Some sword and sorcery stories: Robert E. Howard, C. L. Moore, Manly Wade Wellman

A week ago I had a feeling I'd like to read something that wasn't work-related in any way. As usual, I had some trouble finding something suitable to read even though I have some 5,000 books in my shelves.

However, I picked up a Finnish anthology of old sword and sorcery stories, mainly from Weird Tales, but also from some other pulp mags. The book is called Mustan jumalan suudelma AKA Black God's Kiss after the story by C. L. Moore in the book. Of the stories I read, Moore's was the best. It's full of surreal images and still it moves with a breakneck pace. Very beautiful and thrilling. The story came out first in Weird Tales in 1934.

The other stories I read were Robert E. Howard's novella-length "The Black Stranger" (1934-1935, unpublished in Howard's life-time, published in 1953 in abridged form and in 1987 in original form) and Manly Wade Wellman's "Thunder in the Dawn" (Amazing Stories 1939). Wellman's story was a bit slow and dated, I didn't feel the thrill of adventure in this, even though the premise is pretty good: a stone age warrior is really the Hercules of the Greek lore and is the cause of Atlantis sinking in the ocean. Howard's story pits Conan against some pirates and settlers, in the story everyone deceives one and another. It's a great read, though I still preferred C. L. Moore.

The striking cover in the book was drawn by Jukka Murtosaari, a friend of mine, who's studied classical American illustration art for decades now - and it clearly shows. The editor of the book is one Markku Sadelehto, who's done a good day's work bringing American pulp fiction to Finnish readers, as he's edited tons of anthologies for different publishers for over 20 years now. His magnum opus is the edition of the collected stories of H. P. Lovecraft. The sixth and final volume came out just two months ago.

Alas, I didn't have time to read more of the stories from the book. I've read this when it came out some 20 years ago, but don't remember much of it.

New book out!

I have a new book out. It's a collection of werewolf stories by Finnish writers (mostly new, but with two old ones thrown in), edited by me. It looks dandy with its 340 pages and a nice cover by Jukka Murtosaari. The title means  "The Dark Side of the Moon", which is the title of Johanna Sinisalo's great story in the book. Here's more info on the book (in Finnish).

The last issue of Pulp

I mentioned before that the last issue of my crime fiction fanzine, Isku, just came out. Now the last issue of my other fanzine, Pulp, has come out and is ready to be sent to the subscribers (of which there are not many). Pulp is not a fictionmag, it's about the different aspects of pulp and other popular fiction.

I started publishing Pulp shortly after the Finnish Western Society's magazine, Ruudinsavu (Gunsmoke), was started. The first issue of Pulp came out in 2003. It had articles on Paul Auster's first novel, Squeeze Play, William Johnston's Maxwell Smart novelizations and the Finnish translations of Peggy Gaddis's romantic paperbacks. The magazine was published four times a year. The circulation never rose above 80, and for the last issues the print run was only 40. It covered also the few libraries that have been subscribers.

There have been issues that I've been very fond of: the two issues consisting fully of Edgar Rice Burroughs-related material (the works of ERB's relatives, ERB pastiches, ERB copies and so forth), the issue that was solely about sex and sleaze in pulps and paperbacks, the issue that was solely about the Finnish pulp fiction... At times I was even able to use some of the material in Pulp in my other, more commercial work, such as my book on the forgotten works of Mika Waltari, the famous Finnish novelist and fictioneer. I also liked the logo very much. It was done with an old typewriter of my friend - thanks, Lotta!

Jukka Murtosaari was a great supporter of Pulp from early on and he provided the magazine with many interesting and meticulously (sometimes too meticulously...) researched pieces on obscure paperbacks and pulp and paperback illustrators. One could do a book solely on Jukka's articles for the magazine. It was just too bad Pulp was always a black-and-white magazine - the photos of the pulp and other covers just don't look right in b&w.

But the process really wore me out: editing the mag, writing the articles, asking others to do articles, getting the mag into print, sending out copies... I was losing money with this, so I decided to pull the plug. So it's bye-bye, Pulp, we'll miss ya. There's lots of stuff that was meant to be done (such as the theme issue on TV and movie novelizations, the kiddies' pulp, the religious pulp, the article on the Flash Gordon novels, etc.) and I really wanted to get deeper into the Finnish pulpy fiction, so this is a missed opportunity. We'll have to see if I get something published in a blog format. We'll definitely have to see...

