Flash causes an avalanche to delay Brazor’s men. The river of lava and the fire dragon that lurks within menace the fugitives as they proceed into the increasingly unbearable heat of the Flaming Desert. A volcanic eruption nearly finishes them off. Flash escapes to safety by managing a broad jump of over thirty feet. Alex Raymond and script writer Don Moore make the escape from the volcanic eruption a tension-filled drama that makes one forgive the implausibility of Flash’s near-superhuman feat.

As they near the edge of the Flaming Desert, the fugitives run out of water. A delirious Flash sees pixies emerge from a volcano and float through the air and set upon him, beating him senseless. On the verge of collapse, they are rescued by desert raiders.

Their chieftain, Gundar plans on ransoming Desira to King Brazor and then selling the others into slavery. Gundar is portrayed as a noble rogue in spite of his intentions and treats his captive to every luxury possible in his stronghold fortress. Gundar sends an emissary to Brazor to negotiate a price for Desira. Brazor agrees to send a blindfolded lieutenant back with the emissary to claim the deposed princess.

Of course, Brazor has a trick up his sleeve as the lieutenant’s steed has phosphorescent paint on its hooves allowing Brazor and his men to follow their trail to the raiders’  desert stronghold. This betrayal is enough for Gundar to switch sides and aid Flash and Desira, if only temporarily. A vicious battle breaks out between the desert raiders and Brazor’s men with the King taken hostage.

The raiders’ victory proves short-lived as King Brazor’s superior weaponry batters against their stronghold, rocking it to its foundation. Gundar is forced to order a retreat to the hidden passage through the mountain tunnel. Flash stays behind as a saboteur and detonates an explosive charge to bury Brazor’s men beneath rubble once they penetrate the stronghold. Unfortunately, Flash is also caught by the explosion and buried beneath rubble.

Dale, Zarkov, and Gundar courageously risk their own lives under a collapsing roof to pull Flash free of the rubble. Rendezvousing with Desira and the rest of the desert raiders, the party makes their way clear of the mountain. Don Moore’s script develops a romantic triangle between Gundar, his mistress, Pequit, and Desira. As the band of raiders and their former captives emerge into the forests of Tropica, Flash tells Gundar that the moment is upon him to decide whether or not he will continue to fight to restore Desira to the throne of her kingdom. Flash and eager newspaper readers breathlessly awaited Gundar’s answer in the next installment of the epic-length Tropica story arc.

China Mieville

China Mieville and others say that no, you cannot read fantasy except through the lens of politics, and that there is no escape. In this interview from 2000, Mieville says:

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.

I think that as we’ve grown more secular and rational fantasy is following suit. Led by writers like George R.R. Martin and Joe Abercrombie, fantasy has become less whimsical and more historical, less hopeful and more gritty and pessimistic. Many “fantasies” now actively grapple with issues like racism and misogyny, or conservatism vs. liberalism, which lurk beneath the veneer of strange secondary worlds that in other fundamental ways closely resemble our own.

But other writers don’t agree. Ursula LeGuin in her essay “The Critics, the Monsters, and the Fantasists” writes in stark opposition to Mieville’s assertion, observing that:

The habit of reducing text to political-economic terms prevents many Marxist and neo-Marxist critics from reading fantasy at all. If they can’t read it as utopian, dystopian, or of clear social relevance, they’re likely to dismiss it as frivolous. They see kings, and assume reactionary politics; they see wizards, and assume superstition; they see dragons, and assume nonsense.

Ursula LeGuin

LeGuin’s interpretation seems to ennoble and elevate fantasy, allowing it to transcend reality and provide the reader with the opportunity to explore new vistas and possibilities. Or to embrace a past that, while admittedly is in some cases idealized, is on some level more “real” than the highly specialized but detached and compartmentalized professions and lifestyles endemic to 21st century living. Fantasy fiction seems to offer the ability to transport us beyond the boundaries of our normal lives — including our biases and convictions — and enable us to view the world from a new perspective. But is this just wishful thinking?

A related question is, is fantasy required to mirror our own reality? Can it be something different? For example, should quasi-medieval fantasy settings be criticized for not conforming to the tech level and cultural norms of Northern Europe circa 1350? Do they have to, if they are fantasy? Is creating an evil race of goblins or orcs a subconscious affirmation of an author’s racism or fear of the “other,” or might he or she simply be using his or her powers of imagination to play harmless make-believe (if orcs lack an innate morality, and are therefore irredeemable, can they be slaughtered without compunction)?

Are Robert E. Howard’s giant f-ing snakes just snakes?

Are fantasy authors “obligated” in any way to create fictional realities that meet with current social contracts, or does a fantasy setting with otherworldly characters free them from these bonds?

These questions touch on unsettled debates about authorial intent, whether stories have objective meaning, or whether interpretation is in the eye of the beholder. Fantasy calls into question the creative capacity of the human mind, and whether it can truly create, or merely replicate in different shapes and forms the existing world around it.

These thoughts were sparked while reading a recent post on the blog of fantasy author R. Scott Bakker, “Misanthropology 101”, in which Bakker is defending himself against charges of misogyny based on a reader’s reaction to his portrayal of women in his fiction. I have not read anything by Bakker and cannot comment on the specific issue, but at one point Bakker in exhaustion states to a commenter “When are you going to give up on this. Realism is irrelevant.”

Is it? I don’t have the answers, I just thought it was an interesting question. What do you think?

Anthony Huso’s debut novel The Last Page is something of a problem. It’s not that it is a bad book; in many ways, it is quite a good one. In fact, it is good enough, creative enough, smart enough, that it raises expectations. You want it to be great. And that is the problem, because I don’t think it is.

The Last Page is a high-fantasy steampunk novel, and a love story. We follow the sexually charged relationship between the improbably named Caliph Howl, heir to the throne of the northern country of Stonehold, and a witch named Sena. The two of them meet at university, go their own ways, and then come together again after Caliph has become king and Sena has acquired a vastly powerful magical tome. Unfortunately, Caliph is facing a civil war against a national hero, and Sena’s book has a lock which can only be opened at a fearsome emotional cost.

