Thinner: Vintage King gets new life on audio

I put off reading Stephen King’s Thinner for the better part of two decades. The dust jacket description—lawyer runs down gypsy and is cursed to become, well, thinner—seemed like a decent short story stretched out into a novel. The premise just didn’t grab me.

As it turns out, my fears proved ill-founded. Thinner is an entertaining little novel that is, at its heart, about big concepts, including guilt, the dangers of not accepting responsibility for one’s actions, and the ruinous, generation-spanning cycle of destruction wrought by revenge. Thinner is positively short by King standards (about 300 pages), moves quickly, and contains a couple nasty little shocks that keep you on your toes and leave you feeling unsettled.

I’ve stated before that Stephen King was, in his early career, batting very nearly 1.000 as a writer. If you take a look at his work from 1973’s Carrie through 1987’s Misery and The Eyes of the Dragon, King was consistently great. I submit that The Tommyknockers (1988), written at the height of his drug and alcohol problems, was the first true misstep in King’s career. Now that I’ve finally read Thinner (released in 1984), I find that my rule holds true. It’s a fine book from King’s classic period.

Thinner tells the story of Billy Halleck, an overweight lawyer who gets distracted while driving home (his wife is giving him a handjob) and accidentally runs down an old gypsy woman crossing the street. Halleck avoids what should have a manslaughter conviction because the judge is an old golfing buddy and lets him off the hook. But Halleck can’t escape the scales of justice. The ancient father of Halleck’s victim curses Halleck by laying a scaly finger upon him and uttering the single word, “thinner.”

In the coming weeks, Halleck’s weight begins to drop alarmingly. When the doctors rule out cancer, Halleck realizes that the gypsy’s curse has taken root. The rest of the novel features Halleck chasing down the gypsies to get the curse lifted as his weight plunges from a high of 252 pounds to half that.

King has the problem of trying to convince the reader that a steadily weakening lawyer from a wealthy Connecticut suburb is capable of exerting enough pressure on a stubborn gypsy clan to lift the curse. He neatly sidesteps this problem by introducing the character of Richie “The Hammer” Ginelli, a minor mafia boss and a former client of Halleck’s. Ginelli assists Halleck by lending his unique and persuasive “services” learned in the hard-knock school of organized crime.

There’s a lot to recommend in Thinner. Taduz Lemke, the old gypsy with the power to curse, is a wonderful character, an ancient soul (over 100 years old) from the old world, the last of the Magyar chiefs. Although he’s initially unlikeable, King renders Lemke and the rest of his gypsy clan sympathetic. Though they are dirty and uneducated, and routinely skirt (and cross) the boundaries of the law, the gypsies are treated with open hostility from the hypocritical communities that they visit. Men like Halleck view the gypsies as an unwelcome disease in their safe and pure suburban communities, which are actually corrupt at the core with their unequal systems of justice, “old boy” networks, and inherent prejudices. When Halleck claims that Lemke’s daughter is equally at fault for the accident, since she didn’t look before crossing the street, he shows his unwillingness to accept responsibility for his own actions. Worse, Halleck took advantage of an unfair system of justice and never had to pay for his (and his wife’s) carelessness. Lemke’s curse is a painful lesson in admitting one’s guilt: “There is no push, white man from town,” Lemke says, again and again throughout the story. “No push.”

If you’re a Generation X-er you’ll appreciate the 1980’s time machine that is Thinner. In it you’ll find references to Apples and TRS-80s, Thunderbirds and Novas. Halleck’s family physician casually blows cocaine during a checkup and it doesn’t seem out of place here, given the period. Halleck’s daughter is mentioned as playing a year long game of Dungeons and Dragons.

Thinner contains very little horror until the end and is more accurately classified as a thriller, which may be why King adopted his (unsuccessful) pseudonym Richard Bachman during the book’s initial release. In Thinner, King was attempting something a bit outside his reputation as a horror author.

