Richard L. Tierney
Richard L. Tierney | |
---|---|
Born | Richard Louis Tierney August 7, 1936 Spencer, Iowa, U.S. |
Died | February 1, 2022 Mason City, Iowa, U.S. | (aged 85)
Occupation |
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Nationality | American |
Genre | fantasy, horror |
Richard Louis Tierney (August 7, 1936 – February 1, 2022) was an American writer, poet and scholar of
Tierney is especially renowned for his weird and fantastic verse, which has been acclaimed by such critics, writers, and poets as
Ancestry and Youth
Tierney was of Irish origin on his paternal side. His great-grandfather emigrated from
Tierney was born in Spencer, Iowa. His family moved to Mason City in 1942 when Tierney was six years old. He went through the public school system, attending Madison grade school, Roosevelt Junior High and a high school he referred to as "Old Bastille" since it was built of old dark brick and always felt like a prison to him. Tierney read two of H. P. Lovecraft's stories ("The Rats in the Walls" and "The Dunwich Horror") in the anthology Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural edited by Wise and Fraser (1949) at about age thirteen, but was not especially impressed by them since they contained no conventional ghosts. At age 14, he read "Colossus' by Donald Wandrei in August Derleth's 1950 anthology Beyond Time and Space. Tierney has referred to this tale as "one of the most fascinating stories I had ever encountered, largely because of [its] poetic mood evoking a setting of trans-cosmic vastness.[1] He would many years later become a neighbor and friend of Wandrei's in Minneapolis. Aged 15, and reading heavily in science fiction, Tierney read Lovecraft's "The Shadow Out of Time" in Donald A. Wollheim's Viking Portable Novels of Science and was 'hooked'. "Shadow" and At the Mountains of Madness became his two favourite Lovecraft tales.[2]
Tierney was also influenced by the work of Tarzan creator, Edgar Rice Burroughs.[3] At around the same age (15 or 16), he was inspired to write poetry by August Derleth's fantasy verse anthology Dark of the Moon: Poems of Fantasy and the Macabre which he read several times in the Mason City Public Library. While he had previously been a devotee of the poems of Edgar Allan Poe, he was especially inspired by the H. P. Lovecraft poems in the anthology (particularly the "Fungi from Yuggoth" and also those of Donald Wandrei, Robert E. Howard, Frank Belknap Long and others).
1950s: Early writing (fiction and poetry)
Tierney began writing fantastic stories in the early 1950s, aged around fifteen and came into his writing stride in his early twenties. His first attempt at a tale was a Lovecraftian story titled "Countdown for Kalara." Tierney destroyed its first draft but rewrote it; the rewritten version was later published in Space and Time 56 (July 1980) as well as being reprinted in Robert M. Price's anthology The Yith Cycle (Chaosium, 2010). He continued writing through the 1950s, producing numerous tales, some of which did not see print until the 1970s or later. For instance, "Life of the Party" (written in 1956) first appeared in Antithesis No 3 (1974). "The Dream" (written Nov 1956), was first printed in Crypt of Cthulhu No 86 (Eastertide 1994). "The Wrath of Tupan" (written April 1957) first appeared in Fantasy Crossroads (March 1977). "The Eggs of Pawa," which features Ralph Duncan, the protagonist of the novel The House of the Toad, was penned in May 1957 but did not see print until Eldritch Tales No 2 (1981). "From Beyond the Stars," another product of 1957, first appeared in Kirby McCauley's anthology Night Chills (Avon, 1975). "The Creatures" comes from the same productive year and first saw print in Eldritch Tales No 3 (1978; the dating is correct. Issue 2 of this magazine was printed three years later than No 3). Again, "The Howler in the Dark" was written in 1957 but did not see print until it appeared in Crypt of Cthulhu 24 (Vol 3, No 8, Lammas 1984); this appearance was minus a few lines of text which were restored in the printing in Robert M. Price's anthology" The Necronomicon (Chaosium, 1996).