The plot is well crafted, but unsurprising. The story flows smoothly, but only near the end, when the book edges into horror, does the truly unexpected arise. The first volume of a two-book series, it manages the trick of both providing a satisfactory conclusion and keeping the story going; in fact, the conclusion suggests the story has taken a turn, and perhaps is going to head in wild new directions.

But what really makes this first book work is its language. The prose is strong, quick and dense in the best ways. The diction, the word choice, is inventive; the imagery is both original and concise. At its best, Huso’s language recalls Wolfe or Vance, though the dialogue in particular is more quotidian than theirs, and some of the rare words he uses don’t seem to be handled quite correctly.

On the other hand, Huso invents new words when he needs to, fragments of new languages, new pronunciations for new diacritical marks (thankfully, there is a pronunciation guide; regrettably, it is hidden away on the last page of the book, a potentially ironic touch which is nevertheless inconvenient if you don’t know from the start that it is there). He creates a world defined by holomorphy, a kind of blood magic, and by a host of arcane sciences; by lethargy crucibles, metholinate, and solvitriol. The lushness of verbal invention, with exposition kept to a minimum so that you come to understand what is important simply by following the story, is incredibly effective at building the setting.

The difficulties here are at a deeper level. Notably the characters, although original in concept, are not particularly profound in their execution. Given that the book is a love story at its core, the fact that its main characters are often bland represents a real difficulty. Sena comes off better, here; she is the more interesting character, more aware of the prices she is paying, the choices she is making. Caliph Howl, on the other hand, is initially depicted as a man who carefully plots his moves – he creates a counterfeit book, taking considerable time and effort, in order to gain revenge on a classmate at school; he chooses to suffer severe corporal punishment in order to be alone with Sena – but this does not seem to reflect anything deeper in his personality. The book spends a fair amount of time inside his head, but his way of thinking does not match the cold-bloodedness of some of his actions.

To secure his reign, Howl agrees to darker and darker bargains; but the toll this takes on his moral sense is not convincingly depicted. He mourns what he does, but his choices don’t seem to fundamentally change who he is. The possibility of his abdicating, and thus saving his country from a devastating civil war, is raised at one point, and then ignored. I would like to think that this was done in the interest of building Howl up as an unlikeable machiavellian figure, but I can find nothing in the book that convinces me that this is in fact the case. The novel seems untroubled by Howl’s actions.

But on the whole the book does not seem to have a lot on its mind. The play with language is wonderful, the depiction of characters using different languages and different alphabets is excellent, the use of a magic book as a major plot element suggests a metafictional touch given the title and how it relates to what Sena goes through at the end of the book, Caliph creating his counterfeit book at the beginning of the novel looks like it might tie in – but as much as I try, I can’t see what all the cleverness is in aid of. I don’t see what these images add up to. Thematically, the book seems empty. It’s clever, and it looks like it ought to have some ideas at its core, but so far as I can see, it doesn’t. It’s intelligent and original, but not profound.

Of course, I could be underestimating Huso. This is only the first part of the story, and there might well be some twist or revelation coming which will make all the pieces presented so far fall into place and mean something more than I can presently see. Huso’s writing is strong enough, his sensitivity to language and what can be done with language great enough, that I am unwilling to discount that possibility out of hand. The potential, the skill, is certainly there, whether it is realised in the next volume of this series or a later book. But as a stand-alone, the novel feels like a missed opportunity, despite its craft.

__________

A slightly different version of this review originally appeared in Black Gate Magazine #15

Matthew David Surridge is the author of “The Word of Azrael,” from Black Gate 14. His ongoing web serial is The Fell Gard Codices. You can find him on facebook, or follow his Twitter account, Fell_Gard.

Belize…?  What’s in Belize?  Anybody?

Well, no matter.  What we have here is the perfect storm of opportunity to take the week off and get ready for Goth Chick News’ second busiest season besides Halloween.

Convention season.

In the coming weeks I’ll be road-tripping to St. Louis to cover the 2012 Halloween Costume and Party Show, chatting up the disturbing participants of C2E2 and joining my fellow Black Gate staffers at something called Capri-con (where I’ll appear incognito to see what all you Sci-Fi-er’s get up to when you get together).

Until then, it’s frozen blender drinks and days nights on the sand.

See you next week.

Are you hitting up any conventions this year?  If so, which ones?  Post a comment or drop a line to sue@blackgate.com.

In my first installment of “Fantasy Out Loud,” I focused on the act of reading adventure fantasy aloud. To children, by and large. But what happens once the darling tots are tucked into bed, with visions of sugarplums (or online MMO’s) dancing in their heads?

I’ll tell you what happens. I go downstairs and crank up the music. And what makes it onto the stereo more often than not? The music of the fantastic.

I’m not referring to film soundtracks, no, nor Wagnerian opera, though both surely count as fantastical (and I hope to treat both in future editions of “Fantasy Out Loud”). No, I’m talking here about rock music and its venerable forbear, folk. Folk music, with special attention here to the tradition of the British Isles, is positively rife with fantasy settings and tropes: swordplay (of both kinds), fairy abductions, marauding giants, the works.

While Led Zeppelin provides an obvious opening, the better avenue is Steeleye Span, a veritable gateway drug for British folk-rock in general and surely the ultimate purveyor of all things elvish in rock music. Inspired by Fairport Convention’s 1969 Liege & Lief album, Steeleye Span’s aim was to mine the vast catalog of traditional English folk music and put it, with ever more amplified instrumentation, before a contemporary audience. No surprise, then, that faerie culture came along for the ride.

Consider “Thomas the Rhymer,” from 1974’s Now We Are Six, in which Thomas, also known as True Thomas, is such a fabulous balladeer that he captures the heart of the Queen of Fairyland. The story, told only in outline form in this rendition, is not dissimilar to that of “Tam Lin,” a fairy ballad that some think the real Sir Thomas may have penned. “Tam Lin” comes replete with a weighty recording history, multiple webpages dedicated to its story cycle, and fame enough to drive any number of doctoral theses. For “out loud” purposes, here is how the most popular versions tend to conclude:

Then up spake the Fairy Queen
An angry queen was she
“Woe betide her ill-far’d face
An ill death may she die.