Veteran actor Joe Mantegna provides the narration for Thinner and he is magnificent, particularly in his portrayal of Ginelli (no surprise here, given that Mantegna has appeared in various gangster films). I’ve previously railed against the inclusion of music in audio books, but this version by Penguin makes excellent use of it, in particular its use of a chilling, off-putting theme whenever the gypsies—or Halleck’s alarmingly plunging weight—are mentioned.

This review also appears on SFFaudio.com: http://www.sffaudio.com/?p=4640.

Cimmerian sighting: How Dungeons and Dragons and Appendix N helped inspire a generation of readers

From such sources, as well as just about any other imaginative writing or screenplay, you will be able to pluck kernels from which to grow the fruits of exciting campaigns. Good reading!

--Gary Gygax, Dungeon Master’s Guide, Appendix N

A little more than a year has passed since we lost Gary Gygax, creator of the Dungeons and Dragons fantasy roleplaying game and an imaginative giant, “one of the seminal influences in fantasy in the twentieth century,” according to Leo Grin, publisher of The Cimmerian.

Gygax’s death was and is still keenly felt for a number of reasons. First and foremost, he created a game of unbridled imagination that is still going strong more than three decades after its inception, surviving the rise of computer “roleplaying” games, misguided attacks by the media, and even misplaced religious fervor. D&D continues to be played by youths as well as adults who never lost their love for the game nor suffered the unfortunate calcification of their imagination.

But Gygax’s other legacy is his role as a champion of fantasy fiction. He helped to introduce a generation of gamers to the pleasures of fantasy fiction (I count myself in this group). Even those who have since moved on from D&D paused to honor and remember Lake Geneva’s most famous resident for fostering in them a lifelong love of reading following his death on March 4, 2008.

To read the rest of this post, visit The Cimmerian Web site.

My top 10 Dungeons and Dragons monsters

All right, so I'm a bit late to the party on this one, but in joining with the semi-recent spate of bloggers around the Web listing their top 10 favorite D&D monsters, I thought I'd write up mine. Note that this list pertains to monsters published for 1e AD&D.

10. Owlbear. These ferocious beasts are one of those species of monster that, along with beholders and gelantinous cubes, just scream D&D to me. I've always been horrified at the thought of running into a hungry grizzly bear in the wild; imagine encountering of these creatures, 8' or more feet tall and 1,500 pounds of owl-headed malice: "The horrible owlbear is probably the result of genetic experimentation by some insane wizard ... they are ravenous eaters, aggressive hunters, and evil tempered at all times," according to the Monster Manual. Owlbears can be PC killers due to their deadly "hug" (2-16 points of damage that round and every melee round thereafter until the owlbear is killed for the unfortunate character drawn in to its embrace).

9. Ogre. As a player, I always considered ogres a "coming of age" challenge for PCs: These brutes were killers of low-level characters due to their high strength and damage potential, but once able to defeat an ogre your character had accomplished a great feat and had graduated from mere dungeon-fodder. Ogres are also every DMs' friend due to their inherent flexibility, as they are able to serve as lone cave-dwellers, or as hired muscle and encountered with groups of orcs and the like. My current DM uses breast-plated, warhammer-wielding ogres called the Black Hammer as shock troops to supplement orc regulars.

8. Orcus. My favorite demon-lord and probably the most recognizable D&D arch-villain. I never ran or played in a game in which the PCs encountered the Prince of the Undead, but I always liked the thought of him as being at the ultimate end of nefarious plots by evil cults and the like. Goat-headed and grossly fat with hooved feet, he looks like every demon should. And the Wand of Orcus is a great illustration.

7. Frost giant. As a fan of vikings, I always felt a strong attraction to these bearded, horn-helmeted, axe-wielding species of giant. I have a special fondness for G2: The Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl as a result, which also featured a white dragon and his mate, a white pudding (cool, who knew puddings came in different colors?) as well as the only (as far as I know) published appearance of the dreaded remorhaz (see no. 4 below).

