Against the Demon World by Dave Ritzlin, a review

(Note: I was given an advance reading copy of this book, which comes out next week.)

It was a life of little but feeding, fighting, and fornicating, but Avok found it a good one. Which was just as well, because he could neither recall nor conceive of any other.

--Against the Demon World, Dave Ritzlin

Yes, that demon has a spiked metal head.

A plain truth about sword-and-sorcery: It can be elevated and thoughtful and literary …but most often you’ll find it spraying arterial blood in gladiatorial pits, or rolling around between the sheets with a lusty demoness.

Dave Ritzlin’s new novel Against the Demon World is this. 

It’s the second standalone novel by the publisher of DMR Books, and the first full-length work of his I’ve read.

If you like classic old-school muscular S&S, you’ll like it.

***

The story opens with two dudes in leather kilts and boots going on an ogre hunt. Straight in, no foreplay, into a well-rendered fight scene. Their names are Kratorr and Avok. Hard, muscular, badass. They fit the story.

Ritzlin tells the tale with a straightforward, easy to read prose style, sprinkled with some Clark Ashton Smith like vocabulary: Fuliginous, trilithon, strophium, sanguineous. But just lightly sanguineous, like sprinkled drops of blood. He’s also not afraid to use exclamation points.

And “thews,” which appears in these pages early and often.

Against the Demon World wears its influences on its sleeve. REH, ERB, CAS, and Lin Carter, predominantly. We have a CAS-esque Fount of Invigorating Flame. But the overall feel seems to owe most to Burroughs, with the demon-world a fantasy stand-in for his red planet of Mars. Weird races everywhere, weird tech. Half-living sky ships with pterodactyl-like wings.

We get Manowar references. The god Agloran, aka.  “The Hammer,” whose worshippers honor him with the Sign of the Hammer. We even get a “leave the hall!” commandment, barked at the cultists of Iljer. Us Manowar fans will know.

And of course, it’s loaded with S&S tropes. Demon worshipping cults? Orgies? Blood sacrifice? Check, check, check. “Human sacrifices were required for said rituals, as they invariably are where demons are concerned.” An unironic observation by Dave. Thunderdome like gladiator fights? Check these, too.

Who is our man Avok? He’s a hybrid Conan and Thongor. He worships Agloran at a Crom-like distance, and abides by a rough moral code of behavior (he dislikes stealing from honest men and doesn’t force himself on women, though he certainly accepts their ardent advances).

The plot is basic: Avok finds himself an unwilling pawn in a war between the barbaric free peoples of Cythera vs. the Cult of Iljer (“Hail Iljer!”). The latter wishes to convert and enslave all of Nilztiria’s free races. Avok’s sister’s entrapped immortal soul is the ransom, keeping Avok compliant. The conflict widens; Avok is pressed into something much more than typical S&S self-interest; returning runaway slaves trapped in the demon world to their homes in Nilztiria, where they can live freely and walk in daylight. 

But make no mistake, this is beefy men’s fiction, all the way. Easy reading. Action-packed. Mortal peril, demon-summoning, fight after fight. Fun! And funny:

Heltorya leaned forward, scrutinizing Avok with her lush jade-green eyes. “What is that jutting from his body? It appears erect.”

Avok glanced down at his crotch before realizing she was referring to the tentacle. It must have sprung to life recently without his awareness.

Nilztiria is a loose anagram for Ritzlin which I assume is deliberate. Dave gives his created world color and life through epigraphs leading off each chapter, written by a sorcerous chronicler. I like this device; it offers short dabs of world-building flavor that never detracts from the action. If Nilztiria feels a little generic, the demon world of Uzz is wildly imaginative. Here are egg-headed snake monsters, demons like spiky monkeys, wasps the size of mantichores wielding weapons in their tails. Gorgeous demon women who bathe in the distilled tears of their prisoners? Yep, that too. 

Here’s a description of one of my favorite demons:

This bestial specimen possessed the head and arms of a black bear, and a pair of squamous limbs which resembled headless snakes emanated from its hips. The lower half of its body was coated entirely in some type of scummy fungus. As it pulled itself aboard, it opened its jaws to emit incongruously high-pitched peals of laughter.

