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Steamed: What I’ve Been Playing: October, 2022

Steamed: What I’ve Been Playing: October, 2022

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So….the last three weeks I’ve shared what I’ve been watching; what I’ve been listening to; and what I’ve been reading. Let’s go for the grand slam and I’ll mention what I’ve been playing this year.

ELDER SCROLLS ONLINE

My Nord Guardian, who uses a bow and has a kick-butt bear to handle the melee.

I never jumped full-bore into the MMO world. I preferred CRPGs, like Dark Sun, Baldur’s Gate, and Neverwinter Nights. I gave Pathfinder: Kingmaker a long try (gets bogged down in the details – like food management). And the first two Mount and Blades ate up a lot of time.

I did Guild Wars 2, and Rift, short trials. Lord of the Rings Online and Neverwinter Nights have both gotten a fair amount of play, though the Turbine Engine is definitely dated. I love the lore in LotRO.

Age of Conan was my favorite MMO until last year. I like the graphics, and once I got used to the fighting system, it worked. The Conan lore is TERRIFIC. And since I’m a huge Robert E. Howard fan, the setting was my favorite (even more than Middle Earth). I’ve played several characters and classes, and they all were fun. Since I usually solo, the paucity of players wasn’t a problem. (Age of Conan doesn’t even come up on MMO’s ‘Active Player Count List, which goes down to number 63: 8,163. Not many folks around, if that matters to you.)

I played a ton of Morrowind when it came out, and was a big fan. But I didn’t go on to Skyrim, or Oblivion. Just wasn’t interested. I had picked up Elder Scrolls Online during a Steam sale, and made a half-hearted attempt at it a couple years ago. It looked nice, and it was fine. But I wasn’t invested in the world, and Age of Conan remained my go-to MMO.

Last year I did a deep play with a Kajiit Nightblade/Rogue and LOVED it. And I reinstalled it late this summer and I’m rolling through it with a Nord Guardian, using a bow and a bear. ESO is an amazing MMO. The visuals are still great. It’s a beautiful game. The combat system is easy to use, and the skill trees underlying it give lots of options on how you want to build your character.

The lore of Tamriel is simply staggering. The depth is immense. There are books all over the game that you can read (or not) and add to the reality and the history of the setting. There are collectible lore books (there’s a quest) that go in your Lore Library, and you can read them any time. And they don’t take up inventory slots! Not all books are collectible. There are over 1,000 readable books! That is cool.

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Some Tales from Night’s Plutonian Shore: My Favorite Edgar Allan Poe Stories

Some Tales from Night’s Plutonian Shore: My Favorite Edgar Allan Poe Stories

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I do not have a precise memory of when I first read one of Edgar Allan Poe’s tales. Perhaps it was a bowdlerized version of “The Fall of the House of Usher,” perhaps “Some Words With a Mummy” in one of my grandmother’s Reader’s Digest omnibuses. It might have been the Classic Comics version of “The Pit and the Pendulum.” I definitely saw most of the Roger Corman movie adaptations with Vincent Price on the 4:30 Movie on ABC. I know I picked up a copy of Scholastic Book’s collection, Eight Tales of Terror, at a used book sale at Our Lady of Good Counsel. The important thing is, Edgar Allan Poe‘s creations have been with me as a reader of the weird and the fantastic from my earliest days.

It’s been a very long time since I’ve actually read any of Poe’s stories, so, as the Halloween season is upon us, it seems the proper time to return to them. I had no doubt I would still enjoy them, but I really had no idea just how good and groundbreaking they really are. Lovecraft, in his seminal essay, “Supernatural Horror in Literature” stated that by focusing on the psychological and not the Gothic, “Poe’s spectres thus acquired a convincing malignity possessed by none of their predecessors, and established a new standard of realism in the annals of literary horror.” I don’t think it’s an overstatement. There are few boogeymen or vampires here; instead, it’s mostly warped and broken minds, the sadism of the vengeful, and the nightmares of the delirious.

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) is credited with creating the detective story (he didn’t), the modern short story (he was one of the earliest American practitioners of the form), and contemporary horror fiction (he helped). His life was plagued by misfortune and missteps and to this day, his death at the unfortunate young age of forty remains a mystery, though it has been attributed to alcoholism, drug addiction, syphilis, and even murder. Whatever the circumstances of his life, his work remains one of the pinnacles of American writing, of Romanticism, and of weird fiction.

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What I’ve Been Reading: September, 2022

What I’ve Been Reading: September, 2022

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So, I talked about what I’ve been watching. And then I followed that up with what I’ve been listening to. So naturally, this week it’s what I’ve been reading. Though, I considered a post on what I’ve been playing, as I loaded up a couple Diablo-style point and click games.

Another summer of A (Black) Gat in the Hand has come and gone, and I was deep into pulp and hardboiled goodness. Here’s a list of all the essays; we will hit the 100 mark next summer!

In my second installment of Back Porch Pulp, I talked about The Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run; also known as The Cleveland Torso Murderer. I have long been a fan of this strange chapter in Eliot Ness’ latter career. Starting in 1935, a madman (or possibly more than one) killed a dozen people in Cleveland, dismembering their corpses. The murders suddenly stopped in 1938, and the killer was never identified. There were additional killings, including in Pennsylvania and New York, that may have been by the same person.

Cleveland was about to host the Republican National Convention, and famed Untouchable Eliot Ness was the city’s Public Safety Director. Along with Jack the Ripper, and Austin’s Servant Girl Annihilator, I find this to be an absolutely fascinating serial killer case. He was never identified, and only one man was officially charged in the killings. He was almost certainly innocent, and was found hung in his cell.

I have books by James Badal, Stephen Nickel, Max Allen Collins, John Barlow Martin; novels by Collins, and William Bernhardt; and even a graphic novel. A fellow Sherlockian, Daniel Stashower, just released a new book about it last month. I think it’s an absolutely fascinating subject, even though it’s largely forgotten outside of Cleveland. If you’re into true crime, you should definitely dig into it.

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What I’ve Been Listening To: September, 2022

What I’ve Been Listening To: September, 2022

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Last week, I talked about what I’ve been watching. I could do another entry on that, but I want to mix it up a little bit. So, this week, I’m gonna talk about five things I’ve listened to, lately. I listen to audio books, and radio plays, when I’m driving by myself. And I can also listen to them during most work days. My mind can listen to them, and focus on my work, most of the time. I’m fortunate that way.

When I have to split my attention, I often listen to something I’ve heard before, like the Dirk Gently broadcast. Or an old radio show.

SPEAKS THE NIGHTBIRD – Robert R. McCammon

I wrote this essay about the introduction to my favorite novel of all time: McCammon’s Boy’s Life. It’s simply a tour-de-force of writing. McCammon is the only straight horror author I like. That genre creeps me out too much. King, Lovecraft, Robert E Howard – don’t care for any of their horror stuff. But man, do I love me some McCammon.

One of the genres best-sellers, he wanted to write something different after 1992’s Gone South (that has the most memorable opening line I’ve ever read). His publisher, not wanting the money train to move onto a siding, told him ‘No’ and to keep the horror coming. Denied an outlet for a historical fiction novel, McCammon took his toys and went home. He quit.

He wrote the book on his own, and a decade later, it came out from a small publisher. The ninth Matthew Corbett book is upcoming, and he has also written a few more ‘regular’ horror books. He came back to the industry on his own terms.

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Andor: The Birth of a Rebellion

Andor: The Birth of a Rebellion

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Episode 1: The Spoils of Empire

It is a time of growing oppression. Ordinary people, without the heft of a famous name or the gifts of the midi-chlorians and a Jedi guardian, must make a choice: Join the GALACTIC EMPIRE and accept a comfortable life of regimentation, obedience to orders, and acceptance of the official line or — something else.

Young CASSIAN ANDOR, an unknown scion of lost cargo cult on a half-forgotten world, has chosen something else. A life on the fringe, in the shadows, leaving as few traces of himself as possible and carefully watching each step. His search for his sister continues on the leased planets of PREOX-MORANA CORPORATE ZONE.

During his investigation, matters go awry. The hunter becomes the hunted. Now one man, increasingly caught in a web of what might be called “imperial entanglements” faces a choice, both for himself and his lost sister, that will alter the future of an entire galaxy . . .

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What I’ve Been Watching: September, 2022

What I’ve Been Watching: September, 2022

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We’ve just wrapped up another successful summer run of A (Black) Gat in the Hand. What? How do I know it was successful? Because it didn’t get canceled, that’s how. It was also, unanimously, hands down, the favorite pulp series at Black Gate this summer. So… what now? Yes, it was the ONLY pulp series this summer. I believe even this year so far. Totally beside the point.

Anywhoo…while I was immersed in reading and listening for the series (I didn’t do any movies this year, I think), I was still watching ‘stuff,’ and reading non-Pulp stuff here and there. So, this week, I’m gonna talk about five things I’ve watched, lately. Next week, it will be five things I’ve listened to (audio books, radio plays).

I’m not necessarily a renaissance man, but as a friend once said of me, I’m more of a late medieval pretender.

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Exclusive Preview: The World of Catalyst by Brandon Crilly

Exclusive Preview: The World of Catalyst by Brandon Crilly

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Catalyst by Brandon Crilly (Atthis Arts, October 11, 2022). Cover artist uncredited.

Hello, Black Gate folks! Normally I spend my time here raving about other people’s books, but this time I’m in the very weird position of talking about my own. Yikes. Catalyst is my debut fantasy novel, releasing in October from Atthis Arts, and John has graciously invited me to talk a bit about the world of the book.

