More (mediocre) content is not better than no content: A rant

Once in a while you’ve got to let off some steam (Bennett). For most, that means punching a heavy bag, screaming into a pillow, maybe going crazy and tearing the tag off a mattress.

For me, it’s … angry blogging! Friday rant incoming.

What’s gotten under my skin?

The incessant need for “more content.”

I’m hearing this in the cries of Rings of Power defenders, many of whom admit that while the show is mediocre at best, and plays fast and loose with Tolkien lore in nonsensical ways, they nevertheless continue to watch. Because “its more Tolkien content, and I need more Middle-Earth. I need more content.” 

Actual quotes.

This chaps my ass.

No one needs “more content.” Not of this sort.

To me it sounds like infantile and babylike cries of, “more food, mama!”

How about, more art, please.

Stop consuming cheap and disposable shit, and begging for more. Find the good stuff that already exists, and enjoy that instead. 

There’s more content right now than anyone can consume in a lifetime.

If everyone stopped producing content tomorrow—if somehow we implemented a worldwide ban, and you could only consume content that’s already been made—you’d have enough for 50 lifetimes.

You’ve got way more than enough. I’m not advocating this, BTW, just making a point.

I hate the need for more, at any cost. I also strongly dislike the word “content” when it comes to media. “Content” is the stuff we expel from our bowels. Probably not what we should be feeding our minds with.

We do need good art. But corporations don’t make art. Corporations make content, on an industrial scale, for undifferentiated masses, in order to make loads of cash. As we see with Star Wars and now (unfortunately) The Lord of the Rings “franchises.” Corporations buy franchises and expect massive ROI on their investments. In Amazon’s case, it’s all about getting more Amazon Prime subscribers, converting to product consumers. The Lord of the Rings becomes a means to an end, a power grab, which is the opposite message of the book.

When you consume poorly made “content” produced by corporations it encourages more of the same behavior. Instead:

Support independent artists and small businesses producing new material. Discuss thoughtful and well-made art. Appreciate it. Encourage creation of more of that sort of art. Or, explore the good, old, time-tested stuff. 

If you adopt these practices worry not, you still have near infinite options.

More “content” comes with a cost.

It devalues the historical wealth of riches we already have. I have a bias here; I’m a historian. I do wonder: Who talks about Fritz Leiber anymore? Clark Ashton Smith, Leigh Brackett, Poul Anderson? Very few, in comparison to the new and shiny content of the moment. Hell even Ursula LeGuin, once a household name, is starting to slip into the past. 

I worry these men and women will be lost to time under an avalanche of new “content.”

“More content” chokes out the magic of what makes old properties special in the first place. The avaricious need for more content causes every timeline, every side character, every magic item or scroll, every byway, to be fully filled in. Until the magic is gone. 

We no longer need to wonder how the force operates. We no longer need to speculate about the Blue Wizards and what they were doing.

They’ve all been spelled out, like an adult paint by numbers, in the pursuit of feeding the content machine.

We need dark places in the woods, unexplored realms beneath the seas. 

And we need white space on the page. 

Obviously, I enjoy modern adaptations. Obviously, I consume some of them. Perhaps that makes me a hypocrite. But I’m definitely more judicious these days with what I watch and read, because I know that you are what you eat. And I’m not a big fan of eating shit.

I’m not advocating closing off possibilities. What I do advocate is, mindful consumption. Read or watch deeply instead of broadly. Then share that out. Celebrate the good. And stop giving your time and attention to the mediocre. 

The Battle of Evermore and the timeless nature of fantasy

(early metal-ish Friday)

That it is told in the language of fantasy is not an accident, or because Tolkien was an escapist, or because he was writing for children. It is a fantasy because fantasy is the natural, the appropriate language for the recounting of the spiritual journey and the struggle of good and evil in the soul.

--Ursula LeGuin, “On Fantasy and Science Fiction”

The critics who have dismissed fantasy as juvenile escapism have failed to recognize that fantasy grapples with real and eternally pressing issues, albeit wrapped in metaphor and fantastic trappings.

The same critics who worship at the altar of realism and extol the virtues of novels about average people in familiar times cannot admit their darlings have rapidly aged and are fast losing their relevance. While the classics of fantasy remain as fresh today as the day they were written.

That’s because the language of fantasy is unbound by time, or place. It deals with the big issues—conflict within and without, love, sorrow, friendship, the inevitable march of time, pain, decay and death—in poetic abstraction, and in heroic meter and timbre. Modern novels that reference an author’s time and place will confuse the modern reader with surroundings that grow increasingly abstract and impenetrable with the passing years, while the Hyborian Age or Middle-Earth remain eternally familiar and inhabitable even as their authors slip further into the past. They are distanced from the ordinary, but close to the human heart.

The Battle of Evermore will still be played 100 years from now, though perhaps never as well as this version by Heart. Because we all grasp its emotional depths, and understand the meaning of the plaintive cries.

The apples turn to brown and black

The tyrant's face is red

Oh war is common cry

Pick up your swords and fly

We’re always trying to bring the balance back. It’s the eternal struggle never won, but once in a while we experience the blessed peace of equilibrium.

The Battle of Evermore will still be played 100 years from now, and remain as unspoiled as Lothlorien, because it is the timeless matter of fantasy.

Ruminations on subversive and restorative impulses, and conservative and liberal modes of fantasy fiction

Two towers, old and new.

Liberalism seeks to make anew. Conservatism desires to preserve the time-tested. 

The former represents the creative forces of chaos. The latter the ordered forces of law.

It’s a very yin-yang, or Moorcockian, way of looking at things. 

The older I get I see the need for both. For tradition, and for change. Both in life, and in art. Perhaps you’ll find this a milquetoast viewpoint, and want more sturm un drang. But not today. I’m feeling reflective.

