The Lost History of a Strange Planet Earth: Erich von Däniken’s Chariots of the Gods? and the Pseudoscience Bestsellers of the 1970s

The Lost History of a Strange Planet Earth: Erich von Däniken’s Chariots of the Gods? and the Pseudoscience Bestsellers of the 1970s

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Chariots of the Gods? by Erich von Däniken (Bantam Books, 1971)

In my last post, I mentioned Erich von Däniken’s Chariots of the Gods? to introduce a Ken Bulmer (as Manning Norvil) heroic fantasy trilogy. When I first read Chariots, as an imaginative young lad of 13 or so, I believed he was on to something, and I went looking for more “exposes” of hidden history.

Boy did I find them. The book’s success, which appeared in German in 1968 and in English in 1971, spawned a TV movie In Search of Ancient Astronauts (1973), which was hosted by Rod Serling. And almost immediately other and related books and films began to appear.

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Friendships Matter

Friendships Matter

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A young red spaniel lies down and looks lovingly at a young black cat.
Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

Good afterevenmorn, Readers!

I’m going to rant a bit this post, so if apologies in advance for getting too serious about things that are, in fact, quite fun.

I want to talk friendships. Friendships in fiction, specifically, and how they’re often hijacked by well-meaning, representation-starved folks, and how that robs us of examples of deep, meaningful, powerful, but entirely platonic love in real life. And I think that’s more than a shame. It’s a crime.

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Steamed: January 2026 (More LA Noire)

Steamed: January 2026 (More LA Noire)

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I bought LA Noire on sale, several years ago. But I did not actually dig in to play it until last year. 68 hours of game play later, I completed it the second week of January, this year.

LA Noire is one of my all-time favorite games. It’s not perfect. But my goodness, what an experience to immerse yourself in. With a couple exceptions in the final chapter, you are Cole Phelps, a Marine and WW II war hero, starting out in the Patrol Bureau (known as a ‘desk’) of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). It’s 1947, and LA is a terrifically rendered city.

You move up the ranks, to Traffic, Homicide, Vice, and then down (bit of a career hiccup there), to Arson. You solve multiple cases working from each desk. With the Complete Edition, there are about two dozen cases, which do vary, and usually involve some violence. There are random crimes that come over the radio and you can choose to take them or not. They usually involve killing people, though there are quite a few high-damage chases.

There is an overarching plot that gives a Chinatown vibe to the game. I recognized some screen actors, who look like the characters they voice in game, which is cool.

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The Sword & Sorcery of Manning Norvil, aka Kenneth Bulmer

The Sword & Sorcery of Manning Norvil, aka Kenneth Bulmer

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The Odan the Half-God trilogy by Manning Norvil, aka Kenneth Bulmer: Dream Chariots, Whetted Bronze, and Crown of the Sword God (DAW Books, October 1977, March 1978, and June 1980), Covers: Richard Clifton-Dey, Michael Whelan, Richard Hescox

The infamous Chariots of the Gods was written by Erich von Däniken (1935), who died last week. Von Däniken was a Swiss author, and Chariots of the Gods was published in German in 1968. It was issued in English from Bantam in 1971, and I read it shortly thereafter, though I don’t remember where I got the copy. I would have been 13 or 14.

Von Däniken claimed early humans were visited by alien astronauts who provided them with the technology and knowledge to construct pyramids and landing fields and other megalithic structures. I believed it for several years, until further research indicated that he just made it up. Later, I found out von Däniken had a long history of theft and fraud and found myself quite angry at him for fooling me.

Fast forward to 1977, the year I graduated high school and Star Wars became a thing. Ken Bulmer, a British author who I’d never heard of at that time, used the ancient astronaut theory as a jumping off point for a trilogy of wonderful tales about Odan the Half-God, the son of a mortal woman and a space god. Odan becomes a sword and sorcery hero.

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Rich Horton on The Blighted Stars by Megan E. O’Keefe

Rich Horton on The Blighted Stars by Megan E. O’Keefe

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The Devoured Worlds trilogy by Megan E. O’Keefe: The Blighted Stars, The Fractured Dark, and
The Bound Worlds (Orbit, May 23, 2023, September 26, 2023, and June 25, 2024). Covers by Jaime Jones

It’s January 17, and I’m doing a fairly good job on at least one of my New Year’s resolutions — catching up on some of my favorite blogs. I started with Rich Horton’s excellent Strange at Ecbatan, a review site that covers a delightfully eclectic mix of old and new books, from one of the most knowledgeable and astute readers we have. Rich’s most recent review was Howard Andrew Jones’ terrific debut novel The Desert of Souls, a piece resurrected from my first website, the sadly now defunct SF Site.

Back in September Rich discussed The Blighted Stars, the first book in Megan O’Keefe’s Devoured Worlds trilogy. I talked about the first two titles in the series here in July 2023. What drew me was the intriguing mix of SF and horror, and the promise of creepy adventure on a dead planet in the opening volume, in which an idealistic resistance fighter is stranded with the heir to an imperial space dynasty. But, as usual, Rich has a lot more insight to offer than I.

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Forgotten Authors: H. B. Fyfe

Forgotten Authors: H. B. Fyfe

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February 1940 Astounding, with Fyfe’s debut story “Locked Out.”

Horace Brown Fyfe, Jr. who published under then name H.B. Fyfe, was born on September 30, 1918 in Jersey City, New Jersey. He was educated at Stevens Academy before attending Columbia University. Fyfe served in World War II and earned a Bronze Star. Fyfe’s day job was working as a laboratory assistant and a draftsman.

