Heavy metal fantasy: The wonderful music of Blind Guardian

As a life-long heavy metal fan who writes a blog that celebrates all things fantastic, it was only a matter of time before I got to the subject of Blind Guardian. About all you need to know about this wonderful, semi-obscure German metal band is that they wrote an entire album about J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion ("Nightfall in Middle Earth").

Need I say more? I mean, look at the picture I've embedded--that's a Blind Guardian album cover, and it looks like it could have been plucked off the cover of a Robert Jordan novel.

I've always been drawn to heavy metal for its power and grandeur. Narrowing that down further, I prefer bands with a clean, epic sound and soaring vocals. Even more specifically, I prefer those metal bands whose subject matter covers the fantastic, be it dark magic and the occult (Black Sabbath), medieval/ancient history (Iron Maiden), or sci-fi (Judas Priest and The Sentinel, Electric Eye, etc).

Blind Guardian fulfills all those requirements. To get an idea of what they like to sing about, all you need to do is view some of their song titles, of which I've included several in the below list. Note that Blind Guardian doesn't just make oblique or occasional references to Tolkien, King Arthur, Dragonlance, etc., like other bands have done (Led Zeppelin's mentions of "The Dark Lord" and "Gollum" from Ramble On spring to mind), they write songs--nay, entire albums--about fantasy, without a hint of satire:

• The soulforged


• Born in a mourning hall


• Lord of the Rings


• Mordred's song


• Skalds and shadows


• The Bard's song


• The curse of Feanor


• Noldor


• By the Gates of Moria


• Gandalf's rebirth


• A past and future secret


• Valhalla

I'm not making this stuff up, folks. These guys are hard-core fantasy fans. Their music may as well be the soundtrack of a Dungeons and Dragons game. In fact, I've seriously considered incorporating some of their lyrics/subject matter into that D&D campaign I'm hoping to someday get off the ground.

In a lesser band's hands, the combination of long hair, electric guitars, and some German dude yelling "Mordor--dark land under Sauron's spell" could be embarrassing. But Blind Guardian is able to pull off this material successfully and with a straight face because a) They're passionate and obviously well-versed in the material; and b) They're damned talented.

Don't believe me? Check out this clip of one of their acoustic numbers, "The Bard's Song," from Youtube. I don't think you'll be disappointed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_tORtmKIjE&feature=related.

The bard's songs do indeed remain alive and well in the capable hands of Blind Guardian.

To read more about Blind Guardian, go to their Web site: http://www.blind-guardian.com/.

By Crom, Robert E. Howard could write

“Know, oh prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars…”

…and thus begins "The Phoenix on the Sword," the first published tale of Conan of Cimmeria.

The first thing that strikes you about Robert E. Howard (who took his own life at 30 years of age) is, Damn, can this man write. It's hard not to spout the cliches when describing his writing: Howard’s prose indeed burns like coals, and yes, his words do leap off the page. Is it literature? No. But if your idea of fun is swordplay, colorful characters, clashing armies, wondrous lands, decadent civilizations, sanity-bending magic, monsters, and voluptuous women, then Howard’s your man. He was and is the reigning champion of the branch of fantasy known as swords and sorcery.

If your only exposure to Conan is the big, dumb brute of the film Conan the Barbarian (which I admittedly liked), get ready to meet a Conan you never knew. He’s smart, ruthless, ambitious, three-fourths savage, and just plain cool. And he’s a barbarian to the core, the walking embodiment of Howard’s philosophy:

“Barbarism is the natural state of mankind. Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph.”

You can feel this phrase at the heart of all of Howard's Conan stories, and it's what makes them so different than the mass of "fat fantasy" novels lining the shelves of bookstores today. Howard truly felt that, as a nation became more civilized, it grew correspondingly decadent and ultimately, corrupt. Men who fight and struggle to claim their kingdoms grow soft in times of peace and plenty until greed and sloth set in. Old kingdoms weaken through internal strife until they collapse from within or are invaded from without. Conan knew that tension as he simultaneously sought to rule the great kingdom of Aquilonia while experiencing the ever-constant pull of freedom and adventure, living life as a wild corsair on a ship or a raiding cossack on horseback.

In Howard's works and in the mind of the author himself, the howling "barbarians at the gates" were always waiting to pounce when kingdoms grew weak, and Conan himself was one of the horde. And maybe, Howard believed, rule by might and the axe was for the best. While at times that philosophy seems appealing to me, I can't say I agree with it. But there you have it.

Howard himself was a paradox: While he was a bit of an eccentric, attached to his mother, and wrote out of a small bedroom in his parents' home in Cross Plains, Texas, he nevertheless had no patience for academics and pacifists. He embraced rugged individualism and boxed and exercised himself into formidable shape. And he was a prolific, self-taught writer. Alas, his life ended far too soon, and we can only speculate on what works his prodigious talents may have eventually produced.

My first exposure to the barbarian came as a young boy of 10 or so through the old Conan the Barbarian comic book. While not a bad read, I didn't understand true greatness until I stumbled across a trove of back issues of The Savage Sword of Conan and Conan Saga. These magazines are loving adaptations of Howard's classic tales, and featured some amazing black and white artwork that captured the savage wonder of Hyboria, Howard's setting for the Conan stories. I still have my old back issues and I guard them jealously. One of these days I might even pull them out and read them again.

While great, the old black and white mags aren't as good as the classic Howard texts, and I was lucky to find the whole series of Conan paperbacks next. These helped start me on the path of becoming a lifetime reader and lover of fantasy. Of course, it wouldn't be until 15 years or so later that I realized even these books--published by Lancer and Ace--were in fact heavily modified (some would say mangled and bastardized) by editors L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter. Many of the stories were in fact pastiches, or stories told by different authors than Howard, and thus, not "canon." Some were bad. Even so, overall I found the old Lancer and Ace editions to be great reads, at least at the time.

Howard's best stories are the following: "Red Nails," "The People of the Black Circle," "The Hour of the Dragon," "Beyond the Black River," "The Devil in Iron," 'The Queen of the Black Coast," and "The Jewels of Gwahlur." But hell, they’re all good. None are novels; Howard’s longest tale is "The Hour of the Dragon," which checks in at a slim 174 pages.

All of Howard’s stories first appeared in the 1930’s pulp magazine Weird Tales, noted for publishing not only sci-fi, fantasy, and horror between its lurid covers, but also H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu stories. While Howard had a loyal following in the magazine, it wasn’t until well after his death in 1936 that he and his tales gained widespread acclaim.

Just make sure that if you read Howard, look for the unedited and pastiche-free stories. Real, raw Howard in his own words is fortunately now available in a nicely illustrated collection by Del Rey, which I highly recommend.

Until then, think on this quote from "Queen of the Black Coast":

“In this world men struggle and suffer vainly, finding pleasure only in the bright madness of battle … Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.”

Postscript: There's a ton of cool Howard and Conan Web sites floating around the internet. Check out these:

• http://www.thecimmerian.com/
  
• http://www.barbariankeep.com/darkbarb2.html


• http://www.conan.com/

Post-Postscript: If there is a god, and his name is Crom, he will let this movie be made: http://www.conanrednails.com/site/index.html.

A date with Dracula

I'm not much of a theatre-goer (and by theatre, I mean live stage perfor-mances), but a couple weeks ago an ad in the local newspaper caught my eye and Halloween-addled brain: The neighboring Amesbury playhouse was putting on a performance of Dracula.

With two young children it's rare these days for my wife and I to have the opportunity to get out. But this night my mother was available to babysit and we jumped at the chance. At first we debated the typical dinner and a movie ("Gone Baby Gone," or some other mildly entertaining but ultimately forgettable fare), but then by chance I happened to recall the newspaper ad. We both decided that a date with the undead was preferable to Ben Affleck and decided on Dracula instead.

Dracula has always been one of my favorite novels. Many people shy away from it due to its age, and the greater accessibility of modern, popular horror writers (Stephen King and Dean Koontz come to mind), but if you've haven't read Dracula, you're missing out. It's a great story with a rich atmosphere and it still packs a scare. Author Bram Stoker could write, and his characters--Van Helsing, Jonathon Harker, and the unforgettable Count, among others--are truly great literary creations.

We had dinner and drinks as we waited for the show, and not until the play started did we realize that the waitstaff made up half the cast. That was probably the coolest element of the show--the small dimensons of the playhouse and the closeness of the actors made you feel like you were a part of it.

