H. Beam Piper - The Science Fiction Author Who Created the Cannon Tradition At Lycoming College Football Games.
A folklorist and friend of Henry Shoemaker, Pipers first published Science Fiction story took place in Williamsport Pa. He went on to write stories that were sold to Walt Disney, and reportedly inspired George Lucas' Ewoks. During his lifetime, his work was met with mixed reviews. After his death, his work developed a cult following.
An antique weapons expert, with a large collection of his own, he was brought in by Lycoming College to help clean and identify the guns donated from the Grand Army Of the Republic Hall. In the collection was a cannon... and the rest is Lycoming College history. (Be sure to scroll down and read John Hunlingers account of the cannon being fired for the first time - it is hysterical)
Piper died in his apartment in Williamsport, a suicide so similar to a murder in one of his stories that many refused to believe it was a suicide, and not murder.
"The Spark grew brighter. He was more than a something that merely knew that it existed. He was a man, and he had a name, and a military rank, and memories. Memories of the searing blue-green flash, and of what he had been doing outside the shelter the moment before, and memories of the month-long siege, and of the retreat from the north, and memories of the days before the War, back to the time when he had been little Allan Hartley, a schoolboy, the son of a successful lawyer, in Williamsport, Pennsylvania."
- Time & Time Again By H. Beam Piper
Listen To A Radio Dramatization Of The Story Here:
(It's only a few minutes long)
Read a More Detailed Account Of The Life & Works Of H. Beam Piper Below.
His collection of more than 100 antique and modern weapons, ranging "from a 450-year old French sword and a 400-year old Spanish poiniard with a gold inlaid blade. to a small brass cannon once mounted on a pioneer Is blockhouse during the Indian fighting and a nine-millimeter pistol of the type used by German SS troops in World War II" formed the background of his non- science fiction mystery, "Murder in the Gunroom". He posed with his collection for a newspaper article.
A story told by John Hunsinger, in 2009
"Beam started doing volunteer work at the Museum after the Grand Army of the Republic Hall moved a bunch of material to Lycoming College. The college didn't know what to make of the stuff, so they looked for an expert in old guns, and somebody said, "Hey, how about Beam Piper?"
So Beam was helping clean and identify the guns. In the collection, they came across a sentry cannon, circa 1850, and while they were cleaning it up Beam got a gleam in his eye and said, "You know, there's no reason this couldn't be fired."
John wasn't certain. The sentry cannon was a cast-iron gun and he wasn't sure it would take a charge of gunpowder. Not that this mattered one whit to Beam, the elder statesman and authority, so they got some black powder and took the cannon outside. They loaded the cannon up, using Kleenex for wadding, and then nervously looked at each other as they realized that now one of them had to actually light the damn thing. The prospect of an unfortunate explosion had them scared sh**less.
And up strode Beam Piper, gleefully, match in hand...
After that, he became the designated cannon-firer at home games when the Lycoming College team scored a touchdown."
Photo from the dust jacked of Murder In The Gunroom by H. Beam Piper
H. Beam Pipers Books
His first published story appeared in the 1947 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. He went on to write some of science fictions "most popular and beloved stories", and many believe his Little Fuzzy series inspired the Ewoks of Star Wars. He also wrote Lord Kalvan, Otherwhen, Space Viking, and a series of Paratime Police Stories, among many others.
During his lifetime, his writing received mixed reviews and received no awards. After his death, he would gain a great cult following.
In 2011, author John Scalzi wrote Fuzzy Nation, which he described as "a twist on an older Sci-Fi Classic, Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper. Scalzi says he kept fans of the original work and the Piper estate at the forefront of his mind when selling Fuzzy Nation. "I'm also raising the profile of H. Beam Piper. Here is somebody who was a pretty influential figure in science fiction in his time, why don't you check out some of the other stuff he did?"
H. Beam Piper Planned To Write A Triology On The Fair Play Men
In January of 1928 Piper wrote in a letter:
"I received Otzinachson.... and I am delighted with it. I'd say off hand, that it is worth all that I am going to pay for it ($15) both as a history of the valley in which I spent some of the happiest days of my life, and as a source of information and material for my projected series of three novels dealing with the Fair Play Men. As to the latter, I think it will serve as the foundation, to which I will build up my other research into old records, oral traditions, and such." Read Otzinachson, A History Of The West Branch Valley by Megginess here
H. Beam Piper & Walt Disney
Piper wrote "Rebel Raider", the story of John S Moby, The Confederate Guerilla, of which Walt Disney purchased the rights.
