Egomania Read online

  I have always had a problem with people who look down at the “quali-ty” of a writer’s so-called literary style. The only style that ever really counts to the reader is if it hooks and holds ’em to the last page; while the author’s vital points, get made—or at least getting the required money. What few of us realize is that the publishing world in the business of selling “paper” at a profit—which also helps the lumber business. When you think about it, authors are actually in the business of making paper useless for anything other than recycling. After all, in olden time they took a blank bit of paper, add scribbles of ink to it, then send stacks of this stuff to a publisher. More trees will be sawed down so more paper is made to serve as the means of dishing up the author’s vital words to the unsuspecting public—and thus create more inked paper for the recycle bin. Everybody profits: the inking business, the book binding business, and even the read-ing public. If the author’s words hold the reader, then he has successfully helped to keep the lumber and paper business healthy, wealthy and the pub-lic wise to his smarts. Writing is the business of grabbing and holding the reader until the author’s point is made—and, hopefully, his bank account fattened. All else, such as literary quality, are extras.

  THE “TRUTH” CONCERNING BARSOOM?

  Burroughs convinced me, right from the beginning, that people like John Carter, actually existed. After all, how could one question the truth of John Carter’s reality? He had to exist! When NASA discovered that Mars had no resemblance to Barsoom, I knew that someone must be lying! Or could there be some unknown facts that would someday surface to explain the truth? In other words proof that John Carter lives. And thus I came up with a theory, which has satisfied me.

  If John Carter existed then Barsoom simply wasn’t our Mars. He might have actually gone back in time, as well as moved through space, and his Mars was what ours had been perhaps millions of years ago. That’s an at-tractive idea, but didn’t really appeal to me.

  So if he existed, and he reappeared on Earth, once again looking for his grand-nephew’s family, JC would discover what we now know concerning Mars.

  “But,” he might point out, “Barsoom exists. I exist.”

  The logical response would be admitting this obvious fact and then ask-ing for an explanation.

  Perhaps, someone might suggest John Carter had actually not gone to our Mars but to another place, somewhere across the universe, that looked very much like our solar system. Remember he had “teleported” in some unexplained almost “magical” manner.

  Where does it say he had actually went to Mars? Sure, that’s where he thought he had gone. But if he actually existed—and I find it difficult to believe differently—then there has to be some logical explanation.

  What I came to believe is that John Carter, upon learning about our Mars, had his scientists start an investigation. Thus upon returning home, armed with the facts concerning our Mars he is able to present them to the Barsoomian scientists. It would be a simple matter for them to learn the truth.

  Barsoom is across the universe, perhaps many galaxies from our galaxy. His mysterious method of travel might have taken him through a worm hole, or through some dimensional warp, or...who knows? Such theories might be presented to him. But regardless of the seeming truth, the fact would remain that Barsoom is the fourth planet circling a star much like our Sun. Barsoom’s solar system is very much like ours. Without highly advanced science and star charts it would be quite impossible to know the truth. A lot of advances have been made since John Carter contacted Burroughs. Thus such obvious misunderstandings were unavoidable. After all John Carter was basically a warrior, not a scientist. And now we know the truth: he exists, Barsoom exists. And the universe is at peace with the Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

  * * * * * * *

  Author’s note: An ERB authority has informed me that the above could not have taken place for a number of “logical” reasons. Well, I’ll not debate that issue with an expert, but merely point out my idea is more fun than letting JC rot in literary limbo. I’d rather believe he truly existed as ERB suggested in A Princess of Mars so many decades ago.

  We all have our fantasies. That’s one of my personal out-of-this-world ideas to save our beloved Barsoom from newly discovered modern-day sci-entific realities. Sometimes truth, even in fiction, can be painful to take.