Defenders of the old see what the masters have done and want that to stand, immobile and fixed, like some mountain. It was great, it still is, why change it?

Proponents of the new see old art and admire some aspects of it, but believe that it no longer reflects present realities. And wish to carve new stone out of the existing material, or make something else alongside it.

I see a lot of angst over this divide, but believe these seemingly opposing forces can be reconciled. Because we need both.

I believe our present culture is entirely too much focused on the new and shiny. And not enough on learning from the brilliant minds who have come before us and did some things better than we do. There is so much to be gleaned from history. Much of what we think of as new has been done before. So don’t confuse looking backwards with a backwards mindset. 

But I also recognize change as inevitable, and often results in forward progress. Doing the same thing over and over again results in staleness and conformity. S&S grew moribund in the latter 70s and collapsed in the 80s. The New Wave of SF and its dangerous visions broke away from the hard SF that was itself popular and groundbreaking in the early 20th century, but had become fixed and rigid. And the 60s and 70s saw amazing new works created.

Change is inevitable. It’s always been with us. If you don’t believe so, you might look at H.P. Lovecraft, who broke from the old gothics and ghost stories with his radical new extradimensional horror, or Steven King, who added a blue-collar pop sensibility and more humanity to Lovecraft.

Of course, merely because something is new or subversive doesn’t make it good. Nor does critique of your subversive project mean a bunch of old farts “just can’t handle it.” It just might mean the art was poorly executed. There was a lot of bad old art in the past that was once new, but has been forgotten and discarded. No one remembers most of the authors working in Weird Tales. But those that have lasted have much to teach us.

It’s cool to make new stuff by recombining old things.

It’s OK to love old school stuff, even to repeat or pastiche its forms. 

We can have it all. No one is getting hurt by the conservative impulse to preserve, or the liberal urge to subvert. 

Where do I fall, preferentially, on this spectrum?

To no one’s surprise I’m a small c conservative when it comes to art. I enjoy some subversive art, and admire the creators who challenge the status quo with potent new visions. Though I find myself preferring subversive material that is old enough to have passed into acceptable territory again. See Elric, or bits of The Once and Future King. 

But my deepest sympathies lie with old fiction. Robert E. Howard and J.R.R. Tolkien remain two of my literary lodestars, and always will. I don’t see them as old. I still see them as innovators who broke new ground from old sources, who had their influences but took them and made something wholly original. Powerful enough to spawn imitators, and genres. 

In “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics,” Tolkien chided the literary critics who sought to study Beowulf by reducing it to its component parts, and in so doing, broke it. Pulled down the old tower turning over stones, not realizing from the top you could see the sea.

But if Tolkien had only looked at and admired the past we wouldn’t have The Lord of the Rings. He also made something new from old legends, and broke new ground, though his own powerful creative impulse.

Feeling like it's time to watch these again

Have you ever been called home by the clear ringing of silver trumpets?

I have. To this book. And to the movies.

But it's been a while.

Today was my last day in the office until I return on January 2, 2024. A blessed 11 days of downtime. I think it's time for a rewatch of one of my favorite films (yes, I consider this one film) of all time. 

Great, not unreservedly so, but great.

I saw these one by one as they premiered in theaters and still love them. And am pleased to own the extended versions on DVD. Were I to watch them all back-to-back-to-back (which I never have done), Google tells me it's 11 hours and 36 minutes. An investment. 

But it's time.

Secret Fire

What is the “fire” borne by characters and otherwise present in the works of Cormac McCarthy and J.R.R. Tolkien?

“I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the Flame of Anor.” – Gandalf, Fellowship of the Ring

"Therefore Ilúvatar gave to their vision Being, and set it amid the Void, and the Secret Fire was sent to burn at the heart of the World; and it was called Eä." ― The Silmarillion

I want to be with you.  

You cant.

Please.

You cant. You have to carry the fire.

I dont know how to. Yes you do.

Is it real? The fire?

Yes it is. 

Where is it? I dont know where it is.

Yes you do. It’s inside you. It was always there.

I can see it.

--Father and boy, The Road

He just rode on past and he had this blanket wrapped around him and he had his head down and when he rode past I seen he was carryin fire in a horn the way people used to do and I could see the horn from the light inside of it.

--Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, No Country for Old Men

There’s been a fair bit written about the meaning of carrying the fire in McCarthy's The Road, and the origin of Gandalf's "secret fire," but comparably less on what the fire actually is. As I see it:

The creative impulse; the drive to make, rather than destroy. 

The life force. Life comes from somewhere, not from nothing.

That which we must pass on, to the next generation, lest we slip back into darkness. Kindness, opposing selfishness.

Hope, in dark places.

That which makes us good.

The divine spark, if you believe in that.

That it can be “carried” without outward sign tells us it is metaphorical (in Tolkien, it is sometimes more, but Gandalf still describes it as “secret,” rarely unveiled). It is something out of myth, not meant in a literal sense, but conveying a larger Truth.

Carrying means that it requires some effort to sustain. It also seems to signify it can be passed on, to another willing recipient.

I try to do good things with my life. I have been better at this at various times, worse at others. I try to teach my daughters, at least by example. Here is how you behave, watch me. I am trying to give back to others, more than I have as a younger man.

The fire flickers, I lose sight of it. I breathe into the embers, keep it kindled.

What fire sustains you?

---

I make no claim that the fire described by Tolkien and McCarthy share a similar source—though both are Catholic—only that there are similarities of expression and interpretation.

A couple good interpretations here: 

The Grey Havens, “What is the Secret Fire That Gandalf Serves?” 

The Art of Manliness: “Carry the Fire” 

Top 10 reasons why I don’t care about Amazon’s The Rings of Power

The Rings of... Meh.

