Who Do You Think Are The Most Neglected and Forgotten Writers?

[BAYLOR]

Mildred Downey Broxton

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Mildred Downey Broxton

I read The Demon of Scattery, which she co-authored with Poul Anderson. It was quite good, but I don't remember hearing much about her afterward.

 

[BAYLOR]

I read The Demon of Scattery, which she co-authored with Poul Anderson. It was quite good, but I don't remember hearing much about her afterward.

I found her book To Long a Sacrifice in a used bookstore.

 

[Bick]

Edmund Crispin!

I came across him as the Editor of this series of UK-published SF anthologies.

It was then pointed out to me by Randy M. that Crispin wrote some rather good detective novels in the '40's and '50's. They were described as a cross between PG Wodehouse and Agatha Christie in a review I found, which I liked the sound of. I'm now reading "Swan Song" and its great. He is surely not remembered much though.

 

[Randy M.]

Edmund Crispin!

I came across him as the Editor of this series of UK-published SF anthologies.

It was then pointed out to me by Randy M. that Crispin wrote some rather good detective novels in the '40's and '50's. They were described as a cross between PG Wodehouse and Agatha Christie in a review I found, which I liked the sound of. I'm now reading "Swan Song" and its great. He is surely not remembered much though.

I'll second that, Bick. Crispin had a slight resurgence when his final Gervase Fen novel was published (Glimpses of the Moon, 1977) which included mass market reissues of all of his Fen novels. But died within a year of that and so the interest in his work tailed off. It's too bad. These are entertaining, if sometimes silly, mysteries.


Randy M.

 

[psikeyhackr]

Mack Reynolds seems to be fairly neglected considering the amount he actually got published.

 

[BAYLOR]

Mack Reynolds seems to be fairly neglected considering the amount he actually got published.

I don't him much on the bookshelves.

 

[psikeyhackr]

I don't him much on the bookshelves.

It's a good thing shelves are obsolete.

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/25744

psik

 

[Bick]

It's a good thing shelves are obsolete.

Wash your mouth out, psik!

 

[BAYLOR]

It's a good thing shelves are obsolete.

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/25744

psik

Hersey !

 

[BAYLOR]

Edmond Hamilton

 

[J-Sun]

Wash your mouth out, psik!

Indeed. Clip. (Utoob, in its infinite wisdom, cuts off Ms. Calendar's next line which was something along the lines of, "Thank you, Fritz, for making us sound like crazy people."

Anyway - Gutenberg or not, I don't think I've ever seen Mack Reynolds reprinted in physical form. I'm sure he has been, but probably very little. And, while his short works went through an anthologization vogue in the 60s, I don't think he's even been anthologized a whole lot since then. Justified or not, he's certainly neglected relative to his peak. But he never made much impression on me in the anthologies and I don't think I've ever read one of his books.

 

[psikeyhackr]

Indeed. Clip. (Utoob, in its infinite wisdom, cuts off Ms. Calendar's next line which was something along the lines of, "Thank you, Fritz, for making us sound like crazy people."

Anyway - Gutenberg or not, I don't think I've ever seen Mack Reynolds reprinted in physical form. I'm sure he has been, but probably very little. And, while his short works went through an anthologization vogue in the 60s, I don't think he's even been anthologized a whole lot since then. Justified or not, he's certainly neglected relative to his peak. But he never made much impression on me in the anthologies and I don't think I've ever read one of his books.

His novels were being published in the 70s. I didn't discover him until then. The 3rd book of his North Africa Trilogy was published in 1978.

I admit he was not a great writer, but I care about the stories more than the writing. A lot of writers can't create what I regard as worthwhile science fiction stories. But some readers just want excitement.

But since what I care about is the story, why would I care about a paper book. How can true sci-fi fans be traditionalists? Consider what Asimov wrote:

http://visual-memory.co.uk/daniel/funtheyhad.html

psik

 

[Bick]

Consider what Asimov wrote: http://visual-memory.co.uk/daniel/funtheyhad.html
psik

Exactly, Asimov was writing about how dreadful it would be if we lost sight of the value and fun of books, among other traditional aspects of schooling, and adopted a purely computer-based approach. A nice example to support paper books!

 

[BAYLOR]

Exactly, Asimov was writing about how dreadful it would be if we lost sight of the value and fun of books, among other traditional aspects of schooling, and adopted a purely computer-based approach. A nice example to support paper books!

I prefer paperbound books to E readers.

 

[psikeyhackr]

Exactly, Asimov was writing about how dreadful it would be if we lost sight of the value and fun of books, among other traditional aspects of schooling, and adopted a purely computer-based approach.

I prefer paperbound books to E readers.