The Winds of Zarr, Tertiary Education, Amerind exploration
Tierney's first novel, The Winds of Zarr, which combined H. P. Lovecraft (including a Lovecraft-style deity named Zathog - see List of Great Old Ones), Robert E. Howard, time travel and ancient astronauts, and is set in Egypt during the New Kingdom, was penned in 1959 when Tierney was aged 23 but did not see print until 1975. Harry O. Morris, who published the work through his Silver Scarab Press, would later illustrate Tierney's novel The House of the Toad. The Winds of Zarr has cover art by Stephen Fabian and interior art by Randall Spurgin.
Tierney wrote his first Simon of Gitta tale, "The Ring of Set," in 1960; it lay around in manuscript for about 16 years until his friend Kirby McCauley submitted it to Andrew J. Offutt for his first Swords Against Darkness anthology, which appeared in 1977.
Tierney attended
Tierney has written widely on a variety of esoteric topics, such as the legends concerning
In the Winter/Spring of 1964, Tierney took a five-month postgraduate course in Entomology at the
1960s and 1970s: Bay Area, Published Poetry, Minneapolis Years, Lovecraft studies, Art, Fictional Collaborations
Tierney lived in the
Between 1966 and 1973, Tierney published a number of fantastic poems in small press journals including Joseph Payne Brennan's Macabre; August Derleth's The Arkham Collector; Glenn Lord's The Howard Collector; Stuart David Schiff's Whispers (magazine); and The United Co-operative. During the 1970s, Tierney also began to submit verse to fantasy/horror markets such as Harry O. Morris's Nyctalops. His first collection of weird verse appeared under the title Dreams and Damnations, a slim volume of eight poems issued by R. Alain Everts' The Strange Company (of Madison, WI) in 1975 as a limited edition of 100 copies; this included a few of his translations for Charles Baudelaire. The collection was reviewed by Donald Sidney-Fryer in The Diversifier, 14 (May 1976); however an unfortunate law-suit brought by Everts in an attempt to prevent the publication of the Arkham House Collected Poems (Tierney)(1981) resulted in the Strange Company volume, though reprinted, being scarcely distributed.
In 1972, Tierney moved to Minneapolis to take up writing as a vocation. He lived for nearly nine years in the Twin Cities (
Kirby McCauley's girlfriend had a friend who worked at local occult publisher
While on a New York trip to visit Kirby McCauley, Tierney took a side trip to
Tierney made his mark in Lovecraft studies at this time by authoring the essay "The Derleth Mythos", first published in 1972 in Meade and Penny Frierson's HPL (Birmingham, Al: The Editors, 1972, 1975) and reprinted in 1976 in Darrell Schweitzer's Essays Lovecraftian (Baltimore, MD: TK Graphics). The essay famously separates Lovecraft's ideas of his Cthulhu mythos as based on a mechanistic materialist view of the universe, in which the Old Ones are entirely inimical to humankind, from the later elaborations by August Derleth whereby Derleth posited a more simplistic "good vs evil" paradigm underlying the Mythos. Essentially, Tierney argues that Lovecraft's cosmic outlook in his fiction was not intended to convey a "good vs evil" approach. Thus Derleth's version of the Cthulhu Mythos, which promotes the "good vs evil" concept derived from the Judaeo-Christian mythos, is untrue to Lovecraft's fictional philosophies.
Tierney frequently appeared in the fan press with his cartoons, many contributed to zines in the
Robert E. Howard 'posthumous collaborations'
Tierney completed several story fragments and synopses left by
In Hawks of Outremer, the story "The Slave Princess" is the sole posthumous collaboration by Tierney with Howard; Howard wrote the first six chapters of the story, with Tierney supplying the last two.
Other collaborations: 'Posthumous Collaborations' with Poe and Smith; others
Apart from the 'posthumous collaborations' with Robert E. Howard listed above, Tierney has also posthumously collaborated with Clark Ashton Smith ("Utressor" in Robert M. Price, ed. The Book of Eibon (Chaosium, 2002)) and with Edgar Allan Poe ("The Light-House" in Nyctalops 14 (March 1978) and reprinted in Etchings & Odysseys 2 (May 1983)).
