Monthly Terrors, Lost Writers

A few weeks ago I ran across a wonderful essay by Jessica Amanda Salmonson about an old friend of hers, the late fantasy writer David Madison. Madison (1951-1978) published, from what I can tell, only 18 stories, and only one of those, "Tower of Darkness," appeared in a major publication(it was in SWORDS AGAINST DARKNESS III, the excellent series published in the late Seventies by Zebra and edited by the wonderful andrew j. offutt.) The url for the essay I mention is here: (www.violetbooks.com/d-madison.html). In it, Salmonson does a far better job than I could of evaluating Madison's character and work; I didn't know him, of course, and have read only the one story mentioned above; I ordered the book based on her description just to read it. The rest of his stories appeared in numerous small press S&S/fantasy zines which existed in that era and which I, a callow youth growing up in the sticks of northern Arkansas, didn't even know existed -- Dragonfields, Space & Time, the New Fantasy Journal, Astral Dimensions, Wyrd, the Diversifier, and Dragonbane. Salmonson struggled to get out collections of his work without success, after his death. Many of his stories featured a likable and ahead-of-their-time sexually oriented pair of rogues, Marcus and Diana, she being an Amazonian warrior, he being, from my reading of the one story, a witty drag queen. More power to that, says I. Salmonson's essay is also well worth reading because of her pointed and brilliant dissection of the unspoken sex and power politics in the typical S&S tale before and since. His stories are, I hope and imagine, as well worth seeking out and reading as the ones that made it to the big time before he shuffled off this plane at age 26 or 27, despite their obscure publications. The thing is, I wouldn't have known about any of this if not for a passing reference in Salmonson's essay, where she says, "Others have ... begun to use the bibliographic volume Monthly Terrors as a guide to tracking down David's rarest items." Monthly Terrors: An Index to the Weird Fantasy Magazines Published in the United States and Great Britain is is a 601 page index, an unpretentiously bound hardback, edited by Frank H. Parnell and Mike Ashley. It contains virtually every magazine of a "fantasy/weird" nature published between 1919-1983. It is arranged by magazine title and by author, and lists the full contents of each issue, and every story the author published and where. To some people, this will sound dry as fuck, and they are right, but to the rest of us? Sheer paradise! Every zine you've ever heard of but haven't seen and never will? It's here: COPPER TOADSTOOL, MOONBROTH, CHACAL, HORROR SEX TALES :-), NYCTALOPS, SHAYOL, TOADSTOOL WINE, WITCHCRAFT & SORCERY, etc. If you're One of Us, I'm sure you get my point. Not only an indispensible tool for the collector, but for the writer? Next time you're stuck for a title, look no further. There are many suggestive ones in here. All of them, in fact. Well, I've ranted too long for one post -- plus it's time for a run to the beer store -- so I'll stop. Read Salmonson's essay; maybe if enough people holler, the adventures of Marcus and Diana will someday be collected. In the meantime, MONTHLY TERRORS is just cool as shit, and I recommend it unabashedly.