Showing posts with label Reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reviews. Show all posts

Saturday, March 9, 2024

The Savage Sword of Conan no. 1, Titan Comics: A review

I haven’t bought a new comic book in 33 years, when I purchased the April 1991 Savage Sword of Conan as a high school senior. The venerable magazine ended its long run four years later. I was in college in these waning days of SSOC and so had no spending money for comics; what little funds I had went toward beer. 

I've purchased a handful of back issues of SSOC since, but that’s it. And had no intention of ever buying a new comic again … until now. The hype around the relaunch of SSOC by Titan Comics piqued my interest and I decided to give it a go.

Before I get to the contents I have to say the packaging/mailing is a 10/10. I have never ordered a comic book by mail and dreaded it would arrive mangled by the postal service, but it was secured with cardboard backing in a plastic sheath and packaged in a rigid cardboard flat. The magazine arrived in wonderful shape.

I opened it up and immediately thought, this is what I wanted it to be.

Black and white interior art on newsprint pages, just like the old magazine. Savage and sexy with beheadings and nudity. Pinup art, text articles. The cover callback to the classic Frazetta Conan the Adventurer, featuring Conan astride a mound of corpses with a woman clutching his knee. A shot of nostalgia.

It checked all the boxes.

Yes, it has some well-documented issues with the art being too dark. Not every panel, and the Solomon Kane story does not suffer from this problem. The Hyborian Age map suffers the most, as does a pinup image of Belit. Equally annoying was the lack of page numbers; there is a TOC with page numbers cited but no corresponding numbers on the pages themselves. These were either forgotten or cut off during the printing.

I’m sure these glitches will be fixed.

On to the contents.

I loved opening the issue and seeing an introduction by the legendary Roy Thomas. As if the iconic cover drawn by SSOC veteran Joe Jusko wasn’t enough, Thomas’ recap of the magazine’s history was a perfect way to kick off the issue. Thomas also alluded to having “a story or three” planned for future issues, which would be a very welcome development.

I enjoyed the main feature, “Conan and the Dragon Horde” by writer John Arcudi and artist Man von Fafner. I appreciated it being self-contained to the issue, a big plus for me. The story kept me interested, with enough twists and turns and no lulls. Conan was well-drawn, especially his savage facial expressions. It features a couple well-done “boss fights” with dragon-like dinosaurs and two hulking bodyguards, and a necropolis. The story is quite gritty and has no overt sorcery, even the monsters could be atavistic survivors of a pre-Hyborian/prehistoric age. I perhaps raised an eyebrow at the accuracy of the siege engines (they accurately target moving people, one is used to drop a noose around a man in a melee?) but otherwise was on board with what I was reading.

That said I thought the second-tier Solomon Kane story “Master of the Hunt” was even better. A historical curse laid on a medieval Welsh Lord gives rise to a vengeful demon, and the horror atmosphere is palpable (it reminded me a bit of the beginning of An American Werewolf in Londonkeep off the moors!). The story ends on a cliffhanger which makes issue #2 a must-buy. The art in this story was perfectly clear and non-murky, and it’s good. Kane is well-rendered.

I’m not sure why the need for the prose Jim Zub story “Sacrifice in the Sand,” other than it pairs with the cover. I would have preferred to see a photo essay like we had in the old SSOC days, perhaps a recap of Howard Days or the like. I hope Titan brings those back. Zub did a nice job writing this short two-pager, and I found his prose atmospheric and poetic. It could have made for a nice 6-8 page illustrated short.

I enjoyed Jeff Shanks’ Solomon Kane essay, which paired well with the story. Shanks is a first-rate Howard scholar whom I met at last year’s Howard Days. His “Hyborian Age Archeology” is a must-read, and I relied upon and cited his essay “History, Horror, and Heroic Fantasy: Robert E. Howard and the Creation of Sword and Sorcery” in Flame and Crimson. In comparison to his academic work this Kane essay is sleight, but that’s what you’d expect in a comic magazine. I found it to be a good overview for a new reader of Kane’s publishing history and the character himself.

Oh and REH himself makes an appearance with a reprint of his poem "The Road of Kings."

I thought the riskiest move was the dead horse on the cover; these days people seem OK with every manner of violence inflicted on humans but revolt at the sight of dead animals. Unfortunately corpses of horses littered the battlefields of every historical engagement, well into the 20th century. I have no problem with it, I’m sure some will.

Overall I’m quite happy with issue #1. If you’re a Conan fan you should be too. SSOC is back.

Saturday, February 3, 2024

The Shadow of Vengeance by Scott Oden, a review

Some would say there is no good Conan pastiche*, that the only stories of the Cimmerian worth reading are the 21 originals by Robert E. Howard. If that’s you, I get it. 

Me? I have no problem with pastiche, because I can differentiate new takes on the character from canon. They are something apart. That’s why I am able to enjoy the 1982 film, and Savage Sword of Conan and Conan the Barbarian the comic, even (gasp) the Lancer paperbacks with the L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter additions.

If you’re in the latter camp it does beg the question: What makes good Conan pastiche? Is it getting the character right? The setting, a convincing Hyborian Age verisimilitude? Or is it the style in which the story is told? Should it/must it “feel” Howard-esque?

“The Shadow of Vengeance” by Scott Oden checks all these boxes, but above all else nails Howard’s style.

This is I believe the fifth prose release from Titan, which began with "Conan: Lord of the Mount" by Stephen Graham Jones and includes one Solomon Kane story and the rest Conan. It’s a novella, some 18K words, about 60 pages, and like the rest of the line it is available as an e-book only. 

I, being a transported relic from 1984, don’t possess an e-reader, but Scott was generous enough to send me a word doc.

It’s also apparently the second time the story has been published, the first in Savage Sword of Conan volume 2, in monthly installments across issues #1 – 12. But not having read the Dark Horse or Marvel Comics relaunch of SSOC it was a first read for me.

This is not the next great Conan story … but that’s an impossible standard. As Karl Edward Wagner said, there was only one Robert E. Howard, and we’ve had him. But, it’s terrific pastiche, and can stand alongside much of what Roy Thomas and others were doing during the classic run of Savage Sword I so loved, after Howard’s adapted originals were exhausted.

If it lacks the great pathos of “The Tower of the Elephant,” or the unsettling insights into barbarism vs. civilization like we see in “Beyond the Black River,” that’s OK. Howard’s Conan stories themselves did not all rise to that highest of his own high standards, but instead were what we have here: A very fine adventure story, soaked in blood and the weird.

“The Shadow of Vengeance” follows on the heels of the events of “The Devil in Iron,” which if not accorded one of Howard’s best is still a good, entertaining Conan story. It’s a tale of vengeance, with the vengeance directed at Conan himself by Ghaznavi, regent of Khawarizm.

Big mistake, Ghaznavi. 

Howard fans will recognize these names from “The Devil in Iron” and why the events of that tale would lead to Ghaznavi seeking vengeance for his dead lord, Jehungir Agha.

What makes this story different from the likes of Robert Jordan, John Maddox Roberts and Steve Perry (not the one that sang “Open Arms”) et. al is Oden’s mimicry of Howard’s prose—check that, his near mastery of Howard’s style.

I read Blood of the Serpent last year and while I liked it well enough, it was not Howard-esque, though it was recognizably Conan’s character. Oden’s style is ridiculously like Howard, ripped from the pages of Weird Tales in the mid-1930s. Its uncanny. 

Here are some Howard-esque passages I really enjoyed:
Karash Khan left but a single watcher to mind the Cimmerian.  This thankless task fell to the youngest of the nine Sicari, a quick-eyed Turanian not much older than twenty.  No one knew his given name, but his brothers called him Badish Khan.  Bred in the alleys of Sultanapur, when the Master found him he was already a hired knife at fourteen with more kills than throat-slitters thrice his age.  He was like an ingot of iron, crude and without form; while Karash Khan was the hammer, it was dark Erlik who provided the flame.
And this, too.
Even so, the Sicari could not withstand the Cimmerian’s berserk fury.  Death might have been their master, but neither god nor man could master this wolf of the North.  His god was Crom, grim and savage, who gave a man the power to strive and slay and little else.  And when he called upon Crom, it was not in prayer or benediction . . . it was so the dark lord of the mound might bear witness.
It all seemed like I was reading something Howard would have written in 1934. Awesome stuff… “dark lord of the mound” induces chills. 

