Toy Story 3: Genre fiction writers take heed

Warning: This essay contains some spoilers.

If fairy-story as a kind is worth reading at all it is worthy to be written for and read by adults.
--J.R.R. Tolkien, Tree and Leaf

I don’t get to the theatre too often these days, and with two young daughters in tow more often than not it’s to see a children’s film. But I’m not lamenting this fact, especially when the movies are of the quality of Toy Story 3.

Hey, I love Robert E. Howard, Bernard Cornwell, and the Viking novels of Poul Anderson as much as the next battle-mad fantasy fan, but I’m man enough to admit liking (most) Pixar films as well. And Toy Story 3 might be the best one I’ve seen. Critical consensus is not necessarily a hallmark of a good film (see Blade Runner, panned on its initial release by most critics, recognized as genius years later), but I think it’s telling that Toy Story 3 currently has a 99% “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes. In this case, the critics are spot-on.

Toy Story 3 is a near-perfect children’s film. Like all children’s films, it possesses straightforward story lines, engaging visuals, and brisk action in order to keep young attention spans focused. (If these qualities sound like less than appealing, well, genre films can’t be all things to all people). So why sing its praises on Black Gate? Toy Story 3 serves as an instructive example of how to tell a great story within the confines of a given genre. Just like you can’t get too bogged down in dialogue or non-linear narrative techniques in a movie for kids, that story you submit to Heroic Fantasy Quarterly better contain some elements of sword play and sweeping action if you want to stand a chance of getting it published. If you disregard your audience you’re destined to fail.

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

A Princess of Mars, a review

A Princess of Mars
Edgar Rice Burroughs

In 1917 World War I was in the midst of its savage throes, and suspended over its torn battlefields like a bloody pendant hung Mars. Fertile ground enough for Edgar Rice Burroughs to pen A Princess of Mars, his first novel of earthman John Carter’s violent adventures on the red planet.

Thanks to the wonders of Librivox.org I was recently able to enjoy A Princess of Mars while driving to work (Librivox is to audio books what Project Gutenberg is to the printed word, providing public domain works, read by volunteer narrators, freely to the general public).

A Princess of Mars begins on earth in the decade following the Civil War. Carter, an ageless/seemingly immortal (for reasons puzzlingly left unexplained in A Princess of Mars) veteran of the Confederate army, is prospecting for gold in Arizona. A group of Apaches kill his friend and pursue Carter to a cave high in the mountains. Exhausted, Carter lies down and is mysteriously transported via astral projection to Mars.

Named after the ancient Roman god of war, Mars (called Barsoom by its native inhabitants) lives up to its violent appellation. It’s populated by monstrous beasts and alien races in a state of continual conflict. These include the green skinned, four armed Tharks, whose male members tower some dozen feet in height, and the more civilized Martians, human-like in appearance save for their red skin. Resources are scarce on Mars. Its waterless canals are cracked and dry and its air is kept breathable only through a massive atmosphere generator.

Carter’s first run-in on the planet is with the Tharks. Though he’s a stranger in a strange land and only half their size, Carter has several advantages that make him a formidable warrior. With a body used to earths’ stronger gravitational pull, Carter is able to make 50 foot leaps in the thin Mars atmosphere and is also equal in strength to the mightiest of the Tharks. Everyone on Mars has telepathy and can read one another’s thoughts, as can Carter, but he is immune to mind-probing and so is at a distinct advantage, able to anticipate their attacks in the duels to which he is frequently challenged.

Mars is a cruel planet and the Tharks exhibit no mercy. They are a race born into conflict, whose imperfect young are ruthlessly weeded out and murdered to create a physically strong, loveless race (“Tears are a strange sight upon Barsoom,” says a female Thark named Sola). But with his physical skills and easily assimiliation of the Tharks’ language and customs, Carter quickly rises in their ranks and reaches the status of minor chieftain. But he eventually finds himself at odds with the green men after the latter capture the beautiful red skinned Dejah Thoris, daughter of Mors Kajak, jed of Lesser Helium and granddaughter of Tardos Mors, jeddak of the capital Martian city of Helium (one of Burroughs’ strengths as a writer is his creation of evocative, otherwordly names).