  —Charles Nuetzel, 2007

  NIGHTMARE WITH A QUEEN…OF BLOOD

  Oh, the Queen of Blood, the Planet of Blood, call it what you want, but the Queen herself came to me via my agent Forrest J Ackerman (no period, thank you!). She came, probably, in the darkness of night like a very hateful vamp, teeth dripping in the blood of her victims (soon to add me to that list)! She was a vile, perverse, hungry creature from a hellish universe—dimension if you will—all her own: Hollywoodland! And it was shaped as a script of a somewhat inexpensively produced horror/sf flick written and directed by Curtis Harrington, Jr.

  Well, as it turned out, it was my duty to convert these pages into a nov-el. And as I remember, it was one of those quickie assignments.

  I approached this whole thing with mixed emotions! Looking at the script was going to be hard enough, reading its contents might even be somewhat yucky. Converting it to a novel might be okay, since I’d been working in that area for some time—not conversions, but novels for paper-back publication.

  I had never been very interested in scripts. I mean in writing them. I had decided many years ago that possessing a mimeographed copy of some masterpiece I’d skillfully designed in a flush of creative madness was not very impressive. I mean: who the hell can’t simply type something up and have it mimeographed? Not every impressive, that. And early on all my doubts concerning such projects were proven totally valid when I learned how many a script typist prided themselves in adding minor revisions, to say nothing about directors, actors, and who knows what other members of the production team, including producer and even his secretary with the REVISING compulsion! After all, the original author is considered less than a lowly flunky of first-draft concepts.

  Hell, these Hollywood types figure that the jerk writer was already overpaid for his outline in dialogue form! What does he know? Less than nothing. And even if he does, so what? He’s cashed his check and is now out of the picture—for good!

  So. I figured. To hell with scripts. I wanted hard evidence of my crea-tive genius printed on paper, bound solidly in place with an attractive full color cover. Plus, of course, a boldly obvious byline announcing my name in large letters under the title would be hard evidence of my importance. Even better: over the title. But, heck, and golly gee, I’d settle for even a small mention on the lower left or right—just so they spelled my name right: Charles Nuetzel!

  That was what had driven me through a normally difficult teenage of hiding behind books and practicing behind a portable typewriter until I fi-nally learned enough to think of myself as an author.

  Oh, to be an author! To have my name in print. The glory of it all!

  Well, reality was soon to flush some of those ideas down the drain.

  Interestingly enough, once you are skilled enough, getting your name in print isn’t all that difficult, expect for a minor little factor:

  Does ya really wanna have ya name linked to that manuscript?

  Well, maybe. But, just think, I could invent a pen name just for the hell of it! Why not? Hide behind that fake identity while you are learning your craft. And, geeze, now you’ve invented a “real” person that people will tru-ly believe exists! A byline proves the existence of an author! Alive and breathing!

  And I can save my real name for what I consider “quality” stuff. Ha! One wonders about the importance of that word! Quality! Yet a much de-sired concept!

  My agent, nice man that he has always been, sweetly informed me that “quality comes with quantity” and like a devout devotee of a true godman’s words, I listened and believed.

  This drove whatever talents I had into turning blank pages
into useless paper!

  I mean, the writer splatters ink across the white surface of cheap paper, marring it forever more! If lucky he finds some editor foolish enough to believe that these pages should be magically converted into a printed form. I mean, WOW, they actually pay for this kind of used-up paper!

  Well, I was soon in the paper selling business, though I didn’t really think of it in quite that manner.

  I was being paid while learning! And getting all those credits. Inventing not only fictional characters but “real life” authors!

  I ended up with a number of pen names and a larger number of short novels scattering the local and national newsstands. Oh, the wonderful life of an author.

  But it was some time before I considered offering up my own name to a book. And the first one was, what else?—Whodunit? Hollywood Style. Hor-rors: a book on Hollywood; about the film industry. Was I mad or some-thing?

  Or something.

  Then came this script to pervert my lingering doubts about the movie industry at large.