Oden does insert the word “fey” at least twice in the novella, a very old Northern term which I don’t know if Howard ever used in a Conan story, though he may have in “The Grey God Passes” or elsewhere (“It was Dragutin, fey and terrible as he rose up from behind the wagon, who reminded them.  He jabbed an accusing finger at the Cimmerian and yelled: “Kill them!”). It doesn’t matter anyway; I love the term and it works, and is placed here deliberately by Oden, author of The Grimnir Saga, who like me is also possessed of “the Northern Thing.”

Oden also builds the gloomy Cimmerian culture with a few choice passages, as here:
Among southern nations, Conan had seen madness dismissed: a disease physicians sought to cure, a weakness learned philosophers debated in shaded courts.  Madmen were broken men, they said, who could hope for no better than a quick and quiet death.  Among the barbarians of the north, however, madness was something else – a thinning of the veil between worlds, a harbinger of doom, or the curse-gift of that fey and feral goddess, Morrigan.  The Cimmerians held madmen apart from others, their ramblings fraught with the truths of a perilous world.
That’s some fine Hyborian Age goodness there.

There is a great final fight, a terrific desperate melee, and a cool monster too. If that’s what you’re after, you get it here.

If I had any critique, the story perhaps takes a bit too long to get going, with a bit too much up front info. But once it properly starts it doesn’t let up until its savage ending.

If you can’t get enough Conan, start with Scott Oden and “The Shadow of Vengeance.”

*I am aware that pastiche has varied meanings; some say pastiche is a deliberate homage to an author’s style, not a new story of an existing character as I’m using it here. 

Tuesday, January 23, 2024

Death Dealer 3: Semi-enjoyable (?) train-wreck

I’m back at it again, with a long-awaited review of Death Dealer 3: Tooth and Claw. Check out my reviews of book 1 and book 2 of this four-part sword-and-sorcery epic by James Silke.

Short, negative review: Tooth and Claw ranks among the worst books I’ve read in the last decade. The series keeps going downhill (and book 1 was not even that good).

Longer and slightly more positive review: Tooth and Claw is bad enough to cross over into WTF I can’t believe I just read that territory, and so stands out as more memorable trash than many of the boring Conan clones and generic S&S offerings I’ve read over the years.

But it’s still awful. And awful crazy.

How crazy?

Well there’s this bit:

He was the size of a tree. He was indomitable. He was immaculate. He urinated white wine, his feces were soft gold, and he ejaculated lightning.

Would I be surprised to learn the author typed the manuscript while snorting coke off a hooker’s ass? No, not really.

I’m not making any accusations here, I don’t know Silke personally, but Death Dealer 3 was published in 1989 and possessed of a crazy, whacked out Wolf of Wall Street vibe I recognize. There’s so much nonsensical, bonkers stuff in here, told wildly and with intense energy and conviction, but with sloppy execution and abysmal, eye-gouging turns of phrase.

This is basically man romance. Romance for a certain kind of man, who like their women stunningly hot, offer them few words before and after the deed but possess the skill to play them like a medieval instrument:

Tonight he would tie her down in his hide-up and play upon her like a lyre, arouse her untamed passions until she could not resist him. 

Or this bit of late-night Cinemax magic:

Gath stepped out of the concealing shadow for a clearer look. His eyes moved down the deep shadowed curve of her back to the cleft in her hard buttocks, then back up again, painting her pale flesh with his dark hot glance…. A stimulating animal pleasure rose into his groin. Heat played across his cheeks.

The plot of Death Dealer 3 hinges on the flimsiest of hooks—a disreputable bounty hunter named Gazul (with the incredibly stupid nickname “Big Hands”) wants to capture the cat-queen, Noon. Gazul offers Gath the chance to fight Noon’s guardian, the giant saber-toothed tiger Chyak, because it’s more challenge-worthy than any other fight anyone else could ever have. Which appeals to Gath, who otherwise is wandering around without purpose.

That’s the entire setup for the remainder of the book. 

This wouldn’t stand up as a plot for the weakest episode of Thundarr, yet here we are. Gath accepts the offer and we’re off, fighting lyncanthropic beast-men, lions, crocodiles and all manner of beasts of the jungle before the final confrontation with Chyak and Gazul.

The Death Dealer books stand at the far end of the barbarian archetype/stereotype, not the apex but the nadir of this type of fiction. How do you distinguish yet another barbarian from the countless others that have gone before? Make yours bigger, stronger, more barbaric. Gath is a brute force of wild nature, so deep into barbarism that at one point he strips naked, eats raw animal flesh and fails to recognize familiar faces, even losing his ability to speak (he’s channeling his animal “kaa,” you see). You can’t get more raving barbarian than this dude. He’s not a character, but a caricature. 

Silke attempts something of an origin story for Gath in this volume but it comes across as uninspired Tarzan pastiche. He also attempts to bring some level of introspection to the story with a muted/equivocal ending, some regret and “who is the real monster” angle to the proceedings. I won’t spoil it here, in case you want to seek this out. I read Tooth and Claw through to the end, groaning the whole way except when I was laughing. There is some entertainment value here; I’d probably watch a movie made out of this mess. The problem is, what works in a low-budget beer-swilling 90 minute film is not optimal for a 342 page book treatment. It sags, and there are all sorts of problems with the pacing, authorial emphasis, and cringe-worthy dialogue. Like this:

“Think of it this way, sweethips,” Gazul said callously. “Fear is a marvelous cosmetic. It puts real color in your cheeks.”

And this:

“Barbarian, I understand why you are upset. In my drunken rage at you for running off, I used Fleka wrongly. She is yours, and I should not have used her as a lure without your permission. But now that your fist has rewarded me for that mistake, we are even.”

Silke loves writing wildly indulgent and floridly descriptive paragraphs punctuated by two words. Like this:

Gnarled hands gripped the bars, appendages of the lurking darkness bent within, a wounded, scabbed darkness with hard gray eyes. Hot. Relentless. 

And this:

Lowering to hands and knees, she crawled closer to the cage, and hesitated abruptly. The bars were the colors of flowers, a dazzle of pinks and reds and scarlets. Enchanting. Compelling.

In and amongst the cringe there is entertainment value to be had, including a 12-page fight between Gath and Chyak. 

Death Dealer goes to 11... 12 for sabertooth tiger fights
A 12 page tiger fight. Cuz 11 is not enough.

Is this bad trash or glorious trash? Your mileage will vary, hard. Personally I need never read this series again. But Death Dealer is an interesting historical artifact and probably worth it if you’re after the terrific Frank Frazetta cover art, or a fearless S&S diehard junky who can’t get enough of the subgenre—good, bad, and ugly. 

And there’s still more to come with Death Dealer 4. The story continues…whenever I get around to it.


Friday, January 12, 2024

Going Viking at DMR Books

No, not looting and plundering Dave Ritzlin's book hoard, but do have a new post up on his blog: A Deep Cut of Adventure: The Saga of Swain the Viking, Vol. 1: Swain’s Vengeance

This was a fun read with a lot of viking goodness and other badassery. While writing the review I took a worthwhile detour into the history of Adventure, the magazine in which the Swain stories first appeared back in the 1920s. Some interesting history to that long-running pulp. I recommend checking out the article linked at the bottom.

Skål!

Sunday, August 27, 2023

Ace Frehley, Nashua Center for the Arts (Aug. 2023)--a review

We had good seats... up close and personal with Ace Frehley.
Wildly unexpected: Ace Frehley played a cover of Thin Lizzy’s “Emerald” at the Nashua Center for the Arts last night. But I’ve come to expect the unexpected out of Ace.

The former KISS lead guitarist has always been a loose cannon. That’s what led to his departure from the band; Ace quit in 1982 but his time was coming to an end regardless. He loved booze and drugs too much, lacked discipline and seriousness, and was unreliable. Which of course put him at direct odds with the businessmen and defenders of the KISS brand, Paul and Gene.

Ace went on to have a moderately successful solo career with Frehley’s Comet, famously reunited with the band for a reunion tour in 1996, and left again in another huff in 2002. In his wild biography No Regrets Ace sends most of his ire in the direction of the controlling, sex-addicted Gene Simmons; today he is openly quarreling with Paul Stanley, who himself stooped to Ace’s level by denigrating Ace’s playing and professionalism (despite the fact that Paul is openly using vocal tracks to cover up his shot voice).

