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Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu, Part Four – “The White Peacock”

Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu, Part Four – “The White Peacock”

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fu-manchu-and-company“The White Peacock” was the fourth installment of Sax Rohmer’s Fu-Manchu and Company. The story was first published in Collier’s on March 6, 1915 and was later expanded to comprise Chapters 11-13 of the second Fu-Manchu novel, The Devil Doctor first published in the UK in 1916 by Cassell and in the US by McBride & Nast under the variant title, The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu.

The story gets underway with Dr. Petrie scouring the criminal district of Whitechapel Road with its Jewish hawkers and crowds of Poles, Russians, Serbs, Romanians, Hungarians, Italians, and Chinese immigrants. Petrie notes that he never sees a face wholly sane or healthy among these underworld denizens he terms “a melting pot of the world’s outcasts.”

resurrection-de-fu-manchuThe reader quickly learns that Nayland Smith disappeared the previous night having set out in search of Shen Yan in Limehouse. Inspector Weymouth and his men are searching frantically for some sign of Smith. Consequently, Petrie’s paranoia (and xenophobia) is increased dramatically with the disappearance of the friend he holds above all others and who personifies the British Empire and Petrie’s sense of stability.

Petrie meets up with Inspector Ryman at the police station and learns they have already begun dragging the Thames in search of Smith. Petrie learns that Weymouth raided Shen Yan’s when Smith failed to emerge after entering the gambling house. No sign of either Smith or Burke, the American detective that accompanied him or of Shen Yan has been found.

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“A Paladin, a Fighter, or a Thief!” S.J. Tucker Gives Away a Freebie

“A Paladin, a Fighter, or a Thief!” S.J. Tucker Gives Away a Freebie

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Photo by Kyle Cassidy
Photo by Kyle Cassidy

“Come bards from the north, elves off the moor
Gamers off work get down to the store
Scratch your neighbor what’s underneath?
A wizard or a cleric or a thief!”

Musician S.J. Tucker (of whom I have spoken at length) has released a FREE SONG on her website, entitled “D&D.”

And it has orcs and elves and paladins in it (oh, my!), ’cause she’s just that cool.

She writes in her LiveJournal:

This is my first time writing and releasing a parody: “D&D” is sung to the tune of “The Napoli” by Mr. Steve Knightley of British folk group Show of Hands. …Definitely give a listen to the original as well as to my parody version–it’s every bit as cool for different reasons, being about a (relatively recent) shipwreck…there’s piracy.

…This is very exciting for me, guys, not least because I have proof now that my years of filling out character sheets has, in fact, paid off…or it will, if you help me spread the word. Please download the song and share the link with others–encourage friends to explore my other available downloads as well; you know how it works, every little bit makes a difference!

Check it out! It’s way fun. And I’ve never even played Dungeons and Dragons in my life!

Art of the Genre: The Drow

Art of the Genre: The Drow

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Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took both…

Jeff Dee shows some skin on the back cover of D3
Jeff Dee shows some blue skin on the back cover of D3

Today I follow the rise of the Drow, both in their conceptual purpose and the art that has defined them.

In modern fantasy there have been dark elves as far back as Tolkien when he speaks of Eol the Dark Elf who forged Anguirel the blade used by Beleg Strongbow in the Hurin mythos. Yet, corrupted elves, and the mystery they hold, have become something else entirely when placed in the framework of role-playing games.

Somewhere, in some nearly forgotten time, Gary Gygax read something, perhaps Funk & Wagnall’s Unexpurgated Dictionary, stating: “[Scot.] In folk-lore, one of a race of underground elves represented as skilful workers in metal. Compare TROLL. [Variant of TROLL.] trow“ and he used it to create the absolutely fantastic D&D monster we now call Drow.

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Nerd Empowerment Role-Model: Penny Gadget

Nerd Empowerment Role-Model: Penny Gadget

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inspector-gadget-pennyI wonder if elementary school children today have as inspiring a model on animated television shows as I did when I was ten years old. My hero was Penny Gadget from the syndicated series Inspector Gadget.

Why? Because somebody my age, armed with a computer (a proto-laptop disguised as a book) and an amazing wristwatch (able to fire lasers and tracers and whatever else the plot needed) was stopping a massive global criminal enterprise on a weekly basis while the adults around her achieved nothing except looking like buffoons.