Perhaps you might be wondering, hey, when is that guy from The Silver Key going to weigh in on The Rings of Power? He loves Tolkien.

Consider this that post, but it’s probably not the droids you’re looking for.

I haven’t watched ROP, and at this moment have no plans to. I explain why in this handy top 10 listicle.

A caveat: If you like ROP that’s great! The point of this post is not to (overly) criticize the show, because I haven't seen it. That wouldn’t be honest, or fair. It's to explain my lack of interest. 

That said, apathy for a richly budgeted, dramatic interpretation of a beloved property must have some basis in negativity or critique. In my case, I saw each of The Lord of the Rings films in the theater on opening night, buying advance tickets and braving big crowds and sticky theater floors to watch Tolkien on the big screen. In contrast, I have Amazon Prime, could watch ROP at the click of a button from the safety of my living room… and have yet to expend even that amount of non-effort on the show. Why? My answers follow.

If you like or love the show and think I should give it a chance, please explain why. Who knows, you might win me over. But it will be an uphill battle.

1. The rights weren’t enough. No Silmarillion? No coherent storyline to hang an adaptation upon? Big problem. I knew the writers of ROP were facing monumental issues after learning that they only had rights to the Appendices of LOTR, not the 12-volume History of Middle-Earth nor The Silmarillion. There is no cohesive story to hang a dramatic series on, which means much artistic interpretation is required. That’s a recipe for failure. J.R.R. Tolkien was a genius, and trying to recreate what made him great from appendices and notes is a near-impossible task. The Jackson films were at their best when they hewed to Tolkien’s story and dialogue. In short, the limited deal struck by Amazon was like planting seeds into a thin, arid field, and expecting a rich crop. 

2. The Hobbit wrecked me. If I were to critique the loudest critics of this show it’s with this point: Your Peter Jackson veneration has a large blind spot. Remember these awful films? Like LOTR I also saw them in the theater. Not only did they suck, but I blame The Hobbit for creating the template that film adaptations of Tolkien must be LOUD AND EPIC AND IMPORTANT. The Hobbit (book) is rather small and cozy, save for The Battle of Five Armies and Laketown. The focus should have been on atmosphere and character, and instead it became a wholly unnecessary nine-hour epic. ROP seems to be a continuation of this fundamental misunderstanding of what makes Tolkien great. It’s not bombast and spectacle, it’s story and heart.

3. Dumping Tom Shippey soured me early. I wish we had a better recounting of what led to this foolish decision, but Shippey is the closest human being on earth we have to Tolkien, now that Tolkien’s son Christopher has passed. To cut the World’s Greatest Tolkien Scholar from the project seems to me a major misstep. He was an advisor on the Jackson LOTR films and played a part in their successful adaptation. Plus, he’s a genuine good dude (I spent more than an hour with him years ago at a convention in Boston, and he was very kind and generous with his time). 

4. The reviews haven’t been good. I read and watch reviews (and have written a fair number myself), and I have learned enough to know this show has some serious problems. Many disregard critics (“those who can’t, teach,” etc., and other such nonsense). I don’t. If it’s a source I trust, or if the reviewer is objective, thoughtful, and fair, these hold weight for me. I’m too old and my time is too limited to mindlessly consume entertainment without some indication that it’s worth my time, which leads me to point 5.

5. I only have so much time. I’m 49 years old and am acutely aware that I have only so much time on this planet. I’d prefer to spend that time providing for my family, spending time with family and friends, writing/creating, and reading. The ROP is apparently set to run five seasons, x 8 shows per season, and one hour per episode. That’s 40 hours minimum time investment. That’s a big commitment on something which apparently is not very good (see #4).

6. I’m not a big TV watcher. Give me a book any day. My current TV consumption is some evening news, and the occasional football game. My daughter got me into Stranger Things and I enjoyed that well enough. Beyond that, I don’t watch TV. My friends are still in shock when I tell them I haven’t seen Breaking Bad or The Wire or Better Call Saul or Ozarks, or whatever the hot property is at the moment. I'd rather do other things with my time than suck on the glass teat.

7. I like movies better. Movies have much more appeal than episodic, open-ended series that may or may not end well... if they end at all. Sure, movies can suck too but at least it’s only 2 hours wasted, as opposed to the folks who sat through seven seasons of Game of Thrones only to suffer through a dumpster fire final season. Or folks that invested time in prematurely cancelled shows. I did watch The Walking Dead and was sorely disappointed when that show began to rot from within, ambling along like a mildly hungry animated corpse. Maybe it’s the sword-and-sorcery fan in me, but give me the quick-hitting single film (S&S short story) over the multi-episode, multi-season TV series (phonebook epic fantasy equivalent).

8. I’m old and jaded. Hype bounces off me. I’ve seen enough, and done enough, and experienced enough heartbreak and disappointment, that trailers, regardless of how well-made, aren’t going to move me. I need to find the commitment from within. The irony is this is coming from a guy who works in marketing. 

9. It’s Amazon. I don’t particularly like this company, even though I admire its efficiency in delivering my packages on time. Doesn’t Amazon own enough of the world already? Do we want to live in a world where it also owns all art and product, in addition to the means of distribution?

10. I don’t want to see Tolkien adapted anymore. Yeah, it’s selfish, maybe petty. I don’t know. We’ve got the books, some cool old cartoons, the Jackson films. That’s more than enough. There are wonders beyond compare in The Hobbit, LOTR, The Silmarillion, HOME, The Children of Hurin, The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun, his letters, etc., not to mention the hundreds of academic volumes examining his works. All of this should be enough. If the right director were to do the right adaptation, for example a Robert Eggers directed The Children of Hurin, I’d watch it. But even then, we don’t NEED it. We’ve got the books, and the books will always be better. You can’t out-do Tolkien’s unique brilliance, no matter how big your budget. Sorry Jeff Bezos.