6. Death knight. Fiend Folio gets a lot of flak from D&D fans, and I'll admit it does contain more than its fair share of ridiculous, essentially unusable creatures. But Fiend Folio also had some soaring heights of creativity, including one of my favorite monsters, the death knight. I always liked the fact that only 12 were known to exist, which, like the rare Type VI series of demon, forces the DM to get creative with their use. I used to have a list (long since gone) of names, personalities, and reasons why each of these former lawful-good paladins fell into evil. Armored in black plate-mail and riding on fire-hooved Nightmare steeds, death knights also make for a great visual image. And man, were they powerful--75% magic resistance (and if 11 or lower is rolled on percentage dice a magic spell is reflected back at the caster), plus once per day were able to use a power word of any type and generate a (20 dice!) fireball.

5. Dragon. Although dragons are the archetypal D&D monster, back when I was DMing I never used them much, probably because I was influenced by Tolkien and considered them to be exceedingly rare. I never saw the point in good dragons and prefer the standard chromatic evil dragons, including blue and black. But if I had to choose a favorite I'd go with the classic fire-breathing red, again, probably due to my love of Tolkien's portrayal of Smaug. I still love the mechanics of 1E breath weapon attacks, which did damage equal to the dragon's initial HP. You don't want to fail a save against an 88 HP ancient red dragon.

4. Remorhaz. Man, these things are nasty. A large remorhaz can swallow a PC whole on a roll of 20, and "any victim swallowed in this manner is instantly killed due to the intense heat in the monster's digestive system," according to the Monster Manual. If you touch a remorhaz's back, you take 10-100 damage (sadly I never had a PC do this, but as a DM I always wanted to break out the percentile dice to roll for damage).

3. Hobgoblin. I like orcs but they have too much of a Tolkien connection; Hobgoblins will always be more D&D to me. I fell in love with these creatures in part due to the illustration on the cover of The Keep on the Borderlands and they became my go-to monster for mass attacks. In my campaigns hobgoblins could whip up on orcs because they were more organized and took better care of their arms and armor.

2. Troll. I'm simultaneously repulsed and fascinated by the awful appearance of D&D-style/Poul Anderson-inspired trolls, with their mottled green skin, twisted, muscled limbs, wiry hair, broken teeth, and (worst of all) empty, black, shark-like eyes. Trolls' regenerative properties made for great fights, especially if the PCs fought more than one (it was always fun to have characters scrambling to apply torches to a downed but not destroyed troll as other characters desperately fought a second or third). There was also something chilling in these creatures' capacity to fight up to three opponents at once--I can picture very clearly a clawed arm independently moving to claw a PC at its flank or rear as the troll bites a PC standing at its front.

1. Lich. Outside of the gods or perhaps a handful of unique creatures like the tarrasque, was anything tougher in AD&D than a high level magic user, and, by extension, the lich? Access to a arsenal of powerful high-level spells is what makes this monster such a fearsome opponent. Combine the spell-casting power of an arch mage (18th-plus level MU) with an undead, magic-resistant body, and a supra-genius mind which has centuries or millennia to plan its schemes, and you've got a receipe for toughest creature in the game. I always thought that the lich encounter in Descent to the Depths of the Earth, if played correctly, could/should probably serve as a TPK. I mean, the thing had access to limited wish and time stop--enough said.

Cimmerian sighting: Dunsany’s The Sword of Welleran a cold comfort for heroes

Such was Merimna, a city of sculptured Victories and warriors of bronze. Yet in the time of which I write the art of war had been forgotten in Merimna, and the people almost slept. To and fro and up and down they would walk through the marble streets, gazing at memorials of the things achieved by their country's swords in the hands of those that long ago had loved Merimna well.

--Lord Dunsany, “The Sword of Welleran”

Every age reveres its heroes. The ancient Greeks idolized their even more ancient forebears, the godlike heroes of the Trojan War. Medieval knights modeled their chivalric ideals upon Arthur’s round table. Many in our current generation look back with awe on the deeds of the vanishing heroes of World War II.

