In this bi-weekly series reviewing classic science fiction and fantasy books, Alan Brown looks at the front lines and frontiers of the field; books about soldiers and spacers, scientists and engineers, explorers and adventurers. Stories full of what Shakespeare used to refer to as “alarums and excursions”: battles, chases, clashes, and the stuff of excitement.
Some folks in the science fiction business are great writers. But there are others who, while they might also arrange words for a living, are part of an even older tradition. They are the storytellers, whose tales have a shape and focus that lends itself to the spoken word. And one of the best of those storytellers is Howard Waldrop, whose quirky tales of monsters, strange events, and history that never happened have kept readers captivated for years. The collection Strange Monsters of the Recent Past contains some of his best work.
One advantage of being part of extended family of science fiction nerds is that you are exposed to a lot of variety. My father, quite naturally, was a huge influence on my reading tastes, as were my brothers. And while I have always leaned toward stories rooted in science or adventure, my brother Bruce introduced me to more literary science fiction, the kind of stories that aspire to the attention of serious literary critics.
I remember Bruce inviting me, sometime in the 1980s or early 1990s, to a gathering at a science fiction bookstore run by Mark Ziesing, located in downtown Willimantic, Connecticut. Willimantic, at least in those days, was a rather rundown town, full of closed mills, and most famous for a colonial-era militia mobilization responding to a loud and unearthly noise that turned out to be a pond full of frenzied mating frogs (there are statues of giant frogs on the corners of the bridge in the center of the town commemorating the event). Ziesing, in addition to being a bookseller, was the small press publisher of books by some of the most well-respected fantasy and science fiction authors of that era (and still runs an online bookstore you can find here). Some of the heavy hitters of the time were at the gathering, including Kim Stanley Robinson, Lucius Shepard, and Gardner Dozios. I went home with books from all the authors attending, and a few additional books they recommended to me. One of those was Strange Monsters of the Recent Past, by a guy they all seemed to be impressed by, Howard Waldrop.
This book appeared in two different forms. The copy I bought is a mass market paperback published by Ace Books in 1991. In small press hardback editions, the collection was issued in two books. The first, published by Ursus Imprints in 1987, All About Strange Monsters of the Recent Past, contained all the stories in the Ace collection except the last, with a foreword by Gardner Dozois and an afterword by author Lewis Shiner. The second book contained only the novella A Dozen Tough Jobs, and was published by Ziesing Books in 1989. The Ace edition used the Shiner piece as a foreword, and did not have an afterword. The Ace edition also contained entertaining forewords for each story written by the author which explained where the ideas came from and how the stories came to be written.
About the Author
Howard Waldrop (born 1946) is an American writer of fantasy, science fiction, and alternate history, whose output has primarily been works of shorter length. He has lived most of his life in Texas, and his first professional sale was made in 1977. He had two stories nominated for Nebula awards in 1977, and his story “The Ugly Chickens” won the award in 1980. The novella A Dozen Tough Jobs was also a Nebula finalist, and over the years, he’s had a number of other works that garnered Hugo and Nebula nominations. His work does not fit the traditional conventions of science fiction and fantasy, and is heavily rooted in oral storytelling traditions, history, cinema, popular culture, and mainstream literature. Waldrop has been a guest of honor at a number of conventions, taught at writing workshops, and received a World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement.
The Power of Tall Tales
Storytelling has a power that we tend to have fewer opportunities to appreciate these days, having our stories spoon-fed to us primarily through movie and TV screens, or via the written word in books (although audio books and podcasts have done something to revive the spoken word tradition in recent years). There is nothing quite like hearing a story well told in person, face to face. A good storyteller, using words delivered with the right cadence, emphasis, gestures, and other flourishes, can evoke emotions in the listener in a way no other media can. The listener may feel themselves provoked to heights of joy, sadness, longing, confusion, certainty, anger, and even sheer terror as the speaker weaves their spell.
Like many people who have served in the military, I’ve stood a fair number of quiet watches where, in order to pass the time, people tell each other stories. When you are in mid-ocean in calm seas, with no other vessel in sight or even on the radar, stories can keep the clock from seeming to stall out, and keep the watch from lasting forever. These can be ghost stories, personal recollections, tall tales, jokes with long setups…pretty much anything that keeps the listener engaged. And especially during midwatches, I’ve seen the whole bridge crew on pins and needles thanks to a good string of spooky tales.
One of my favorite things about science fiction conventions are the author readings, and I’ve heard some good ones over the years. It’s the closest you can get to stories delivered the old-fashioned way, on porches during a hot afternoon, on shipboard, around campfires, or at backyard parties. My favorites to date have been Neil Gaiman and Spider Robinson, but I’ve heard a lot of other good ones. And from all accounts, Howard Waldrop is another of the great storytellers of the genre. You can tell by reading his stories to yourself out loud and hearing cadences that lend themselves naturally to the spoken word. That’s a practice I wish every author used to polish their work as they write, as there is a primal power to words intended to capture an audience with their rhythm and sounds as well as their meaning. Moreover, Waldrop knows many other secrets of a good story: He does his research, gets inside the heads of his characters, and succeeds in making the reader feel, no matter how fantastic the premise, like they are getting a glimpse of something real.
Strange Monsters of the Recent Past
The book opens with an introduction, “The Left-Handed Muse,” by Lewis Shiner, whose admiration for Waldrop infuses every word of the essay. He describes Waldrop’s unique approach to writing, which includes introducing stories in public readings at conventions, largely being read from manuscripts written out in longhand in the days and hours preceding the reading. Shiner also writes of Waldrop’s extensive research for each story, which grounds even the most fantastic story in a foundation of realism.