Admittedly, in the long view MAD is an incompetently run Evil Secret Organization, staffed exclusively with dingbats who constantly fail to kill an opponent who can’t tell the difference between his own dog and his own dog wearing a wig. Perhaps MAD’s leader, the Blofeld-in-Steel villain Dr. Claw, has some intelligence — he has a Ph.D., apparently, although maybe it was through a diploma mill — but this “evil genius” regularly sees his world conquest plans collapse because of a ten-year-old. A ten-year-old he occasionally captures but never recognizes. Yeah, I’m going to go with “diploma mill.”

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Fantasy and Lightspeed

Fantasy and Lightspeed

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bgfantasy2John Joseph Adams is the editor of the anthologies By Blood We Live, Federations, The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Living Dead (a World Fantasy Award finalist), The Living Dead 2, The Way of the Wizard, Seeds of Change, and Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse.

Forthcoming work includes the anthologies The Book of Cthulhu, Brave New Worlds, and The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination.

And guess what else? He is now the editor of Fantasy Magazine and Lightspeed Magazine, the critically-acclaimed online short fiction magazines published by Prime Books.

Here are the guidelines for Fantasy.

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Like a Bridge Over (Sharon Shinn’s) Troubled Waters: A Review

Like a Bridge Over (Sharon Shinn’s) Troubled Waters: A Review

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The Thirteenth House (art by Donato Giancola)
The Thirteenth House (art by Donato Giancola)

Troubled Waters
By Sharon Shinn
Ace Hardcover [400 pages, October 5th, 2010, $24.95]

I periodically go through Sharon Shinn phases. The word “thrall” comes to mind.

These fiction-consuming frenzies may last several weeks. When they end, I usually shake my fists at the sky and vow never to do it again. Ever. No more staying up every night for days on end rereading the Twelve Houses books and the Samaria series and that Jane Eyre retelling, Jenna Starborn, or Summers at Castle Auburn, or The Shapechanger’s Wife, or, or…

It’s exhausting, I tell you! The woman renders “prolific” a gross understatement.

And then I was offered up Troubled Waters to review for Black Gate. I’m not saying I snatched it out of John O’Neill’s hands as from the maw of many-tentacled Cthulhu. Or glared at him when he tried to take it back. I merely assured him, very calmly, that, Yes, I would like to review it, and oh does that mean I get to keep this copy, really, how nice, and no, that is not slobber on my chin.

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Supernatural Returns – Episode 6.12 “Like a Virgin”

Supernatural Returns – Episode 6.12 “Like a Virgin”

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SUPERNATURALWhen we left Supernatural for its winter hiatus, Death had rescued Sam’s soul from where it was trapped with Lucifer and the Archangel Michael and placed it back into Sam’s body. (And I’d made several predictions about where the plot would go.)

We return to the series with the requisite opening monster attack … but let’s get to the important part: Sam’s got his soul back.

He’s unconscious, though, and Castiel can’t tell if he’ll ever wake up. He does, however, and doesn’t seem to remember anything that’s happened after he jumped into the pit with Lucifer & Mikey. (This is to be expected, because Death could only bring him back intact by “walling off” the part of his soul that remembered the torments inflicted upon him.)

Dean decides that Sam doesn’t need to know what’s happened, so tells him that he’s been in the hellish prison for a year and a half. He explains that Death brought Sam back, but doesn’t give further details. Bobby’s reluctant but does go along with the deception, although he makes it clear that Sam will figure it out eventually. (Turns out that eventually isn’t what it used to be.)

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Classic Alternatives: Keith Roberts’ Pavane

Classic Alternatives: Keith Roberts’ Pavane

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PavaneI’ve always been fascinated by history, which is one reason why I write about it. So by extension one of the kinds of speculative fiction which has always fascinated me is the alternate history tale. Whether as a ‘pure’ alternate history tale, describing a world where things just happened to go a different way than we knew, or as a ‘warped’ history in which deliberate meddling has created some new reality, the rethinking of historical assumptions is challenging and invigorating — at least, up to a point. The changes have to make sense.

I think a lot of science fiction and fantasy requires careful attention to setting; attention in constructing a setting, attention in how the setting is communicated to the reader, and attention in working the setting and its communication smoothly into the narrative. Along, of course, with attention to how the setting affects character, and, ultimately, the language a character uses and the language in which the story is told. The alternate-history story is an extreme example of all these things. It’s the setting that makes it the story it is. And in changing history, the writer makes decisions about character, style, and — implicitly — theme and structure; as in any kind of sf, what kind of fictional world the writer creates is intimately connected with what the story’s about and how it’s told.

Which brings me around to Keith Roberts’ novel Pavane. It’s a set of linked short stories, describing a world in which Queen Elizabeth I of England was assassinated, the Spanish Armada conquered England, and Europe remained wholly Catholic. The book, first published in 1966, takes place in the late twentieth century of this other world, in which technological and social progress has been slowed by the authoritatian hand of the Church. It moves from character to character, showing developments over the course of generations as some things change and some things do not.

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Some Little Infamy

Some Little Infamy

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johannes-cabalI have been asked to write a few words on how the Johannes Cabal novels came to be published with a particular view to explaining some of the intricacies of the publishing trade. Because I am nothing if not didactic (“Didactic” means, among other things, to speak in a lecturely manner. I hope you’re taking notes – there will be a test afterwards), I have also added a few notes of advice at the end for folk who want to get into the professional novel writing gig.

There is no precise moment when Johannes Cabal leapt from my brow, side, or any other part of my anatomy. He was, as is often the way, formed by a slow aggregation of assorted ideas over quite a lengthy period that probably starts sometime in the mid to late 1980s. I had and, I must admit, still have a habit of inventing stories for my own amusement with no intention of writing them down. Usually the reason for not taking it too seriously is because I’m playing with other people’s characters, and the copyright situation discourages me from making the stories concrete; virtual fanfic, if you like.

Back in 1985 I saw a film that, as a Lovecraft fan, I was all set to hate. Instead, having seen Re-Animator I came out of the cinema enthused and excited by such a gonzo approach to Lovecraft’s work. Inevitably, I started playing around with ideas for a sequel. There used to be an old vicarage in Kearsley, southwest of Bolton on the road to Manchester, that caught my eye whenever I went by. It was a tall, severe, Victorian building with a large, circular window on its attic floor, glaring out from beneath the eaves. The window made me think of a Lovecraftian tale, and I imagined a rival to Herbert West living there. Unlike West, however, he used magic upon which he had imposed a scientific rigour. Herbert West comes to him to collaborate with predictably gory results.

I never got very far with this particular story because I found myself becoming more interested in the unnamed magic-using re-animator.

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Short Fiction Roundup: This Just In

Short Fiction Roundup: This Just In

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interzone-286a1The new Interzone has a refreshing look after last year’s garish series of yellow and redish installments. Haven’t had a chance to more than glance at the contents, but any story called “Noam Chomsky and the Time Box” sounds like my sort of fare.  Here’s a synopsis:

If anyone needed more proof that the gadget driven marketing scam that was the American Empire is now completely dead, the utter failure to adequately create demand for the world’s first personal time machine should suffice as proof. Nintendo, Time Warner, and Apple computers have all backed off their various offers to buy out Time Box incorporated, and while last year it seemed impossible that the product might suffer the same fate as Betamax and electric cars, a year later it’s becoming obvious that people without a history or a future are uninterested in the kind of time travel the Box offers. The public seems content to leave history to the necrophiliacs and Civil War Buffs.

apex-21a1In addition to this Douglas Lain penned tale, there are stories by Michael R. Fletcher, Sue Burke and Sarah L. Edwards, as well as the 2010 James White Award winning “Flock, Shoal, Herd” by James Bloomer.

The latest issue of Apex Magazine features fiction from Cat Rambo, Forrest Aguirre and Nalo Hopkinson.  According to the publisher,

“This issue marks the second issue following our new distribution model. In short, we wanted to give a premium to those who subscribe digitally and/or purchase each issue by making the content available to them one month prior to its release on our website. This means that full text of the stories and poetry will be available the first Monday of March right here, along with sneak peeks of this issue’s contents.”