Browsed by
Category: Blog Entry

Historical Cthulhu: That Is Not Dead, edited by Darrell Schweitzer

Historical Cthulhu: That Is Not Dead, edited by Darrell Schweitzer

Comments 3 comments

That Is Not Dead-smallAccording to H.P. Lovecraft’s legendary canon of cosmic horror tales, the Great Old Ones such as Cthulhu, Nyarlathotep, Yog Sothoth, and all-mighty Azathoth have lurked in the dim places of the cosmos since the beginning of time.

“That is not dead,” wrote the mad poet Abdul Alhazred, “which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die.” One of Lovecraft’s most famous lines is the inspiration for a new hardcover volume of historical Cthulhu Mythos fiction from PS Publishing.

That is Not Dead features all-new tales of cosmic horror set in various periods of history. Here’s what editor/contributor Darrell Schweitzer had to say about the book:

That is Not Dead is a collection of Mythos stories, based on the premise that if the Old Ones have been around since elder aeons, someone should have noticed before Lovecraft’s characters did about 1900. The theme then is lurking presences. Inasmuch as the stories deal with history, it is secret history, i.e. “what really happened…”

Here’s the complete Table of Contents (by historical era).

…

Read More Read More

Smart Guy, Huh?

Smart Guy, Huh?

Comments 5 comments

ScorpionIt used to be okay to be the smartest person in the room – at least on paper, real life isn’t my area of expertise. Sherlock Holmes was definitely a loner, and eccentric, no question. But when he left Baker Street, he was appropriately dressed, even, or perhaps especially, when in disguise. He knew, understood and used all the social conventions, and could converse easily with everyone and anyone, from any walk of life. He may not have been interested in women romantically, but he had no trouble interacting with them.

This facility used to be part of being the smartest person in the room. Now, we see more examples of this extremity of genius than ever before, including two versions of Holmes. It might have been CSI that started this off – what was Grissom but the smartest guy in the room? – and since then we’ve had House MD bringing in the medical side, and The Mentalist for the con artist in all of us, and this season alone we’ve got Forever, and Scorpion, plus, I believe, a couple more coming along soon.

And let’s not forget, that for as long as most of us have been alive, we’ve had Dr. Who.

…

Read More Read More

Writerly New Year’s Resolutions and How to Make Them Work: Part 2

Writerly New Year’s Resolutions and How to Make Them Work: Part 2

Comments 0 Comment
Writing Space
It all comes down to time and space to write.

How are the New Year’s Resolutions working out?

Are you being a more productive writer?

If not, then you probably need to set things up so you can be more productive, which is what I promised to talk about this week.

It all comes down to time and space to write.

You can squeeze more into your existing writing time by having an effective writing process — we had that rant already in Part 1 — and by learning to touch type.

Touch typing rocks. The words appear on the screen by telepathy. No distractions, no fiddling fingers. You think better, write faster.

However, what you really want is more writing time, with less interruption, which in turn means establishing a better physical space within which to do it. The time and space then need defending.

…

Read More Read More

The Shade of Klarkash-Ton

The Shade of Klarkash-Ton

Comments 23 comments

None strikes the note of cosmic horror as well as Clark Ashton Smith. In sheer daemonic strangeness and fertility of conception, Smith is perhaps unexcelled by any other writer, living or dead.

casSo wrote another great writer of cosmic horror, H.P. Lovecraft. Even given the Old Gent’s tendency toward hyperbole when extolling the virtues of his colleagues, I find it hard to disagree, particularly on this, the 122nd anniversary of Smith’s birth in Long Valley, California.

Of the “Big Three” – Lovecraft, Howard, and Smith – who wrote for Weird Tales during the 1920s and 1930s, CAS is the only one to have lived long enough to have died of old age and yet he’s also probably the least understood and celebrated. That’s a great pity, not just because he’s probably my favorite of that glorious triumvirate, but also because his works are quite unlike any other fantasy or science fiction writer before or since. Jack Vance probably comes the closest to conjuring up the shade of Smith, but there are lots of subtle differences between the two authors that make such a comparison facile.

For one, Smith considered himself primarily a poet rather than a writer of fiction. Even his most straightforward prose pieces possess a poetic character to them that transcends his florid vocabulary and indulgence in archaisms. There’s an incantatory rhythm to his writing that demands it be read aloud; I frequently find myself doing just that when I read a Smith story. It’s a very strange and powerful thing. Rarely have I encountered a writer whose written words so cried out to be spoken (intoned?). When you do so, the experience is like few others in literature. Smith’s writing is luxurious and appeals to all his reader’s senses, including the mind’s eye – that part of the imagination that doesn’t just conceive of people and things and places that have never existed but that strains at the edges of infinity. I find myself at a loss to describe precisely what I mean, but then that’s part of my point. Smith’s work often gives voice to the ineffable in ways that are both exhilarating and terrifying. Few others writers I have encountered can do that.

I make no secret of the fact CAS is my personal favorite of the Big Three of Weird Tales and the one whose works I most wish I could emulate. Though I strive mightily against it, I fear that my own writings evince a style more in keeping with the antiquarian Lovecraft than with the otherworldly poetry of the Bard of Auburn, though not for lack of trying. Smith’s genius is elusive and not easily reproduced.

…

Read More Read More

A Most-Enjoyable Crisis

A Most-Enjoyable Crisis

Comments 5 comments

dc_comics_crisis_3d_600x600_0If you’ve read DC comics for any length of time since the mid-1960’s, the term “crisis” probably triggers memories of monumental, universe-shattering storylines. It began as the name for several of the major DC cross-over events, ultimately culminating in the classic 1986 Crisis on Infinite Earths storyline, which was one of the most effective efforts to fix continuity errors in comics with a comprehensive universal reboot. (It has since been followed up by DC universal reboots of varying degrees in their crossovers Zero Hour, Infinite Crisis, and Flashpoint.)

So the title of this game-changing expansion to the DC Deck-Building Game (Amazon) should be no surprise. The Crisis expansion (Amazon) introduces significant new elements of gameplay. I’ve played a number of games and expansions, but it’s been a while since I saw an expansion which gave an existing game such a phenomenal revamp as this one.

I first reviewed the DC Deck-Building Game a year ago, in a face-off against the Marvel: Legendary deck-building game. At the time, my 9-year-old son considered the DC game as his favorite, though I came down in favor of the Marvel game, mostly for the following reasons:

  • Marvel: Legendary felt more like narratively being inside a comic book, in comparison to the DC game. Marvel is built around a Scheme Card implemented by specific Mastermind supervillains, meaning that each game has a unique storyline and game objectives. The DC game, on the other hand, involves beating up a pile of villain cards to win.
  • Marvel: Legendary was at least partially cooperative, while the DC game was entirely competitive. Since I mostly play with my son, I prefer cooperative games. Also, from a storytelling standpoint, I felt like a game where I’m supposed to be Batgirl and my son is supposed to be Nightwing should be more cooperative.

…

Read More Read More

December Short Story Roundup

December Short Story Roundup

Comments 2 comments

Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction Jan-Feb 2015-smallNot every month brings me a great big stack of stories to review. Which is fine. I mean, it’s not like we all don’t have a ton of things to do during December. Still, I did find three stories to tell you about, one them quite good.

Let’s start with the highlight of the December stories, “Prisoner of Pandarius,” by Matthew Hughes in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (January/February 2015). It’s a tale of revenge, thievery, and guild politics starring Raffalon, a thief with a ready wit, an overriding sense of self-preservation, and a name more than a little reminiscent of E A Hornung’s famous gentleman thief, Raffles.

Hughes makes no bones about being a fan of, and inspired by, Jack Vance’s Dying Earth. On his site he refers to Raffalon as “my archetypal Dying-Earthish thief.” There’s certainly a Vancian sensibility to the story’s trappings, e.g. a spell with the name “Izzizitz’s Matchless Latch” and the thieves’ organization’s official name of “The Ancient and Honorable Guild of Purloiners and Purveyors.” I’m a sucker for Jack Vance-inspired stories, provided they’re done well. I’m quite happy to write that “Prisoner of Pandarius” is one of those.

My first encounter with Hughes’s fiction was just this past September, also on the pages of F&SF (Sept/Oct 2014). “Avianca’s Bezel,” which I like very much, also features Raffalon. Therein, he learns the hard way the problems attendant with working for wizards.

In the new story, his decision to never again work for a wizard is put to the test when he is defrauded by the Purveyors — i.e. fences — of his guild. An old associate, the sorcerer Cascor, approaches him with a job offer and he reconsiders the hard line he’d previously taken.

…

Read More Read More

The Barbarism of Bullfighting and Archaic Diction in L. Sprague de Camp’s “The Rug and the Bull”

The Barbarism of Bullfighting and Archaic Diction in L. Sprague de Camp’s “The Rug and the Bull”

Comments 5 comments
1974 Paperback edition. Cover art by Frank Frazetta.
1974 Paperback edition. Cover art by Frank Frazetta.

One of the many freedoms of Sword and Sorcery, it seems to me, is that it enables the adoption of a world that allows the writer to comment on just about anything on which one would want. One of Robert E. Howard’s purposes in the construction of his own Hyboria was to create a conglomerate of cultures, no matter how anachronistic their juxtapositions, so that his hero Conan might have any kind of adventure that Howard might think up. Whereas for previous tales, Howard perhaps had to construct different heroes for different historical epochs (Bran Mak Morn for the Celtic Picts, Solomon Kane for the sixteenth century, Kull for Atlantis), in the Hyborian Age Conan might be a thief, a soldier, a pirate, and ultimately a king, his adventures all the while providing Howard with powerful commentary on “civilization.”

So, too, writers after Howard have utilized this purpose. Dave Sim, through his creation of Cerebus the Aardvark, begins by commenting on the Sword and Sorcery genre itself (as well as the mainstream comic books of Sim’s time) and then goes on to explore High Society, Church & State, marriage – and this last, in Jaka’s Story, is as far as my reading has taken me, but I understand that Sim is so far reaching in his exploration of topics that in a much later volume he even explores the life and works of Ernest Hemingway through Cerebus taking on the position of Hemingway’s personal secretary!

Terry Pratchett uses the Sword and Sorcery milieu to ingenious satirical effect, cribbing directly (I believe) from Fritz Leiber in order to forecast to his readers, in the very first pages of the very first Discworld novel, just what tone and material his readers may expect. Pratchett’s initial perspective characters, soon abandoned, are Bravd and the Weasel (Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, obviously). I quote the following description in order to give an example of Pratchett’s satirical treatment of Sword and Sorcery and to underscore, specifically, Pratchett’s debt to Leiber. For more humor, one might want to pick up this book and enjoy the way that these characters talk to each other – it’s impressively Leiberesque.

…

Read More Read More

A Blast From the Past: John Christopher’s The Tripods Trilogy

A Blast From the Past: John Christopher’s The Tripods Trilogy

Comments 7 comments

white1Long before YA fiction conquered the universe and millennia before the trilogy became the gold standard by which the world judges any given author, there lived Sam Youd, a British writer who worked under the pseudonym of John Christopher. Youd published The White Mountains in 1967, at a time when the United Kingdom was lurching away from the tight-laced, survivalist mode inherited from and necessitated by back-to-back world wars. Cue mods and rockers, Pink Floyd, the Swinging Sixties. Twiggy. Bowie. Cue a mind-set ready to dismiss the bleak past in favor of (in Christopher’s eye) an equally bleak future.

I first encountered The Tripods trilogy in the late seventies, and both my sister and I devoured the series more than once. In the first book, Will Parker, his loutish cousin Henry, and a whipsmart French lad, Beanpole, embark on a post-apocalyptic journey to the only haven they’ve ever heard of where humankind isn’t ruled by the fearsome Tripods, massive metal beings reminiscent of The War Of the Worlds. But in The White Mountains, the tripods have won: humanity has been enslaved through the use of “caps,” metal headgear installed without fail on a child’s fourteenth birthday. Will, Henry, and Beanpole are about to turn fourteen, and they are all too aware that after capping, their peers are never the same.

So book one is the journey. Book two, The City Of Gold and Lead, pits the boys, along with a stoic German, Fritz, against the creatures that operate the tripods, the Masters. Will and Fritz pose as slaves and infiltrate one of the three cities inhabited by the Masters.

…

Read More Read More

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Hard Boiled Holmes

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Hard Boiled Holmes

Comments 0 Comment

HBH_MurderBy now, readers of this column (all three of you) know that I’m ‘all-in’ on Sherlock Holmes and Solar Pons. But I am also a long-time hard boiled fiction afficionado. I’ve got a section of the bookshelves well-stocked with private eye/police novels and short stories, from Hammett and Daly to Stone and Burke.

Now, I wouldn’t bet my house on the premise of the following essay, which first appeared in Sherlock Magazine back when I was a columnist for that fine, now defunct periodical. But I believe that I make a more compelling argument than you thought possible at first glance. The roots of the American hard boiled school can be seen in Sherlock Holmes and the Victorian Era. Yes, really.

And if any of the hard boiled heroes mentioned catch your fancy, leave a comment. I’ll be glad to tell you more about them. Without further ado, I bring you “Hard Boiled Holmes.”

“But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.”

Raymond Chandler wrote these words in his essay, ‘The Simple Art of Murder.’ Ever since, the term ‘mean streets’ has been associated with the hard-boiled genre. One thinks of tough private eyes with guns, bottles, and beautiful dames. But was it really Chandler who created those words to describe the environment that the classic Philip Marlowe operated in?

Is it possible that it was Victorian London that gave birth to the mean streets, which would later become famous as the settings in the pages of Black Mask? Could it be that Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe were followers in the footsteps of Sherlock Holmes?

…

Read More Read More

The Tragic and Poignant Tales of R. Murray Gilchrist: A Night on the Moor & Other Tales of Dread

The Tragic and Poignant Tales of R. Murray Gilchrist: A Night on the Moor & Other Tales of Dread

Comments 0 Comment

A Night on the Moor-smallIt’s probably no surprise that I got a new volume in the Wordsworth’s Tales of Mystery And The Supernatural series for Christmas.

I’m not familiar with R. Murray Gilchrist, but that’s the beauty of this series — it’s introduced me to a wide range of excellent ghost story writers. Gilchrist wrote chiefly in the late 1800s and he produced a fine range of supernatural ghost stories, including horror, humor, mystery, and even tragic romance. A Night on the Moor is a slender volume (at just 190 pages, it’s considerably shorter than most of the recent Wordsworth edition we’ve covered), but I’m enjoying it so far.

Robert Murray Gilchrist (1868-1917) is perhaps best known for his interest in topography, and for his stories set in Derbyshire’s Peak District. But he was also a master of mystery and horror, as this richly varied collection shows.

If you are looking for a conventional horror story, in which the supernatural element is paramount, try “The Crimson Weaver,” “Dame Inowslad,” “Witch In-Grain,” or “A Night on the Moor.” If you are more taken with the psychology of the participants, often allied to a fascination with the killing of friends or lovers, then “Francis Shackerley,” “The Noble Courtesan,” “Althea Swathmore,” and “My Friend” will be right up your street. For humor we are offered the Peakland comedy of “The Panicle” or “A Witch in the Peak.” And when it comes to love, there are the tragic and poignant tales we might expect (“The Return,” “The Lost Mistress,” “The Madness of Betty Hooton”), but also the engaging and unusual “Bubble Magic” — a story of romantic betrayal which hints at a happy ending.

…

Read More Read More