Random Notes, Random Lines

Donald Sidney-Fryer (b. 1934) has, for the better part of six decades, been a leading poet, critic, bibliographer, and fiction writer in the realms of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. His interests are prodigally vast, and every literary contribution he has made since his first publication in 1962 is vital and illuminating. In this volume of essays and miscellany, we are treated to some of Sidney-Fryer's most recent thoughts on a wide array of subjects. Whether it be the life and work of Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, and Lin Carter, or the poetry of the such contemporary versifiers as G. Sutton Breiding and Frank Coffman, Sidney-Fryer always offers penetrating insight. And he writes charmingly about some of the engaging events of his own long and eventful life. In the section "Random Lines: Poems in Verse and Prose," Sidney-Fryer indites lyrics of impeccable beauty and metrical precision. And we are treated to a sheaf of poems written during his adolescence-poems that supply abundant hints of the towering literary figure he would later become. Donald Sidney-Fryer, in his eighth decade of life, remains as vibrant and dynamic a writer as when he made his debut to the literary public so many years ago.