It's rather pathetic, watching the infighting of 70-year-old men who hit the equivalent of the lottery in the 70s but can’t seem to get beyond their own egos and let the past remain there.

But to be honest, it’s also fucking fun, in a watching a train wreck from afar, guiltily, kind of way.

When you’re a deep fan of KISS--the kind who goes beyond the music and explores their crazy history, the rise and fall and glorious return, the nonsense of albums like Unmasked and The Elder and weird transient members like Vinnie Vincent, and all the merchandise spinoffs and now public beefs and shit-stirring—it’s like participating in a reality TV show spanning 50 years, with dozens of spinoffs and subplots. It’s endless and endlessly fascinating.

There aren’t really a lot of good guys.

KISS (the current incarnation) does not precisely even play concerts anymore, but put on a highly choreographed performance; everything is calculated and planned. Zero spontaneity. Yeah, Gene/Paul/Tommy/Eric put on a much bigger, brighter, and more colorful show than Ace, and KISS sounds much better, but it’s plastic. For almost 20 years now, perhaps since the “farewell” tour of 2001, it’s been essentially the same thing; the last unique show I remember KISS putting on was Psycho Circus and its ill-conceived 3D effects. 

Ace has slouched along with his own solo career since the mid-80s. He’s never had a good voice, never taken care of himself physically (though he says he’s been sober since 2006), BUT he does his brand of loose, boozy rock well, and has surrounded himself with a talented band including three dudes who can all sing, and share the vocal duties and take the load off what is clearly at this stage a very frail Frehley.

So KISS isn't great these days, and neither is Ace. But I still love them both.

Concerts have always for me been about good times with friends, and unique experiences, first, and the music, while important, is second. Last night was a fun experience, and the music was OK too. It checked the boxes for a good time. And it was.

Ace busted out a lot of old KISS tunes including “Parasite,” “Detroit Rock City,” “Cold Gin,” “Shock Me,” “Deuce” and “Love Gun.” He played many solo hits, including (of course) “New York Groove,” but also “Rip It Out,” “Rock Soldiers,” “Snowblind,” “Speedin’ Back to My Baby” and “Hard Times.”

I think I got them all, but I wasn’t taking notes, either.

Oh yeah, and “Emerald,” which was a pleasant surprise

Wayne and I. 
The usual weird Ace-ness accompanied all of this. Ace slagged Paul once; Ace admitted he can’t sing Love Gun, “but neither can Paul” before turning over the vocals to his drummer. He told a weirdly placed story about falling down his stairs in his own home in a sort of half apology for not being as spry on stage (he never has been). An odd fedora wearing promoter who resembled a faux pro wrestling manager lurked along the side of the stage taking pictures, and at the end of the show held open a bathrobe for Ace to step into. 

Ace shared interesting short anecdotes about old KISS songs (conceiving the riff for Cold Gin on the subway, Gene admitting not knowing what lyrics of Deuce meant, etc.). And of course he played a smoke show solo.

Nashua is a little rough around the edges but the main drag was loaded with breweries, restaurants, and pubs. We watched one overserved dude make an ass of himself before moving on.

Fun stuff, quirky, unique. Another one for the record books. 

My friend Wayne and I both remarked that this may be the last time Ace comes this way, based on his condition, but one never knows. He is after all, a wild card, and may yet have an Ace in his deck. OK, that's enough card metaphors for one day.

Tuesday, August 22, 2023

Lord of a Shattered Land: A review

Hanuvar has lost it all—his land, his people, and his family—following a disastrous military defeat. Narrowly escaping his own death and presumed dead by his enemies, the exiled former General vows to find the scattered remnants of his surviving people and set them free. 

And kick some ass along the way.

This is the premise of Howard Andrew Jones’ new sword-and-sorcery novel Lord of a Shattered Land (2023, Baen Books). A novel which is almost a short story collection. In it we follow Hanuvar on a sprawling series of episodic adventures that can be read and enjoyed as standalone tales (several were published as short stories appearing in Tales from the Magician’s Skull and elsewhere), or as a cohesive novel, the disparate adventures following sequentially in service of an overarching plot.

As with any collection I enjoyed some entries better than others. There are 3-4 terrific “stories” in here that easily stand among the best of the recent explosion of S&S fiction. My favorites included “The Warrior’s Way,” “The Second Death of Hanuvar,” “The Crypt of Stars,” and “An Accident of Blood.” 

Lord of a Shattered Land serves as a promising template for how sword-and-sorcery can work in a longer form. Although its sweet spot is the short story and novella, S&S can and has proven adaptable to longer treatments—see the likes of Fritz Leiber’s The Swords of Lankhmar, or Karl Edward Wagner’s Bloodstone. Can it be done in a form familiar to fans of epic fantasy—3 or 5 thick volumes? We’ll see. But Lord of a Shattered Land is a promising start.

Jones wears some obvious influences on his sleeve. The setting is sword and sandal, as Hanuvar was inspired by the historical general Hannibal and the cultural and technological milieu shares many similarities with ancient Rome. The style evokes Harold Lamb: Briskly paced storytelling, and emphasis on plot over character. The final chapter is an interesting/ambitious look into Hanuvar’s mind, as told through a fever-dream sequence.

Other influences may be less apparent. Hanuvar’s wistful remembrances of Volanus and its fallen cities of white towers reminded me of Tolkien and the lost cities of the First Age of Middle-Earth.

Hanuvar is a truly heroic hero, and in this sense strays outside some of the stricter sword and sorcery definitions. He's a patriot, quite willing to sacrifice his own life to rescue the lives of his people. Jones has billed Hanuvar as some combination of Captain America and James Bond. I find him much more Bond; extremely competent but quite ruthless, a thinking man's fighter, aging but still deadly in hand-to-hand combat and very willing to take lives. Not a “hero” in the mold of an unhinged Mad Max, but very much in control, not after bloodthirsty vengeance but liberation. Not fueled by wine, women, and coin, but the hope he may one day find his daughter alive.

Does this somehow exclude Lord of a Shattered Land from the ranks of sword-and-sorcery? Of course not, unless you’re a pedant. Merely because many historical S&S protagonists were mercenary or self-serving does not mean all were, or that current authors should feel obligated to cleave to someone else’s definition of S&S. Embrace your influences and work unburdened by the past, as Jones does here.

Back to the review.

Some will find Lord of a Shattered Land not to their tastes, depending on the flavor of S&S they enjoy reading. For example, it lacks the primal barbaric spirit of Conan, or the otherworldly weirdness of CAS’ slice of S&S. Hanuvar is very much a civilized man and the world of Lord of a Shattered Land feels civilized, albeit with weird incursions and some cool monsters. But always the baseline is familiar, inspired as it is by history. So if you’re after the red-handed barbarism of Conan or Kull, or the weirdness of "The Isle of the Torturers" or the dreamlike underworld of C.L. Moore’s "Black God’s Kiss," you won’t get these here, precisely.

And in that regard Lord of a Shattered Land did not check all my S&S boxes. Some of the stories don’t match the heightened urgency of others, leading to some unevenness, as you’d expect in any collection. 

But I nevertheless greatly enjoyed it, overall. And what you do get is a well-realized, quasi historical world that feels real, and lived in. Lord of a Shattered Land is very well written, moving in places, even elevated. I have not read widely of HAJ, though I have read some, including The Desert of Souls, and in this volume it feels like he’s come into his own as a writer. I was impressed by Jones’ authorial range. One chapter is outright humor, brushing up to slapstick (“The Autumn Horse”), while others are dark and violent. Still others are contemplative, and sad. 

This is a journey we’re on, after all, and the figure we’re following has seen a lot, and lost much. But remains unbroken.

Minor spoiler: Lord of a Shattered Land offers no resolution; Jones has already announced the series will to run to (five!) books, so we can’t and shouldn’t expect Hanuvar to find his people and set them free in his volume. At the end the land is still very much shattered, and the people of Volanus still scattered. It will be interesting to see if Jones can pull off something this ambitious. But he’s well on his way with his most ambitious and successful work to date.

If you’re a fan of sword-and-sorcery, pick this up. For the sake of supporting the subgenre, but also for supporting tales well-told.

Sunday, April 2, 2023

The Goshawk, T.H. White

Enraptured by a raptor...
The author of a blog I follow mentioned in an off-hand way the life-affirming power in this obscure title by T.H. White. Prior to that I had never heard of The Goshawk (1951). But I love The Once and Future King, so with nothing more to go on than this sleight recommendation I purchased and read it over the last few days.