Had I know Tam Lin,” she said
“What this night I did see
I’d have ta’en out both his eyes
And turned him to a tree.”

Note that while “Tam Lin” and “Thomas the Rhymer” are nominally love songs, they are hardly of the hand-wringing, my-heart-is-broken variety. Rather, these are narratives featuring highly engaged protagonists, and as such, they also function as mini-dramas, plays in short form. Indeed, as we search for the origins of modern fantasy writing, we could do worse than turn our attention to balladry.

Steeleye Span

Even if fairies aren’t your exact cup of tea, Steeleye Span still merits consideration. Try “Longbone,” in which a greedy giant waylays a party of travelers and devours every last one, narrator included. Gory stuff, but Steeleye sets the tale to a jaunty, sing-along beat. (I’ve been known to sing it to my kids––poor little blighters!) In “Samhain” and “Harvest of the Moon,” Steeleye invokes pagan deities, the former via an incisive electric setting. “The False Knight on the Road” finds an honest urchin pitted against the Devil himself, but Steeleye plays it as a jig, with electric fiddle leading the way. The sinister bloodletting of “Long Lankin” would do Cemetery Dance proud.

Drama, action, and peril, in combination with otherworldly settings: are these not the very essence of what we love about print-venue fantasy? Here it is, all over again, rendered in song.

To my mind, “The Elf Knight” rules the roost. Here the Steeleye Span method is on full display: confronted with an ancient ballad whose tune has been lost, Steeleye provides and arranges its own. (On other songs, where they have a melody but no surviving lyrics, they do the reverse; the members of Steeleye double as ethnomusicologists.) Over a series of grim arpeggios, “The Elf Knight” begins:

The elk-knight sits on yonder hill
(Fine flowers in the valley)
He blows his horn both loud and shrill
(As the rose is blown)

Soon enough, the elf-knight catches the attention of Lady Isabel who “sits a-sewing,” and he flies in at her window to kidnap and kill her. Unluckily for him, Lady Isabel proves to be a heroine worthy of Warrant Officer Ripley; after pretending to be under the elf-knight’s spell, she stabs him with his own blade, telling him:

“If seven king’s daughters here have you slain”
(Fine flowers in the valley)
“Then lie you here, a husband to them all”
(As the rose is blown.)

Take that, Disney heroines. This one draws blood.

And the music? Sublime.

If you prefer your violence fantasy-free but still enjoy a pre-industrial milieu, Steeleye can provide. “Babylon” tells of a desperate siege, a battle fought until “the eagle tower does fall and the walls they are thrown down.”  Meanwhile, “Sir James the Rose” makes the mistake of killing “a gallant squire,” so “four and twenty belted knights” go riding out to deal predictably rough justice. In “Lady Diamond,” as with Fairport’s traditional show-stopper “Matty Groves,” a jealous, well-armed man responds to unfaithful women by means far more direct and vicious than modern divorce courts.

I believe to my bones that my ability to parse Shakespeare, Malory or even (on a good day) Chaucer is directly related to my having steeped myself in these other-era songs. The education provided is necessarily Anglo-Celtic, but it has consistently opened doorways that would otherwise have been harder to pry open or just plain unavailable. When I last encountered actual live Morris Dancers, I was able to explain to my family parts of what we were seeing thanks to songs like Steeleye Span’s “Padstow,” among others. In meeting the talking fox lord in Michael Moorcock’s A City in the Autumn Stars, I recognized the character as a riff on Reynardine specifically because of Fairport’s song of the same name. Repeated listening to the old English employed by “Tam Lin” doesn’t merely tell me how to avoid being carried off and sacrificed by the cruel Fairy Queen (although these are surely useful skills); rather, it allows me to read Burns and other Scots without scurrying repeatedly to crack yon wee bairn o’ a dictionary.

In my own writing, too, these songs provide constant, happy reminders of the flexibility of English, of its snake-like ability to invert syntactic positions and create new (or old) effects. Consider these lines, from “Two Butchers,” a traditional collected by Martin Carthy, and one of my personal Steeleye favorites:

It’s of two noble butchers, as I have heard men say
They started out from London all on a market day,
And as they were a-riding as fast as they could ride
“Oh stop your horse,” says Johnson, “for I hear some woman cry.”

Were this expressed in present-day prose, it might read something like this:

“I remember hearing tell of two butchers––they worked for Albertson’s grocery, I think it was, and the man who told me this––we were at a bar, drinking––I like drinking––anyway, my point is, these butchers were on horseback, riding fast, and one of them, Johnson, hears a cry for help. He thinks it’s a woman. ‘Hang on!’ he yells, to his buddy. ‘Stop your horse!’”

Or:

“There were these two guys, riding horses, and one of them goes, ‘Hey, man, hold up. I hear something.’”

You get the idea. But in the more antiquated constructions celebrated by Steeleye (and others: let us not forget the Albion Band, Pentangle, and the Incredible String Band), more poetic effects spring back to life. Efficient ones, too; brevity is the soul of many a lyric line.

I suppose we must let the heavyweight, Led Zeppelin, return to the ring. On Led Zeppelin IV, Led Zep had the smarts to borrow Fairport Convention’s lead vocalist, Sandy Denny, as a duet partner for “The Battle of Evermore.” How many of us, back in high school or whenever, realized just how far down fantasy lane this tune went? Dragons of darkness, ring wraiths riding in black. The Angels of Avalon do battle in the skies. For a brief moment, rock’s first heavy metal kingpins found their way back to Edmund Spenser.

Those who remember Marc Bolan’s T. Rex will likely think first of “Bang a Gong,” that act’s big glam-rock hit. But before T. Rex, Bolin fronted Tyrannosaurus Rex. (That’s right: the poor man spent years learning to abbreviate.) Early albums like Beard of Stars feature lines such as “Dragon’s ear and druid’s spear protect you while the dworn are here.” Now, I’ve got no idea what a dworn is, but clearly we should run for our lives. Rex’s first hit was “Ride a White Swan,” in which Bolan orders all listeners to sport tall hats in the manner (according to Bolan) of druids, and to wear our hair long like “the people of the Beltane.”

