The Face in the Frost: True wizardry at work

John Bellairs' The Face in the Frost is one of those books recommended by Gary Gygax in Appendix N of the Dungeon Master's Guide ("Inspirational Reading") that I've had on my "to read" list for a long time, but never managed to track down. When I finally did score a used paperback copy it sat for months in an unread pile on my bookshelf.

I've now crossed this book off my list, and at 174 pages it flew by in a highly enjoyable and lightning-quick fashion. I would highly recommend it to anyone tired of tedious, drawn out, multi-volume fantasy. The Face in the Frost is not only remarkable due to its brevity, but also because its scope is far more (refreshingly) modest than traditional fantasy fare. There's no dashing young heroes populating the novel, no breathtaking swordplay on display, and no earth-shattering quests to complete. And that's all right. Bellairs reminds us that not all fantasy fiction needs to have its heroes save the world.

The Face in the Frost revolves around two old, earthbound, and rather unheroic wizards--Prospero and Roger Bacon--who embark on a journey to get to the bottom of a seemingly minor disturbance. An old cloak in the basement of Propero's house acts in a threatening manner and strange shapes hover in the woods at the edge of his lawn. When Bacon arrives for an evening of talk over good ale, the two old friends decide to put an end to the growing nuisance. Prospero leaves a note for his cleaning lady and the two set off the next morning through a tunnel in Prospero's basement. We quickly discover that one of Prospero's old peers from his youth--the wizard Melichus, now turned to evil and mischief--is at the root of the disturbance, and the problems take on a much more sinister air.

The Face in the Frost's finest qualities are its details. The world Bellairs creates has the feel of age. The buildings are old, moldy, and sunken; the woods are gnarled, decaying, dark, and mossy. Using sparse but vivid descriptions Bellairs gives Prospero's home and the North Kingdom and the South Kingdom into which the two wizards travel the feeling of groundedness and earthly reality. Prospero and Bacon are both likeable characters and interact with each other with dry wit and genuine friendship that is immediately endearing. In short, Bellairs builds his world and characters far more capably and believeably than many other fantasy authors I've read, and in far, far fewer words. This is no mean feat and a rather impressive piece of artistry.

The Face in the Frost is also recommended for its unique portrayal of magic. The magic here feels unique, dangerous, and unpredictable, much like first edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (and unlike the boring, predictable, safe, modifier-enchancing magic that characterizes most of the spells found in later editions of the game). Spells are found in old musty tomes and require years of study to learn and master, and not even aged and proficient wizards can be sure they have selected the right spell for every occasion. Sometimes the effects are quite unintended (and often humorous). At other times the magic is Lovecraftian and evokes twisted, otherdimensional horrors that should-not-be. It's easy to see how this book was an influence on Gygax and early D&D.

If I have any criticism of the book it's its rather abrupt dues ex machina ending (which I won't spoil here); I was hoping for more of a final confrontation than what Bellairs ultimately delivers. But overall this is a minor complaint and not enough to keep me from recommending it strongly.

(Note: A cover blurb by normally sure-handed editor Lin Carter hails the book as "One of the best fantasy novels to appear since The Lord of the Rings". Not only is this a tired comparison (must every fantasy novel compare itself to Tolkien's masterwork?) but its also misleading in that many will open the novel anticipating another LOTR or Sword of Shannara. Ultimately my fears were groundless--this book is anything but an epic quest. A much more accurate description is this glowing recommendation by Ursula LeGuin: "This is authentic fantasy by a writer who knows what wizardry is all about.")

Dracula revisited: Some observations on an old classic

Bram Stoker’s Dracula is one of those books that, like The Lord of the Rings, I find myself returning to time and time again. There’s a lot going on in this book and a lot to like, both on a literary and a visceral horror/pure entertainment entertainment level. I’ve just finished re-reading it and there’s no doubt that it’s worthy of its classic status. There’s so much to comment upon in this novel, far more than I could ever cover in a single blog post, so I’ll direct my focus on two notable elements:

1. Dracula is a really bad guy (and not all that sexy)

Stoker’s depiction of the vampire contrasts sharply with the way they’re portrayed in popular media these days. Buff sex-symbols and/or world-weary, misunderstood, angst-ridden emo-types seem to have replaced the bloodsucking, undead monsters of yore. I blame Anne Rice’s novels for popularizing this trend, which has reached its full bloom with the Twilight movie.

Now, it’s true that Count Dracula is somewhat of an alpha-male and a sex symbol. Lucy transforms into quite the slut after she’s sampled his wares, and her suitors (and even old Van Helsing) pour their fluids—ahem, blood—into her, one after the other, to sate her ravenous needs. There’s reams of essays describing the scandalous sexuality of Dracula, particularly when viewed against the stiff, priggish Victorian era in which it was written.

But Dracula’s sexual element is mainly subtext. Count Dracula is hardly a suave, debonair Tom Cruise lookalike, seducing women with charm and good looks: He hypnotizes his female victims and drains their blood against their will. In Stoker’s world, sex is a corruptive influence: It’s a monster to be shunned and feared, not a buried urge to liberate and embrace.

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

Update: And now for a brief interruption for World War II

When I was 11 years old my grandfather passed away unexpectedly from a heart attack. He was a veteran of the Pacific theatre in World War II, having served in an antiaircraft unit.

I was too young then to appreciate or fully understand his war time experiences, and I regret not having the opportunity to speak to him about his time in the service later in life. Not long before he died he gave me a Japanese bayonet which I believe he got from the island of Leyte. I still have that memento and a few others, but his story was largely a mystery.

A few years ago I was able to sit down with my one of my grandfather's good friends who served alongside him in the Pacific, and recorded a priceless, lengthy, videotaped interview about their pre- and post-war years together. I'm currently in the middle of getting their story down on paper with the hopes of getting it published in a local newspaper.

In the interim my blogging will be light, and perhaps nonexistent (save for my Thursday cross-posts to The Cimmerian). I owe it to my grandfather and his friend to get their story told and that's what I plan to do. I firmly believe that they were a part of The Greatest Generation.

Cimmerian sighting: The Life of Sir Aglovale De Galis

(Warning—some spoilers ahead)

King Arthur: Which is our greatest quality of knighthood? Courage, compassion, loyalty, humility? What do you say, Merlin?

Merlin: Ah, the greatest. Well, they blend, like the metals we mix to make a good sword.

Arthur: No poetry, just a straight answer. Which is it?

Merlin: All right then. Truth. That’s it. Yes, it must be truth. Above all. When a man lies he murders some part of the world. You should know that.

—Excalibur, John Boorman

If you’re a fan of the Arthurian myths, the above exchange of dialogue from John Boorman’s Excalibur—still the best version of the King Arthur myth ever put to film—is probably scored upon your memory. It’s a shame that, in comparison, Clemence Housman’s The Life of Sir Aglovale De Galis languishes in obscurity. Published in 1905, Housman’s book presages Excalibur by more than 70 years, and Merlin’s prophetic words of wisdom and warning are at the heart of this fine and all too little known novel.

The Life of Sir Aglovale De Galis has for most of its history been a difficult book to track down. In 2000, Green Knight Publishing—a small and apparently defunct firm—republished the story, giving it new life and allowing people like me to finally get a copy. In addition to publishing original and reprinted Arthurian fiction, Green Knight also published the fine Pendragon role playing game, much like TSR and later Wizards of the Coast published a line of novels in conjunction with the Dungeons and Dragons game line. But if you come to The Life of Sir Aglovale De Galis expecting to encounter typical role-playing game fan fiction, you’re in for a rude shock. This is not some breezy tale of the Forgotten Realms. While I wouldn’t go so far as to call it archaic, the language Housman uses is, even for the (roughly) Victorian Era in which it was written, anachronistic. Housman writes in Middle English in a style deliberately imitative of Sir Thomas Malory, author of Le Morte D’Arthur.

In short, The Life of Sir Aglovale De Galis is a difficult book to read. I had to go back and re-read opaque sentences and, on one or two occasions, found myself bogged down in the language. But bearing down and continuing on to the end was very much worth the effort.

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

Up: Uplifting for adults and children alike

Warning--some spoilers ahead.

So my wife was out of town this weekend and it was just me and the two kids. Needing to kill some time and to take my youngest's mind off the fact that mommy was away, I brought them to see the new Pixar animated film Up. And I found myself enjoying the film far more than I had anticipated.

