Category: Books & Writers

Averoigne Addendum

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A reader of my post about Clark Ashton Smith responded that since works published between 1923 and 1963 had to be renewed with the Copyright Office 28 years after their original publication — which the authors or heirs often failed to do — many of the old Weird Tales stories are now in public domain and have been for decades. This would mean, for example, that “The End of the Story,” Smith’s first Averoigne tale published in May 1930, has been in public domain since 1959.

Maybe. Within reach I have a Ballantine/Del Rey paperback of H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness and Other Tales of Terror, 14th printing, June 1988 (with the Michael Whelan cover). The front matter copyrights it 1939, 1943 by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, then again in 1964 by August Derleth, followed by the statement: “This edition published by arrangement with Arkham House.”

When and even if Smith’s stuff entered public domain is irrelevant to my point. My point is that Arkham House consistently kept Lovecraft’s work in paperback but not Smith’s — and that’s why Smith is not as well known today.

While writing my initial post, I contacted Robert Weinberg, editor of the Smith collection The Return of the Sorcerer. I asked Mr. Weinberg what versions he used for his omnibus — did he take them from Weird Tales, and if so, was it because those stories are in the public domain? Or did he license them from Wildside Press? I assumed that because Wildside publishes the modern incarnation of Weird Tales that they owned the back catalog as well. I was wrong:

Wildside does not own Weird Tales. Wildside licenses the Weird Tales name for a fee, and pays Weird Tales for reprinting stories that are not in public domain.

The copyright law extends back to 1923 which is when Weird Tales began publishing. While it is true that some Clark Ashton Smith stories have fallen into public domain because of lack of effort by [Smith’s literary executor], a number of stories are still protected by copyright. Arkham House does retain control over many Smith stories.

Relying on [Smith’s literary executor] for information on what is in public domain and what is protected by copyright is a sure way to get into serious trouble.

For the record, I owned Weird Tales until just recently. It is now owned by a major entertainment corporation. They have indicated to me they intend to protect their copyrights very strictly and have the legal muscle to do just that.

Presumably said major corporation is Paradox Entertainment — though I could be wrong again. Weinberg had one more piece of advice for me:

I would drop plans for a Smith collection if I was you.

No worries there. I threw up my hands in disgust after talking with Smith’s representative. If his own estate doesn’t give a shit about Smith’s material, why should I?

Wildside does not own Weird Tales.  Wildside licenses the Weird Tales name for a feee, and pays Weird Tales for reprinting stories that are not in public domain.

The copyright law extends back to 1923 which is when Weird Tales began publishing.  While it is true that some Clark Ashton Smith stories have fallen into public domain because of lack of effort by Mr. Bilmes, a number of stories are still protected by copyright.  Arkham House does retain control over many Smith stories.

relying on Mr. Bilmes for information on what is in public domain and what is protected by copyright is a sure way to get into serious trouble.

for the record, I owned Weird Tales until just recently.  It is now owned by a major entertainment corporation.  They have indicated to me they intend to protect their copyrights very strictly and have the legal muscle to do just that.

I would drop plans for a Smith collection if I was you.

The Obscurity of Clark Ashton Smith

~ Jackson ~ 10 Comments

The 117th anniversary of Clark Ashton Smith’s birth last week was marked by The Cimmerian (here, here, and here), Grognardia, Black Gate, and others with accolades and remembrances. As well it should. Smith, along with Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft, formed the weird fiction triptych of the 1920s and ’30s — and in my opinion, he was the most talented member of a talented group. Yet a recurring question in many of these memorials is why Smith remains uncelebrated in comparison to his partners. This is especially vexing when you consider he outlived the other two by almost a quarter-century.

Answer: Because Smith’s estate has kept him unknown.

Lovecraft and Howard are popular today because we have had a full generation grow up with easy access to inexpensive volumes of their work. Lovecraft’s writing has been in paperback fairly consistently since the 1970s; Del Rey alone has been printing his stuff since the mid-1980s. Howard’s legacy, while certainly boosted by Marvel’s Conan comics, is due in large part to the Lancer/Ace mass-market paperbacks of the ’60s and ’70s with their wonderful Frazetta and Vallejo covers.