The first story in the collection, “All About Strange Monsters of the Recent Past,” is perhaps my favorite Waldrop story of all time. It imagines what it would be like if America were overrun by all the creatures that populated the monster movies that were so popular in the decades after World War II. Waldrop, a Vietnam-era draftee, after seeing the Army save the day in so many of these movies, imagined what it would really be like if soldiers like him had to face giant monsters in combat. The protagonist of the story is a soldier who has deserted, but has gathered up weapons for a personal mission. The reader might guess that, like in the movies, he’s the only one who has figured out the secret weakness of the invaders, and will save the day in the third reel. But this is not that kind of story, and is all the more powerful because of that.
The story “Helpless, Helpless” tells of a plague that has infected the robots and androids who serve mankind, setting society back on its heels. Of all the stories in the volume, this one feels most dated, because the devices that have transformed our modern society in recent years primarily involve communication and information storage technology, as opposed to devices that aid us in physical tasks as described in the tale. But the main message, that we are dependent on devices that might not always work the way we want them to, remains frighteningly relevant.
“Fair Game” is a surreal story that imagines what Ernest Hemingway’s last hunt might have been like—a hunt that takes place after his death. The bones of this story are not nearly as important as its mood and the twists and turns it takes. Hemingway is a god-like figure to many writers who sound like ordinary guys but aspire to literary heights, and it is no surprise that so many of them have woven him into their own stories.
The story “What Makes Hieronymus Run?” involves time travelers who go back to the time of the Dutch masters (including Hieronymus Bosch) and find the world they lived in to be as odd as their paintings, so full of strange images and peculiar settings. This one ends up being a horror story scarier than all the movie monsters ever assembled.
“The Lions Are Asleep This Night” follows a young boy who is driven to write, even though his mother can barely afford enough copybooks to contain his schoolwork. The setting is an Africa country of the late 19th century that has thrown off colonial rule. The publishing world of the era, with its chapbooks, dime novels, and printed plays, is richly evoked. I suspect that this story is the most biographical of the tales in the volume, as Waldrop strikes me as someone who also writes not to earn money or fame, but because he is driven to do so.
“Flying Saucer Rock & Roll” is a story set during the great Northeast blackout of 1965. Two fictional doo-wop groups, musically rooted in an a cappella singing style being driven off the radio by newer groups like the Beatles, have a contest to determine which is best. Each group is sponsored by a rival street gang, and life and limb are at stake—this competition is not just about bragging rights. The story also dips into the UFO-related concerns and theories of the time, which gives it an out-of-this-world conclusion. Waldrop did his homework on everything from the history of the blackout, the music of the era, and UFO lore, and the story drips with authenticity while keeping readers on the edge of their seat right up to the final sentence.
Waldrop imagines the impact of genetic engineering on ancient Egyptian royalty in the story “He-We-Await.” The story sets the stage with a tale of the last heirs of an ancient line, and as in so many of his other stories, Waldrop has clearly done his homework. And that detailed foundation pays off as he brings the story forward to the present, where believers in ancient legends use modern science to bring a scion of the storied dynasty to life in the modern era. If they had any hopes of controlling the man they raised, though, their hopes are dashed in an ending that suggests hard times ahead for humanity.
“A Dozen Tough Jobs” is a retelling of the labors of Hercules, set in the American South of the 1920s. This tale was written a few years before the Coen brothers penned their movie, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, which set the story of the Odyssey in a similar milieu, and reading it again made me wonder if they’d ever read the Waldrop novella. Waldrop knows the South, and like always, grounds the story in solid history. It is uncomfortable to read at times, because it is filled with depictions of prejudice, racial epithets, sexual assault, and cruelty. Like many stories written in that era, it is narrated by a bystander, Invictus Ovidius Lace, who goes by his initials, I.O. He is a young Black orphan who is a servant, pretty much a slave in everything but name, and works for the local political kingpin, Boss Eustis.
One day, I.O. finds his life transformed when he is sent to greet a trustee, Houlka Lee, sent to serve the last months of his prison sentence by working for the boss. The first time I read this story, I just jumped right in. But this time, I did some googling, and refamiliarized myself with the legend of Hercules. That paid off, as there are all sorts of little touches in the story that could have otherwise gone right over my head. Some of the labors appear in detail, while others are simply mentioned in passing, and not every event comes from legend. The Nemean lion becomes a cougar, and the mucking of stables is handled in a manner that echoes the original story. Hippolyta’s girdle becomes a corset owned by the madame at a local house of ill repute, and the visit to hell to capture Cerberus is reimagined as a trip to a gathering of local Klansmen. The many colorful inhabitants of this quirky corner of the south are brought to life in rich detail, and there are plenty of digressions and clever details along the way to delight the reader. This is storytelling at its very best, and if you’ve never read it, you’ve missed something special.
Final Thoughts
Re-reading this book reminded me just how good a writer Howard Waldrop is, and how much I have enjoyed every one of his stories I have ever read. If you haven’t yet encountered his work, I urge you to go out and find it. You won’t be disappointed.
And now it’s your turn to chime in, either on this collection, or anything else from Howard Waldrop. I look forward to hearing your impressions, and recommendations for other things he has written.
Alan Brown has been a science fiction fan for over five decades, especially fiction that deals with science, military matters, exploration and adventure.