The show was enjoyable. It had its faults, including one actor and one actress with limited acting ability who didn't deliver their lines very well. The crew only changed sets once, using the same room for most of the show (a Victorian-style living room) and ending with Dracula's subterranean tomb. There was some issues with the sound, and at a few points I found myself straining to hear.

But the low points were outweighed by the good. The actors who played Van Helsing and Dracula were excellent, and Renfield was wonderfully manic and over-the-top. The lighting and music were suitably creepy. And in the coolest touch of all, Dracula emerged from the rear of the playhouse in the final act, striding amongst the crowd with his billowing black cape and protuding incisors and drawing screams of fright and excitement. Soon after he disappeared into his coffin, Van Helsing, Dr. Seward, and Jonathan Harker also made their way through the crowd, pursuing the fleeing vampire with stakes and mallets.

Afterwards the cast came out into the crowd to chat and have a few drinks. The sight of some star-struck pre-teens asking for autographs did my heart good, as it was nice to see some respect paid to a troupe of actors performing for the sheer love of acting, and not the money. I spoke for a few minutes with Tom Seiler, a 60-something man who'd been acting for 33 years, as he told me, and congratulated him on his fine portrayal of Van Helsing. He encouraged me to come back again, and after my experience watching Dracula, I probably will.

A feast of flesh: Digesting Dawn of the Dead

Part 4 of a 10-part series in which I examine my favorite films, and the reasons why I love them so.

I still recall the first time I watched Dawn of the Dead. The violence and gore were shockingly graphic, and the dread I felt from the zombie hordes enveloping the earth was palpable. But it was the feeling of isolation and spiritual stagnation of the survivors in the mall that really made Dawn stand out for me, elevating it into something much more than traditional horror fare.

Made in 1978, Dawn of the Dead is the second in what has become director George Romero's zombie quadriology (is that an actual word?). The series started with the low-budget black and white 1968 Night of the Living Dead, then Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead (1985) and, most recently, Land of the Dead (2005).

Dawn of the Dead stands out above the rest of the series for several reasons. While Night is quite good, Dawn features a true full-blown zombie apocalypse in which mankind is overrun. While the zombie virus-as-pandemic first surfaced in Night, that film focused on a small group of survivors in a farmhouse, and, by the end of Night, the implication was that the outbreak was under control.

Not so in Dawn. In the first act, the world is plunged into chaos and we get to watch the disintegration of order as institutions crumble and populaces panic. Four survivors band together and manage to clear out a huge shopping mall, then "batten down the hatches" and attempt to live while death and destruction reigns outside.

While the four survivors (three men and a woman) have plenty of food and every material desire at their fingertips, their "bliss" proves very shallow and temporary.

In its second act, Dawn takes an introspective look at the human condition: While we may think death is at a comfortable distance, and that having money and all the "stuff" it buys will make us content, this is a lie. Ultimately, we as humans need something more. The zombies become a symbol of the ever-present disease and death that threatens to devour us, and ultimately will consume every man, woman, and child born. They are also a symbol of unbridled materialism, mindless "shoppers" drawn to the mall that you can find in any large or small-sized city across the United States, every day.

When a roving band of armed, militant bikers break into the mall in the final act of Dawn, all hell breaks loose. For sheer, unbridled fun and over-the-top gore, you can't beat the scene of bikers hacking and beheading zombies with machetes, bats, and axes, lobbing grenades and firing shotguns and pistols, and watching raiders get hauled screaming from their bikes and eviscerated and consumed alive. The scene of the guy who insists on using the blood pressure machine even as zombies converge on him and eat him is dark comedy at its best.

Despite the death and destruction, Dawn ends on a positive note as the last two survivors ultimately choose life, and a chance of salvation elsewhere. Whether or not they find it in their low-fuel helicopter is another story, but it's noteworthy that, even in the depths of despair, they make the choice to move on and live, despite the odds. When confronted with our own stark mortality, this is all we as mankind can do.

On a side note, Dawn was remade in 2004. Romero was not involved in the project. While the new Dawn is quite enjoyable, and perhaps even scarier than the original (the running zombies are shockingly unexpected and terrifying, and the opening sequence is amazing), it unfortunately loses much of the subtext and themes that made the 1978 version so great.

Turning back the "Pages": Remembering a great old bookstore

Back when I was a wee lad of about 9 or 10, I happened upon Pages Bookshop of Reading. Sandwiched between a pizza joint and an auto parts store in a run-down one-story building on the edge of the town common, Pages (known to me and my friends simply as "The Bookstore") soon became my favorite store/hangout, and a place that helped shape who I've become today.

It sounds corny, but Pages was a place of wonder for me. I still recall its creaky red floorboards and the smell of old books and newspapers that wafted out onto the street when you opened the front door. The place was dusty and dirty and, in addition to books and comics, contained some odd collectibles and old models stuffed into odd, cubby-like shelves on the walls.

But it was also stuffed full of the stuff of fantasy.

Back in the 80's when I discovered it, Pages had a prominent shelf of role playing games, including Dungeons and Dragons, Star Frontiers, Car Wars, Runequest, and more. It kept a supply of dice and a few racks of lead miniatures. I remember thumbing through issues of Dragon magazine that I couldn't afford and mentally recording variant rules, adventure scenarios, and monster ecologies to feed my game with cool ideas (this was in the pre-internet days, remember).

In the back of the store were a few towering rows of old hardcovers that no one ever seemed to buy, and whose inventory never seemed to change. But Pages also had a nice selection of paperback fantasy and sci-fi novels. I still have several on my bookshelf today. The bottom of each book was stamped with a letter code: A=50 cents, B=85 cents, C=half cover price. It was cheap, and I stocked up on lots of titles from authors like Poul Anderson, Michael Moorcock, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and of course, the inimitable Robert E. Howard.

Pages specialized in comic books and had it had a big collection of titles on the front racks, but even better were the seeming miles of long boxes stuffed with back issues. You could buy up old titles for 50, 60, or 75 cents, in most cases. I bought a bunch of old Captain Americas and Spidermans, Fantastic Fours, and other classic Marvel titles.

But my favorite memory was finding two old boxes full of back issues of Savage Sword of Conan. This was a great black and white magazine, featuring Howard's stories adapted for the comic medium but almost 100% true to their source material. The stories were raw, bloody, and not afraid to show female flesh, and illustrated by some terrific artists like John Buscema and Roy Thomas. Each issue was $1. Every week with my allowance I used to buy 2 or 3 issues, then stop off at Berson's pharmacy on the corner for a Pepsi and a candy bar. I relished the long walk home and the anticipation of reading SSOC with my feet propped up on my desk, drinking a cold soda and enjoying every page. Those wonderful black and white illustrations and Robert E. Howard's amazing yarns swept me up, and for a while I was part of another, much cooler world.

Just as sweet are the memories of the times my gang of my friends and I would walk to Pages on Saturday mornings. We'd browse for what seemed like hours, then head next door with our loot to Christy's Pizza. Christy's had small pay televisions, which (if I remember correctly) gave you a half-hour's worth of TV for 25 cents. I remember stuffing in coins and watching cartoons like Thundarr the Barbarian and The Smurfs, eating pizza, and reading comics. Good times.

A few years ago the town demolished the old building that housed Pages and Christy's Pizza. Sadly, "The Bookstore" has been replaced by a decidedly prosaic bank.

Sigh, just what Reading needed.

I'll bet there's a lot of kids now, in Reading and elsewhere, that would have loved to have had a Pages in their neighborhood. I also believe (and I'm firmly up on my soapbox now) that most kids could benefit from having a local bookstore. In fact, I'm of the belief that a town just ain't a town without a place to buy, sell, and swap used books. While the trend now is giant chains, I find it hard to believe that any Barnes and Noble or Borders could pack into it as much cheap entertainment--or as much wonder--as Pages did.

An adventure completed

Recently I had the fortune of finishing up Legends are Made, not Born, which marked my return as a Dungeons & Dragons dungeon master (DM) after some 17+ years since my last DMing experience. And what fun it was!

As you can read about in a previous post, the players in this module are effective "zero level" PCs, or normal townspeople who decide to become heroes by doing battle with an ogre that has kidnapped two townspeople. The PCs gathered information and purchased supplies in the town of Dundraville, then made their way to Skulltop Hillock, where the ogre lives. Sneaking in via a little-used back entrance, they battled their way through some cave denizens, including giant centipedes and a ghoul (the corpse of a long-dead warrior-king), before encountering the ogre Blogg.