Can’t forget Queen. Their first two albums, in particular Queen II, are riddled with fantasy standbys. “Ogre Battle,” “My Fairy King,” and “The Fairy Feller’s Masterstroke” provide prime examples.

Finally, for the science fiction set, there’s always Billy Thorpe’s “Children of the Sun.” What it all means, I have no idea––“they passed the limits of imagination,” which sounds uncomfortably like a preview for Willow––but it certainly sounded exciting in its day. Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s Karnevil 9 also jumps to mind, also “Starship Trooper” by Yes. Or what of “Starman” and Ziggy Stardust by the original spider from Mars, David Bowie? (Bowie also deserves mention for “The Laughing Gnome,” a zany modern fantasy in which Bowie duets with himself––on helium.)

So here I am, at the end of the day, my eyes tired and bleary. My ears, however, feel preternaturally alert, and so it’s time once more to ride the heath with True Thomas, defend the castle walls with Lady Charlotte (“They called her Babylon”), and flee the fell advances of Alison Gross, “the ugliest witch in the north countrie.”

No question about it. For my money, no love of the fantastic can be complete without a musical accompaniment.

***

Mark Rigney is the author of Deaf Side Story: Deaf Sharks, Hearing Jets, and a Classic American Musical (Gallaudet University Press), as well as the play Acts Of God (Playscripts, Inc.). Recent short fiction appears in Black Static, Realms Of Fantasy and Sleet, with upcoming work scheduled for Black Gate and Ancient New. His website is www.markrigney.net.

The play was banned as part of a broader effort to remove works that ‘promote the overthrow of the United States government, promote resentment toward a race or class of people, are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group or advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.

If you haven’t read the play recently, you’ll be forgiven if your reaction is “HUH?”

Nonetheless, they’re yanking it off Arizona public high school curricula as we speak. But, bless their hearts, the censors have actually READ The Tempest, and their decision to ban it isn’t crazy, or, at least it’s not, given their assumptions, stupid. If your goal is to keep schools from talking about oppression, slavery, colonization and the misuse of power you absolutely MUST ban The Tempest. I mean you really don’t want young people reading passages like this:

Caliban:
This island’s mine, by Sycorax my mother,
Which thou tak’st from me. When thou cam’st first,
Thou strok’st me and made much of me, wouldst give me
Water with berries in’t, and teach me how
To name the bigger light, and how the less,
That burn by day and night; and then I lov’d thee,
And show’d thee all the qualities o’ the isle,
The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile.
Curs’d be I that did so! All the charms
Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you!
For I am all the subjects that you have,
Which first was mine own king.

Of course you realize Shakespeare predates the British Empire by a good hundred years. The play was written decades before the first permanent English colonies in the New World were established. At the time colonization and slavery was a Spanish and Portuguese thing. He’s in this weird cultural space about it really. He’s aware of the phenomenon, but in a detached way. Its about England’s enemies. He critiques it freely and without guilt in a way that few English speakers ever will afterwards.

Ugh, I hear some of you saying. But its a fantasy! Do you have to make it all … political?

But that’s the beauty of fantasy. You don’t. I mean, you can. People do. Some fantasy writers are explicitly political and will discuss it whenever you get them on a panel. But you can read Orson Scott Card or Elizabeth Bear (to name two very different writers) and dive right past any tedious arguements about the present day. Fantasy is really good at that sort of thing. It uses the language of symbols to explore larger human truths.

And so Shakespeare sped right past the question of any specific controversy and used it as a platform to explore a larger question about power. Is power good for us? Does it cause us to lose our humanity? And is even justified cruelty worth the effort?

Prospero:
Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the quick,
Yet, with my nobler reason ‘gainst my fury
Do I take part; the rarer action is
In virtue than in vengeance.

Yes, yes, The Tempest is dangerous stuff. Luckily, the Arizona censors have unintentionally happened upon the best possibly way to get high school kids to actually read The Tempest.

Maybe there will be secret Tempest-reading clubs. Hipster kids in the back of the local Starbucks will drink seven cups of espresso while they debate the enslavement of Ariel and Caliban. Maybe there will be secret off-campus performances. Maybe they will sneak paperpack copies into school and hide them in the map room of the library. That’s what me and my friends used to do with dirty books. Good times!

The summer of my sophomore year in college a friend of mine bought a copy of TSR’s Dark Sun Campaign Setting circa 1991. As I’d just gotten into my newest comic book obsession, I didn’t have the cash to spend on RPGs so I was content to let him spend his money on the game as I relegated myself to being a player.

I found the world fun, surprisingly new for stodgy old TSR, and although the campaign I played in ended abruptly when my human gladiator decided he’d had enough of a Halfling in the party and clove him in two, it was still something that stuck with me for many years afterward.

To me, the demise of the setting in 1996 revolved more around the rise of Magic the Gathering and less about TSR’s new age of design that was being brought forth around 1990. This isn’t to say that those works are innately perfect and simply died as the foundation of the industry was eroded away because I often found them lacking, particularly in the department of art.

Now certainly I couldn’t have dreamed that the newest member of TSR’s pit, Gerald Brom, would go on to be one of the greatest fantasy artists of his generation, but he did bring a very different feel to this new universe.

At the time of the setting’s release, I wasn’t taken with Brom, probably because he was such a dark divergence to the talents of high fantasy stalwarts Elmore, Easley, Caldwell, and Parkinson. Still, as shocked as I was by Brom’s take on AD&D, I was even less taken with the interior black and white illustrations of Tom Baxa.

Sometimes, artists just don’t ‘do it’ for those looking at their work, and that’s the case for myself and Baxa. Certainly, that’s no disrespect to Baxa or his work because his contributions to the industry are many, but where Dark Sun is concerned I wasn’t captured.

Still, even after I stopped playing, Dark Sun kept on rolling, supplement after supplement coming out for this setting. With each new contribution Brom and his marvelously apocalyptic covers became more and more popular, and Baxa road that momentum as the two became linked as the paragons of what this game had to offer.

Nearly 15 years later, as I started my journey as an art director I took the opportunity to go back and collect a large helping of these old games, and I must say my reverence for what Brom brought to the RPG field grew with each newly acquired offering along with my tastes for his work.

