The Girl Who Shot Sultry Kane (or Killed Sylvia Blade)

[Marca]

I'm interested in the history of this story. First published in Golden Nugget in 1966 (what was Golden Nugget, an anthology or magazine?) and apparently only written when Langdon Jones said he couldn't do it, it's not the sort of item I'd expect to turn up in a 'proper' MM book, yet it was retitled and appeared in Fabulous Harbours.

Personally I love the fact that this obscure story was included in Fabulous Harbours since I'd likely never get to read it any other way. Was there a reason it was included there? Was the story revised, other than changing the title (and presumably some character names)?

[Marca]

I see some of this has already been answered here, so apologies for asking again:

[broken link]

However, I'm still interested in how it came to be included in Fabulous Harbours. Also, how much revision went on? Has anyone seen any issues of Golden Nugget? Found some more info here at the Galactic Central site, with a couple of cover scans:

http://www.philsp.com/data/data135.html

It's hard to tell from the scans but I think the one on the right is the issue the Sultry Kane story appeared in?

I didn't know Ballard wrote for the magazine too! 8O

[Marca]

Another link, with some Golden Nugget contents (scroll down the page):

http://users.ev1.net/~homeville/fictionmag/t370.htm#TOP

This thread is gradually changing from it's original intent about the Sultry Kane story to Golden Nugget itself. Edward Powys, Fiction Editor?! - presumably that was you as well Mr Moorcock-Bradbury? What about John Michael? Did you write any of the anonymous or miscellaneous material? You once made a comment in an interview about having to write 500 words about topless waitresses or something, presumably you must have been talking about GN.

So you did a William Burroughs interview in there and a music article too?And you were reprinting stories and stuff from New Worlds? What did the Nugget readership make of that?

Curses! My life will not be complete now until I find one of these elusive magazines...

[Michael Moorcock]

Nugget, as its more famous rivals Penthouse and Playboy, ran all kinds of fiction and non-fiction having nothing to do with the rest of the content of the magazine, based on the fact that you might as well put good stuff in as crap. I got paid a flat fee for doing the job, so tended to use the
people (including myself) who were writing either about people I liked or were people whose work I liked. I don't think, however, that I was John Michael and while I was asked to write the topless waitress piece I never did write it. I wrote the feature about Portobello Road and went with the photographer into Portobello Road to give him a rough idea what to take.
The only 'glamour' session I was ever involved in depressed the hell out of me and I found that I couldn't do that kind of stuff without getting miserable, so you won't find much in the way of 'soft porn' by me. Sultry Kane was the nearest I got -- that was a commission for Langdon Jones who found he couldn't write it, so I sat down and wrote it on the spot since the presses were waiting for the copy! Lang stayed with me the whole time I was doing it saying 'This won't do you any good you know'
and other encouraging remarks. He was right, but I was a working journalist in those days and used to banging out almost anything to fill
the required number of pages. Happily, I didn't wind up a drunk as most of us did (Jim Moffatt, of course, was the most infamous Compact drunk -- claimed a book took him two days and two bottles of gin). That's the only Hank Janson I ever wrote, using Chandler's famous advice -- 'When in doubt have a girl come through the door with a gun in her hand.'

[Marca]

What prompted the inclusion of Kane in Fabulous Harbours? I bet Langdon never thought it would have a second life years later outside the magazine...?

Have to say I love these tales about the stuff you had to turn out at short notice in the 60s. I don't suppose it was much fun at the time, but it sounds like fun forty years down the line.

[Michael Moorcock]

Well, I can't say it was NOT fun. It was work and I was able to do it. Didn't seem like a chore. Bit like exercising -- adrenaline rush involved and you get paid at the end of it!
The story seemed a natural for Fabulous Harbours, which,. of course, was variations on 'classic' story forms.

[Krimson]

I perceive the Second Ether trilogy as being a work which really seems to tie together the various threads of your works. I found Fabulous Harbours to be almost an interlude, because of all the other material involved, and I appreciated being able to read older stories which I not only lacked opportunity to read, but put into some sort of context as well. It would be nice, if you were able to do something of a similar vein should you revisit the worlds of the Second Ether.

[Michael Moorcock]

I think probably the next collection will be a Sir Seaton Begg collection, but I'm holding that off as well, for a bit. I'm not even quite sure why.
Maybe to see if I write another one before I assemble the collection...

[Krimson]

Oooh... As I recall from one of your other threads you mentioned seeing Monsieur Zenith again. Thanks to Fabulous Harbours (and the Multiverse comic), Seaton Begg has quickly become one of my favorite characters. I would certainly love to see a collection, an original work, or even some combination of the two.

[Michael Moorcock]

Could be he could lend himself naturally to the graphic medium (as in the current Tom Strong). Maybe that's where I'm going with this. Still, not entirely sure...