RZ: You’ve talked about your work in adult line books, but did you ev-er write any “adult” sword and sorcery or sword and planet stories? Do you know of any books like that ever coming out? Or who might have written them?
CAN: When I started out writing in 1960 I had a theory that sex and sci-fi didn’t mix. That doesn’t mean they can’t. Simply, from a commercial point of view, people who read sci-fi didn’t, then, read sex books, and the reverse was true, too. (I broke my rule only that once, as mentioned before. Other than a few sci-fi stories for the girlie magazines, including one for Adam, which I included in Images of Tomorrow—”Planet of the Love Feast.”) Now as to Sword and Sorcery and sex. I think the same rules exist-ed at the time I was fully active. Plus, I wouldn’t have wasted my talents in doing such a book in a throwaway market when I could aim at the real market and use my own name. But the short answer to your question would be “No.” I don’t know any books that were published in the field. But that don’t mean nothin’. I didn’t have the time to read the stuff; even if I had wanted to.
RZ: Do you have any opinion on the field of modern fantasy? I’m talk-ing about such writers as Robert Jordan, Charles de Lint, Tad Williams, and Mercedes Lackey. Or is it something you read very often?
CAN: Not really. But then I haven’t read any of them. As to opinions on the field of modern fantasy, or what it should be—that is a different matter. I at one point actually started what would have become a really hard-line Sword and Sci-Fi series, ERB type, brought up to date, and where the hero had sex. There wasn’t any really graphic stuff. But it was a matter of giving real balls to a super hero. I created a hero who was raised in a tribe of desert nomads, where survival was very difficult. And sex was a normal part of growing up. In the first book (which should have been con-sidered merely background covering his childhood bio) I was detailing the hero’s harsh life as a child and young warrior. With this kind of background it was obvious that when our hero got captured by city state royalty and pushed into arenas or the arms of a beautiful, passionate maiden, he would conquer and take. [As for modern fantasy,] I think we could take a Tarzan and John Carter type and make them more sexually realistic. When ERB wrote these books they reflected the “public” morality of the times. But public morality has never reflected reality in any way. So the attitudes of the then Tarzan and John Carter, were, for their time, okay. But now, I believe, it is realistic that when the evil queen spreads out a delicious menu of sexual goodies before the noble savage hero, he should be, at least, tempted, or in some cases highly involved in feasting on them (though not necessarily in graphic detail). Just, at least, please, a human, normal re-sponse beyond the crushing to the chest of his “mate.” Those guys were real chest crushers. One wonders how they ended up having kids. I think the modern field has updated the sexual responses of the heroes. Which is all for the good.
RZ: You did do some ghost writing too, didn’t you? Can you tell us about that?
CAN: I wrote a book for a rich guy who wanted an idea of his turned into a book by “him.” I got paid well. I told him up front there was no promise of publication. Forry, who is perhaps the most moral and ethical guy I know, in and out of the business, said to go ahead and do the book. There are really a lot of great lines in the book. And it has one of the best scenes I have ever written: it is twelve pages or so that says something I wanted to say about has-been movie actresses and the price of a comeback. There are other things I really liked about the book. One cannot put that many words on paper without something good appearing out of the blue. But...alas, it was not really a commercial idea. I don’t know what he did with it. I got a nice bit of money, half on starting, half on finishing. I want-ed to cut the book in half, but the client wanted a long book and was happy with just a few changes. For many reasons it was a very difficult book to write. What should have taken no more than, say, four-to-six months, at most, took a year. He wanted 500+ pages and got them. I was also called by a woman who Forry sent my way, and offered hard cash to write a book she wanted written. She had plenty of money. I simply, nicely, turned her down. I didn’t have the stomach to take the money and run.
RZ: Why did you say no to her project when you had ghosted a book before?