His covers have turned into some the finest creations any RPG has ever had, and although I’ve still no fervor for having darkness in my games, the way he portrayed Dark Sun is beautiful to behold.

The colors are subdued with tinges of red, yellow, and grey mixing into a desert world where mummy wrap is a lovely couture and violet pigments and porcelain skin lend toward both odd and supple loveliness.

Although short lived by some standards, Dark Sun only in full release from 1991-1996, the game still held a nice niche market for the genre and it would later be seen as so profound that it saw a re-release in D&D 4E in 2010. As I have no sales numbers for either release, I can’t attest to the settings overall success, but I will say that the art from the game still holds validity today, and if you’re looking for an apocalyptic fantasy setting you could do far worse than Dark Sun.

As a life-long Godzilla and giant monster fanatic, I can tell you what a long journey we’ve taken to get to this point. When I became feverishly interested in Japanese fantasy cinema, beyond the boyhood love, in my early twenties, Godzilla and its brethren had almost zero respect in North America. And zero quality home video releases. Even as the awful Roland Emmerich Godzilla hit screens to howls of hatred, there was no corresponding move to get the real films out to North American viewers in editions with subtitles and decent widescreen presentations.

In the mid-2000s, the shift started. The original Godzilla, not the Americanized version with Raymond Burr, got a theatrical stateside release, and then a DVD from Classic Media. G-Fans such as myself were finally freed from having to see the movie on bootleg VHS tapes and could recommend it easily to friends, promising them that the Japanese original it would blow their mind with its quality. Now, we’re getting into the big-time cineaste world with Hi-Def and the Criterion Collection.

However, I’d like to temper my enthusiasm for 1954’s Godzilla with this statement: although a great film, it is not my favorite Godzilla movie, nor it is not representative of the series.

The Japanese science-fiction films that boomed in the late ‘50s because of the success of Godzilla at first followed the U.S. “atomic horror” formula: a semi-documentary style, focus on scientists and the military working to stop the threat, messages about the abuse of radioactive energy/science. Godzilla follows the U.S. model of films like The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and Them!, although infuses its story with Japanese concerns — this is, after all, the only country in history to suffer from an atomic attack. It wasn’t until 1960 and Mothra that the Japanese fantasy film broke away from its Western counterparts and developed a unique identity. The Godzilla films from this era, particularly the wonderful Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964) are the films that gave us Godzilla as a personality, whether as destructor or superhero. Mothra vs. Godzilla (released theatrically in the U.S. as Godzilla vs. The Thing and later given the video title of Godzilla vs. Mothra) is my pick for the best movie in the series, mixing some of the seriousness of the original Godzilla with the new colorful Japanese style. The films of the 1960s are much more “fun” and re-watchable than the 1954 film, which is, frankly, an extreme downer.

But what a brilliant downer! Godzilla ’54 is the finest of the atomic monster films of its decade, made with ingenuity and sincerity rarely seen in the American movies of this same genre and period. The creative personnel filled the movie with Japan’s own deep fear of the A-Bomb and the way it affected their society. No other nation could have produced a story of the dangers of the atomic era better than Japan, the first country to feel the devastating effects of that power. Godzilla is a gut-wrenching film because viewers feel the terrors of a whole country made real, visualized with special effects that sear the brain with images of an unstoppable horror. Godzilla began life as a co-production between the Japanese studio Toho and Indonesia. The planned war film In the Shadow of Honor collapsed, however, when the Indonesia investors backed out. Producer Tomoyuki Tanaka faced a dilemma: half a budget and no film. He needed something new to pitch to executive producer Iwao Mori at Toho.

On the flight back to Tokyo, or so the legend goes, Tanaka had his brainstorm: make a film about an atomic monster rampaging through Japan. A combination of forces pushed Tanaka toward this idea. One was the recent “Lucky Dragon #5 Incident.” A Japanese fishing boat was caught in the radiation blast from the U.S. atomic test on Bikini Atoll. The fisherman returned to port, dying from radiation sickness, and some of the contaminated tuna made it to market. The Japanese press ran with the story, and it incensed the public at what was touted as “The Second American Bombing of Japan.” Hyperbole aside, the fate of The Lucky Dragon #5 drew attention back to the nuclear issues that the Japanese government tried to keep away from the public in the immediate post-war years. After years of silence, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were major topics again and at the forefront of policymaking.

But there was basic financial trigger to Tanaka’s choice to have a big monster batter around Tokyo’s buildings: the recent box-office success in Japan of King Kong (never shown in the country until 1952) and The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. Tanaka pitched Godzilla as Toho’s take on the latter. It seems Tanaka wanted to incorporate elements of King Kong into the movie as well, since he originally suggested a monster that was a sort of “aquatic gorilla.” Thus, the monster’s Japanese name: “Gojira,” a portmanteau of the words gorira (“gorilla”) and kujira (“whale”).

(Rumor has long held that the name “Gojira” came from a nickname for an immensely fat man in Toho’s publicity department — or maybe he was a stagehand. The more years pass, the more it seems this was invented after the character’s success. Director Ishiro Honda’s widow said her husband and Tanaka deliberated over the name, and that tall tales were common among Toho’s backstage boys.)

Many talented people contributed to Godzilla’s success, but unless I plan to write a volume as thick as a Robert Jordan novel, I have to telescope this overview down to the two men who are the big stars of the movie: director Ishiro Honda and visual effects supervisor Eiji Tsubaraya. The two men represent the human and monster side of the story.

Ishiro Honda

Ishiro Honda (1911-1993) is Japan’s greatest science-fiction and fantasy director, but he only started to receive his due as an artist in the years after his death. Originally an assistant director for Akira Kurosawa — with whom he remained a close friend and collaborator until his death — Honda directed his first film in 1951, a drama about pearl divers. His 1953 war film Eagle of the Pacific, with visual effects by Tsubaraya, was a big hit, and landed Honda the job to direct Gojira when Tomoyuki Tanaka’s original choice was unavailable. Producer Tanaka could not have selected a better director. Honda served in the military during World War II and visited the site of Hiroshima not long after its devastation. It was a pivotal moment in his life, and it forever haunted him. In Honda’s own words:

Most of the visual images I got were from my war experience. After the war, all of Japan, as well as Tokyo, was left in ashes. The atomic bomb had emerged and completely destroyed Hiroshima. . . . If Godzilla had been a big ancient dinosaur or some other animal, he would have been killed by just one cannonball. But if he were equal to an atomic bomb, we wouldn’t know what to do. So, I took the characteristics of an atomic bomb and applied them to Godzilla.