Animated films are catering more and more to parents as well as their children (a smart move, given that we're stuck in the seats too), and I found Up to be not only very entertaining and enjoyable, but thematically ambitious and, to some degree, rather adult.

In addition to containing a good deal of comedy and fun, Up is also a film about coping with the death of a loved one. I was very moved by the opening 15 minutes of the film, which is a brilliantly rendered montage of what life inevitably holds for us all. I can't recall another animated children's film that confronts the viewer with growing old, getting sick, and dying. Up not only reminds us of our mortality, but spends the next 80 minutes or so facing it head on, examining how we can move on with the next phase of their lives. I'm not sure if all kids will understand what's going on (my older daughter did, but not my youngest, who's four), but its certainly an ambitious undertaking.

Up is also about finding meaning in our lives, even when we don't accomplish all we had set out to do, as well as the importance of turning the page on the past. It does so through contrasting Carl Frederickson, the old man and the central figure of the story, with Charles Muntz, Frederickson's boyhood hero. Muntz was wronged as a young man by the scientific community who question his discovery of the fossil remains of a large tropical bird. Humilated by the experience, Muntz spends the rest of his life searching for a living specimen in the hopes of exonerating himself and showing up his critics. Muntz' monomanical search renders his life lonely and empty, and indeed his mode of transportation--the zeppelin Spirit of Adventure--is full of skeletons, a symbol of the dry, dessicated past of which he cannot rid himself.

Likewise, Frederickson clings to his house after his wife passes away, and as the film moves on it becomes a literal albatross that he drags from place to place. But unlike Muntz, he eventually finds the strength to turn the page. There's a great scene near the end where, piece by piece, he unburdens his spirit of the heavy furniture of his past and is able to soar again.

If this sounds all rather deep for an animated film, well, it is, which is why I left Up pleasantly surprised, and why I highly recommend it (your kids will love it too).

Cimmerian sighting: Reading fantasy for escape's sake

Perhaps it’s because I’m a simple man compared to China Mieville (or perhaps it’s because I’m not as passionate about politics as he), but I take pride in my ability to approach fantasy fiction with a minimum of prejudice, and to explore new worlds and new viewpoints with an open mind. In short, I like to read fantasy fiction for the element of escape that it offers.

And, unlike Mieville, I do believe that fantasy can deliver this experience.

In case you missed it, my last post included a link to an interview with Mieville, author of Perdido Street Station and The Scar. In it, Mieville argues that escape through fantasy fiction is impossible, because we, the reader, carry all our prejudices and beliefs with us (he has a lot more to say about the politics of fantasy as well, but I won’t get into those issues here). Says Mieville:

The problem with escapism is that when you read or write a book society is in the chair with you. You can’t escape your history or your culture. So the idea that because fantasy books aren’t about the real world they therefore ‘escape’ is ridiculous. Fantasy is still written and read through the filters of social reality. That’s why some fantasies (like Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels) are so directly allegorical—but even the most surreal and bizarre fantasy can’t help but reverberate around the reader’s awareness of their own reality, even if in a confusing and unclear way.

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

Dracula remains a bloody good read

I'm currently listening to the audio book of Dracula, written by Bram Stoker and narrated by Robert Whitfield. It's a great book, now and likely always the definitive vampire story.

I'll plan on writing a full review once I'm finished, but for now here are some of my favorite scenes:

When Jonathan Harker leaves the west and enters the east en route to the Carpathian mountains and Transylvania, the trains no longer seem to run on time. This foreshadows the weakening of rationality and science in that part of Europe, and the increasing sway of superstition and the occult. This breeds an atmosphere of fear that allows the Count to hold the terrified countryside in his undead grip.

The count leaving his castle and returning with a child stuffed in a bag, which he proceeds to feed to his three vampiric mistresses. When the child's mother comes to the castle to plead for her child's release, Dracula calls a pack of wolves upon her. This is evil, folks--the antithesis of Twilight.

The arrival in Whitby of the ship Demeter. This whole scene is terrific--black stormclouds and a raging gale as the ship rushes toward land, "steered" by its dead captain lashed to the wheel; a large black dog that leaps off the prow once the ship touches shore; a hold full of coffins. Stoker wrote Dracula using a series of journal entries and letters from various narrators, and his use of the captain's log to tell the tale of the crew's strange disappearance, and the thin, ghostly-pale, red-eyed man hunting them one by one during the long voyage at sea, works very effectively.

Renfield. The lunatic asylum resident is a fun, memorable character. I've always enjoyed Dr. Seward's clinical observations of Renfield's carnivorous obsessions--he starts by attracting flies with sugar, which he then feeds to spiders, which he then proceeds to feed to captured sparrows. Renfield then asks for a kitten. Seward refuses the request, but it's chilling to think what would have become of the creature--and what would have been the next step in the food chain.

Dracula's early appearances in England, which include a trip to the zoo in which he frees a wolf. The zookeeper's description of the count to the authorities is suitably sinister--tall and thin, with a hook nose and pointed, mostly black beard, a hard, cold look and red eyes, white kid gloves, and a mouth full of white, sharp teeth. His sardonic, playful conversation with the dim-witted zookeeper reminded me of Hannibal Lecter's conversations with Agent Starling--humor mixed with a sinister undercurrent of murder.

Van Helsing. Along with the Count, the old, brilliant professor from Amsterdam is probably the most memorable character in Dracula. Some of my favorite scenes occur when Van Helsing realizes that a vampire is preying on Lucy Westenra, but is reluctant to tell the others, knowing that no one will believe him. This makes for some morbidly humorous moments, as when he tells Dr. Seward that Lucy will need to be "disposed of" after her death:

Tomorrow I want you to bring me, before night, a set of post-mortem knives.

Must we make an autopsy? I asked.

Yes, and no. I want to operate, but not as you think. Let me tell you now, but not a word to another. I want to cut off her head and take out her heart. Ah! you a surgeon, and so shocked!

The "Bloofer Lady." When Lucy rises from the dead and leaves her crypt to feed, the Westminster Gazette begins to report cases of young children returning home late. One child reports meeting a mysterious woman who asked him to come for a walk. The child refers to her as the 'bloofer lady.' The name becomes a funny catch phrase among the children until one of them goes missing, and is later found weak and emaciated with a wound to its throat. The device of a childish nickname for something monstrous would later be used by Stephen King.

Cimmerian sighting: Heavy metal and fantasy

Like a wizard and his staff, or a dragon and its gleaming horde, heavy metal/hard rock music and fantasy literature are an inseparable pair. I haven’t seen any statistics published on the subject, but fans of J.R.R. Tolkien and Robert E. Howard just seem more inclined to listen to heavy metal than any other genre of music.

For a small sample of this trend, you need look no further than The Cimmerian’s About the Bloggers page: While I can’t speak for Leo, Steve, or Al, Deuce and I wear our metal credentials on our sleeves like Sauron’s orcs bear the Lidless Eye (for the record, Deuce is more metal than me). I don’t think it’s an aberration that at least 40% of this site’s bloggers are metal fans; there’s something to this phenomenon, even if I don’t quite understand the connection.

You don’t have to look far or dig deep to see the connections between metal and fantasy. Led Zeppelin might be the most popular fantasy-influenced hard rock band, with songs based on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien (Ramble On, Misty Mountain Hop) and Viking invaders (Immigrant Song). Progressive rock band Rush also shows Tolkien influences on its early albums, including Rivendell and The Necromancer. Molly Hatchet’s album covers featured work by the immortal Frank Frazetta, he of Conan the Cimmerian Lancer fame.

And that’s just hard rock. Full-blown heavy metal artists take the fantasy influence and turn it up to 11.

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

Matheson’s I Am Legend falls short of classic status

Warning—stop here if you don't want to be spoiled.

So I just finished re-reading (actually, listening to the audio version of) Richard Matheson’s 1954 horror novella I Am Legend, and for the second time I came away with the same reaction: Good book, worth reading--but a horror classic, top 10 material as I’ve frequently seen it praised around the Web? I’m not so sure, Stephen King.

First, let me state the obligatory and not undeserved praise for I Am Legend:

• Matheson deserves a lot of credit for taking a creative, unique approach to the tired vampire genre.
• I am Legend helped to inspire the excellent zombie films of George Romero, and Romero’s recent successors. More reason for praise.
• Matheson was, I think, the first to tackle the scenario of the last man on earth. It's a nifty concept.
• In general, it’s a well-written, easy to read book.
  