"Why Walt Disney bought the movie rights to that article, I've never figured out," Piper remarked. "Will Colonel Mosby be played by Mickey Mouse, and General Phil Sheridan by Donald Duck? It's baffling. However, I was glad to get the check."
Very much later, the background material in the article was incorporated into Disney's "Willie and the Yank," a Roger Mobley vehicle.
Read Rebel Raider Online Here
H. Beam Piper & Star Wars
Pipers Fuzzies are said to have inspired the Ewoks in Star Wars.
"Who's Got The Fuzzies?
The Fuzzies are little golden-furred creatures who predated George Lucas' cuddly ewoks by two decades when they first appeared in H. Beam Pipers fantaty novel "Little Fuzzy". Poper, whose book and it's sequel enjoyed great success along the lines of JRR Tolkiens "Lord Of The Rings" series, told friends jsut before he died in 1963 that he had completed a third book but no one could ever find it. That is, until Pipers friend Michael Knerr began working on a biography of the author and came across a carbon of the third book hidden away in a trunk of junk. The found treasure, called "Fuzzies And Other People" will be published in August by Ace Science Fiction & Fantasty books, continuing the intelligent fuzzballs adventures in the untamed forests of Zarathustra."
The Latrobe Bulletin
June 27 1984
Fuzzies And Other People was indeed published in 1984 (written in 1955). But if Piper ever saw "success along the lines of J.R.R. Tolkien", it was certainly not during his life time. He had been surviving on pigeons he shot, before committing suicide in 1964.
As for Michael Knerrs Biography of Piper, John F. Carr writes:
" Mike discovered the “lost” Fuzzy novel (Fuzzies and Other People) in one of the trunks that he’d taken from Piper’s apartment mislabeled in a box as “second pages.” In lieu of payment (Ace Books offered him several thousand dollars — Mike called it “blood money”) for the “lost” Fuzzy book — Mike stuck a deal whereby he would write a biography of Beam based on his first-hand knowledge and Piper’s diaries which ran from 1955 to his death. Ace agreed and he sat down and over the next several years wrote the book Piper. Unfortunately, when he turned the book in Ace reneged and told him they were no longer interested. He was about to destroy it when I called to obtain his permission to quote his letters for the article, “The Last Cavalier: H. Beam Piper,” I was writing for Analog Science Fiction–Fact magazine. Mike was mad as hell, and I managed to calm him down a bit and told him it would be a crime if he destroyed Beam’s legacy in a fit of pique, since he had the only copy of the diaries. Instead, I suggested that he send me a copy of his Piper biography for safe keeping. You could have knocked me over with a paper clip when three months later it arrived in my P.O. Box! He sent me the original manuscript; I know that because it was backed with several other manuscripts (a lot of old timers did this to save on paper). I am certain that I have the only copy in existence…" http://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=138
John F. Carr went on to write and publish a biography of Piper.
H.Beam Piper & Henry Shoemaker
A Catalogue of Early Pennsylvania and other Firearms and Edged Weapons at 'Restless Oaks', by Henry W. Shoemaker and H. Beam Piper, Times Tribune, 1927.
Henry Shoemaker was a newspaperman from Altoona known for his historical "discoveries" and folklore. Today he is not infrequently referred to as a con artist who made up history to sell stories. But in Pipers day he was a well respected, highly successful, and well regarded man. And there is no doubt that he did a great deal of good, making it unclear whether he truly meant to deceive, or just got carried away in his folklore.
Shoemaker was a close friend and mentor of H. Beam Piper. In 1927 Piper cataloged Colonel Shoemakers gun collection, published as "A Catalouge of Henry Wharton Shoemaker Weapons at Restless Oaks in McElhatten Pennsylvania, compiled by H. Beam Piper". Later, Piper dedicated his first published novel, Murder In The Gunroom, to Shoemaker.
Did Piper know, or care that many of Shoemakers historical discoveries were fiction? We can't know for sure, But wedo know he was a fan of Shoemakers work.