Philip Rahman's brother, Glenn Rahman, urged Tierney to collaborate with him on The Gardens of Lucullus which eventually appeared in 2001.
Tierney has also collaborated on short fiction with authors including Laurence J. Cornford and Robert M. Price (see Simon of Gitta series below).
He has collaborated on poetry with Dale C. Donaldson, Charles Lovecraft, and Leigh Blackmore.
Later career: 1980s to 21st century
In 1981, Tierney returned to Mason City to take care of his mother, Margaret, now deceased.
Red Sonja series
For Zebra Books, in 1978, Tierney had collaborated with David C. Smith on the novel For the Witch of the Mists: Bran Mak Morn, a work utilising the Robert E. Howard character of Morn, a Pictish king. This novel was reprinted by Ace Books in 1981.
A few years later, also for Ace Books, with his frequent collaborator David C. Smith, Tierney co-authored a series of seven novels loosely based on another Robert E. Howard character. Red Sonya of Rogatino featured in Robert E. Howard's short story "The Shadow of the Vulture" (The Magic Carpet, January 1934), which Roy Thomas rewrote as a Conan story for Marvel Comics Conan the Barbarian #23 (1973), changing the spelling of the heroine's name to Red Sonja. Thomas also somewhat based Red Sonja on another Howard character, Dark Agnes de Chastillon, a swordswoman of 16th-century France who wars against the Turks in Eastern Europe. For the Red Sonja series, Tierney and Smith were paid $1,000 per book and set the stories in the Hyborian Age, 15,000 years ago.[10] Ace Books published the series from 1981 to 1983.
As to which work was Smith's and which Tierney's, in an interview with Robert M. Price, Tierney commented: "No-one could ever unravel Dave's work from mine. We'd toss ideas back and forth and come up with a basic plot. Then Dave would rattle off a first draft as fast as he could. I'd revise this to suit myself, often rewriting extensive sections, sometimes changing the plotline altogether. The time involved worked out surprisingly close to 50/50, Dave and I spending about two months apiece per novel."[11]
The House of the Toad
In the late 1970s, Tierney was contacted by editor Philip Rahman (publisher of the Fedogan & Bremer line) who had read Tierney's tale "From Beyond the Stars" (which takes place in NE Iowa), in Kirby McCauley's anthology Night Chills (1975), The two became friends and eventually he published Tierney's Cthulhu Mythos novel The House of the Toad (1993), which is set in modern-day Iowa along the Mississippi River in the Quad Cities region.
Simon Magus/Simon of Gitta series
A long-running series of stories (begun in the mid-1980s and culminating in 2008 with the novel The Drums of Chaos) by Tierney features Simon of Gitta, a character based on the
The first collection of these tales was The Scroll of Thoth: Twelves Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, edited with an introduction and story notes by Robert M. Price (Chaosium, 1997). An expanded edition has been issued Sorcery Against Caesar by Richard L. Tierney and divers hands, edited by Edward Stasheff. (Edgewood, NM: Pickman's Press, 2020). The expanded edition includes 16 stories and a poem, "Vengeance Quest." Price's Introduction from The Scroll of Thoth is included in abridged form; his original story notes are reprinted for the tales from The Scroll of Thoth, while Edward Stasheff provides story notes for the other tales.
The Biblical figure of
Simon is a Samaritan ex-gladiator whose sorcerous abilities allow him to survive encounters with an array of evil priests, emperors, and hideous creatures. His quest for his true love Helen drives Simon and plays an instrumental part in the tales. Some of the stories pay tribute to H. P. Lovecraft, while a story such as "The Blade of the Slayer" is a tribute to
Tierney has commented: "All these tales combine Gnosticism and other first-century elements with overtones of the Hyborian Age and the Cthulhu Mythos. Incidentally, I originally pictured Simon as he was played by Jack Palance in The Silver Chalice. However, it's been so many years since I've seen that film that my memory has slipped. I think I now visualize Simon as someone about halfway between Jack and the Marvel Comics version of Conan."[12]
The Drums of Chaos
The Drums of Chaos (2008) is the author's magnum opus: an epic
The novel was reissued by Pickman's Press in late 2021.