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.

Blood Tears, Blind Guardian

Today's Metal Friday is a cut off Nightfall in Middle-Earth by the great Blind Guardian.

"Blood Tears" is typical of the work on this album... fucking awesome. The tempo changes in this one...wow. At 1:33 the song transforms from an atmospheric and melodic medieval feel, to full-on mosh-pit. Then returns. There and back again.

Tolkien is on my brain a bit more than usual (JRRT never leaves this cranium) due to the recent Rings of Power, which I still haven't watched. Will I? I don't know, I'm feeling very apathetic about it all. I’m not a big TV watcher, but mainly I have no faith Amazon can recreate Tolkien's genius.

But I can say Blind Guardian channeled a bit of it, with Nightfall in Middle-Earth. Enjoy this bit of First Age storytelling. “Captured” and “Blood Tears” are about the capture of Maedhros, Morgoth’s chaining of the Elven hero by his wrist to a sheer cliff in the mountains of Thangorodrim, and his deliverance when Fingon hacks off his hand. Blind Guardian offers a moving look into the mind of Maedhros and the torment and pain he must have experienced:

And blood tears I cry

You've searched and you've found

Cut off your old friends hand

 

S&S updates: Dunsany, New Edge, book deals, and a fine response to a troubling essay

Hail to the King of Dreams, baby.

A roundup of recent-ish news and updates on the sacred genre.

My most recent essay for Tales from the Magician’s Skull is up, a piece on fantasy in the era of Lord Dunsany. You can read that here. I’ve recently been digging into a short, informal, but interesting quasi-biography by Hazel Littlefield (at right), who visited Dunsany in his home country and later hosted him late in his life during a trip to the United States. “Fantasy” was a different country back then, wilder and with almost no borders and boundaries, not the oft-discussed, greased publishing machine with its various subgenres and conventions that we have today. I get into a little bit of that in the essay, restrained a bit as TftMS has a hard-ish cap of around 1,000 words.

New Edge, a new S&S digital magazine headed up by Oliver Brackenbury of the “So I’m Writing a Novel” podcast, is now open for registration. The first issue (#0) is free and I believe the plan is to gauge interest for a paid ‘zine, supporting new authors and artists. Recently I agreed to write an essay on the outsider trope in S&S for this debut issue (got to get cracking on that).

Not “new” news, but new-ish to me, is the forthcoming Conan novel Blood of the Serpent, a prequel to “Red Nails” now available for pre-order. I have not read anything by author S.M. Stirling, but after a recent conversation with Deuce Richardson I feel confident that he’s a solid choice for this novel. Stirling has a reputation as a good writer with a big imagination and knows REH inside and out. Time will tell. I hope it’s better than the average novel in the TOR line.

Baen signs Howard Andrew Jones to a five-book deal. I’m glad to see a publisher with some budget and clout invest in S&S, and HAJ is a good author to get behind. I have enjoyed his The Desert of Souls and some of his short fiction in Tales from the Magician’s Skull, and these books will feature his exiled general Hanuvar. Let’s hope this is just the tip of the spear for a continued S&S revival.

I have yet to say anything on the new Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, of which we’ve now seen a couple trailers (or maybe “teaser trailers”?). I’ve been underwhelmed at the generic, CGI-heavy glop I’ve seen to date. The core problem is Amazon’s lack of rights to Tolkien’s actual material. A large, multi-interest conglomeration does not possess Tolkien’s soul and vision, his unique time-and-place honed brilliance with languages, and love and care for his creation. The odds are this will disappoint. The Jackson LOTR films worked because they largely stuck to the source material, and his Hobbit films flopped when they deviated from the book. Amazon has precious little rights to Tolkien’s source material. What we really need is Robert Eggers directing The Children of Hurin.

Finally, I wanted to point folks in the direction of this lengthy but fine post by Jason Ray Carney, rebutting a recent article which made the case that sword-and-sorcery needs to be updated for a modern audience (part of a natural process of discernment), and its old works discarded. We all engage in the process of discernment; it’s why we read Shakespeare instead of instruction manuals, and admire and preserve the Sistine Chapel instead of a child’s crayon drawings. Discernment helps explain why we might love the Chronicles of Narnia or the Chronicles of Prydain as a child, but choose not to read them as adults; though they might still be good books, we’ve developed a more refined palate for adult prose styles or complicated storylines and themes. Likewise, through a process of discernment, many readers have moved away from S&S over the years. But, personal discernment strikes me as very different than a general call to discard literature that someone, somewhere finds problematic. When reading old pulp or pulp-inspired S&S of the 60s-80s, my advice remains consistent: Detach and apply historical context, or as Carney suggests, adopt an egalitarian attitude of “chronopolitanism.” We can like old and new things, simultaneously. We can enjoy old barbaric works as entertainment without becoming barbarians ourselves. 

In summary; If this “new edge” movement embraces the likes of Renegade Swords and Schuyler Hernstrom alongside the likes of the Whetstone crew and Howard Andrew Jones, etc., I’m in. If it draws lines based on adherence to certain political views, or places bounds on artistic freedoms, I’m out.

Fantasy without Tolkien? Yes that happened, and yes it matters.

My latest post is up on the blog of DMR Books: "Fantasy without Tolkien? Yes that happened, and yes it matters." Check it out here.

This one was prompted by a few lines I heard Corey Olsen, aka., The Tolkien Professor, state during one of his recent podcasts. It was rather a throwaway line but struck me as not fair to fantasists working before the world-altering impact of The Lord of the Rings, and so I felt compelled to respond.

