he captured a sense of wonder. Maybe wonder isn't the right word. But it was so surreal that while reading it, I was trapped in that pendulum with that guy. Bradbury was always fascinated by carnivals. When I was a 12-year-old kid back in the late '60s, we would have small carnivals set up overnight in supermarket parking lots for a few days, and then move on. They were nothing more than rickety carny rides held together with greasy pins. But I remember one particular ride that terrified me ... yet I always had to test my mettle on it anyway. It was called the Hammerhead. It was two giant arms, maybe 20 feet long (or so it seemed) each with a small cage on one end. These things would spin around like opposing propeller blades that were designed, I'm convinced, to batter you black and blue and make you lose your chili dog. They would spin, stop suddenly and reverse, over and over again until you couldn't wait for the ride to stop. So when I read "The Pendulum" years later, I was back in the Parking Lot of Terror once again! I wonder if Bradbury himself based the story on his own experience on such a ride?

This is the first Ballard story I really didn't like. It was a real toil, especially after Thirteen to Centaurus. I hope it is not a sign of stories to come!

I was hoping for a review of the book.

Just found your channel. Good stuff. I remember reading that Bulwer-Lytton story in some anthology put out in the 80's.. I remember it fondly.

She's french. So it might be something to do with the english translation. She wrote the erotic Behind closed doors, which I loved, and the Butcher. Something dreamlike about her writing.A but like Anais Nin. Personally I am bored to tears with realistic writing so I always prefer someone who tries something unique. She has a kind of quiet surrealism, maybe different to the colourful surrealism of the Colombian magical realists. In a final note the need to market to a genre is a real problem with fiction. It actually works against creativity & promotes bland but sellable. We see this in the endless boring YA clone novels. It's like relationships, someone can have the same interests as me, but that means nothing. So with books better to market them by... if you like this you might like that.

A fun, quick story that left me with a big smile on my face. Besides the warmhearted vibe, what stands out to me is the writing's informal diction: "It was the sort of thing"; "a thing like that"; the frequent use of rhetorical questions. It makes me wonder if other short fiction of 1939 also used highly informal diction often. Or even just the other McClure's Syndicate authors. Come to think of it, who else was writing for McClure's in 1939, and what were their stories like? I wonder! Not sure how much Sturgeon you've read, but while his best-known works can be pretty serious in tone for the most part ("The Man Who Lost the Sea"; More Than Human; etc), the warmhearted vibe persists across a lot of his work, as the Complete Short Stories set will show. Of course, he switches to science fiction and fantasy almost exclusively, soon enough. And guess what? I was at a used bookstore in Seattle selling books about a week ago. A bookseller there was assessing some of my Sturgeons and told me that at one point he was living in Bellingham (near Seattle). I recited some of Sturgeon's metric prose and she got to talking about him a little. She said he was kind, friendly ... a warm person to be around, and that she bumped into him 4 or 5 times at different Seattle literary events or places. Hard to believe "His Good Angel" was written (sorta) coming up on a hundred years ago...

Keller did actually serve as a military neuropsychiatrist in both WW1 and WW2, treating personnel for shell-shock. He was however very pessimistic and misanthropic, so a negative attitude towards the military itself is possible.

I've read some Shepard. I think he was interested in South America as a location.

A tour de force story! David Lynch would be ideal to transfer it into film.

Absolutely mesmerizing story. I read it two consecutive times. I'm currently reading Complete Stories and Mr F. and Overloaded Man are my favorites so far (right now I'm in the middle of Billenium, and it's wonderful!). The director that immediately came to my mind while reading Mr F. and Overloaded Man is David Lynch.

im a big Keller fan, read a bunch of his stories in WEIRD TALES - but never YEAST MEN - this one sounds cool! Thank u! gonna try to get an audiobook of this one made

I don't think I have read any stories by Keller.

SINCLAIR was in the 1996 issue of NW and has written a lot about BALLARD. There are other more recent writers who would be likely be in MM-edited issues and some of them wil be in the PS Press paperback edition (forthcoming). John King and Rudy Rucker are two.

CORNELIUS is not a secret agent.

Nice video

Clarke actually was of those behind communication satellites

Since you asked: Moorcock was hired (via correspondence) to edit Tarzan Adventures at 16. I have never held / seen a copy, but, my understanding is that it was not a comic, but a professional periodical, fan-based, but available at newsstands. After all, they were paying him. The boss was taking aback when a 16-year-old showed up to take the position, but he needed someone and he already felt that Mike could do it so they sort of decided on quietly letting it slide (is my understanding.) I believe the Sojan stories were a mix of 'originally submitted by mail' going to 'he needed something to add an issue' later on. Adolescent Pulp is spot on for a lot of British adventure mags of that time. I'll publish you to a fan page, get you a bump, and see if anyone would like to add to / correct my comment.

9:07 that’s a great description. Sometimes there’s a story or movie that has a very good atmosphere, and it’s a puzzle to figure out Why it gives those feelings. I think people love Poe (even Sherlock Holmes as well) because of that, it really does transport you to that pre-electrical age.

Btw, I love this vintage story exploration you’re doing. There’s something unique about 1890-1950s sci-fi and fantasy writing that can’t be replicated.

I was watching a commentary vid on Stephen Kings short story The Ten O’clock People (which I like a lot) the commentators were saying it wasn’t much of a story… these short stories by people like King and PKD aren’t much to pick apart but I’m thankful they exist. They’re really like eating literary peanuts.

As you may know, the late Paul Williams who edited the 13-volume The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon also served as the executor of PKD's literary estate and ran the Philip K. Dick Society (which had a newsletter). Williams helped get some of PKD's work into (re)print, but for some unknown reason, I have it stuck in my head -- probably incorrectly -- that Williams also made a "Complete Stories" set for PKD's short fiction on par with his Sturgeon set. But that's probably wrong; I've never found any such PKD set for sale anywhere. I've thought of someday trying to read all of PKD's stuff -- so far I've read only a few of PKD's better-known shorts and novels, which have all been fantastic -- so I'm curious to keep hearing about your methodology of finding PKD's bibliography. (I must be a New Wave nut: Sturgeon, Le Guin, and PKD are probably my all-time favorite science fiction writers.)

I want to make this as a cartoon

Just finished the book. Somewhere I read that Ballard stated how he wrote it in ten days just to get paid and be able to finance his vacation with his wife. I rather liked it, but there is too many depictions of construction details and minutoae of people and vehicles moving under collapsing structures - it just dragged in some parts. Other than that, it went smoothly, but it seems rushed. I stated readind Ballard from this first novel, and now I'm reading his Complete stories. The stories are wonderful!