Smith’s work, alas, has never been managed as well.

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Make Mine Maymin

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Phil Maymin, bon vivant and 2006 Libertarian candidate for Connecticut’s 4th congressional district, dropped a line this week to inform me of his new collection Free Your Inner Yankee, the follow-up to his 2008 smash Yankee Wake Up. Both volumes (affordable! Kindleable!) gather together his essays from the Fairfield County Weekly. In his latest, Phil discourses upon Connecticut history, libertarianism, and presumably whatever happened to Chris Shays’s lunch money.

I’m Jackson Kuhl and I approve these books.

Smorgasbord of Yore

~ Jackson ~ 1 Comment

Over a recent dinner, I learned a buddy of mine has become a proponent of the Paleolithic Diet, an eating system allegedly based on that of our Pleistocene ancestors. We’re both exercise buffs — me mostly aerobic, he anaerobic — so we traded notes. Yet his wife worried that his stringency in keeping to the diet amounted to an eating disorder.

Having read Loren Cordain’s book several years ago, the paleo diet’s emphasis on protein (from lean meats and nuts) resonates with my skepticism toward the carb-focused diet advice usually directed at runners (e.g., this 2004 article where it began to dawn on the Runner’s World editors that maybe we need something beyond spaghetti to heal and build muscle). Unlike Atkins’s meat-and-dairy-heavy, vegetable-light diet, Cordain advocates lean meat, fish, and as many fruits and vegetables you can stomach — all of which wash down easy after a run. I lean toward paleo but with some carbs (mainly rice) thrown in to supplement my running. Which maybe means I just eat normal.

Where Cordain and I diverge is his emphasis on agricultural products (grains, beans, dairy) as the root of modern ills. He can ramble on about the faultlessness of the peer-review process all he wants but the trap I see most people falling into is eating more carbohydrates than they burn and then acting surprised when they gain weight. The demonization of carbs in the media is strong. But they’re not the problem; the problem is some people’s imbalance between consumption and exercise. Running a marathon? By all means eat as many bagels as you want before, during, and after.

I further learned my buddy had added a twist unknown to me: he refuses to eat before 2 p.m. He explained that prehistoric hunter-gatherers wouldn’t eat until then because their morning was spent searching for food. Apparently this is based on the experience of an anthropologist studying the Aché hunter-gatherers of Paraguay. I took him to task, warning him there’s no way to know from the archaeological record what time of day archaic Homo sapiens ate (my guess: any time they had food); and that proxy measures — that is, using a modern hunting-gathering culture as a stand-in for those 20,000 years ago — may be useful for, say, determining how to make and use an atlatl but become uncertain when studying ephemeral and transitory cultural practices. If the Aché don’t eat before 2 p.m., that’s just what the Aché do, not what everyone did during the Ice Age.

It should be duly noted that said dinnertime conversation took place after four pitchers of rum swizzles and several rounds of margaritas and beers — which shows you where our priorities were whilst communing with our ancient forebears.

Publicity shot of Raquel Welch in One Million Years B.C.E. B.C.

Jonesing for Something

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At the risk of turning this into a one-note blog, I refer you to this book review in the WSJ about another alleged secession effort:

Such is the legend of what became known as the “Free State of Jones,” a county deep in Mississippi’s piney woods. The area was one of many pockets in the state where dissatisfaction with the Confederacy boiled for much of the war, but only Jones County was elevated by folklore, ­especially in the decades after the war, into a scene of noble rebellion.

Reviewer Michael Ballard, a Civil War historian, gives The State of Jones a mixed opinion, asserting Jones County wasn’t so much an independent state with an organized government as it was a rag-tag concentration of Confederate deserters.

But it begs the question: Why are American autonomy movements in the news so much? Apparently in a world of recession, socialized industry, central planning, and overreaching presidencies, secessionism is hot.