Honda tackled the film with the conviction — admirable if a bit naive — that it might bring an end to nuclear testing. His treatment of the central character of Dr. Serizawa (Akihiko Hirata), a scientist wounded in World War II who has perfected a device that might kill Godzilla, is central to his anti-nuclear message. Dr. Serizawa fears that his new invention, “the oxygen destroyer,” could turn out to be an even worse weapon than the H-bomb, and initially refuses to use it on Godzilla because he fears its long-term consequences in government hands. Honda directs the scene where Serizawa’s fiancée Emiko (Momoko Kochi) and her new love Ogata (Akira Takarada) confront Serizawa in his lab about saving Tokyo from the monster with tremendous power. What is at stake between these three characters, now in the wake of the worst disaster to fall Tokyo since the fire-bombing, is enormous, and Honda’s handling of the scene makes it a crucible of tension. Dr. Serizawa lays out to Ogata exactly why he refuses to release the oxygen destroyer against Godzilla:

Ogata, if the Oxygen Destroyer is used even once, the politicians of the world won’t stand idly by. They’ll inevitably turn it into a weapon. A-bombs against A-bombs. H-bombs against H-bombs. . . . As a scientist — no, as a human being — adding another terrifying weapon to humanity’s arsenal is something I cannot allow.

Of course, Serizawa ultimately gives in — a requiem over the radio sung by Japanese school children praying for peace makes him realize he has a responsibility to act. But Serizawa makes a sacrifice to ensure that his weapon will never be used again. The tragedy of Dr. Serizawa is the film’s best dramatic through line, and — after the imagery of Godzilla itself — what leaves the greatest impression on viewers.

Honda always paid attention to the human aspects of his fantasy films, even if the script and spectacle almost overwhelmed them. But with Godzilla he had a great amount of personal drama to work with, and did amazing things with the many “quiet” moments in the film. Close friends of Honda have often commented that the director wanted more than anything to make films similar to those of Yasujiro Ozu, a famous director of small-scale dramas. I see this leaning strongest in Godzilla, where Honda can make a moment as simple as Emiko kneeling down to take off her shoes after she has returned from Serizawa’s lab into something that can wring tears from an audience. The moments inside the house of Emiko’s father, Dr. Yamane (Takashi Shimura, who starred in The Seven Samurai the same year) right before Godzilla’s attacks are filled with silent, unbearable tension.

One scene in particular (cut from the U.S. version) that astonishes me for what Honda is able to say in it occurs on a commuter train. Three passengers, who appear nowhere else in the film, discuss the newspaper headlines about Godzilla possibly making landfall. Honda’s capture the essence of post-war Japanese lifestyle with the short scene:

FEMALE PASSENGER: This is awful. Atomic tuna, radioactive fallout, and now this Godzilla to top it off! What if it shows up in Tokyo Bay? MALE PASSENGER #1: It will probably go straight for you first. FEMALE PASSENGER: You’re horrible! [pause] I barely escaped the atomic bomb in Nagasaki — and now this! MALE PASSENGER #2: I’ll have to find a place to evacuate to. FEMALE PASSENGER: Find me one too. MALE PASSENGER #1: Evacuate again? I’ve had enough.

The conversation is so . . . resigned. The last line is spoken with a sense of futility and surrender. These people lived through World War II, and now can only shrug that their nightmare is not over. (Notice the reference to the Lucky Dragon #5 regarding atomic tuna.) Honda’s direction gives Godzilla its human quality. But effects genius Eiji Tsubaraya gives us its star, the fifty-meter-tall radioactive beast that transformed into one of cinema’s greatest icons. Tsubaraya also produced the stunning images of destruction, a Tokyo turned into a sea of flames, that haunt viewers. Honda brings us the story and the people; Tsubaraya brings us the terror and fury.

Eiji Tsubaraya at work with his favorite actor

Eiji Tsubaraya (1901-1970) is one of VFX’s great superheroes, along with Willis O’Brien and Ray Harryhausen. He originally did special effects for Toho’s many war pictures. Because Japan no longer had a military, it was up to Tsubaraya to create miniature tanks and planes to stage the battle scenes. He was already talented with models, but he had never handled anything of the scope of Godzilla, and crafting the large monster suit for stuntman Haruo Nakajima was a trial-and-error task.

Tsubaraya’s effects in Godzilla aren’t strictly “realistic.” But they are almost all completely “effective.” There are a few spots where the model-work looks a bit wonky (a scene of a helicopter falling over in a wind storm isn’t one of the finer moments), but the creativity and size of the work is breathtaking. Viewers who dismiss “suitmation” as cheap should take a close look at the scenes of destruction in Godzilla: an immense amount of time and effort went into detailing the miniatures, lighting the sets, rigging explosions, and choreographing all the elements together. This was an enormous project, and nobody at Toho Studios had seen anything like it before.

Godzilla’s first appearance, breeching over a ridge on Odo Island while villagers and reporters turn to flee down a path, is a stunning entrance and one of the great moments in monster movie history. The build-up to this are scenes destruction that leave the monster unseen — boats wrecked from beneath, island huts smashed apart — create the sense of a creature of unimaginable power. The revealed beast does not disappoint. Godzilla has two urban destruction scenes.

The first has him come ashore briefly and derail a train. The second is the film’s centerpiece: a long rampage through Tokyo that turns the middle of the city into ashes. Tsubaraya pulls out every trick — including a brief moment of stop-motion animation — to make this a steam-roller of a scene. Some clever opticals mix humans seamlessly with the monster, such as a close-up of people fleeing along a street as Godzilla’s feet crash onto the foreground. The music from Akira Ifukube adds a funeral dirge feeling as Godzilla makes the skyline of Tokyo into a wall of fire; some of the most upsetting images in the movie are Tsubaraya’s compositions of the burning city against the night sky, with the spiky shadow of the monster moving slowly across it.

