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| Hugo Gernsback |
“Angel-touched or not, at
bottom the girl was just another wounded child of God with a monster
problem.” Throne of the Crescent Moon
I’m loving this book! Though what it has to do with science
fiction, I have no idea. When did Hugo
nominations start going to sword and sorcery?
Maybe always? Speaking of 1963, I think I better
take a look at the Hugo nominations that year (none of which I’ve read): the
winner, The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick, a classic of the sci-fi genre, or
so I’m told; A Fall of Moondust by Arthur C Clarke, surely a “real” sci-fi
novel if Clarke’s the author, eh?; Little Fuzzy by H Beam Piper (what is it
with all the author initials?), evidently sci-fi; Sylva by “Vercours”, some
kind of French language (!) sci-fi time travel fantasy; and, ah ha, there is
precedence, The Sword of Aldones by Marion Zimmer Bradley. So I guess fantasy has always had a place on
these lists.
Of course, at the time of
their nomination, I wasn’t really that serious about tracking down the nominees,
not having even really heard about the Hugos in the first place. There was enough to keep me busy with Famous Monsters
of Filmland (RIP Forrest J Ackerman, who I had the pleasure of meeting at his
home/museum, but that’s another story), Harlan Ellison, Ray Bradbury, and the
other “classics” I started discovering.
Little did I know that Amazing Stories’ creator Hugo Gernsback had some
awards named after him, or that those same awards were bestowed at an annual
science-fiction convention, or that in a few years I would actually attend a
World Science Fiction Convention.
In any case, when I found
the hard bound copy of Throne of the Crescent Moon at the used book store, I
couldn’t believe the cover art (by Jason Chan); I felt like I was picking up a Young Adult novel (which is not in any
way a “knock”), and I was a bit taken aback that THIS (?) was nominated for any
kind of award. The cover depicts an old fat bearded Moses-like man seeming to project some
kind of light, and two fierce young male and female “heroes” wielding a
two-pronged sword and fierce claws against some kind of vicious group of
malevolent zombie-like creatures. What
was this, 1938, this was border-line
embarrassing for a high-brow reader such as myself.
But you know what? Its combination of Robert Howard, The Grey
Mouser, Moorcock’s Elric of Melnibone, and, yes, of course, Game of Thrones, is
working! (I say “of course GoT" because
nowadays that is the new fantasy gold standard that all current fantasy epics
must somehow acknowledge, whether consciously or not, as Lord of the Rings was
before it, and of course as LotR still is, too)
I’m only about a hundred pages in, but so far it’s really keeping my
attention: it’s actually exciting and charming!
Good lord, what’s happening to me?
To Be Continued
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