And found it to be a wonderful little book.

In the summer of 1936 White holed himself up in an old workman’s cottage in the woods, miles from civilization, with only a pet dog, a wireless radio, and some booze for company. And set to work training a goshawk (a male hawk) based on the methods of three archaic books on the subject, including one volume originally printed in 1619. These books explained that a hawk could not be forced to submit to training and the will of the falconer, you had to win its love through patience and persistence and closeness. Part of this process of acclimation included staying up for three straight days/nights (!) with the bird, so that it would perch on its master out of sheer exhaustion. Man and bird becoming one. Something akin to love.

White actually did this, and it’s all described wonderfully in The Goshawk, as only White can. His descriptions of the bird and its unpredictable moods and odd quirks are lovely. It's a snapshot into a world that feels almost alien, so far removed from 21st century life.

I knew essentially nothing of falconry and left with an understanding of how it might have been practiced by medieval falconers. Which is about as practical as learning how to master hoop rolling or leaded window installation.

What’s the point, and why read something like this? Fair question.

To which I would answer: Because there are difficult crafts worth pursuing for their own sake. That we might pour two months or more of training to tame a wild raptor to see if it can be done, and to have had that experience and sense of accomplishment. And might learn something about nature, human and animal, if we carefully observe the process.

The Goshawk is mainly focused on the training of the bird but does have a few wonderful asides and commentary. Little observations like this, of the end of the old ways of falconry:

It happened like this in the world. Old things lost their grip and dropped away; not always because they were bad things, but sometimes because the new things were more bad, and stronger.

Or this, on writing and more broadly on any craft practiced well, which touched something in me. It’s something I love about writing, that if done well can achieve a sort of small and unassuming immortality:

To write something which was of enduring beauty, this was the ambition of every writer: as it was the ambition of the joiner and architect and the constructor of any kind. It was not the beauty but the endurance, for endurance was beautiful. It was also all that we could do. It was a consolation, even a high and positive joy, to make something true: some table, which, sat on, would not splinter or shatter. It was not for the constructor that the beauty was made, but for the thing itself. He would triumph to know that some contribution had been made: some sort of consoling contribution quite timeless and without relation to his own profit. Sometimes we knew, half tipsy or listening to music, that at the heart of some world there lay a chord to which vibrating gave reality. With its reality there was music and truth and the permanence of good workmanship. To give birth to this, with whatever male travail, was not only all that man could do: it was also all that eclipsed humanity of either sex could do: it was the human contribution to the universe. Absolutely bludgeoned by jazz and mechanical achievement, the artist yearned to discover permanence, some life of happy permanence which he by fixing could create to the satisfaction of after-people who also looked. This was it, as the poets realized, to be a mother of immortal song: To say Yes when it was, and No when it was: to make enduringly true that perhaps quite small occasional table off which subsequent generations could eat, without breaking it down: to help the timeless benevolence which should be that of this lonely and little race: to join the affection which had lasted between William the Conqueror and George VI. Wheelwrights, smiths, farmers, carpenters, and mothers of large families knew this.

Observations like these are what make White worth reading.

Is this book The Once and Future King? No, it’s not. The Goshawk is far less awesome in breath and scope, and not as artful. But I can’t really describe it as lesser. Just less ambitious. It’s a little slice of White’s life, utterly charming, a bit of sanity disconnected from the modern world, in between two savage world wars.

Monday, March 27, 2023

Contemporary sword-and-sorcery: 2023 reading updates

A "striking" cover (<=see what I did there?)
This year I am trying to add more contemporary sword-and-sorcery into my reading. To date I’ve read four S&S titles, including:
  • Blood of the Serpent, S.M. Stirling
  • Sometime Lofty Towers, David C. Smith
  • New Edge #0
  • A Book of Blades
You can read my reviews of the first two books here and here.

Short stories collections are hard to review; inevitably there will be stories I like more, others less. That is true of New Edge #0 and A Book of Blades. But having finished the latter last night, I can say there were more hits than misses. Favorites included John C. Hocking’s “By the Sword,” Howard Andrew Jones’ “The Serpent’s Heart,” and John R. Fultz’s “The Blood of Old Shard.” The last story in particular is terrific, probably worthy of some type of end of year award consideration.

This is not to slight any of the others, I liked most of what I read in here. A whole bunch of fun, blood-pumping stories of adventure and the weird.

Coupled with some awesome art, both on the cover and then in an expected gallery at the back, I greatly enjoyed A Book of Blades.

Considering I’m in New Edge #0 with an essay, and am also slated to appear in issue no. 1, reviewing it seems a bit self-serving. But, I enjoyed the rest of the contents of issue #0. The standout story for me was David C. Smith’s “Old Moon Over Irukad.” T.K. Rex’s “The Beast of the Shadow Gum Trees” while not traditional sword-and-sorcery was well-done, and pushes the borders of what S&S is, which fits with the new magazine’s mission. I also very much enjoyed a pair of essays, one by Cora Buhlert on C.L. Moore, the other by Nicole Emmelhainz on Howard’s “Sword Woman.” Will be very interested to see what issues 1-2 will bring, as both met fundraising goals on editor Oliver Brackenbury’s recent kickstarter.

Next I’m hoping to wade into a couple recent titles from DMR Books.

Sunday, February 26, 2023

Sword-and-sorcery updates: Howard Days, Flame and Crimson review

Headed to the hallowed homestead of REH...
A few items of note on the sword-and-sorcery front.

I’m headed to Howard Days! Yesterday I “locked in” with a non-refundable plane ticket and car rental. 

No turning back now. It’s official. Boston Logan to Dallas Fort Worth, April 27-30.

I’ve even got lodging lined up: I’ll be staying at an air BnB in Cisco with a couple dudes whom I’ve corresponded with, but never met in person: Deuce Richardson and Ken Lizzi. My wife is making me download a tracking app on my phone in case I wind up gagged and bound in the trunk of a car. 

Kidding, of course. I’ve spoken with Deuce on the phone and collaborated with him at The Cimmerian and now on the blog of DMR Books. He seems like a trustworthy fellow. Ken is an author with a website of his own who secured lodging for the three of us.

But I suppose if you don’t hear from me after April just assume I’m buried in the desert somewhere in the immediate radius of Cross Plains.

I plan to document the trip here on the blog, as this might prove to be a once-in-a-lifetime trip (or not). I’ve very much wanted to attend Howard Days for years, since I first heard about it via The Cimmerian. But cost and time commitments are formidable obstacles. 

I dropped $580 on airfare and another $335 on the car rental. Fortunately I was able to apply a lot of points to remove some of the sting. Three nights at the BnB split three ways looks to be another $160. 

That puts me over $1,000 and I have yet to buy beer, food, and books and other mementos. I figure I'll wind up $1,500-$2K in the hole.

But I imagine it will all be worth it when I set foot in the Howard homestead, which some have described as a near religious experience. I get to meet many of the personalities that I’ve only ever read accounts from, or seen in clips on YouTube. And see the place where it all started.

The theme for this year is 100 years of Weird Tales (first issue March 1923) so I look forward to the panels and programming, too. Weird Tales was the medium which published the majority of Howard’s stories and allowed him to earn a respectable income that outstripped his unsuspecting neighbors (until the fickle Depression Era checks ran late and unpaid obligations accumulated).

Much more to come here.


The review was kind and generous (and, not without thoughtful critique). There was a lot more in it than a typical Amazon or Goodreads review—both which I still deeply appreciate, but longer form essays are where I live.

Head over and read it. I particularly liked this observation:

I consider Flame and Crimson a case study in how the creation of a new forms distribution can cause massive change in an artform. It’s a lesson we should pay attention to in an age of rapid change in distribution and creation of media.

S&S was born in the pulps and I believe it is at its best when it bears some of the hallmarks that heritage (i.e., shortish, pulse-pounding action, and the weird). Unfortunately, today there is no comparable market to Weird Tales, though many are trying. WT not only paid its top authors a livable wage, but was permissive and experimental with form, and served as sounding board and ideas exchange between authors and fans. Genres not only grew, but were born in its pages. Today it still seems like most authors are writing multi-book epic fantasy, which holds little appeal for me.