Carter is not what I would consider a fleshed-out, three dimensional character, but Burroughs provides a few tantalizing details in A Princess of Mars that elevate him into something more than a mindless action hero. In addition to his agelessness, Carter is a lonely soul who despite his long years on earth has never experienced true love. When he falls for Dejah, the sensation strikes him like a thunderbolt. He realizes that he does not want to return to earth, for on Mars he knows the fullness of love. His life now has a purpose.

The remainder of the book revolves around Carter’s attempt to rescue Dejah from the clutches of the Tharks. If you like non-stop action in your reading then A Princess of Mars is for you—it’s literally one epic battle or chase scene after another. It’s also a moving love story as Carter pursues Dejah Thoris to the ends of Mars, risking life and limb to win her affections.

What I find most interesting about the book are its contrasts with another pulp fiction writer and contemporary of Burroughs, one Robert E. Howard. In many ways Burroughs’ world-view was diametrically opposed to Howard’s own: Throughout A Princess of Mars civilization triumphs over barbarism, such as when Carter trains his thoat (an eight-legged creature that serves as a mount for the Tharks) using love and patience instead of brutality. Carter’s methods prove so superior to the Tharks’ brutal techniques that they have no choice but to emulate his methods. Also, the Martian races are portrayed as corrupted, fallen from their formerly peaceful ways. Mars had once been home to a highly cultivated and literary race, but wars with the green men and the changing climate resulted in the loss of all their archives, records, and literature (note that Howard did not acknowledge barbarism as superior to civilization in all respects, simply an inevitable state of mankind).

That said, Burroughs in my opinion is a notch below Howard as a writer. While he’s a great storyteller, Burroughs lacks Howard’s poetry and brilliant peaks of action, and his dialogue resembles stiff speeches rather than actual conversation. I was also left with unanswered questions about Burroughs’ pseudo-science and its ramifications (note that I’m not someone who picks at these kind of things, but a few of Burroughs’ oversights seemed rather egregious). For example, the telepathy issue was not well thought-out. It’s hard to grasp the ramifications of knowing everyone’s true thoughts and Burroughs doesn’t bother to try to explain it, only bringing up the issue when he needs to advance the plot. Carter should have been able to use this ability to his advantage at every turn (and why for that matter was Carter shocked when Dejah admitted she loved him—shouldn’t he have already known?)

Those criticisms aside, Burroughs is a wonderful storyteller and it’s impossible not to get caught up in the savage beauty of Mars. Burroughs even slips in some good lawyer humor (“In one respect at least the Martians are a happy people; they have no lawyers”) and a good deal of titillation: Everyone in the book is nude. I’m not sure how the forthcoming film plans to handle this; My guess is with some well-placed silks and loincloths.

A Princess of Mars was followed by ten more novels set on the red planet, most starring Carter. So if you enjoyed the book you're assured of many more Barsoomian adventures to come.

Because it’s in the public domain A Princess of Mars is quite easy to obtain. You can download the Librivox audio files (three Barsoomian cheers!) here: http://librivox.org/a-princess-of-mars-by-edgar-rice-burroughs-2/. Or you can read the entire text of the story here: http://www.erbzine.com/craft/m1pm.html

20 years of KISS—and counting

What in me is dark

Illumine, what is low raise and support,

That to the height of this great argument

I may assert eternal Providence,

And justify the ways of KISS to men.

—Unnamed KISS fan

Twenty years ago I attended my first KISS concert at the Great Woods Performing Arts Studio in Mansfield, MA. It was the Hot in the Shade tour. KISS’ big hit at the time was “Rise to It” (though “Hide Your Heart” and the power ballad “Forever” were making the airwaves, too).

I was so pumped for that show and KISS did not disappoint. I still remember Paul Stanley’s command, “If life is a radio, turn it up to 10!” I listened to Paul and obeyed.

That night I rose to the greatness that is KISS and I’ve never come down. Over the years I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve seen them—a dozen or more probably. I’ve worn KISS makeup to concerts. One of my favorite memories is going through the drive-through at Burger King with three other guys, all wearing KISS makeup. Before we drove out the cashier had called over every employee in the restaurant to gawk at us through the narrow window.

