Alphabetical SFF

[beenorthern]

You are right, J.D. -- this was the second book in Charles Saunders' trilogy (*Imaro*, *The Quest for Cush*, & *The Trail of Bohu*). I bought these as they came out in yellow-spined DAW editions, and I vaguely remember meeting Saunders at a Toronto convention more than twenty years ago ... Wikipedia tells me that the first book was published in 1981! and that the omnibus was scheduled for publication this year. I googled around a bit and I find Nightshade Books is publishing revised editions ... I hadn't realized there was a renewed interest in this author -- thanks!

[j. d. worthington]

You're quite welcome! I couldn't remember where I'd run across the information, but it must have been on the Night Shade site, as I've been dealing with them to get the Wm. Hope Hodgson and Clark Ashton Smith sets... Glad the information was of use!

[Brown Rat]

R. U. ready for R.?

Robots!
rovers (Mars and Lunar)
rockets
rings (of Saturn)
replicants
research
rejuvenation

R.U.R. (Capek)
Rainbow Mars (Niven)
Ringworld (Niven)
Revolt on Alpha C (Silverbeg)
Roderick (Sladek)
Red Mars (Robinson)
Rogue Star (Pohl)
Right of Passage (Panshin)
Rocketship Galileo (Heinlein)
Riddley Walker (Hoban)
Restoree (McCaffrey)
Red Thunder (Varley)
Return to Mars (Bova)

Michaella Roessner
Joanna Russ
Geoff Ryman
Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Kim Stanley Robinson
Jennifer Roberson

Mark Robson!

(R is rich. I shouldn't be greedy. I'll stop.)

[j. d. worthington]

Clara Reeve -- first woman to write a Gothic novel (as opposed to "fragment"): The Old English Baron (originally published as The Champion of Virtue in 1777)

Ann Radcliffe -- the "Queen of Terrors", she wrote six novels in the Gothic vein, and set the standard for restraint, blending the sentimental novel with the tale of terror, and adding a liberal dash of Burkean philosophy into the mix, producing a high-water mark in quiet explorations of eeriness which influences even the best of supernatural writers today

Jean Ray -- nom de plume of Jean-Raymond De Kremer (he also wrote as John Flanders), who wrote over 20 novels and collections, many dealing with horrific or fantastic themes, such as Malpertuis (1943), about the dying Greek gods imprisoned in an accursed house

George W. M. Reynolds -- prolific hack writer for the penny dreadfuls, his greatest claim to fame lies with the (then) enormously popular Mysteries of London (1845), Faust: A Romance of the Secret Tribunals (1845-46) and Wagner the Wehr-Wolf (1847), one of the earliest (and lengthiest) stories in English on the subject of lycanthropy, blending it with the Faust legend.

Mrs. L. Baillie Reynolds -- now sadly nearly forgotten, Mrs. Reynolds wrote several weird and fantastic stories, including A Castle to Let (1917), about a lady who finds herself inhabiting a dragon-haunted castle and the story collection The Terrible Baron (1933), with its long title story, another tale of lycanthropy.

Mrs. J. H. Riddell -- writer of several excellent tales of the supernatural, beginning with "Fairy Water" (1873); her stories were later collected into three volumes: Weird Stories (1884), Idle Tales (1887) and The Banshee's Warning (1894), the best of which were reprinted in a single volume as The Collected Ghost Stories of Mrs. J. H. Riddell

Tod Robbins -- though seldom truly supernatural, Tod Robbins holds a place in any roster of horror writers for his story "Spurs", which became the basis for the noted film Freaks; he also wrote the story that would become the Lon Chaney film (now lost) London After Midnight, later remade as Mark of the Vampire.

Morley Roberts -- another writer now largely forgotten, he wrote several tales using fantastic themes, including "The Fog", "A Thing of Wax" and "The Blood Fetish", about a disembodied hand that can, through absorbing blood, temporarily create an entire body.

Sax Rohmer (Arthur Sarsfield Ward) -- creator of the infamous Dr. Fu Manchu, he also wrote many other works using weird and fantastic themes, including the eerie Brood of the Witch-Queen (1917).