But is this longing a form of misplaced nostalgia? Were we to strip away the romance and look with unsentimental eyes upon the grim deeds these heroes actually performed on the battlefield, how would our perspectives change?

Cloaked in rousing high fantasy trappings, Lord Dunsany’s short story The Sword of Welleran (1908) explores the myth and the reality of war and its heroes, leaving the reader at story’s end with a chill, anti-heroic undercurrent. It serves as a warning for the warriors of the next generation not to over-romanticize the way of the sword.

To read the rest of this post, visit The Cimmerian Web site.

In memoriam

Welcome to the land of imagination. You are about to begin a journey into worlds where magic and monsters are the order of the day, where law and chaos are forever at odds, where adventure and heroism are the meat and drink of all who would seek their fortunes in uncommon pursuits. This is the realm of DUNGEONS & DRAGONS Adventure Game.

--Gary Gygax, The Keep on the Borderlands

Thanks again Gary, for introducing me and so many others to this "uncommon pursuit." You are not forgotten.

Elric of Melnibone--a review

It’s a testament to the imaginative might of author Michael Moorcock that his most famous creation, Elric of Melnibone, has become a permanent and prominent thread in the fabric of fantasy history. Though he may not be quite the same household name as Conan, what fantasy fan hasn’t heard of the albino warrior/sorcerer, he of the tortured soul and wielder of the black demon sword Stormbringer?

The character of Elric first appeared in print in 1961 in a short story entitled “The Dreaming City.” Author Michael Moorcock later expanded the work into a short novel, Elric of Melnibone (1973). Though not perfect, I consider this latter a must-read for fans of fantasy fiction. It’s a marvelous work of imagination whose beautiful trappings include Imrryr, a city of alien architecture and strange, often abhorrent customs; demon-summoning sorcerers; and appearances by elementals and the gods of chaos. It combines the fast-pace and adventurous swagger of pulp fiction with a main character prone to brooding meditation and self-doubt.

The Elric stories are deliberately iconoclastic, taking an ironic stance in opposition to traditional/Tolkienian high fantasy and their often conservative worldviews. Elric is the reluctant emperor of Melnibone, a decadent, fading, yet still powerful kingdom that has dominated the Young Kingdoms of the earth for 10,000 years (think of Rome had it never lost its military might and was ruled by emperors like Caligula for millennia). Drunk on the blood of conquest, immoral to the core, and frequently under the influence of dream-inducing drugs, the Melniboneans live by the philosophy, “seek pleasure, however you would.” Slaves perform all the menial work, and some have been surgically altered/bred to perform single functions like singing a single, perfect note, or rowing a war-galley.

The army is unwaveringly loyal to the lineage of the Ruby Throne, as are its emperors—until Elric inherits the throne. He begins to question the old traditions, including the Melnibonean’s right to rule the Young Kingdoms with an iron fist. At heart Elric wants to abdicate the throne and run away with his love, Cymoril. But he’s afraid that the next in line to the throne—his cousin, the wicked Yrkoon, a throwback to the cruelest lords of Melnibone—will institute a reign of terror in his stead.

Yrkoon and his followers despise Elric, whom they perceive as weak and a threat to Melnibone’s place of power. They devise a plot to kill him during a barbarian invasion from the sea. Elric leads a successful attack that routs the barbarians, but at his lowest ebb (Elric’s weak constitution requires him to take a potent concoction of daily drugs to maintain his energy), Yrkoon shoves him into the sea. Weak and weighed down by his armor he begins to drown.

Thinking Elric slain, Yrkoon sails home and assumes the throne. Elric, however, is saved by a whispered spell to an elemental god of the sea and returns to Melnibone to punish and exile his cousin. Aided by a handful of followers, Yrkoon takes Cymoril hostage and escapes the Dragon Isle to start an uprising in one of the barbarian kingdoms. The remainder of the book includes Elric’s quest to get Cymoril back, which culminates with Elric’s recovery of the powerful but cursed Stormbringer.