Recent work: 2000–2002
Tierney continued to publish weird verse after the turn of the millennium, with the volume Savage Menace and Other Poems of Horror (2010) collecting all his verse subsequent to Collected Poems. In the 1980s he collaborated on two poems, "The Coming of Juss" and "The Kiss of Elf-Queen," with Dale C. Donaldson. He also collaborated on verse with poets including the Australians Charles Lovecraft and Leigh Blackmore.
Robert M. Price gives an audio reading of Tierney's poem "Petition: To Tsathoggua" on the audio CD Strange Aeons (UK: Rainfall Records, 2001).
Tierney's prose poem "Autumn Chill" is included in Stephen Jones (ed), Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 22 (Robinson, 2011) - only the second poem to ever appear in this horror anthology series. It is also included in Mammoth Books Presents Unexpected Encounters, an e-book containing four of the works from the Robinson anthology. The work can also be found online in an audio reading by fan Will Hart.
Tierney was a longtime member of the Unitarians. He stated that he found writing a chore but was sometimes inspired by listening to classical music or film scores.
In late 2020, Tierney suffered a stroke which caused some numbness to the right side of his body but that did not affect his mental acuity. He also caught but recovered from the COVID-19 virus. He lived in Mason City, Iowa and spent the last few years of his life in Good Shepherd Nursing Home.
An expanded edition of Savage Menace and Other Poems is forthcoming from P'rea Press.
Tierney was working on a new novel collaboration with Glenn Rahman, The Path of the Dragon, prior to his death.
With Tierney's permission, Robert M. Price has written two further stories in the Simon of Gitta series, to be published in 2022.
Personal life
Tierney was a lifelong bachelor. He died on February 1, 2022, at the age of 85.[13]
Awards
At Arcana 23 (convention), held Oct 10–12, 1993, Tierney was the recipient of the 1993 Minnesota Fantasy Award, given annually at the Arcana (convention) (the convention known until 1987 as 'MinnCon').
Tierney was nominated for
Standalone novels
- The Winds of Zarr (Silver Scarab Press, 1975; limited edition of 1000 copies). German e-book edition 2018 as Die Winde der Zarr (Apex Fantasy-Klassiker #8). It has been reprinted in The Yog-Sothoth Cycle (Ramble House, 2022).
- For the Witch of the Mists: Bran Mak Morn (Zebra Books, 1978; Ace Books, 1981), with David C. Smith, featuring Robert E. Howard's Bran Mak Morn.
- The House of the Toad (Fedogan and Bremer, 1993). German edition Im Haus der Kröte (Festa, 2008).
Red Sonja series (with David C. Smith)
The heroine is the Hyrkanian warrior Red Sonja. The character is loosely based on Red Sonya created by Robert E. Howard, via the recreation for comics penned by Roy Thomas.
- #1 The Ring of Ikribu (Ace 1981) (Adapted to comics by Roy Thomas and Esteban Maroto in The Savage Sword of Conan issues 230–3). Smith has written an unproduced screenplay for this novel.
- #2 Demon Night (Ace 1982)
- #3 When Hell Laughs (Ace 1982)
- #4 Endithor's Daughter (Ace 1982) (German ed: Endithor's Tochter)
- #5 Against the Prince of Hell (Ace 1983)
- #6 Star of Doom (Ace 1983)
Several of the Red Sonja Ace Books novels were printed two or three times, though Endithor's Daughter saw only one printing.
The Red Sonja novels have been reprinted in German by Heyne Verlag (1990).
Simon of Gitta series
- Scroll of Thoth: Simon Magus and the Great Old Ones: Twelve Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos (Chaosium, 1997), edited with an introduction ("The Sword of the Avatar") and story notes by Robert M. Price, collects all 12 Simon Magus stories solely written to 1997 by Richard L. Tierney. A partial list of original publication locations and dates is on-line at the Crypt of Cthulhu archive Archived September 27, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.