Later Godzilla films shy away from showing the human toll of these monster rampages; they were more science-fiction adventure stories than horror tales. But Tsubaraya shows citizens dying from radioactive fire in masses, buildings collapsing on people, and a crying woman holding her children and telling them they will soon be joining their father right before Godzilla brings down a wall on them. This is VFX as an art form, delivering not only spectacle, but grueling emotional impact. The first time I saw the Japanese version of Godzilla in a theater in the U.S., no one laughed at a single effect, nobody giggled at any of the model work. The packed theater sat in stunned silence watching a city die. This is the reaction Tsubaraya wanted, and he got it — even fifty years later.

Not long after the grimness of Godzilla, Tsubaraya got to unleash his inner child and have crazy fun with movies like Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster and his superhero television show Ultraman. We got the best of both worlds from the man.

Godzilla ’54 concludes with a message directed straight at the controversy of nuclear testing. Dr. Yamane (in a line cut from the U.S. version) ponders Godzilla’s apparent destruction: “I can’t believe that Godzilla was the last of its species. If nuclear testing continues, then someday, somewhere in the world . . . another Godzilla may appear.”

The line has important metaphoric resonsance, espically for director Honda and his hope that nuclear testing might end. “Another Godzilla” is the threat of another great nuclear horror that humanity may unleash on itself — and not survive. But Dr. Yamane’s prediction ended up a literal truth as well: Sequels! Many of them! A glorious franchise flying from the thrills of Mothra vs. Godzilla and Destroy All Monsters; to oddball head-trips like Godzilla vs. Hedorah (a.k.a. Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster); to low-rent trash like Godzilla vs. Megalon and Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla.

Godzilla became a sensation and a star through the global success of the movie — but not in its original form. It was the Americanized version, 1956’s Godzilla, King of the Monsters!, that proliferated across the world. This version, which was overseen by director and editor Terry Morse, re-worked the Japanese film with new footage of actor Raymond Burr (on the cusp of fame with Perry Mason) to create something accessible for 1950s U.S. audiences. It was this version that spread to theaters across North America and Europe, and because of its importance to Godzilla’s history, the Criterion Collection includes it on the new Blu-ray as a bonus feature.

Godzilla, King of the Monsters! is absolutely worth watching as a follow-up to Godzilla. Those of us who grew up on Godzilla films on TV have strong memories of watching Raymond Burr comment on the monster’s destruction with Murrow-like gravitas. But it isn’t merely nostalgia that makes Godzilla, King of the Monsters! worth re-visiting after watching the uncut Japanese version. The U.S. creative team did an excellent job with the re-cut, and although the result lacks the power of the original, it is respectful of the movie and maintains its grim tone. The characterizations of the Japanese cast suffer the most, since the principals have less screen time in order to accommodate Raymond Burr’s scenes. But Eiji Tsubaraya’s effects remain intact and have the same wrenching quality.

Plus, it’s educational to watch how Terry Morse and his team worked with the Japanese footage to create the U.S. version. There’s some clever “work-around” solutions, and a few that don’t quite make it. (Where did they get that double for the back of Dr. Yamane’s head?) Raymond Burr treats the assignment with the same seriousness as any role he took, and he adds great authority to the U.S. side of the film. The transfer on the Criterion Collection Blu-ray is great, but that’s no surprise.

The Criterion Collection has made a name for itself because of its quality transfers that keep the film true to its source. The print shows some minor damage such as white flecks, but nothing distracting, and a heavy digital clean-up would have erased the natural film grain. Godzilla has certainly never looked this good since its premiere in Tokyo in 1954.

I will close with the words of director Honda in the 1980s, where he explains why Godzilla remains powerful so many years after it first stomped into movie theaters:

It is sad that the number of atomic bombs hasn’t been reduced by one since [1954]. We’d really like to demand abolition of nuclear weapons to both America and Russia. That is where Godzilla’s origin is. No matter how many Godzilla movies are produced, it is never enough to explain the theme of Godzilla.

Clementine

“Tanglefoot” (free online)
Cherie Priest
Subterranean Press (Fall 2008, free)

Reviewed by Andrew Zimmerman Jones

Cherie Priest has become one of the biggest names in the steampunk sub-genre, starting mostly with her groundbreaking 2009 book Boneshaker that introduced most readers to “The Clockwork Century,” the alternate history 1880’s storyline that she created. There are three main features of “The Clockwork Century”:

1. The Civil War has been going on for over 20 years.
2. There are airships (and other steampunk accoutrements, such as goggles).
3. There are zombies (or close enough approximations)

Boneshaker focused on features 2 and 3, with the Civil War really just a background note that has little direct bearing on the story. After all, it’s set in Seattle, which is far outside the territory where the Civil War is being fought.

Clementine, on the other hand, leaves the zombies behind to focus on the Civil War (and the airships) in far greater detail.

The lack of zombies is a marked departure from Boneshaker … so marked that it was published by an entirely different company - Subterranean Press instead of Tor - as a limited release hardcover and e-book. The hardcover is now very difficult to find (and pricey if you do find it), though the e-books are still readily available. It seems like there may now be a paperback edition as well. (It’s available on Barnes & Noble, but doesn’t appear to be over at Amazon as of the time of this writing.)

Clementine follows the airship crew from Boneshaker as they head east, chasing their stolen airship (called Clementine). It also introduces Maria Isabella Boyd, an actual Confederate spy during the Civil War, who has retired from the spy life to work for the Pinkertons. Her first mission is to track down the Clementine and capture it for the Union army.

Overall, this is a fun chase book, but it’s easy to see why this wasn’t picked up by the bigger publisher as a follow-up to Boneshaker. While all of Priest’s books read like you’re watching an action movie, this one is shorter, so doesn’t have room to develop quite as much of a punch as the others. And there are no real supernatural elements of any kind, making it a marked departure from the mood she’s establishing in the setting. If you are really a Cherie Priest completist, then this is a good book to pick up and certainly an enjoyable read full of entertaining characters, but hardly a “must have.” If you want a Clockwork Century chase book, then I’d recommend Dreadnought (review coming next week).