Also this:

Always there is tension between the stasis of too much Law and the formlessness of Chaos! Too much of either is damaging and destructive. It is difficult but ideal to find the balance between a narrow and restrictive vision and one that is overly expansive. The best work within a genre is created by artists who explore the boundaries of its universe without straying into shapeless dimensions.

There is a tension of form in genre fiction. When you write for a commercial market you are faced with the pressure of reader expectations vs. authentic expression. Like the Grumpy Wizard, I enjoy fiction that pushes edges, but remains something recognizable…

… Along with stuff that is unrepentantly S&S. 

In the end, what matters most is not the boxes you check, the genre you work in, or the boundaries you cross, but the quality of the writing

Anyway, thanks Grumpy Wizard, for the non-grumpy, thoughtful discussion of F&C.

Saturday, February 11, 2023

Sometime Lofty Towers, David C. Smith

There is a metaphor in this tower, for sure.
I can’t help but feel sorry for Charles Saunders, Richard Tierney, David C. Smith, and others working in the “second commercial wave” of sword-and-sorcery. Writing in the wake of the Lancer Conan Saga, the Elric DAW paperbacks, and Fritz Leiber’s “swords” series, this group of authors appeared poised to bring S&S to a new generation of readers in the late 70s and early 1980s. Only to have the bottom fall out as the decade of excess got underway.

For reasons I can’t get into here, lest I derail this review, it suddenly seemed no one wanted to read this unique blend of swashbuckling action, horror, and fell magic. By the early/mid 80s it was over for S&S, at least commercially.

For a time it seemed Smith’s writing career was over as well. After spending some years away from writing altogether and later branching out to write realistic novels and epic fantasy, Smith recently returned to sword-and-sorcery under Pulp Hero Press with Tales of Attumla (2020). 

Sometime Lofty Towers (2021) is his latest. It’s an ambitious novel that is recognizably sword-and-sorcery, but also contemplative, dark, mature, with an emphasis on exploration of character over typical fast-paced S&S plotting. 

And in my opinion, is wonderful. 

I have read some of Smith’s early material, including a few of his Oron stories and a smattering of Red Sonja, and the odd short story elsewhere. I’m hardly an authority on his body of work. But Sometime Lofty Towers is easily the best I’ve read from him.

Hamlin is a veteran of many battles and bears many scars, internal and external. The short novel (194 pages with afterward material) explores his struggles to overcome a great betrayal in his past, an ambush and the death of his comrades in a literal river of blood. The plot is essentially secondary to Hamlin’s story, but concerns the designs of the wealthy and avaricious Lady Sil who sets her sights on the native lands of the Kirangee. Sil hires a troupe of mercenaries to force out the natives at swordpoint, including Hamlin’s longtime friend-in-arms Thorem. Hamlin joins forces with the natives and so the conflict unfolds.

The book critiques colonialism and unbridled capitalism while plumbing matters of the human heart—the cancer of vengeance and vendetta, and the difficulty of letting go of painful past memories and finding peace in an unjust, cruel world.

Smith does a nice job building the culture of the Kirangee, which feels Native American but also a-historical, perhaps owing something to Robert E. Howard’s Picts. The method by which he does this reminded me of Charles Saunders’ Ilyassi from his Imaro series, complete with italicized native words that are unfamiliar but offered up in a way as to be understandable. No infodumps, Smith handles this all skillfully while telling a compelling story.

Sometime Lofty Towers contains some incredibly strong/queasy scenes of violence and brutality, including graphic depictions of torture. It reads angry, and in a helpful afterward we learn why: The story was born out of Smith’s bitterness and grief over the death of his father, who was exposed to asbestos for decades (even after the dangers of the substance were well known) and suffered for 17 years with declining health, hospitalizations, and treatment before his death in 1997.

The style of the writing is sparse and strong, which makes the reading easy. There is perhaps some sag in the middle of the novel. Looking back I think it’s when Smith moves away from Hamlin’s story and relays the unfolding external plot, which is interesting but not as compelling as Hamlin’s internal saga. When Smith returns to Hamlin for the third and final act it reaches a satisfying conclusion. There is a definite feel of Clint Eastwood’s William Munny here; Hamlin is not as rusty as the aged gunfighter we meet in Unforgiven, still every bit as vital and dangerous at 40 as he was in his youth. But he’s the equivalent of an aging, scarred gunfighter who wants to be rid of the ghosts of his past, and his memories to fall quiet. And when roused to violence is terrifying, because killing is second nature.

Overall this is the work of a mature author who has lived much and experienced life with all its griefs and disappointments and loss. When I read something like this I can’t help but wonder about REH, and whether had he managed the storms of his own clinical depression might have produced something similar in his latter years. Imagine Conan looking back on his adventures—the loss of Bêlit and Balthus, the betrayals of Amalrus and Strabonius--returning to Cimmeria to perhaps find some measure of peace, perhaps with Zenobia in his arms. 

Smith has demonstrated the heights to which sword-and-sorcery can aspire with Sometime Lofty Towers, which to me is a welcome return from someone who experienced personal loss and professional disappointment but emerged from these trials to offer us a rich, thoughtful story.

Monday, January 23, 2023

Blood of the Serpent: Is the New Conan Novel Really Conan?

This past weekend I finished the new Conan novel, S.M. Stirling's Blood of the Serpent. And wrote a brief review which you can find on the blog of DMR Books.

The TL;DR version should you not want to spare the click: 3.5/5 stars. I liked it, found it to be a well-written page turner, but not the terrific relaunch of authorized Conan prose fiction I wished it to be. I had high expectations, only partially met.

Have you read this? If so would be curious to hear your thoughts.

Friday, October 28, 2022

Iron Maiden: No compromises

Me and Scott... and 24 oz. Miller Lite

It strikes me that I haven’t reviewed nor mentioned the recent Iron Maiden show I attended last Friday at the Prudential Center in Newark, NJ. I went with an old buddy of mine, Scott, a dude I brought to his first Maiden show back in 2008.

I first saw Maiden back in 1991 on the No Prayer for the Dying tour, so I was an old hand when I broke Scott’s Maiden cherry 14 years ago. It was great to see Maiden with him again. We may be getting older but we’re still rocking.

What can I properly say about Iron Maiden that hasn’t been already said? Very little. They’re probably the greatest heavy metal band of all time. They are to metal what the Beatles are to pop rock, or Johnny Cash is to country. Fucking legends, full stop.

But I have to say something. So here's a statement.

What makes Maiden special to me is that they don’t compromise. They have integrity. They do what they want, they don’t change with the times, or blow with the winds of fashion. If you don’t like it, tough shit.

Not everyone likes their current direction. Yes, they are writing long songs, and perhaps deserve some criticism for too much repetition.

But I’ve come to accept that it’s what they want to do. They’ve earned the right to do what they want, after 40 years of entertaining us. And frankly, I still like what they are putting out. Not unreservedly, but some of it.

Maiden opened up with three songs off their new album, Senjutsu. That’s probably the kiss of death for many bands. But not these dudes. The crowd was into it. And the third song, “Writing on the Wall,” was met with a roaring reception. “Writing on the Wall” was written pre-COVID-19, but it has an apocalyptic feel, apocalyptic lyrics, and the timing of its release makes it feel like a commentary on the state of the world circa March 2020. It still feels like we’re on the brink of disaster every day, between climate catastrophe, looming nuclear war with Russia, saber-rattling with China, and the general savage in-fighting between Republicans and Democrats, and everyone else on Twitter and Facebook. We’re living in a shit-show and this song captures the Four Horsemen quite well. I love it. Listen below.

I also liked that Maiden played “Sign of the Cross” and “The Clansman,” despite the fact that both of these songs are from the Blaze Bayley era, a time when Maiden was at its lowest ebb. It doesn’t matter; they’re great tunes, and are just awesome in concert. Kudos to Bruce for swallowing his pride and playing songs from an era where he voluntarily left the band. He knows they kick ass. 

Again, integrity.

My one criticism? No songs off Somewhere in Time or Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, the two albums where I believe the band hit its creative peak. But, I can’t complain too much. Maiden has begun advertising a 2023 “The Future Past Tour,” which if you see the imagery will feature a heavy dose of SiT. So, I’m OK with it. They still cranked out “Revelations,” “Fear of the Dark,” “Aces High,” “The Trooper,” “Flight of Icarus,” and of course “Hallowed be thy Name” and “Run to the Hills,” among other hits. A great mix of classics and new material. “Blood Brothers” has become a classic from the modern/post Bruce reunion era of Maiden, a pean to the spirit of the brotherhood of men, and of boys and their fathers. Bruce sounded great.

