Posts Tagged ‘Howard Waldrop’

Howard Waldrop: 1946-2024

Monday, January 15th, 2024

It is my sad duty to report that my friend, science fiction writer Howard Waldrop, died yesterday, January 14, 2024.

According to Robert Taylor: “Howard had a stroke around 1pm. EMS worked on him for over an hour. They got a pulse and took him to the hospital, but at the hospital they were unable to maintain the pulse and he died around 3pm.”

Howard had suffered a number of health maladies recently, but had been on the mend. I saw him just last week, and he was moving slightly better, and still mentally sharp.

I had known Howard since we interviewed him for Nova Express in 1987, and I’m one of the legions of people who corresponded with him (his preferred form of communication) when our respective journeys took us away from Austin.

Howard was one of the finest short story writers the field has ever produced. “The Ugly Chickens” is an acknowledged classic. “Night of the Cooters.” “Fin de Cycle.” “…The World As We Know’t.” “Horror We Got.” Great stories only Howard could have written. Plus great collaborations like “Black As the Pit, from Pole to Pole” (with Steve Utley) and “The Later Days of the Law” (with Bruce Sterling).

Howard was never far away from penury, and he relied on a network of friends to keep him above water. He rented a spare room from me for six months, for values of “rent” that included no exchange of money, but he did do odd jobs around the house, and he always paid his share of utilities. Before that I had paid him to stain and varnish several bookcases when I moved into my house.

Living with Howard was half like living with the smartest, most erudite man that ever lived, and half like living with Grandpa Simpson. Howard had a nearly encyclopedic knowledge of mid-20th century pop culture, and had seen just about every damn English language movie made up into the 1970s or so (and a bunch of foreign ones beside). His knowledge of history was similarly immense.

And then he would do things like come into the kitchen were I was bleary-eyedly eating breakfast and tell me “You know, the milk at the local HEB is three cents more than the milk at the HEB down south.” As though this was information vital to my existence.

Howard was brilliant, but he was also as stubborn as the day is long, and a decided Luddite. He never owned a computer and would only use one under duress (he grudgingly agreed to enter his portion of our joint movie reviews into my Mac when he lived here). At one point around 1989 or so, Howard was at (I think) Pat Cadigan’s house after a con, and joined one of our Delphi Wednesday Night Group chats (attended by Gardner Dozois, Mike Resnick, and a host of other luminaries, many now also gone). “Howard, what do you think of cyberspace?” “It’s icky!”

Howard loved movies, television, history, reading, and fishing, and got around to writing either when deadlines pressed, or when all the pieces finally mentally clicked into place just so.

I mourn for Howard, and for the numerous in-progress works we may never get to read. Maybe enough of The Moone World (in progress since the late 1980s) exists for someone like longtime friend George R. R. Martin to finish it. I suspect even less exists of the even-longer in gestation I, John Mandeville. And Moving Waters, a fictional history of America through third-party politics and fishing, probably only existed in Howard’s head.

Howard was universally loved by pretty much everyone he knew and the science fiction field as a whole. He was our own homegrown Mr. National Treasure and a sturdy friend, and will be greatly missed.

Howard after tripping on some steps at the 2013 San Antonio Worldcon.

Library Addition: Two Subterranean Press Firsts

Friday, December 22nd, 2023

These came in a while back, but I haven’t had room to shelve them until I finished finishing my latest bookcase.

  • Tiptree, James Jr. (Alice Sheldon). The Voice That Murmurs in the Darkness. Subterranean Press, 2023. First edition hardback, #389 of 1,000 numbered copies, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket and publisher’s plastic bag. Includes out of print and previously uncollected work, including the essay “How to Have An Absolutely Hilarious Heart Attack” and the story “Beam Us Home.”

  • Waldrop, Howard (George R. R. Martin and Bradley Denton, editors). H’ard Starts. Subterranean Press, 2023. First edition hardback, #414 of 750 numbered copies signed by Waldrop, Martin and Denton. Collection of early, rare Waldrop stories from a wide variety sources, including a 25 copy self-published story from 1966! (I have a copy and provided George with the text.) Now out of print from the publisher.

  • Library Additions: Seven PBOs

    Monday, February 6th, 2023

    Finishing up recorded the Metroplex PBO buys. All of these came from Half-Price Books.

