Heard this one before?

A few weeks ago at Readercon, while searching through boxes of $1-a-copy paperbacks in the dealers’ room, I stumbled upon a (rose?)water-stained copy of a book that had first caught my attention twelve years earlier: H.F. Heard’s Doppelgangers (1947). My first encounter with Heard’s book had aroused in me a deep fascination with his life and work. Anke and I spent several months doing research on Heard for a 10,000-word literary biography we had arranged to write for The Scream Factory. Unfortunately that excellent review magazine died before we finished the article.

Shortly afterwards, we decided to review Doppelgangers as part of a tribute to my first magazine, Doppelgänger, which had just been euthanized by my successor there as editor, Jamie Meyers. The tribute appeared in Split, one of the variously-named collections we publish, in addition to our regular magazine, Not One of Us.

Heard was an interesting dude: philosopher, writer of mysteries and ghost stories, and friend of George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, and Timothy Leary (yes, that Timothy Leary, if you catch my drift). Perhaps we can belatedly spark an interest in Heardiana.

I hope you at least enjoy the review, which follows, LJ-cut for length.
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