"I received the book, along with a letter from the Colonel, just as I was starting on a hunting trip, and this is the first opportunity that I have had to answer either. I found it interesting simply no end and for one thing, it showed me just what was wrong with that fool murder mystery story I wrote about a year ago. As I see it, there wasn't a damned thing right about it."
The admiration appears to have been mutual, as Shoemaker quotes, refers to, and publishes Pipers historical writings in many newspaper articles throughout the late 20's and early 30s.
Both Shoemaker and Piper belonged to the Pennsylvania Folklore Society, and both read papers at the annual meeting in May of 1929, as reported in the Harriesburg Evening News.
H. Beam Pipers Death
"Never financially well off, Piper became impoverished through a sequence of events that involved the death and funeral expenses of his mother, an expensive European honeymoon & marriage that went wrong, and the loss of his agent, Kenneth White, who died leaving manuscript records in confusion. Piper struggled for several years with a very grim financial plight, telling no one of his problems. Eventually, he was reduced to shooting pigeons in order to live. After a while Piper got tired of that, and unwilling to sell his gun collection, just shut off the utilities, draped sheets over his furnishings, wrote a note that said:"I don't like to leave messes when I go away,
but if I could have cleaned up any of this mess,
I wouldn't be going away."
H. Beam Piper
...and shot himself to death with a .38 caliber handgun at his desk. He wasn't missed right away and his actual death date is in doubt. Piper kept a diary (and a most depressing read it is), the last entry is for the date of November 5, "Rain 0930." - Spacelight Biography of Piper
Piper had never been wealthy, and although reportedly "financially devastated" by his divorce, it was his wife who had the money when they married, he did not lose money to her.
Fairview Cemetery, Altoona Pa
Piper died penniless. John F. Carr, who wrote his biography, raised the money for this marker
H. Beam Piper: A Biography by John F. Carr
F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre parodied Pipers Paratime Police stories in a series of his own, and then also committed suicide.
Michael Knerr - Another Williamsport Writer, & Close Friend Of H. Beam Piper
"Mike was in many way Beam’s protege, and his closest friend during his last few years in Williamsport, Pennsylvania before Piper shot himself on November 9, 1964. They met at a local Williamsport writers’ group in 1959 and they spent a lot of time together talking about writing and drinking. Mike was absolutely devastated by Beam’s suicide. In fact, he blamed himself for not realizing that Beam needed help. The truth was that Mike was married, with two young sons and working full time as a reporter, and had neglected, for these very good reasons, his friend Beam Piper.
I’m sure Piper understood, and his problems were far deeper than any small loan would have addressed. Piper was a very private man and would have never burdened a friend with his personal or financial problems. He took what he thought was the only sensible way out of what he saw was a closed box — a stalled career, the recent death of his friend and long-time agent Kenneth White, a bad case of writer’s block and no money. He was too proud and self-sufficient to ever go on relief!
I first heard about Mike Knerr through the offices of Ace Books and my then editor Beth Meacham, when Mike called her, extremely irate over my factual errors about his “best friend, H. Beam Piper” in my introduction to the Piper short story collection, Federation. I told Beth to have Mike call me direct and we had a good conversation; I told him that I was only writing what other people had told me that Piper had said about his ex-wife and other factual errors. After Mike calmed down, he admitted that Piper “told a lot of bullshit about his past” and we ended the conversation on a good note. We corresponded and he provided me some information on Beam’s life and quotes from his diaries, which he had in his possession.
In Knerrs writings about Beam, he tells of Beams prediction of his suicide, and of the financial troubles that lead him there.
"A few months later in Williamsport, I met him strolling up Fourth Street. Beam used to mumble to himself on his walks, trying to figure out what to do with whatever story he was working on. I grabbed him by the arm to get his attention, and told him that I’d just picked up a copy of Space Viking at Cady’s Newsstand. He had been unaware of the distribution and promptly went up to buy a couple of copies.
I went home to enjoy one of my favorites of the Piper books, and I liked the original cover better than the one that now is in vogue. ‘By the light of burning worlds’ the blurb read, and I devoured it—probably because I’m half Viking myself. The damned book is packed with Piper, as well as Piper’s oddball sense of humor. My girlfriend pointed it out. Beam comes up with character names like Sir Garvan Sapsso, Baron Boake Valkanhayn, or Lucas Trask, Prince of Traskon and, of course, Otto Harkaman … and to a litttle princess, the ridiculous moniker of Myrna. Great Dralm, Piper! Or as Harkaman would probably explode, “The Gehenna you say.”