Twenty years later—tonight, in fact—I’m returning to the same Mansfield stomping grounds to see them again. No makeup this time, but I’m still feeling the same old excitement.

KISS was the first band that I fell in love with and claimed as my own. I was 14 or so when I bought my first KISS cassette tape, Crazy Nights. Here was a band that instilled me with a sense of rebellion while also paradoxically inviting me to be part of something big and cool, the KISS Army. From “Crazy Nights”: “They try to tell us, that we don’t belong, but that’s all right, we’re millions strong!”

Although those years are long gone I still love KISS. I’ll never make the claim that they’re the best musicians. Far from it. KISS has had a couple okay guitarists over the years (Ace Frehley pre-booze, Bruce Kulick, Vinnie Vincent) and Eric Carr was a decent drummer, but that’s it. Nor have they written any deep or meaningful lyrics. I mean, have you ever tried listening to the mess that is The Elder?

But I consider this latter "shortcoming" a strength. I still have a chip on my shoulder about grunge bands, mainly because so many of them took themselves way too seriously. I loathe whiny, “my life sucks” lyrics, and personally I see no appeal in attending a concert to listen to that crap.

KISS is all about fun. Their lyrics are an absolute joy, at times approaching a Spinal Tap level of ridiculousness. For example, again from Hot in the Shade, here’s “Read My Body”:

Read my body
Are the letters big enough?
Read my body
Do you like the book of my love?
Read my body
Turn the page, get to the good stuff

KISS also always puts on a great stage show. Yeah, Gene Simmons is an absolute merciless capitalist, but so what? At least he’s open and honest about it. And KISS always delivers.

A review could be coming; we’ll see how I feel.

On Stories: Discovering a kindred spirit in C.S. Lewis

Though he’s best known as the author of the Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) was also a prolific essayist and an ardent defender of fantasy literature. In addition to medieval studies (The Allegory of Love) and Christian apologetics (Mere Christianity), Lewis wrote several essays about the enduring appeal of mythopoeic stories, connecting fantasy’s remote, heroic past to its flowering in the early 20th century.

Lewis’ passion and erudition in the mythopoeic comes pouring through in On Stories and Other Essays on Literature, a collection of essays and reviews loosely tied around fantasy literature. Lewis’ overarching theme in On Stories is that the best mythopoeic/romance literature (which includes works like E.R. Eddison’s The Worm Ouroboros, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, and H. Rider Haggard’s She) stacks up with the best mainstream literature, and thus deserves to be not only enjoyed, but studied and preserved (I can sense a lot of nodding heads around here, but keep in mind that Lewis wrote these essays in an age when it was heresy to compare fantasy fiction to “real” lit).

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

Taking the Fantasy Masterworks challenge

Riffing off (or perhaps stealing from, whatever you want to call it) posts over at The Blog That Time Forgot and Dweomera Lagomorpha, which in turn sprang from this post at the Mad Hatter's Bookshelf & Book Review, here are the books I've read from the Fantasy Masterworks catalogue (in bold):

