Blogging the Silmarillion--all parts linked

I've finished uploading all my prior Blogging the Silmarillion posts. In hindsight I feel like I wrote as many words as The Silmarillion itself. Hopefully not as dry as an ancient Second Age scroll found in the library of Gondor.

Just a final note, I made no attempt to preserve any spoilers. These are reflections on the text as I read along with it. If you do decide to read/re-read The Silmarillion use these to gauge your own interpretation of the text. I welcome any thoughts/comments.

Introduction

Part 1: The Creation of Arda and Myth-Making

Part 2: Of the coming of elves, and several degrees of separation

Part 3: Melkor strikes back, and the pride and exile of Fëanor

Part 4: Of northern-ness, the death of Fëanor and the creep of doom

Part 5: The breaking of the siege of Angband and other (myth) busting

Part 6: Of Túrin Turambar and the sightless dark of Tolkien’s vision

Part 7: Out of ruined lands and cities, a star of hope arises

Part 8: A straight road is bent and Men suffer punishment divine

Part 9: Closing the book on the Third Age

Conclusion

Gone to the Wolves by John Wray, a review

80s metal... take me back.

Heavy metal ebbs and flows in my veins—but never runs dry. Even as alternative forms of audio entertainment from podcasts to YouTube videos compete for my time, it resurfaces in my workouts, or on long drives where I need to decompress. It is the music I grew up with, it is still the music I listen to most today, and it will remain my favorite genre forever. 

These days metal claims a larger portion of my mind. In part because, as readers of this blog know, I’m writing a memoir about growing up in the context of this unique genre of music. But also because I just finished a wonderful work of fiction on the subject—John Wray’s Gone to the Wolves. 

I’ve read a fair number of works of heavy metal non-fiction, including history (Sound of the Beast, Ian Christe, others) sociological studies (Heavy Metal: The Music And Its Culture, Deena Weinstein), and autobiographies (too many to count). But I can’t say I’ve encountered a work of literary fiction in which heavy metal plays such a starring role.

Gone to the Wolves begins in Florida in the late 80s, a region and a point in time that saw an underground surge of death metal, the emergence of bands like Cannibal Corpse and Death. It shifts the action to the LA Strip and glam/hair metal, before finishing with a third and final act in Norway, home of black metal. We get the time, the culture, and the place of these three culturally and geographically diverse areas, all done well.

And we get the music. There is a lot to like here. Wray is a very good writer, but has a unique talent for capturing sound and the emotion it engenders in its subjects. Reading the book feels like going to a concert, and at times casts a potent spell.

But, more than music Gone to the Wolves is really about the unique friendship shared by its three main characters. The protagonist is Kip, a teen who leaves an out of state broken home to move in with his grandmother in Venice, FL. There he befriends Leslie, a gay, black, nerdy teenager with a big brain for metal. The two later meet Kira, a wild, untamed thrill seeker and Kip’s love interest. The characters don’t speak like any teenagers I know, or knew of; they are too articulate, too smart, too informed. But it works in a dramatized novel.

The dynamics are fun, the characters work, and the story pulls you in. The trio fall into the underground of Florida death metal, graduate high school and leave for L.A. and the crazy party scene on the strip. When that begins to spin out of control and Kira loses patience with its falsity, she ultimately ends up in Norway in the early 1990s. Which as anyone who knows heavy metal’s history was home to some crazy shit—church burnings, an attempted overthrow of a Christian nation, and the revival of the pagan gods of the old north.

I love the details and the commentary of the time. A character named Jackie launches into a soliloquy about the division in metal, one side Dionysian ecstasy and the other set the chaos of Set, as played out in chick friendly hair metal vs. the heavy, real shit, thrash and death metal. It struck me as true. As did the early scenes of hanging out in the middle of nowhere, crowded around a fire with friends, drinking and living for today. I had similar experiences.

I also identified with Wray's portrayal of metal fans as the outsider, apart from the conversations about popular music and fashion-seeking, but instead embracing loud and commercially unfriendly bands, adopting their fashion and making it and the metal lifestyle, well, everything. 

I recognize these kids.

But I did have some issues with the book, and a look at Goodreads indicates that others had similar.

It feels like too much is crammed between its covers, in particular the third and final act which morphs into a dark crime thriller. Its tonally different and a bit jarring after the character studies and bildungsroman of parts 1 and 2.

Kira is suffering from deep trauma that is not given adequate treatment, leaving her feeling a bit like an archetype rather than a believable character. And yet, Kira is possessed of something I recognize—the need for authenticity, to move beyond the falsity that papers over so much of life. This was a big part of metal subculture, the battle of true vs. false metal, as sung in explicit fashion by the likes of Manowar. Wimps and posers, leave the hall.

Metal bands fall along on a spectrum, from the tongue-in-cheek “evil” antics of Ozzy Osbourne to actual death worshipping bands like Mayhem and Burzum. So if you’re a metal fan you know which direction the book is heading—toward Norway, drawn by Kira’s authenticity seeking. Wray seeks to explore metal’s darkest recesses but it requires a bit of a stretch to get the action there. Overall I enjoyed the first 2/3 of the book a lot more, which felt true, and the latter section something of the false. But I get why Wray went went there.

I’ve got my limits and black metal is a bridge too far; some of it has atmosphere I can appreciate but it’s too one note/wall of sound for me, as well as genuinely disturbing, even enervating. I made it to Slayer and Sepultura and that was far enough. Metal has dark corners I don’t need to explore and the characters in the book come to feel the same: “This isn’t where I thought my love of rock ‘n’ roll was going to take me,” Kip says at one point, as they pursue Kira’s trail into the heart of Norway, toward a possible rendezvous with death.

Metal remains an untapped source of literary expression, and with Gen-X in the ascendancy and the Boomers and the Beatles mercifully in the rear-view mirror it’s time to reflect on what it all meant. Wray’s novel is a welcome addition to the conversation.

Blogging the Silmarillion--of faith and resisting despair

I finished re-reading The Silmarillion last night and so will update the remainder of my prior posts on the book.

I don’t have a whole lot else to add, other than if you haven’t yet read The Silmarillion, you ought to make the attempt. In fact, I’ll say you must give it a valiant effort, if you’ve read and enjoyed The Lord of the Rings. It adds a tremendous resonance and depth to the events of that book, and to a lesser degree The Hobbit.

Upon re-reading my old posts I do have one thing to add.

In Blogging the Silmarillion I talked a lot about the problems Tolkien explores within his broader legendarium: Death, and the pursuit of deathlessness. Power, and possessiveness. Loving the works of one’s hands too much. But I wrote comparatively little on the answers offered in The Silmarillion. These include courage and companionship, but above all, faith. That there is, as Sam sees in the star of Eärendil far above the Ephel Dúath, light and high beauty for ever beyond reach of the Shadow.

Even if you’re not of religious faith it’s important to have it in a general sense. Faith in our basic goodness. Faith that life is worth living. And that something greater may always be waiting, even at the brink of disaster, as long as we do not give in to despair.

Eärendil’s perilous voyage to Valinor succeeds because he refuses to succumb to despair. Húrin and Túrin give in to it, and commit the ultimate capitulation of suicide. Despair is a tool of the enemy (think of the Ringwraiths, for whom its their primary weapon) and a deadly foe. But even a bitter defeat can be a step towards ultimate victory. It’s perhaps the greatest lesson The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion have to teach us.

Aragorn is a descendant of the faithful, a group led by Elendil who obeyed the law of the Valar and kept the friendship of Elves. The faithful preserved the seed of Nimloth the Fair, survived the drowning of Numenor and carried the seedling of the white tree to Middle-earth. And ultimately prevailed against the overwhelming might of Sauron.

Today our own fourth age brings with it new burdens and challenges. The struggle continues, possibly toward a long defeat. But as always, new hope arises.

Blogging the Silmarillion part 5: The Breaking of the Siege of Angband and (other) Myth-Busting

Blogging the Silmarillion part 6: Of Túrin Turambar and the sightless dark of Tolkien’s vision

Evil never dies: Parts 3 and 4 of Blogging the Silmarillion updated

There is much goodness in Tolkien. But ample darkness, too.