Not included in this collection were:
- The Wedding of Sheila-Na-Gog (Crypt of Cthulhu #29, 1985), with Glenn Rahman. Available on-line from the Crypt of Cthulhu archive Archived September 27, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.
- The Throne of Achamoth (Weirdbook #21, 1985), with Robert M. Price. Republished in 1995 in The Azathoth Cycle.
- The Gardens of Lucullus (novel) (Theilman, MN: Sidecar Preservation Society, 2001), (with Glenn Rahman).Introduction by Robert M. Price.
- The Drums of Chaos (Poplar Bluff, MO: Mythos Books, 2008). Introduction - "The Good Samaritan" by Robert M. Price.
An expanded edition of The Scroll of Thoth has been issued as Sorcery Against Caesar: The Complete Simon of Gitta Short Stories by Richard L. Tierney and Divers Hands, edited by Edward Stasheff. (Edgewood, NM: Pickman's Press, 2020). The expanded edition includes all 16 Simon of Gitta stories, including two published after The Scroll of Thoth appeared - "The Emerald Tablet" and "The Secret of Nephren-Ka") and a poem, "Vengeance Quest." Price's Introduction from The Scroll of Thoth is included in abridged form; his original story notes are reprinted for the tales from The Scroll of Thoth, while Edward Stasheff provides story notes for the other tales.
Short stories
- Shoggoths and star-headed Old Ones.
Poetry
- Dreams and Damnations: Poems (Madison, WI: The Strange Co., 1975). Pp. 82. Limited ed, 100 copies. Illustrated by James Faulkenberg. [4]
- Collected Poems: Nightmares and Visions (Arkham House, 1981). 1030 copies. Illustrated by Jason Van Hollander. The volume is dedicated to Donald Sidney-Fryer.
- The Blob That Gobbled Abdul and Other Poems and Songs (Mason City: Sidecar Preservation Society, 2000, rpt 2002). Limited to 100, and 50 numbered copies. Intro by Ramsey Campbell. Pp. 20, and 24. Reprint, 2002.
- Savage Menace and Other Poems of Horror (P'rea Press, 2010). Preface by ISBN 978-0-9804625-5-5. 100 copies of this edition were printed in hardcover as a numbered limited edition. The volume is dedicated to Charles Lovecraft.
Since the publication of Savage Menace and Other Poems (2010), Tierney's weird verse has primarily been published in the journal Spectral Realms, though poems have also appeared in Cyaegha, Weird Fiction Review and Midnight Echo. Two poems have appeared in anthologies - Anno-Klarkash-Ton edited by Glyn Owen Barrass and Frederick J. Mayer; and The Mammoth Book of the Year's Best Horror No 22, edited by Stephen Jones.
Special Magazine Issues devoted to Tierney
- Crypt of Cthulhu, Vol 3, No 8 (Whole number 24) (Lammas 1984). Contains two novelettes, two poems, an interview with Tierney by Robert M. Price, and a Chronology and Bibliography of the Simon of Gitta stories.
- Crypt of Cthulhu Vol 13, No 2 (Whole number 86) (Eastertide 1994). 68 pp. Contains six early stories by Tierney including the previously unpublished "The Dream" and an excerpt from the then-unpublished novel The Drums of Chaos, with three poems, of which "The Contemplative Sphinx" is revised from its previous appearance and "Garden-Girdled Babylon" is previously unpublished.
- Spectral Realms No 17 (Summer 2022). Dedicated to the memory of Richard Tierney. Includes a previously unpublished poem by Tierney ("Slouching Towards Yuggoth") and tribute/memorial verse by Leigh Blackmore and Charles Lovecraft.