Avok’s chief opponent is Nelgasthros, a demon with a spiked metal head (this appendage can be used to parry sword blows. Cool). When Avok wants to ram his vengeance down the demon’s throat, his love interest quips that will be difficult, as Nelgasthros lacks a visible mouth. “Then I’ll make a few holes in the bastard’s head,” Avok replies. 

This is fun stuff, entertainment as fiction’s purpose (which by the way was Burroughs’ mantra). 

We read these kind of stories because they’re fun. Dave never takes grim matters too seriously: 

They were certainly an odd-looking crew, Avok thought: nearly two dozen hairy, disheveled men and women who appeared as if they knew not the touch of civilization, alongside a proud, noble lady whose captive was a full-bosomed demoness, all following a man with a thrashing tentacle extending from the base of his skull. Avok could not help but laugh, for it was his nature to find humor in the absurd, even when struggling to overcome grave danger as he was now.

I appreciated Dave’s small but steady injection of humor. We get high school locker-room, bro-like conversation about how to attract a woman. Avok is an unwilling mediator in a fight between two bickering women, one a princess, the other a demoness, rife with petty jealousies and insecurities and sexual tension. 

Avok stifled a chuckle. In a way, he was living out every man’s dream, sharing a bed with two beautiful women. When he returned to Cythera, he might boast of the feat to his friends. True, one was unconscious due to an injury, and the other was an evil monster, but he could leave out those details.

As is often the case with villains I found the demoness Heltorya the most compelling character. She possesses no morality, and views life (if she is even capable of self-reflection) as a thing upon which she can sate her lusts, consume and spit out the remnants.

“So the only measure of a living creature’s worth is how you can exploit it?” asked Avok.

“Of course,” said Heltorya. “Is that not self-evident?”

***

OK, Enough Talk! 

(BTW this line from Conan the Destroyer appears in the book; I use it here to cut to the chase).

Against the Demon World is muscular and fun. Good Saturday afternoon reading with a 6 pack of Miller High Life type of fun. At a breezy 200 pages and a top-notch cover illustration you won’t go wrong.

If you don’t like this muscular style of S&S, great—there’s plenty elsewhere to be found.

Kudos to Dave for telling a good story and for keeping this brand of S&S alive longer than any other publisher. 

A heavy metal rant: Stop the Di’Anno v. Dickinson, Ozzy v. Dio forever wars. Forever.

"Never, this is the end" ... of tired internet arguments.
So sayeth Dio.

Every so often I need to let out a good rant. It gets my blood going and my cold keyboard hot. Here’s one I’ve had on my chest for a while.

Imagine fighting a war that lasted 40 years, that had no resolution, and whose outcome was incalculable amounts of wasted time, wasted youth, wasted breath.

When would it be time to say “enough”? 

Some fans of Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath have been waging such a war for decades and can’t stop themselves from charging once more into the breach, going over the top into machine gun fire. Dying little deaths every day.

Wars of words fought over and over. A nightmarish endless war. One that finally must end.

They can’t do it. So I’ll do it for them.

No more Paul Di’Anno vs. Bruce Dickinson. 

No more Ozzy Osbourne vs. Ronnie James Dio. 

Stop now. 

It’s over.

It never needed to be a war to begin with. 

Paul Di’Anno was awesome on the first two Maiden albums. 

Ozzy Osbourne did immortal work with Sabbath.

Then their stories ended with these bands (Ozzy had a proper reunion tour). And when they did end, others stepped up. 

And also did immortal work.

Bruce Dickinson is Iron Maiden, as much as Steve Harris, and took the band to new heights.

Ronnie James Dio did awesome work on four Sabbath studio albums (The Devil You Know is a Sabbath album).

All four dudes are worthy.

That’s the story.

So let’s cut the shit with the comparisons. But you won’t, will you? Because you think you have some new cutting-edge argument that will finally settle the matter. That only you know the real truth, and the rest of the world needs to know.

You don’t know the truth. You just have an ugly opinion.

I’ve heard them all, all the arguments.

I hear them in my sleep.

But Maiden’s first two albums are so much better, and punkish, and cutting edge. If they had only kept Paul on…

Stop it.