Fyfe began publishing in 1940, with the short story “Locked Out,” which appeared in the February issue of Astounding. Later that year, he published the short story “Hold That Comet!” in collaboration with F.H. Hauser. This was Fyfe’s only collaboration and Hauser’s only science fiction sale. He returned to college after the war and married Adeline Doherty in 1946.

Fyfe may be best known for his stories of the Bureau of Special Trading, which featured alien bureaucrats who were generally outwitted by the humans who they were attempting to stymie. His novel D-99, was unrelated to the BTS series, but it was similar in tone, although Rich Horton commented “That whole aspect of the book is wildly sexist, in a vaguely Mad Men-ish fashion.” Given that Campbell appreciated stories that demonstrated human superiority to aliens, it isn’t surprising that Fyfe’s fiction found a home in Astounding and Analog.

 

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Dark Muse News: Affirmations and Exploits of a 50+ Year Old Miniature Gamer

Dark Muse News: Affirmations and Exploits of a 50+ Year Old Miniature Gamer

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Warhammer Quest: Dark Water

For this round of Dark Muse News, we’ll be seeking affirmations.

I’m older than the typical kid who plays with toy-soldier figurines (well, I’m over 50) and love to play with plastic figurines. If you are like me, and need affirmations on occasion that it is okay to be a kid still (and perhaps even okay to spend a load of hobby money on boutique board games), then this post is for you.  We’ll highlight H.G. Wells, Peter Cushing, and delve into preparing for Warhammer Quest: Darkwater. This confesses my obsession with miniature board games that include miniatures; my collection includes shelves of asylum horror crawlers [yes, it’s a whole subgenre, and this blog will cover them] and traditional dungeon crawlers. The post overviews the evolution of some dungeon crawlers.

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A Sword & Sorcery Classic: Michael Crichton’s Eaters of the Dead

A Sword & Sorcery Classic: Michael Crichton’s Eaters of the Dead

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Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton (Bantam Books, April 4, 1977)

Michael Crichton (1942 – 2008) apparently always wanted to be a writer but earned an MD from Harvard Medical school in the meantime. He wrote while in school, publishing several novels under the name John Lange (he borrowed the name from anthropologist Andrew Lang). I only have one of these books — Zero Cool — but haven’t read it. Crichton’s writing was going well enough by the time he got his MD that he never practiced medicine, choosing to write and direct movies instead. He directed Westworld and Coma.

The first book I read by Crichton was The Andromeda Strain, found in my high school library. It was a compelling read about an alien disease sweeping Earth, but the ending was disappointingly anti-climactic. Our library also had his The Terminal Man, and I read that, though I don’t remember much about it. Later, of course, I read many of his big thrillers, Congo, Sphere, and Jurassic Park, and I enjoyed them enough to buy everything he’d written under his own name.

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Moon Pirates, Deadly Nanobots, and Alien Plagues: November-December Print Science Fiction Magazines

Moon Pirates, Deadly Nanobots, and Alien Plagues: November-December Print Science Fiction Magazines

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Summer 2025 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and the
November/December issues of Analog Science Fiction & Fact and
Asimov’s Science Fiction. Cover art by John Jennings, Eldar Zakirov, and Shutterstock

It’s a bittersweet month for fans of print SF magazines. First the good news. For the first time since September 2024, there’s a full complement of science fiction magazines on the shelves. The Summer 2025 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction is at last available, six months late and with an 18 month-gap since the last issue, but it’s here and we’re delighted to see it. Yes, the magazines that accompany it, Asimov’s SF and Analog, are also more than two months late, cover-dated November-December 2025 but not available until last week, but at this point we know better than to complain. We’re just grateful they’re here at all.

Now the bad news. And unfortunately, it’s bad indeed. Yesterday, January 12, the news spread that Sheila Williams, the brilliant and tireless editor of Asimov’s Science Fiction, had been hospitalized with a brain aneurysm. She is reportedly conscious, and communicating with family, and we hope and pray for her speedy recovery. In my opinion Sheila is the most important editor currently at work in genre magazines, and without her the field will be enormously diminished.

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Forever An Important Life – Howard Andrew Jones (1968 – 2025)

Forever An Important Life – Howard Andrew Jones (1968 – 2025)

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(As long as Black Gate lets me post here, this will run every year the week of Howard’s passing (January 16), to help keep his flame alive)

A LIFE IS NOT IMPORTANT EXCEPT IN THE IMPACT IT HAS ON OTHER LIVES – Jackie Robinson’s epitaph

Mark Rigney, Howard Andrew Jones, Bob Byrne

I did an interview last week with Jason Waltz for his ’24 in 42′ podcast (Yeah, I know: You just can’t wait to hear that one…).

One of the questions was about my favorite quote/lyric/poem/motivational thought. Some of you who know me probably figure it’s a Bible verse. And there are a couple that are right up there.

But it’s the epitaph on Jackie Robinson’s gravestone, which leads off this post.

My buddy Howard Andrew Jones has passed away from brain cancer. You’re going to see a LOT of people singing his praises in the coming weeks. All of it deserved. If I can stop crying long enough, my Monday morning post will be on Howard.

But you’re gonna see a common thread in the talk about Howard. The impact he had on other people’s lives. Especially in encouraging and helping writers – mostly in the sword and sorcery field.

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