In The Lord of the Rings, evil is exemplified in Sauron and the orcs and Shelob. But The Silmarillion greatly amplifies it. We get to know Sauron’s master, Melkor/Morgoth, the very embodiment of evil and most powerful of all the Valar. Along with dragons, balrogs, and the lust that invades even the hearts of elves like Eol and his son Maeglin.

But balanced against this Tolkien reminds us what goodness is, again and again. And how it should respond to evil: Hammerstrokes, but with compassion, to paraphrase C.S. Lewis. 

You think we’d know this but we don’t.

Evil is real. It’s not just the stuff of faerie, embodied in the evil monsters and beings of the early Ages of Middle-Earth.

It’s the twisted terrorist running a car through a crowd of partygoers.

It’s in the actions of the ruthless dictator or soulless CEO.

In Tolkien’s Catholic-inspired universe we are fallen creatures, made in the image of an omnipotent creator but imbued with free will—with all the potential for greatness but also horrors that entails.

So it’s important we be continually reminded of the good, and the incredible sacrifices required for the maintenance of peace. And how the good can fail, how good people can succumb to base impulses and commit evil. 

Being good isn’t easy.

We see this great drama played out in The Silmarillion in the chapters I’m working through. Here are the recaps, as I continue to restore my full posts from the Blogging the Silmarillion series.

Part 3: Blogging The Silmarillion: Melkor strikes back, and the pride and exile of Fëanor

Part 4: Blogging The Silmarillion: Of northern-ness, the death of Fëanor and the creep of doom

The Silver Key: 2024 in review

Life is pretty good these days, both personally and creatively. Even though I slowed down a bit on the blog, I’m making an impact.

Life is imperfect and hard and 2024 was no exception. My body continues to age, and hip and knee pain have made a dent in the formerly carefree way I could train with heavy weights. Yet it’s manageable and I keep pushing.

My wife and I are dealing with aging and increasingly infirm parents. My dad is 81, immobile and prone to falls, and I spend a lot of time helping him with day-to-day life. My father-in-law, 85, has early-stage dementia and now requires 24-7 in-home assistance. We’ve got some good external help, but you can imagine what that means for us, and in particular my wife. She spends a lot of time caretaking. We both do. 

But, despite these challenges I can say unequivocally that life is good. 

Why?

We’re grateful to be in a position to take care of our parents when they need us.

I’m blessed beyond measure with two wonderful daughters and a healthy marriage and a good job.

At age 51 I’m at ease with myself at a depth and surety I’ve never previously experienced. I am no longer plagued by unrelenting self-doubt. I know my value, I know where I stand on most issues, and I know what I value. I know enough to say when I don’t know (which is often), and I know when to keep my mouth shut.

This is what true wealth looks like.

My posting here on the blog has declined, but for good reason. My forthcoming heavy metal memoir is taking serious shape, and I know it will see publication this year. Either with some third-party publisher, or more likely self-published. I still sometimes wonder why I’m bothering with a relatively banal story of a no-name heavy metal fan, but I keep pushing, because I believe it’s an important story others might enjoy and learn from. It’s my life, shared in the context of a style of music that has meant so much to me.

But, between writing the memoir, aging parents, work and careers, maintaining friendships on and on, something has to give, and in 2024 it was my posting on The Silver Key. As it publishes this will be my 59th and possibly final post of 2024. 

Last year I had 65 posts, and the year prior 101.And yet somehow my blog traffic has … gone up?

Per Google Analytics, I had 29,352 total post views in 2023, and this year through Dec. 28 I have had 45,230 views. That’s a 54% increase YOY.

How did that occur? I don’t know. Perhaps someone with knowledge of search traffic trends and Google’s air-tight algorithm can offer some insights. I’m at a loss.

It had nothing close to a viral post, but if you look at my top 10 posts by views of 2023, the numbers are significantly higher across the board this year than last. Even though I don’t monetize this blog in any way it’s nice to know people are reading.

On to the show.

Most popular posts of 2024

Normally I do a clean top 10 type post in this spot, but in 2024 I had 17 posts with more than 400 views each. Last year I only had 3 posts exceed the 400 mark. So I’m listing all of these, lowest to highest.

Going Viking at DMR Books, 404 views. A review of the Saga of Swain the Viking, vol. 1.

Of internet induced “Panic Attack” and Judas Priest’s Invincible Shield, 413 views. My review of Judas Priest’s latest, awesome studio effort.

A review of Metallica, August 2nd 2024, Gillette Stadium, 450 views. I knocked out I believe four concert reviews this year, all of which pick up regular seach traffic and occasional traffic from Reddit.

Death Dealer 3: Semi-enjoyable (?) train-wreck, 467 views. So bad its good, I am “enjoying” the Death Dealer series and am reminded I need to review vol. 4.

Ruminations on subversive and restorative impulses, and conservative and liberal modes of fantasy fiction, 482 views. I liked this essay and am glad others did too, which I believe successfully navigated a fraught political line. 

A review of Iron Maiden, Nov. 9 2024, Prudential Center, Newark New Jersey, 483 views. Glad I got see Maiden perform a heavy dose of my favorite Maiden album Somewhere in Time, and one of the final performances of drummer Nicko McBrain.

Prayers for Howard Andrew Jones, ardent sword-and-sorcery champion, 490 views. A terrible tragedy and I continue to wish the best for Howard and his family.

Our modern problems with reading, 499 views. The first of a couple rant-y type posts, people do like these (and I find them easy to write, they come out in a rush) but I’m often left with a feeling of guilt, like I’m adding yet more negativity to an ocean of internet awfulness. But I try to keep rationality at the foundation.

Not all books need be movies, 500 views. See above, I still get irked by everyone wanting a movie made out of every book or literary character. Books can just do some things better.

50 years of Dungeons and Dragons, 559 views. A big round anniversary for a game that’s meant a lot to me.

A review of Judas Priest, April 19 Newark NJ, 586 views. It’s amazing these guys are still doing it.

Some observations while reading Bulfinch’s Mythology, 605 views. Possibly the biggest surprise, a semi-review/scattered observations on an old book of mythology made my top 6 posts of 2024.

The Shadow of Vengeance by Scott Oden, a review, 634 views. A review of a book in the Heroic Signatures line by a writer with an ear for Howard’s prose style.

More (mediocre) content is not better than no content: A rant, 689 views. A true rant, I stand behind my message but need to reiterate I believe everyone should create if the urge arises. I wish I had targeted it more at the major studios and the “franchise-zation” of everything good that ultimately tarnishes art.

And now the top 3:

50 years of Savage Sword of Conan, and beyond, 776 views. SSOC was my gateway to Conan and S&S and I couldn’t let its silver anniversary slip by. One of these days I might get around to completing my collection.

Organizing my bookshelves: How I do it (YMMV—no hate), 878 views. Not sure what happened here—this post was picked up by a blog with bigger traffic and that drove many views, but I think it’s a topic that all of us book collectors can appreciate. 

The Savage Sword of Conan no. 1, Titan Comics: A review, 1388 views. SSOC is an important title, both historically and today, and overall I’m pretty happy with what I’ve seen from Titan. Though as my review points I had some issues with no. 1 (in particular the printing). But this one brought in the most eyeballs of 2024, both out of the gate and continues to do so. I’m reminded I need to pick up issues 5-6.

To sum up: People like shit posting/rants, they like reviews about Conan, they enjoy advice on how to shelve books (?), and they like heavy metal. All these things bring me great joy and I’m glad they seem to bring joy to you, too. I do very much welcome comments on the blog, and thank all my regulars, but the numbers have a power all their own, and demonstrate that which resonates with a broader audience. I’m not a numbers chaser at all and I write what I enjoy, but nevertheless I find the numbers interesting.

As always I welcome comments here about what you like, don’t like, or what you want to see more of in 2025 and beyond. 

Silmarillion re-read, link to part 1 and letter to Milton Waldman

White ships from Valinor, Ted Nasmith.

I’m currently re-reading The Silmarillion and you can now find the full post of part 1 of my 2010 “Blogging the Silmarillion” series originally published on The Cimmerian, here.

A few additional thoughts and comments on this most recent go-round.

