GOH–Mike Resnick
PulpFest 2012 is very pleased to welcome science-fiction writer Mike Resnick as its guest of honor. With this year being the hundredth anniversary of the start of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ writing career, it is fitting that our guest of honor is an author who, early in his career, "wanted nothing more than to write books in the style of Edgar Rice Burroughs" (ERBmania!). Mike’s first published work of science fiction, The Forgotten Sea of Mars, was a sequel to Burroughs’ Llana of Gathol. After its release in 1965, Resnick transformed and expanded the story into The Goddess of Ganymede, published by Donald Grant in hardcover in 1967, followed by a paperback sequel, Pursuit on Ganymede. A fourth novel, Redbeard, was published by Lancer Books. It was inspired by the tremendous success of Robert E. Howard’s Conan series then being produced by Lancer.
Although Mike’s initial foray into science fiction was heavily influenced by the work of Edgar Rice Burroughs, it was not what he wanted to be remembered for: "It’s not that they were bad books for what they were, which were Burroughs pastiches, but I hate to have people thinking that’s what I write when I sit down to write a Mike Resnick book" (Burroughs Bulletin).
Realizing he had made a false start, Resnick stopped writing science fiction in 1968 and worked to hone his writing skills. For a dozen years, he concentrated on writing pseudonymous adult fiction and Gothic romances, selling hundreds of novels and short stories and several thousand articles. He also edited tabloid newspapers and men’s magazines. But all the while, Resnick, a committed science fiction fan, intended to become a science-fiction professional.
"When I was 21, I went to my first Worldcon. There were giants present. Doc Smith bought me a cup of coffee. Jack Williamson encouraged me to try to become a science fiction writer. Isaac Asimov was handing out Hugos to people like Philip K. Dick and Jack Vance. I knew long before the convention was over that I wanted to devote my life to this field" (Jim Baen’s Universe).
In the early eighties, Resnick returned to the science fiction field with The Soul Eater, a reworking of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. His breakthrough novel was the international bestseller Santiago, published by Tor in 1986. Mike has since won five Hugo Awards (for "Kirinyaga," "The Manamouki," "Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge," "The 43 Antarean Dynasties," and "Travels With My Cats"), a Nebula Award (for "Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge"), and has been nominated for 35 Hugos (a record for a writer), 11 Nebulas, a British Clarke Award, and many other awards. In 1993 he received the Skylark Award for Lifetime Achievement in Science Fiction, presented annually by the New England Science Fiction Association. According to Locus Magazine, Mike is the leading award winner, living or dead, in the short fiction category, and fourth all-time when including novels.
Although his most acclaimed work, the Kirinyaga series, demonstrates Mike’s interest in the continent of Africa, a number of his later novels and stories can be linked to the pulps. Santiago and the Widowmaker series have been called space Westerns or operas, a type of fiction popular in Planet Stories and similar magazines. His recent steampunk novels, The Buntline Special and The Doctor and the Kid, are being marketed as "Weird Westerns" by PYR. But more than any other work, it is his Lucifer Jones stories that are most often linked to the rough paper magazines. The author himself has called the series "a parody of every bad pulp story and every bad ‘B’ movie." Resnick also compiled one of the first pulp guides, The Official Guide to the Fantastics, published by House of Collectibles in 1976.
Mike long ago left behind his desire to do "nothing more than to write books in the style of Edgar Rice Burroughs," he appreciates the author’s creations, demonstrated by his introductions to such books as Wildside Press’ The Tarzan Twins and Bison Books’ The Land That Time Forgot and Tarzan Alive (written by Philip José Farmer). With Bob Garcia, Mike is editing The Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs, an anthology of mostly original stories inspired by Burroughs and his creations. It will be published by Baen Books and feature stories by Kevin J. Anderson, Kij Johnson, Mercedes Lackey, Joe Lansdale, Jack McDevitt, Michael Moorcock, Kristine Katherine Rusch, F. Paul Wilson, and others, plus the first appearance of Resnick’s "The Forgotten Sea of Mars" in 47 years.
Now a science-fiction professional for more than thirty years, the former associate editor of Camille Cazedessus’ ERB-dom remains a science fiction fan and still contributes articles to fanzines and convention program books. You can read many of these essays by visiting Mike Resnick’s blog at http://novelspot.net/blog/137.
Mike will be attending PulpFest 2012 with his wife, Carol, another accomplished writer and science fiction fan. They have been married for over fifty years and live in Cincinnati, Ohio.
References
Cazedessus, Camille. "ERB-dom Index I." ERBzine 0117.
Chicon 7. "Guest of Honor: Mike Resnick." Chicon 7 (2011).
Clute, John & Nicholls, Peter. "Resnick, Michael Diamond." The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. St. Martin’s Press (1993).
Fantastic Fiction: Bibliographies for over 30,000 authors.
Galloway, Stan. "Mike Resnick: From Fan to Frontrunner." Burroughs Bulletin, New Series #30 (1997).
Minz, Jim. "Interview with Mike Resnick." Jim Baen’s Universe (2007).
Mona, Erik. "Redbeard." Paperback Flash: Mona’s Musings on the Pulp Underground (2009).
Resnick, Mike. "Roots and a Few Vines." A Mimosa Fanthology (2002).
Resnick, Mike. "Why I Wrote The Forgotten Sea of Mars." ERBmania! (2000)
Valdron, Den. "Ganymede or Bust: The Forgotten Sea of Mars." ERBzine 1931.
Valdron, Den. "Ganymede or Bust: Mike Resnick’s Ganymede." ERBzine 1932.