So, there’s Maiden. No compromise. Still kicking ass in 2022. I’m so glad they’re still around when they could be enjoying their retirement years on a beach in Maui. 



 

Wednesday, October 26, 2022

Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry

The shame he felt was so strong it stopped the words in his throat. Night after night, sitting in front of Wilbarger’s tent, he had struggled with thoughts so bitter that he had not even felt the Montana cold. All his life he had preached honesty to his men and had summarily discharged those who were not capable of it, though they had mostly only lied about duties neglected or orders sloppily executed. He himself was far worse, for he had been dishonest about his own son, who stood not ten feet away.

--Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

Lonesome Dove will probably wind up as the best book I’ve read this year.

At 860 pages, it is a lot longer than I typically prefer in my fiction. It is also a western, which aren’t typically something I gravitate to.

It was a little hard to break into, a good 100-150 pages before I started to get involved in the story. But by the end I didn’t want it to be over, and plowed through the final 100 pages in a sitting.

This one took a long time for me to read, and taking a week-long business trip followed by a bout of COVID didn’t help my pace. I have now officially fallen off my goal of 52 books this year (one book/week). But, it was worth the investment. Again, I’m no western aficionado, but personally I liked Lonesome Dove better than Cormac McCarthy’s acclaimed Blood Meridian. 

It’s hard to say exactly what spoke to me, but probably mostly the characterization. Woodrow Call and Augustus McCrae are pretty damned real, despite being from an age and place (1870s Texas) that seems very dim and remote. These dudes are Texas Rangers but also quasi outlaws, violent, and no one you want to cross. When Call’s rage is summoned, watch out. Each have killed dozens of men, stomped and kicked the teeth out of many more. But they’re not cardboard cowboy cutouts. They and the rest of McCarthy’s characters are very real, believable, human.

Lonesome Dove is obviously not fantasy/sword-and-sorcery but it puts you in another place and time, another world, the old west in the waning days of the rapidly closing frontier. We meet some really, really bad actors (Blue Duck, a frightening, murderous, outlaw Indian with no sense of morality, no mercy). We experience what an epic cattle drive from Texas to Montana might have been like—life on the open plains exposed to every manner of weather, a lack of water, occasional run-ins with Indians, cattle thieves, and outlaws, getting thrown from a horse or gored by a bull and having no access to medical facilities. The violence is rare but shocking and faithfully depicted. All of this material takes you out of 21st century living and into a past that is both fascinating, and one I’m glad I was not born into. Robert E. Howard may have longed for such a past, but not me. Though I would love to see the pristine landscapes of untouched Montana.

One of the book’s major themes is duty vs. social obligations and family. Gus’ priority is on people, and relationships. He wants to get married, he never stops talking, he enjoys life’s pleasures. Though Call criticizes him for not carrying his weight when it comes to chores, everyone (including Call) loves him. This is how he has organized and prioritized his life. It mostly works out—but some of the women in the story (who are all wonderfully drawn by McMurtry) see through his act. You can’t just be a romantic player; you’ve got to commit.

In contrast Call’s highest priority is to duty, Getting Things Done. Living by a code. You promise to do something, you do it. This makes him admirable, a born leader, but like Gus he’s also flawed. I found myself identifying with Call, more than I suspected. I’m nothing at all like him—dude is an old school Texas Ranger you don’t want to cross, self-sufficient alpha to the core. But, he cannot form personal connections; he can’t show love to his son, form meaningful relationships with women, or even admit the boy Newt is his own blood. Toward the end of the novel in a shocking scene he gets his shit called out, and has no rejoinder. In a flash he wonders if he’s been living his life wrong, all along. The gulfs between men and women are wide. Most everyone in this book is quite lonely, even in the company of others.

I’m not this emotionally stunted. But, I’m introverted, I don’t form true, deep friendships/relationships easily or lightly, and this has occasionally bitten me in the ass. I found myself understanding Call on a deep level, because I have some of him in me.

The book is also about virtue, what makes men virtuous and what makes them fall short. The handsome cowboy Jake Spoon—dreamy brown eyes, natural charisma, always gets the girl—is not an irredeemable bastard, but he’s not a man worthy of our respect, because he doesn’t value helping other people, nor duty or obligation, but ultimately his top priority is his own self-interest. Gambling. Drinking. Woman chasing. He’s also a relative coward. This all comes back to bite him, hard. 

We need something to follow, some North star, that’s not just us. You better find it, or life will lead you to bad places.

Lonesome Dove does not romanticize the old west. It’s funny in places, touching, even uplifting, but also grim. Death comes easy, and unfairly, to several characters. Despite its hardness, it’s hard to leave behind. You want to keep inhabiting this world.

But now it’s time to say goodbye to the novel. Perhaps I’ll watch the television miniseries.

Wednesday, September 21, 2022

Before They Are Hanged, some thoughts on Joe Abercrombie's First Law trilogy

Some hanging... much stabbing.
I'm now two-thirds of the way through Joe Abercrombie’s First Law trilogy, having just finished the second volume Before They Are Hanged, and damn, I’m enjoying this (long) journey. 

These books are all over 500 pages, far longer than the lean and mean S&S I typically prefer. I’m not the biggest fan of this type of thing: Epic fantasy/Grimdark, multi-volume series of phonebook sized tomes. With a few exceptions. I’ll gladly read long series from the likes of Bernard Cornwell, for example. 

Joe Abercrombie is another exception. I’ll read what the dude puts out. He’s an excellent writer and the First Law are easily among the best books I’ve read this year. His strengths as I see them are: 

Ear for dialogue. His characters speak with unique voices, with each other (not at each other, not in declarative speech, but dialogue), and through the dialogue the plot moves apace. He also adds a simultaneous internal dialogue that reveals the characters’ thoughts simultaneously—which is sometimes at odds with the carefully concealed lies they speak aloud.

Characterization. A series of this size requires a cast of characters and I would say at least 3-4 are something approaching fully realized. There are characters you remember, including Ninefingers, Ferro, Jezal, Glokta, and to a lesser degree West and Dogman, to whom you can’t wait to return.

Depictions of violence. If you like battles (who doesn’t?) these are taut, wildly dangerous, unpredictable. Abercrombie is up there with the likes of Bernard Cornwell and GRRM for desperate melees and violence that you can picture as you read it. There is an amazing sequence in which a main character who thinks he’s victorious is suddenly struck in the face with a mace, and after a detour into unconsciousness returns to the horror of pain and disfigurement. Grimdark, but very well done.

A few specific observations and a few critiques.

Abercrombie is at this best when he’s focused on the conflict of human beings and gritty reality, but seems slightly out of his element when portraying fantastic elements. I find his use of monsters/magic not entirely convincing, and not as compelling to read. Which is why his The Heroes resonated strongly with me—there’s nary of whiff of magic in it. I have a hard time picturing what the Shanka look like; they are called “flatheads” but are essentially orcs (I think?)—hordes of cannon fodder with less menace than any of the human protagonists. Likewise Bayaz, a great wizard of the first order, can move things with his mind with a psionic-like power, but it fails to awe or inspire. Bayaz in general reminds me of a much less likeable, highly irritable Gandalf. 

I could see Abercrombie morphing into an author of historical fiction. There is a lost Empire of Gurkhul that evokes the ancient Roman empire, of past glories of architecture and construction that can no longer be achieved by the peoples of the current (fallen) age, only glimpsed through ruins. I think he could do a wonderful series set in 6th or 7th century Britain, something like Cornwell’s Arthurian trilogy.

Despite the story moving apace, and the general high quality of the prose, the series does not entirely avoid the bloat endemic to almost all high fantasy. Some of the sequences, even when well done, feel like semi-indulgent detours into world-building. I think the overall page count could be safely reduced. Probably more of a preference-thing; some people love world-building. Not really my thing.