I don’t know why I previously failed to mention Tolkien’s 1951 letter to Milton Waldman that leads off the volume. It’s like reading the cheat code for Tolkien’s greater legendarium. Interestingly this letter does not appear in the 1977 Houghton Mifflin first edition hardcover, but does appear in the gorgeous, Ted Nasmith illustrated 2004 second edition that I also own. Get this latter edition if you don’t already have it, there are nearly 50 illustrations and many appear in this volume for the first time.

Waldman was Tolkien’s friend and an editor at the publishing house of Collins, and the letter is more or less a lengthy summation of Tolkien’s argument that The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings should have been published together, or at least in conjunction, “as one long Saga of the jewels and the rings.” Of course that did not occur as The Silmarillion was published posthumously in 1977.

The letter contains a wonderful summation of what lies at the heart of the legendarium, “Fall, Mortality, and the Machine.” I am perhaps slightly more forgiving than others of Tolkien adaptations, even though I’d be content if we got no more, but I do believe that any faithful Tolkien adaptation must contain these elements. A Fall from God, the creator, Iluvatar; the problem of Mortality (and the problem of the pursuit of deathlessness); and the Machine, or the desire to dominate or coerce other wills and raze and bulldoze the natural world. Either implicit or explicit.

Re-reading The Silmarillion, and reviving my old Cimmerian posts

I've started re-reading The Silmarillion. It's been a few years, and I'm due to revisit the rich and wonderful history of Middle-earth.

I'm enjoying it as much as I did upon my last re-read, which prompted me to revisit my old "Blogging the Silmarillion" series for the Cimmerian website. 

Back when I was writing for The Cimmerian I used to run part of the post here and link to the rest. Unfortunately that has resulted in incomplete posts after that site was radically overhauled. Time to correct that by posting the full text here, which I fortunately retained.

Here's the series introduction, Cimmerian sighting: Blogging The Silmarillion. 

I'll post the others as I work my way through the text, and possibly add a little additional commentary.

Of the year in writing, and reading--memoir update and more

I went outside yesterday to take in the trash barrel and pick up the mail (exciting stuff--I’m a rock star, in case you haven’t realized that yet) when I felt a firm bite, piercing my heavy flannel shirt. A deep cold settling into New England. 

The year is winding down, fall rapidly turning to winter, and as I’m wont to do in December I’m turning reflective. 

And so, a reflective post.

I’m planning on one of my usual “annual state of the blog” posts later this month, so I’ll save the Silver Key analysis for later. This is an update on what’s going on outside of the blog, of a reading and writing bent.

Heavy metal memoir

My work in progress has a name but I’m not going to share it—yet. More than a name it’s got 80,000 plus words over 11 chapters, words that are being hammered into readable shape, and setting into something I’m reasonably happy with.

I am confident in saying it will be published next year. If not by a traditional publisher, then by me. 

I’m experiencing the same phenomenon as with Flame and Crimson. The first draft did not come out in a rush (writing is not easy) but it came out, with a beginning, middle, and end, following a detailed outline I put together in the fall of 2022. 

Then I put down the draft, read it … and cringed. Did I forget how to write? Apparently.

On to round two. Ripping out an entire chapter, sections of others. Wholesale rewrites, and additions.

Then round three.

This wave of edits is finally resulting in headway. Despair is turning to hope as I hammer on the raw material and find some gold. Or at least ingots of copper and silver.

This is a far more difficult book to write than Flame and Crimson. That required a great deal of research and academic rigor, far more than the WIP, but the struggle with memoir is telling a compelling story. Not quite what you’d do with a novel, but it relies on some amount of novelistic technique. Scenes, and dialogue, and interior observation. Deciding what is important to the reader vs. what was important to me. It also requires raw honesty of a very personal sort.

To be clear, this is book is most definitely not a history of heavy metal. Those are legion, written by authors far more knowledgeable about and closer to that wild and interesting subject than I. This is my story, of the prime years of my life from teenager-dom to adulthood, written in the context and against the backdrop of heavy metal. It has metal history and observations in it, but filtered through my unique experiences, which form the basis of the work. 

Will anyone find this interesting? Will anyone read it? I don’t know. I do know I had no choice but to write it. 

I believe it is worth committing to paper, if only for my own sake. I believe anyone who has lived a full life has a memoir inside to share. The process of writing it has been cathartic. It involves joy, and pain, revisiting old memories and opening some old wounds. 

It’s intensely personal, loud and dumb. It’s also a blueprint for how I improved my life and how a reader might theoretically improve his or her own. 

I am riven with self-doubt about its viability as art or commerce but that’s par for the course. 

I hope anyone who follows this blog and has enjoyed my ramblings over the years might consider picking it up. I don’t believe you have to be a metal fan to appreciate its message.

Flame and Crimson

Flame and Crimson had a solid 4-5 year run with a lot of chatter, reviews, and even an award from the Robert E. Howard Foundation. It finally seems to be receding into the past, which is fine. Most who know S&S have encountered it in some way, shape, or form.

I remain immensely proud of the book. And I continue to get praise, which never fails to move me.

For the curious Flame and Crimson has a joint 274 reviews across Goodreads and Amazon, averaging 4.6 stars on the latter and 4.2 on the former. Most readers seem to have enjoyed it, both as a scholarly work that added some critical rigor to the subgenre, and as a compelling read. That was the goal.

I believe at some point I will do an expanded second edition. But no immediate plans on that front.

Reading

I’ve read 40 books to date. Not bad, but again will fall short of my annual goal of 52 books (one/week). Which I almost never meet. Life gets in the way, as I’m mostly glad is the case. I live a pretty good, full life.

After The Fall of Arthur I’m feeling like it’s time for another delve into Tolkien—The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, maybe some volumes of HOME or some of the criticism. I’ve read enough to know that Tolkien will never be surpassed by any other fantasy author, living or dead. So I keep returning to him. Arthur has whetted my appetite.

Here's what I’ve read to date.

1. The Saga of Swain the Viking: Volume 1: Swain’s Vengeance, Arthur D. Howden Smith (finished 1/7)

2. Excalibur, Bernard Cornwell (finished 1/15)

3. Conan the Barbarian: The Official Story of the Film, John Walsh (finished 1/18)

4. Death Dealer 3: Tooth and Claw, James Silke (finished 1/23)

5. Misfit, Gary Gulman (finished 1/29)

6. Shimmering Images: A Handy Little Guide to Writing Memoir, Lisa Dale Norton (finished 1/31)

7. The Shadow of Vengeance, Scott Oden (finished 2/2)

8. From the Heart of Darkness, David Drake (finished 2/11)

9. Art of Memoir, Mary Karr (finished 2/25)

10. Surprised by Joy, C.S. Lewis (finished 3/3)

11. The Long Game, Dorie Clark (finished 3/9)

12. Bulfinch’s Mythology, Thomas Bulfinch (finished 3/24)

13. Game Wizards: The Epic Battle for Dungeons and Dragons, Jon Peterson (finished 4/2)

14. Silk Road Centurion, Scott Forbes Crawford (finished 4/28)

15. Twisted Business, Jay Jay French (finished 5/8)

16. In a Lonely Place, Karl Edward Wagner (finished 5/14)

17. Eaters of the Dead, Michael Crichton (finished 5/30)

18. The Vikings, The Seafarers series, Time Life Books (finished 6/8)

19. Tain, Gregory Frost (finished 6/19)

20. Into the Void, Geezer Butler (finished 6/30)

21. The Craft of Revision, Donald M. Murray (finished 7/2)

22. Tehanu, Ursula LeGuin (finished 7/9)

23. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson (finished 7/13)

24. Beowulf and Other Old English Poems, translated by Constance B. Hieatt (finished 7/19)

25. Deliverance, James Dickey (finished 7/28)

26. A Grief Observed, C.S. Lewis (finished 8/5)

27. Hither Came Conan, Rogue Blades Foundation (finished 8/18)

28. Somewhere in Germany, Mark LaPointe (finished 8/20)

29. Weird Tales of Modernity, Jason Ray Carney (finished 9/2)

30. Neither Beg Nor Yield, Jason Waltz editor (finished 9/16)

31. Fire-Hunter, Jim Kjelgaard (finished 9/22)

32. Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre, HP Lovecraft (finished 10/7)

33. My Effing Life, Geddy Lee (finished 10/9)

34. The Shining, Stephen King (finished 10/22)

35. The 6% Club, Michelle Rozen (finished 11/4)

36. Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir, Dave Mustaine (finished 11/5)

37. Freedom, Sebastian Junger (finished 11/9)

38. Immaculate Scoundrels, John Fultz (finished 11/20)

39. The Last Celt, Glenn Lord (finished 11/26)

40. The Fall of Arthur, JRR Tolkien (finished 12/2)

Sons of Albion awake: Of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fall of Arthur and Iron Maiden

You'll probably want to read this.