But Dio turned Sabbath into something generic. War Pigs doesn’t work without Ozzy…

Cut the shit.

Here’s a 2,500 word Substack essay speculating what Maiden might have done in 1983 if Paul DiAnno only…

I said cut the shit! 

I hate counterfactual thinking. It’s a complete waste of time. 

No one’s taking away the old albums. 

More to the point, you were not there when band personnel decisions were made. Paul was fired, Ozzy was fired, and both with ample cause.

You have ZERO idea about band dynamics. Which is 10x more complex and nuanced than anything you can comprehend.

Find something else to fill your time than these tired, dead, arguments. 

When you feel compelled to type for the 4,268th time how Maiden with DiAnno was “better and Bruce sucked” or how “the only real Sabbath was Ozzy Sabbath” here’s some advice. 

1. Stop, take a breath. 

2. Go to the kitchen, pour yourself a glass of water. 

3. Reflect on how pathetic your life is, and the wasted years you’ve put into typing nonsense.

4. Get your car keys or fob, drive your car to the local soup kitchen, help people in need.

You’ll feel better. The world will be better. And you’ll have saved the internet from clogging it with one more piece of shit.

The past is done and dusted, and we can celebrate it all now. All the iterations of our favorite bands. Stop with the black-and-white thinking. 

Three of these four guys are dead and gone…let them rest in peace.

Get out of mom’s basement, appreciate life and all its variety. 

I write this knowing it will not end these wars, but it’s my last word on it. 

If someone asks me my opinion I will send them this link.

Understanding The Lord of the Rings

Ambush by Justin Gerard.

Right now (with a brief diversion into REH for his 120th) it's all Lord of the Rings, all the time.

Last weekend I took my daughters to see Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. Today we conclude the film trilogy with a viewing of Return of the King. I was able to switch the show date from tomorrow to avoid the incoming snowpocalypse. 

(It is starting to feel like The Long Winter. Wolves are at the door).

Besides the films I'm also re-reading LOTR. Which as always is an experience like no other. 

Here's a few thoughts after finishing The Council of Elrond.

***

The Lord of the Rings is a story of roots, and places.

It’s an origin story for people, from whence we came, in our mythic past. Because Middle-earth is our earth.

It is an expression of deep sadness for that which is lost, with the march of time and “progress.”

It is a moral tale, with maps of ethical behavior evinced by its characters. Some of these are loyalty, perseverance, charity, mercy.

Sauron is off-screen, a dark and sinister menace, and evil. His chief power is not in projected force (though he has that in orcs and wargs) but in domination. His chief tool is despair. The Ringwraiths’ power is in the paralyzing fear they instill. 

So therefore it is the rejection of domination and despair through perseverance and mercy that are the keys to understanding Tolkien’s moral framework.

It is an affirmation of the divine order of the universe, that there is a maker. That evil was there almost at the beginning. Iluvatar created angelic beings in his image with free will and Melkor rejected the offered order. From him came evil. But ultimately the universe is good, that there is light and high beauty forever beyond the reach of Melkor/Sauron and the shadow. 

These themes are the true magic of the story, IMO… and then there is the Lore. Which is awesome, and also magic, and intimately related to the themes. 

The Lore is the great family trees, the great Ages of history, the great stories of the past.

In Fellowship we learn about Beren and Luthien, the love of a man and elf-maiden. A man who dared to pluck a Silmaril from the crown of Melkor to win her hand (and lose his). With Beren dying in her arms Luthien chooses mortality, and the two meet again, after death--incredible. 

And from their union a line that shall never fail. 

They had a son, Dior, who sired Elwing the White, who marries Earendil, and from him Elrond and Elros.

And from Elros the Kings of Numenor, all the way down to Aragorn.

People and place and lineage, back to the beginning.

This union of theme and lore, married to a gripping adventure story, is the holy trinity and why it is the greatest work of fantasy of all time.

Judas Be My Guide, Iron Maiden

I'm old enough to have bought Iron Maiden's Fear of the Dark on tape, very close to the day of its release  in May 1992. If I'm correct my buddy Pete and I bought a copy at a long defunct Strawberries (RIP). Popped it in the car stereo on the drive home and listened all the way to the end, even after arriving at our destination. Our ears were alert to every note. This was Maiden! They deserved our full attention.