Now that that’s out of the way, I'll admit that I found I Am Legend a bit disappointing. Yes, I know it's acknowleged as a classic in the genre. Yes, I realize it's been adapted for the screen no fewer than three times. But even though it may cost me my "horror cred," I Am Legend for me is a bit overrated.

For starters, there’s not enough introspection and depth to the story. Robert Neville is the last man on Earth. Barricaded in his home and surrounded by vampires by night, he hunts the creatures by day while searching for a scientific answer to the virus that infected all of humanity. Such a tightly-focused, one character book has the opportunity to explore what it means to be a human, for example. It could have been a powerful statement against anti-conformity (Neville is the ultimate non-conformist, as he deliberately holds out against the living dead as the last living man on Earth).

But Matheson, in my opinion, opts for mere plot over substance, and I Am Legend is a lesser book for it. What we do get is a semi-interesting tale of survival and a man trying desperately to crack the code of the vampire virus, and not much else. It should have/could have been much more.

I’m the first one to praise short stories and lament their fading influence, but I Am Legend reads like a novella that should have been a novel. In short, it’s too short. There are some interesting, fertile concepts here that unfortunately aren’t played out. For example, I wanted to see more of the society being rebuilt by the “living” vampires who eventually exterminate their undead brethren. I would have liked more flashbacks to the collapse of society and scenes of the chaos of the virus spreading across the globe. Instead, Matheson provides only the briefest of glimpses. More than that, I wanted more introspection, more of what makes Neville tick. We’re given tantalizing glimpses of Neville’s humanity in his friendship with a dog, and in a budding romance with a female survivor. Again, these are unfortunately quite cursory. Matheson spends a lot of I Am Legend’s limited page count showing us the science of vampirism, a rather dry, unconvincing explanation I could have done without.

Another problem I have with the novella is that Matheson’s vampires aren’t particularly scary, and their behavior is inconsistent. They’re dangerous in hordes, sure, but how can we take seriously creatures that prove utterly incapable of breaking into a boarded-up house (if the garlic on the doors and windows are too much, couldn’t they knock a hole in its side)? Matheson also doesn’t sufficiently define their abilities and limitations, at least for my tastes. Are the undead vampires of I Am Legend possessed of mere animal intelligence? It’s unclear. At times, they are able to reason. For example, female vampires are capable of using crude sexual acts in attempt to seduce Neville into coming out of his home. Neville’s neighbor calls him by name, and in one scene anticipates Neville returning back home and circles back to wait for him. These are the actions of something more than animal. Yet the vampires are unable to come up with any plans more cunning than lobbing bricks at Neville’s house, and at times appear no more intelligent than Romero’s zombie hordes. Stoker's Count Dracula is scarier and far more capable than the bunch of them combined.

I’ll admit that the ending of I Am Legend is pretty brilliant. Matheson turns the vampire legend squarely on its ear with Neville’s realization that he, as the last man on Earth, has become a reviled creature of superstition and legend, personifying the myth of the ancient, blood-sucking vampire. He knows what it’s like to walk in the shoes of a hunted, misunderstood “monster,” and remains defiant until the end. I just wish the rest of the book measured up with its shattering conclusion.

Cimmerian sighting: Twenty five years on, The (original) Terminator remains unstoppable

Listen, and understand! That Terminator is out there. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.

Kyle Reese, The Terminator

From the previews I’ve seen, Terminator Salvation (which opened today in a theatre near you) looks pretty damned good, at least visually. But it will take one hell of an effort to wrest the title of best Terminator film from the vice-like, cyborg death grip of the original.

I don’t necessarily consider Rotten Tomatoes a bellwether for my own critical appreciation of a film, but it says something that The Terminator (1984) has a perfect, 100% “fresh” rating out of 38 total reviews. I won’t argue with the critics; the first Terminator is still the best in my book. Others argue convincingly for Terminator 2, a fine sequel whose special effects were revolutionary for its time and remain spectacular now. However, in my opinion the first film is better plotted, and more compelling due to its uncompromising ruthlessness and non-stop narrative thrust. T2 is excellent but has a tad too much humor and playfulness injected into the script for my own tastes.

Part of my unabashed love for The Terminator may be nostalgia: I was a kid when I first saw the film and was simultaneously enthralled by the great action and visuals, and haunted by its apocalyptic vision of the future, one which seemed all too plausible—not Skynet or robots, mind you, but nuclear destruction. When The Terminator came out the cold war was still going on and a full-scale nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union was an all too real possibility. The grim television miniseries The Day After was frightening audiences at the time with the likely impact of a nuclear war, which promised instant annihilation for some, and a prolonged, painful death by radiation poisoning for the less fortunate. The Terminator seized on the fears of the age and a generation growing up with an omnipresent fear of atomic annihilation. I’ll never forget the ominous, mechanical opening theme, and the visceral image of the futuristic tank crushing a mound of skulls under its merciless track.

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

Tears of the Dragon: How Bruce Dickinson helped rescue heavy metal

The year was 1994. Heavy metal was arguably at its nadir. Iron Maiden and Judas Priest were without their lead singers, Metallica had sold out, and Queensryche released Promised Land (yuck). The pretentious, overrated grunge scene (now deader than a doornail, I gloat with savage glee) had knocked metal from its long-held reign on the music throne. Flannel, hackey-sacks, and greasy hair were king, and denim and black t-shirts were out. I was still a card-carrying member of heavy metal, but my spirits and my optimism for the genre’s future were admittedly at their lowest ebb.

But in the midst of that dreadful year a song arrived to lift my spirits like a winged angel: Bruce Dickinson’s “Tears of the Dragon.” When I first heard this song (on the now-extinct Headbanger’s Ball) it brought a lump to my throat, so majestic and amazing were its power and vocals. Like a razor-sharp broadsword, Dickinson’s unmistakable voice cut straight through the Nirvana/Pearl Jam/Alice in Chains pabulum that the rock stations were shoving down our throats.

This clip from Youtube features Dickinson performing “Tears of the Dragon” in a studio, accompanied only by an acoustic guitar. There’s no faking it here, no pop-princess soundboard-smithing of his voice, just raw power and beauty. I encourage you to listen to it.

Alas, the rest of the album on which “Tears of the Dragon” appears (Balls to Picasso) ultimately proved rather weak and largely forgettable, but this song alone made the album worth owning. And “Tears of the Dragon” proved to be a harbinger of several more great solo efforts to come from Dickinson.

For those completely unfamiliar with heavy metal, Dickinson is the lead singer of Iron Maiden. Dickinson has always been an amazing singer and performer. Early in his career he could hit any note, regardless of how long or high. For proof, I offer this early live clip of him singing arguably the greatest heavy metal song ever written, Hallowed be thy Name.

But following some long tours with Maiden Dickinson’s voice seemed to deteriorate. His lowest point was No Prayer for the Dying or perhaps A Real Dead One, two albums on which his pipes sounded rough and strained. Shortly after Maiden released the uninspired Fear of the Dark in 1992, Dickinson left the band. It was a good time for a split by both sides—Bruce needed a break, and the band’s songwriting needed a recharge.

After Balls to Picasso came Skunkworks, another Dickinson solo album for which I’ve never acquired a taste. But then came Accident of Birth, in my opinion a home run. That was followed by The Chemical Wedding, the equivalent of a ninth-inning walk-off grand slam. It’s really that good, one of the best heavy metal albums of the 1990’s.

Dickinson’s voice alone does not explain his success. Other singers are as gifted or nearly as gifted as the Air Raid Siren. Rather, it’s his ability to weave powerful lyrics and themes that cut to the soul. The Chemical Wedding’s "Jerusalem" and its title track, Accident of Birth’s "Darkside of Aquarius" and "Man of Sorrows", and Tyranny of Souls’ "Kill Devil Hill" and title track are amazingly well-sung and well-written. If you’re a heavy metal fan and you don’t own these albums, buy them now. Heck, if you don’t like metal but can appreciate great singing, hunt them down on Youtube and listen/see for yourself.

When you combine an ability to write great music with a voice from the angels—or perhaps more accurately, ripped from the throat of a screaming banshee—you have a recipe for greatness. Pardon my man-gushing, but Dickinson really is, in my opinion, heavy metal’s greatest talent. Did I mention he's also a published author, licensed airplane pilot, and a one-time world-class fencer? What can't the man do?