The King Arthur myth is ubiquitous and timeless because it is powerful and its themes universal. The Arthurian myths speak to us subconsciously, on deeper levels than we can readily articulate. 

We feel their powerful call, and many have sought to capture their magic in diverse adaptations. These include authors separated by long gulfs of time—Malory and T.H. White, for example—and artists working in very different mediums. 

J.R.R. Tolkien and Iron Maiden. 

I just got finished reading Tolkien’s The Fall of Arthur. It’s a curious little volume, 233 pages, of which the actual centerpiece poem is incomplete and only comprises 40 pages. The rest is critical apparatus by Tolkien’s son Christopher.

But what a poem it is.

40 pages of 14th century alliterative verse rendered into modern English metre, telling the story of Arthur’s journey into far heathen lands before he is summoned back to Britain to quell an uprising by the traitor Mordred. Of Guinevere’s flight from Camelot and a great sea battle.

This is no tale of formal courtly love or restrained codes of chivalry, but resembles something out the pages of The Iliad, the Goddess singing of the rage of Achilles:

Thus the tides of time     to turn backward

and the heathen to humble,    his hope urged him,

that with harrying ships     they should hunt no more

on the shining shores      and shallow waters

of South Britain, booty seeking.

As when the earth dwindles    in autumn days

and soon to its setting    the sun is waning

under mournful mist,    then a man will lust

for work and wandering,    while yet warm floweth

blood sun-kindled,     so burned his soul

after long glory     for a last assay

of pride and prowess,     to the proof setting

will unyielding    in war with fate.

There is no magic, no romance, just vengeance, hard combat, lust, and doom.

… then a man will lust for work and wandering… so burned his soul after long glory. Not exactly Bilbo comfortably enjoying cakes and tobacco at Bag End. Yet Tolkien wrote The Fall of Arthur contemporaneous with his much more famous work.

Tolkien began the poem in the early 1930s and there is evidence to suggest he may have continued working on it as late as 1937, when The Hobbit was published. He spent a lot of time getting the words right, and his effort was not wasted—its words ring with power. Christopher says his father drafted some 120 pages before settling on the final text presented in the book. “The amount of time and thought that my father expended on this work is astounding,” he says. 

Given the effort expended it remains a mystery why Tolkien abandoned the poem, though Christopher offers up a possible explanation: He was turning his whole thought to Middle-Earth. 

After the publication of The Lord of the Rings Tolkien expressed a desire to return to the poem, but the effort failed. It’s a shame the poem remained unfinished but Tolkien’s unbounded genius outstripped his available hours. 

But the extant work is remarkable, and as Christopher demonstrates in the additional material served as likely inspiration for the great Middle-Earth legendarium, including the voyage of Earendil and the fall of Numenor.

Arthurian Eddie.

What makes these stories so potent? For that answer I need to turn to Iron Maiden and Bruce Dickinson.

Arthur was taken to Avalon to be healed after his great wound suffered at the hands of Mordred at Camlann. The story from there varies; in some versions he does not make the voyage but dies and is interred in an abbey graveyard at Glastonbury. But in others he seems to reach the fabled isle, where one day he will return, healed, to unite a divided land.

Maiden refers to the legendary properties of the isle in “Isle of Avalon” off of 2010’s The Final Frontier.

The gateway to Avalon

The island where the souls

Of dead are reborn

Brought here to die and be

Transferred into the earth

And then for rebirth

This same Isle of Avalon prefigures Tolkien’s Tol Eressea, the Lonely Isle, accessible only by a Straight Path out of the Round World denied to mortals, that led on to Valinor.

Arthur, gravely wounded, bides in Avalon/Tol Eressea. His return is promised in the old rituals and the enigmatic enduring standing stones of Britain, as depicted in “Return of the King,” a track appearing on the expanded edition of Bruce Dickinson’s 1998 solo album The Chemical Wedding.

What is the meaning of these stones?

why do they stand alone?

I know the king will come again

From the shadow to the sun

Burning hillsides with the beltane fires

I know the king will come again

When all that glitters turn to rust

The song is a powerful cry for Arthur’s return, one that I feel.

We’re all engaged in the eternal struggle. As human beings we're possessed of individual desires and wants and enjoy our freedoms, but must balance that as members of a civilization that provides purpose and joint safety--and in exchange saddles us with restrictions and obligations. The Arthurian myths speak directly to this great tension. 

Arthur is a man with earthly desires, including his great love for Guinevere, but must subsume them to greater obligations owed to his kingdom. Launcelot is a heroic figure whose martial prowess and love for Guinevere can be viewed as the Chivalric ideal, but his base desires and human weaknesses undo a kingdom.

All the same struggles play out today. There is no clean resolution, just a balance that must be struck with compromise.

I think we’ve have tipped too much into individualism. We create and curate our own virtual realities in our smartphones. We distrust institutions. Civic engagement has sharply declined. Some of this institutional skepticism is warranted. But if everyone reverts to selfish individual interests the center cannot hold, and civilization falls apart.

We need the return of a king to unite this fragmented land. 

In “The Darkest Hour” Bruce/Winston Churchill exhorts the besieged people of England to turn their ploughshares into swords and take up arms against tyranny (“You Sons of Albion awake, defend this sacred land”). Perhaps we one day we may unite under a common cause, the idea of Arthur, and create a new shining kingdom from the wasteland, a “Jerusalem” on earth:

I will not cease from mental fight,

nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,

till we have built Jerusalem

In England's green and pleasant Land.

Immaculate Scoundrels by John Fultz, a review

An immaculate cover.

When it appears in sword-and-sorcery anthologies, John Fultz is a name that I look forward to reading.

Why?

His “Chivane” (Worlds Beyond Worlds), “Evil World” (Neither Beg Nor Yield), and “The Blood of Old Shard” (A Book of Blades) are terrific, ranking among the best of modern sword-and-sorcery that I’ve read (and I haven’t read it all, I can’t keep up). I recommend any modern S&S reader seek out Worlds Beyond Worlds, which collects 11 of his fantasy tales published during 2010 to 2020. Almost all of the stories in it are good.

But despite his reputation for short fiction, John recently started a series, Scaleborn, of which Immaculate Scoundrels (2024) is the first.

It is well done fantasy, blending epic fantasy with sword-and-sorcery. It boasts a nice cast of characters and a lot of action. The prose is clean and unadorned, modern, and dialogue-heavy. It reminded me more of Joe Abercrombie than the stylized Jack Vance shaded with ornate Clark Ashton Smith flourishes that I was used from his prior works.

I think the style of Immaculate Scoundrels probably works best for longer, multi-series works. Or perhaps Fultz, who once described his literary influences as Lord Dunsany, Howard, Lovecraft, Smith, Tolkien, Tanith Lee, Darrell Schweitzer, and others, has finally found his voice. 

Regardless, he’s a good writer. He really understands pacing and story, too.

Speaking of Abercrombie, the main character of the work, Thold, reminds me a little bit perhaps of Logen Ninefingers. Very deadly and with a reputation that proceeds him. He’s a well-drawn character, as is the sorceress Yuhai, the two of whom get most of the ink here.

“Scoundrels” describes the cast of characters that populate the book, many of which have baggage, flaws, or ulterior motives at odds with the cohesion of the group. Nevertheless as their paths cross they stick together through to the end, drawn by necessity or perhaps a higher fate.

There is a distinct Asian flavor to the world of the Scaleborn. Yhorom is not your traditional Medieval European fantasy 101. Fultz does a nice job creating a world that feels both dirty and visceral and familiar, but also alien. War is its unending drumbeat.

