Disappearing in a Public Library

Before I discovered the joy of being stunned by some plot twist while reading a PKD novel and subsequently ransacking all the used bookstores for PKD books(and H.E. back then), I grew up going to the Mid City Library and discovered treasures like “Journey to the Mushroom Planet,” “Secret of the Marauder Satellite,” all the RAH Juveniles like "Have Spacesuit Will Travel," DAW's “Secret of the Ninth Planet.” I kept graduating to other things back them, like Groff Conklin SF anthologies and Orbit anthos. I found those Derleth anthologies like “A Porthole to Eternity” and onward to Bradbury, Asimov and Silverberg. I can almost remember being there between the stacks, a skinny kid stumbling upon Arthur Clarke and various horror anthologies and anxiously checking them out.

The reason I am writing this is because a friend of mine’s mom just passed on and he was a good friend that introduced me to EE Doc Smith’s “Skylark of Space” and numerous other authors. Another childhood friend introduced me to Analog after I had discovered some old pulps of Edmond Hamilton, etc. My friend and I tried to write a short story to send to Analog at the ripe age of 11 or so, but we never finished it.

I discovered the “X Minus One” radio dramas and “Dimension X” as well, and they enhanced my sense of wonder. I was literally wandering around in a daze of wonder about what could be and what would be. I found a lot of Andre Norton novels at the library, as well as later, Kate Wilhelm and LeGuin. I went through all of my big brother's SF anthologies. I found out about Van Vogt who to me was the ancient precursor to PKD and way ahead of his time.

I later met several authors at Cons. I remember meeting Ray Bradbury and it was rather spoiled by some psycho in the line in front of me pulling a bejeweled massive sword from a duffel bag and wielding it around. I was working night shifts as a computer operator so when I met Mr. Bradbury I was in a disheveled appearance with no sleep. I told him I wrote a couple of novels and had read every word he had written many times.

I remember the Tom Swift books which I discovered, were under the house name of Victor Appleton (I didn’t know what a house name was). I started collecting the original Swift books which are now antiques. In the 7th grade (at age ten) the English teacher asked us down each row what we wanted to do when we were grown. I said, "I want to invent the first Star Drive." Whimsy, indeed.

I guess I am writing this as a paean to my youth and to some childhood friends that introduced me to comic books and SF and Horror.


www.mfkorn.com

HPL, Houdini's Ghostwriter

Putting on an HPL hat for a second:

If you peruse through the five volumes of "The Selected Lettres of H. P. Lovecraft" or the two bios, you may be interested to know that Lovecraft was contacted by Houdini to ghostwrite some tales for him for Weird Tales. Here, in a letter to Frank Belknap Long, to whom Stephen King's "Danse Macabre" was dedicated:

Lovecraft writes: "(Baird) will introduce a column (in "Weird Tales") by the magician Houdini..." (Feb 7th, 1924). Here again on 14 Feb, 1924 to Frank Belknap Long:

"...Yes, Child, Weird Tales is certainly showin' a lot of work at your aged Grandsire! Entire new job-to rewrite a strange narrative which the magician Houdini related orally to Henneberger; a narrative to be amplified and formulated, and to appear as a collaborated product-'By Houdini and H.P. Lovecraft'."

Here is Lovecraft, sort of badmouthing Houdini: "He's supremely egotistical, as one can see at a glance. The more latitude Houdini allows me, the better yarn I can evolve- I’m asking Henneberger to get me as much as possible from the versatile showman."

The tale was "Imprisoned With the Pharoahs" and is set in Cairo, in a 'singular subterranean place betwixt the Sphinx and the second pyramid (Campbell's Tomb)'.

A while later Lovecraft paid a visit to Houdini in his apartment in New York, and enjoyed himself immensely. Later, someone hit Houdini in the stomach with a baseball bat.

I have a typed letter from Frank Belknap Long to someone towards the end of Long’s life. He was so impoverished they had to take up a collection for his burial.


www.mfkorn.com