RARA-AVIS: Moorcock and Hank Janson--corrections

From: Todd Mason ( foxbrick@yahoo.com)
Date: 27 Oct 2007


In FictionMags, Ian Covell and Steve Holland noted David Pringle's statement about a possible Moorcock Janson novel, aside from the one cited short story, and remind David and inform us thus:

Steve Holland: Mike only wholly wrote one Janson story, which you've already cited. He may have revised some of the other short stories that appeared in Golden Nugget (mostly written by James Moffatt) but didn't have anything to do with the novels to any great degree. He did rewrite the novel The L.S.D. Dossier from the ground up but that title appeared as by Roger Harris. It featured the character Nick Allard, whose adventures Mike continued under the name Bill Barclay.

Nor, I should add, was Hilary Bailey anything to do with Hilary Brand who was a kind of female side-kick introduced into some of the Janson novels by Stephen D. Frances who was spun off into her own series, started by Frances and then taken over by Moffatt.

The Sultry Kane story was later revised by Mike for one of his collections (Fabulous Harbours) as The Girl Who Killed Sylvia Blade with Hank Janson's name changed.

Ian Covell:
 The LSD Dossier was the first of the Nick Allard books - much rewritten by Mike [I think the first chapter was "Harris" and the rest was MM] - and the series continued by Mike alone under his Bill Barclay pseudonym: Somewhere in the Night, and Printer's Devil [all 1966]. Somewhere in the Night was...
{snip}

Actually, Mike's relationship with Compact was amazingly complex -- as witness

196411 / NW144 / The Shores of Death 1 196412 / NW145 / The Shores of Death 2 196502 / F266 / The Sundered Worlds 196506 / F275 / Warriors of Mars [as E P Bradbury] 196507 / F279 / Blades of Mars [as E P Bradbury] 196507 / F281 / The Fireclown 196507 / H287 / ed, The Best of New Worlds 196508 / NW153 / Preliminary data [first Jerry Cornelius excerpt] 196508 / F291 / Barbarians of Mars [as E P Bradbury] 196511 / NW156 / The Wrecks of Time 1 196512 / NW157 / The Wrecks of Time 2 196512 / NW157 / Further Information [second Jerry Cornelius excerpt] 196601 / NW158 / The Wrecks of Time 3 196603 / NW160 / Phase Three [third Jerry Cornelius excerpt] 196605 / F305 / The Deep Fix [as James Colvin] 196605 / F308 / The LSD Dossier [as by / with "Roger Harris"] Allard #1 196606 / F309 / Somewhere in the Night [as Bill Barclay] Allard #2 196608 / F313 / The Twilight Man [book version of The Shores of Death] 196611 / F322 / Printer's Devil [as Bill Barclay] Allard "of S.M.A.S.H." #3 196612 / H323 / "ed", SF Reprise 1 [unauthorised bind-up of the fiction from NW144&145] ** 196612 / H324 / "ed", SF Reprise 2 [unauthorised bind-up of the fiction from NW146&147] 196701 / H329 / "ed", SF Reprise 5 [unauthorised bind-up of the fiction from NW149&150&151]

During 1965/1966, MM was also editing the monthly New Worlds for Compact, and was also (co-)editing [through 1966] Golden Nugget using a fairly flexible view to "content" - reprinting "Goodbye, Miranda" [NW July-Aug 1964] in the April 66 issue of GN, reprinting
"Consuming Passion" as "The Man with the Burning Brain" (!) and "Not By Mind Alone" as "Island".

He also used articles to praise New Worlds' authors and artists [Burroughs, Ballard, NW itself], together with anyone else they liked, and any_thing_ else.. including "What's In in the Secret Agent Business", by "Ed Bradbury", an in-depth examination of. the Nick Allard books.

Among the contributors was Langdon Jones, not, I believe, ever listed as photographing the UK girls, but himself publishing little booklets "to be sent under plain brown wrapper".

Ian

** amusingly including the "The Shores of Death" which had just been published as The Twilight Man - collectors must have thought they were in a revolving door

and David again: Steve H & Ian C:

Oops. Thanks for the correction re Moorcock.

Todd:

Apologies for misleading you. It seems _The LSD Dossier_ by Roger Harris was not a Hank Janson novel. However, it was published by Compact Books (most of whose titles were "Hank Janson") and it was by Moorcock
(largely)!

--And that's where it stands now. (Thanks to Messrs. Holland, Covell, and Pringle.)

Todd Mason

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