On the 24th (January 1964), I dropped by his place again to give him a copy of my new book, The Violent Lady, and we talked awhile. Beam seemed fine, but his diary mirrors his concern. “No more work done today. Letter from Betty—she will be in New York, en route to visit her mother, on February 13, and I won’t have any money and won’t be able to get to New York to see her.”
I had been working in a local bakery for several months, writing on the side, and on the 28th I took a job with the Shamokin Citizen as a reporter-photographer, a weekly newspaper located about fifty-odd miles south of Williamsport. While the job was an absolute necessity, it limited my visits with Beam to the occasional weekends that I could drive up. It also put a semi-colon, if not a period, to my somewhat shaky career as a writer of fiction. Ken was still my agent and peddling two historical novels for me, but the pressures of reporting eliminated anything else.
Beam was entering into one of the worst financial depressions of his writing career during the summer of 1964 and, I believe, a great deal of it had to do with his age, the situation with Betty, his ex-wife, and his ability at the typewriter. Through our various conversations, I’d always gotten the feeling that he knew that he couldn’t produce forever, but I believe that he still held out hopes of getting together a real best seller that would pull the ‘fate’ of old age out of the fire.
By the middle of April, with $173.12 to his name, he ran into an Income Tax problem that even today rankles me more than what I consider his untimely suicide—and I’ll be damned if I’ll forgive the government for it. That was the estimated income tax writers were supposed to pay in advance for being self-employed. “Income tax,” he wrote, “Amounts to $479.04—couldn’t pay it—I’d misunderstood quarterly-payment system, that is for advance for next year. Don’t know what I’ll do—that is putting it mildly.”
The first year I wrote, I was told by the Income Tax character that I had to do this estimating sort of thing. Being the hothead that I was, I told him to jam it; that I’d pay my taxes when I got paid and not before. Of course, he told me that I’d go to jail. I never did, and I paid my taxes at the end of the year. Beam, however, for all he bitched about the government, was so damned honest it used to make me mad.
That same adherence to stupid rules caused him to starve, shoot pigeons and suffer. At a time when politicians were writing off bill for $10,000.00 for paper clips and stationary, not to mention their salaries, Beam ate tapioca gruel. Without paying those taxes, he could have made it awhile longer… While Beam slaved for pennies, Williamsport had second-generation families on welfare who never missed a meal.
Not Beam. Jerry Pournelle said it: ”He was a cavalier.”
At the moment, he was a “cavalier” in a lot of financial trouble. Besides the income tax, he was two months behind in his rent and he owed gas, water, electricity and telephone bills. He found himself $430.30 in the red and commented at the bottom of the page: ”This looks like Piper is in a jam.” He sold a couple more pistols for $100.00, but he was still over $300.00 in the hole.
This sort of living, by now, was beginning to wear a little thin for Beam, and on several occasions he and I had discussed the idea of becoming ‘written out.’ It’s a possibility that all writers have to consider, and it isn’t an easy thing. At the age of twenty-eight, I thought about it, but it was about in the same abstract way that I thought about death.
“You think you’ll ever get written out, Beam?” I asked one evening.
“Yes,” he said flatly, without hesitating.
“What’ll you do?”
He made his right hand into a ‘gun’ with the index finger representing the barrel and stuck it in his mouth. He laughed.
“Jesus. That’s messy.”
The grin stayed on his face. “Someone else will have to clean up the mess.”
He was right." http://www.mysteryfile.com/Michael_Knerr.html
===========================
Listen To A Radio Dramatization Of The Story Here:
More:
- Download The Book Time & Time Again By H. Beam Piper
- Listen To Time & Time Again on the X Minus One Radio Show
- Find All Of H. Beam Pipers Books (many with free downloads) here
===========
For More Local Stories & History Of Williamsport
Find More Local History & Stories From Nearby Towns Here:
=====================
No comments:
Post a Comment
I'll read the comments and approve them to post as soon as I can! Thanks for stopping by!