  • Pohl, Frederik, and C. M. Kornbluth. The Space Merchants. Ballantine Books, 1953. First edition paperback original (no statement of printing, and simultaneous with the hardback edition, as per Currey), a Fine- copy with a touch of edgewear at points, otherwise new and unread. Pringle, SF 100 12. Currey, pages 289 and 405. Barron, Anatomy of Wonder 4 *3-147. Magill, Survey of Science Fiction volume 5, pages 2127-2131. Supplements a hardback first inscribed to my by Pohl. Bought for $3.

  • Pohl, Frederik, and Jack Williamson. Starchild. Ballantine Books, 1965. First edition paperback original (“”First printing: November 1965″ and 50¢ price, as per Currey), a Fine- copy with just a trace of edgewear at head and heel and a tiny 3/16” non-breaking indention to front cover, otherwise tight, square and unread. Second book in the Starchild trilogy. Currey, pages 405 and 544. Supplements the SFBC Omnibus The Starchild Trilogy inscribed to me by Pohl and Williamson. Bought for $3.

  • Smith, Cordwainer. Space Lords. Pyramid, 1965. First edition paperback original, a Fine copy save a trace of foxing to inside covers. Currey, page 315. Bought for $4.00.
  • Smith, Cordwainer. The Underpeople. Pyramid, 1968. First edition paperback original, a Near Fine copy with one faint spine crease, bookstore stamp to blurb page, and edgewear. Part two of Nostrilia. Currey, page 315. Pringle, SF 100 46 (for Nostrilia). Bought for $1.99.

  • Smith, E. E. “Doc”. The Galaxy Primes. Ace Books, 1965. First edition paperback original (no statement of printing and 40¢ price, as per Currey), a Fine copy save for a trace of foxing to inside covers, otherwise tight, square and unread. Lucchetti, Doc: First Galactic Roamer, pages 50-51 (“Never issued in hardback.”) Currey, page 456. Bought for $3.

  • Vance, Jack. Showboat World. Pyramid, 1975. First edition paperback original (“March 1975” on copyright page and $1.25 cover price, as per Currey), a Near Fine+ copy with one slight spine wrinkle near heel, a few very small, very faint phantom crease on rear cover, and two very faint parallel printing lines across teaser page (looks like an artifact of the printing process). I read this last year and it’s still great fun. Hewett A47a. Cunningham 71a. Currey, page 500. Bought for $2.99.
  • Waldrop, Howard. Strange Monsters of the Recent Past. Ace, 1991. First edition paperback original thus, adding A Dozen Tough Jobs to the contents of All About Strange Monsters of the Recent Past, a Fine copy, now inscribed to me by Waldrop. I’ve had a lot of copies of this over the years, but since I already had All About Strange Monsters of the Recent Past and A Dozen Tough Jobs, I never added a copy to my own library until now. Bought for $3.

  • Library Addition: The Gonzo Tapes (Lansdale, Waldrop, Barrett)

    Monday, October 11th, 2021

    Another private collector Lansdale purchase:

    Lansdale, Joe R., Howard Waldrop and Neal Barrett, Jr. The Gonzo Tapes. Scorpio Inc., no date (Howard says he recorded his October 7, 1992; since they were first sold at Armadillocon, and that year’s Armadillocon started just two days later, I’m guessing it was released at the 1993 Armadillocon). First edition cassette tape package, containing three cassettes with two stories each being read by authors Joe R. Lansdale (“Steppin’ Out, Summer 1968” and “By Bizarre Hands”), Howard Waldrop (“French Scenes” and “The Passing of the Western”) and Neal Barrett, Jr. (“Winter on the Belle Forche” and “Class of ’61”), along with a single trifold sheet attached to the inside of the front case lid with adhesive to the back, a Fine copy. Bought from that same private collector for $10.

    Neal Barrett’s wife Ruth was the driving force behind this project. According to Howard, these all sold out at the Armadillocon they were released at, but I know copies were easy to find for many years after. Now, however, you don’t see them much anymore, and there’s precious little information about this on the Internet…

    Interview With Howard Waldrop in the Austin Chronicle

    Friday, October 6th, 2017

    Yeah, you should probably read it.

    Photos From the 2014 Armadillocon

    Wednesday, September 3rd, 2014

    We interrupt this cavalcade of books, Slowdive covers and tanks to offer up some pics from the 2014 Armadillocon, which occurred a little more than a week before I flew off to London.


    Howard Waldrop. Actually a pretty good picture of him.