It’s also got great fight scenes and inventive magic. A fun and atmospheric tomb raid, and a desperate final battle with a high body count, higher than I was anticipating for a series. I won’t spoil any of that here but you’ll be surprised, methinks. Plus cannibal tribes and weird monsters. And of course we are introduced to the race of Scaleborn, which are mostly human in appearance but with patches of scaly skin. They are a marginalized, dwindled race, and often brutalized by human captors. But we get just a little bit of that here with much left to the imagination, presumably to later entries.

Despite being a multi-character series, Immaculate Scoundrels feels much more S&S than high fantasy. As noted, the scoundrels are mostly rogues who enjoy the sordid side of tavern life, and a few have made a living as hired thieves or assassins. Outsiders and rogues, making a hard living. This isn’t A Wizard of Earthsea or The Belgariad, though there are definite higher powers (or at least greater forces) at work.

All that said, this one did not land quite as squarely for me as the best of his shorter S&S pieces. I suspect this is largely due to preference; I am that rare bird that prefers short stories and standalone novels. I find most multi-series fantasy to be padded out unnecessarily. Immaculate Scoundrels feels a little more expansive than I typically prefer. There are several threads that Fultz leaves open-ended, a budding romance unconsummated, all of which my impatient self would prefer to get now, in one book.

I can and do recommend it, however. Immaculate Scoundrels is a fun, strong, good read, a promising start of a new series that fans of independent authors and sword-and-sorcery should support.

TL;DR, read some Fultz, people.

Stephen King's The Shining, book and film

I’m a big fan of The Shining, book and film. Both work really well, for slightly different reasons.

My grandfather owned this edition.

I encountered the book first, discovering it along with many other horror and men’s adventure titles through my grandfather. He used to keep a few shelves of well-worn paperbacks behind his easy chair and down in his basement, and when my parents would visit or drop us off for a night of babysitting I’d inevitably find something good to read.

Among the titles that stand out from this time are Whitley Striber’s The Wolfen and Stephen King’s The Shining.

I “read” both as a kid, skimming here and there for the good parts. Both scared the shit out me. My grandfather’s edition of The Shining had the added bonus of stills from the movie, so I had a visual representation of Jack Torrance, Wendy and Danny.

Eventually I would view the film, which also scared the shit out of me as a kid and later bring me great artistic pleasure as an adult. But the film has been so successful and vivid in the public imagination that it has in many ways surpassed the book and become the definitive version of the story. So, I decided to revisit the novel, deep as I am in the Halloween season and struck as usual by the need to indulge my horror sensibilities.

There are many similarities between film and book. The deep isolation of The Overlook, its history. Danny’s ability to “shine,” his precognition as well as knowledge of things that have passed. Jack’s instability. The major plot points and beats of the book are there in the film, too. The endings differ greatly, though people make a little too much of this. Both Danny and Wendy escape, and Jack does not, even if the “how” is quite different.

The book however departs from the film in other interesting and important ways, perhaps principally in that it’s a character study of Jack Torrance. He’s not the sole POV character (Wendy and Danny, and minor characters including Dick Halloran get their turns, too), but it’s mostly Jack’s story. A man battling his demons—career frustration, artistic failures, domestic chafing including resentment for his wife--all fueled by the demon of alcohol. Danny’s “shining” gets a much deeper, fuller treatment in the book. He can detect not only moods but whole thoughts in the heads of others. The motivation for the Overlook wanting him is therefore much stronger in book than film.

I’ve mentioned before that films and books have their unique strengths. 

The film does some things better than the book. Stanley Kubrick’s long, panoramic shots of the approach of the Torrance family in their VW bug, and the hotel interior, empty hallways and ballrooms and kitchens, lend the film a sense of physical isolation that the book cannot quite match. The iconic shots of the murdered twin girls and the tsunami of blood from the elevator are so strikingly rendered in film that they surpass the book, too.

But the book gets us inside Jack’s head in a way no film can. I found myself understanding and even sympathizing with book Jack on a much deeper level than Jack Nicholson’s portrayal. I love Nicholson in the film (his work approaching Wendy on the staircase--“Wendy, gimme the bat”) and later crashing through the bathroom door with an axe (“here’s Johnny!”) are fantastic, but he’s pretty much unhinged from the get-go, a veneer of normalcy papered over an unstable lunatic that needs very little psychic urging from the hotel to erupt. In the book we get much more of the why behind Jack’s vulnerabilities, including his childhood traumas with an abusive father, creative frustrations, self-loathing and guilt, and his deep struggles with alcohol.

In short, I love both versions, but the book serves as another example of why I appreciate both mediums and don’t privilege one above the other.

Neither Beg Nor Yield, a review

This book can have none more attitude.

Neither Beg Nor Yield is an ass-kicking sword-and-sorcery anthology that you should read.

This thing is a beast, an obvious labor of love. 456 pages. 20 stories. Illustrated throughout. An incredible lineup of authors. How the hell did editor Jason Waltz manage to land this group, a who’s-who of fantasy writers? Each story gets an outro penned by Waltz, a smattering of biographical info coupled with his insights on what makes each story fit the prescribed “sword-and-sorcery attitude” that unites each of the stories.

This book has attitude.

Did we mention attitude?

Waltz plants an Iwo Jima-esque flag for what sword-and-sorcery means to him. It can be summed up in one word. Attitude, with a capital A. Always. Stories of vital, never-say-die protagonists, shouting “enough talk!” before contemptuously hurling a dagger into their garrulous foe (this actually happens in one story). Think of Conan cutting down a magistrate and hacking his way free of a corrupt courtroom, or running down a cruel Frost Giants’ Daughter in the snowy wastes. “An indomitable will with the passion to live,” Waltz proclaims, in his introduction to the volume “It’s Not Gentle.” 

This attitude accurately describes a large swath of S&S, and undoubtedly draws many fans under its bloody banner. Including me.

It’s an interesting and compelling way to look at the subgenre, even if it does circumscribe S&S a bit more narrowly than I’d prefer. I suspect it might leave out the Clark Ashton Smith weird/antiheroic strain of Satampra Zeiros that I enjoy, for example. I’m not sure if it permits a story like “The Best Two Thieves in Lankhmar,” or most of the Elric stories. I fear something like HP Lovecraft’s fuck around-and-find-out, dreamy and atmospheric “The Doom That Came to Sarnath” would not make the cut. 

Even Conan realizes the pen is often mightier than the sword, and diplomacy is needed.

On the other hand Waltz’ theory allows for a story like “Suspension in Silver,” a story set in the present in which werewolves attack a tattoo parlor that most probably would not consider S&S. So in another sense, it’s permissive.

Sword-and-sorcery can mean different things to different people, and readers gravitate toward it for many reasons. Though it is admittedly a relatively narrow subgenre dominated by men and women of action, there are different strains within it, not all flush with attitude.

We can decide what sort of S&S we prefer. And that flexibility allows an editor to curate a vision for what type of stories he or she wants to publish.

Waltz plants a firm fucking standard in the ground with NBNY. A giant middle finger at the sky, drenched in blood. I commend him for this.

Are the stories any good?

Of the 20 tales, I liked at least 13 of them. S&S anthologies are never perfect and I consider this a very good hit-miss ratio.

My absolute favorites included:

• Soldier, Seeker, Slayer, John C. Hocking. A powerful story with an end that hits like a ton of bricks. A mercenary who has lost his memory has it all come crashing back.

• The Stone from the Stars, Chuck Dixon. This was well-told, amusing, and entertaining start to finish. Reminded me of a Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser story with a little more gross-out action.

• Evil World, John Fultz. Fultz is one of the best S&S writers working today and delivers the goods every time I read him. This story taps into the mythic, with battles against external evil and weakness within.

• Reckoning, Keith Taylor. Taylor is an excellent author, full stop, one of the best of the S&S “silver age” or whatever you want to call it, late 60s to early 80s. The author of Bard takes us back to his sweet spot, Dark Ages Ireland for a tale of Nasach. The combat is 10/10. Great little tale.

• Bona Na Croin, Jeff Stewart. I don’t believe I’ve read anything by Stewart before but I loved this gritty story from an unknown to me author. Very Taylor-esque with its ancient Celtic setting, good use of grit and historical realism that makes its irruption of weird magic powerful and horrifying.