References
- ^ Richard L. Tierney. "Introduction" in Phillip J. Rahman and Dennis Weiler, eds. Colossus: The Collected Science Fiction of Donald Wandrei. Minneapolis, MN: Fedogan and Bremer, 1999, p. xi
- ^ Robert M. Price, "An Interview With Richard L. Tierney," Crypt of Cthulhu, Vol 3, No 8 (Whole number 24)(Lammas 1984):48-50.
- ^ Buehner
- ^ Buehner
- ^ Author info, rear jacket flap, The Drums of Chaos, 2008
- ^ Richard L. Tierney. "Introduction" in Phillip J. Rahman and Dennis Weiler, eds. Colossus: The Collected Science Fiction of Donald Wandrei. Minneapolis, MN: Fedogan and Bremer, 1999, p. xiv
- ^ Robert M. Price, "An Interview With Richard L. Tierney," Crypt of Cthulhu, Vol 3, No 8 (Whole number 24)(Lammas 1984):48-50.
- ^ Buehner
- ^ Don Herron, "Richard L(ouis) Tierney" in S.T. Joshi and Stefan Dziemanowicz, eds, Supernatural Literature of the World, Westport & London: Greenwood Press (3 vols), 2005, pp. 1116-1117.
- ^ Buehner
- ^ Robert M. Price, "An Interview With Richard L. Tierney," Crypt of Cthulhu, Vol 3, No 8 (Whole number 24)(Lammas 1984):48-50.
- ^ Robert M. Price, "An Interview With Richard L. Tierney," Crypt of Cthulhu, Vol 3, No 8 (Whole number 24)(Lammas 1984):48-50.
- ^ "Richard "Dick" L. Tierney". Globe Gazette. February 8, 2022. Retrieved 2022-02-21.
Further reading
- Blackmore, Leigh (May 2022). "Richard L. Tierney: An Appreciation". In Lovecraft, Charles (ed.). Savage Menace and Other Poems (expanded ed.). Sydney: P'rea Press.
- Blackmore, Leigh (May 2022). Alex Houstoun and Michael J. Abolafia (ed.). "Richard L. Tierney: A Brief Memoir", Dead Reckonings.
- Buehner, Kristin. "Meet Richard Tierney". Mason City Globe Gazette, Sunday, August 23, 2009. [5]
- Tierney, Richard L. "The Derleth Mythos".[6]
- Eng, Steve. "Richard L. Tierney: Arcane Sonneteer" (as part of "Three Poets of Horror: Tierney, Brieding and Brennan"), in Darrell Schweitzer, ed. Discovering Modern Horror Fiction II. Mercer Island, WA: Starmont House, 1988.
- Herron, Don. "Richard L(ouis) Tierney" in S.T. Joshi and Stefan Dzemianowicz (eds), Supernatural Literature of the World, Westport & London: Greenwood Press, 2005 (3 vols.) pp. 1116–1117.
- Joshi, S. T. (2008). Tierney is discussed in "Some Contemporaries" chapter 7 in Emperors of Dreams: Some Notes on Weird Poetry. Sydney: P'rea Press, 2008.
- ISBN 0-87054-176-5.
- Lovecraft, Charles. Richard L. Tierney: A Bibliographical Checklist. Sydney, Australia: P'rea Press, 2008, pp. xv, 48.
External links
- "Fantastic Fiction". Retrieved 2007-01-20.
- "Index of online material from Crypt of Cthulhu by author, including Richard L. Tierney". Archived from the original on 2007-09-27. Retrieved 2009-02-25.
- "Robert M. Price, An Interview with Richard L. Tierney". Archived from the original on 2015-09-08. Retrieved 2009-05-17.
- "Howie Bentley, An Interview with Richard L. Tierney". Archived from the original on 2007-10-18. Retrieved 2010-04-10.
- "Review: Savage Menace and Other Poems of Horror by Richard L. Tierney". Archived from the original on 2011-02-21. Retrieved 2010-08-20.
- "Meet Richard Tierney". 23 August 2009. Retrieved 2009-08-26.
- Richard L. Tierney at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- "Wayne McLaurin, review of The Scroll of Thoth by Richard L. Tierney". Retrieved 2021-03-10.