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Weird Heroes #8
Weird Heroes, Vol. 8
Jove / HBJ, 1977. Mass market paperback. Eighth and final volume in this anthology series that attempted to revive the excitement of the old pulp magazines. Each story includes some great black and white illustrations by Howard Chaykin and others. Authors include Michael Moorcock, Philip José Farmer, Ben Bova and Michael Reaves.
288 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1977
About the author
Ben Bova
697 books1,070 followersBen Bova was born on November 8, 1932 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1953, while attending Temple University, he married Rosa Cucinotta, they had a son and a daughter. He would later divorce Rosa in 1974. In that same year he married Barbara Berson Rose.
Bova was an avid fencer and organized Avco Everett's fencing club. He was an environmentalist, but rejected Luddism.
Bova was a technical writer for Project Vanguard and later for Avco Everett in the 1960s when they did research in lasers and fluid dynamics. It was there that he met Arthur R. Kantrowitz later of the Foresight Institute.
In 1971 he became editor of Analog Science Fiction after John W. Campbell's death. After leaving Analog, he went on to edit Omni during 1978-1982.
In 1974 he wrote the screenplay for an episode of the children's science fiction television series Land of the Lost entitled "The Search".
Bova was the science advisor for the failed television series The Starlost, leaving in disgust after the airing of the first episode. His novel The Starcrossed was loosely based on his experiences and featured a thinly veiled characterization of his friend and colleague Harlan Ellison. He dedicated the novel to "Cordwainer Bird", the pen name Harlan Ellison uses when he does not want to be associated with a television or film project.
Bova was the President Emeritus of the National Space Society and a past President of Science-fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).
Bova went back to school in the 1980s, earning an M.A. in communications in 1987 and a Ph.D. in 1996.
Bova has drawn on these meetings and experiences to create fact and fiction writings rich with references to spaceflight, lasers, artificial hearts, nanotechnology, environmentalism, fencing and martial arts, photography and artists.
Bova was the author of over a hundred and fifteen books, non-fiction as well as science fiction. In 2000, he was the Author Guest of Honor at the 58th World Science Fiction Convention (Chicon 2000).
Hollywood has started to take an interest in Bova's works once again, in addition to his wealth of knowledge about science and what the future may look like. In 2007, he was hired as a consultant by both Stuber/Parent Productions to provide insight into what the world is to look like in the near future for their upcoming film "Repossession Mambo" (released as "Repo Men") starring Jude Law and Forest Whitaker and by Silver Pictures in which he provided consulting services on the feature adaptation of Richard Morgan's "Altered Carbon".
http://us.macmillan.com/author/benbova
Bova was an avid fencer and organized Avco Everett's fencing club. He was an environmentalist, but rejected Luddism.
Bova was a technical writer for Project Vanguard and later for Avco Everett in the 1960s when they did research in lasers and fluid dynamics. It was there that he met Arthur R. Kantrowitz later of the Foresight Institute.
In 1971 he became editor of Analog Science Fiction after John W. Campbell's death. After leaving Analog, he went on to edit Omni during 1978-1982.
In 1974 he wrote the screenplay for an episode of the children's science fiction television series Land of the Lost entitled "The Search".
Bova was the science advisor for the failed television series The Starlost, leaving in disgust after the airing of the first episode. His novel The Starcrossed was loosely based on his experiences and featured a thinly veiled characterization of his friend and colleague Harlan Ellison. He dedicated the novel to "Cordwainer Bird", the pen name Harlan Ellison uses when he does not want to be associated with a television or film project.
Bova was the President Emeritus of the National Space Society and a past President of Science-fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).
Bova went back to school in the 1980s, earning an M.A. in communications in 1987 and a Ph.D. in 1996.
Bova has drawn on these meetings and experiences to create fact and fiction writings rich with references to spaceflight, lasers, artificial hearts, nanotechnology, environmentalism, fencing and martial arts, photography and artists.
Bova was the author of over a hundred and fifteen books, non-fiction as well as science fiction. In 2000, he was the Author Guest of Honor at the 58th World Science Fiction Convention (Chicon 2000).
Hollywood has started to take an interest in Bova's works once again, in addition to his wealth of knowledge about science and what the future may look like. In 2007, he was hired as a consultant by both Stuber/Parent Productions to provide insight into what the world is to look like in the near future for their upcoming film "Repossession Mambo" (released as "Repo Men") starring Jude Law and Forest Whitaker and by Silver Pictures in which he provided consulting services on the feature adaptation of Richard Morgan's "Altered Carbon".
http://us.macmillan.com/author/benbova
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 3, 2023
This is the eighth and final book in a series that's stated intent was to bring back the spirit of the superhero pulps for the modern (the book appeared in 1977) age. It was a nifty concept that was executed with a lot of verve and enthusiasm, but the results weren't as good as one might have wished. There were four novels and four anthologies of short pieces in the series. In this one, Philip Jose Farmer abandoned Greatheart Silver to write a weird fantasy that starred the pulp authors Maxwell Grant and Kenneth Robeson, of Shadow and Doc Savage fame. It seemed a little too long and melancholy to me. There's an older (from 1963) story by Michael Moorcock, The Deep Fix, which seemed way out of place. I enjoyed Ben Bova's Orion story, sequel to the one from volume four, and the two J. Michael Reaves stories in his Darkworld Detective series. (Weirdly ironic coincidence; I just got this book out the other day to look through it for the first time in years, and that afternoon I saw that Reaves had just died.) All of the art was very good and added a lot to the book; I always liked Howard Chaykin, Steven Hickman, and P. Craig Russell.
