David Lee Summers's Blog, page 21

Clarimonde

After I recently reread John William Polidori’s The Vampyre, I stumbled across a list of other early vampire tales. One that caught my attention was an 1836 French novelette titled “La Morte Amoureuse” by Théophile Gautier. The title literally translates to “The Dead Woman in Love,” though in English it’s often titled with the name of the dead woman in question, “Clarimonde.” As it turns out, one of the early translators was one of my all time favorite writers and collectors of supernatural tale...

Maybe There

Today finds me at TusCon in Tucson, Arizona. If you’re in town, I hope you’ll drop by and say hello. I’m on several panels today talking about everything from artificial intelligence to the business of publishing to science fiction stories not set in deep space. I’ve come to realize, I’ve written several science fiction stories over the years set at different time periods on Earth and there is a lot of reward in it. That said, I grew up thinking science fiction would be all about exploring space...

TusCon 50

This coming weekend, I’ll be an author guest at TusCon in Tucson, Arizona. This is a milestone year with TusCon celebrating its fiftieth year. I’ve attended TusCon most years since TusCon 21 in 1994. This year, TusCon will be held from Friday, November 10 through Sunday, November 12 at the Ramada by Wyndham Viscount Suites Tucson East. There will be panel discussions, an art show, a dealer’s room, a gaming room, and a video room. This year, the author guest of honor is David Brin, the artist gue...

First Men in the Moon

A few days ago, my wife and I were watching a featurette about the work of special effects master Ray Harryhausen. While watching the short film, we realized that we really do have a respectable collection of films featuring Harryhausen’s stop motion animation. One beloved film in my collection is First Men in the Moon based on the novel by H.G. Wells. When watching the film adaptation, it’s pretty clear the filmmakers added elements not from the novel. There’s a framing story about modern astro...

The Vampyre

Happy Halloween! For today’s post, I thought it would be appropriate to look back at what is arguably the first vampire prose story: The Vampyre by John William Polidori. The novella is notable for having its origins during the same 1816 gathering at Villa Diodati that spawned Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. John Polidori was Lord Byron’s physician. The two attended the gathering along with Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Godwin, who would later marry Shelley. As the story goes, the weather at Villa ...

Babylon 5: The Road Home

For the last few weeks, my Saturday posts have been looking back at series I missed or mostly missed from the 1990s. Today, I shift gears and look at a series I followed regularly in first run, Babylon 5. To celebrate the show’s thirtieth anniversary, a new animated feature was released called Babylon 5: The Road Home. The original Babylon 5 television series began its run while I was operating telescopes at Kitt Peak National Observatory. I remember watching the pilot, subsequently titled “The ...

This Strange Way of Dying

This past summer, I wrote a story called “No One Alone” for the anthology Other Aether, which will be published by eSpec Books early next year. My story is set in Mexico circa 1876 and tells the story of the inventor Onofre Cisneros and how he acquired plans for a Spanish submarine and improved on it. He then embarks on a quest to the United States to try to interest an investor. Meanwhile, he’s in love with Estrella, the daughter of a fishing boat captain. Can Onofre win Estrella’s hand while p...

Cadillacs and Dinosaurs

Last week, I discussed Promethea, a comic by Alan Moore I’d missed in its first run because of where I was in life at the time it had come out. This week I discuss another comic book I recently discovered from the same era. However, this one has grown far beyond it’s original pages and spawned a video game, a television series, and even a concept album. This comic is Xenozoic Tales, which was created, written, and drawn by Mark Schultz between 1987 and 1996.

Xenozoic Tales imagines that ci...

Thorn

As we approach the Halloween season, I thought it would be fun to continue my look at Fred Saberhagen’s Dracula series. I recently had the pleasure of reading the fourth book in the series, Thorn. This one was especially fun for me, since much of the action is set in Arizona and New Mexico, where I spend most of my time.

The book opens in Phoenix, Arizona circa 1980 where a painting is about to be auctioned. The painting depicts a young woman and it’s credited to Verrocchio, the artist who...

Promethea

Tom Hutchison, owner of the comic book company, Big Dog Ink, runs a live sale show through Facebook’s Comic Book Shopping Network most Sundays called the Midnight Collector’s Club. During the show, Tom introduces viewers to comics he’s picked up at comic book conventions he thinks are of interest. I’ve discovered some great reads through Tom’s show. One of those is the 20th anniversary edition of Promethea written by Alan Moore with art by J.H. Williams III. This was a comic title I had never en...