A final note: I was tickled at mid-book to read what is essentially a voyage into Moria complete with the bridge of Khazad-dum, a bridge “soaring across a dizzy space in one simple arch, impossibly delicate.” It is a work of some master maker, “undiminished. They shine the brighter, if anything, for they shine in a darkened world.” At one point the group’s guide, Longfoot, launches into an entirely un-Abercrombie-like soliloquy complete with archaic, high language that sounds as if it issued from Boromir or Aragorn, completely different than the rough, coarse, modern dialogue typical of the rest of the book:

“And this is why I love to travel,” breathed Longfoot. “At one stroke, in one moment, this whole journey has been made worthwhile. Has there ever been such another sight? How many men living can have gazed upon it? The three of us stand at a window upon history, at a gate into the long-forgotten past? No longer will I dream of fair Talins, glittering on the sea in the red morning, or Ul-Nahb, glowing beneath the azure bow of the heavens in the bright midday, or Ospira, proud upon her mountain slopes, lights shining like the stars in the soft evening. From this day forth, my heart will forever belong to Aulcus.”

Longfoot is then cut off by Ferro, raining on his parade by calling the sight a “load of old buildings,” which rips us back into the dark narrative. Perhaps Abercrombie (a big fan of Martin, his chief inspiration for the First Law) is taking a bit of a piss out of old JRRT. Interesting, nonetheless.


Saturday, September 17, 2022

Fantastic essay and other updates

Failed to mention that my post on Fantastic, that digest-size magazine that ran from 1952-1980 and published a fair bit of sword-and-sorcery, is up on the blog of DMR Books. The link is here.

Can you believe Fantastic had Fritz Leiber writing a regular book reviews column? Can you imagine Fritz F-ing Leiber reviewing your stuff? 

I found one column from 1975 where he reviews Poul Anderson's Hrolf Kraki's Saga. This is the sword-and-sorcery equivalent of Mike Tyson breaking down fight film of Muhammad Ali. 

What else am I working on? Bill Ward over at Tales from the Magician's Skull/Goodman Games is keeping me busy. I have a post on Michael Moorcock in his hands, and then will be turning my attention to a couple other pieces he wants me to write in October/November. Won't spoil any of them now.

Speaking of Tales from the Magician's Skull I'm supposed to be getting my hard copy of issue no. 8 in the mail any day now, along with a TftMS beer coaster. Will post pics when they arrive.

Sunday, August 14, 2022

Tales from the Magician’s Skull #6

They're back! 
Finally getting around to review of a magazine I have been subscribing to since its inception, Tales from the Magician’s Skull. I decided to go with issue no. 6 because of the new (and estate of Fritz Leiber authorized) Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser story by Nathan Long. 

I jumped straight to Long’s story and liked it. Credible, solid pastiche. The Gray Mouser was well-channeled, though Fafhrd felt a bit flat to me. The story suffers a bit from too many characters, I don’t need all the names and details for what are essentially one-act props for the main show. I liked the conceit of the story, a play infiltrated by F&GM on a thieving caper that turns (somewhat) deadly serious. Good stuff, I think Fritz would have been happy with this effort. Hope we see more F&GM from Long. I would love to hear more details on how Goodman Games secured the rights to produce the story.

On to the rest. 

Issue 6 leads off with a pair of S&S stalwarts, John Hocking and Howard Andrew Jones. Both serve up a pretty good story. Hanuvar is an interesting character, a later middle-aged centurion, deadly, honorable. I was not wild about this particular story, not as hard/heroic as I prefer. But very well-written, being Jones. The danger is palpable; swords are weighty, violence not casually handled. Nice use of snake monsters, Saathra, which felt dangerous. Hanuvar is pressed into finding a young woman, Tura, who has run away into the swamps in a bout of grief after her mother, a priestess, dies. Jones dangles some compelling threads that make me want to revisit this character (his missing daughter for example) and we’re going to get the chance in the upcoming Baen novels.

Hocking’s story “Calicask’s Woman” was likewise solid. Some good fight scenes, a reasonable twist at the end, nice closing image. The light titillation is a false front, as the story is an underlying critique of ill-treatment of women and warning against treating them like objects or chattel. All the bits about wands and figuring out number of “charges” remaining felt a little too D&D to me. Some cool spells flung about (“Wall of Demons”) that felt suitably dangerous.

Two other stories did not resonate with me because they are not what I’m after in sword-and-sorcery.

Greg Mele’s “Shadows of a Forgotten Queen” is almost all resolved through dialogue. “Isle of Fog” by Violette Malan suffers from the same malady, too “talky” and dialogue-heavy for me. The latter opens with a compelling intro (“No one comes back from the Isle of Fog”) but then gets bogged down. I need less, not more, when I read S&S. S&S at its best offers stories that stand on their own, plot-driven, adventure-focused. I prefer more swashbuckling, more happening, in my stories, and less motivations, politicking, world-building. These are short stories, keep them simple at least for simple readers like me with simple tastes. Again, this is MY preference, it’s no knock on the quality of the stories. These are authors with potential that deserve your attention.

We also get in the back half of the magazine “Cold in Blood” by James Enge which was the highlight of the issue for me. Morlock is pitted against a dangerous, murderous vampiress but the story is leavened with a wry sense of humor. Basic, entertaining, fun, weird, uncomplicated, even as it ends on a somber-ish note. Well written, well done. It strikes me I haven’t read enough Enge and need to rectify that. His stuff is consistently excellent.

The Leiber article is solid. I had forgotten that the Leiber estate allowed author Robin Wayne Bailey to write Swords Against the Shadowland (1998) featuring the two heroes, and now Nathan Long’s story.

Long story short: This is a good issue of the magazine. I am quite glad Tales from the Magician’s Skull exists. I will continue to support it as long as it keeps publishing. It is one of the few regular markets for sword-and-sorcery. It gives authors a chance to ply their craft. It just needs more S&S refinement—in my opinion. YMMV.

And, good lord is the supporting apparatus a blast. These include fun editorials, an S&S word search, humorous letters to the editor. Skull Scrolls is fun, letters to the editor as answered by the Skull himself, or hapless interns who will soon meet their death. It has considerable gaming related content at the back, mechanics assigned to the creatures and spells, etc. in the stories. It's a great idea, I’m glad it’s included even though gaming is largely in my past. It’s all well-packaged. Some of the art is crude and clunky but it’s quite welcome here, delivering an old school AD&D vibe and charm.

This reminds me, I felt the first tinge of fall the other day when I went into my local liquor store and saw a display of Pumpkinhead beer on the shelves. We’re about 10 weeks out from Halloween, and closing in on the next Day of Might (Oct. 23), the sword-and-sorcery national holiday as ordained by the Skull. Save the date.

Monday, July 11, 2022

LORDS OF DESTRUCTION! A review of Death Dealer book 2

If you're looking for sword-and-sorcery turned up to 11--but not in a particularly good way--look no further than James Silke's Death Dealer series, the second volume of which I've reviewed over at the blog of DMR Books, so you don't have to. Read it here, if you dare.

To give you an example of some the passages in all their ridiculously awful but simultaneously glorious style, here is a screen shot. 

Yes, this actually says:

The nymph herself, of course, was a total surprise. Goddesses were supposed to be regal, and formal, and robed in heavy velvets. But this one was housed in the body of a coltish savage, and there was enough delicious mischief behind her bright eyes to make sin look like the only endeavor worthy of life's trials and tribulations. If anyone doubted this, her brazen nudity would end the argument before it started, and unbuckle your belt as well.


Friday, June 24, 2022

Top Gun: Maverick, a review

From Mustangs to modernity... looking forward, and back.
I had more fun watching Top Gun: Maverick than I had any right to.

I trekked to the theater the other night to catch a viewing and am so glad I did. You could not wipe the grin off my face. Not from the moment Tom Cruise delivered a classy, simple, direct, pre-movie thank you message to the audience, to the end credits, where I said to myself, damn, that was fun.

This film was just what I needed at the moment, and I think a lot of Americans did as well.

I cannot begin to express how much I enjoyed the absence of political messages. The cast is diverse, but naturally so. There is no demoralizing, divisive moralizing. No 50 shades of gray, everyone is shit including the heroes-type messages. 

And yet, this film has a heart, and more complexity than the original. It is pro-American but without being jingoistic. Just optimistic. 

Optimism … remember that? We all could use some of that right now, in this torrent of daily negative news, and divisive nastiness. The film delivers it. I suspect it’s part of the reason for its smashing box office success. A needed message, at the right time.

Top Gun: Maverick could have gone in a different direction. The broad lines of the plot are that the Navy calls upon an aging Cruise/Maverick to instruct a group of young pilots, who are needed to fly a dangerous, low altitude bombing mission to destroy a nuclear enrichment plant. This naturally raises some questions. Who is the country that wants to enrich uranium? Shouldn’t a sovereign country have this right? Why should the U.S. be the world’s police? Etc.