If you read the post, you will see that A) I venerate Tolkien, and B) I enjoy Olsen's work. But, I also call them as I see them. And I think the fantasy genre would have materialized even without JRRT. It would have been far less rich, a paler version, and the genre might never have attained the commercial success it now enjoys. I can hardly bear to think of it... but, I think if you review the evidence of what was occurring in the 1950s and 60s, prior to the Ace Tolkien explosion of 1965, the arrival of the genre was inevitable.

We'll never know and this is of course all speculation, a game of alternative history. Tolkien's arrival ushered in a new brand of fantasy and changed the course of history, and fantasy fiction, forever. But, we should not forget that he himself was influenced by many fine writers of fantasy, the Burroughs boom was in full swing, and in all likelihood we would have had the Lancer Conan Saga. The likes of Burroughs and Leiber and Moorcock and Vance and Lovecraft were coalescing and emerging from the shadow of 1950s science-fiction. 

And, with all due respect to Olsen, their work absolutely mattered.

Tolkien’s Modern Reading: A review

Tolkien: Not just for medieval scholars, anymore.

Given that Tolkien was not the first to write secondary-world fantasies for adult readers, nor the first to popularize traditional stories for modern audiences, we should ask what it was that made The Lord of the Rings so startling. Part of the answer, at least, is that Tolkien, like a scribe of the kingdom, brought out from his storehouse treasures both old and new.

 

--Holly Ordway, Tolkien’s Modern Reading

 

J.R.R Tolkien has been described as harder to influence than a Bandersnatch, and commonly believed to be utterly uninterested in any literature written after the Canterbury Tales. As it turns out, these claims are largely untrue. Tolkien was indeed an ardent medievalist, but the “leaf mould” of his imagination was far deeper, and richer, and broader, than just an amalgamation of ancient works. Despite what many commonly believe, Tolkien also read and enjoyed modern literature, too.

 

The person to blame for this inaccurate characterization? The late Humphrey Carpenter, author of the only authorized biography of Tolkien and the only outsider (still!) ever permitted complete access to Tolkien’s complete letters. We now have Holly Ordway to thank for setting the record straight with Tolkien’s Modern Reading: Middle-Earth Beyond the Middle Ages (Word on Fire, 2021). This is one of the better works of Tolkien criticism I have read. Nothing can (or likely ever will) compare to Tom Shippey’s The Road to Middle-Earth, and I’ve also got a great respect and admiration for John Garth’s Tolkien and the Great War, but Ordway’s book is both highly readable and illuminating, which is what I look for in literary criticism.

 

Ordway’s book studies fiction that Tolkien would have considered “modern” (published 1850 to his present day) and that had some influence, glancing or readily apparent, on his main legendarium (The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion). Ordway restricted her work only to those authors whom Tolkien definitely interacted with, as can be traced to notations or references in his public writings, letters, interviews, from reports from other people, or in his work in academia. Ordway’s work lists a total of 148 authors and more than 200 titles. These include the likes of a few authors that should be familiar to readers of this blog: Poul Anderson, Algernon Blackwood, Ray Bradbury, Edgar Rice Burroughs, James Branch Cabell, Lord Dunsany, E.R. Eddison, H. Rider Haggard, Robert E. Howard, Henry Kuttner, Andrew Lang, Fritz Leiber, C.S. Lewis, H.P. Lovecraft, George MacDonald, C.L. Moore, William Morris, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Louis Stevenson, and T.H. White, among many others. Many of these seem to have had negligible influence (Tolkien read the likes of Howard and Smith for example in the L. Sprague de Camp collection Sword & Sorcery, and has little to say about it), but other authors made an impact, sometimes profound. 

 

Ordway does a fine job tracing these influences and matching them up, thematically or stylistically, with passages from Tolkien’s texts. For example, from MacDonald’s Lilith he may have drawn inspiration for his themes of death and deathlessness (MacDonald was father to 11 children, but was predeceased by six of them, including his eldest child Lilia). Both MacDonald and Tolkien were “men much acquainted with grief.” Tolkien also credits MacDonald’s goblins as a direct inspiration for his own underground dwellers in The Hobbit. MacDonald looms large enough to get his own chapter, as does, unsurprisingly, William Morris, whose Goths from The House of the Wolfings are stamped all over the Rohirrim. Interestingly, Ordway makes a good case that Morris’ imperialistic, militarized Romans may have inspired Tolkien’s orcs. 

 

Haggard might be a surprise to some: Tolkien read so voraciously of old HRH him that Ordway devoted a whole chapter to his influence (“Rider Haggard: Fresh Ore from Old Mines”). We know that the eponymous She of Haggard’s wildly popular novel was an influence on Galadriel, and that he loved King Solomon’s Mines, but Ordway also reveals that Tolkien read the likes of the lesser-known The Wanderer’s Necklace. As late as 1961 he was still reacting positively in interviews to the name of Haggard. Dunsany was like Tolkien a veteran and wrote the preface of Tales of Wonder while recovering from a war wound, just as Tolkien began writing of his legendarium while recovering from trench-fever. Ordway also includes some deep cuts, noting that Tolkien borrowed elements of a pitched wolf battle in the pines from S.R. Crockett’s The Black Douglas (1889) for Bilbo’s escape from the wargs in The Hobbit. The striking art from this book bears it out. Not all of Tolkien’s reading was fantastic: One of the books that apparently inspired him greatly was J.H. Shorthouse’s John Inglesant, widely read in Tolkien’s day though largely forgotten today.

 

There is much, much more to recommend from this book, including coverage of writers such as Matthew Arnold, Sinclair Lewis, even a handful of science-fiction authors like H.G. Wells (Tolkien read them, too). If you’re a Tolkien fan, seek it out and read it.