We were blown away by "Fear of the Dark," the last song on side 2. Which has since become a classic and concert staple.

... and unfortunately underwhelmed by the rest, and the album as a whole. A rare miss by Maiden.

Except for one other track on side 2. 

Take a listen and I think you'll agree about "Judas Be My Guide." 

Nothing is sacred

Back then or now

Everyone's wasted

Is that all there is?

Is that it now?

Short, barely makes it past 3 minutes. Powerful, almost no foreplay save for a bit of atmospheric guitar work, then straight in. I love Dave Murray's guitar work after the bridge between the second and third chorus. Bruce is singing at a high level here. 

It rips. A great little overlooked song that deserves more attention in Maiden's catalog.

In hindsight "Afraid to Shoot Strangers" is pretty good too.

Happy 120th, REH!

I live in the northeast. We’re in the middle of a cold snap in the dead of a rougher than usual New England winter and are expecting a huge snowstorm Sunday into Monday. 

Given the conditions, may I suggest “The Frost-Giant’s Daughter”?

It is a good day to read some Robert E. Howard. After all it’s his 120th birthday.

I read a bit of “The Frost-Giant’s Daughter” on the recently released birthday tribute video by the Robert E. Howard Foundation. I recommend the whole thing, but if you just want to see what my basement bar looks like here’s the bit at 16:37.

As you’ll see in the video I have SSOC #1 and it contains a kick-ass adaption of the story by the great Roy Thomas, illustrated by the great Barry Windsor-Smith.

As I noted the story contains a mythic quality present in some but not all of Howard’s stuff. It feels like myth and in a sense it was, adapted from the Greek myth of Daphne and Apollo.

But it feels like a northern myth. Atali is a Valkyrie gone bad, not collecting the bodies of the slain but instead leading men to their deaths, at the hands of her two hulking brothers.

Until they meet Conan, that is.

Hoist a tankard of ale or a glass of your favorite adult beverage in honor of the greatest pulpster ever. He lives on in literary Valhalla.

Happy early birthday, REH: Watch the Foundation video Jan. 21

Frazetta's frosty take, also a masterpiece.

Thursday marks the 120th birthday of Robert E. Howard. For the occasion the Robert E. Howard Foundation has assembled an all-star cast of REH fans wishing Howard a happy birthday and reading a bit of his selected writings.

Somehow I'm part of said cast. You can see me say a few words about "The Frost-Giant's Daughter" and then read the first couple paragraphs of that story. Which I think is an absolute masterpiece (yet somehow rejected by Farnsworth Wright? WTF).

The video premieres tomorrow at 8 p.m. I recommend watching it "live" if possible as I'm sure folks will be chiming in via the chat feature in real time.

Link to the video here.

Also, there is a fundraiser afoot to raise money for overdue repairs to the Howard home in Cross Plains TX, which is now a permanent museum. I made the journey to the mecca in 2023, it's a fantastic take that must be undertaken by every Howard fan at least once in your life.

I contributed to the cause earlier this year. If you have any money to spare please donate; the Foundation is a 501 (c) (3) organization and your donation is therefore tax deductible. And will go toward the greatest of causes this side of raising Atlantis from the deeps: Preserving the home of the Cross Plains bard, the man who delivered sword-and-sorcery to our shores.

JRR Tolkien, "On Fairy Stories"

"For my part, I cannot convince myself that the roof of Bletchley station is more 'real' than the clouds. And as an artefact I find it less than inspiring than the legendary dome of heaven. The bridge to platform 4 is to me less interesting than Bifrost guarded by Heimdall with the Gjallarhorn."

Tom Barber memoir, LOTR 25th, and more

A self-portrait from Tom's wild days in the west...

Tom Barber’s Artists, Outlaws & Old Timers

My friend Tom Barber has a memoir on the market.

Artists, Outlaws & Old-Timers: The (sometimes hazy) recollections of a wandering artist is the compelling story of Tom’s years out west, when he was living life on the edge as a penniless artist in the throes of alcoholism. It’s a personal, reflective story of a unique soul and a talented painter whose work graced many sword-and-sorcery and science fiction paperback and magazine covers in the 70s and 80s (and later, Flame and Crimson).