Dickinson returned to Iron Maiden in 1999 for the Ed Hunter tour (I saw them in the small Orpheum Theatre in Boston that year and will never forget the show, which featured great music and heatstroke-inducing 100-plus degree temperatures). In 2000 Maiden released its first album with Dickinson back as lead singer, Brave New World. It was a great return to form for both he and the band. After another Maiden album in 2003 (Dance of Death), Dickinson released his sixth and most recent solo effort, Tyranny of Souls, in 2005.

Heavy metal, Iron Maiden, and Bruce Dickinson are back and better than ever. While I hope Maiden keeps cranking out the albums (A Matter of Life and Death is a great one), here’s hoping that the man who helped rescue metal from a dark age brings us more great solo efforts in the coming decade.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Still funny after all these years, and better than ever on audio

Humor is arguably the most difficult genre of writing to pull off. Hampered by the limitations of the print medium, humor writers must ply their craft without the benefit of a number of tools commonly used in live comedy and in film—visual gags, voice inflections, timing, and so on. This inherent difficulty is why good comedy writers like Dave Barry are a scarce commodity, and worth reading when you can find them.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is one of those rare examples of written comedy that actually works. When I last read this book back in middle school (it seemed like every dorky, D&D and Atari-playing kid like me was toting it around at the time), I enjoyed it very much. But I was in for an even more pleasant surprise when I recently returned to this book via the audio format. This was actually the first comedy I’ve listened to on CD, and I now believe that this genre might benefit the most from audio treatment. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a first-rate example of what a talented narrator/actor can do with funny, well-written material. English actor/comedian Stephen Fry takes The Hitchhiker’s Guide to new comedic heights, and on a few occasions I found myself laughing out loud during my commute to work. Fry literally turns the text into a running Monty Python skit.

The plot of the book is as follows: Arthur Dent, a nondescript Englishman, is about to lose his house to a construction crew in the name of progress (an overpass is scheduled to run through Dent’s property). Simultaneously, an alien race called the Vogrons has scheduled the vaporization of earth to clear the way for a hyperspatial express route. Dent is saved from destruction at the last second by his friend Ford Prefect, a roving alien researcher on the earth to complete an entry for a galactic encyclopedia called The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Prefect and Dent later hook up with Zaphod Beeblebrox, Galactic President and rogue ship-thief, and his two crewmates (an annoying robot stricken with depression and ennui named Marvin, and Trillian, a female and earth’s only other survivor). Beeblebrox has stolen a cutting-edge spaceship called the Heart of Gold and is on a mission to find the lost planet of Magrathea, rumored to hold riches beyond imagining, as well as the answers to the mystery of life, the universe, and everything.

To appreciate The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy you must like Monty Python (author Douglas Adams has writing credits in an episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, and appeared in two others, and his British comedy influences are plain). Here’s an example of the type of humor you’ll find:

Vogon poetry is of course the third worst in the Universe. The second worst is that of the Azgoths of Kria. During a recitation by their Poet Master Grunthos the Flatulent of his poem “Ode to a Small Lump of Green Putty I Found in My Armpit One Midsummer Morning” four of his audience died of internal hemorrhaging, and the President of the Mid-Galactic Arts Nobbling Council survived by gnawing one of his own legs off. Grunthos is reported to have been “disappointed” by the poem’s reception, and was about to embark on a reading of his twelve-book epic entitled My Favorite Bathtime Gurgles when his own major intestine, in a desperate attempt to save life and civilization, leaped straight up through his neck and throttled his brain.

The very worst poetry of all perished along with its creator, Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings of Greenbridge, Essex, England, in the destruction of the planet Earth.

Although The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is ostensibly mere over-the-top comedy, part of the reason (I believe) for its enduring appeal are its pithy insights about the nature of humanity and the universe and mankind’s raison d’etre. Overall it’s well worth reading and/or listening to.

This review also appears on SFFaudio.com .

Cimmerian sighting: To read, or to re-read

I’ve never understood the claim that, once read, a book is bereft of value. I have seen this absurd belief posited on several occasions around the Web, and it continues to puzzle me. You mean to tell me that there’s no value in re-living the wondrous adventures of The Fellowship of the Ring? That it’s possible for someone to pick up every nuance and plot detail of the phonebook-sized A Song of Ice and Fire tomes the first time? That, once you’ve read Red Nails, you’ve sucked it dry of its magic, and you can safely close the cover on the tale of the wild, warring tribes of Xuchotl forever? For me, this one-book, one-read claim smacks of either arrogance (“I can assimilate any text with laser precision the first time, every time. Can’t you?”) or ignorance (“Yes, yes, I already know the One Ring was destroyed. Now I’ve moved on to bigger and better stories like The Sword of Shannara”).

But lately I find myself slightly (very, very slightly) sympathetic to this view, for the sole reason that I’m in the process of building a towering pile of books that I’ve never read, big enough to obscure the old favorites behind it. Here’s a sample from my bookshelf.

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

Top 10 fantasy fiction battles: The Battle of Unnumbered Tears

4. The Children of Hurin, J.R.R. Tolkien
Nirnaeth Arnoediad

Great was the triumph of Morgoth, and his design was accomplished in a manner after his own heart; for Men took the lives of Men, and betrayed the Eldar, and fear and hatred were aroused among those that should have been united against him.

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion

As much as I enjoy the Battle of the Pelennor Fields and the Battle of Five Armies, neither can compare in size, pathos, devastation, and sheer magnificence with the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, also known as the Battle of Unnumbered Tears, one of the six major battles of the First Age of Middle Earth. Imagine magnificent elf-lords in gleaming armor and high white helms, doughty dwarves blasted with dragon fire, Balrogs engaging in single combat, a battle of betrayal, of bravery and sacrifice, and of ultimate ruin. That is the Nirnaeth Arnoediad.

Though not quite as enormous as the War of Wrath, the Battle of Unnumbered Tears is massive in scope. This Wikipedia entry does a nice job of pulling together an order of battle that estimates 330,000-500,000 orcs in the hosts of Angband, the fortress of the dark lord Morgoth. Opposing them is a force of approximately 85,000-120,000 elves, men, and dwarves.

If these massive armies weren’t enough, Morgoth's forces are reinforced with balrogs, trolls, wolves, and the dragon Glaurung. That’s right—balrogs and a dragon are involved in the battle. The armies of elves, men, and dwarves include several great heroes of their age, such as are rarely seen in the Third Age of Middle Earth (the age in which The Lord of the Rings takes place) and of which songs are still sung.

Such a battle defies description: Even Tolkien, its creator, can’t do it justice. As he writes in The Children of Hurin:

Many songs are yet sung and many tales are yet told by the Elves of the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, the Battle of Unnumbered Tears, in which Fingon fell and the flower of the Eldar withered. If all were now retold a man’s life would not suffice for the hearing.

I’d be willing to sit at the feet of Tolkien's shade and listen to a full recounting of the battle, but I have only one life to give to the endeavor. Alas, as it now stands, our only description of the battle are eight pages in The Children of Hurin and a brief section of The Silmarillion. Still, what is told and/or hinted at is enough to easily earn the battle a place in my Top 10 Fantasy Fiction Battles.

As befits its name, the Battle of Unnumbered Tears results in perhaps the most devastating loss on the battlefield for the forces of good in J.R.R. Tolkien’s legendarium—utter defeat of the Noldor elves, the death of Fingon, their king, and the capture and eventual torture of the great human hero Hurin. It’s an antidote for critics who accuse Tolkien of being soft on war, and a teller of easy, child-friendly tales in which the forces of good always prevail. This opinion (and I've seen it espoused in more than one place) is horseshit.

The battle rages for at least six days, from what I can gather from the text, and is like a great, slowly unfolding tragedy. The forces of good are well-prepared, confident, and hold the high ground, and when Turgon and his 10,000-strong army issues uncalled for from Gondolin, Fingon’s heart is filled with hope of final victory. “The day has come! Behold, people of the Eldar and Fathers of Men, the day has come!” he says.

But a black night is in store. The Captain of Morgoth sends out heralds with tokens of parley, and bring with them Gelmir, a lord of Nargothrond, an elven lord whom Morgoth had blinded in captivity. The heralds cruelly hew off his arms and legs in plain sight of the elves and leave him to die. As fate would have it, Gelmir’s brother Gwindor sees this act of butchery and charges the heralds in a blind rage, slaughtering them. His forces continue the attack all the way through the gates of Angband, penetrating so far and with such wrath that Morgoth himself, hearing Gwindor and his men beating upon his door, trembles on his throne. But Gwindor is trapped at the doors and captured, and all his folk slain there.