CAN: I could claim I just didn’t feel comfortable “ghosting” something that probably wouldn’t have a chance in hell of getting published, simply because the “concept” was not commercial. But I believe more powerful issues were dominant. The most important problem, though I failed to see it as this at the time, was: I’d reached total burnout. It took some years to ac-cept that. What’s the difference between a “dry spell,” a “dead period,” and a completely washed out, finished, done and over with point of no return? They all feel the same. But now I considered the typewriter a monster that sat on my desk, taunting and torturing me. Put another way: a friend suggested, one afternoon, that “burn out” was when somebody would rather go fishing. I hated fishing; I had, in fact, never really gone fishing. I didn’t even like eating fish. Let alone catching them, just for the “fun” of it. Yet, when the idea of going fishing was more exciting than writing...I somehow got the point. Only then did I decide to “retire,” and I found that decision, though to some degree an illusion, workable. It got me past the point where I didn’t have to argue with myself.
RZ: You mentioned that some of your work has been published in for-eign editions. Can you tell us anything about that?
CAN: There were fifty or sixty. I don’t remember how many, and feel too lazy to count them. The most important ones to me were translations of If This Goes On, Lovers: 2070, and Whodunit Hollywood Style, the last published in hardcover editions in Dutch and French; along with a couple of my early sex books which were about the Hollywood scene, under my own name. Then there was the Carson Davis Report on Sexuality. I liked this project for many reasons; especially since it kind of capped the Carson Davis books off in a nice way. A rather pointed story about how deals are sometimes made.
RZ: Do you want to tell us about that?
CAN: Well, I learned that the Dutch/French hardcover publisher of Whodunit was going to publish a “sex” line. I said to the Dutch agent: “Wait. Do I have a deal for you.” Or something like that. I’d had most of the Carson Davis books published by now and could draw on around a mil-lion words. “How about a three-volume Best of Carson Davis,” [I asked]. He thought that was a great idea and submitted it to the publisher. Shortly, I received a counter offer: “How about a six-volume Best of Carson Davis.” And they suggested the titles of each volume. Well, I signed on the dotted line and started ripping and stripping from copies of Carson Davis books. I was supposed to soften the sex stuff, which meant just a little pen work. They published it in both Dutch and French editions.
RZ: If someone wanted to pick up more of Charles Nuetzel’s books in the heroic fantasy field, where might they look, or who might they contact? Any idea?
CAN: Under a rock, in a book store, in a library, in the fourth or sixth dimensions, for all I know. There’s a book signing each year in the San Fernando Valley, about ten or fifteen miles from ERB, INC., where one can get some copies of my books, simply because the author is there to sign the dern things. What surprised me about that show was that people were coming up with copies of things like my hardcover Last Call for the Stars, which even I couldn’t find. I finally got a copy via the Internet, in Evans-ton, Ill. I’m amazed you discovered the two Noomas books. You’re proba-bly more of an expert at that than I am.
RZ: To end with another commonly asked question, what advice would you give to a new writer just starting out in the business?
CAN: Don’t become a writer. If you refuse to take that advice: learn everything about Grammar, English Literature. Be a compulsive reader. Learn to be friendly to everybody, social, so you’ll have a vast mental file of people to draw upon. Enjoy being alone and confined in a small room, before a typewriter, sheet of blank paper, or computer. Learn about writing. The hardnosed facts like:
what plot is and what it isn’t. Finish what you start, and remember that quality comes with quantity. Use the Bradbury method of writing a story a week for fifty-two weeks in the belief that even you can’t write fifty-two bad stories. Don’t try novels until you have learned the structure of a story/plot/ writing, etc. Then learn about the com-plications of subplots. Try to always run through the first draft without re-writing. Keep the editing and revising for the final drafts. Don’t let any-body read your stuff until it is finished, or at least in a finished form worthy of being picked apart in an intelligent way. Don’t believe anything anybody says about your writing other than a paying editor, or helpful agent. And take editors as seriously as they deserve to be taken. They can help because they have an objective viewpoint backed by experience. But every one of them will have a different series of changes necessary to get your stuff published. If your work ain’t published it is just so many words written on empty air. The idea of writing is communicating to the public. Being a writer means you are a published writer. I probably should add: paid, published writer. Get the damn thing out on paper. All else is, in the long run, nothing more than getting the final story into the hands of a check paying editor who will publish it. Like one writer I know, Mike Knerr said: “If I want to see my name in print I’ll look in the phone book.” Point made. The best advice is to have another job. Because chances are you’ll never make it into the published field of writing. Those who make it will do so no matter how they approach the path. Most of all, you have to want to write more than anything else in the world. You have to be willing to pay the blood price, which can be heavy. Many a writer has ended up in the self-destruct ward, or dead. Talent has little or no effect on the end results. Right connections, willingness to learn, willingness to bend enough to get help from pros and finally published. Luck, contact, hard work, and so much damn determination that it hurts. One last point: learn when the copy is publishable and then go on to the next project. Nothing will be made perfect; everything is changeable. A professional learns when to stop and say: This is good enough.