There's also a possibility that I'll publish a collection of my own articles that came out in Pulp. That should have an interest for 50-100 buyers. At least.

On top of the post is the cover of the last issue. The issue features two articles by Jukka Murtosaari, the other one being about the Finnish reprint series of the Fawcett Gold Medal books, called Kultamitalikirjat, and the other one about the illustrator R. G. Harris. (Sorry for the bad photo: it was taken with my cell phone.)

PS. Don't bother to ask me for a copy, since they are all gone already.

The Silverberg cover by Jukka Murtosaari

Okay, this is really embarrassing. I publish a book that's the first of its kind, then I forget to promote it, then I run out of copies (I really don't have one of my own), then I lose all the files related to the book, and when I want to post a cover scan here in my blog, I'll have to ask for it from a friend.

Thanks to Tapani Bagge (who's a great crime novelist) I was able to get my hands on the cover of Robert Silverberg's Tapaamme tuonelassa / We'll Meet in Hell that I published as a smallish booklet three years ago. I wrote more about it couple of messages back. So here it is, in all its black-and-white glory. The cover is, as I already mentioned, by Jukka Murtosaari.

There's also a blurb in the cover. It's James Reasoner saying: "It's always pleasure to read Silverberg." It's from his blog - he reviewed one of Silverberg's early pseudonymous nudie novels.

As you can see, there's "No. 1" in the cover. There was never a second issue - of anything. I did one of my Joe Novak stories in a similar format with a very small print run under the Verikoirakirjat / Blood Hound Press imprint a year back, but that's about it. One of these days...

The Best of Isku out

The collection of short stories published originally in Finland's only crime fiction fanzine, Isku, is out. We had a launch party earlier today - okay, it was actually for the sea story book by Veikko Hannuniemi I mentioned earlier, and I got to talk about Isku only briefly.

The book sure feels and looks nice: it's classic paperback size and has only 99 pages. How's that for vintage cheap paperback feel? The cover by Jukka Murtosaari is a delight - you can spot some vintage Finnish pulp and other magazines in the racks, including the real Isku magazine, with the same masthead used in the book and (in black&white) in my fanzine.

The book consists of ten short stories, of which only one, Tarja Sipiläinen's chilling "The Collector", is over 3,000 words. Others are somewhere between 1,000 and 2,500. The best-known writer in the bunch is my friend, Tapani Bagge, with a nice short-short about a loser down on his luck, but aficionados (at least real ones) can recognize names like Petri Hirvonen, Helena Numminen, Petri Salin and Timo Surkka. Others include Teemu Paarlahti, Heikki-Antero Laurila and Sami Myllymäki.

I'm also there, with the first Joe Novak story published in Isku. I read the story earlier today and wasn't entirely satisfied with it (and I found a glaring error in there!), but I guess that's how it always turns out.

Mind you, there's also this, which is the actual first Joe Novak story. I wrote it in the late eighties, while still in school, and published it in a small pamphlet (eight pages, I think, covers included) with the same title (Joe Novak pinteessä in Finnish). It came out retrospectively in 1997. The other stories in the pamphlet had other private eye heroes for which I had developed cool names, like Sam Odessa. In one of the stories Sam Odessa meets the Finnish rocker Mike Monroe who's gone to Amsterdam... [This is a bit of inside joke amongst the Finnish people.]

[Edit: at Todd Mason's proposition I removed the word "pulpish" and replaced it with "cheap paperback". The small number of pages in the book makes one think of a sleazy sex paperback of the sixties. I also added the publishing year of the Joe Novak pamphlet. Now, that's a collector's item. I think the print run was 20 or 25. I seem to remember that I did a reprint two or three years back, but I'm not so sure about that.]

And hey, anyone wants the book, I sell it! Feel free to comment or e-mail me!

Two new books out next Tuesday

Here's the cover by Jukka Murtosaari to a book I've compiled and written the foreword. The book is a collection of Finnish writer Veikko Hannuniemi's sea-faring short stories, starting from 1939 and ending up in the early seventies. Hannuniemi's stories are full of humour and action, but they are not usual adventure stories. As a sea-farer himself, there's also lots of authentic feel to the stories. The book's title translates as "The Great Hunger" which is title of one of the first stories Hannuniemi wrote. The launch party is next Tuesday at the Raisio municipal library - Hannuniemi lived in Raisio from the 1950's on. He died in 1990.