Back on the field, Fingon and the main body of the elves have followed Gwindor onto the battle-plain where they no longer have the advantage of high ground, and there begins the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, “all the sorrow of which no tale can contain,” Tolkien writes. The field is lost when Gothmog, a balrog and high-captain of Angband, meets King Fingon in combat on the field. Fingon fights Gothmog to a standstill until a second balrog comes behind him and casts a throng of steel around him. Gothmog hews Fingon’s white helm with a stroke of his black axe, killing the elven king. “Thus fell the King of the Noldor; and they beat him into the dust with their maces, and his banner, blue and silver, they trod into the mire of his blood.” In addition, the Easterlings turn traitor and fall upon the rear of the sons of Feanor, helping to turn the tide of battle in favor of Morgoth.

Fingon’s younger brother Turgon escapes back to Gondolin thanks to a brave, suicidal rear guard action by Hurin and his brother Huor. This is perhaps the most poignant pause in a battle filled with such moments. Says Huor to the elf-lord:

“This I say to you, lord, with the eyes of death: though we part here for ever, and I shall not look on your white walls again, from you and from me a new star shall arise. Farewell!”

The Men of Dol-lomin fight a terrific last stand, affecting Turgon’s escape, but there is no escape for the brothers. Huor falls with a venomed arrow in his eye, all his valiant men are slain about him in a heap, “and the Orcs hewed their heads and piled them as a mound of gold in the sunset.”

Then comes the ultimate end. If this passage doesn’t invoke a chill in your soul, Tolkien will never be for you:

Last of all Hurin stood alone. Then he cast aside his shield, and seized the axe of an orc-captain and wielded it two-handed; and it is sung that the axe smoked in the black blood of the troll-guard of Gothmog until it withered, and each time that he slew Hurin cried aloud: ‘Aure entuluva! Day shall come again!’ Seventy times he uttered that cry; but they took him at last alive, by the command of Morgoth, who thought thus to do him more evil than by death. Therefore the Orcs grappled Hurin with their hands, which clung to him still, though he hewed off their arms; and ever their numbers were renewed, till he fell buried beneath them.

Unfortunately for Hurin, he is taken alive.

The enduring image of the battle is a great mound of corpses of men, elves, and dwarves that can be seen for miles off, and upon which no servant of Morgoth dares to trod. It later grows green and is the only verdant place in the desert of Anfauglith. Wives of the slain later find it and grieve upon it. Artist Ted Nasmith’s wonderful, grim painting “The Hill of the Slain” captures this image beautifully and terribly.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention one other amazing sequence of the battle that is not included in The Children of Hurin, but which can be found in The Silmarillion: A battle of dwarves and dragons. Glaurung the dragon and his brood are wreaking havoc upon the Noldor, who break before the fire-spewing wyrm. But standing firm are the Dwarves of Belegost, who wear “great masks in battle hideous to look upon” and are thus able to withstand the flames. The dwarves surround Glaurung and hack at him with their axes. Glaurung in his rage turns and strikes down Azaghal, Lord of Belegost, and crawls over him, but with his dying stroke Azaghal drives a knife into his belly, so wounding him that he flees the field. The grief-stricken dwarves bear away their lord singing a dirge, and none dare to stay them, not even their foes. It’s an amazing image.

Cimmerian sighting: Evaluating Don Herron's hard look at Stephen King

Essayist/raconteur Don Herron is best known ‘round these parts for his outstanding Robert E. Howard criticism, which includes essays and editing duties in seminal works like The Dark Barbarian and The Barbaric Triumph. Elsewhere he’s also regarded as an expert on the works of renowned mystery and noir writer Dashiell Hammett.

Based on this photo, he also wears a fedora and trenchcoat better than anyone.

But a lesser-known side of Herron’s resume includes his Stephen King criticism. I myself was unaware of Herron’s work as a reviewer of the king of horror until coming across his essay, “King: The Good, the Bad, and the Academic” from Kingdom of Fear: The World of Stephen King (1986, NAL/Plume).

Seeing as how I’m writing for The Cimmerian website, whose now defunct print journal was home for many Herron essays, this next statement may make me seem like a suck-up, but that’s fine, I’ll say it anyway: I think Herron’s essay is perhaps the best in Kingdom of Fear. This is no mean feat, given that some of the other contributors to the volume include horror immortals like Robert Bloch, Ramsey Campbell, Clive Barker, and Harlan Ellison.

Whether or not you agree with that assessment, it’s rather indisputable that Herron’s essay is the most provocative of the lot. I first started typing “equal parts criticism and praise,” but upon further review it’s decidedly tipped in favor of the negative. Considering that Kingdom of Fear was published in 1986—arguably the height of King’s creativity and popularity—Herron’s final analysis of King as a talented but flawed writer is rather ballsy. Herron pulls no punches, neither for King nor his legions of fans and admirers. For example, he rips Douglas Winter’s book Stephen King: The Art of Darkness for containing too much fan-worship and not enough honest appraisal. Writes Herron: “[It] strikes me as remarkable because Winter never once disagrees with a King dictum, he does not suggest that one of the novels under discussion might, just possibly, have a minor flaw or two. In this respect it is typical of most of the new criticism, where the critics, like the audience of teenage girls who buy so many of the King books, find everything to be just wonderful.”

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

The Devil You Know: A review

Maybe if we cry together
Maybe if we cry as one
The tears that fall can kill
the fire
And keep everyone from
Atom and evil

--Heaven and Hell, Atom and Evil

I am one of those rare breeds who prefers the Ronnie James Dio-fronted Black Sabbath to the Ozzy Osbourne years (I acknowledge Black Sabbath's early greatness, but my favorite album remains Heaven and Hell). So it was with great anticipation of another Dio-Tony Iommi collaboration that I bought The Devil You Know.

After a couple play-throughs, The Devil You Know is what I would consider a slow burn--nothing jumps out at you at first listen, but it seems to get better with each subsequent spin. Still, I can't shake the feeling that, after waiting for 14 or so years since the last Black Sabbath album (1995's Cross Purposes), and 17 years since the last Ronnie James Dio-fronted Sabbath album (1992's Dehumanizer), I wanted something that immediately grabbed me by the throat. Sadly, there's no pulse-pounding Neon Knights to be found.

There is at least one bona-fide awesome song on this album, Bible Black. If you've ever heard Sign of the Southern Cross or Children of the Sea, Bible Black is in that same epic vein--a slow, melodic, acoustic intro, followed by an explosion of sound and Dio lauching into the song with his inimitable voice. My other favorites on the album are shaping up to be Atom and Evil (both a biblical allusion and a warning about unchecked nuclear proliferation), Follow the Tears, and Neverwhere.

The rest of the songs are solid if rather unspectacular, though I hope that changes with subsequent listens. As of now, the only ones that I'd rate as sub-par are Rock and Roll Angel and Eating the Cannibals.

Dio's voice doesn't have quite its old range and power anymore, but at 66 years old he's still pretty damned amazing. And if he's lost a little off his fastball he sounds arguably more evil and "metal" than ever, if that makes sense. The guy is a metal god, as is Iommi and bassist Geezer Butler, who pound out some awesome riffs on the album. The sound of the album is dark and bass-heavy, about what you'd expect. Iommi also launches into a couple memorable guitar solos (remember those?)

It's worth noting that the title of album and its artwork are a clever play on words and images--Black Sabbath is of course known for its use of satanic lyrics, but the band itself is the "devil" all metal fans know and love so well. The cover art (see below post) is exceptional, and appears to fuse both traditional Black Sabbath imagery and the Dio Sabbath/solo years. I might be reading into the image too much, but I can't help but feel that the long-horned demon bears more than a passing resemblance to the devil creature on Holy Diver and a handful of Dio's other solo albums.

The Devil You Know: I've got it in my greedy hands

Today I did something rather out of the ordinary in my all too ordinary life--I bought a CD on its first day of release: The new Black Sabbath (scratch that, Heaven and Hell) album, The Devil You Know.

I know, I'm a damned lunatic. Stand back.

It's way too early for me to post an honest review and frankly, I haven't given my full attention to the album yet. But my initial impression is that it's got a good, dark, bass-heavy sound, decent if not soaring vocals by Dio, and at least one early leader: a great song named "Bible Black."

More on this to come.

Slaughterhouse-Five: A review

And Lot’s wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human.