1- Shadow and Claw - Gene Wolfe
2 - Time and the Gods - Lord Dunsany
3 - The Worm Ouroboros - E.R. Eddison
4 - Tales of the Dying Earth - Jack Vance
5 - Little, Big - John Crowley
6 - The Chronicles of Amber - Roger Zelazny
7 - Viriconium - M. John Harrison
8 - The Conan Chronicles, Volume 1: The People of the Black Circle - Robert E. Howard
9 - The Land of Laughs - Jonathan Carroll
10 - The Compleat Enchanter: The Magical Misadventures of Harold Shea - L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt
11 - Lud-in-the-Mist - Hope Mirrlees
12 - The Book of the New Sun, Volume 2: Sword and Citadel - Gene Wolfe
13 - Fevre Dream - George R. R. Martin
14 - Beauty - Sheri S. Tepper
15 - The King of Elfland's Daughter - Lord Dunsany
16 - The Conan Chronicles, Volume 2: The Hour of the Dragon - Robert E. Howard
17 - Elric - Michael Moorcock
18 - The First Book of Lankhmar - Fritz Leiber
19 - Riddle-Master - Patricia A. McKillip
20 - Time and Again - Jack Finney
21 - Mistress of Mistresses - E.R. Eddison
22 - Gloriana or the Unfulfill'd Queen - Michael Moorcock
23 - The Well of the Unicorn - Fletcher Pratt
24 - The Second Book of Lankhmar - Fritz Leiber
25 - Voice of Our Shadow - Jonathan Carroll
26 - The Emperor of Dreams - Clark Ashton Smith
27 - Lyonesse I: Suldrun's Garden - Jack Vance
28 - Peace - Gene Wolfe
29 - The Dragon Waiting - John M. Ford
30 - Corum: The Prince in the Scarlet Robe - Michael Moorcock
31 - Black Gods and Scarlet Dreams - C.L. Moore
32 - The Broken Sword - Poul Anderson
33 - The House on the Borderland and Other Novels - William Hope Hodgson
34 - The Drawing of the Dark - Tim Powers
35 - Lyonesse II and III: The Green Pearl and Madouc - Jack Vance
36 - The History of Runestaff - Michael Moorcock
37 - A Voyage to Arcturus - David Lindsay
38 - Darker Than You Think - Jack Williamson
39 - The Mabinogion - Evangeline Walton
40 - Three Hearts & Three Lions - Poul Anderson
41 - Grendel - John Gardner
42 - The Iron Dragon's Daughter - Michael Swanwick
43 - WAS - Geoff Ryman
44 - Song of Kali - Dan Simmons
45 - Replay - Ken Grimwood
46 - Sea Kings of Mars and Other Worldly Stories - Leigh Brackett
47 - The Anubis Gates - Tim Powers
48 - The Forgotten Beasts of Eld - Patricia A. McKillip
49 - Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury
50 - The Mark of the Beast and Other Fantastical Tales - Rudyard Kipling

So yeah, I've only read 17 titles. Kind of pathetic, and to be honest, some of these are probably stretches (I have only read some of the contents included in The Emperor of Dreams and Time and the Gods, for instance). I attribute this deficiency to a couple sources: One, I grew up in the 80s, so I've read a lot of high fantasy either too new or unworthy to make the cut: Dragonlance, Terry Brooks, Stephen Donaldson, Dennis McKiernan, etc. And despite the fantasy focus of The Silver Key, I also enjoy reading history and other non-fiction as well as horror and occasionally sci-fi, so my fantasy reading has correspondingly suffered.

But I also have some serious problems with the Fantasy Masterworks series itself. First, the omissions: No C.S. Lewis, Ursula LeGuin, or J.R.R. Tolkien? (although as Al Harron pointed out on The Blog That Time Forgot, this is surely a matter of obtaining publishing rights, not a deliberate oversight). Still, there are some rather head-scratching omissions, including William Morris, H. Rider Haggard, and T.H. White, to name a few. And some of the inclusions are puzzling. Beauty by Sheri Tepper? Lud-In-The-Mist by Hope Mirrlees? Never heard of 'em. That doesn't make them bad, as I've already admitted to an ignorance of a large swathe of the collection, but are these works truly deserving of the "masterworks" appelation? These aren't books that spring to mind when one typically thinks of the movers and shapers of early fantasy, and I can't recall any recent author interviews citing them as a major influence.

And four titles by Moorcock? Really?

Still, I have a compulsive obsession with "Best of" lists so I found this exercise irresistable. How many Fantasy Masterworks have you read?

My recent haul o' books

July has been a very good month for book finds and acquisitions. Between a July 4 fairground and some leftover Barnes and Noble and Borders gift cards, I managed to score the following for probaby $10 in out of pocket expenses:

On Stories and Other Essays On Literature, C.S. Lewis. Man, am I looking forward to this one. With chapter titles like "A tribute to E.R. Eddison," "The Mythopoeic Gift of Rider Haggard," and "Sometimes Fairy Stories may say best what's to be said," I've found a kindred spirit in Lewis.