After a PC sprang a log deadfall trap which awoke the drugged and sleeping ogre, an epic fight ensued. In the end, one PC was knocked out by the ogre's massive club, but Blogg was dead and the day was saved. Or was it?

The PCs soon found out from Blogg's sniveling captive hobgoblin servant Gurt that the "real master" had charmed Blogg and ordered him to capture the two townsfolk. The master--Suto Lore, a "power thrower," lives in the tunnels below Blogg's cave, said the terrified Gurt. The adventure was about to get a lot bigger and more sinister.

The PCs pushed ahead and made their way down a trapped ladder and a past a trapped hallway to Suto's quarters. There they found Suto's diary and uncovered a diabolic plan: Suto is seeking to locate the Codex Ilyium, a book of great and evil sorcerous power, but can only find it by summoning the demon Frogroth. Suto has created a demon summoning circle and is only a day away from his final preparations.

After battling Suto's enchanted broom(!), the PCs made their way to the temple. Alerted to the PCs presence after they set off a screaming shrieker, Suto prepared himself with a host of spells, including mage armor, obscuring mist, and levitate, and cast summon monster, summoning a fiendish spider to drop on the PCs as they entered the chamber.

Soon a pitched fight began. Suto was well-protected, and all the PCs could see of him was a billowing pillar of smoke. Several arrows were fired too low and went under the levitating wizard. Bec, the party's muscle-bound fighter, was bitten by the spider. Although the PCs slew the critter, it slowed them down enough for Suto to summon a small fire elemental from a brazier in the room. This thing proved nasty, as its blows inflicted both bludgeoning and fire damage.

Soon two PCs were down. Suto then cast hold person on Bec, who was frozen to the spot, and the fire elemental burned him alive (sorry Bec). Three PCs--half the party--were either dead or unconscious, and I was worried that my first time DMing in almost two decades would result in a TPK, or total party kill!

But the PCs proved both heroic and resourceful. Lord Casimir, a snobby son of a nobleman, bravely charged past the elemental and into the billowing smoke to thrust and cut wildly. Even though he was blinded by a glitterdust spell, he ran Suto through with a sword-thrust that had about a 1 in 20 chance of hitting. The few remaining PCs finally wore down the elemental with arrows and magic missiles, and the fight was over.

Truth be told (and if you're reading it here, players, its your bad), the PCs never found the "voice below" hinted at in Suto's diary, a small demon (a quasit) that was in league with Suto, and resided in the bottom of the pit in the summoning room. Of course, we didn't finish until 2:45 a.m. so everyone was tired at that point, including me, and I probably could have done a better job tipping the players off. Ah well, perhaps this could lead to another adventure...

Regardless, the PCs had defeated the evil wizard, rescued the two prisoners, and returned to Dundraville as heroes. The town welcomed them with cheers and kisses, and old Tarik one-arm, a retired fighter who lost his arm battling Blogg years ago, clapped them on the back over a cold ale at the Merry Riot Inn, and had this to say:

"As I've always said--legends are made, and not born, and you have taken the first step on a much larger journey, lads and ladies."

Overall, it was a fun night and a fine example as to why I love this game. The adventure--both the module itself, and my own--was complete.

Celebrating Halloween: My top 10 scariest films

In honor of Halloween, my favorite holiday of the year, I'm offering my top 10 scariest movies of all time. These aren't necessarily my favorite horror films, but are the ones that either chilled, disturbed, or downright scared the hell out of me.

1. Jaws. Still the scariest film I've ever seen, Jaws forever ruined my ability to swim in the ocean. Heck, if I make the mistake of thinking of the opening scene when swimming over my head in fresh water, I feel uneasy.

2. Alien. Despite its sci-fi trappings, Alien succeeds as a horror film because, frankly, the Nostromo is basically a big floating haunted house in space, and the alien is the ultimate stalker. Between the chest-bursting dinner scene and the guy with the spider-thing attached to his face, Alien has me convinced that I want no part of any beings from space, no matter what E.T. taught me. It's sequel, Aliens, was awesome too, though it succeeds more as an action film.

3. The Ring. I thought I was done getting scared at films as a grown man until I watched The Ring (the American version, not the Japanese original). Samara's awful disjoined movement, long, face-concealing black hair, and hate-filled eyes are terrifying, and the awful looks of her victim's faces still haunt me at night.

4. The Shining. The twin girls. The woman in room 213. Jack Nicholson's madness and axe-work. The isolation of the Overlook. Director Stanley Kubrick's studied, unflinching camera work showing it all. These elements combine to make The Shining the best haunted-house movie ever.

5. Jacob's Ladder. While it's not a pure horror film, Jacob's Ladder succeeded in disturbing me like few movies ever have. Tim Robbins' portrayal of a traumatized Vietnam veteran leaves you wondering what horrors are real, and which are imagined, the result of his damaged psyche. Demons and other horrors crop up unexpectedly and forcefully and the effect of Robbins' slow descent into madness is suffocating.

6. Dawn of the Dead (original). Before the credits were rolling, I was already making preparations for the zombie holocaust I knew was coming. Dawn of the Dead has some shocking scenes of gore and nasty, rotting zombies, but more terrifying still is the quick collapse of society and the monsters that men become when order breaks down. The 2004 (?) remake works too--while it loses some of the feeling of dread of the original, the running zombies are quite a shock.

7. Psycho. I finally got around to watching Psycho a few years ago after reading about it on so many "scariest film ever" lists, and despite its age and now-cliched elements, Psycho remains a scary movie. The shower scene still works, and Norman Bates' transformation at the end literally sent shivers down my spine.

8. The Exorcist. I don't know whether a studio could get away with making a film like The Exorcist today. The horrors inflicted on child actor Linda Blair are shocking, particularly what she does with the crucifix (that's all I'm going to say about that). In addition to the pea-soup gross out stuff, there's a whole lot of disturbing images and themes in The Exorcist that continue to haunt my dreams. That flashing pale-white demon face? Brrr.

9. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. This film is just flat-out vile from start to finish, so naturally I like it. From the decomposing corpses in the opening credits, to the psychotic hitchhiker who cuts himself with a razor blade, to the chainsaw killings and hammer bludgeonings, to the corpse and bone-strewn house inspired by the real-life home of mass-murderer Ed Gein, this film is unrelenting grue, horror, and terror.

10. Silence of the Lambs. Another film like Jacob's Ladder that's more suspense than horror, Silence of the Lambs nevertheless is downright disturbing. As great as Anthony Hopkins' portrayal of Hannibal Lector was and is, the dude who played Buffalo Bill ("It puts the lotion on its skin") gets major props for playing one of the sickest, most realistic murderers in movie history. Silence of the Lambs conveys horror without even showing it--just listening to Lector's horrors (biting out a nurse's tongue and noshing on her face without a change in his pulse?) is enough.

Book review: All hail The Once and Future King

There's only a handful of books that I've deemed worthy of a five-star rating, and this is one of them. Maybe it just means that I have poor taste, but below you will find the reasons why I believe The Once and Future King is the pinnacle of the novel as an art form.

A modern retelling of the King Arthur myth, The Once and Future King is built with the nuts of bolts of Malory's "Le Morte D'Arthur," but it's told in plain, modern english with a heavy emphasis on the philosophical and moral implications of the tale.

Whyte's story focuses on a pair of converging storylines--the education of the young Arthur by the scatterbrained yet infinitely wise Merlin, who transforms the young king into various animals to teach him the many facets of human nature (Part I, "The Sword in the Stone"). Arthur's education manifests itself in the creation of a set of ideals, founded on the belief that Might does not equal Right, which run at odds with the brutal, unfair regimes set up by the despotic rulers of the Dark Ages in which he lives.

Weaving into Arthur's story is the tragic tale of Launcelot. Portrayed as an ugly boy haunted by the demons of his childhood, Launcelot pours himself into his training to become the best warrior/knight in the world. Of course, his great passion for Guinevere and subsequent betrayal of Arthur undoes him and opens up the first fault lines that lead to the collapse of Camelot. And yet, Launcelot is just a man, so we can sympathize with this betrayal.

Whyte's story is told simple and direct, in contrast to the ornate prose of Malory and Tennyson. As a result the characters are more human and modern, replete with foibles and quirks. Whyte also strips away the romance in his accurate depiction of the squalid conditions of the period. As much as I daydream about it, the Dark Ages and Medieval Europe is nowhere you'd really want to live.

More than all this, The Once and Future King is brilliant for its portrayal of universal truths, philosophic meditations on subjects that range from aging, to the nature of conflict, earthly passions, and religion, and man's inability to ever enter a state of grace. It spoke to me on levels few books ever have.