RZ: Thank you, Charles Nuetzel.
EPILOG: CONCERNING ROBERT E. HOWARD
Robert E. Howard: here’s a question that I asked Charles Nuetzel that I didn’t include in the regular interview. I think you’ll see why. For those of you who can’t, here’s a hint. We were goofing off considerably. And for those of you who know me, you know that this must all be Charles Nuetzel’s fault. I personally have no sense of humor.
RZ: Were you at all familiar with Robert E. Howard’s work during your reading years, or after you became a professional writer? I know there probably wasn’t much of his material available before you started writing, except in old pulps, and you indicated that you didn’t do much reading while writing, which would have occurred at the same time as the “Howard Boom” in paperbacks.
CAN: I am familiar with Robert E. Howard. (With a twinkle in his eye, unseen by RZ, of course.)
RZ: And?
CAN: I heard something about him when I was a real active sci-fi fan and was collecting old pulps. Rather popular, wasn’t he?
RZ: Yes. Even more so today. Then, we could say that you are at least a bit familiar with REH.
CAN: Well...perhaps. A little bit. On the other hand I could say: “Any-body who has seen a copy of Swordmen of Vistar would have automatically known the answer to that question.” But that would be outright snotty of me. Now wouldn’t it?
RZ: Well, that’s just the sort of lovable guy you are.
CAN: Then, perhaps, it is enough to quote from the cover-lines of that book. “For readers who thrill to the adventures of John Carter [and] Conan the Barbarian, Thoris of Haldolen and his beautiful princess are destined to become popular heroes of fantasy-adventure.” So much for cover blurbs and their power to predict the future. But as you can see, Conan was right there to catch REH readers by the tips of their loincloths and drag them into the depths of Haldolen and into the power of Xalla the wizard. Or into the seductive, haunting, desirable arms of the passionate Opal, his daughter, who was determined to have her way with any and all men that caught her eyes. Of course, I recognize Conan as one of those highly successful, commercial literary works of pop art that REH originally developed for the pulps. It is rather sad that he died before continuing these adventures. I fol-lowed, with great interest, the publishing success of the Conan series. It was developed beautifully by such folks as L. Sprague de Camp (one of my favorite writers). One must wonder what Howard would have thought con-cerning the development of his Conan. Would he have approved? I think so. At least for the most part. De Camp, if memory serves me right, was one of the prime (if not Prime) writers to bring Conan to a broader audience during the 1950s. While I’ve been actually having a bit of fun, at your expense, here—
RZ: What! You mean you have not been completely serious. You cad!