Best of all the book is loaded with Tom’s art, full color and black and white illustrations and photographs which accompany the story. More than 60, I believe, including stuff you’ve never seen elsewhere. 

I am pleased to help Tom bring this to fruition. I’ve never published a book through Kindle Direct Publishing but was able to get Tom’s manuscript through to the finish line. Due to the visuals we chose the highest quality print, which makes the price point higher. But I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. 

It’s also available as an affordable e-book.

Why read it?

If you are a fan of Tom’s artwork, or enjoy getting a look into how other unique souls lived their life, consider picking it up. If you know anyone who struggled with alcohol addiction this will resonate. And, Tom could use the support.

Much more to come on this. I’ll be writing some pieces here, the blog of DMR Books and elsewhere.

LOTR 25th anniversary on the doorstep

Twenty-five years ago I saw The Fellowship of the Ring on opening night on the big screen. I was so blown away I returned to see it again a month or so later, determined to catch it one more time before it left the theaters. This was before streaming and I had no idea when I’d get the chance to watch it next.

I can’t think of another time I’ve ever watched a movie in the theater twice. Maybe Return of the Jedi as a kid? Certainly never as an adult. Although a few years ago I did see Maverick twice, with two different sets of people. 

In two days I’ll be (there and) back again, with my oldest daughter Hannah who was not even alive when Fellowship came out. Same theater too. I can’t wait.

It will be a very Lord of the Rings weekend. On Saturday night we’ll return to see The Two Towers. Then wait a week for Return of the King next Sunday, Jan. 25th. 

I love these films. Not unreservedly, but I believe they preserve the core of the books, even if they diverge in ways both large and small. The amount of care and attention Peter Jackson and his crew put into them is absolutely staggering, they are beautiful, incredibly well-acted and scored, and they deservedly remain revered. I’ve heard differing opinions from some Tolkien fans, but it’s hard to argue with 11 Academy Awards for ROTK alone, Rotten Tomatoes scores well over the 90th percentile, and the example of Rings of Power to know what could have been, in the wrong hands. If your minimum standard is as good as Tolkien you’ll never be happy; his works were the vision of a genius whose like has never been seen before or since, and the odds of us having another JRRT are effectively zero. Tom Shippey thought the movies were great, with reservations, and that’s where I stand. Bring them on.

My stereo rocks

After years and years of tinny TV speakers I had forgotten what a movie could and should sound like. On Sunday I hooked up my Boston Acoustics speakers and Yamaha receiver to an improved DVD/CD player and proceeded to watch a bit of KISS eXposed, a faux 1987 “documentary” of the band at their KISS mansion. It sounded awesome. The chicks were hot.

My new/old stereo rocks. So glad this is now part of my sword-and-sorcery man-cave.

Jack by Andrew Sinclair, a review

Andrew Sinclair’s Jack (1977) is my first foray into the biography of a writer I consistently place in my top 10 favorites.

I greatly enjoyed it.

I don’t think it’s perfect. I wanted more analysis on the writing and impact of The Call the Wild and The Sea-Wolf, which I think every lover of adventure (that would be you, reader of this blog) should read. At 256 pages (albeit another 40 pages of notes and index), it feels a bit sleight on certain aspects of his life.

But what you do get in Jack is an unadorned look at London’s life, told by a dude with opinions. Jack is an even-handed corrective to the hagiography put out by London’s ex-wife and the baseless accusations of petty former friends. Sinclair is not afraid to criticize his subject. London had many defects as a person and Sinclair gives you those. But he also rightly places London as a greatly influential popular writer of occasional genius. 

I did not know the details of London’s life and death and Sinclair filled in some major gaps. For example, that he never knew his father and that absence dogged him his whole life. I knew London was a socialist but not as ardent as Jack reveals—nor as contradictory (London had ample cash and was not afraid to spend it lavishly and foolishly on himself and his retinue, not on socialist causes). Nor did I know London stepped away from socialism at the end of his life as well as his Spencerian beliefs in life as a biological survival of the fittest, and turned toward the mythography of Carl Jung. I did not know that London purchased more than a thousand acres of farmland in California and threw way too much money at a schooner that was barely seaworthy, nor served as a journalist and war correspondent.