  Now it isn’t that I don’t like Hollywood, hell I grew up in the busi-ness—indirectly. My father had been a commercial artist for Pacific Title and Arts for many years (they did the special effects and screen credit titles for some of the biggest movie industry’s films). I’d been exposed to movies since a mere babe in San Francisco, where my Dad worked for Fox West Coast Theaters, doing huge paintings for the theater lobbies (this was pre-vious to the printed posters later used to announce the currently running movies). Remember, this was way back in the 1930s and beginning ’40s. He got us into any picture we wanted to see for free! And that was some-thing we enjoyed to the fullest on a weekly basis.

  Anyway, I’ve gotten far from the dern track of the naughty, nasty Queen of Blood!

  Ah, yes. That bloody screenplay!

  The script had to be turned into a novel in quick time (and this was be-fore computers, mind ya all!). I had a faithful electric typewriter with in-stant return carriage and all that, but any revisions meant a retyping! YUCK to that, thank you. And no thanks!

  Anyway, I soon discovered that the Queen was somewhat missing in much of her details. I mean, the “lady” was stripped all but naked of any-thing but a big mouth that screamed endless dialogue. Well, okay, the Queen herself wasn’t the only voice chattering madly away on these mime-ographed pages!

  But truth be known, the script, beyond mention of Mars and some sandstorms and a couple of rocket ships and a lotta eggs of questionable design, was on the short side of visual verbiage and/or background details. The only information offered concerned the vampin’ Queen herself and a number of characters to serve as delicious meals for our hungry female alien monster from God knows where! Of course there was the “plot” of the thing—your standard science fiction storyline of people in distress and the normal run of the mill implication of what would devour Earth by the time the film ended. There really wasn’t much to it other than the dialogue that filled around 100 pages or so—if that! I had to convert this into about 55,000 words, more or less.

  Well, I did a bit of instant calculations. After deleting all the FADE INS & OUTS and character names above lines of dialogue and the now and then camera instructions or scene setting paragraphs, I learned I’d have to turn each script page into three pages of manuscript!

  Well, it was typin’ time! And no time to look back.

  Nor be very inventive.

  Nor take much time to breathe between work sessions.

  Expanding dialogue was easy enough. But I had plenty of that as a cen-tral core. What I needed to do was write details that were missing! Land-scapes. Rocket ship. Travel through space to Mars in days….

  HEY, WAIT A MINUTE!

  That ain’t possible! ’Tain’t gonna take a few days to leap across the vast distance between Earth and the Red Planet (being turned ever redder by the vampy Queen of Blood herself!).

  Well, I had to be somewhat inventive there, creating what was, if memory serves me right, the Harrington drive to explain away the swift trip from Earth to Mars (a polite bow to the script writer-director!).

  Little matters like that were necessary add-ons.

  Then there was a small walk-on part that Forry Ackerman had in the film—courtesy of Mr. Harrington himself! I figured, heck, why not be a little more generous with this man who is so responsible for my nightmare with a queen.

  So I literally invented an expanded role for my agent to play out. Even some actual dialogue! SUPER! But what are we gonna call this fella? Well, all authors and editors and agents and even would-be and real actors have an ego! Don’t we all, man! Super-egos deluxe.

  So what can I call him. Oh. Gee, let’s see. Give him some importance. Ah. Yes. Make him a doctor. Sure fits in a sf flick. Now don’t it? Sure does!

  But Doctor who? Certainly not Who, that was already taken, natch, of course.

  Dr. Ackerman? Well, that was too close to reality. After all Mr. Forrest J Ackerman has some kind of degree—even if it is simply a third one! Yes, I do believe he does hold a doctor of some sort that kept hangin’ round the Ackermansion in all its modern variations.

  So. That’s out. Like flout! So to speak.

  He was already famous as Dr. Acula in his Famous Monsters of Filmland, which he had edited and almost totally written over a twenty-year period.

  So maybe I should go Hollywoodish and in like Flynn!

  Ah, ha. FORREST is the man’s name.

  Doctor is the first degree.

  DR. FORRESTER became his name in actual fictional fact, Hollywood Style!

  Enough of this foolishness.

  Back to the Queen, once more. The blood-sucking vamp of somewhat greenish tint!