L. T. C. Rolt -- wrote several stories with supernatural themes, including the collection of ghost stories Sleep No More (1948).

Victor Rousseau -- wrote many stories using fantastic and horror themes, from "The Seal Maiden" (1913), based on a Canadian legend, to The Sea Demons (1916), about transparent sea-creatures invading England (said to have influenced HPL's conception of the Innsmouth denizens -- all one can sense of Rousseau's demons are their eyes, and the pervading odor of fish and the sea). He also wrote two separate series of tales about psychic investigators in the 1920s and 1930s.

Anthony M. Rud -- he has the distinguishment of having written the cover story for the very first issue of Weird Tales Magazine, "Ooze", a tale which has influenced tales of menacing blobs ever since; he also wrote a ghastly novel titled The Stuffed Men (1935), about a secret society whose method of vengeance involves a fungus which grows in their victims lungs, stomach and brain.

Ray Russell -- writer of several macabre tales, he was also executive editor of Playboy magazine in its early years; he was the editor who launched the career of Charles Beaumont, author of "The Howling Man"; his most famous tale is undoubtedly "Sardonicus", later adapted into a film directed by William Castle.

W. Clark Russell -- Another writer enamored of the mystery and awe of the sea, his story The Frozen Pirate (1887) was an early influence on Lovecraft; he also wrote a novel of the Flying Dutchman, The Death Ship (1888) and a collection of weird sea stories, The Phantom Death (1895; recently reprinted).

Arthur Ransome -- chiefly known for his children's books, he also wrote one novel of the supernatural, The Elixir of Life (1915) which has now become nearly unobtainable; fortunately, it is scheduled to be reprinted sometime in 2008-2009.

Solomon Rappoport ("Ansky") -- wrote the very successful stage play "The Dybbuk", dealing with the spirit of an evil old dead man who possesses another.

[beenorthern]

*R is for Rocket* Ray Bradbury
*Red Moon, Black Mountain* Joy Chant
*The Raven Warrior* Alice Borchardt
*Rendezvous with Rama* Arthur C. Clarke
*A Rose Red City* Dave Duncan
*Realm of the Gods* Catherine Cooke
*Rissa Kerguelen* F.M. Busby
*Rusalka* C.J. Cherryh
*Red As Blood* Tanith Lee
*Retief and the Pangalactic Pageant of Pulchritude* Keith Laumer

Marta Randall
Katya Reimann
Anne Rice
Spider Robinson
Michael Scott Rohan
Eric Frank Russell

Sorry, but must point out that Alexei Panshin's book is *RITE of Passage*

[Brown Rat]

Originally Posted by beenorthern

Sorry, but must point out that Alexei Panshin's book is *RITE of Passage*

You're rite! (Of course! Thanks for catching my error, Beenorthern.)

[j. d. worthington]

Are we ready for "S"?

"Smith of Wootton Major", by J. R. R. Tolkien

The Silver Stallion and Something About Eve, by James Branch Cabell

The Sorcerer's Ship, by Hannes Bok

The Shaving of Shagpat, by George Meredith

The Spawn of Cthulhu, edited by Lin Carter

The Song of Rhiannon, by Evangeline Walton

The Sundering Flood, by William Morris

Clark Ashton Smith -- fantaisiste extraordinaire, poet of the cosmic, and sculptor and painter of fantastic realms and creatures

Sir Walter Scott -- incorporated many fantastic motifs in his Waverley novels, including "Wandering Willie's Tale" in Redgauntlet

William Shakespeare -- Macbeth, Hamlet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest....

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley -- Mother of the most famous monster (and the first science fiction novel, according to many sf historians) of all; she also wrote several fantastic shorter pieces, as well as the post-apocalyptic novel The Last Man

Percy Bysshe Shelley -- he also wrote several poems dealing with supernatural and fantastic themes, in addition to his to early Gothic novels, St. Irvyne; or, The Rosicrucian, and Zastrozzi: A Romance

Matthew Phipps Shiel -- author of several fantastic and supernatural tales, including "Xelucha", "The House of Sounds" and another post-apocalyptic novel, The Purple Cloud

May Sinclair -- author of a collection of ghostly tales (now, sadly, very difficult to obtain), Uncanny Stories (1923)