So she was turned to a pillar of salt. So it goes.

—Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five

During World War II, author Kurt Vonnegut was taken prisoner by the Germans and held captive in the city of Dresden, which was later reduced to flaming rubble during a harrowing fire-bombing by American forces. According to Vonnegut, the city was a gorgeous center of art, architecture, and fine civilian life; its value as a military target was negligible. “What I’ve said about the firebombing of Dresden is that not one person got out of a concentration camp a microsecond earlier, not one German deserted his defensive position a microsecond earlier,” Vonnegut said.

Somewhere between 25,000 and 120,000 civilians (the upper figure is an early estimate, which has since been revised downward to 25,000-40,000) were killed in the inferno of incendiary and high explosive bombs. As such, Dresden remains a controversial, dark chapter of America’s involvement in the war.

Slaughterhouse-Five is Vonnegut’s look back on this dreadful event. It’s not a traditional biography, but a modified account of his own experiences as seen through the eyes of Billy Pilgrim, a tall, awkward, disconnected dreamer who is drafted into the army and thrust into combat. Pilgrim is a pathetic soul with the appearance of a “filthy flamingo,” involved in tragic events beyond his control.

Captured during the Battle of the Bulge, Pilgrim and 100 other soldiers are shipped to Dresden to serve as prison-labor. At night they sleep in a storage-cave beneath a slaughterhouse amidst the butchered carcasses of animals, and it’s this arrangement that allows them to survive the attack. After the firebombing, they emerge the next morning to find the once-beautiful Dresden so utterly destroyed that it resembles the surface of the moon.

A part of me feels guilty for reviewing Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five on a science fiction/fantasy Web site. The connections of this classic anti-war novel to the science fiction genre are tenuous, but it attains this designation (in some circles) due to the presence of the Tralfamadorians, a race of aliens that capture Pilgrim and bring him back to their planet for examination. During his months on Tralfamadore, Pilgrim is placed in a sort of zoo, his body and mind laid bare to the curious aliens.

The Tralfamadorians may be simply the imagination of an unwell, traumatized mind. Pilgrim is emotionally unbalanced, suffers a head injury after the war, and reads voraciously of the novels of science fiction writer Kilgore Trout, one of whose novels concerns an alien abduction that sounds suspiciously like Pilgrim’s own experiences on Trafalmadore. But the Tralfamadorians—real or not—allow Vonnegut to explore the concept of time and our place in it, which is the larger theme of the novel. The Tralfamadorians can see in four dimensions and have no concept of time; life just is, and human existence is a series of events and happenings with no beginnings and ends. Events simply occur; wars are fought, we are powerless to stop them and it’s ridiculous to think we can. Free will is a farce.

Pilgrim’s time among the Tralfamadorians allows him to experience his life in this fourth dimension, moving his mind back and forth to the past and future, seemingly at will. He is able to see his own death, and relive events from his childhood, his marriage, and his career as an optometrist. But Pilgrim’s wandering, time-traveling mind returns again and again to the terrible events of Dresden, an experience so powerful that his mind is unable to make sense of it. It just is, and all he can do with the rest of life is to try and look upon the good times in his life, the moments of joy, and not linger too long over the blackened, shrunken bodies of Dresden, or a fellow American and friend executed for salvaging a teapot from the ruins.

Actor Ethan Hawke (of Dead Poets Society and Hamlet fame) serves as the narrator and does a nice job reading with an understated, dispassionate voice that perfectly fits the tone of the novel. This Blackstone Audio production also includes an unexpected and enlightening 10-minute interview with Vonnegut on the final disc. Here Vonnegut reveals that Pilgrim’s character was based on a real person, Edward Crone, an American who died in Dresden. “He just didn’t understand the war at all, what was going on, and of course there was nothing to understand—he was right,” Vonnegut says.

This review also appears on SFFaudio.com.

Cimmerian sighting: Of Wolf Larsen and embracing the Howardian hero

“He led a lost cause, and he was not afraid of God’s thunderbolts,” Wolf Larsen was saying. “Hurled into hell, he was unbeaten. A third of God’s angels he had led with him, and straightway he incited man to rebel against God, and gained for himself and hell the major portion of all the generations of man. Why was he beaten out of heaven? Because he was less brave than God? less proud? less aspiring? No! A thousand times no! God was more powerful, as he said, Whom thunder hath made greater. But Lucifer was a free spirit. To serve was to suffocate. He preferred suffering in freedom to all the happiness of a comfortable servility. He did not care to serve God. He cared to serve nothing. He was no figure-head. He stood on his own legs. He was an individual.”

—Jack London, The Sea Wolf

Occasionally when I read Robert E. Howard I wonder: What is it that attracts me to his writing? Is it his great, galloping storytelling? Yes—if pressed, I would say that this is Howard’s finest trait as a writer. Is it the swords and sorcery trappings of Howard’s Conan and Kull stories? Yes—I’ve always felt an attraction to arms and armor, lost civilizations, and monsters and magic, which is probably why I favor these characters above Howard’s others. Is it is his disdain for civilization? Yes, this too—as an office worker in 21st century America, I have my frustrating, bad days where I feel an apathy or outright disgust for “the system.”

But do I also read Robert E. Howard for wish-fulfillment, for the vicarious thrill of stepping into the personas of Howard’s self-sufficient, strong, warlike heroes? Yes, I do. When reading stories like “The Shadow Kingdom” or “The Phoenix on the Sword,” I admit to imagining myself as a larger-than-life barbarian-king from an impossibly ancient era, living by the simple, violent code, “By this axe, I rule.”

I actually arrived at this realization not while reading Howard, but while re-reading one of his favorite authors and literary influences—Jack London, and specifically London’s The Sea Wolf. In this book we’re introduced to Wolf Larsen, the brutal, iron fisted captain of the sealing schooner Ghost. London spends considerable pages trying to convince the reader of Larsen’s despicable nature. Larsen is more beast than man: He rules with an iron fist, crushing his crew brutally underfoot, particularly those who dare to exhibit a will of their own. He doesn’t truck with weakness, or morality (in Larsen’s eyes, these qualities are one and the same). He forbids his crew to go to the aid of a young crewmate, frozen with fear in the rigging (“The man’s mine, and I’ll make soup of him and eat it if I want to,” Larsen says). He scoffs at the idea of an immortal soul.

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

Good news on The Hobbit front: "Sequel" idea nixed

So if you haven't already heard the news, Empire Movie News is reporting that Guillermo del Toro and Peter Jackson have nixed the idea for a "bridge" film between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The revised plan is to do just The Hobbit, albeit broken up into two films. You can read the story here at Empireonline.

As you may recall, back when The Hobbit (film) was originally announced, del Toro and crew had planned on two films: The Hobbit, as well as a hazy sequel, the latter to be based on Tolkien's loose notes of the 60 years in between The Hobbit and the start of The Fellowship of the Ring.

This idea is now off the table, which in my opinion is a Very Good Thing. With all due respect to del Toro and Jackson--talented filmmakers both--creating their own stories of Middle Earth was a recipe for disaster. Tolkien's imitators are legion, and none of his literary successors in my opinion have come close to equalling the unique feel of Middle Earth or its mythic depth. I was skeptical of this sequel business from the get-go and I'm glad to see it's fallen through (I was picturing some ham-fisted quest storyline with cameos by every single actor in the LOTR films, and a half-assed Sauron origin story tacked on).

There will be complaints that The Hobbit does not need to be made into two films, it's a money grab by New Line Cinema, etc. There may be some padding needed to make two complete films, but hell, I'll gladly fork down the dollars to watch them both. I also note that although The Hobbit is only 280-odd pages, there's a whole lot of adventure and events crammed between its covers. I think you could make a nice clean break after Bilbo recovers the ring and he and the dwarves emerge from the Misty Mountains.

But then again, this is coming from someone who'd give his eyeteeth to see a full-on Silmarillon and Children of Hurin done in the exact spirit of the books. Maybe one day...

Cimmerian sighting: Heroic Visions takes a rather dim view of Howard

This past weekend I landed a major score at a local used bookstore, a haul that included no fewer than four works of swords and sorcery, a Weird Tales anthology, and a Year’s Best Fantasy collection. Needless to say I’ve got some good reading ahead of me. (Don’t ask me where this book store is: I won’t divulge my secrets until I’ve plundered the rest of its treasures).

