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Post by Von K on Aug 12, 2017 11:16:49 GMT -5
Anyone know if Eli Colter ever wrote for Weird Tales?
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Post by emerald on Aug 12, 2017 22:30:31 GMT -5
Anyone know if Eli Colter ever wrote for Weird Tales? Checking my handy-dandy index to Weird Tales, I see that Colter wrote twelve stories printed in WT. Most appeared between 1925 and 1929, with a straggler story showing up in November of 1939. Three were multi-part serials, so he had some pretty steady presence in the magazine for a while there in the twenties.
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Post by deuce on Sept 17, 2017 17:32:58 GMT -5
"...I must also commend Robert E. Howard for his new Conan story. Such a brave man as Conan may exist only in fiction, but, doggone it, we should have such men in our times. Maybe there wouldn't be any depression. Conan, like Jirel, is a dynamic character—what would happen should the two ever meet some day? Or maybe I'm crazy. I don't know, I don't care, but I'd do without all my other reading matter rather than give up WT. It takes me from the realms of harsh reality to enchanted gardens that no man can ever conceive other than in his mind. To descend the dizzying other-dimensional spiral with Jirel, to dash over mountain and stream with Conan, to escape the unnameable horrors of Clark Ashton Smith, and try to piece the uncanny taboos and Barbarian countries—that is something that can make me lose all sense of time and place and just live the stories. So all I can add is: long live WT and its writers of bizarre and unusual tales."
-- Gertrude Hemken, Weird Tales letter column, February 1935
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Post by deuce on Sept 18, 2017 10:17:21 GMT -5
Anyone know if Eli Colter ever wrote for Weird Tales? When there's a question about WT, it's always wise to stop by Tellers of Weird Tales: tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2012/05/eli-colter-1890-1984.htmlTerence Hanley at ToWT is so thorough that I tend to be kinda shocked when I stumble upon a gap in his coverage or research. Eli Colter.
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Post by Von K on Sept 19, 2017 17:54:28 GMT -5
Thanks for the link Deuce!
That site looks to be an incredible resource, plus, Eli Colter is a great pen name for a writer of westerns.
Emerald thanks for your info as well! As you say, looks like she was pretty much a WT regular for a while.
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Post by deuce on Sept 25, 2017 11:08:03 GMT -5
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Post by deuce on Sept 29, 2017 22:23:06 GMT -5
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Post by deuce on Oct 3, 2017 23:55:03 GMT -5
I certainly hope you''ll succeed in your ambition to produce literature--& am sorry your environment is not sympathetic. If in any way possible, I'd advise that you look about for some means of subsistence other than writing--for when anyone depends on his pen for daily bread, the usual result is deterioration. He has to write tripe to please low-grade editors--& as time passes, the pattern gets so fixed that he can't produce anything else. Indeed, most lose even the desire to produce anything else ....
Thus [Seabury] Quinn, [Edmond] Hamilton, [E. Hoffman] Price, [Jack] Williamson, & so on--all brilliant chaps who could create splendidly if freed from external suggestions & obligations. This stifling of artistic sincerity & frustration of real literary creation is really a major tragedy--a fatal flaw in the system of commercial barbarism around us some are ironic enough to call 'civilisation.' Only occasionally do we come across a personality so intense that it can't be wholly crushed by commercialism.
-- H. P. Lovecraft to Robert Nelson 19 October, 1934Interesting comments from HPL. Since WT was practically his only market, his reference to "low-grade editors" has to refer, in whole or part, to Farnsworth Wright. Lovecraft was certainly not the Lone Ranger when it came to a certain dislike of Wright. It was shared by many Weird Tales authors, including REH and Clark Ashton Smith. Also nice to see HPL giving a shout-out to Hamilton and Williamson. Lovecraft had a dim view of Ed's work early on but came around. Williamson had got his break at WT in 1932 and was just starting his illustrious career.
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Post by bobbyderie on Oct 4, 2017 14:29:30 GMT -5
Yeah. I really think he might have had a certain Texan on his mind while writing those comments.
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Post by deuce on Oct 17, 2017 12:35:51 GMT -5
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Post by deuce on Oct 29, 2017 11:52:08 GMT -5
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Post by deuce on Dec 24, 2017 20:37:23 GMT -5
Seabury Quinn was Weird Tales' most popular author. It can be argued that a lot of what he wrote was hackwork, but he could do quality in a pinch. One example is his novella, Roads, which saw print in the January 1938 Weird Tales (which actually went on sale in December 1937). I had low expectations when I read it, but I have to say this is one of the better Christmas stories I've read. It is definitely the best "Sword & Sorcery Christmas" tale I've ever read. Quinn seems to be channeling/paying homage to REH, who had been dead little over a year It's considered a minor classic amongst WT aficionados and was the first illustrated book Arkham House ever published. If you can find it, check it out this Yuletide season. www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?65371Our own Jason Aiken gives it the "Pulp Crazy" treatment here: Our own Morgan "docpod" Holmes gives props to Roads. Warning: SPOILERS. www.castaliahouse.com/roads/An excellent look at Christmas in Weird Tales with an emphasis on Roads: tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2011/12/weird-tales-at-christmas.htmlSeabury Quinn died on Christmas Eve, 1969.
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Post by deuce on Jan 1, 2018 12:24:48 GMT -5
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Post by deuce on Feb 12, 2018 13:13:54 GMT -5
Weird Tales, The First Run: An Homage
The pages now are yellowing to rust—
Aged issues of “The Unique Magazine.”
And most who wrote for it have long been dust.
Yet, though they’ve passed, as every artist must,
Their words live on, fly forth and still careen
Off later minds. Those wildly-written pages—
Some for all Time, some to fall between
The spaces in Fame’s net, not to be seen
By many with the passing of the Ages.
Each month the weirding verses and strange tales
From the rich mix of “also-wrotes” and sages
Went forth. And still their strange quill-work engages
Us, enthralled by their magic that prevails—
Lives on until the lust for Wonder fails.
~ Frank Coffman ~
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Post by deuce on Mar 11, 2018 11:41:29 GMT -5
Jack Williamson's novel, Golden Blood, melded two of his biggest influences, Haggard and Merritt. It remains one of the best novel-length stories to appear in Weird Tales. Here's a fine review of it: www.fantasyliterature.com/reviews/golden-blood/May, 1933. J. Allen St. John cover painting.
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