• Virgins for Khuul, Steve Goble. Another new name I was pleased to be acquainted with. This was like a much better told Death Dealer story, over the top but in a fun way. Includes a massive snake and a protagonist with the moniker “Slaughter Lord” … but it all works.

• The Last Vandals on Earth, Steven Erikson. Erikson is a great author even if I have no intention of wading through his Malazan series. Powerful and well-written with an emotional charge, dying letters written in blood never fail to move me.

• Maiden Flight, Adrian Cole. Very apropos ending for the book. Concerns a Valkyrie and a warrior not ready to depart for the halls of Valhalla. The Northern thing never fails to land with me and this one stuck the landing.

Five other stories were good, entertaining if not as unqualified good as the ones above. Seven failed to land with me, likely a matter of taste and style. The only disappointment I want to mention is the Joe Lansdale story. I am a HUGE Lansdale fan and was greatly anticipating this one, but I bounced off its gonzo style and (very) strange subject matter. It reminded me of his The Drive-In, which I also did not particularly enjoy. I love Lansdale’s Hap and Leonard stories, and several of his standalone novels including The Bottoms. He writes humor better than any author I’ve read, save Douglas Adams. He can do pathos and action with equal facility. I’m firmly in Joe’s fan club and he can take the critique. Other reviewers seem to like “The Organ Grinder’s Monkey” so make of this what you will.

TL;DR, get this book and read it. You will be entertained, and your testosterone levels will increase. It’s pretty metal.

Rock on.

Weird Tales of Modernity: Elevating the artistry of the Weird Tales Three

Pulp and other forms of genre fiction have become not just an accepted form of entertainment, but an acknowledged outlet for meaningful artistic expression. But this is a relatively recent phenomenon. For more than a century literary critics shunned pulp, categorizing it as cheap entertainment for coarse consumers, junk food devoid of value. Some actively discouraged its consumption.

Today literary elites no longer dictate broad cultural tastes—or if any do, they certainly wield less power and influence than the likes of Harold Bloom, Edmund Wilson and William Dean Howells once did. At least from my limited perspective.

But one result of this century of neglect is comparatively few literary studies. Only recently have we seen a steady uptick with the likes of Jonas Prida’s Conan Meets the Academy (2012), Justin Everett and Jeffrey Shanks’ The Unique Legacy of Weird Tales (2015), Mark Fisher’s The Weird and the Eerie (2017), Bobby Derie’s Weird Talers: Essays on Robert E. Howard and Others (2019), John Haefele’s Lovecraft: The Great Tales (2021), and Stephen Jones’ The Weird Tales Boys (2023). We have plenty of catching up to do, which makes Jason Ray Carney’s Weird Tales of Modernity (McFarland, 2019) a welcome volume. It’s a work that certainly deserves more attention. I recommend it strongly, with a few caveats.

The first caveat is price. McFarland describes itself as a leading independent publisher of academic and general-interest nonfiction books, but academic publishers typically charge more due to their small print runs, and McFarland, though cheaper than some academic presses, is still pricey. This book runs nearly $40 new at just under 200 pages.

The second is accessibility. Weird Tales of Modernity is a challenging read. It took me a while to get into the flow due to the denseness of Carney’s language and use of academic jargon. I have a degree in English and have read (and even appreciate) academic writing, but it’s been a while since I tackled such material and needed to shake off a little rust to get back into that headspace. It probably also assumes a little too much familiarity with literary modernism.

But once I acclimated to the language I both enjoyed Weird Tales of Modernity as an entertaining read, and for the compelling case it makes for the literary merits of H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, and Robert E. Howard. Carney’s central thesis is that the “Weird Tales Three” were not just producing entertainment, but contributing meaningfully as original artists writing in reaction to literary modernism.

This would be a good time to explain that particular term. 

Literary modernism was an experimental mode of fiction in vogue from roughly the late 1800s to the early 1940s, peaking in the interwar period (1920-39)—roughly concurrent to the literary output of Howard, Lovecraft, and Smith. It was a time marked by profound disillusionment in institutions and doubt that universal truth and human progress were possible. Rapid changes in technology and industrialization coupled with the carnage of World War I made old certainties a shifting sand.

Amid these rapid changes artists such as T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, William Faulker, and Virginia Wolfe adapted modes of literary expression to match, abandoning old traditions and pioneering new prose and poetry techniques--slice of life, introspection, emphasis on realism, abandonment of meter and rhyme in poetry. As the old sureties in life were slipping away, they sought to achieve immortality through “art in amber,” even if just in limited, fragmentary glimpses. A chief example is Joyce’s Ulysses (1922), a dense and sprawling work which depicted the events of 24 hours in the life of Leopold Bloom.

Carney argues that Smith, Lovecraft, and Howard were aware of this movement, but instead of engaging in it produced stories of shadow modernism, “strange art, artists, and experience of art created in reaction to modernity.”  Howard’s decaying cities and corrupt civilizations and Lovecraft’s Great Old Ones and uncaring, indifferent cosmicism were symbolic representations of the terrible ephemerality that lurked behind the seeming consistency of our day-to-day lives—the inevitable march of time and the subsequent corruption and decay of all human endeavor. The Weird Tales Three saw through this veil and understood the ephemerality of life—the “ephemerality of the ordinary” as Carney repeats in an oft-used phrase.  “Irrespective of tribe, race, clique, or coterie, we are all ephemeral forms trembling in strange stasis destined for formlessness.” 

Capturing the ephemerality of human endeavor required more than the language of literary modernism could provide. It required fantastic and extraordinary literary techniques married to the techniques of the Gothic novel—hallmarks of the Weird Tales Three. Writes Carney, “After many creative iterations honed over several stories—e.g., Pickman’s demented art, Malygris’s sorcery, the fell mirrors of Tuzun Thune—this shadow modernism becomes an inhuman form of technology that, functioning like a cognitive prosthesis in the virtual world of fiction, thereby reveals the secret truth of history: history is a cruelly accelerating process of deformation. The ordinary is ephemeral. History is the interplay of form and formlessness with formlessness terminally ascendant.”

Carney does an impressive job supporting his thesis with multiple references from the literature, both from mainstream modernist writers and from Howard, Lovecraft, and Smith. I found his arguments original and convincing, offering new insights and perspectives I hadn’t previously considered. If you take these writers seriously it’s a book you ought to seek out.

In addition to his scholarship Carney has done much of note for sword-and-sorcery and the broader field of pulp fiction. His efforts building the online Whetstone discord community (which recently shut down after a notable run of some five years), initiating the Trigon awards and associated conference, organizing academic panels at Howard Days, and of course establishing the Whetstone Amateur Magazine of Pulp Sword-and-Sorcery, served an important function for many. We’re all on the same path of dissolution and formlessness, which makes any efforts to make sense of the art we enjoy while offering warmth and community for other like-minded souls deeply appreciated and sorely needed. Weird Tales of Modernity and Carney’s broader oeuvre serve as a bulwark against the ephemerality of the ordinary.

This review also appeared on the blog of the Rogues in the House podcast.

Hither Came Conan; A Review

Also a winner of The Valusian Award from
the Robert E. Howard Foundation.

Robert E. Howard Days was wonderful for many reasons, but among them was the opportunity to talk Robert E. Howard, anywhere, anytime, with anyone. Standing in line waiting for barbecue at the pavilion, on a schoolbus tour led by Rusty Burke, or wandering around downtown Cross Plains, everyone was there to talk REH and ready to engage in banter about their favorite tale or their own Howard origin story.

It was like being in a warm blanket of Howard-heads.

Then it was over, and I was thrust back into the hard cold world of the ordinary.

The good news is if you own Hither Came Conan you don’t have to wait a year for a similar experience. Imagine a bunch of folks gathered around a proverbial campfire with an assignment: "Why is this Conan story Howard’s best? You’ve got 10 minutes. Go.” That is the premise of this volume, published in 2023 by the nonprofit publishing house Rogue Blades Foundation.

Hither Came Conan serves as a fine companion to the Conan stories. I can imagine this book serving as an ongoing reference, pulling it off the shelf and seeing what Deuce Richardson or Gabe Dybing has to say when you’ve finished re-reading “Black Colossus” or “The People of the Black Circle” for the eighth time.

