I see dead authors...

[ffutures]

I've just been indulging in my favourite pursuit of trying to find authors who have gone out of European copyright, and realised that James Joyce will be out pretty soon, since he died in 1941.

I suspect that we will shortly see a shitload of crap from people who think that they are capable of doing his work justice... or not, e.g. Ulysses - With Zombies!

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A semiautomatic shotgun, shoulder-slung, was sustained gently behind him on the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft. Outside zombies intoned:

"— Brainzzzzz"

This is just a promise that I will NOT attempt to write Ulysses - The Role Playing Game or any variant thereof.

All of which reminds me to say that if anyone can suggest any good SF authors who died in e.g. 1930-40 I would love to know about them - the Weinbaum RPG has been getting some very positive feedback, and eventually I might want to venture into this period again.

Comments

[were-gopher.livejournal.com]

I know this list is more fantasy than SF but it's what I could come up with by putting "193X deaths" writer into wikipedia then scanning for names (x of course being variable to keep the list down to a year at a time). Almost certainly missed some and deliberately left out people like J M Barrie and Kenneth Grahame but it's a start.

Thorne Smith (1934)
Robert E Howard (1936)
M R James (1936)
H P Lovecraft (1937)
Karel Capek (1938)
Luis Senarens (1939)
J H Rosny aine (1940)

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Thorne Smith was something I wanted to do, but his family still vigourously defend the US copyright - although he's been out of copyright in Europe for a while there are just too many problems.

Howard not really my style.

Lovecraft - already too much competition

Capek and Aine - the translations may still be copyright even if the original works aren't, it's a bit of a minefield. Again, probably more trouble than its worth.

Senarens - looks interesting, I will have to investigate.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Forgot to say that I do have all of Smith's novels that are out of copyright in Europe on my web site.