London lived the equivalent of nine lives, both literally and figuratively, in his short 40 years on the planet. He packed in rags, riches, romance, adventure, wealth, debt, fame, success, and failure in four decades. He lived. London had at best a love-hate relationship with the writing life. He wanted to live a life of adventure and preferred material existence and working with his hands over the examined internal life. Yet he lived both. He wrote tirelessly and incessantly, completing 20 novels and some 50 books over his lifetime. He was quite different but also shared much in common with Robert E. Howard. Howard greatly admired London and both consciously and unconsciously imitated him, both in his writing and his beliefs and even mannerisms. I’ve noticed this prior and Will Oliver aptly points out the similarities in his recent Howard biography, but Jack offers even more parallels to the careful Howard reader.

I loved in particular the closing five pages, which sum up London’s literary legacy and read as though they were written to me by a guy who understands London like I do.

I was pleased to see Sinclair address the Jack London literary revival of the 1960s and 70s, which began to resuscitate his tarnished reputation as a flawed Darwinian racist and/or a children’s writer of simple dog stories. London was an incredible influence on writers as diverse as Ernest Hemingway, H.L. Mencken, Henry Miller and Sinclair Lewis. He pioneered the clipped Hemingway style and the Hobo/beat novels for which Jack Kerouac is credited. He was an early pioneer of the science-fiction genre. But for decades it became unfashionable to admit he was a first-rate writer, one of America’s greatest. Influential critics including William Dean Howells sought to diminish any of his literary contributions, dismissing London as a hack writer of adventure stories, and it took good work by the likes of Earle Labor to set matters straight.

Sinclair sums up these unfair appraisals (not helped by London’s frequent dismissal of his own writing) as follows:

“It was unjust, because his life had been experimental and questing, so that his dismissal as a totalitarian or a children’s writer was absurd. He had been his own worst enemy in his insistence that he was merely a farmer who needed a lot of money for the land, and who lit after inspiration with a club; but such a self-denying ordinance should not have dimmed the mytho-poetic magnificence of some of his books … no critical onslaught on him could kill off the affection of the masses for whom he had always said that he wrote.”

Read this.

Sinclair puts his finger on the complex figure of London with this brilliant observation: “He had a dialectic of appetites without a synthesis of satisfaction … in his books, he often split himself into two opposing characters, because he lived so uneasily within his single personality. In The Sea-Wolf, he was both Wolf Larsen and Humphrey van Weyden, the brute ego in conflict with the social being.”

London was a racist and Sinclair does not hold back there, though a glance at Goodreads confirms that you must take book reviews with a healthy grain of salt. Some idiot on that platform gave Jack 2 out of 5 stars because Sinclair “Completely ignores the racist bent that is a sad and pathetic black mark on London's past.” This is utterly, demonstrably false, and I left a comment of correction that platform. Sinclair repeatedly criticizes London’s racism and Anglo-Saxon mythologizing. But then again idiots read books too.

Anyway, I recommend Jack for any serious reader of London who wants to learn more about the man himself. 

Computer God, Black Sabbath

I suspect Paul Kingsnorth isn’t a metal fan but he has an ally in the late Ronnie James Dio. 

“Computer God” opens up the vastly underrated Dehumanizer with a bang. Dio saw what was coming, back in 1992, when he penned these prophetic lyrics:

Computerized God, it's the new religion

Program the brain, not the heartbeat

Onward, all you crystal soldiers

Touch tomorrow energize

Digital dreams and you're the next correction

Man's a mistake, so we'll fix it, yeah

My inconsequential machine rebellion has begun. I picked up this rig on Tuesday. A Yamaha RX-595 receiver with a pair of Boston Acoustics speakers and a DVD/CD measure for good measure. The price was right (zero). It sounds fantastic. I can now play my old CDs again. Remember what it was like to hear an entire album without commercials, comments, and digital distraction?

Name the CD for bonus points...

No internet, no algorithms, no copyright strikes, just metal. Dio would have approved.

Virtual existence with a superhuman mind

The ultimate creation, destroyer of mankind

Neil Peart, six years gone

Me and Scott (of Scott's thoughts) at the Neil Peart pavillion.

Six years ago we lost Neil Peart. 

I still remember hearing the news; on Jan. 10, 2020 I was home, in the kitchen, when my phone flashed. A text, then another. Several of my friends had started a chain, sharing their shock and grief. Later, we shared YouTube clips of his best solos. Neil was a very private man and his diagnosis of terminal brain cancer was a closely guarded secret. So secret that we learned he actually died three days earlier, on Jan. 7. 

His death was a shock, and hurt us all deeply. I still feel the ache.

Since then I’ve been to Lakeside Park in St. Catherines Ontario, the very one that served as inspiration for the Rush song of the same name. I stood outside Neil’s boyhood home. And walked the Neil Peart Memorial Pavilion (that's me at right, in the Spinal Tap t-shirt).

Against all odds Rush is playing again this year. They’re back on the road, touring without Peart. In his place is German drumming virtuoso Anika Nilles. 

I love the decision. Alex and Geddy have more than earned the right to keep playing music. They were itching to get back on stage but out of respect for Peart took a long leave of absence. I’m sure Nilles will be fantastic. 

I hate the pricing. 

Well over $500 reported in many venues for average seats. Which means I very likely won’t be going. It’s not too rich for my blood, but it’s too rich in a year with a lot of planned travel and other expenses.

I’m sure it will be a great event. A catharsis for the band. I will regret not seeing whatever tribute Rush has planned for Neil.

But it won’t be the same without the professor, so perhaps it’s best to keep my old memories of the original three intact.

I don’t know if Neil is the best drummer of all time; I’m very much not qualified to make that call. I am confident in saying that if he’s not somewhere in your top five rock drummers you’ve made an error in judgement.

Peart not only was incredible at his craft but wrote the lyrics to all of Rush’s songs. Dozens of classics, among them the quiet, delicate, wistful “Rivendell.” 

From that song:

Yet you know I've had the feeling

Standing with my senses reeling

This is the place to grow old till

I reach my final day

After a life marked by deep tragedy culminating with his own untimely death, I hope his soul has found peace in the immortal lands.

Namárië! Nai hiruvalyë Valimar. Nai elyë hiruva. Namárië!

Farewell! Maybe thou shalt find Valimar. Maybe even thou shalt find it. Farewell!

Here’s to being weird

I like being weird. 

Most never see this side of me; they see a balding, middle-aged man with 20 pounds to lose (I’m working on it). A respectable dad who works in healthcare marketing to raise two children who are now young adults and nearly fully raised, but is now shifting responsibilities to elderly parents. A dude who lounges around a house in baggy jeans and a flannel shirt, at the balloon end of a respectable cul-de-sac in old blue Massachusetts. Who likes to mind his own business. Crack a few dad jokes and a few beers on the weekend.

Average, boring.

But if you look closely enough you might see a few cracks in this not-carefully crafted façade. 

I don’t watch sports (though I do hold an unhealthy relationship with the Buffalo Bills; please win one Super Bowl before I die). I don’t have a woodshop or a golf bag or fishing rods or a sports car.

I have a combination basement office and barroom hangout full of books. Fantastic artwork adorns the walls—here a Frank Frazetta print, there a Tom Barber skeletal warrior, and a tapestry advertising Iron Maiden’s Stranger in a Strange Land. In one corner, a CD tower of heavy metal music. A decent sized collection of Savage Sword of Conan magazines. DVDs and VHS tapes of The Lord of the Rings, Excalibur, Conan the Barbarian, Mad Max, Jaws, The Shining, Blade Runner, and odd horror films.

Scattered on my bookshelves are a few odd items. Skulls. Viking warriors. A painted candle carved as a dark wizard. 

All of this office stuff might give someone pause, my in-laws for example. But inside of me is where things truly get weird.

I am a hopeless romantic. In the old and true sense of that word. I am in love with stories of heroism and adventure. I see the world as enchanted (though that enchantment is largely vanished from sight, subsumed by modernity and the machine). I believe in the existence of objective morality, of good and evil, and that some type of omnipotent creator probably exists. 