This exercise admittedly gets a bit absurd when you are assigned something like “Vale of Lost Women” or the unfinished “Wolves Beyond the Border.” Everything Howard wrote has some minor touch of genius, some cool scene or vivid snatch of poetic prose, but no one can seriously defend the likes of “Vale” as REH’s finest hour. But I give the respective essayists credit for the attempt.

The list is authors assembled for this project is impressive. Wide ranging, from top scholars to fiction authors and ardent fans. People like Patrice Louinet, who stands in the black circle of top Howard scholars (his Hyborian Genesis essays in the Del Reys are a must), Jeff Shanks, David C. Smith, Bobby Derie, Mark Finn, Morgan Holmes, Richardson, many others.  But the true spine of the book is “Re-Reading” Conan by Bill Ward and Howard Andrew Jones, a written dialogue which appears with every story including the “Wolves on the Border” fragment and “The Hyborian Age.”

Truth be told I was preoccupied and not paying attention in 2015 when the great Black Gate Conan re-read was going on, and so I missed this series when it first appeared. It is reprinted here in Hither Came Conan and so was new to me. This remains the best part of the book. Ward and Jones engage in a back-and-forth discussion that almost feels like spoken word. Both are of course incredibly complementary to REH and offer shrewd insights into what makes each tale great, or at least solid pulp fare, while largely managing to avoid engaging in hagiography. Neither are afraid to critique REH and talk about which stories or parts of his stories fell flat or conform to predictable pulp formula. I’m still puzzled by Howard (Andrew Jones’) ongoing rejection of “Beyond the Black River” but hey, that’s why you read a book like this. If it was all unadorned praise it would invite no engagement and discussion and get real boring, real fast.

Some of the essays are very good, others are uneven or somewhat uninspired. My own is in here (“Honor Among Thieves: Hyborian Age Morality,” an “Extra, Extra!” essay analyzing “Rogues in the House,”) which in hindsight is OK. I’m my own worst critic. If you’ve read it let me know what you think.

I gleaned a few new insights reading the essays, for example the considerable effort REH placed into “Man-Eaters of Zamboula” after reading John Bullard’s appraisal of Howard’s careful revisions over three drafts. But what is best about this book is the sense of shared admiration for this character, and the varied voices of the wonderful community of fans that have sprung up around him. In that vein I also appreciated the work of editors Jason Waltz and Bob Byrne for also including the voices of the readers of Weird Tales. It gives us a sense of communion with the past, and the knowledge that fans leaving comments on the Black Gate website aren’t so different than fans writing to The Eyrie letters column circa 1932-37. 

Indeed any evaluation of Robert E. Howard and Conan involves a communion with a time and place nearly 100 years ago. But one that thankfully shows no signs of slipping into the past, thanks to new volumes like this.

Treasure Island and the powerful call to adventure

It’s been a busy last month or so. Mostly in a good way, with some PTO combined with some busy times at work. But that means my writing has suffered and the blog collecting a bit more dust than usual.

Reading has been OK. I did manage to finish Ursula LeGuin’s Tehanu and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island while on vacation last week, and have since moved on to Beowulf and Other Old English Poems.

Treasure Island was a treat. I hadn’t read this since I was a kid and it holds up extremely well, both from the perspective of an adult reading a book ostensibly for young men (it was first published in serialized fashion for Young Folks, a children’s magazine), but also a work written in 1881. It’s bloody, but relatively bloodless, the violence ample though at a slight remove. The action however never stops, and the atmosphere and plotting are things of beauty. Pure, mainlined adventure from page one.

Treasure Island was published as a standalone novel in 1883, a time when literary realism and literary modernism were in the ascendancy, and so was a bit of an anachronism, a throwback to the historical romances of the likes of Sir Walter Scott. But it nevertheless proved immediately popular with the reading public and even many critics of the age.

I read a 1930 edition (Windsor Press) with a fascinating introduction by Harry Hansen, “How Robert Louis Stevenson Wrote Treasure Island.”  In addition to an interesting story behind the physical writing, publishing history and critical reception, I learned of another chapter waged in the well-grooved war of realistic vs. fantastic fiction. Henry James, perhaps the greatest practitioner of slice-of-life/realistic fiction, enjoyed the book himself—but nevertheless critiqued it during a symposium on the art of fiction in 1884. James was “unable to come to grips with the author because it did not touch his own experience,” Hansen writes. James further stated, “I have been a child, but I have never been on a quest for buried treasure.”

Word reached Stevenson. Though he never claimed Treasure Island was more than an adventurous narrative, Stevenson felt the need to defend his work and expound on the artists’ urge to create fantastic stories full of vicarious experience removed from our own. “The creative artist takes certain characters, incidents, motives out of the vast store of living and arranges them to suit his mind,” he wrote, adding that a creative author “both selects from life and expands the slightest incidents, possibly even more successfully when they relate not to what he has actually done but what he has wished to do.”

Stevenson adds a final beautiful rejoinder to James, quoted verbatim by Hansen:

If he has never been on a quest for buried treasure, it can be demonstrated that he has never been a child. There never was a child (unless Master James) has but hunted gold, and been a pirate, and a military commander, and a bandit of the mountains; but has fought, and suffered shipwreck and prison, and imbrued its little hands in gore, and gallantly retrieved the lost battle and triumphantly protected innocence and beauty.

The only thing missing was the N.C. Wyeth illustrations I remember so vividly from my childhood in whatever edition I first enjoyed, decades ago. This edition had fine black and white illustrations by Lyle Justis, but Wyeth of course is a master.

While I remain on a bit of a reading break from sword-and-sorcery Treasure Island is definitely part of its DNA.

***

Tehanu was a lovely read, LeGuin at the height of her literary powers, and I will probably have more to say about it later. Not as soaring or epic as the original Earthsea trilogy but a stirring coda. And quite a distinct experience from Treasure Island, reserved and reflective. It was sitting on my shelf for years and I finally plucked it off and read it, and am glad I did.

The analog kid—some reflections on music and technology and Into the Void

Spiraling into a (digital) void...

I recently finished Geezer Butler’s biography Into the Void. A fun and interesting read for many reasons. It’s mainly as you’d expect a detailed look into Geezer’s time with Black Sabbath, in which he served as bass player and principal lyrics writer. Geezer experienced a wild rock and roll lifestyle, including a roller coaster ride to the top in the early to mid-70s and subsequent plunge to the bottom in the late 80s and early 90s. But along the way Into the Void offers some interesting commentary and a glimpse into how radically the music industry has transformed from 1969-today. Largely due to the rapid adoption of new technology and the corresponding shift from analog to digital.

I am of Generation X (born 1973) and have the benefit of living in two worlds. I grew up in an analog era of tapes and stereos, but also had a front seat to the rise of computers and digital music, and later Napster and YouTube and Spotify. I rode that lightning. 

With that perspective I’ve come around to the belief that technological adoption results in both progress and regress. It is not a universal good, each step an advance toward some Star Trek utopia espoused by deluded techno-utopians like David Brin. Nor is it an evil, each advance in technology removing us further from some mythical Garden of Eden and closer to a digital Hell. 

It is just Change, for better and for worse.

Music used to be harder to access. You had to plunk down hard-earned coin to buy it. There were fewer options, no carefully curated song lists built around your mood or vacation destination. Unless you wanted to go through the considerable trouble of making a mix tape.

But analog music was (and remains, with the right equipment) of a better sound quality than compressed digital, richer and more resonant. And friendlier to the collector. With your analog purchase comes physical art, albums with foldouts and liner notes and the like.

Many things got better for music with the advent of digital. With Spotify Premium ($10.99/ month, soon to be $11.99) I have access to essentially every piece of music ever recorded. I can go to YouTube and watch any music video I formerly had to pray Headbanger’s Ball might play. I can watch hundreds and thousands of concerts I’ve never been to, and documentaries and fan videos, when before the only options were to buy a VHS copy of Live After Death or take a gamble on a bootleg.

Tapes were never a great way to preserve music, and records and CDs can warp or scratch. Digital is “forever” (as long as you pay the monthly fee).

In short, digital was great for me, the fan and consumer, in many ways. I benefit it from it in a small way here on the blog, with my ‘Metal Friday” posts where I can link to videos and share them with like-minded metal fans.