    Claude Lalumiere


    The elusive Robert Taylor. Like most pictures of him taken in the wild, it’s a bit blurry…


    Ian McDonald. I would say he’s signing one of the way too many of my own books I had him sign, but since I own the Simon & Schuster UK (true first) edition of River of Gods, not the Pyr first American edition, obviously it’s someone else’s book…


    Arch-villain Denman Glober caught outside her secret underground lair.


    Ted Chiang.


    One of these men had a role in Once Upon A Time in China VI.


    Martha Wells.


    Mark Finn, describing his wrestling match with the gorilla.


    Patrice Sarath.


    Ian McDonald and Ted Chiang at the bar.

    Library Additions: Chacal #1 Signed by Tom Reamy

    Thursday, March 20th, 2014

    I just got a big box of books from a dealer holding a 70% off sale, which I’ll probably be cataloging for the next week or so. This is the item that made me start piling things in the virtual basket for immediate purchase:

    Chacal No. 1. First edition magazine original, a Fine- copy with slight bumping to top of spine. Signed by contributors Tom Reamy, Howard Waldrop, Richard Corben, Tim Kirk, and publisher Arnie Fenner.

    Chacal

    Reamy Sig

    Tom Reamy was widely acclaimed as the very best SF writer in Texas, winning a John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer as well as a Nebula Award for “San Diego Lightfoot Sue.” Reamy died of a heart attack on November 4, 1977 at the horrifically young age of 42. Reamy had no books of his own published during his lifetime, and things signed by him are genuinely rare and seldom come on the market.

    Chacal was Arnie Fenner’s first magazine, a big color glossy magazine featuring first-rate fantasy fiction and art. (After two issues this would be followed up by Shayol, which had more of a science fiction focus, co-edited with Fenner’s then-wife Pat Cadigan.)

    Howard believes that this was almost certainly signed at the 1976 Worldcon in Kansas City, which is the only time he recalled all of them being together at the same place and time after it was published.

    Price paid: $29.99.

    Photos from the 2013 San Antonio Worldcon

    Monday, December 9th, 2013

    I knew that dealing books at Worldcon would eat up a lot of time, but I had no idea just how much time it would take me to not only get all the books back on the shelf, but to catch up on everything I set aside while getting ready for, then recovering from, Worldcon.

    Which explains why I’m just now putting up the pictures I took there. Here are the handful of pictures I took at Worldcon that came out decent.

    Clotheshorse that she is, the lovely and talented Gail Carriger kicks off our review with the first of three outfits I managed to photograph.

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    A second.

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    And a third.

    And here’s the same outfit she insisted I snap with her own camera. “You’ve got to include the shoes!”

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    Stina Leicht, sitting next to me at the Rayguns Over Texas event at the San Antonio Library.

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    Scott Cupp and Josh Rountree at the same event. The other photos I took there came out crappy.

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    Bookseller and con chair Mike Walsh.

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    Lou Antonelli channels Flavor-Flav.

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    Howard Waldrop and Eileen Gunn, just before Howard went three rounds with a concrete step.

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    And here’s Howard just after that bout.

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    Andrew Porter, now free of the terrible burden of publishing a semi-prozine.

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    Pat Murphy, back again.

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    Ex-NASA employee Al Jackson.

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    Ex-Austinite Maureen McHugh.

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    Kim Stanley Robinson, back from whatever frozen locale he’s visiting this time. Possibly Iapetus.

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    Gardner Dozois at full rant.

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    Gardner Dozois at full rest. The two modes are deceptively similar.

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    In 2012, Pat Cadigan asked me to take down one of her pictures. So this year I made sure that this picture with Robert Silverberg was 100% flattering.

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    I think this is a very good picture of Dwight Brown.

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    Rich Simental, who spent much of the con in his room working on a completely different con.

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    Ben Yalow. Or possibly one of those hundreds of Ben Yalow impersonators you hear so much about.

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    Max Merriwell, in a very clever diusguise.

    David Kyle

    David Kyle, who I think has passed the late Forrest J. Ackerman for Most Worldcons Attended.

    I’m sorry that I didn’t get pictures of Alastair Reynolds, David Brin, Jack McDevitt, Joe and Joy Haldeman, and Lois McMaster Bujold (among others I missed), who were all kind enough to come by the Lame Excuse Books booth.

    Howard Waldrop and I Review The Hobbit

    Monday, December 17th, 2012

    Over at Locus Online.

    I liked it more than Howard did.

    Howard Waldrop and I Review Prometheus

    Monday, June 11th, 2012

    Over at Locus Online. It wasn’t as good as we hoped it would be.