The film avoids asking them.

These are fine questions … but they don’t belong in a film like this, which served a different purpose. That Top Gun: Maverick doesn’t dwell on them not make it a bad film. Just a film with a different lens. You can say that this simplicity is a fault, but I disagree.

So, is this just a simple, dumb action film? Surprisingly, no. It is a commentary on aging gracefully. Letting go of the need to control everything, and accepting help—which is not a weakness, but rather a sign of growth and maturity. Tom Cruise’s character was finally able to do this, completing an arc which began in the first film when he famously abandoned his wingman.

I loved the commentary on the role of humans in an increasingly technological age. The drone revolution is coming, unmanned planes are on the horizon. We can all see this, and wonder what it will mean. But as Cruise says in the film—that time ain’t yet. Bravery and ambition still have a place, people have a role to play in the fortunes of the world. You can feel that same sentiment at a meta level, in the film goer experience too. Leaving your house and watching a movie on a big screen with a group of people in all their messiness, still has value, still delivers something that a solitary Netflix viewing on a computer cannot replicate.

Top Gun: Maverick acknowledges that the world has changed in the last 35 years, and that more changes are on the horizon, but also acknowledges there is still value in the old ways. If that makes the film conservative on some level, then so be it. But without any tradition, shorn of our old stories, what do we have? There is value in looking forward, and back.

I’m not afraid to admit that I enjoy nostalgia. I understand it can be manipulative, even harmful if the intent is to obscure the truth. In large, heavy doses it becomes cloying, even sickening, like eating too much sugar. This movie struck the right balance. A love and respect for the original film, many nostalgic callbacks and references but not obnoxious.

It is far-fetched? Of course. [MINOR SPOILER ALERT] When Cruise and Goose’s son find a fueled up, fully operating enemy F-14 to effect their escape, it nearly broke the third wall for me. Nearly, but not quite. And hell, was it ever fun.

Speaking of fun… the jets are a marvel, but then again I'm smack-dab in the target audience. My dad used to take me to air shows as a kid and I have seen the Thunderbirds and Blue Angels fly. I have seen F-14s and F-16s and F-18s up close, felt the roar of their afterburners in my chest. I’ve been to the Air Force National Museum in Dayton, OH. I have a deep respect for military aircraft. Fighter jets are impressive, their raw power and maneuverability. And in Top Gun the F-18 is on full, glorious display. The film contains very little CGI compared to most modern action films and as a result felt entirely convincing. The stunts are real, performed in real planes flown by highly skilled pilots with the actors filmed in the same planes, experiencing the same G forces. 

This is one you should catch while it’s still in the theaters. The studio held this until the pandemic subsided and I can see why. The medium, the message, factored in the decision to get people back in the flesh in real theaters, enjoying the experience together. It worked, at least for this guy.

Wednesday, June 22, 2022

Whetstone #5: A review


Where do new sword-and-sorcery authors go to test their mettle in the arena, seeking glory (or at least, companionship with fellow brothers and sisters-in-arms)? And where might you find the occasional veteran belly up to the bar, with a rousing tale to add to the cacophony of combat?

Why, in the pages of Whetstone, the amateur journal of sword-and-sorcery.

I just finished reading Whetstone #5 and wanted to share a few impressions.

First of all, look at the cover of this thing. This is as close to perfect as it gets. While you could say it leaves you with the wrong impression—Whetstone is not an OSR gaming publication—it conveys what the contents are all about—nostalgia for an old(er) subgenre of fantasy, given new life with new interpretations and new voices.

Editor Jason Ray Carney’s intro is worth reading. So many of us have spent much digital ink, arguably too much, trying to find some precise definition for sword-and-sorcery. At times it gets tedious--this coming from a guy who wrote a complete non-fiction treatment (as Arnold said in Conan the Destroyer, “Enough Talk!”)

Carney boils down S&S to a general feeling rather than specific tropes. This is as good as lens as any when analyzing the genre. Carney instead focuses on why we like S&S, which he identifies as its depiction of conflict, often against an amorphous threat that is simultaneously tangible and supernatural, and possibly representational or symbolic:

What do we feel when we imagine a brutalized sword and sorcery writer laughing at the stars? What do we feel when we read about a mere mortal--an ephemeral form--violently confronting eternity, the cosmos, the infinite in all its eternal strangeness? Why are sword and sorcery writers obsessively drawn to their primary theme: the unresolved antagonism between the natural and the supernatural? The profane and the sacred? The individual and the cosmos?

On to the contents.

Reviewing collections of short stories by multiple authors is tricky. Attempting to review 20 stories one-by-one is folly, not something I have the time to do, and the result would be brief unhelpful encapsulations. The stories are all very short, as the submission guidelines call for stories between 1500-2500 words, no more no less. So even if they are not to your taste, they pass quickly.

This is an amateur magazine so don’t go into it expecting to read peak Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Manly Wade Wellman, or even some of the better modern authors like Schuyler Hernstrom. A couple of the writers have recognized names and bodies of work, but most are cutting their teeth. As a whole, almost all the stories were entertaining (some were deliberate and welcomed tongue-in-cheek, for example the charming yet gory “The Riddle of Spice”). I detected some obvious Conan the Barbarian (film) influence, Howard, Smith, and Fritz Leiber and Michael Moorcock notes and influences in many of the stories. Gladiatorial pits feature prominently, as do stories of vengeance. Some stories feel like unfinished parts of a bigger story, interludes or chapters. There are some recurring heroes from previous issues of Whetstone, old champions making their returns to the ring.

Naturally I liked some more than others and wanted to call out a few highlights.

I enjoyed T.A. Markitan’s “Just Desserts,” specifically for the tone it strikes, and its inventiveness: A warrior accompanied by a playful ghost, and a village with dark secrets. It’s well-conceived, and well-executed, a cascade of weird elements in a tightly-plotted little gem of a story with a fun reveal at the end.

Gregory D. Mele’s “Salt Tears” deftly sketches an island culture and customs and tells a compelling little story of muted heroism and regret. He does a fine job making a foil, Bembe, both a bastard and somewhat sympathetic. It also comes to a satisfying, thoughtful conclusion. Well done stuff.

Chuck Clark’s “Doors” leaves you wanting more of his recurring character Turkael, who is a hero but with a mysterious past, one of a group of faceless men with crystal bones and uncanny swords. It feels like you’ve been dropped into a larger story, both for better and for worse, but more of this character is revealed in previous issues and I expect future installments of his story will be coming.

Nathaniel Webb’s “The Smoke Ship” has possibly the best depiction of battle in the issue (the last story in the collection might have it beat), a weird and ghostly sea battle that feels desperate and real, and a nice blend of the historical and mysterious.

I really enjoyed Cora Buhlert’s “Village of the Unavenged Dead.” It reads like Clark Ashton Smith but without the baroque language. There is a detached air to the writing, almost a fairytale feel, yet it's a fast-moving story of revenge with sympathetic protagonist and a satisfying resolution. The story could have gone ultra-dark but Buhlert reins it in nicely.

Whetstone #5 concludes with a tale by polished veteran of the craft, Scott Oden’s “At the Gate of Bone.” This story reminded me very much of David Gemmell or Steven Pressfield, a grizzled warrior relaying an old tale of a valiant but doomed last stand against an overwhelming horde. Orcs and badass horn-helmed warlords and spilled viscera. Really good stuff if you like that sort of thing.

What are you waiting for? Whetstone is free; test its steel and see if it’s to your liking.

Wednesday, June 15, 2022

Thune's Vision/Schuyler Hernstrom

I love this cover... weird and trippy, violence beneath, like the contents.

DMR Books/Dave Ritzlin has published my review of Thune's Vision, by Schuyler Hernstrom. Head over and give it a read; it's spoiler free but hopefully speaks to why I think so highly of it, and this author.

If you like sword-and-sorcery/sword-and-planet/weird fiction, and care as to whether it will survive in the current era, you should support good modern authors who practice it. Try this, or his The Eye of Sounnu. You won't be disappointed. In an age when Brandon Sanderson can net $41M on a kickstarter (seriously? what the fuck) we need to find a way to support sword-and-sorcery authors who can deliver great storytelling, and paint worlds, and make you think, in 1/4 of the real estate of most "fat fantasy."

Thune's Vision is now available for purchase on Amazon. I believe DMR will be reselling as well.