Nevertheless, I prefer the way the music industry used to work. Or at least, enough of it to tip the balance toward the analog era. I’m aware I’m a trader in nostalgia, but like Geezer Butler I believe have some legit arguments to back me up (which makes us both geezers, I suppose).

In the pre-digital age recorded music was not a commodity. It had to be committed to physical objects—records, tapes, CDs—in order to be distributed. Albums had controlled pricing and were marked up to create profitable margins. And because artists could and did make real money on album sales, that meant live shows served a different purpose. They were a way to promote new albums and drive records sales. They were cheaper. 

But for the artist, digital distribution is a nightmare. Butler in his book scoffs at the royalties he receives from Spotify, despite the fact Sabbath has sold more than 75 million albums. Says Butler:

While bands in the sixties and seventies got robbed by dodgy managers, modern artists and groups get robbed by streaming services like Spotify, who pay a fraction of a cent per play. It’s not even worth looking at Sabbath’s income from Spotify, it’s so small.

The only way to make up for the loss of album sales is through touring, which has led to exorbitant concert prices.

Some will argue that the unlimited choices offered by Spotify and YouTube are an unmitigated good for the consumer. But I don’t necessarily see it that way, even though I have found bands on these platforms. Research has found that people like choice, but from a limited, selected set of options. Unlimited choice is crippling, which is why we need curation. Kerrang or Headbanger’s Ball served this purpose back in the day, but today who are the arbiters of taste? It’s harder to find new music when there’s no curated selections in record stores. It used to be a handful of your local rock radio stations would bring you the latest bands, now you have to subject yourself to the whims of algorithms or corrupt search engines.

But access to music just scratches the surface of the massive impact of digital.

Electronic drum machines and autotuned voices massively lowered the bar for who could record an album. It undercut raw ability and negated craft gained through sweat equity, trading it out for dance moves and good looks. Manufactured music gave birth to the rise of pop performers who captivated audiences through sex appeal and dance moves. This kicked off at the turn of the new millennium with the rise of Britney Spears, N’Sync, Backstreet Boys, and the Spice Girls, and continues unabated today.

Before the advent of digital, record labels gave bands like Rush and Black Sabbath several albums to find their sound. It was a risk, but a calculated one, because these bands had paid their dues in clubs, built followings, and could perform. They were talents that then required promotion. 

Of course there were exceptions. Record labels were and are out to make money and signed many shitty bands purely because they were part of a hot music movement. But in general the labels had a longer leash and more patience for artists. When the emphasis is on the music, who cares how the band members look? 

If four ugly dudes from Birmingham England with an experimental new sound that didn’t follow pop formula (and certainly could not dance) were born in 1999 rather than 1949, could they become rock stars? Does anyone think we’d have had Black Sabbath today? Butler doesn’t:

People tend to ask me: Could Sabbath happen now? The truth is, probably not. The odds of four working-class lads coming together in a rough place like Aston, writing very heavy songs about their gritty reality and making it in the music industry are slim to none. They wouldn’t look “right,” they wouldn’t sound “current” and they’d be too much of a risk for major record companies.

Digitalization renders music into a commodity, cheap and disposable, no longer holy. We don’t have to queue up and wait for the new Guns and Roses albums as we once used. My daughters love Taylor Swift and pay big $ to see her in concert but don’t own her albums. The entire concept of an “album” is practically meaningless.

I don’t believe this is better, or healthier, for music. 

I am heartened that analog still has a place. You can still find music stores and new records for purchase. I smile when I see young kids buying records and admiring the artwork, and enjoying the look and feel of a physical object in their hands instead of a vaporware download. But buying physical music is a novelty, not a necessity.

While something was gained in the switch to digital, something was lost along the way. 

Tain by Gregory Frost (1986), a review

Welcome to the field, ripe fruits.

What is the meaning of the stones? 
Why do they stand alone?

Put down your roots and grow here,

Wither and enrich our soil.

Spill your seeds in the delirium of battle.

Alone, here stands Ulster

Against all of golden Eriu, allied—

A division to outlast you.

It pleases us, your offer to pour out your blood

While your fundament fails,

Fertilizing your grave,

And we, ravens, pluck the savory, sightless eyes.

--Gregory Frost, Tain

The ancient Irish were badasses (as are some of the moderns, I know of one Murphy who will soon bloody your lip as buy you a Guinness). As Britain’s kingdoms fell one by one to Viking raiders until Alfred stood alone, the Norsemen were never able to break the men of Ulster. See April 23, 1014 and Clontarf.

When your national mythology is built on the likes of Cu Chulainn, warfare is in your blood.

But Ireland was also riven by internal strife. The same clannish fierceness that made the Celts resistant to Viking incursions turned on itself with petty squabbles and bloody feuds. All the way back to great conflicts fought between the legendary Firbolg and the godlike Tuatha De Danann.

To be honest, my knowledge of Irish Celtic mythology suffers next to classical Greek/Roman and Norse (half of it probably derives from AD&D's Deities and Demigods). But in my defense the Celts don’t have the same well-known body of rich literature as The Elder Edda or The Norse Sagas, or The Iliad, The Odyssey or Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Even Bulfinch’s Mythology, which spends most its page count on Greek and Roman stories, opts to cover Anglo-Saxon myths including tales of Old King Arthur, leaving the Irish cupboard bare.

Thank goodness for Gregory Frost’s Tain, which brings the old stories to life in an unforgettable way.

Deuce Richardson sent me a copy of this somewhat obscure 1986 title (Ace Fantasy, I believe just one printing though it’s now an ebook). And damn, I’m glad he did. It was an excellent read.

Frost breathes life into these old—very old--stories. That’s a bit of a clichéd phrase but apt in this instance. Tain is a book not of dry or distant myths but bright blood and lust and vengeance and humor and cutting wit, told with a compelling modern style. 

The women in this book… wow. Certainly three dimensional—lusty, prideful, headstrong, tough, ambitious, ruthless--just like their male counterparts, if not more so. The conflict and subsequent carnage stems from a pissing contest between Maeve, Queen of Connacht, and her husband Ailell. Maeve counts up her possessions against Ailell’s and finds them in balance—save that his herd includes the mystical blood red bull Finnbennach. To rectify this unforgivable sleight she orders a cattle raid on Ulster to steal Finnennach’s equal, the dark bull Donn. The army musters and marches. Standing in their way is the great hero Cu Chulainn, who holds a delaying action until the Ulstermen can get their shit together.

Adding further intrigue and a compelling love triangle is the hero Fergus mac Roich, who is openly sleeping with Maeve (she never turns a warrior away from her bed). Maeve’s advances grow so brazen that Ailell has no choice but to unman Fergus by stealing his legendary sword Leochain (there are many double entendres in this book, a sword is not just a sword, is it?)

Tain dips even further back into Celtic mythology with retellings of the tragedy of the impossibly beautiful Derdriu, the tale of the pigkeepers Friuch and Rucht, and the legend of the Amazon Queen Nessa. Frost connects these disparate stories with an interesting framing sequence: A creature of the faerie folk, Laeg of the Sidhe, emerges from a magic cauldron to show the old stories to the boy Senchan. The two wander through these great events as phantom observers with Laeg providing interpretation and light guidance. This was perhaps a slight weakness of the book but it does the job.

Tain is ripe with atmosphere and brings the Emerald Isle to life. We’re introduced to Cromlechs and sacrifices and torcs and all the cool trappings of the era. The Celtic Triple Goddess of war, fate, and death, the Morrigan--Morrigu, Badb, and Nemain—make a startling appearance on the battlefield. Druids also play a memorable and prominent role, bestowing geases with irresistible effect.

The heart of the book is the cattle raid, which is based on the single surviving example of Irish Celtic epic, the Tain Bo Cuailnge. Cu Chulainn is revealed as one of the great all-time heroes of his or any age, with feats of arms and battle prowess second to none. Codes of combat require that one Connacht hero challenge him at a time, and Cu Chulainn cuts them down like wheat, lopping off heads unnumbered until he encounters his near equal in a shallow river duel… but I won’t spoil it or the wonderous exploits therein. Go read Tain if you can find a copy.