CAN: As I was saying before I was so crudely interrupted, the fact is that as a sci-fi fan and collector (starting around the time Galaxy Magazine released its first issue) I actually spent much of my free time haunting se-cond hand bookstores. But, as with many collectors, I collected more stuff that I could have possibly read. My late teenage years were filled with col-lecting science fiction. I read what caught my attention, filed the rest away for future reading. REH, for the most part, was lost among a ton of stories, magazines, authors and books. Collecting was all part of my pre-author years, the years that later served as the ground work upon which I launched my own writing platform. [Editorial intrusion: Note the Science fictional metaphor here, “launched” my own writing “platform”]. I simply couldn’t read everything. So, sad to say, I must admit that the only personal experi-ence I’ve had with Howard’s Conan was looking at a few bits of one or more of the stories. The impression I came away with was: here’s a more brutal and primitive, and perhaps, realistic warrior of old. Conan was, in the original form, a classic creation. What happened to Conan after REH was long gone was a story of taking a very good idea, an exciting and in-teresting “universe” and developing it into a highly commercial and popular product. I saw the movies. And I believe that for the most part they were, perhaps, as loyal to Conan as the Tarzan films were loyal to the “true” Tar-zan of ERB fame. The Conan movies were good for what they were. Highly popular commercial Hollywood fantasy adventure films. In other words, good fun. But, of course, the original Conan, as devised by its creator, was by far better.
RZ: Insert humorous final question here.
CAN: Insert humorous final answer here.
3. WHY ALL THE PEN NAMES?
An Interview with Charles Nuetzel
by
Bill Ewing
BE: During your writing career, you had some four million or so words published in what was considered the sex market, or adult field. That was around the 1960s, wasn’t it?
CAN: And the ’70s. Actually, I wanted to write science fiction, but I was advised to write for the men’s magazines, which included the girlie magazines and a bit later the adult pocket books. This was the “pulp” field when I started writing.
BE: Can you tell me something about your experience in that market?
CAN: Where should I start? As writer, editor, publisher/packager of pocket books?
BE: That’s an impressive list.
CAN: Not as impressive as it sounds. It all fell out of the simple begin-nings. I wanted to be a writer. And that led me down a path that ends here. And now. Before we go any further, I would like to somewhat “define” this term “adult” fiction. In the early ’50s Mike Hammer was considered rather fast stuff with the ladies wiggling their bodies and tongues at him as fast as he could ram hat on his head and get outta de room. By the early 60s, when I started writing, the thrusting tongues extended to thrusting hips grinding at one another. You could get naked and give a word picture of a female body and tell about her “womanhood.” But you had to keep away from graphic details. The curtain fluttered over any graphic descriptions. Oh, you coul
d have them there undulating naked bodies. Breasts could be fondled and kissed, but nothing too much beyond that. The four letter words, at this time, were no-nos. Naked bodies. Even descriptions of the feelings surrounding orgasms had to be colored in nice little statements like: “the volcano exploded within her like...etc. “
BE: You have indicated in our private conversations that there were some editorial guidelines insofar as how much sexual content—
CAN: Oh, yes. Of course. One publisher indicated it was necessary to have a sex scene every twenty pages. “What you wanna do, put us outta business?” he would scream. So the twenty-page rule worked—for a short while. If you followed this rule you could tell just about any story you wanted.
BE: Like?
CAN: Well ... I could write books like Two Timing Tart under John Davidson; Love Me to Death with Alex Blake as the author. Both myster-ies, private-eye stories. Lost City of the Damned by Alex Rivere was ad-venture/fantasy. The Casting Couchers by Stu Rivers—about the Holly-wood Movie Industry. Bodies for Sale by John Davidson had ShowBiz in the gangster world. Over the years I used much of these same plot types to write other books, under other pen names. Lost City inspired such alternates as: Tropic of Passion and Sex on Fire both by John Davidson.
BE: These were rewrites?
CAN: No. I just considered them “plotwise” the same type of books. The Casting Couchers was reused, plot-wise, several times, notable in Sex Queen. The basic plot was: hero forced by the Hollywood powers to make it sexually with the aging actress (Monroe type) even though he was getting involved with a young starlet. Old star fades out while starlet’s career blooms. All of which gets resolved in the end. It was an easy plot to—