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[TacomaDiver]

All fantastic sigs! Congrats!

[mhatchett]

Sounds like a great time. I like a lot of dark harvest books!

[Martin]

Glad you got to attend, sounds like it was a great experience!

[RonClinton]

I don't know that SILVER SCREAM is *the* best anthology of the '80s, but it's definitely up there...I think you'll really enjoy it.

[bugen]

Thanks fellas. It ended up being a lot more fun than I was expecting, filled with little things.

At one point I was walking the floor and stopped by a table to examine a modest but well-chosen selection of EP books with authors like Matheson, Hubbard, Kuttner and Burroughs, when I was approached by the exhibitor, a smaller, slightly rotund older gentleman with intelligent, beady eyes, a neatly trimmed white beard and a warm but mischievous smile, sort of a cross between Satan’s little helper and Santa Claus, who started talking about Burroughs. I quickly admitted that I’d been meaning to read Burroughs but hadn’t yet and was becoming more familiar with the writings of Robert E. Howard when he leaned in launched into something like this:

“You know the difference between Howard and Burroughs? Howard was very close to his mother, and when she was sick and dying Howard got a shotgun and blew his brains out. Burroughs was broke and having a hard time with his wife, so he got a pad and pencil and wrote this,” pointing to A Princess of Mars. He leaned back and widened his grin, “I’d go with Burroughs.”

[Theli]

Outstanding! Sounds like it was a he k of a good time.

[mhatchett]

Wow,and the Buzzer sounds, neat beard or not, there’s a lot wrong with that statement, beginning with the fact that Howard shot himself with a pistol, not a shotgun. At the age of 30, I might add. Burroughs’s didn’t publish his first book till he was 37 and had failed at just about everything he had turned his hand to, including being a soldier. Those experiences show that Burroughs was certainly a more resilient human being, not a better writer. I think your impish friend has it all wrong. I don’t think Howard neared his potential as a writer, I think Burroughs almost certainly did. I like them both as authors, having discovered them both when I was in Jr high school in the late 60’s early 70’s. My favorite Burroughs’s are the Tarzan Series and a bunch of his stand alones, including Beyond Thirty, later reissued as the Lost Continent, The Outlaw Of Torn and The Rider. Richard Lupoff has written a great Bio-Bibliography Master of Adventure: The Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs, 2005 reprint in the Bison Frontiers of Imagination series.
Having said all that, my comments about Howard, well, I just think he was a better, more mature writer than Burroughs. He is, of course, best known as the creator of Conan, Kull and Salomon Kane, but I think he really shines in his historical fiction, Sowers of Thunder, is a particular favorite. His weird fiction is probably best represented in The Black Stranger: And other American Tales, Bison Books 2005. His Western fiction is also very good and some critics have speculated that he was actually moving toward becoming a “Serious” writer of Western/American Historical fiction. The Dark Barbarian: The Writings of Robert E. Howard, a Critical Anthology by Don Herron is a good place to start for writings about Howard. Donald Grant and Zebra press have reissued a number of titles, some pretty affordable.

I enjoy them both, but Howard is my pick. This ends my rant lol!!

[bugen]

Well, I guess he was just being colorful - a shotgun is hardcore. And I didn't really get the impression Burroughs started and finished A Princess of Mars right away, just that he'd written it when troubled. I haven't read any Burroughs yet but agree with you Howard was a heck of an author, and have read most of his two 'Best of' volumes and some other assorted horror stories. I think my favorite of his main characters is Solomon Kane, but everything's been pretty good.

Thanks for the info!

[mhatchett]

I think he wrote it while he was clerking for Woolworths. He was capable of really cranking books out fast, some in less then a month. He truly wrote potboilers, in that, at least in the beginning, he needed to make money fast to keep his household together. He really was an interesting guy and became one heck of a literary businessman. Never trust an interesting guy at a convention lol!!

[bugen]

Never trust an interesting guy at a convention lol!!

'Tis true, never trust a storyteller unless you want a story.

Just received this today from Dark Regions (also Cal Wild #1), part of a stretch goal from their Christmas Horror anthology. It's a 38MB mobi file (ouch)! Looks to have a lot of illustrations which I don't think Kindles handle too well, but there are a bunch of solid authors here. Has anyone read Chiral Mad #1 or #2?

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[mhatchett]

IMG_0650.jpgPS Something Wicked This Way Comes, arrived today.
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[mhatchett]

My 2 other editions, one from Gauntlet and the other a nice Book Club edition I've had for years. Centipede will putting out an edition at some point in the future.
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[bugen]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]18125[/ATTACH]PS Something Wicked This Way Comes, arrived today.
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Awesome! Mr. Chadbourne's art matches the theme of this story perfectly.

[Brian861]

Looks like a good looking book.

[bugen]

This was a little pricey for such a short story (novelette) but because I rarely enjoy zombie stories, this one was so amazing and Simmons is The Man I sprung for it. I saw only the limited had the additional art so here you go:

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