The book is also an entry in my on-going research into the annals of fiction magazine publishing in Finland: all the stories in the book were first published in various magazines, ranging from Kuluttajain Lehti to Seura and Koti-Posti. Suuri jano is also the newest installation in Turbator's series called m.

I've posted my foreword here. It's in Finnish - understandably.

The next Tuesday will also see another book of mine - the collection of my crime fanzine, Isku's best pieces. The book has stories by Tapani Bagge, Helena Numminen, Petri Salin, Petri Hirvonen, Timo Surkka and other writers - including me. (One of my Joe Novak private eye stories.) I don't have the book's cover at hand as yet, but here's the tentative cover I posted a while back.

The best of Isku

To commemorate Isku's tenth issue (which is coming out later this Spring) I compiled a small collection of some of the best original Finnish stories that were published in the magazine, which is the only Finnish crime fanzine there is. The book will come out from Turbator for which I've edited some collections and anthologies and which has focused mainly on short story collections. The book will be of the classic paperback size.

Here's the tentative cover, by who else than Jukka Murtosaari. The picture is supposed to take place in the thirties - there are mock covers of the original Isku magazines, coupled with other Finnish crime pulps and other mags. It's a great cover and I'm really looking forward to seeing this.

(There could be a great, great book with the best of translated stories in Isku, ranging from James Reasoner to Vicki Hendricks and Ed Gorman... we'll see about that.)

Covers for new issues of my fanzines

As many people reading this blog know (or maybe not that many: I'm a poor marketer), my hobby is fanzine publishing. Here are the covers for the new issues of my pulpish crime and adventure 'zines, Isku (= Punch) and Seikkailukertomuksia (= Adventure Stories). The Isku cover is by Henri Joela and the Adventure cover is by Jukka Murtosaari.

(Sorry for the poor quality of these photos: they are screen captures from PageMaker. The mags are not out as yet.)

Jukka's cover for Hard Case Crime found a user

Some months ago I wrote about my friend Jukka Murtosaari's attempt to break through in the US and send cover illustrations to Hard Case Crime's Charles Ardai. The illos were turned down, but now one of them has been published.

The eye-patch lady now illustrates Helena Numminen's short story collection Murhaavasti/Murderingly that had its launch party earlier today. The publisher is Turbator for whom Jukka has done lots of covers and for which I've edited some anthologies and collections. Helena's book collects 14 bitter and hard-hitting crime stories no ordinary publisher would touch. Two of the stories were originally published in my crime fiction fanzine, Isku, namely "Molotovin cocktail" (which is very urgent in its depiction of hospitalized old women) and "Vekan pedissä". Helena seems to have rewritten the ending of the latter. Highly recommended.

There were also two other books launched today: publisher Harri Kumpulainen's own collection of absurdist short-shorts and composer Matti Rag Paananen's collection of poetry that he wrote while in Africa. Both have already been reviewed here.

Jukka still has a great cover available - anyone? (Check the link to my earlier post.)

Another book out: my first Western short story collection

I've edited a collection of the Western short stories of two Finnish writers, namely Joni Skiftesvik and Totti Karpela and wrote a lengthy introduction to Finnish Westerns in general (I might post the text on one of my other blogs some day). I'd really like to do a more thorough anthology of Finnish Western short stories, but I don't really think there's a market for this kind of book. We'll see. I have another Western book coming, though, more on that later. (And possibly some others, too.)

The book will be out in just two days and the launch party is at the Turku Book Fair. Here's the cover by Jukka Murtosaari. The contents are as follows:

Juri Nummelin: Lukijalle / For the reader
Juri Nummelin: Suomalaisen lännenromaanin vaiheet / The history of Finnish Western fiction

Joni Skiftesvik:
Menneisyyden vanki, FinnWest 12/1983
Elämä edessä – elämä takana, FinnWest 2–5/1985
Larryn lomapäivä, Kostaja 2/1984
Etsivä Moore ja jokirosvot, Kostaja 3/1984
Kuolemaantuomitun pako, Kostaja 5/1984

Totti Karpela:
Maine ja kunnia, Ruudinsavu 2/2006
Työtä arkkunikkarille, Seikkailujen Maailma 5/1959 (julkaistu salanimellä T. Teller)
Kaupunki ilman lakia, Seikkailujen Maailma 5–6/1960 (julkaistu ilman tekijän nimeä)
Hylkiön mahdollisuus, julkaisematon