Whyte offers several explanations for why the human race is fated to remain in eternal conflict: Suspicion and fear; possessiveness and greed; resentment for ancestral wrongs. These problems are either so deep-seated in human nature, or so old, engrained, and persistent (witness the religious and tribal conflicts in the Middle East, thousands of years old and seemingly without any hope of resolution, for a modern parallel), that they are beyond the scope of mankind to solve. Even great thinkers and peacemakers like Arthur can't eliminate them--the life of one man, even a great man like Arthur, is too short, and he (and we) literally age and die before we can offer solutions.

But even though Whyte's view of mankind is bleak, he offers the hope that we can redeem ourselves through education; if we pass on knowledge, stories of great men like Arthur, we can learn from their greatness and mistakes and elevate ourselves from our baser nature. This is Arthur's promised return, not as a man but as a concept of something great that once was, and can be again. This literal passing of the torch is told in "The Candle in the Wind (part IV)," the brilliant conclusion to the novel.

In a poignant and memorable final scene the aging Arthur sends a young page, Tom of Rewbold Revell, off from the final battle at Camlann with all Arthur's letters. Arthur is to die in combat against Mordred's forces, and Tom represents the bearer of the king's flickering flame of hope and wisdom. We as readers understand that Tom will be the only survivor, and is charged with passing on the king's knowledge and preserving the story of the greatness of Camelot.

This Tom is, of course, Thomas Malory, who will go on to write Le Morte d'Arthur. All has not been in vain, and Malory (and Whyte) have left us with a shining example of the greatness we as humans--with all our faults, foibles, and failings--may yet achieve.

This pulp is high art: Why Pulp Fiction rules

Part 3 of a 10-part series in which I examine my favorite films, and the reasons why I love them so.

Pulp Fiction is a near-perfect film. Its script is brilliantly written and its casting is flawless. Under the skillful, stylistic hand of director Quentin Tarantino, the result of these elements coming together seamlessly is a joy to behold, and create a film that I can return to again and again. This is the mark of a great movie for me: One which continues to hold up under repeated viewings. Pulp Fiction does that.

Let’s start with the cast: Samuel L. Jackson comes off the screen in this film like few actors I have ever seen. Nominated for Best Supporting Actor, he was robbed when he didn’t receive the award. To this day, whenever I see Jackson on screen (and he’s done a lot of films), he remains Jules Winnfield, and his “Ezekiel 25:17” speech is one of my all-time favorites. John Travolta made his big comeback in Pulp Fiction, and it’s easy to see why his star rocketed back to the top of the Hollywood A-list after this film. He was amazing, particularly in his exchanges with Jackson. The entire cast is superb, including Ving Rhames, Bruce Willis, Uma Thurman, Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, and Christopher Walken (the latter in a small but brilliant cameo). I’m hard-pressed to think of another film with a better ensemble.

Pulp Fiction oozes style. Witness director Quentin Tarantino’s work in a multitude of scenes: Travolta shooting heroin and experiencing its bliss in a midnight drive, shot in a series of slow, hallucinogenic images; and Travolta and Thurman’s dance on the floor of Jack Rabbit Slims, charged with electricity, sex, and danger. These are only a few examples of the film's exceptional direction and craft. And what else can I say about Tarantino’s signature use of sharp, witty dialogue ? Pulp Fiction is loaded with a number of memorable exchanges between its characters, too many to note here.

Despite its obscene language, graphic sequences, and crude subject matter, Pulp Fiction is, at its heart, a film that embraces old-fashioned virtues. Don’t be fooled into labeling it as a mere gangster film; it’s a spaghetti western in modern, post-Godfather/Goodfellas trappings. Both of its “heroes,” Bruce Willis and Jackson, ride off into the sunset at film’s end: Willis in literal fashion on an (iron) horse, Jackson implied as he decides to “walk the earth” like Kaine in Kung-Fu.

The film also dabbles in religion: It’s noteworthy that the characters that embrace redemption and “the path of the righteous” survive, while those who reject God/religion do not. For example, Jackson sheds his hit-man profession following the miracle of the missed gunshots in the apartment, and lives, while his partner, Travolta, rejects the notion that God might have intervened to save his life. He continues as a hit-man and pays the price for his choice with his life.

Likewise, Bruce Willis, while far from squeaky clean, follows the path of the “righteous man” and in so doing finds redemption: Rejecting a bribe, he double-crosses Rhames and the mafia to fight a legitimate fight. Later he returns to his apartment to get his father’s watch, a precious heirloom and a symbol of “purity” (despite the fact that it was hid in Willis’ father’s rectum during the Vietnam War). And finally, against his strong urge to flee, he rescues the man (Rhames) who wants to kill him most, and rids the world of a trio of sickos who run an S&M/murder ring in the basement of a gun shop. All his decisions, though difficult, steer him down the right path.

Pulp Fiction contains an enigma, the briefcase, which director Quentin Tarantino deliberately leaves open to viewer interpretation. I love that. For me, I think it contains the holy grail—witness the gold reflection when it’s opened, the religious feelings it invokes (the awed expressions on the faces of those who open the case). But it could be anything.

One bit I haven’t heard much talk about is the film’s clever title. It’s an obvious nod to the movie’s roots—Tarantino was certainly inspired by the pulps, e.g., the hard-boiled storylines of crime, sex, murder, double-crossing, drugs, fixed fights, etc. But it also carries a double meaning—the fiction of the film is literally “pulped”—the various storylines are all out of order, a mish-mash of narratives. Yet in the end they weave together perfectly.

Throw in a terrific soundtrack, and it’s easy to see why Pulp Fiction resides firmly in my top 10.

Why Tolkien is the man

"Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if, when he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison walls? The world outside has not become less real because the prisoner cannot see it."

--J.R.R. Tolkien

Everyone to some degree or another is in "prison." It may be a lousy job, poverty, a bad relationship, an unhappy social life, or the prison that encloses all mankind--frail bodies of flesh, our own mortal coil. Tolkien, a World War I veteran who saw several of his best friends die in the muddy trenches of France, and lived through World War II and the Nazi blitz, knew that as well as anyone.

But why should we put our heads down and accept banal realities? If you don' t like the look of your prison walls, choose another path. There are other worlds to explore. Tolkien didn't like the look of our own world, so he went ahead and created Middle-Earth. Although we cannot "see" this world and the worlds of our imagination with traditional senses, they are no less real than gray prison walls. They live within our minds and hearts, and as long as we pass down great works of art like The Lord of the Rings, are eternal.

I found the holy grail--and it is Excalibur

Part 2 of a 10-part series in which I examine my favorite films, and the reasons why I love them so.

Excalibur is, by most standards, an odd film. It has knights running around in full plate who inexplicably overlook helmets; shouted lines of over-the-top, Shakespearian dialogue; a guy who has sex wearing armor; odd bits of graphic violence; and a script that refuses to extend a helping hand to the viewer, making it tough to figure out what's going on. To get this film, you need at least some familiarity with the Arthurian myths.

Despite these flaws, Excalibur is easily one of my favorite movies of all time. I find it genuinely moving; I love the casting choices almost to a man (and woman); the costumes and sets capture the romance and violence of Malory perfectly; and it isn't afraid to explore the complex themes of many of the Arthurian tales. Plus, it has a great score and some kick-ass battle sequences!

I like films that don't feel the need to stoop to the lowest common denominator, and Excalibur certainly fits this category. For instance, director John Boorman is obviously well-versed in the Fisher King myth (the health of the land is tied directly to the health of the king), yet apart from a few shouted "One Land One King," and "The Land and the King are one" references, we're left to figure this out on our own.

In another example, when the quest for the holy grail begins, the viewer assumes they're looking for an actual, physical cup. Or are they? Boorman hints that the quest is really a search within the individual--that the quest for the grail is actually the voyage of a soul seeking spiritual perfection. You have to look hard for this, as its revealed only by a single cryptic line from Arthur, "[Look for] signs, portents... the edge of within.".

Nicol Williamson plays an amazing Merlin and perhaps renders the best performance of any wizard put to film (Ian McKellen as Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings is a marvel, too). Williamson is simultaneously funny and mysterious, and he injects the role with an eccentric flair that imbues the character with a life of its own. He utters such great lines, fraught with meaning:

When a man lies he murders some part of the world.

The days of our kind are numberèd. The one God comes to drive out the many gods. The spirits of wood and stream grow silent. It's the way of things. Yes... it's a time for men, and their ways.

And look upon this moment. Savor it! Rejoice with great gladness! Great gladness! Remember it always, for you are joined by it. You are One, under the stars. Remember it well, then... this night, this great victory. So that in the years ahead, you can say, 'I was there that night, with Arthur, the King!' For it is the doom of men that they forget.

There are other worlds...this one is done with me.

Several scenes in this film make my eyes well up and place my heart firmly in my mouth: The young Arthur kneeling in a moat, handing Excalibur to his enemy, Uryenes, to knight him, is one; a wild-haired Lancelot returning from his self-imposed exile and madness to fight and die for his king is another. Arthur's impassioned speech to Guievere before he goes to fight Mordred in the last battle is a third:

I have often thought that in the hereafter of our lives, when I owe no more to the future and can be just a man, that we may meet, and you will come to me and claim me as yours, and know that I am your husband. It is a dream I have...

And who can fail to be moved by the scene of Arthur and his knight's galloping through the falling petals, set to the beautiful Carmina Burana? Watching this scene makes me realize I was born in the wrong time and the wrong world: I should have been a knight of the round table, fighting for Arthur and for civilization against the encroaching dark.

In short, Excalibur rocks hard.

Behind the DM screen again, part 2

Part 2 of a 2-part series about my experience dungeon mastering a game of Dungeons & Dragons after a long, long absence.

As I stated in a previous post, I recently stepped behind the screen again and dungeon mastered my first game of Dungeons & Dragons in more than 17 years. The module was "Legends are Made, not Born," from the excellent Dungeon Crawl Classics line, published by Goodman Games.

The adventure background is as follows:

For the past few years, an ogre has demanded monthly tribute from the town of Dundraville. Since the demands were ale, sheep, and occasional mundane supplies, the town complied with these demands. The ogre was content to collect his extorted goods, and leave the town alone. However, last month, the tribute changed. In addition to ale and sheep, the ogre demanded gold and building materials!

But the situation has grown even more grim. The ogre returned yesterday with yet more demands of ale and worse: townsfolk! The town was in an uproar and denied the ogre’s request. The brute flew into a rage and grabbed two townsfolk and hauled them back to his lair. They’re destined for his gullet, no doubt!

But amidst all the turmoil, six brave townsfolk have vowed to confront the ogre, and bring him to justice. The brave ones include a noble’s son, a gnomish alchemist, a member of the town militia, a wizard’s apprentice, a local trapper, and a mysterious elven witch that lairs in a nearby forest. With the aid of the local druids and brewer in town, the last batch of ale the ogre took was laced with a mild poison to help incapacitate the brute. Now it’s time for brave heroes to finish the deed.

Overall, the experience was very rewarding and a lot of fun. In several hours of play we managed to cram in a good mix of role-playing, which involved interacting with a half-dozen NPCs in Dundraville, gathering rumors, and buying equipment. The PCs entered the cave from a little used rear entrance and, once inside, did some exploring and fought a few cave denizens, including a ghoul (the animated corpse of a long-dead warrior). The evening culminated with a great brawl with the ogre Blogg, and a cliffhanger (we weren't able to finish, unfortunately), and I think we all left happy.

Of course, looking back, I made some mistakes and wish I had a couple "do-overs." First, the bad:

• About 15 minutes into the session I was was feeling lost and nervous and felt like quitting. Fortunately, this feeling passed.
  
  
• I did a poor job portraying two NPCs, in hindsight due to lack of preparation: Sherynella, a female druid, and Kerwin Krell, a local shopkeeper.
  
  
• I had meant to have the townspeople give the PCs a rousing send-off as they left town, but forgot. In this module the PCs are townspeople who decide to become heroes, and I had planned a dramatic exit as they marched off to fight the ogre.
  
  
• I didn't know enough about the pregenerated PC's backgrounds to weave them fully into the fabric of Dundraville. As a result, occasionally the PC's interaction with the town's NPCs seemed stilted and artificial, as though the PCs were outsiders instead of locals. Again, this was due to a lack of preparation on my part.

Now on to the good, which I (think) outweighed the bad:

• I liked my characterization of Tarik One-Arm, a grizzled old fighter living on the edge of town, as well as the way I handled the bartender Clay and his staff at the Merry Riot Inn. Tarik came off as suspicious and gruff, only warming up when the PCs offered to help him chop wood. Clay was a jovial halfling coping with the loss of his three barmaids (one of whom was taken by the ogre), and two replacement serving wenches struggling at their job. Not surprisingly, I had thought about these NPCs' motivations in advance and how they would react to the PCs.
  
• There was good description and game play during the PCs' exploration of the ogre's cave. It seemed tense and fraught with danger.
  
• We had a great concluding fight with the ogre Blogg. The encounter started with the party's gnome setting off a log deadfall trap, which roused Blogg from his sleep and started a running fight that eventually involved a wolf and his hobgoblin keeper. Three members of the party threw up a wall of crates, which wound up on fire in the midst of the melee. I had to make several ad-hoc rulings when Blogg burst through the wall of crates and bowled over two PCs, but it went very smoothly.
  
• I was able to weave some of the PCs backgrounds into the story. For example, I made Bowen, a PC farmer who is destined to become a ranger, familiar to several local farmers, and took care to have the townsfolk react to Lord Castimir--a well-known noble--with a mixture of awe and scorn.

I'll leave you with three lessons learned:

1. Preparation is critical. Some DMs are excellent at flying by the seat of their pants, but I'm not one of them. The best encounters and most memorable NPC interactions during my adventure were all those for which I had made the most preparation. The lesson? Know your material.

2. When you start, start with a bang. I wish I had began with an encounter that required immediate reaction by the PCs. This would have removed the early feelings of awkwardness and nervousness. It also gets everyone engaged in the adventure immediately. The tendency of most players at the start of an unfamiliar campaign is to wait to be led into the adventure (guilty as charged).

3. Weave the PC's backgrounds and personality into the adventure/campaign at every turn. This makes for greater player involvement and keeps them engaged. The PCs are supposed to be on the center stage, after all, and everyone likes their chance to shine. Having been a player for the last seven years, some of my favorite gaming experiences were those times when the DM drew on my character's background or motivations and wove them into the tale. Involving your PC makes you feel like you're a part of the scenario or campaign world, and not just an observer.

Behind the DM screen again

Part 1 of a 2-part series about my experience dungeon mastering a game of Dungeons & Dragons after a long, long absence.

About a month ago I had an experience I can only describe as simultaneously terrifying, draining, exhilarating, and rewarding. After more than 17 years, I stepped back "behind the screen" and found myself dungeon mastering a Dungeons and Dragons game.

It was, frankly, a surreal experience. Staring over the top of a cardboard screen at four expectant players, an adventure module (pictured above) spread out before me, the time had come to finally run a game again. Not unlike a disc jockey at a wedding, it was my job to help deliver the night's entertainment, and either send everyone home happy or fail miserably in the attempt.

So how did I get there? Let me explain.

As I've stated in a previous post, D&D is my primary hobby and has been a big part of my life. As a 10-year-old kid, my parents bought me the basic D&D rules, and I was off and running. Being the official keeper of the game books, and one of (or perhaps the only) person in my group--which included some neighborhood friends and my older brother--to have read the rules, I became the de-facto DM. I didn't know what I was doing half the time, and I'm sure there's many rules we either misinterpreted or broke, but it didn't matter. We were all having a blast.

When I entered high school, however, my gaming slowed, and by the time I hit college, it had stopped. I was playing sports, starting to date, and D&D was no longer "cool" (aside--D&D never was cool, but until my teenage years, I never felt the need for it to be so). I kept all my old box sets and hardcovers, of course, and from time to time (under cover of darkness) I'd break them out and read them. But my playing days were effectively over.

Fast forward to 2001. D&D had received a shot in the arm with the release of third edition. I was married, working full-time, and thinking about having children, and the days of being "cool" were long gone. Naturally, the time was right to start up D&D again. Through the EN World Web site, an online community of D&D players, I located a gaming group in Southern New Hampshire, and for the last six years or so have been happily playing.

Let me rephrase that. While I've been playing for the last six years, it's been as a player only. With two committed DMs in our group, I was not required to DM. This had its perks, I soon discovered. All I had to do was show up with my character sheet, slip into and out of my role when I felt like it, and roll a D20 when it was my turn in combat. I was even free to get up to eat or use the bathroom whenever I wanted to.

But fun as playing was (and is), after a while I felt that something was missing. You see, when you're the DM, you own the game. The world is yours, so to speak, and you are its creator. You create the NPCs, their motivations and personalities, you map out the dungeons, pick the monsters, place the treasures and traps. It's a whole new ballgame from simply running a single player-character.

We were wrapping up one DM's campaign arc and about to switch gears and resume our second campaign with the other DM. There was a natural break in the action, and I opened my big mouth and offered to run a game. I pitched it as a one-shot adventure with pregenerated characters, and, much to my surprise, the group accepted.


Of course, with great power comes great responsbility, and I was about to find that out first hand.

A landmark is gone, and life is a little more mundane

Every morning, my one-hour commute to work down I-95 in Northern Massa-chusetts takes me past Danvers State Hospital. It's the building in the picture above, a creepy, gothic-looking asylum built in the 19th century to house mentally ill patients.

Danvers State has gained plenty of noteriety over the years. Before it shut its doors permanently in 1992, it was known as a house of horrors. Frontal lobotomies were perfected at Danvers State, electric shock and water immersion "treatments" were commonplace, and hundreds of its inmates were buried in unmarked graves. Only recently did a petition by former patients result in the creation of a cemetery to memoralize the forgotten dead.

Danvers State is famous for other reasons, too. Fans of H.P. Lovecraft may know that Danvers State Hospital made appearances in a handful of his short stories, including "Pickman's Model," "Herbert West Reanimator," and "The Shadow Over Innsmouth." Then, in 2001, the decaying and dilapidated structures became the site of a film shoot--the low-budget but well-crafted psychological horror/suspense film Session 9. If you haven't seen Session 9, rent it now--you're missing out. The Kirkbride building is the star of the movie, and with good reason--no expensive effects were necessary to infuse the film with horror and dread. Danvers State oozes with it.

It's a feeling I experienced first-hand, in fact. Watching Session 9 prompted me to visit the site one day. Driving past a threatening "No Trespassing--Police Take Notice" gate, I proceeded up an old access road, under a foreboding canopy of trees, and onto the old hospital grounds. Stopping my car on a weed-choked parking lot, I stepped out to take a close look at the old buildings.

It was creepy. I felt a presence there, as if something--the souls of countless inmates who lived a life of isolation and torment, perhaps--were hovering about, watching. An old church was on my right, the rotting steeple casting a long shadow. The silence was complete and deliciously eerie. With my curiosity satisfied (and my heart beating a little faster), I turned and drove away. Little did I know at the time that it would be my one and only visit.

Much to my chagrin, I soon learned that the buildings were slated for demolition in the name of "progress." The local newspaper said that a developer had bought the land to build a sprawing condominium complex. When the demolition finally began, my heart sank. Now, only a single brick facade remains. Uniform grey condos now cover the top of the hill, and an irreplaceable piece of this area's past--and a source of haunted wonder--is gone for good.

Now, I'm no luddite and I realize that progress is inevitable. Our population isn't shrinking and new housing is constantly in need. But it was nevertheless sad to see Danvers State go the way of the wrecking ball. Danvers State was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and its my opinion that more should have been done to preserve the site. A half-assed effort by the developer to save the shell of just one building didn't go nearly far enough.

Now, a ghostly relic of New England's past is gone for good, and life in these parts is a little more mundane.

To view more pictures and learn about the history of this great old structure, go to these Web sites:

http://www.abandonedasylum.com/dsh1.html

http://www.danversstateinsaneasylum.com/home.html

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe: My love affair with Blade Runner (director’s cut)

Part 1 of a 10-part series in which I examine my favorite films, and the reasons why I love them so.

I've … seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tanhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost ... in time, like tears ... in rain. Time ... to die.

The death-speech of Roy Batty (as played magnificently by Rutger Hauer) in the rain on the rooftop at the conclusion of Blade Runner is one of my favorite moments in all of cinema, the culmination of a film that transcends its (admittedly beautiful) sci-fi trappings to take a piercing look into the heart of the human condition. It asks, and tries to answer, the eternal questions—what does it mean to be a human? Are humans mere machines, with circuitry of flesh of blood, or are they something more?

The most obvious and immediately striking feature of Blade Runner is its visuals. At the time they were an unparalleled accomplishment in cinema, and later films like The Terminator and The Matrix show an obvious debt to Blade Runner. Director Ridley Scott’s dystopian vision seems almost cliché now, but coming as it did hard on the heels of popular films and TV shows like Star Wars, Star Trek, Lost in Space, etc.--films in which the future was portrayed as fun and/or progressive-- it was truly groundbreaking.

The replicants—artificial creations made to look, sound, and even react emotionally as humans do— provoke all sorts of uncomfortable questions. Their creator, Tyrell of the Tyrell Corporation, calls them “more human than human,” and indeed their passion and will to live (due to their short “life” spans) makes them seem more alive than the real humans in the film. Because they are programmed with memories, they have personality, perspective, independent thought, and emotional reactions, though a sophisticated empathy test can betray them as replicants.

Hauer’s terrific portrayal of Batty, the “perfect” replicant, is my favorite piece of acting in Blade Runner. The parallels between Batty and Milton’s Satan from Paradise Lost are intentional (witness Batty in the elevator leaving Tyrell’s apartment following the murder of his creator—those stars in the background are an obvious reference to his “fall”). And this exchange between Batty and Tyrell:

Tyrell: What… seems to be the problem?
Batty: Death.
Tyrell: Death? Well, I’m afraid that’s a bit out of my jurisdiction…
Batty: I want more life. Fucker.

…is Satan voicing his displeasure with a God that controls all the strings. Better to rule in hell than serve in heaven, indeed.

I vastly prefer the director’s cut over the theatrical release of this film. For one thing, the theatrical release is not director Ridley Scott’s vision; the studio reportedly forced the addition of a tacked-on voice over by Harrison Ford to make the film more accessible. I think it cheapens the film. The director’s cut also adds some important scenes, such as the infamous origami unicorn, which has subsequently provoked fierce debate as to whether Ford’s character Deckard is himself a replicant. The director's cut also removes the tacked-on feel-good sequence at the end of the studio release.

From a few conversations I’ve had about this move, Blade Runner seems to be one of those love it/hate it films—you either love it for its novel-as-cinema qualities, its measured pace, and its thought provoking questions, or you hate it for the same reasons.

Personally, I love Star Wars and other shoot-em-up space opera faire, but I revere Blade Runner for vastly different reasons.

Dungeons and Dragons fan, and (proud?) of it

I'm a huge fan of Dungeons & Dragons and of role-playing games in general. I've been playing D&D since roughly age 10 when my parents, after some begging, bought me the Tom Moldvay box set (you D&D historians know the one--it has the fighter and the fireball-flinging female mage about to battle a green dragon on the cover). Despite a long break with the game in the 1990's, D&D has always been a big part of my life and my chief hobby.

There, I've said it!!!

So why is it that only my immediate family and a few close friends know about my favorite pastime? Why do I keep my keen interest in RPGs a carefully-protected secret at work, at family functions, and from society at large?

Let's not kid ourselves--there's still a huge stigma attached to these games, that's why.

No, I'm not talking about the devil-worshipping, underground steam tunnel/black magic stigma associated with D&D that had parents panicking for the souls of their children in the 1980's. I'm talking about the stigma of nerdiness.

Extreme nerdiness.

Despite the fact that the Harry Potter novels are selling through the roof, that millions of "normal" people flocked to the theatres from 2001-2004 to watch Lord of the Rings, and that no one bats an eye when husbands and wives play computer role playing games like the crazily-popular World of Warcraft, D&D is different. It and other pen-and-pencil, table-top RPGs remain a subject of derision, and its players the object of skepticism. In my own experience, at least, the myth persists that D&D players are fundamentally flawed, out of touch, overweight, cat-piss smelling freaks hovering at the edge of society--and it probably always will.

Never mind the fact that I'm a middle-aged, happily married man with a loving wife and two children. I have a decent paying job in a publishing company. Despite my recent growth of beard, I'm well-kept and in reasonably good shape. At work and elsewhere I'm regarded as an (semi) intelligent, run-of-the-mill, family man. The good folks I play with are all successful, hard-working, great people with lives and families.

Nevertheless, I fear that this veneer of normality would be irreparably shattered into a thousand fragments were I reveal that on some Saturdays I assume the role of Kos Vilmirian, a hard-drinking, wealth-mongering fighter/rogue from the seaside city of Marsember in the Forgotten Realms. I quail at the thought of letting slip the fact that I enjoy rolling 20-sided dice and pushing around painted minatures on maps of sprawling underground dungeons with other grown men (and women) once or twice a month.

I can imagine the conversation at work:

(Me): "So Steve, what did you do this weekend?"
(Steve): "Watched the Pats game with my buddies, went out drinking Saturday night. "You?"
(Me): "Well, we slew the archmage Antarax and his undead minions who were planning to overrun the village of Rithwic. And I scored an awesome +3 Frostband longsword!"
(Steve): *Dies on spot*

You get the picture.

Perhaps my thinking is wrong, and that my friends and co-workers would accept my hobby. Maybe someday I'll grow a backbone and declare to the world that I like slaying pretend orcs, tramping through imaginary dungeons, and searching for make-believe treasure hordes.

But for now, baring my soul to cyberspace will have to suffice.

Book rankings

Somewhere around 2000/2001, I started reviewing all the books I read, using the five-star rating system below. These rankings are based solely on my opinion; your opinion of course may vary.

I would unhesitatingly recommend any books rated as 4-star or 4 ½ star. 5-star books are, in my opinion, must-reads if you are a member of the human race.

Key
*****stars =Perfection, everyone must read these
****1/2 stars =Sheer awesome, great books with a few extremely minor quibbles
****stars =Extremely well done, highly recommended (i.e., great stories that lack literary depth, or fine literature that lacks a bit in storytelling)
***1/2 stars =Recommended, with flaws
***stars =Passable entertainment/beach faire
**1/2 stars =Very flawed, some redeeming features but not recommended
**stars/less =Crap, stay away
Zero stars =Could not finish (not necessarily sucky, just did not engage me)


*****stars
Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
The Once and Future King, T.H. White
The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Two Towers, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Killer Angels, Michael Shaara
Watership Down, Richard Adams
1984, George Orwell
All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Remarque
Flags of our Fathers, James Bradley
With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa, E.B. Sledge
Deliverance, James Dickey

****1/2 stars
No Country for Old Men, Cormac McCarthy
Eric Brighteyes, H. Rider Haggard
The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury
Dandelion Wine, Ray Bradbury
IT, Stephen King
A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving
Beowulf, Seamus Heaney translator
The Broken Sword, Poul Anderson
Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C.S. Lewis
The Last Battle, C.S. Lewis
A Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin
A Clash of Kings, George R.R. Martin
A Storm of Swords, George R.R. Martin
Conan: “The Hour of the Dragon,” “The People of the Black Circle,” “Red Nails,” Robert E. Howard
Gates of Fire, Steven Pressfield
Stonehenge 2000 B.C., Bernard Cornwell
Tides of War, Steven Pressfield
Gates of the Alamo, Stephen Harrigan
On the Road, Jack Kerouac
Band of Brothers, Stephen Ambrose
Citizen Soldiers, Stephen Ambrose
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
1776, David McCullough
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William Shirer
Night Shift, Stephen King
American Gods, Neil Gaiman
The Dark Worlds of H.P. Lovecraft, Volume 5, H.P. Lovecraft
The Road, Cormac McCarthy
The Road to Middle-Earth: How J.R.R. Tolkien Created A New Mythology, Tom Shippey
Dracula, Bram Stoker
The Sea Wolf, Jack London
The Call of the Wild, Jack London
"The Sword of Welleran," Lord Dunsany
The Iliad, Homer
The Children of Hurin, J.R.R. Tolkien
Unfinished Tales, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Book of Merlyn, T.H. White
The Undiscovered Self, C.G. Jung
2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke
Styrbiorn the Strong, E.R. Eddison
Grendel, John Gardner
Swords Against Wizardry, Fritz Leiber
The Spell of Seven, L. Sprague de Camp ed.
The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain

****stars
J.R.R. Tolkien: Myth, Morality, and Religion, Richard Purtill
Something Wicked This Way Comes, Ray Bradbury
Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
Zombies: Encounters with the Hungry Dead, John Skipp ed.
Tarzan of the Apes, Edgar Rice Burroughs
Ivanhoe, Sir Walter Scott
Walden, Henry David Thoreau
One Who Walked Alone, Novalyne Price Ellis
The Company They Keep, Diana Glyer
Tigana, Guy Gavriel Kay
Legend, David Gemmell
Roots and Branches, Tom Shippey
The Return of the Sorcerer, Clark Ashton Smith
On Stories and Other Essays on Literature, C.S. Lewis
Brotherhood of the Revolution: How America's Founders Forged a New Nation (The Modern Scholar), Joseph J. Ellis
The Medieval World I: Kingdoms, Empires, and War (The Modern Scholar), Thomas F. Madden
Airwar, Edward Jablonski
The Halloween Tree, Ray Bradbury
Carrie, Stephen King
The Life of Sir Aglovale De Galis, Clemence Housman
Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
The Foundation Trilogy (Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation), Isaac Asimov
Eaters of the Dead, Michael Crichton
Mucho Mojo, Joe Lansdale
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis
Prince Caspian, C.S. Lewis
The Magician’s Nephew, C.S. Lewis
“The Willows,” The Best Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood
Rosemary’s Baby, Ira Levin
The Worm Ouroboros, E.R. Eddison
On Writing, Stephen King
Lost Souls, Poppy Z. Brite
A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula LeGuin
The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula LeGuin
The Farthest Shore, Ursula LeGuin
The Year’s Best Horror Stories, volume VIII, Karl Edward Wagner, ed.
October Dreams: A Celebration of Halloween, Richard Chizmar and Robert Morrish, ed.
War of the Gods, Poul Anderson
Hrolf Kraki’s Saga, Poul Anderson
The Warlord Chronicles (The Winter King, Enemy of God, Excalibur), Bernard Cornwell
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror—1999, Stephen Jones, ed.
Salem’s Lot, Stephen King
Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre, H.P. Lovecraft
The Crystal Cave, Mary Stewart
We Were Soldiers Once…And Young, Lt. Col. Hal Moore, Joseph Galloway
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula LeGuin
The Face of Battle, John Keegan
At War, at Sea: Sailors and Naval Combat in the 20th Century, Ronald Spector
Hitler and the Holocaust, Robert Wistrich
The Sea of Trolls, Nancy Farmer
J.R.R. Tolkien, Author of the Century, Tom Shippey
Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer
Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer
The Pale Horseman, Bernard Cornwell
The Longest Day, Cornelius Ryan
Don’t Know Much About the Civil War, Kenneth C. Davis
Hiroshima, John Hersey
Egil's Saga, The Sagas of Icelanders
Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Jack Finney
Tolkien and the Great War, John Garth
The Lords of the North, Bernard Cornwell
World War Z, Max Brooks
The Children of Men, P.D. James
The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Humphrey Carpenter ed.
Blood & Thunder: The Life & Art of Robert E. Howard, Mark Finn
The Dark Barbarian, Don Herron ed.
The Barbaric Triumph, Don Herron ed.
The Face in the Frost, John Bellairs
I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
Death in the Afternoon, Ernest Hemingway
World War II, James Jones
Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk
The Allegory of Love, C.S. Lewis
Sword Woman and Other Historical Adventures, Robert E. Howard
The Golden Compass, Philip Pullman
The Fantastic Swordsmen, L. Sprague de Camp ed.
Warriors, George R.R. Martin, Gardner Dozois eds.
The Case for God, Karen Armstrong
The Golden Apples of the Sun, Ray Bradbury
Dangerous Visions, Harlan Ellison ed.
Dark Crusade, Karl Edward Wagner
Tolkien: A Cultural Phenomenon, Brian Rosebury
The Heroes, Joe Abercrombie
Carnage and Culture, Victor Hanson
The Singularity is Near, Ray Kurzweil
The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard, Robert E. Howard
The Children of Odin, Padraic Colum
Speaker for the Dead, Orson Scott Card
The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco
The Silmarillion: Thirty Years On, Allan Turner ed.
Swords and Deviltry, Fritz Leiber
The Snow Leopard, Peter Matthiessen

***1/2 stars
Black God’s Kiss, C.L. Moore
The Pacific, Hugh Ambrose
The Zombie Survival Guide, Max Brooks
The Years Best Fantasy Stories 11, Arthur Saha ed.
Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers, L. Sprague de Camp
Heroic Visions, Jessica Amanda Salmonson, ed.
The Demon of Scattery, Poul Anderson and Mildred Downey Broxon
The Rising, Brian Keene
The Last Lecture, Randy Pausch
Surprised by Joy, C.S. Lewis
The Subtle Knife, Philip Pullman
The Amber Spyglass, Philip Pullman
Tolkien: A Look Behind the Lord of the Rings, Lin Carter
Imaro, Charles Saunders
Bridge to Terabithia, Katherine Paterson
Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse, John Joseph Adams editor
Tolkien and the Invention of Myth, Jane Chance editor
Phantastes, George MacDonald
The Desert of Souls, Howard Andrew Jones
Resolute Determination: Napoleon and the French Empire, (The Modern Scholar)
The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Burning Land, Bernard Cornwell
The Sword of Rhiannon, Leigh Brackett
Perilous Realms: Celtic and Norse in Tolkien’s Middle-Earth, Marjorie Burns
Rings, Swords, and Monsters: Exploring Fantasy Literature, Michael Drout
The Eyes of the Dragon, Stephen King
Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond
Shutter Island, Dennis Lehane
Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien's World, Verlyn Flieger
The War of Art, Steven Pressfield
Tolkien: Man and Myth, A Literary Life, Joseph Pearce
The Living Dead, John Joseph Adams ed.
Agincourt, Bernard Cornwell
The Cold Commands, Richard Morgan
How the Irish Saved Civilization, Thomas Cahill
The Dark is Rising, Susan Cooper
Over Sea Under Stone, Susan Cooper
Thinner, Stephen King
Kingdom of Fear: The World of Stephen King, Tim Underwood and Chuck Miller, eds.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
Three Hearts and Three Lions, Poul Anderson
Carrion Comfort, Dan Simmons
The Silver Chair, C.S. Lewis
“Secret Worship,” The Best Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood
Dragonlance Legends (Time of the Twins, War of the Twins, Test of the Twins), Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
The Illearth War, Stephen R. Donaldson
The Power that Preserves, Stephen R. Donaldson
The Swords of Lankhmar, Fritz Leiber
Swords Against Death, Fritz Leiber
Whispers, Stuart Schiff, ed.
On the Beach, Nevil Shute
The October Country, Ray Bradbury
The Nightmare Chronicles, Douglas Clegg
A Voyage to Arcturus, David Lindsay
Fantasy, Poul Anderson
Savage Season, Joe Lansdale
Bad Chili, Joe Lansdale
The Two-Bear Mambo, Joe Lansdale
“The Wendigo,” The Best Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood
The Fantastic Imagination, Robert Buyer and Ken Zahorski, ed.
The Dying Earth, Jack Vance
The King of Elfland’s Daughter, Lord Dunsany
The Fionavar Tapestry (The Summer Tree, The Wandering Fire, The Darkest Road), Guy Gavriel Kay
The Lost, Jack Ketchum
Modern Masters of Horror, Frank Coffey, ed.
Sound of the Beast, Ian Christie
The Archer’s Tale, Bernard Cornwell
Vagabond, Bernard Cornwell
Heretic, Bernard Cornwell
Freezer Burn, Joe Lansdale
Lost Boy Lost Girl, Peter Straub
Tolkien, Humphrey Carpenter
Between Time and Terror, Robert Weinburg, ed.
The Bottoms, Joe Lansdale
The Devil’s Horsemen, James Chambers
The Last Kingdom, Bernard Cornwell
Eagle in the Snow, Wallace Breem
Waking Nightmares, Ramsey Campbell
The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane, Robert E. Howard
Fly For Your Life, Larry Forrester
The Girl Next Door, Jack Ketchum
The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
Fallen Angels, Walter Dean Myers
A Feast for Crows, George R.R. Martin
Boys’ Life, Robert R. McCammon
The DaVinci Code, Dan Brown
The Black Cauldron, Lloyd Alexander
Hannibal Rising, Thomas Harris
Dreamcatcher, Stephen King
Last Citadel, David Robbins
Flashing Swords #1, Lin Carter ed.
Journey to the Center of the Earth, Jules Verne
Hide and Seek, Jack Ketchum
Fargo Rock City, Chuck Klosterman
Meditations on Middle-Earth, Karen Haber, ed.
Abandon Ship: The Saga of the U.S.S. Indianapolis, Richard Newcomb
The Year’s Best Horror Stories, volume XI, Karl Edward Wagner, ed.
The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion
Paingod and Other Delusions, Harlan Ellison
God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, Christopher Hitchens
The Modern Scholar: Faith and Reason: The Philosophy of Religion, Peter Kreeft
Strange Wine, Harlan Ellison
No Regrets, Ace Frehley
The Dragon Lord, David Drake
Warlocks and Warriors, L. Sprague de Camp ed.

***stars
Last Call, Tim Powers
The Hook, Donald Westlake
Tolkien on Film: Essays on Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings, Jane Chance ed.
The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss
The Steel Remains, Richard Morgan
Bringing Down the House, Ben Mezrich
The Dark Tide, Dennis McKiernan
The Dirt, Motley Crue
Damnation Alley, Roger Zelazny
The Brothers Bulger, Howie Carr
Grails: Quests of the Dawn, Richard Gilliam, Mercedes Lackey, Andre Norton editors
City of the Dead, Brian Keene
Dark Harvest, Norman Partridge
A Princess of Mars, Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Tritonian Ring, L. Sprague de Camp
Desperation, Stephen King
Bag of Bones, Stephen King
Cell, Stephen King
The Horse and His Boy, C.S. Lewis
The Dark Fantastic, Ed Gorman
“Ancient Sorceries,” The Best Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood
Dragonlance Chronicles (Dragons of Autumn Twilight, Dragons of Winter Night, Dragons of Spring Dawning), Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
Lord Foul’s Bane, Stephen R. Donaldson
The Elric Saga, Part I (Elric of Melnibone, The Sailor on the Seas of Fate, The Weird of the White Wolf), Michael Moorcock
The Year’s Best Horror Stories, volume VII, Gerald W. Page, ed.
Borderlands, Thomas Monteleone, ed.
Shadows, Charles L. Grant, ed.
Down the Long Hills, Louis L’Amour
The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle
A Tolkien Compass, Jared Lobdell, ed.
Dead Image, Charles L. Grant, ed.
The Hammer and the Cross, Harry Harrison
The Shapes of Midnight, Joseph Payne Brennan
Shadows 2, Charles L. Grant, ed.
Gallery of Horror, Charles L. Grant, ed.
Fears, Charles L. Grant, ed.
The Well at the World’s End, vols. 1 and 2, William Morris
The Greatest Generation, Tom Brokaw
Dark Dreamers, Stanley Wiater
On to Berlin, James Gavin
Everything’s Eventual—14 Dark Tales, Stephen King
Understanding Tolkien, William Ready
The Book of Three, Lloyd Alexander
The Modern Scholar: Discovering the Philosopher in You, Colin McGinn
The Darkest Day, Dennis McKiernan
Red Moon and Black Mountain, Joy Chant
We’re Alive: A Story of Survival, season one, various
Lost World of Time, Lin Carter
Death of Kings, Bernard Cornwell

**1/2 stars
Kothar and the Wizard Slayer, Gardner Fox
The Well of the Unicorn, Fletcher Pratt
Seven Princes, John Fultz
Shadows of Doom, Dennis McKiernan
Perdido Street Station, China Mieville
The Land that Time Forgot, Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, HP Lovecraft
The Keep, F. Paul Wilson
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Stephen King
The Elric Saga, Part II (The Vanishing Tower, The Bane of the Black Sword, Stormbringer), Michael Moorcock
Swords in the Mist, Fritz Leiber
The Year’s Best Horror Stories IX, Karl Edward Wagner, ed.
Confederacy of the Dead, Richard Gilliam, Martin Greenberg, Edward E. Wagner, ed.
The Drive-in: A Double Feature Omnibus, Joe Lansdale
Master of Middle Earth, Paul H. Kocher
New Terrors, Ramsey Campbell, ed.
White Wolf, David Gemmell
The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXI, Karl Edward Wagner, ed.
From a Buick Eight, Stephen King

**stars
Black Trillium, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Andre Norton, Julian May
The Year’s Best Horror Stories X, Karl Edward Wagner, ed.
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror—2000, Stephen Jones, ed.
Parsival or a Knight’s Tale, Richard Monaco
Pay the Devil, Jack Higgins
Magic Kingdom for Sale: Sold, Terry Brooks

*1/2 stars
Brak: When the Idols Walked, John Jakes

*star
Swords and Ice Magic, Fritz Leiber
Brak vs. the Sorceress, John Jakes

Zero stars
Neuromancer, William Gibson
Hero in the Shadows, David Gemmell
The First Man in Rome, Colleen McCullough