Unfortunately, my excitement was dimmed upon discovering that the first book I opened, the Jessica Amanda Salmonson-edited Heroic Visions (1983, Ace Fantasy), begins with an essay that both exalts the S&S genre while managing to simultaneously land a swiping, drive-by broadsword blow on none other than Robert E. Howard.

Here’s the offending paragraph by Salmonson:

Heroic fantasy, in recent decades, has seemed too often to be epitomized by Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian, and this is a sad state of affairs. The millennia-old heritage of magical and heroic tales does not begin or culminate in the rather simplistic fictions of the pulp era or the current, slavish imitations thereof. Howard’s work is admirable; he was surprisingly well-read, and invested his stories with the hodge-podge of an amateur historian or Harold Lamb fan, creating something primal, evocative, intriguing. Stylistically, he was weak. The dozen-score imitators of Howard have tended to capture the weakness of his style, but not the primal thread of his limited though worthwhile heroic vision—his, shall we say, pathos. Without denying Howard’s genius or even qualifying it, it must be recognized that glorifying his rudimentary sword and sorcery as “ideal” heroic fantasy is akin to assuming Doc Smith’s old-fashioned space opera is “ideal” science fiction. No area of fantasy should be so stagnant and devoid of stylistic and conceptual growth or variety.

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

Top 10 fantasy fiction battles: The Demons before Carce

5. The Worm Ouroboros, E.R. Eddison
The Demons Before Carce

Now came the Lord Juss with a great rout of men armed on his great horse with his sword dripping with blood, and the battle sprang up into yet more noise and fury, and great man-slaying befell, and many able men of Witchland fell in that stour and the Demons had almost put them from the bridge-gate.

—The Worm Ouroboros, E.R. Eddison

In a past review of The Worm Ouroboros, I noted that E.R. Eddison’s cornerstone work of fantasy is about the endless cycle of war (a worm eating its own tail and all that). As such, it offers a banquet of combat from which I had trouble selecting a single battle for my top 10 list. In the end I went with the last great engagement of the book, “The Demons Before Carce.”

In this battle the Demons (the forces of good), scattered and on the run, have marshaled their strength, fought back, and taken the war all the way to Carce, the Witches’ capitol city. All the great heroes of both sides are arrayed for final battle (and what wonderful names they are): For the Witches, Corinius, Counst Escobrine of Tzeusha, the Red Folio, Corsus, King Erp of Ellien, Axtacus lord of Permio, Olis of Tecapan, and the Lord Corund, among many others. They total 5,200 men or more. For the Demons, Lord Brandoch Daha leads a great company of horse, along with Lord Juss, Lord Spitfire, and the Lord Gro. On the Demon’s right, Lord Goldry Bluszco streams his standard, leading to battle the heavy spearmen of Mardardale and Throwater. With him is King Gaslark and his army of Goblinland.

The Worm Ouroboros is unrepentant in its love of battle. In Eddison’s universe war brings out the best in men. Even the “bad guys” (the Witches) shine like angels in gleaming plate-armor in the defense of Carce, fighting gloriously until the end. It’s impossible to not admire their feats-of-arms, even as we wish for their ultimate defeat.

The battle itself delivers on the promise of Eddison’s beautiful build-up and careful marshalling of the armies. The initial clash of troops is “like the bursting of a thundercloud.” Much like the forces of Troy when backed up the great walls of their city, the Witches fight fiercer than the Demons and gain the upper hand:

But like a great sea-cliff patient for ages under the storm-winds' furies, that not one night's loud wind and charging breakers can wear away, nor yet a thousand thousand nights, the embattled strength of Witchland met their onset, mixed with them, flung them back, and stood unremoved.

The Demons Before Carce appears to have influenced George R.R. Martin’s Battle of the Bywater. The two battles are parallel in many ways: Both include a battle before the gates of a large city and a combined engagement on land and sea. Just as at Bywater, fire plays a role in the outcome of The Demons Before Carce as the Demons’ ships, led by the young Hesper Golthring, are burned by the Witches, and the majority of Golthring’s soldiers are burned or drowned. Hesper himself, attempting to crawl away from the carnage, is stabbed with a dagger and dies. “The smoke of the burning ships was like incense in the nostrils of the King [Gorice] watching these things from his tower above the water-gate,” writes Eddison. In A Clash of Kings, Stannis Baratheon’s ships are burned in the harbor as Lord Joffrey and Cersei watch the carnage from above in the Red Keep.

Having disposed of the Demons’ ships, the Witches throw the main of their forces at the Demons’ ground troops, resulting in terrible carnage:

In which struggle befell the most bloody fighting that was yet seen that day, and the stour of battle so asper and so mortal that it was hard to see how any man should come out from it with life, since not a man of either side would budge an inch but die there in his steps if he might not rather slay the foe before him. So the armies swayed for an hour like wrastlers locked, but in the end the Lord Corund had his way and held his ground before the bridge-gate.

The Demons’ forces begin to bend and break. Lord Juss, seeing the threat of rout and defeat, makes a bold and perhaps fatal decision to ride his 800 cavalry into a gap in the Witches’ army to attempt to force a break. The language here is beautiful; J.R.R. Tolkien credited The Worm Ouroboros as an inspiration for his writing and you can see this heritage here, as Juss issues a Theoden-like battle cry before the latter’s great charge on the Pelennor Fields:

So it was from the beginning with all great captains: so with the Lord Juss in that hour when ruin swooped upon his armies. For two minutes' space he stood silent; then sent Bremery of Shaws galloping westward like one minded to break his neck with his orders to Lord Brandoch Daha, and Romenard eastward again to Spitfire. And Juss himself riding forward among his soldiers shouted among them in a voice that was like a trumpet thundering, that they should now make ready for the fiercest trial of all.

The plan works. Juss’ cavalry breaks through some initial resistance and sweeps through the gap, taking Corsus and Corinius’ forces in the rear, affecting a great slaughter:

There fell in this onset Axtacus lord of Permio, the kings of Ellien and Gilta, Gorius the son of Corsus, the Count of Tzeusha, and many other noblemen and men of mark. Of the Demons many were hurt and many slain, but none of great note save Kamerar of Stropardon, whose head Corinius swapt off clean with a blow of his battle-axe, and Trentmar whom Corsus smote full in the stomach with a javelin so that he fell down from his horse and was dead at once. Now was all the left and centre of the Witches' battle thrown into great confusion, and the allies most of all fallen into disorder and fain to yield themselves and pray for mercy.

Even as the Witches fall back with great loss, they do not break and run, but led by the valiant Corund fight bravely to the gates of Carce, step-by-costly-step. Juss, though a sworn, bitter enemy of the Witches, cannot help but admire their steadfast courage:

Juss said, "This is the greatest deed of arms that ever I in the days of my life did see, and I have so great an admiration and wonder in my heart for Corund that almost I would give him peace. But I have sworn now to have no peace with Witchland."

In the midst of the deadly melee, Corund and Juss square off like two prize-fighters. Corund smashes Juss’ shield and knocks him from his horse, but Juss recovers and drives his sword point through Corund’s mail shirt, a fatal blow. Corund, mortally wounded, retaliates with a great blow on Juss’ helm that knocks him unconscious.

Now pent up inside Carce and with the main of their army smashed, the Witches’ hopes for victory have fled. Corund is borne inside, unable to support his own weight. His next action is the stuff of fantasy legend: Weak and with his life-blood draining away from the terrible wound, he wills himself on to his throne, defiant and kingly to the end:

The Lady Prezmyra, when she perceived that his harness was all red with blood, and saw his wound, fell not down in a swoon as another might, but took his arm about her shoulder and so supported, with her step-sons to help her, that great frame which could no more support itself yet had till that hour borne up against the whole world’s strength in arms. Leeches came that she had called for, and a litter, and they brought him to the banquet hall. But after no long while those learned men confessed his hurt was deadly, and all their cunning nought. Whereupon, much disdaining to die in bed, not in the field fighting with his enemies, the Lord Corund caused himself, completely armed and weaponed, with the stains and dust of the battle yet upon him, to be set in his chair, there to await death.

Cimmerian sighting: The Tritonian Ring

Even the Gods so glorious must march at the last, down the dim dusty road to death the destroyer.

—L. Sprague de Camp, The Tritonian Ring

I hesitate to mention the name L. Sprague de Camp ‘round these parts, given the resentment held against him for his character-sullying, inaccurate portrayals of Robert E. Howard in his REH biography Dark Valley Destiny and elsewhere. But if you can look beyond his REH sins (and that’s a big if), de Camp the fiction author has a few gems to offer fans of sword-and-sorcery.