May 12, 2016
A good collection of Superhero style short stories. Nice read. Recommended
April 10, 2022
Like any anthology, its very uneven, but full of great ideas and potential.
Shame more of these characters never got more chance, out there in the world.
Reminds me of the prose version of old series like First Issue Special or Marvel Premiere.
Shame more of these characters never got more chance, out there in the world.
Reminds me of the prose version of old series like First Issue Special or Marvel Premiere.
December 3, 2014
Byron Preiss, editor of this book, intended the “Weird Heroes” series to be “new American pulp,” modern writers creating characters inspired by pulp heroes of yesteryear—Doc Savage, The Shadow, The Avenger and the like, hoping to reignite an enthusiasm waning since the fall of the pulp magazines and the trauma that was WW2. Unfortunately, he was unsuccessful, but he did produce eight volumes (four novels and four anthologies), all coming to an end in 1977, with the volume now being reviewed.
“Weird Heroes, Volume 8” collects five stories, all illustrated.
The only story for which Preiss reached back in time was “The Deep Fix” (1963), a tale by Michael Moorcock that has more in common with the New Wave crashing over the science fiction world at the time than with the pulps thirty years earlier or the world more than a decade later. Very much influenced by drug culture, a swell in pop psychotherapy, and an urge toward deliberate iconoclasm, it presents a protagonist, Seward, who leans more to “weird” than “hero.” However, Moorcock is a great storyteller, so he produces a compelling narrative that pulls the reader all the way to a frown-producing climax.
Ben Bova presents “Floodtide,” a science fictional adventure of Orion, who was first introduced to readers of the series in a titular story in Volume 6. “Floodtide” has much in common with adventure tales from the pulp era and apocalyptic science fiction of the Fifties, but told with modern sensibilities.
Fantasy (and noir detective) is represented by two stories by J Michael Reaves, “The Big Spell” and “The Maltese Vulcan,” both featuring Kamus of Kadizhar, one of the few characters who escaped this series to appear in another venue, the book “Darkworld Detective” (1982), which contained these stories and two others. They are exciting, engaging and amusing, and would never have been written had Sam Spade and the Continental Op not sleuthed their ways through the pulps.
Rounding out the book is “Savage Shadows,” the first of what was supposed to be a longer series called “The Grant-Robeson Papers,” by Philip Jose Farmer. It seems the weakest entry in the book. It had so much potential that was not realized. A pulse-pounding adventure was reduced to a deconstructive literary jest. And the premise was flawed, presenting the tale as being written by Maxwell Grant using Kenneth Robeson as protagonist. Maxwell Grant wrote stories about The Shadow, and Kenneth Robeson wrote Doc Savage stories, but, of course, neither man ever existed. Both were “house names” used by many writers. Had Farmer used Walter Gibson and Lester Dent, the men who actually created the pulp heroes and wrote most stories, any flaws would have been in the telling of the story itself. Perhaps further stories would have explored relationships between the two writers, involved them in real-life analogues of published adventures, and escaped the mundane and banal setting, but we’ll never know.
Overall, though, the stories are well worth reading for the pulp fiction fan, and the book worth the effort of tracking down. The first volume has been reprinted, but as far as I know there are no plans to reprint the other entries in the series, though there should be.
“Weird Heroes, Volume 8” collects five stories, all illustrated.
The only story for which Preiss reached back in time was “The Deep Fix” (1963), a tale by Michael Moorcock that has more in common with the New Wave crashing over the science fiction world at the time than with the pulps thirty years earlier or the world more than a decade later. Very much influenced by drug culture, a swell in pop psychotherapy, and an urge toward deliberate iconoclasm, it presents a protagonist, Seward, who leans more to “weird” than “hero.” However, Moorcock is a great storyteller, so he produces a compelling narrative that pulls the reader all the way to a frown-producing climax.
Ben Bova presents “Floodtide,” a science fictional adventure of Orion, who was first introduced to readers of the series in a titular story in Volume 6. “Floodtide” has much in common with adventure tales from the pulp era and apocalyptic science fiction of the Fifties, but told with modern sensibilities.
Fantasy (and noir detective) is represented by two stories by J Michael Reaves, “The Big Spell” and “The Maltese Vulcan,” both featuring Kamus of Kadizhar, one of the few characters who escaped this series to appear in another venue, the book “Darkworld Detective” (1982), which contained these stories and two others. They are exciting, engaging and amusing, and would never have been written had Sam Spade and the Continental Op not sleuthed their ways through the pulps.
Rounding out the book is “Savage Shadows,” the first of what was supposed to be a longer series called “The Grant-Robeson Papers,” by Philip Jose Farmer. It seems the weakest entry in the book. It had so much potential that was not realized. A pulse-pounding adventure was reduced to a deconstructive literary jest. And the premise was flawed, presenting the tale as being written by Maxwell Grant using Kenneth Robeson as protagonist. Maxwell Grant wrote stories about The Shadow, and Kenneth Robeson wrote Doc Savage stories, but, of course, neither man ever existed. Both were “house names” used by many writers. Had Farmer used Walter Gibson and Lester Dent, the men who actually created the pulp heroes and wrote most stories, any flaws would have been in the telling of the story itself. Perhaps further stories would have explored relationships between the two writers, involved them in real-life analogues of published adventures, and escaped the mundane and banal setting, but we’ll never know.
Overall, though, the stories are well worth reading for the pulp fiction fan, and the book worth the effort of tracking down. The first volume has been reprinted, but as far as I know there are no plans to reprint the other entries in the series, though there should be.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews