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Down These Mean Streets a Pastiche Writer Goes

Down These Mean Streets a Pastiche Writer Goes

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NOTE: The following article was first published on April 12, 2010. Thank you to John O’Neill for agreeing to reprint these early articles, so they are archived at Black Gate which has been my home for over 5 years and 250 articles now. Thank you to Deuce Richardson without whom I never would have found my way. Minor editorial changes have been made in some cases to the original text.

amis_colonel_sunPoodleSpringsPulp fans are united by an uncommon passion for literary authors and their creations. We read and re-read these seminal works time and again savoring each thrill as if discovering it anew. We read one another’s thoughts on these works in the hope of gaining a greater appreciation of the material or, at the very least, finding some justification for why they affect us so deeply. We dread to consider awakening to a world where there are no new tales of these characters to discover.

A small number of us set out on the precipitous path of making that dream a reality by adding to the existing canon of our favorite characters. Many of those who do so choose to work in the relative safety of fan fiction, content in the knowledge that none will judge their efforts too harshly. Fan fiction, however, is a double-edged sword for while it allows us to work free from criticism, we do so in the knowledge that none will treat our work as a legitimate continuation and that, at the end of the day, is what we all strive to achieve.

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Three Classic Books for Medieval Worldbuilders and Armchair Time Travellers

Three Classic Books for Medieval Worldbuilders and Armchair Time Travellers

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historyofeveryda00quenuoft_0007
…this beautifully illustrated book covers everything

This time next week you’ll be contemplating a pile of Amazon gift vouchers and book tokens.

How do know?

Everyday Life
…a cosy oak-panelled read for fireside days while the rain batters at your window

You’re a Black Gate reader. Your muggle relatives can’t even guess your tastes. Your geeky friends know that your wishlist is too specific to second guess.

So book tokens.

I won’t try to guess your tastes either! However, if you are interested in the medieval world, or medieval-style worlds, some of the following old books from my research shelf might tempt you…

A History of Everyday Things in England (Archive.Org link) by Marjorie and CHB Quennell is a pre-WWI classic and part of a series that goes through to 1914 (Wikipedia).

Aimed at the older children of yesteryear — meaning it’s a fine read for a modern adult — this beautifully illustrated book covers everything from pottery to architecture, arrow loops to siege engines, and armour to aumbries, it drops in lots of quotes from original sources, and — written in a time of servants and country weekends — feels authentic when it explores the manor houses and castles of the time.

It also approaches the culture and economics from the inside, with sections on ships and merchants, and ground plans of typical buildings.

Though it pulls no punches — describing the English as acting like the Hun in 14th-century France — it’s a cosy oak-panelled read for fireside days while the rain batters at your window, but also a jumping off point for recreating medieval domesticity.

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Fantastic Reference and Non-fiction Books

Fantastic Reference and Non-fiction Books

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At the centre of all the fuzzy sets is a rough definition of what we mean by fantasy: a fantasy text is a self-coherent narrative which, when set in our REALITY, tells a story which is impossible in the world as we perceive it (see PERCEPTION); when set in an OTHERWORLD or SECONDARY WORLD, that otherworld will be impossible, but stories set there will be possible in the otherworld’s terms. An associated point, hinted at here, is that at the core of fantasy is STORY. Even the most surrealist of fantasies tells a tale.

                                      — from the foreword of The Encyclopedia of Fantasy by John Clute and John Grant

oie_21313286sNQbIjqI like to think I have a fairly extensive knowledge of swords & sorcery and other fantasy sub-genres. While I never took courses on the hermeneutics of Conan, or Fafhrd and post-modernism, I do have about forty years of time on job reading the stuff. When I write I try to bring that knowledge to bear in a close reading of the story. But I know better than to rely just on my brain all the time, so sometimes I turn to my small but valuable collection of fantasy non-fiction titles.

I have always loved reference books. When I was little I pestered my mother to buy me several sets of books, starting with the Golden Book Illustrated Dictionary and followed by the Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia. The latter was bought, one volume every few weeks, at A&P. Sadly, she didn’t get two of them:  Vol.14, ISRAE to LACCA, and Vol.21, RUSSI to SUMAL. Which meant I didn’t learn much about Kipling or rutabagas until I was older. I spent hours upon hours poring over those books, just reading about whatever was in front of me.

That initial love for reference books only grew as I got older, eventually extending into the various genres of fiction I read. I’ve got several good books on crime fiction and science fiction that have steered me toward books I might never have otherwise known about or been willing to give a chance. Writing about swords & sorcery for the past four and half years, though, it’s the fantasy references that I’ve drawn on the most for ideas and information.

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Fourth Time Around for Shortcut Man

Fourth Time Around for Shortcut Man

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Ipso Fatso-smallshortcutMy favorite contemporary author, P. G. Sturges, is back with Ipso Fatso, the fourth novel in his Shortcut Man series.

An intoxicating blend of comedy, social commentary, and hardboiled fiction, the series concerns Dick Henry, a fixer known as “the Shortcut Man.” Henry solves problems others can’t resolve and works quickly and effectively. Among his clients this time out is a college student being sexually harassed by her tenured professor and three generations of a Latino family living under one roof who are threatened with eviction by unethical bankers and with deportation by opportunistic politicians.

Obviously when one resolves to take on bankers and politics, one is aiming considerably higher than normal. The nice thing here is neither Dick Henry nor his author have bitten off more than they can chew.

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Five Tactics to Survive the Zombie Apocalypse… And Why They Wouldn’t Work

Five Tactics to Survive the Zombie Apocalypse… And Why They Wouldn’t Work

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When the Heavens Fall cover-smallMy epic fantasy debut, When the Heavens Fall, came out in May this year, and it can best be summed up as “The Lord of the Rings meets World War Z.” It’s not a zombie apocalypse novel, but that’s going to come as scant consolation to the characters who find themselves having to wade through an army of undead.

In a recent interview I was asked if I had a plan to survive a zombie apocalypse. Unsurprisingly, it’s not something I spend too much time thinking about. With Christmas approaching, though, what better way to get into the festive spirit than contemplating the end of the world, and all the reasons why we wouldn’t stand a chance of surviving it?

Here, then, are five (futile) tactics for surviving the zombie apocalypse.

Run

If you live in a city, the first thing you’re going to want to do is leave. No matter what the cause of “zombieism” is, the infection is always transmissible, which means the friend standing beside you could soon be wondering how you taste with ketchup. There’s no such thing as safety in numbers when the numbers can so easily turn against you.

But how do you leave? By car? Only if your vehicle can fly over all the other cars clogging the streets. By train? If you think public transport is unreliable now, how do you imagine the apocalypse is going to improve punctuality?

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Don’t Piss Off Sherlock Holmes

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Don’t Piss Off Sherlock Holmes

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Holmes_GrunerA few weeks ago, I speculated a bit on what might have really happened in “The Problem of Thor Bridge.” I had already offered you, good reader, a few alternatives to Watson’s recorded accounts, such as this one for “The Abbey Grange.” I believe that “The Illustrious Client” is one of Doyle’s better tales. Granada also made a fine version for their Jeremy Brett series. This week, I again veer from Watson’s (dare I say, ‘fawning’) view of matters.

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

I feel silly putting spoiler alerts before discussing stories that were often written a century or more before. But if you haven’t read the story yet, click here before continuing on. Okay, back? Pretty good story, eh? Now, let’s have an alternate take:

The vile Baron Gruner had illy used and cast aside many women, including Kitty Winter. She says to Holmes, “Let me see this man in the mud, and I’ve got all I worked for – in the mud with my foot on his cursed face. That’s my price. I’m with you tomorrow or any other day so long as you are on his track.”

Clearly, Winter is willing to help Holmes bring down Baron Gruner. She certainly seems dedicated to the task. When it is time to sneak into Gruner’s house and steal a book that will expose his vile ways, Holmes brings Winter with him. Presumably, this was so she could show him where it was. He tells Watson that he couldn’t know “what the little packet was that she carried so carefully under her cloak.”

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Mysterion Submissions

Mysterion Submissions

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MysterionCoverI’ve discussed Mysterion: Rediscovering the Mysteries of the Christian Faith, the anthology my wife and I are editing and publishing, on Black Gate before (here and here). We’re nearing the end of our submissions period, so I thought I’d discuss some of what’s going on with us. There’s a week left until submissions close on December 25th, so there’s still time to submit if you’d like to.