One of de Camp’s more highly-regarded S&S stories is the short novel The Tritonian Ring. Though an imperfect work and not in the same class as Howard’s best, upon recent re-read I found that The Tritonian Ring remains a cracking good read and worth picking up, if you can still find it these days. It’s pure story and possessed of a reckless momentum that lovers of S&S will appreciate.

Though de Camp greatly admired Howard’s writings and Conan in particular, latching on to Howard’s tales and reissuing edited stories and pastiches of the Cimmerian with fellow writer and S&S aficionado Lin Carter, The Tritonian Ring is a deliberate attempt by de Camp’s to break from The Hyborian Age and its larger-than-life heroes. According to this Wikipedia article, de Camp intended Poseidonis to be “The Hyborian Age done right” (i.e., a pre-cataclysmic age of earth that may have logically occurred, based on de Camp’s conception of the science of geology). It’s also an overbold claim sure to irk Howard fans.

It’s unfortunate de Camp again steps in it (and on Howard) with his attempted Howard one-upmanship, as the setting of The Tritonian Ring is among its charms, and differs in a few significant ways from The Hyborian Age—but “done right” is another matter altogether. Despite de Camp’s best efforts and ambitions, the world of The Tritonian Ring is in no ways a superior imaginative work than The Hyborian Age, and as a work of art, it pales next to tales like “Beyond the Black River” and “Red Nails.”

To read the rest of this post, visit The Cimmerian Web site http://www.thecimmerian.com/?p=3770.

Stripped-down version of Desperation rates as middling King

I had high hopes for Stephen King’s Desperation (small band of people held captive in a demon-haunted mining town, breaking loose to battle possessed corpses, scorpions, and wolves—what’s not to like?), but alas, it failed to deliver on its intriguing premise. I’d give it an above average 3 ½ out of 5 stars. It contains some interesting ideas and is worth a read, but is not in the class of King’s best works.

Desperation contains some effective action sequences and the usual dollop of King-ian gross-out horror scenes, though there’s little actual frightening stuff in here. The book walks a hazy middle ground between a straight-up horror story and an examination of the nature of faith and the personage of God, and at least (for me) never really succeeds with either objective.

The basic problem I had with Desperation is that it contains no memorable or even particularly likeable personalities. The closest we get to a main character is John Edward Marinville, a pretty obvious stand-in for King himself (Johnny is a graying popular writer and member of the Baby Boomer generation whose career is starting to flag, and embarks on a cross-country motorcycle trip to attempt to find inspiration for his next novel. Which is apparently identical to how King arrived at the idea for Desperation). But after his introduction Johnny gets placed on the back burner as King juggles a bunch of other introductions, and we don’t learn what makes him tick until the book is nearly through.

I will give King some benefit of the doubt as the Penguin audio book I listened to for this review was abridged, and King’s original text is cruelly slashed. It’s apparent that some character development was left on the Penguin cutting room floor. The audio version is (somewhat) saved by narrator Kathy Bates of Misery fame, who does a fine job as the reader.

The rest of the characters are your standard cast of interchangables, save for David Carver, an 11-year-old boy who is able to communicate directly with God. King was certainly ambitious with Desperation: Like he did with The Stand, King inserts God directly into this book. He also spends some time exploring the nature of God through David’s struggle to reconcile a being that is supposedly all-knowing and all good, but is also cruel and demands borderline unbearable sacrifices of his worshippers here on earth. In the cruelest act of all, King writes, sometimes God lets His broken and suffering people live.

Opposing our band of heroes is the demon Tak, an evil spirit penned up in a 19th century mine—the China Pit—located on the outskirts of the small, secluded town of Desperation, Nevada. Tak is freed when a modern-day mining company accidentally unearths the ancient shaft. There’s an old legend in Desperation that a group of Chinese miners were buried alive in the mine after the shaft caved in, and the white miners outside sealed them in, alive, after deciding a rescue was too risky. In another weakness of the book, it’s not apparent whether the Chinese had stumbled onto Tak, or whether he was summoned by the curses of the dying, vengeful workers trapped inside.

Tak has the ability to inhabit the bodies of his victims, and he uses his hosts to embark on a murderous rampage that wipes out nearly the entire population of Desperation. Last of all Tak takes possession of Collie Entragian, the hulking town sheriff, and using his body and his cruiser rides up and down Highway 50 snaring unwitting hostages one by one.

Entragian/Tak locks his hostages in the Desperation town jail for use as human hosts (demon-possessed bodies wear out rather quickly and gruesomely, we learn). But spurred on by a vision from God, David manages to squirm through the bars of his cell and free the group. The rest of the book follows David as he accepts God’s command to defeat Tak. But first he has to overcome the group’s skepticism of God and his own shaken faith, which is cruelly tested again and again.

The middle of the book is a rather uninspired, drawn-out sequence of the group holed up in Desperation’s movie theatre. The book ends in a final showdown at the China Pit as the survivors attempt to seal the shaft. I wanted to see more of the inside of the mine, which seemed to have lots of potential as a set-piece, but the book ends rather abruptly.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention a scene in which Johnny/King shouts out, “God forgive me, I hate critics!” before detonating a cache of explosives. I have to believe that King wrote the scene with a big grin on his face, and I certainly got a laugh out of it, even though I’m likely among the critics for which King has little use.

Note: This review also appears on SFFaudio.com: http://www.sffaudio.com/?p=5221

Cimmerian sighting: Bidding farewell to the heroic heart of Steve Tompkins

The news has begun to spread that Steve Tompkins of The Cimmerian passed away on March 23 after suffering a heart attack. As usual, real life has a lousy way of intruding on the fantastic.

I won’t sit here and tell you that Steve and I were friends. I’ve never met him face-to-face. But we had exchanged a dozen or so e-mails since he asked me in February to contribute weekly pieces to The Cimmerian. This news has hit me pretty hard and I feel like I’ve lost a comrade in arms, the trusted man to my left in the shield wall of those fighting to preserve Robert E. Howard’s legacy and promoting fantasy fiction as a whole. Steve’s shield was broader and he wielded a more skillful sword than most who answer the martial call of defending swords-and-sorcery and weird fiction.

Steve was a brilliant individual with an unquenchable passion for Howard, J.R.R. Tolkien, H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, Karl Edward Wagner, George R.R. Martin, Charles Saunders … the list goes on and on. He had a remarkable insight into the works of all these diverse authors, an amazing recollection of miscellanea and facts stored in the arsenal of his mind, and an uncanny ability to cite reference upon reference and work them, intelligently, into indefatigable essays. I’m not being self-deprecating when I say that Steve’s knowledge of the fantasy genre dwarfed my own.

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

Cimmerian sighting: Unearthing David Drake's "The Barrow Troll"

“You Northerners believe in trolls, so my brother tells me,” said the priest.

“Aye, long before the gold I’d heard of the Parma troll,” the berserker agreed. “Ox broad and stronger than ten men, shaggy as a denned bear.”

—David Drake, “The Barrow Troll”

One of my haunts for used books, Webhead Enterprises in Wakefield, MA, seems to house more than its fair share of exceptional short story collections (I’ve scored copies of Prime Evil, Dark Forces, and Revelations in Webhead, to name a few). It was there I purchased the excellent anthology Whispers, whose contents include “The Barrow Troll,” a terrific short story by David Drake.

“The Barrow Troll” was originally published in 1975 in Whispers magazine, a former periodical specializing in dark fantasy and horror. Drake, a former assistant editor for the magazine, wrote a nice piece about Whispers on his personal Web site.

Starting in 1977 editor Stuart David Schiff released the first of six best-of collections from the magazine in a book series also entitled Whispers. “The Barrow Troll” appears in the first of these anthologies.

In his introduction to the story, Schiff describes “The Barrow Troll” as “a brutal and shocking piece.” That about sums it up. It’s a wonderful fusion of horror and fantasy, probably my favorite entry in what is an almost-uniformly excellent collection (though Karl Edward Wagner’s “Sticks” is also an absolute gem). Whispers’ table of contents reads like a who’s who of legendary horror/fantasy authors, as it includes stories by Fritz Leiber, Robert Bloch, Dennis Etchison, Hugh B. Cave, Richard Christian Matheson, Robert Aickman, Joseph Payne Brennan, Manly Wade Wellman, and Ramsey Campbell, among others.

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