20 year anniversary of the Fellowship of the Ring/LOTR films

I was there, Gandalf. I was there 3,000--err 20--years ago.

20 years ago today New Line Cinema and director Peter Jackson delivered unto the world the first of the three Lord of the Rings films, The Fellowship of the Ring (release date Dec. 19, 2001). I was there on opening night.

There was huge anticipation for these films. I was hoping against hope that they would be good, but I feared and expected the worst. The odds of them sucking were high. I could count on one hand the number of truly good fantasy films prior (Excalibur, Conan the Barbarian, Rankin Bass Hobbit, the original Star Wars trilogy should you count them as fantasy). And, my expectations were incredibly high. The Lord of the Rings is my favorite novel, across any genre. It is one of the greatest novels ever written, and stands alongside the best classic literature of the last two centuries, full stop. To put a work like this in the hands of a Hollywood studio was an invitation to butchery and disaster. Surely Jackson would not be able to meet the high standard I had set.

Nevertheless I had to see the films. They were getting a lot of hype and some advance praise from critics (which I largely avoided), and so made the trek to the theater on Dec. 19, 2001.

Opening night was pandemonium. There were people in line in elven cloaks and chain mail. Two dudes were swordfighting in front of the screen with boffer weapons. Most nerdy of all, a dude in the row in front of me watched the film with an LED headlamp on, following along with the book on his lap.

I kid you not. That's some hardcore nerdity right there. 

When the opening title sequence came on with Howard Shore's atmospheric score the audience broke into cheering and applause.

I will admit, I was rapidly swept away into the film. The Shire looked largely as it had in my imagination. The cast was spectacular. I was moved to tears with Boromir's death. Shockingly, against all my fears, it worked. I left the theater blown away, surprised by joy beyond anything I had hoped. Over the next two years, I repeated the pattern with The Two Towers and the Return of the King. I cried again, when Sam put Frodo on his back on Mount Doom, and Theoden led the ride of Rohirrim on the Pelennor Fields.

I was sad to see it all come to an end.

So, twenty years later, how do they hold up?

Pretty darned great, in my opinion. Great does not mean flawlessly. When I watch them now there are a few parts that I actively dislike (collapsing bridge sequence in Moria, shield-surfing at Helm's Deep, and the green ghost army at Minas Tirith). The Paths of the Dead sequence is not particularly well-done. I don't miss Tom Bombadil and believe that was a smart cut, but I do miss the scouring of the Shire, and believe that its excision makes it a lesser film. The action is over-emphasized and some of the slapstick humor is out of place. Jackson would amplify these flaws a hundred fold in the absolutely abysmal adaption of The Hobbit a decade later.

Are the movies as good as the book? No, they're not, and they could not be, not even with 12 films and an unlimited budget. The world we see on screen is not as deep or wide as the one we encounter in Tolkien's text. Some of the themes and much of the complexity was removed.

All that said, I'm full of gratitude that we have these films. I think 20 years from now they will still be beloved. They hold up, quite well. I'd still love to see a proper Hobbit but I'm happy with the LOTR films. It might be time for a rewatch over the Christmas break.

A review of Tolkien (2019)

I’m currently on a J.R.R. Tolkien kick, having finished both a re-read of The Lord of the Rings and a re-read of Humphrey Carpenter’s outstanding biography. Last night I watched for the first time Tolkien (2019), which I have both managed to (until now) avoid out of some combination of forgetfulness and anticipated dread of ill-treatment of its subject. I’m pleased to say that I found it a good film, not great, but worth the watch.

Tolkien focuses on Tolkien’s early life from roughly age 10, circa 1902, ending with him writing the iconic first line of The Hobbit, in the early 1930s. We get a heavy emphasis on his romance with Edith Bratt, his friendship with the T.C.B.S., four passionate boys who shared a common love of heroic literature, his love of languages, and his experiences with love and war that inspired his great story of the war of the ring and its underlying mythology.

Overall I enjoyed the film, and was moved by a few scenes. It took several dramatic liberties, compressing and magnifying various events to help propel along the sometimes quite ordinary course of about 25 years of his life. Other events I believe were wholly created—sneaking into the storage room of a sold-out concert hall to listen to a performance of the Richard Wagner opera “Der Ring des Nibelungen” with Edith, for example. Normally I would not complain about it, except that Tolkien was not particularly influenced by Wagner’s opera, despite the shared conceit of a ring of power, and a casual viewer of the film might leave thinking that Wagner’s Ring Cycle was the chief influence on The Lord of the Rings (it was not). Tolkien did romantically reunite with Bratt after the latter had gotten engaged to another man, and encouraged her to break off the relationship. But it did not happen in the seconds before Tolkien dramatically boarded a transport ship to France, as was portrayed in Tolkien. But I accept these changes in the spirit of needing to create a dramatic film, which is very different from biography or history.

Tolkien was also surprisingly low on the “cringe” factor. There were no made-up dramatic charges into German machine gun fire, embarrassing sex scenes, or manufactured maudlin T.C.B.S. speeches; rather the genuine friendship and spirit of the four boys was well-portrayed, as was Tolkien’s view of Edith as something akin to an elven princess (for better and for worse, as she often felt alienated by his split personality around her). Tolkien’s life had a great many tragedies and triumphs that required no exaggeration, and the film presented some of these faithfully. I particularly liked that it preserved the 1916 letter from G.B. Smith to Tolkien, in which the former foresaw his own end in the fields of France and implored his old schoolmate to continue the great work the T.C.B.S. had vowed to create:

My God bless you, my dear John Ronald, and may you say the things I have tried to say long after I am not there to say them, if such be my lot.