Just because computers are used does not mean children will be isolated like that. The funny thing is that even though what Asimov wrote was farsighted at the time it is already obsolete technologically. Children can now carry around tablets just like books but have thousands of books in the table.

Asimov's story had a machine in a single room. Reading the story I envisioned it as the size of an arcade game but certainly not movable by little kids. I read from and listen to audio-books from an Android device all the time. The problem is quality of material.

But the electronic format changes the whole concept of neglected. For decades an author could be neglected because publishers did not make reprints. But with lots of free electronic stuff available it is entirely up to the readers.

Take Robert F. Young. He was around in my younger days but I don't recall encountering any of his stuff. I liked this when I found it in PG.

The Servant Problem, by Robert F. Young
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/23232/23232-h/23232-h.htm

But does this mean that older writings that can now be preserved and distributed forever need to be ignored for the sake of new writers?

psik

 

[BigBadBob141]

Daniel F. Galouye, most of his work appeared between 1961-73, he dead 3 years later.
Of his five novels I've read "Dark Universe" & "Counterfeit World" aka "Simulacron-3".
They are both very good, I highly recommend them.

 

[BAYLOR]

Daniel F. Galouye, most of his work appeared between 1961-73, he dead 3 years later.
Of his five novels I've read "Dark Universe" & "Counterfeit World" aka "Simulacron-3".
They are both very good, I highly recommend them.

Will they be reissuing them in print?

 

[The Ace]

Chris Bunch.

Ok his books could never be described as high art but he could write a cracking adventure (with decent small unit actions thanks to his military career) with lots of history injokes - such is the dragon airforce formed around a former flying circus - and actually put some thought into how magic might effect warfare being the giant fireballs and demons stuff so many authors go for.

I remember what Chris Bunch did to a Scottish accent - he deserves all he gets for that.

My personal favourite is Susan Cooper, and her, 'Dark is Rising,' sequence.

Ms Cooper is still alive, but her work has faded so much that a film of a 1973 novel was accused of being a, 'Harry Potter rip-off,' (admittedly by a reviewer who probably hadn't read either), 'The Dark is Rising - The Seeker,' a film which changed so much from the book that Ms Cooper tried to take legal action to prevent the use of her title.

As one of the generation who grew up waiting for the publication of the last three novels in the five-book sequence, my view of the film chimes perfectly with the interview of Christopher Eccleston (The Black Rider, and about the only decent performance in the film);

Eccleston; "When I read the book......"

Interviewer (and obvious fan of the books) interrupts; "You must've been the only one involved in that project who did."

 

[j d worthington]

Just because computers are used does not mean children will be isolated like that. The funny thing is that even though what Asimov wrote was farsighted at the time it is already obsolete technologically. Children can now carry around tablets just like books but have thousands of books in the table.

Asimov's story had a machine in a single room. Reading the story I envisioned it as the size of an arcade game but certainly not movable by little kids. I read from and listen to audio-books from an Android device all the time. The problem is quality of material.

But the electronic format changes the whole concept of neglected. For decades an author could be neglected because publishers did not make reprints. But with lots of free electronic stuff available it is entirely up to the readers.

Take Robert F. Young. He was around in my younger days but I don't recall encountering any of his stuff. I liked this when I found it in PG.

The Servant Problem, by Robert F. Young
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/23232/23232-h/23232-h.htm

But does this mean that older writings that can now be preserved and distributed forever need to be ignored for the sake of new writers?

psik

psik, I'm a "recovering technophobe" when it comes to electronic books and the like... yet even I would strongly agree with you on much of this. What with the number of sources for such material on the internet, as well as publishers putting out electronic format versions of both old and new material... I'm growing more and more confident that all this will find a larger audience than perhaps ever before. Look, for instance, at Project Gutenberg, which has revived thousands of books and stories which have been neglected and/or out of print for decades, sometimes even a century (or more?). I think this is a wonderful resource for the generations which are growing up with much more familiarity with this approach. I will always prefer paper-and-ink books myself, and I don't think they'll ever entirely go out of style; but I'm just overjoyed that so much -- an ever-increasing amount, in fact -- of long-neglected material is now so easily available to any who go looking.

Besides, as I know from having laboriously put together nearly the entirety of titles mentioned by Lovecraft in his essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature", such a task is both time-consuming (it took me from about age 18 to about age 48 or 49) and expensive... yet now, nearly all that material is available through online and/or ebook sources with the greatest of ease and almost no (and sometimes no) expense, finally making it so much more accessible to those who might want to look at the landmark works in the field, or get a genuine historical perspective on its development. (Hence my thread gathering all such sources I could locate.)

Yet another example of how even a distrustful old duffer like myself can become a convert, at least in part....