Roots and Branches, Tom Shippey. Twenty-three essays by the preminent Tolkien scholar on the planet, including an analysis of the Jackson films and a scholarly review of Tolkien's source material. Can't wait.

Defending Middle-earth, Tolkien: Myth and Modernity, Patrick Curry. I've heard mixed reviews on this, but analysis from a pagan/environmental perspective is a welcome change.

Tarzan and the Lost Empire, Edgar Rice Burroughs. Back cover blurb: "It is the story of an ancient Roman city, long forgotten by civilization and buried amid the deepest jungles of the Dark Continent. It is the story of Tarzan's discovery of this last surviving pocket of lost warriors and the fate that awaited him at the hands of an empire dead for fifteen hundred years." 'Nuff said.

The Sword of Rhiannon, Leigh Brackett. Cosmic peril in a lost world! Yes! Sign me up!

A Fish Dinner in Memison, E.R. Eddison. Many of you may be thinking, WTF? But this is the final volume in a loosely linked trilogy of romances that starts with the incomparable The Worm Ouroboros, so despite its bizarre title and trippy 1968 Ballantine Books cover this has serious potential for awesome. Or it may suck.

Paingod, Harlan Ellison. A collection of seven short stories/novellas by the incomparable Ellison, including his classic, "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman."

Legend, David Gemmell. This is a portentous, make-or-break book for me. After hearing praise for Gemmell from some trusted quarters over the years I gave him an honest effort, but was sorely disappointed with White Wolf and Hero in the Shadows. I've heard Legend is his best book, so I'm giving the chap one last chance.

The Rebel, Albert Camus. Camus is, quite simply, a hardcore thinker who is not afraid to stare long and hard into the chaos and seeming meaninglessness of human existence, searching for answers. From the foreward, "Camus believes that revolt is one of the "essential dimensions" of mankind. It is useless to deny its historical reality--rather we must seek in it a principle of existence. But the nature of revolt has changed radically in our times. It is no longer the revolt of the poor against the rich; it is a metaphysical revolt, the revolt of man against the conditions of life, against creation itself. At the same time, it is an aspiration toward clarity and unity of thought--even, paradoxically, toward order."

The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. It's about time I owned a comprehensive, authoritative edition of his works.

Alas, life is short and full of obligations and there are only so many hours in the day for reading.

Wolfe’s lost road: Discovering an author’s personal essay on J.R.R. Tolkien

Freedom, love of neighbour, and personal responsibility are steep slopes; he could not climb them for us—we must do that ourselves. But he has shown us the road and the reward.

--Gene Wolfe, “The Best Introduction to the Mountains”

J.R.R. Tolkien has so many readers, and his works have become so pervasive in the broader culture, that coming to his defense hardly seems necessary anymore. Haven’t we established Tolkien’s credentials by now? Magazines like Time have selected The Lord of the Rings as one of the top 100 novels ever, according to Wikipedia it’s one of the top 10 best-selling books of all time with 150 million copies sold, and the movies upon which it’s based won several Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Tolkien has made it onto several college syllabi and there are academic journals and numerous critical studies devoted to his works, including Tom Shippey’s par excellence works Author of the Century and The Road to Middle-Earth.

But someone always comes along to attack Tolkien on the basis of his conservatism or religion, his perceived racism, and/or the perceived shallowness/non-literary nature of The Lord of the Rings, and I’m reminded of why we need to vigilant. For example, David Brin of Salon.com, Science fiction/fantasy author Richard Morgan (author of The Steel Remains), and Phillip Pulman (author of the His Dark Materials trilogy) have all taken shots at The Lord of the Rings and/or Tolkien himself in recent years, calling him outdated and dangerously conservative (Brin), a refuge for 12-year-olds and adults who have never grown up (Morgan), and shrunken and diminished by his Catholicism (Pulman).

Now I’m not saying Tolkien is above criticism, but critics like Brin and Morgan have essentially gutted The Lord of the Rings, attacking it on an existential basis and more or less claiming it should be placed in the dustbin of history. When people take aim at classics like Ulysses or Moby Dick you rarely see criticism elevated to the level of calling into question the very existence of these works. Yet Tolkien criticism for whatever reason frequently ascends to shrill peaks of outrage.

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