It is heartbreaking to think what came next: T.C.B.S member Rob Gilson died in one of the many suicidal advances across the mud-choked Somme battlefield, straight into German machine-gun fire; Smith suffered shrapnel wounds from an exploding artillery shell and later died of gangrene infection. That left only Wiseman and Tolkien to carry on the T.C.B.S.' promised great work. Tolkien developed trench fever and had to be evacuated back to England, which in all likelihood saved his life. He and Wiseman held up their end of the bargain: Wiseman would go on to become a school headmaster, while Tolkien of course would go on to become an Oxford professor and write the greatest fantasy the world has ever known.

The best account of this period of Tolkien’s life remains John Garth’s Tolkien and the Great War, which after Tom Shippey’s The Road to Middle-Earth is one of the best pieces of Tolkien scholarship I have read. But you could do worse on a Saturday night than a viewing of Tolkien.

Tolkien the barbarian

I recently finished a re-read of The Lord of the Rings, which inspired me to revisit Humphrey Carpenter's authorized biography of JRRT. I'm still in the early/pre-Oxford period of Tolkien's life, covering his days at King Edward's School in Birmingham, and encountered this particular scene:

There was a custom at King Edward's of holding a debate entirely in Latin, but that was almost too easy for Tolkien, and in one debate when taking the role of Greek Ambassador to the Senate he spoke entirely in Greek. On another occasion he astonished his schoolfellows when, in the character of a barbarian envoy, he broke into fluent Gothic; and on a third occasion he spoke in Anglo-Saxon.

It makes one wonder again whether Tolkien did in fact enjoy Robert E. Howard's Conan. I like to think he would have, and did.

Bloodstone and The Lord of the Rings post up on DMR blog

During a recent re-read of Karl Edward Wagner's Bloodstone I was struck by what appears to be some parallels and similarities to certain scenes in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. I started jotting down a few notes, and that became this 3,500 or so word essay over at DMR Blog. Check it out if you're interested.

For the record, I don't know for certain if KEW read LOTR prior to Bloodstone, and if he hadn’t that renders the observations in my essay entirely coincidental. There are many folks who knew Wagner personally who might be able to shed more light on this subject. But with all three volumes of LOTR available by 1956, and drafts of Bloodstone dating back to the early 60s before it was finally published in 1975, its possible KEW read it. The timing works out.

I don't think Bloodstone owes much to LOTR at all, and I don't think Karl was particularly influenced by it, other than riffing off certain scenes, sequences, and perhaps the nature of the ring. Regardless, this was a fun one to write.

A salute to Christopher Tolkien and Robert E. Howard

An important date and some notable news to acknowledge this week.

Christopher Tolkien, youngest son of J.R.R. Tolkien and his literary heir, passed away on January 16 at age 95.

Today, Jan. 22, is the birth of Robert E. Howard (1906-1936), the man who of course delivered unto us sword-and-sorcery, and the likes of Conan and Kull and Solomon Kane.

As should come as no surprise I’m a fan of both.

In Flame and Crimson I draw some sharp distinctions between sword-and-sorcery and high fantasy. Genres are defined as much by what they are as what they exclude, and sword-and-sorcery vs. high fantasy proved a useful comparison for helping me to establish a working definition for the former. But I’ll also admit that these distinctions are at times artificial and strained, and fall apart at the edges. Far more important than the bucket in which you place it is the quality of a given work. I’m obviously a big sword-and-sorcery fan, but I also admit that a lot of it is not very good. I’m not a fan of most multi-volume fat fantasy, but The Lord of the Rings is in my opinion the greatest work of fantasy ever written, and in my younger days I read the heck out of endless Dragonlance series, even (shudder) Dennis McKiernan’s The Iron Tower Trilogy.

I have to believe that if Howard ever had the chance to read The Lord of the Rings or The Silmarillion he’d be blown away. We do have an account from L. Sprague de Camp that Tolkien “rather enjoyed” the Conan stories (although some have speculated that Tolkien was merely being polite). But Tolkien also appeared to have a limited exposure to REH, having only read perhaps “Shadows in the Moonlight” in the L. Sprague de Camp-edited Swords & Sorcery. I believe if Tolkien were ever exposed to some of Howard’s verse, for example lines like these:

Into the west, unknown of man,
Ships have sailed since the world began.
Read, if you dare, what Skelos wrote,
With dead hands fumbling his silken coat;
And follow the ships through the wind-blown wrack–
Follow the ships that come not back.

He would have found a kindred spirit.

Christopher Tolkien has received his share of criticism over the years for being overly protective and litigious of his father’s works, and Middle-Earth in general. Having seen the latest Hobbit films, I can’t say I blame him. But Christopher was not just a preserver of the flame, he edited and published multiple volumes of his father’s writings on the history of Middle-Earth, stories from its elder Ages that otherwise would have been consigned to gathering dust in old notebooks. He did so with extraordinary patience and care, when he could have exploited his father’s legacy and sold the IP for millions. Here are a few examples over on Sacnoth’s Scriptorium.

Christopher struggled with how to present his father’s numerous notes and various and occasionally conflicting versions of Middle-Earth’s history, and after believing he may have missed the mark in his single narrative approach to The Silmarillion with Guy Gavriel Kay, decided to go all in on his 12 volume History of Middle-Earth. From volume 1, The Book of Lost Tales:

There are explorations to be conducted in this world with perfect right quite irrespective of literary critical considerations; and it is proper to attempt to comprehend its structure in its largest extent, from the myth of its Creation. Every person, every feature of the imagined world that seemed significant to its author is then worthy of attention in its own right, Manwe or Feanor no less than Gandalf or Galadriel, the Silmarils no less than the Rings.

Christopher’s work organizing and publishing these myths and histories was appreciated by millions. Layer on his service in the Royal Air Force during World War 2, and I have nothing but respect for the man.