Cherie Priest

Also outside of the mold (even before the mold was finished) is Priest’s 2008 novellette “Tanglefoot,” available for free online over at Subterranean Press. This one doesn’t have any zombies or airships, but it does have a little clockwork doll who isn’t all it seems to be. I really enjoyed this story, largely because it’s so far outside the settings and material explored in the other books. “Tanglefoot” shows that there are a lot of different directions for Priest to go with her Clockwork Century, and I for one am interested in seeing some of the themes here explored in future books.

Other Steampunk Spotlight posts:

• Cherie Priest’s Boneshaker
• The Steampunk Bible by Jeff VanderMeer with S.J. Chambers
• Victoriana RPG update
• Kings of Air and Steam board game
• Scott Westefeld’s Leviathan trilogy

J.M. McDermott’s third book, Never Knew Another, is a secondary-world fantasy tale told in a sparse yet elegant style, about hunters seeking dangerous magical prey — and also about two people drawing closer to each other without knowing it, despite having to hide their true natures from the world around them. Perspectives nest one inside another; the book’s always clear, but leaves much meaningfully unsaid, and effortlessly holds the voices of its characters in a delicate balance, allowing them to contrast with each other without any given one being overwhelmed. It’s a remarkable accomplishment, and a strong, unconventional beginning to a promising trilogy.

It starts with a pair of holy werewolves, following a trail to a human city they call Dogsland. The werewolves are hunting demons, or humans with demonic ancestry. Creatures with demons in their family tree are dangerous; their sweat is acidic, and their blood can wither plants, or make normal humans very sick indeed. It’s as though they’re radioactive, potentially causing illness and death around them even if they don’t consciously intend evil. The hunters see their task as a sacred duty. Their story, though, is effectively a frame for the main action; one of the hunters communes with the memories of a dead demon-descended man, searching through those recollections for hints of the whereabouts of others of his kind. The stories of that man, Jona Lord Joni, and of the others of his kind that he knows, provide the meat of the book.

The novel’s a braided tale of hunters of different kinds; of dogs and wolves. There is an absolute minimum of description, detail, exposition, and worldbuilding. For the most part, that works, keeping the focus on the characters. I’m not sure it’s always effective. There’s no way to visualise the city called Dogsland, and while that means readers can build up an image of the place for themselves, sometimes details come along that seem to throw into question what one thought one understood. The setting seems like a low-tech environment through most of the book, then near the end a character casually uses an apparently mass-produced book of matches. Is this society more advanced than it seemed, despite the absence of gunpowder weapons? Or is the book actually employing some kind of post-apocalyptic setting? Or are the matches magic, a part of the fantasy? Or are the matches less modern than they seem, a reference back to medieval Chinese technology? I found it unclear, and while it’s not a fatal uncertainty, I also didn’t find it helped the novel.

Although this is clearly a character-oriented tale, the story’s effective, moving nicely and expanding its scope as it goes. Still, on a practical level, it strains suspension of disbelief that Jona can live for an extended period of time in one place without the demonic corruption becoming obvious. In particular, he’s in a dangerous occupation, and it’s clear from the text that he’s no stranger to violence. It seems unlikely that his blood wouldn’t be shed fairly frequently, if only in the form of small cuts or skinned knuckles, and from what we see in the book it seems even a single drop could be enough to give away the presence of a demon.

Still, on the whole the terseness of the book’s effective, because McDermott’s language is precise and measured. The style’s bare but powerful, converying great meaning in a short space. This is a brief novel, but has the weight of a long work. McDermott moves us through the heads of his cast in quick, assured steps, showing us who they are and what they’ve made of their lives. We see them interact, feel them yearning for things beyond themselves, and it’s all more than credible; it’s compelling, and natural.

Although apparently dead, Jona Lord Joni drives much of the story of the novel; he has the most freedom of movement of the main characters, a poverty-stricken demon-born aristocrat serving as a corporal in Dogsland’s City Guard. He’s also secretly an agent of the Night King, the lord of the city’s underworld. Jona connects all the disparate parts of the city, from rich estates to poor brothels. At the same time, he remains somehow unaffected by it, untouched by others; as the Biblical echo of his name implies, an outcast, a Jonah — so when he must go to a wizard’s house where the door-knocker’s carved “like a whale’s open jaw,” the image is metaphorically right.

McDermott’s got a light touch with his allusions, though. Given that he’s got characters named Rachel and Salvatore as well as Jona, there’s a definite biblical resonance threading its way through the text. And the family name of the wizard Jona visits is Sabachthani, which appears to come from Christ’s exclamation on the cross: lama sabachthani, “why have you forsaken me?” But there’s nothing precious or overstated about any of this. The lean prose refuses to draw attention to the cleverness of the references, making them all the more effective.

In fact, the biblical echoes play against the narrative, which invites us to sympathise with the demonic characters, and to consider whether they’re truly wicked, as well as dangerous. They don’t think they are; the society in which they move is convinced otherwise. It seems at times as though there may be something to that — of three demonic characters, two are quite comfortable with violence and theft, while the third refuses to engage with the world around her. But then that refusal is a consequence of the hatred with which the world views these demons. By extension, so perhaps is the violence.

Ultimately, as I read it, the story comes to be about just what the title implies — the process of coming to know another person, of developing empathy for someone beyond one’s self. The plot’s in service to the theme and the characters; not rudimentary, but not the main element of the book, either. Still, the narrative structure’s complex, though unobtrusive, and if the end is somewhat abrupt, that’s not unearned. There’s an understated climax that maintains the story’s focus on character, and a denouement that brings together different strands of the story. In particular, there’s a revelation of a hidden identity which is perhaps half-expected, but still powerful. It prompts us to reconsider much of what we’ve read, and how the characters were really relating to each other.

Never Knew Another is a thoughtful, meditative book. It’s literary fantasy that recalls the work of Ursula Le Guin or perhaps Samuel Delaney; McDermott’s been compared to A.A. Attanasio, which also seems apt. This book is a powerful handling of a powerful theme, and tremendously impressive.