I can’t explain the world otherwise. And so I’ve taken the inward journey, deeper into the weird than most. 

I once explored imaginary dungeons of my own making. Dungeons and Dragons and tabletop RPGs were a formative experience in my youth, and I played again in young adulthood. Video and computer RPGs are abandoned childhood pursuits. Even today I wouldn’t say no to either of them; I just prefer to read and write about weird things. In the pages of books I let my mind explore other’s creations and wander in strange worlds.

I have been to the steppes of the Hyborian Age and the deep woods of Middle-Earth. Prowled the dank streets of Lankhmar with Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.

Listening to the songs of Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, I am a Trooper charging on horseback in the Crimean War, a Sentinel in a postapocalyptic wasteland.

I have been these people, inhabited these places. Have you? 

I remember thinking in my teenage years that one day this would all wear off. That my musical tastes would soften to top 40. I’d drink Miller Lite and grill and play golf.

I hate golf. God is it terrible.

I do enjoying grilling and I’ll drink a Miller Lite if pressed. But I never gave up heavy metal or sword-and-sorcery. You can take my SSOCs when you pry them from my cold dead fingers. I know I’ll be weird forever.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be normal. More than once I wished I was born with a fix-it gene, but the physical world is sadly not my forte. I wonder what it would be like to be more interested in the events of the world, a political junky. To enjoy pop culture, TV shows like Ozarks or Breaking Bad, or take interest in the lives of celebrities. It would make awkward conversations easier. I hate those too.

I might have achieved more in my professional life if I made money my master KPI.

But in the end I could not do these things. The weird kept calling. 

For a short while I denied this, as I transitioned to adulthood. In college I tried to be someone else. It did not work; the weird came back. It never left.

I’m proud to be weird. Today I embrace it; I wear Conan the Barbarian or KISS t-shirts and listen to metal and don’t give a fuck. I write a dusty old blog about old shit very few care about. Because it’s who I am. Maybe it’s who you are, too.

We need weird people. The world would certainly be a lot less fun if everyone were normal. Maybe, interminable.

Here’s to being weird.

Happy 2026! Time to get after it.

Happy New Year!

I can get caught up in unproductive routines, doom loop cycles, and this time of year, overeating and overdrinking. I appreciate the fresh start the year affords.

It’s time to get after it in 2026. Renewed discipline, but also optimism, commitment, engagement with the world. I want to get outside more, walk, touch grass.

My reading is off to a good start with Jack, a biography of Jack London. I’m about a third of the way through and am greatly enjoying learning about a favorite author who typically falls in my top 10. These days I seem to be gravitating more and more toward nonfiction. The world, and its past, are so strange and full of wonder that fiction, even the weird, seems pedestrian in comparison. I do think both should be read, as fiction activates different parts of the brain, and good fiction connects us to myth and story in a way most non-fiction cannot. And I am starting to itch for a Lord of the Rings re-read. I like and agree with some recent advice from a booktuber to “read for quality, not quantity.” It does seem best to me to know a book a depth that it shapes you, changes you, rather than to read as many titles as you can for breadth and only be able to recall them shallowly, if at all.

I am going to publish my heavy metal memoir. This book bridges both fiction and non-fiction; it is the unadorned facts of my life, and observations and insights on the music that shaped it, but also told with what I hope is a driving and engaging narrative voice found in good fiction. I can’t wait to share it with the world and hope it finds readers for whom it resonates.

Speaking of heavy metal I’ve got a couple of Iron Maiden concerts on the docket for this year. 

I will in all likelihood be hosting one final heavy metal themed party here at my house, over the summer, with a live band. For years this was an annual event. Eight years after the last in 2018 I plan to bring it back one final time, a "retirement sucks" tour worthy of Ozzy Osbourne.

We’ve also got a trip to Alaska lined up, land and sea, which I’m greatly looking forward to. At 52 I am very aware of my steady advance into middle age and want to see and experience more of the world while I still can. 

What plans do you have for 2026? What behaviors do you hope to adopt, or drop? 

BTW I’m debating more posts like this, where I’m just sort of rambling not about any particular book or movie or author or trend. I enjoy letting my mind wander without needing to stop and reference facts or cite passages.