Elric of Menibone starts off exceedingly strong with some memorable description and characters. Moorcock succeeds in making Melnibone feel like an alien place, as torture, incest, and dining on human flesh are routine occurrences (a scene with the sinister court torturer/chief interrogator Dr. Jest—a thin, sinuous man wielding a merciless, razor-thin scalpel—is forever seared into my memory). Moorcock’s portrayal of magic is exactly the way I like it—powerful and capricious, accessed through great grimoires capable of summoning great powers of darkness, but also prone to turn on the caster in unpredictable ways.

For all its strengths, however, Elric of Melnibone—and in particular its sequels—are not perfect. Moorcock is blessed with a tremendous imagination, but at times I find that he fails to deliver on his promise. For example, we’re told that the Melnibonean sorcerer-kings engage in drugged dream-sleep that allows them to wander other worlds and universes, “consort with angels, demons, and violent, desperate men,” and learn the accumulated lore and magic of the Melnibonean race, all from their dream couches. As a result of these dream-quests, their minds are millennia old. It’s a great concept. And yet how does this activity result in a character like the impetuous Yrkoon, who acts like a spoiled 25-year-old prince instead of a thoughtful sage suffused with the wisdom of ages? I also found the Elric series slips into repetition in later books as Elric battles one demon after another. His world-weary attitude in itself grows tiring after several books as well.

Finally, I must state that I found this Audio Realms AudioBooksPlus presentation a mixed bag. The reader, Jeffery West, was talented and altered his voice enough to create recognizable characters. This version also featured a brief overview/introduction read by Moorcock himself, a very nice, unexpected bonus. But the production was marred by the head-scratching decision to play music in the background throughout the entire reading. This included a loud heartbeat sound played during dramatic scenes. After a while I ceased hearing the music, but at times it was jarring and took me out of the flow of the story.

Note to Audio Realms and other audio book producers: The thought is appreciated, but please drop the soundtracks and stick to the text.

Note: This post also appears on SFFaudio.com.

Cimmerian sighting: Are fast or slow zombies scarier?

The recent remake of Dawn of the Dead (2004) surprised many fans of the horror genre—myself included—by tweaking one of its oldest conventions: That of the slow moving zombie. The shuffling, shambling hordes of George Romero were suddenly yesterday’s news, replaced by flesh-eating sprinters courtesy of Zach Snyder, director of the remake of Dawn.

This surprising twist was more than many horror fans bargained for. Suddenly, hard-core zombie survivalists who prided themselves on their (theoretical) ability to run rings around slow-moving corpses in order to grab guns and food found their odds of survival (ahem) eaten away.

Snyder certainly deserves credit for attempting something new in his remake of Dawn. Although I’m a purist in some respects, I’ve never understood the purpose of frame-by-frame remakes of films (see Gus Van Sant’s 1998 soulless photocopy of Psycho). Refreshingly, Dawn of the Dead 2004 was not afraid to embrace change. Zombies are fast in Snyder’s universe, at least as fast as their fleeing prey (and what’s worse is that the pursuers presumably never get tired). It’s a pretty scary thought, and I was admittedly shocked at the high-speed carnage shortly after the credits of the new Dawn of the Dead began to roll. In fact, I think the opening 10-minute sequence of that film is an improvement on the original, which is high praise, given the esteem in which I hold Romero’s masterwork. The new Dawn also has a pretty great soundtrack going for it as well.

But after the initial shock of watching zombies chasing prey into their homes and launching themselves onto screaming victims, the effect became progressively less scary. Ultimately, I discovered that I prefer the creeping death of Romero’s shamblers over the high-speed cannibals of Snyder’s new Dawn. Here’s why.

To read the rest of this post, visit The Cimmerian Web site.