Nota bene in Finnish: kirja sisältää kaikki Skiftesvikin kirjoittamat lännentarinat, Totti Karpelalta jätettiin yksi pois hänen omasta pyynnöstään (ensimmäinen, "Neljän sheriffin kaupunki", joka ilmestyi Seikkailujen Maailmassa alkuvuonna 1959). "Hylkiön mahdollisuus" kirjoitettiin 1960-luvun alussa, mutta se ei ilmestynyt Seikkailujen Maailmassa, koska lehti lakkautettiin. Karpela on sen tätä kirjaa varten kirjoittanut uudestaan. Hänen muut vanhat novellinsa on kevyesti editoitu ja hän on itsekin ne käynyt läpi. Skiftesvikin tekstit on julkaistu suurin piirtein sellaisenaan kuin ne alun perin lehdissäkin ilmestyivät.

Tapani Bagge: Ammattimies

My friend, prolific author Tapani Bagge has a new short story collection out soon. Here are the cover by Jukka Murtosaari and the contents of the collection. The book consists mainly of previously published stories, but there are also some hitherto unpublished ones. As you can see, I've published some of the stories in Isku and other fanzines, "Kylmä tuuli/Cold Wind" having been published only in Isku.

Jukka's cover illo features Tapani's hero (or actually anti-hero) Kovanen, who's the lead character in the two graphic novels Tapani scripted to Jari Rasi's drawings.

The book's publisher is Turbator and it will come out to the Turku Book Fair in August, with the Western short story collection I've edited, with stories by Joni Skiftesvik and Totti Karpela.

Alamäki (RikosPalat 1/1988; Isku 1 (2004))
Ammattimies (1988; Pikkujuttu, Gummerus 2003)
Laukaus tehtaalla (SinäMinä 19/1990 (salanimellä Tapio Halla-aho))
Kylmä tuuli (Isku 6 (2005))
Rikoksen pyörteissä (SinäMinä 23/1990 (salanimellä Tapio Halla-aho))
Bodom, bodom, bodom… (Seura 36/2005)
Ääriviivat (Aamulehden Valo 32/2007; Ässä 2 (2008))
Salainen keksintö (1988; Usvazine 4/2007)
Aina murha kotiolot voittaa (RikosPalat 4/1988; Isku 8 (2008))
Keskiyö Rio de Janeirossa (RikosPalat 5/1988)
Varjoton mies (1988)
Kuolema joulun alla (1988)
Jälkisanat

New cover by Jukka Murtosaari

I've keeping up with my friend Jukka Murtosaari's appearances on book covers. As you know (or may remember from this blog), he's a Finnish guy and lives in Portugal and tries to get along without a net access and does everything by hand (he even writes his letters by hand!). His covers are usually nice oil colour works and he handles the pulp/paperback style with ease.

Unluckily he gets too few job offers, so I'm hoping that keeping his name up will earn him a bit more fame. Here's his latest cover for Gary Lovisi's Gryphon Books - the book collects all the Sherlock Holmes pastiches the rather recently died short story master Edward D. Hoch wrote. You should be able to find more details at Gryphon Books's website here.

A better cover for Kirsti Ellilä's book

Tein sen sitten saman tien: muokkasin Kirsti Ellilän Outoa rakkautta -kirjan kantta. En osannut tehdä sitä Photoshopissa enkä osannut tehdä värillistä PDF:ää, joten tein kannen Pagemakerissa ja tulostin sen ja skannasin uudestaan - siksi kuva on hailakka ja siinä on moiretta ja ties mitä. On tämä silti parempi kuin alkuperäinen.

(See below. This is my redesign of Kirsti Ellilä's book, Strange Love (it combines elements of women's romance and science fiction and crime and was published in the same series of books for which I've edited some, i.e. the porn anthology I've mentioned from time to time). The cover illo is by Jukka Murtosaari. I know designing book covers is difficult and I most certainly know this should be much better, but still I do think this would do better justice to the illo and wouldn't be so clumsy.)

Kirsti Ellilän novellikokoelma Turbatorilta

Kirsti Ellilän novellikokoelma Outoa rakkautta Turbatorin m-sarjassa ilmestyi maanantaina. Kirja sisältää kuusi novellia, joista kaksi on ilmestynyt aiemmin Reginassa, kaksi Portissa ja kaksi on tätä kirjaa varten kirjoitettua. Kirjan tarinat edustavat jonkinlaista kauhun, scifin ja dekkarin rakoihin putoavaa romanttista viihdettä.

