My favourite authors all but forgotten

[V.W.]

It's a little sad to find that some of my best loved SF authors of the past have faded from reader's memory or view. Writers such as:

Edmund Cooper - Transit, A Far Sunset, Seahorse In the Sky, Uncertain Midnight.

Richard Avery (also Edmund Cooper) - "The Expendables "series - "Deathworms of Kratos"

Tully Zetford (Kenneth Bulmer) - The "Ryder Hook" series.

Laurence James - The "Simon Rack" series such as "Earth Lies Sleeping".

Anyone else ever read them?

[Randy]

It's been a while since I read the Ryder Hook books. I also love Bulmer's Dray Prescott series, but luckily they are now available on the Kindle. With the last German translations due this year.

[Jim]

Edmund Cooper sounds familiar & as Richard Avery as well. I glanced through his books & some looked familiar, but if I read them it was too many years ago.

Edmond Hamilton was one of my favorites that seems to have disappeared.

[V.W.]

Jim wrote: "Edmund Cooper sounds familiar & as Richard Avery as well. I glanced through his books & some looked familiar, but if I read them it was too many years ago.

[author:Edmond Hamilton|..."

Ohh yes, Captain Future and Starwolf. Good stuff.

[Brenda]

Phyllis Eisenstein, SORCEROR'S SON. Gosh, what a great book. Joy Chant's GRAY MANE OF MORNING. She only wrote three or four books in her entire career.

[Jim]

Sorcerer's Son by Eisenstein is familiar, but I don't really recall anything except the cover.

Silverlock by John Myers Myers was a classic years ago, a retelling of The Odyssey with a modern man. It's all but forgotten now. Crispan Magicker by Mark M. Lowenthal was another old favorite. I've never read another book by either author.

[Dave]

I started with the Richard Avery books when I was about 12-13 or so, and followed them to Edmund Cooper. I thought they were great fun at the time, and when I heard they were making a movie called "Expendables" I really hoped it was based on the books.

I read Silverlock and Crispan Magicker, too; but don't remember being particularly impressed by the latter.

I read a bunch of Captain Future, too.

[Andreas]

I didn't read Captain Future. But the Anime was a favorite of me back in the 80s, I didn't miss one. We had only 4 TV channels, then, and they were great: No commercials splitting films (question: when do you get to piss?), education appointment of Public channels, neutral Journalismus. Heaven ! You didn't have to zap. In fact, it wasn't possible :) I don't know how it was in US then, though.

[V.W.]

Dave wrote: "I started with the Richard Avery books when I was about 12-13 or so, and followed them to Edmund Cooper. I thought they were great fun at the time, and when I heard ..."

Come to think of it, with modern CGI, an Expendables (not Sylvester Stallone) film would be terrific. They are very visual novels.

"Deathworms of Kratos" coming to your cinema today!

[Dave]

But who could truly do justice to the character of Kurt Kwango?

[V.W.]

Another book that just struggled its way from under the old grey cells is World Out of Mind, an experimental society based on meritocracy and an alien invasion at the same time.

[Michael]

Brenda wrote: "Phyllis Eisenstein, SORCEROR'S SON. Gosh, what a great book. Joy Chant's GRAY MANE OF MORNING. She only wrote three or four books in her entire career."

Sorceror's Son was a good book. Kinda depressing at times, but in a good way. Sorry to say, that's the only one of the books mentioned in the thread I've read.

Most of the stuff I consider "obscure" is probably pretty popular, relative to some of these. I have a couple "whatever happen to" authors like Charles de Lint. But I think his stuff is still in the bookstores. Charon's Ark was kinda obscure. That was a fun book. Kind of a sci-fi version of The Lost World. Came out a couple years before Jurassic Park. Can't help but wonder if it didn't give Crichton the idea, because Lost World was pretty much off the shelves at the time.

[Ben]

Unfortunately 99% of everything published in a given year will quickly fall away from memory. There are simply too many books for all to stay in our awareness and hype tends to gravitate in ways that give some books masses of discussion and debate and completely overlook others.

Many great authors and books can slip through the cracks.

I have not read anything by any of V.W.'s authors although I had heard of one authors. I remember really enjoying Phyllis Eisenstein and Joy Chant - with Eisenstein In the Red Lord's Reach was probably my favorite of the 4 or so by her I read.

In UK Gollanz has done a great job of re-issuing many old books for our reading pleasure at pretty affordable prices - e.g. 5$ for an ebook. They have a huge catalogue although there are some rights issues for at least some of their titles for US readers.