Robert Louis Stevenson -- wrote several supernatural, fantastic and proto-science fiction tales, including "The Body Snatcher", "Markheim", and certainly the best-known tale of divided personality, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886)

Bram Stoker -- in addition to writing the world's most famous vampire novel, Dracula (1897), Stoker wrote several other supernatural tales, the best of the shorter ones having been recently gathered together

Peter Saxon -- he wrote not only for the Sexton Blake Library, but also wrote a series of occult novels inspired by Dennis Wheatley, beginning with The Darkest Night (1966) and including The Disorientated Man (1967), which was filmed as Scream and Scream Again (1969)

William B. Seabrook -- wrote one of the most famous boks on voodoo, and one which has continued to influence literary handlings of the theme to this day: The Magic Island. He also wrote several supernatural and fantastic tales, such as "Toussel's Pale Bride" and "The Witch's Vengeance".

Claude Seignolle -- though most of his work remains available only in French, Les maledictions was translated in 1967 as The Accursed, and centers on the baleful influence of a strange statue on a young girl.

Curt Siodmak -- less well known today than he deserves, Siodmak not only wrote the scripts for several of the Universal Horror films during the 1940s, such as The Wolf Man and Black Friday (as well as adapting Jane Eyre to the screen as I Walked with a Zombie, and doing an adaptation of the story The Beast with Five Fingers), but he also wrote Donovan's Brain (1942), about the brain of a criminal which gains an influence over others, and which was filmed several times (including a version with Lew Ayres -- alias Doctor Kildaire!).

Thorne Smith -- wrote several humorous fantasy and supernatural tales, the most famous being those centering on the character of Topper, many of which were later filmed (and even became a television series with Leo G. Carroll).

Theodore Sturgeon -- one of the shining lights of sf from the late 1940s on, he wrote some of the true classics of the field, such as More Than Human, "The [Widget], the [Wadget], and Boff", "Microcosmic God", as well as the vampire novel Some of Your Blood (1961).

Thomas Burnett Swann -- one of the best of the mid-century fantaisistes, whose novels and stories always had a delicate, poignant air with well-developed characters and an excellent use of mythological themes. He died in 1976 at the age of 47 and, sadly, his work is now already nearly forgotten.

[Brown Rat]

stars
starships
slipstream
Saturn
Sol

Spock and Star Trek

Cordwainer Smith
Charles Sheffield
Melissa Scott
Robert Silverberg
Wen Spencer
Joan Slonczewski
James Schmitz
Elizabeth Scarborough
Pamela Sargent
Carl Sagan (?)

Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash
Olaf Stapledon, Starmaker

San Diego Lightfoot Sue (Tom Reamy)
Speaker for the Dead (Orson Scott Card)
Starship Troopers (Robert Heinlein)
Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand (Samuel Delany)
Superliminal (Vonda McIntyre)

[chrispenycate]

Authors Michael Swanwick, S.M. Stirling, Clifford Simac, EE (Doc) Smith, Bruce Stirling, Fred Saberhagen, Robert Sheckley.

Plot Elements star whatever (trek, wars, gate, fire) space similar (ship, suit, travel) , super powers, sword, spear, saga, sorcery, Sirius, Spirit. satyre, satire,
sleep, sidhe, spectrum,

[Brown Rat]

Wait, wait, wait: I am ashamed that I didn't list Joss Whedon's

Serenity

in my previous post.

[j. d. worthington]

And now for "T":

Johann Ludwig Tieck -- one of the great German Romantic writers, wrote many fantastic and horrific tales inspired by legend and myth, best known now for his quietly restrained yet magical fairy tales

Rosemary Timperley -- long a reigning light in British horror and ghost literature, she got her real start when Lady Cynthia Asquith chose her "Christmas Meeting" for The Second Ghost Book (1952); she also edited volumes 5 through 9 of the series

Ivan Turgenev -- though more famous for his stand against the reigning powers of his day, Turgenev also penned some very interesting fantastic tales in his later life, such as "Klava Milich" (about spiritualism) and "Bubnoff and the Devil", where we are introduced to the devil's grandmother...

The Tale of Terror -- one of the most famous and influential studies of the horror tale, written by Edith Birkhead, this was also one of the earliest to treat the subject sympathetically

"The Tale of Satampra Zeiros" -- fantasy by Clark Ashton Smith, capturing his marvelous blending of beauty, horror, and irony

Tales of a Traveller -- by Washington Irving, which collected together some of his tales hinting of the supernatural, such as "The Money Diggers", with its hints of apparitions of Captain Kidd and his crew, and the famous "Adventure of the German Student", using the ancient tale of the corpse-bride

Tales of Terror and Tales of Wonder -- by Matthew Gregory ("Monk") Lewis; these featured both verse and prose romances, often with supernatural or fantastic elements, and occasionally with comic touches as well

"Tam O'Shanter" -- by Robert Burns, which captures the sly humor and ghastly horror of the Scotch ghostly tale

"The Tapestried Chamber" -- by Sir Walter Scott; one of the most famous of his ghostly tales, this one is more serious and less given to levity, yet is quietly convincing in its circumstantial account of the ghostly happenings

The Terror and The Three Impostors -- by Arthur Machen; the first looks at what would happen if the world of Nature rebelled against humanity because of the loss of its spirituality, while the second is an episodic novel in the Stevenson manner, with both humorous and horrific aspects, and includes the two famous tales "The Novel of the White Powder" and "The Novel of the Black Seal"

They Return at Evening -- first of the collections of ghostly tales by the often overlooked H. R. Wakefield; contains the often reprinted "The Red Lodge"

A Thin Ghost and Others -- third of the four collections of tales by M. R. James, most famous of the writers of the English ghostly tale, eclipsing even his mentor, J. S. Le Fanu

"The Terrible Old Man", "The Thing on the Doorstep", "The Tomb" -- all tales by H. P. Lovecraft, set in his beloved New England, capturing variously an ironic fantastic tale, a chapter in his Cthulhu Mythos, and a Poesque tale of possession -- the last being the first tale of his mature period after a 9 year hiatus in writing

"The Tree" -- a title shared by stories by both Walter de la Mare and H. P. Lovecraft, the latter being one of his Dunsanian fantasies, the former a subtle tale of ghostly presences felt but not seen

The Turn of the Screw -- most famous of the several fantastic and ghostly tales written by Henry James, frequently adapted to both stage and screen

Tramontane -- by Emil Petaja, science fiction novel, part of a set based upon the Kalevala

James Tiptree, Jr. -- pen name of Alice Sheldon; Tiptree was one of the most brilliant luminaries of science fiction of the 1970s and 1980s; a retrospective of her shorter fiction was collected together after her death, Her Smoke Rose Up Forever

The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare -- fantastic tale by G. K. Chesterton, humorous in handling yet with a darker undertone throughout; a very odd and often disturbing novel

Titus Groan and Titus Alone -- the first and third books of the Gormenghast set by Mervyn Peake

Thulsa Doom -- skull-faced necromancer created by Robert E. Howard in his Kull tale "Delcardes' Cat"

and, of course, the most famous modern fantasy writer of them all:

J.R.R. Tolkien -- creator of Middle-earth and scholar of languages and fairy-tales

[Brown Rat]

Harry Turtledove
Sherri Tepper
Karen Traviss
Amy Thomson

Tarzan
Titan
time travel
trilogy

Tik-Tok of Oz (Baum)
Time Machine (Wells)
Thorns (Silverberg)
Thieves' World (Asprin)

TSR gaming

[hypocriticHarkonnen]

(maaaan, someone beat me to Tolkien!!)

T is for...
Tombs of Atuan (LeGuin
The Lord of the Rings (Tolkien)
The Sea of Trolls (Farmer)
The Chronicles of Narnia (Lewis)
Tonks from Harry Potter

....aaand this is it for now....

[beenorthern]

Judith Tarr
Wilson Tucker
George Turner
Diann Thornley
William Tenn
Stephen Tall

*Timescape* Gregory Benford
*A Tapestry of Magics* Brian Daley
*Tigana* Guy Gavriel Kay
*True Names* Vernor Vinge
*To Your Scattered Bodies Go* Philip Jose Farmer
*Ten Little Wizards* Randall Garrett & Michael Kurland
*Taran Wanderer* Lloyd Alexander
*Two-Bit Heroes* Doris Egan
*A Touch of Strange* Theodore Sturgeon
*Time Storm* Gordon R. Dickson
*Tiger by the Tail* Alan Nourse
*The Towers of Utopia* Mack Reynolds
*The Third Level* Jack Finney
*The Time Before This* Nicholas Monsarrat
*Toolmaker Koan* John McLoughlin
*Thorns* Robert Silverberg
*Twilight Eyes* Dean R. Koontz
*Third from the Sun* Richard Matheson
*Tales of Known Space* Larry Niven
*To Say Nothing of the Dog* Connie Willis
*Transfigurations* Michael Bishop
*Telempath* Spider Robinson
*Through the Reality Warp* Donald J. Pfeil
*Triton* Samuel R. Delaney
*This Immortal* Roger Zelazny
*The Third Eye* Theodore R. Cogswill
*Tea With the Black Dragon* R.A. MacAvoy
*Tau Zero* Poul Anderson
*Tropic of Creation* Kay Kenyon
*Twelve Fair Kingdoms* Suzette Haden Elgin

[j. d. worthington]

And now for U:

Allan Upward -- Irish barrister and headmaster of Inverness College, he also wrote such tales as "The Man Who Lived Backwards" (1905), a series titled "The Ghost Hunters", and a weird lost-race novel, The Discovery of the Dead (1910)

The Uninvited (1942) -- known in the UK as Uneasy Freehold, a neo-Gothic romantic novel by Dorothy Macardle, filmed in 1944 with Ray Milland, one of the better attempts at a ghost story on film, nearly on a level with The Haunting or The Innocents

George Allen & Unwin -- the original publishers of Tolkien's Hobbit and Lord of the Rings; without their commitment and willingness to take a risk, the face of modern fantasy would be completely different

Undine -- English title of Die Jarheszeiten (1811), the lovely supernatural fantasy/fairy tale by Heinrich Karl, Baron de la Motte Fouque

"The Unnamable" and "Under the Pyramids" -- two tales by H. P. Lovecraft, the first part of the Randolph Carter cycle (though generally this is not noticed) and the second (more commonly known as "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs" -- "Under the Pyramids" was the original title) a ghost-written job for Harry Houdini

"The UnbrokenChain" (1923) -- a story mentioned, though not named, by Lovecraft in his Supernatural Horror in Literature, this was one of the few essays into the weird by the Southern humorist Irvin S. Cobb

Uncanny Stories (1923) -- collection of ghostly tales by May Sinclair, which lean more upon the occult explanations rather than genuine atmosphere; still a valuable addition to the field

"The Undying Thing" (1901) -- story by Barry Pain, an often forgotten master of the form, whose work is, thankfully, now undergoing something of a revival

"The Upper Berth" (1894) -- one of the most famous ghost stories, and certainly one of the best, about a ship haunted by the all-too-palpable ghost of a suicide

Ungoliant -- spirit of malice, possibly one of the Maiar corrupted by Morgoth; it was through the poison in her bite that he was able to kill the Two Trees, bringing darkness to Arda and an end to the peace of the Noldor in Valinor

Union of Maedhros -- a military alliance formed by Maedhros in First Age 473 to assault Morgoth; because of some of the evil deeds of the Sons of Feanor, the noble enterprise failed in its ultimate purpose, yet it achieved many noble deeds

Undomiel ("evening-maiden") -- name given to Arwen because she was the most beautiful of the elven folk in their fading years in Middle-earth

Undying Lands -- those lands which lie west of Belegaer, Aman and Tol Eressea; the lands to which the elves who had the pardon of the Valar returned when leaving Middle-earth

Ulysses (or Odysseus) -- perhaps the most famous voyager of all, his exploits form part of The Iliad and the center of The Odyssey

Utopia -- Name given to the mythical island of his metaphorical romance by Sir Thomas More, the land where everything is perfect; the word means literally "nowhere" or "no place"

Ubbo-Sathla -- mindless demiurge and subject of a tale featuring the regression of a modern man into a series of earlier incarnations written by Clark Ashton Smith