Kirjaa saa ainakin Akateemisesta kirjakaupasta sekä Pienestä kirjapuodista ja Turun yliopiston kirjakaupasta, mutta sitä voi myös tilata suoraan kustantajalta: lounaisranta@pelipeitto.fi. Hintaa en valitettavasti tiedä.

Kansikuva on Jukka Murtosaaren piirtämä. Kuva on hyvä, mutta en ole itse kovin tyytyväinen kannen asemointiin; koetan jossain vaiheessa vähän leikkiä kannella ja kansikuvalla ja tehdä paremman ehdotuksen. Tässä on liikaa tyhjää.

(Announcing a new book in a series I've had a hand in.)

Jukka Murtosaari and his two visions of Philip K. Dick (and other illustrations)

I thought I'd post more covers by Jukka Murtosaari, whom I mentioned earlier and posted his illustrations he'd sent to Hard Case Crime. These five are all previously published and they are all books. I don't have his magazine and fanzine illustrations handy, even though I have some warm reminescences of his pin up illos for fanzines like Spin and Tähtivaeltaja. Maybe some day... (Following the links you'll find some other covers he's done, some he's done for my own fanzines.)

First we have two Philip K. Dicks. These came out in a short-lived series FAN that strived to publish classic and new SF and fantasy, but for some reason failed to gather interest in the book-buying public. Maybe the selections in the series were too varied, including books from Robert E. Howard to Rudy Rucker and Nancy Collins. Also, some of the covers for the books were ugly, but not those by Jukka. The logo of the series was done by Martti Ruokonen, one of the foremost illustrators and graphics working in Finland.

The first one is for Martian Time-Slip (orig. 1961, in Finnish in 1993) and the second one is for one of the best of Dick's novels (and one of the best SF novels ever), The Man in the High Castle (1962, in Finnish in 1992). I think Jukka captures the latter's essence very well, with a humorous style.

Jukka's Moorcock

Here's a pretty good one by Jukka. It's a cover from 1993 for Michael Moorcock's The War Hound and the World's Pain (1981; it's a very good adventure/horror/fantasy novel in its own right). The Finnish title means "The Warrior of the World's Pain".

Jukka's Outsider

This one is from the eighties. It's one of the serials by Outsider aka Aarne Haapakoski, one of the most prolific and important Finnish pulp fiction writers (and one of the most overrated, if you ask me), that a publisher dug out from fiction magazines to be published as large paperbacks. The stories are mostly harmless humorous adventure.

(For the Finnish readers: Tämä ilmestyi alun perin Savon Sanomien viikkoliitteessä vuosina 1961-1962. Aluksi se oli radiokuunnelma, joka esitettiin vuonna 1961.)

And here's yet another one

Sorry for not having a better (or bigger) scan. I took this out from the publisher's website, thinking they'd sport a better one, and didn't scan my own copy. Nevertheless, the book is one of those that I've edited - it's a reference work to North American western writers (there are one or two Canadians, so it's not strictly about American writers). Jukka's cover illo is very beautiful and harmonious.

Jukka Murtosaari's covers for Hard Case Crime

Say what? Did you ever hear about this? A Finnish guy working for Hard Case?

My friend, Jukka Murtosaari, who's been illustrating fanzines, magazines, books and other commercial stuff for over twenty years is hard looking for work. In Finland the markets for illustrated covers are nearly non-existent, and Jukka's been looking for work at European Disney. He tried to jump the Hard Case wagon and sent their boss, Charles Ardai, these two beautiful perfectly pulpish action covers, painted with oil. He was told everything was OK, but they wanted that all the illustrators working for them are American. Too bad for everyone.

If anyone's interested in purchasing these covers for use or willing to ask Jukka for more work, feel free to drop me a line in e-mail or post a comment.

The cover for the 2nd issue of Adventure Stories

The second issue of Adventure Stories/Seikkailukertomuksia that I edit and publish will feature a novella-length story "Devil Wings Over France" by James Reasoner. I just received the cover illustration for the story - it's by Jukka Murtosaari who's done other great illos for my fanzines and mags. The story is great, too - pitch-perfect World War I aviation adventure with just a pepper of horror. (It was originally published in an anthology called Retro Pulp that came out last year. It was edited by none other than Joe Lansdale.)

(Check out the contents of the first issue of Seikkailukertomuksia here. The first issue's cover here.)