I’ve been keeping track of submissions on a weekly basis. As of Wednesday, we’ve received 385 submissions since we opened on October 15th, of which we’ve responded to 315. Most of those were rejections, but we’re currently holding 39 stories that we’re interested in publishing.

We won’t select any stories to go into the anthology until we’ve read them all. Instead, when we read a story that we think would make a good addition to the anthology, we tell the author that we’re planning to hold their story. After we’ve finished, I expect we’ll have somewhere around 50 stories that we’re holding. From those we’ll select the the ones that will go into the anthology.

At this rate, it looks pretty certain that we’ll pass 400 submissions overall. It’s even possible that we’ll pass 500, if we get a surge in the last week equal to what we got in the first week, but I think we’ll probably end up somewhere between 425-450.

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The Ultimate Holiday Shopping Guide for the Conquerors in Your Life

The Ultimate Holiday Shopping Guide for the Conquerors in Your Life

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Holiday shopping is always tricky, especially for those ambitious, high-reaching and quick-to-draw-their-sword-and-slay-you-with-their-displeasure conquering types. We all have one or two in our lives!

A snake pit is that gift that keeps on giving. And taking.
A snake pit is that gift that keeps on giving. And taking.

Take some stress out of the season’s fun blood baths with our handy holiday gift guide!

For the New Conqueror

It’s the holidays for everyone, and new conquerors needs to distress while growing their frightful reputations. Get them a small village of poorly armed insurgents to slay. The easy win will foster troop moral and people will fear their ire. A win-win for everyone involved! Remember: unnamed troops need some holiday cheer, too!

For the Conqueror That Has Everything

They already have a harem, a snake pit and a fire-breathing dragon. What to get them? A seasonal gift could take the simple form of fresh heads for their Field of Warning. Gathering fresh heads constantly can be quite demanding for troops, and they’ll thank you for that brief, thoughtful respite during this holiday season. Sometimes, when shopping for someone who tirelessly slaughters so many, it’s nice to give them a break in some nice pre-packaged, still fleshy heads. Don’t forget about the environment – source local, homegrown heads to spare on shipping and preservation costs! Future generations will thank you.

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The Halt And The Lame

The Halt And The Lame

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Heinlein WaldoOne of the details that made Richard Lester’s The Three Musketeers so unusual at the time of its filming (1973) was a level of realism previously unseen in the historical adventure movie, (think Errol Flynn’s The Adventures of Robin Hood). Lester showed us illness, filth, and poverty in  ways we hadn’t really seen in a movie that wasn’t about illness, filth, or poverty.

Aside: Oddly enough, there’s more realism of this kind in comedy than in any other genre, as though it’s okay to present disease and disfigurement in a way that make us laugh. (Disclaimer: the psychological basis of laughter is not the focus of this post)

Blade Runner did a similar kind of thing for SF movies. Maybe it wasn’t the first time we’d been shown a dark future, but it certainly was the first time we’d been shown one that wasn’t clean.  We may argue that George Lucas did it first, in the original Star Wars movie, where Luke was driving what was obviously a used flying car. (And that’s my Star Wars reference for today.)

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Exploring Morocco’s Only Stone Circle

Exploring Morocco’s Only Stone Circle

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The Pointer at Mzoura. Photo courtesy Almudena Alonso-Herrero.

The Pointer at Mzoura. Photo courtesy Almudena Alonso-Herrero

Morocco is best known for its medieval medinas and Roman cities, but the region has some interesting prehistoric remains as well. Petroglyphs dating back tens of thousands of years can be found all over the country, and archaeologists are excavating early hunting sites and Neolithic villages to piece together Morocco’s prehistory.

One curious site stands out above all others — Mzoura, Morocco’s only stone circle. It looks strikingly like those of Western Europe, as if it had been transposed from Wiltshire or Brittany.

We visited on the same day we went to visit Asilah. The site makes a good side trip from that old pirate port. A private car is needed because the stone circle stands next to the little village of Sidi-el-Yamani, which is reached only infrequently by public transport over narrow and rough roads.

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