So, respect to these deceased gentlemen. Though Howard, Tolkien, and now Tolkien’s son and editor have passed into the West, their works have achieved immortality.

Happy birthday to JRR Tolkien; jeers to Philip Pullman

Philip Pullman is another notable fantasy author who, alongside the likes of Michael Moorcock and Richard Morgan, has grossly missed the mark in his appraisal of The Lord of the Rings. Listening to this recent Geeks Guide to the Galaxy podcast I was dumbfounded not only by Pullman’s ignorance of The Lord of the Rings, but the gall he exhibits throwing around opinions on a work he admittedly read only once—and as a teenager. “I’ve tried to read it since, but I was unsuccessful,” Pullman says in the interview (note: the Tolkien portion starts around the 17:10 mark; its only a two minute segment or so of the interview). Admitting this fact should automatically invalidate any opinions you have on The Lord of the Rings. I was forced to read Moby Dick in high school. Had that been the only time I read it, and 40 years passed, how much would my opinions on the book matter? None, right?

But since Pullman is a big-time successful author, in the eyes of some we must take him seriously. So I’m taking this opportunity on what would be Tolkien’s 121^st birthday to show just much how much he gets wrong.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, a review

Warning: Spoilers follow.

As I left an IMAX 3D showing of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey early Saturday evening, I struggled at first to determine why I experienced such ambivalence about the film. Then I hit on it: Director Peter Jackson has taken what is a tightly-plotted, 300-page novel and turned it into the equivalent of a multi-volume fantasy epic, with all the good and the bad that change entails.

My short review: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey deserves the mixed ratings it has received (65% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes as of this writing). It was a qualified success, with some high points and some low points. It’s good, but not as good as The Lord of the Rings films, in my opinion. And in places it’s downright annoying.

A Brick-and-Mortar Bookstore Score

Brick and mortar bookstores are as rare as hen’s teeth these days, it seems, and that’s a shame. I enjoy the instantaneous convenience and enormous selection of Amazon and Abebooks, but there’s something about musty old bookstores that online shopping cannot replace. The tactile sensation of picking up books, the joy of utterly unexpected finds, and the atmosphere of a shop devoted to reading and book-selling, are experiences that online delivery mechanisms cannot replicate.

Yesterday I found a wonderful bookstore that reminded me of the unique advantages and pleasures of the real over the virtual: Mansfield’s Books and More in Tilton, New Hampshire. Tilton is a town I had driven through numerous times without a cause to stop, outside of filling a gas tank and the like. But yesterday while playing chauffer on a back-to-school shopping trip with my wife and kids I caught a glimpse of a storefront window in Tilton center that I had previously overlooked. In a brief glance I took in a display of hardcover books in the front window and a few cartons of paperbacks placed outside with a sign indicating a sidewalk sale. My attention piqued, I managed to free myself from the clutches of clothes and shoe shopping with little difficulty and quickly backtracked to Mansfield’s.

Mansfield’s occupies what appears to be a former office building. The main room has a fireplace in one wall with a few overstuffed chairs. A narrow hallway at the back opens up on left and right to six rooms that were presumably individual offices at one time. Most of these smaller rooms were still hung with old, ornate doors with frosted glass panes and other such details, though one clearly served as a small kitchen at one point, complete with a sink. Each room—the main room in the front and the half-dozen at the back—was overflowing, floor to ceiling, with used books, as well as a scattering of other items (the “More” refers to some old movie posters, knickknacks, and used DVDs and CDs).

To read the rest of this post, visit the Black Gate website. 

The Silmarillion: Thirty Years On, a review

The 1977 publication of The Silmarillion was a singular event in fantasy fiction. I’m happy to stand corrected, but I can’t think of another book of foundational myths and legends about a fictional, secondary world published prior. But as I mentioned in my introduction to my series Blogging the Silmarillion it also left most critics puzzled, even put-out or angry. Expecting another The Lord of the Rings, many acted with bafflement, others with harsh criticism.

But in the subsequent 35 years opinion seems to be shifting. While it will never be as popular as The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit, most fans of Middle-Earth view The Silmarillion as absolutely indispensable. Other genre fans do too, it seems. For example, in a recent vote of over 60,000 genre fans to determine the Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy books The Silmarillion checked in at no. 46, proving that it’s more than just a book for the JRRT fanboy.

As for Tolkien scholars The Silmarillion is a goldmine, bringing to life ancient ages of Middle-Earth that were previously only hinted at in poems and appendices to The Lord of the Rings, or in Tolkien’s personal correspondence. The Silmarillion provides us a startlingly new perspective on the workings of free will and fate in Middle-Earth, of the nature of evil, and the problem of death. It showed how Tolkien forged his world from Christian and Pagan influences, including the Old Testament, Celtic myth, and Norse legends. The Silmarillion introduced readers to the eldest days of Middle-Earth, including the “hows” of its creation and the “who” of its chief creator, along with its wide-ranging geography, both pre and post-cataclysm. It also opened a new window into Tolkien’s creative process, including his ingenious method of creating depth by layering “forgotten” texts and “historical” events and myths on top of each other, a technique that produced a three-dimensional world that feels real, and lived in. Soon the debates began about how much of the work was Tolkien’s own vs. that of his son Christopher, who finished and published The Silmarillion after his father’s death with the aid of fantasy fiction author Guy Gavriel Kay.

The incredible significance of The Silmarillion and the exciting new avenues it opened up are summed up in The Silmarillion: Thirty Years On (Walking Tree Publishers, 2007). This collection of six essays includes one previously published piece by Rhona Beare in a now out-of-print introduction to The Silmarillion, but it is completely rewritten for this book. The other five pieces are original scholarship.