Catalyst centers on three estranged friends: Mavrin, a street magician who doesn’t believe in real magic, other than what the Aspects provide; Eyasu, labeled a heretic by the Aspects’ followers but determined to prove a secret history everyone else rejects; and Deyeri, a retired soldier whose adopted city is threatened by forces tied to that history. They begin the story in different corners of Aelda, a world that split apart at its core a little over three centuries earlier, and would have been destroyed completely if not for the intervention of the Aspects: massive, cephalopod-like beings the people of Aelda believe to be their gods, who have been circling the planet ever since providing atmosphere and holding what remains of Aelda together.

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Back Porch Pulp #2

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Back Porch Pulp #2

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“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep

(Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun)

And we’re wrapping up another summer run of A (Black) Gat in the Hand with Back Porch Pulp #2. So, here we go!

DAVID DODGE

Back Porch Pulp is reading the first novel by David Dodge. He is best known as author of the thriller novel, To Catch a Thief.

Which became a famous Cary Grant movie, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. I saw that on the big screen at The Ohio Theater. That was a treat.

I like his adventure novel, ‘Plunder of the Sun.’ Which became a not-famous movie, with Glenn Ford. Hard Case Crime reissued that book, introducing me to the author.

Dodge was an accountant. And his first couple novels were hardboiled ones starring San Francisco accountant Whit Whitney. I wrote an essay on Dodge and two of his novels, last month.

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A Strange Song of Unknown Places: The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H.P. Lovecraft

A Strange Song of Unknown Places: The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H.P. Lovecraft

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HPL’s original manuscript

Three times Randolph Carter dreamed of the marvelous city, and three times was he snatched away while still he paused on the high terrace above it. All golden and lovely it blazed in the sunset, with walls, temples, colonnades and arched bridges of veined marble, silver-basined fountains of prismatic spray in broad squares and perfumed gardens, and wide streets marching between delicate trees and blossom-laden urns and ivory statues in gleaming rows; while on steep northward slopes climbed tiers of red roofs and old peaked gables harbouring little lanes of grassy cobbles. It was a fever of the gods, a fanfare of supernal trumpets and a clash of immortal cymbals. Mystery hung about it as clouds about a fabulous unvisited mountain; and as Carter stood breathless and expectant on that balustraded parapet there swept up to him the poignancy and suspense of almost-vanished memory, the pain of lost things and the maddening need to place again what once had been an awesome and momentous place.

HP Lovecraft (1890-1937) was a man who seems to have never been fully comfortable in the world. His racism, most unpleasantly, but also, his old-fashioned affectations and his adamant refusal to bend his artistic desires to the least sort of commercial demands, all these, I believe, indicate a severe unease with the way the world was (he even turned down the editorship of Weird Tales because he refused to move to Chicago “on aesthetic grounds.”) The old America, peopled by the heirs of the original colonial families, had been washed away on a tide of industrialization and immigration. It was decadent and in decline and he would not be a part of it.

From his earliest days, Lovecraft was plagued by strange dreams and nightmares. Many of these would serve as the basis of stories later in life. A tragic family life — his father died in an asylum of late-stage syphilis and his family slowly slipped into poverty — and an innate nervous disposition probably had much to do with his attitudes. At the heart of the horror stories for which he’s most famous is the belief that mankind is insignificant and powerless in the face of a vast and uncaring Universe. While I don’t think he was mentally ill or anything, I do believe he longed for some intangible, more fantastic and better world.

Not finding one at hand, he created one in a series of related tales that culminated with The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath in 1927 (though it wouldn’t be published until 1943). Typically referred to as his Dream Cycle, Lovecraft was greatly influenced in writing these tales by Lord Dunsany‘s lush stories. The stories are filled with dense descriptive passages, surreal imagery, and the illogical logic of dreams.

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Hardboiled in Key West – John Leslie

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Hardboiled in Key West – John Leslie

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“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep

(Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun)

I wanted to bring over another post from The Public life of Sherlock Holmes. From my experience, this is a WAAAAAY below the radar private eye series. But I’ve read it through twice, and I really like it. And it’s got a very Pulp Era atmosphere, though it was written in the nineties. So, here’s a revised essay on John Leslie’s Key West, piano-playing, private eye.

If you read this column, (or are a FB friend) you know that John D. MacDonald, author of the Travis McGee series, Cape Fear (originally titled The Executioners), and much, much more, is my favorite writer. And I believe, one of the greatest American writers of the twentieth century, in any genre. His is the pre-eminent name in the subcategory of ‘Florida writers.’ Randy Wayne White’s Doc Ford, a marine biologist who lives in a stilt house, is absolutely McGee’s successor. I think White is a top-notch writer and I certainly recommend that series.

I’m not as up on this group as I used to be, but Carl Hiassen is probably the best-known Florida scribe these days. His biting satire and hilarious situations can be laugh-out-loud reading. In a similar vein to Hiassen are the works of Lawrence Shames. He also pokes fun at the absurdities of Florida life with a series of mostly unconnected books set in Key West. They provide some chuckles.

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