Fantasist's Scroll

Today is the birthday of novelist and critic <strong><a target="_blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Burgess">Anthony Burgess</a></strong>

He was born John Anthony Burgess Wilson in Manchester, England on this day in 1917. Though he had written several novels early in his career, none of them were particularly successful. His career took a different turn, however, when, in 1959, he began to suffer from severe headaches and was diagnosed with a brain tumor. The doctor told him he only had one year to live. The diagnosis turned out to be incorrect. However, Burgess wrote five novels in that following year, the year he believed to be his last.

Though he wrote and edited a large body of work, including a fair selection of non-fiction, he's best known for his novel <a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html%3FASIN=0393312836%26tag=fantasis… Clockwork Orange</em></a>, which is perhaps most famous for the slang language he invented specifically for that work, called <a target="_blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadsat">Nadsat</a&gt;.

Today is the birthday of <a target="_blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_cobain">Kurt Cobain</a>.

The singer-songwriter who essentially founded the "grunge" music movement, was born in Hoquiam, Washington on this day in 1967. He started from humble beginnings, working a job as a school janitor, but he started playing in local rock bands. He spent most of this time living at various friends' houses and on the street, even occasionally sleeping under a bridge. In 1989, he and his bandmates saved up six hundred dollars to record their first album, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html%3FASIN=B0000035E7%26tag=fantasis…;, under the name Nirvana. The boys signed to a major label in 1991 for their next album, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html%3FASIN=B000003TA4%26tag=fantasis…;, and Cobain was shocked when it sold more than 10 million copies.

He became internationally famous almost overnight, but Cobain hated being famous. He developed a heroin addiction that got worse and worse, and on April 5th of 1994 he committed suicide at his home in Seattle.

Today is <a target="_blank" href="http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/wbburrou.htm">William S. Burroughs</a>' birthday.

<p class="daily">Born in St. Louis, Missouri on this day in 1914, he is best known for having written <a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html%3FASIN=0802132952%26tag=fantasis… Lunch</em></a>, which was later turned into a movie that starred Peter Weller. Burroughs started writing while attending Harvard, but when a piece of his was rejected by <em>Esquire</em> magazine, he was so disappointed that he didn't write again for six years. He tried to enlist in the military, but he was turned down by the Navy,and when he got into the Army infantry, his mother arranged for him to be given a psychiatric discharge.
So, at 30 years old, he moved to New York City and got involved in a bohemian scene. It was there that he was introduced to two younger men, Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. He also got addicted to heroin, and wrote his first book about it, a memoir called <a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html%3FASIN=0142003166%26tag=fantasis…;. It came out in 1953.
Burroughs is known for his somewhat random method of writing inspiration, which he called the "<a target="_blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cut-up_technique">cut up technique</a>", though he was certainly not the only writer at the time to make use of the method.
Burroughs is also famous for having accidentally shot his wife at a party while recreating the infamous "William Tell scene."

It's the birthday of the man who brought us <a title="View product details at Amazon" target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=fantasistnet%26link_code… the Barbarian</a>, King Kull, and <a target="_blank" title="Solomon Kane" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Kane">Solomon Kane</a> science fiction author <a target="_blank" href="http://www.rehupa.com/">Robert E. Howard</a>, who was born in Peaster, Texas on this day in 1906. If you're from Texas, or just passing through, you can find out more about him at the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.crossplains.com/howard/museum.htm">Crossplains Robert E. Howard Museum</a>. If you can't make that, you can read more about him at <a target="_blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Howard">the Wikipedia</a>.
Sadly, he chose to end his life early via suicide by .38

It's the birthday of one of the most prolific writers of the 20th century, <a href="http://www.asimovonline.com/">Isaac Asimov</a>, who was born in Petrovichi, Russia in 1920. He came with his family to the United States when he was three years old and his parents opened a candy shop in Brooklyn. Issac grew up to become a professor of biochemistry at the Boston University School of medicine and in 1950 he published his first novel <a target="_blank" title="View product details at Amazon" href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=fantasistnet%26link_code… in the Sky</a>.

About the same time Asimov took part in writing a textbook for medical students and he found that he loved explaining complicated things in ordinary language, and so he set out to write about science for the general public, in language they would understand. He said, "Little by little my science writing swallowed up the rest of me."
Asimov developed a regimen of working ten hours a day, seven days a week, producing between two and five thousand words a day. Asimov's method was to write a book about any subject that interested him but which he didn't fully understand. He used writing as a way of teaching himself about everything.
By 1970 Asimov had written more than a hundred books and he began branching out into areas other than science. He wrote about nuclear physics and organic chemistry, history, Greek mythology, astronomy, religion, in addition to his collections of limericks, mystery novels, autobiography and science fiction. By the time of his death in 1992 he had published more than 400 books.

Today is the birthday of two very important science-fiction writers.
The first is science fiction novelist Philip K. Dick, who was born in Chicago in 1928. He <span style="line-height: 130%">began to suffer from visions and hallucinations in the 1950s. He once thought he saw a face in the sky, which he described as "a vast visage of evil with empty slots for eyes, metal and cruel, and worst of all, it was God." He wasn't sure if his visions were authentic or if they were symptoms of mental illness, and he was fascinated that he could no longer tell what was real and what wasn't.
</span>He wrote many novels that pushed the edge of science-fiction a little further out, making room for the cyberpunk movement to follow him. Some of his work includes <a target="_blank" title="View product details at Amazon" href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=fantasistnet%26link_code… Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?</a>, <a target="_blank" title="View product details at Amazon" href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=fantasistnet%26link_code… Minority Report (which is a collection of short stories)</a>, <a target="_blank" title="View product details at Amazon" href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=fantasistnet%26link_code… Can Remember It for You Wholesale (another short story collection)</a>, and <a target="_blank" title="View product details at Amazon" href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=fantasistnet%26link_code… Scanner Darkly</a>. Since his death in 1982, many of his novels and short stories have been made into movies, including Blade Runner (1982), Total Recall (1990) and Minority Report (2002).