  Well, first of all, let’s get something straight right from the start: okay, from this point, anyway:

  This was a somewhat young person’s tale of a trip to Mars where our heroes come in bloody contact with a seductive lady from deep space! An alien creature that couldn’t get enough of the living blood of these delight-fully delicious Earthmen’s bods. And don’t forget the female scientists! After all you gotta have some implied romantic interest, even if it has to remain squeaky clean!

  Oh, I’ll admit it could have gone in either direction: slanted to a teenage market or liberally speckled with erotic scenes for an all-adult audience.

  Well, I always figured that sf and sex simply didn’t mix: not the same audience. Minors wanted adventure on a grand scale! Battling to the death against BEMs (bug eyed monsters) with super rays and screaming boy-like ladies who had to be rescued by daring deeds for, perhaps, a light embrace and maybe even a shocking kiss on the lips—closed mouth, of course, natch! While the adult market demanded super male studs and voluptuous-ly vamping tarts hungrily seeking one another out like desperate wantons from Orgyland.

  Not, mind you, would those sexually overcharged teenagers be more than willing to share a bit of stimulating adventures between the covers of a paperback book (or bed sheets for that matter!).

  This was a matter of a serious consideration of the law itself.

  Adult meant adult in years—not necessarily in maturity, of course!

  So, this was totally out of the question for teenagers—well commercial-ly, anyway! Remember we’re talking about the never-never land of the mid-twentieth century where people saved such “trash” for adult consump-tion only!

  Natch. Of course! That’s the law, babe!

  So gotta keep it clean as glass for the pure, untouched kiddies. Well, as they say in the cartoons: That’s all folks!

  Not so. Believe it or not!

  And I ain’t playin’ dat game! Mind ya manners!

  Well, I whacked out the manuscript in due time, and deadline time, too, to boot (and I did tell ya this was previous to the PC where ya can get the boot at the twist of a perverted mouse! And you always have to boot up just to get started. To boot!).

  Again, I’ve perverted the sticky trail to the publication of the very Queen we’ve been chatti
n’ about! But ain’t sorry about that, thank you! I think I’m avoiding the obvious (to me, anyway!).

  Back to the subject at hand, which could, under other circumstances be, perhaps, a delicious detour to land of passions unknown. But, alas, things never work out as you expect them to.

  The very colorful Queen herself was something else, indeed! To say the least. And the least said about her the safer we all are. I mean, who wants a veggie suckin’ a bod dry?

  Veggie? Did I say Veggie? Sure did. With, perhaps, good reason. [And maybe pure madness!]

  Thus it is that we come to the very color of her skin: Green as any proud celery stalk. And this, surprisingly enough, matched the name of the publisher! GREEN. Turn the leaf of a book and what do you get?

  GREENLEAF.

  [See how I manage to go quickly to the point?]

  And since this was such a major production, both in the quickie produc-tion of the film and the rapid delivery of the manuscript, why not just give it a suitable label? After all it is truly a classic example of fast creative en-ergy doled out to the public at large for a quick buck!

  Greenleaf Classics.

  For sure that’s impressive, don’t ya think?

  Sure was. As far as that goes.

  And it actually went quite a distance.

  The publishing complex which would deliver the Queen to the news-stands of America was owned by a master publisher with a magnificent background in the science fiction field!

  William L. Hamling had been a publisher of sf magazines like Stardust, Imagination, Imaginative Tales, and Space Travel in the early fifties. Before that, he worked as an editor on Amazing Stories and Fantastic Adventures for Ziff-Davis. Chicago. He was sure to respect the teenage sf market which had started in the mid-’20s when Amazing Stories first hit the news-stands. This magazine literally invented, just about single handedly, a total-ly new kind of pulp fiction called scientifiction that ended up being more classically labeled science fiction, which was changed by Mr. Science Fic-tion himself, Forry Ackerman, to sci-fi! BIG BILL H would certainly honor the memory of that grand literary standard of which he’d been such a fa-mous supplier during his grand editing/publishing career.