It's also the birthday of the science fiction novelist Arthur C. Clarke, who was born in Somerset, England in 1917. He's the author of many science fiction novels, including <a target="_blank" title="View product details at Amazon" href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=fantasistnet%26link_code… End</a>, <a target="_blank" title="View product details at Amazon" href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=fantasistnet%26link_code…: A Space Odyssey</a>(which was written in the year of my birth!), and <a target="_blank" title="View product details at Amazon" href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=fantasistnet%26link_code… with Rama</a>. He is also famous for inventing the concept of the communications satellite.

Today is C.S. Lewis' birthday.
For those of you who don't know him, C.S. Lewis wrote <a target="_blank" title="View product details at Amazon" href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=fantasistnet%26link_code… Chronicles of Narnia</a>, which has been made into movies and mini-series several times. Lewis was a contemporary of J.R.R. Tolkien and, in fact, was part of the same writing group, the Inklings. It was there that the two became fast friends, until their falling out. Lewis, or "Jack", as he preferred his friends call him, was a convert to Catholicism and became a prolific Christian apologist, penning such gems as <a target="_blank" title="View product details at Amazon" href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=fantasistnet%26link_code… Screwtape Letters</a>, <a target="_blank" title="View product details at Amazon" href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=fantasistnet%26link_code… Problem of Pain</a>, and <a target="_blank" title="View product details at Amazon" href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=fantasistnet%26link_code… Christianity</a>. He was a remarkable author and an interesting man.
You can read more about Clive Staples Lews at the website endorsed by his step-son, Douglas Gresham, called <a target="_blank" href="http://cslewis.drzeus.net/">Into the Wardrobe</a>.

According to the <a target="_blank" href="http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/">Writer's Almanac</a>, today is Bram Stoker's birthday.

If you've been living under a cultural rock for the past hundred years or so, you might not know that Bram Stoker wrote the now infamous <a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html%3FASIN=0517520176%26tag=fantasis…;. He wrote other books as well, and was quite well known in his own time for his work in the theatre, but he's most famous for that title character, Count Dracula. At the time, this was quite a novel subject, though, since then, vampires have become rather standard fare in literature, as well as movies and TV. But, it was <em>Dracula</em> that made them, and Stoker, famous. It came out in 1897 and got mixed reviews. It only became a minor best-seller in Stoker's lifetime. When he died in 1912, the obituaries about Stoker focused on his career in theater, and not a single one mentioned his authorship of <em>Dracula</em>. It wasn't until 1922, when Dracula movies started to appear that Bram Stoker's novel became widely known, and, of course, has since become considered a classic.

So, remember the Count and his creator this horrific holiday season. Happy Birthday, Bram!

Today is <a target="_blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Herbert">Frank Herbert's </a>Birthday.

Of course, he passed away in 1986, the year I graduated from high-school, but his work lives on. Mr. Herbert is primarily known for his seminal work, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html%3FASIN=0441172717%26tag=fantasis…;, and the other books in the series that followed. Though, interestingly enough, he never intended to write sequels.
Often refered to as the science-fiction Lord of the Rings, the Dune series of books detail an amazingly rich science-ficiton culture. The novels are some of the first science-fiction to have detailed political and sociological sub-plots, not to mention ecological sub-plots! The way Mr. Herbert used religion in his work is quite interesting as well. In a genre that often avoids discussing religion, he explored the topic in detail and with a depth that was personally inspiring.
Herbert also wrote <a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html%3FASIN=0765342502%26tag=fantasis… Green Brain</a>, which is another ecological-message tied up in great science-fiction, as well as <a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html%3FASIN=0399127216%26tag=fantasis… White Plague</a>, another of my favorite books.
There hasn't been anyone else quite like <a href="http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/fherbert.htm">Frank Herbert</a> and I am in awe of the ways in which he influenced the genre, which is why I celebrate this every year.

According to <a target="_blank" href="http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/">Writer's Almanac</a> there are three birthdays to celebrate today.

First, there's novelist Herbert George (H.G.) Wells, who was born in Bromley, England in1866. According to the note I got from Writer's Almanac, Wells had a job writing biology textbooks until he developed a respiratory illness in his late 20s. Since he thought he didn't have long to live, he left his wife and ran away with another woman, after which he began writing furiously. In roughly three years, he published all the novels for which we know him: The Time Machine, The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Invisible Man, and The War of the Worlds.

It's also the birthday of the novelist Stephen King, born in Portland, Maine in 1947. His father was a merchant seaman who left the family when Stephen was just two. He has no memories of his father, but one day he found a whole box full of his father's science fiction and fantasy paperbacks, and that box of his father's books inspired him to start writing horror stories.
He was working as a teacher when he wrote his first novel about a weird high school girl with psychic powers named Carrie White. He gave up on the book at one point and threw it in the trash. His wife rescued it. Carrie was published in 1973. The hard cover didn't sell well, but then his agent called to say that the paperback rights had sold for $400,000.

Lastly, but, perhaps, most importantly, today is the birthday of the man who first put high quality literature into paperbacks, Sir Allen Lane, born in Bristol, England in 1902. He was the founder of Penguin Books.