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Fools in the Hotzone: Saruman as the Bold but Incompetent Firefighter

Fools in the Hotzone: Saruman as the Bold but Incompetent Firefighter

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unfinished-talesEvery year the Man sends me to Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response class. These HAZWOPER classes are almost always taught by firefighters because they routinely deal with emergency responses to hazardous materials.

Over the years, I’ve noticed a trend in the way they teach the course — that most of the examples of what not to do when knee-deep in an emergency dealing with hazardous materials comes from the hard lessons of other firefighters. More specifically, they come from the gung-ho firefighters who charge into a dangerous situation, make said situation worse, and other firefighters have to spend time and energy rescuing them instead of dealing with the main problem.

Because I’m a nerd, and I’ve taken this class a lot over the years and my mind wanders, I immediately saw a parallel to the wizards of JRR Tolkien’s Middle-Earth.

Background? Surely:

So at the end of the Second Age, Sauron has completely corrupted the men of Númenor, causing their destruction and his own. Because you can’t keep a good Miaiar down, and especially an extremely bad one like Sauron, he’ll be back. Which is why the Valar of the Utermost West decided to select three of their number to go to middle earth and “deal” with the problem of Sauron’s inevitable return.

From The Return of the King:

They came therefore in the shape of Men, though they were never young and aged only slowly, and they had many powers of mind and hand. The two highest of this order (of whom it is said there were five) were called by the Eldar (elves) Curunir ‘the Man of Skill’, and Mithrandir, ‘the Grey Pilgrim’, but by Men in the North Saruman and Gandalf.

Notice how the original number of three swelled to five? That’s what happens when divine beings make decisions by committee. However, the details of those proceedings are important — nay crucial — in understanding Saruman’s supreme arrogance and the depth of his magnificent solution to the Sauron problem.

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A Weird Fiction Kindle Story Giveaway

A Weird Fiction Kindle Story Giveaway

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She Who RunsSleepless, Burning LifeStolen Souls

Hello, Black Gate denizens. Mike Allen here of the Monstrous Posts on Monsters and the Clockwork Phoenix anthologies.

John O’Neill has asked me to write you folks a follow up on how the Clockwork Phoenix 4 Kickstarter I told you about earlier this year turned out (SPOILER ALERT: it was a smashing success) and share tips on some of the tricks I learned. I’ve got something laden with all sorts of graphics that I’ll post for you later in the week.

However, this is not that post!

John has also given me permission to plug the Kindle story promotion that I’m in the midst of. (John is a generous guy. Charming, too!) There is some topical relevance, as there’s an excerpt from my weird fantasy novel The Black Fire Concerto slated to appear in the Black Gate online fiction lineup in the not-too-distant future, so here’s a way to get a sample of what I do.

So here’s how it goes: through Tuesday night, I’m offering my weird science fiction novelette “Stolen Souls,” my weird fantasy story “She Who Runs” and my even weirder clockpunk novelette “Sleepless, Burning Life” free to all through Amazon Kindle. Just click on the story titles or the cover art above to nab them. (And if you’re interested but don’t have a Kindle, e-mail me and we’ll work something out.)

And if you’re an aspiring author curious what insights I might have on the freebie Kindle experience, I have an entry sharing my thoughts so far. But feel free to ask me questions, too.

New Treasures: Pax Britannia: Pax Omega, by Al Ewing

New Treasures: Pax Britannia: Pax Omega, by Al Ewing

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pax-omega-smallI have a weakness for pulp fiction. There aren’t a lot of practitioners of true pulp fantasy today — as opposed to pulp parody, which seems to be all too common.

A notable exception is Al Ewing, whose first novel of the Pax Britannia series, El Sombra, featured stormtroopers from the Ultimate Reich, mechanized horrors terrorizing a small Mexican town, and the torture-parlors of Master Minus and his Palace Of Beautiful Thoughts. The second installment, Gods of Manhattan, introduced The Blood Spider, Doc Thunder, and the monstrous plans of the Meccha-Fuhrer, set against the backdrop of the steam-powered city of tomorrow, New York USS. The final volume of the trilogy, Pax Omega, arrived this spring and sounds like the most intriguing of the bunch.

Doc Thunder’s last stand against a deadly foe whose true identity will shock you to your core! El Sombra’s final battle against the forces of the Ultimate Reich! The Locomotive Man in a showdown with cosmic science on the prairies of the Old West! Jackson Steele defends the 25th Century against the massed armies of the Space Satan! A duel of minds in the mystery palaces of One Million AD! Blazing steam-pulp sci-fi the way you crave it! From the Big Bang to the End Of Time — eleven tales from Pax Britannia’s past, present and distant future combine into one star-spanning saga set to shake the universe to its foundations –- or destroy it!

That’s a lot of exclamation marks. But when your sentences include words like Ultimate Reich and Space Satan, I guess they look kinda naked without ’em.

I don’t have the other two volumes, and I wonder if I can start with this one. I’ll give it a try and let you know.

Pax Britannia: Pax Omega was published by Abaddon in April, 2012. It is 266 pages in trade paperback for $9.99, or $5.99 for the digital edition.

Vintage Treasures: The Case of the Marble Monster

Vintage Treasures: The Case of the Marble Monster

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the-case-of-the-marble-monster-smallWhen you have kids, I think it’s inevitable that you want them to read the books you loved most as a child. You parents out there know what I’m talking about. And be honest. It’s not enough for them to just read ’em, is it? No. You want your kids to love those books, the same way you did.

I’ve had pretty spotty luck, frankly. Couldn’t get any of my children interested in Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators, for example. Sometimes I despair for future generations. I had a bit more luck with my teenage boys and the classic SF and fantasy of my own early teens, such as Dune and Lord of Light.  (Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy was a complete bust, however).

But in terms of reaching all three of my kids, both boys and my 13-year old daughter? Almost impossible.

Except for a few slender volumes from Scholastic Books, that is. Scholastic Books were some of the great treasures of my childhood, and I loved them with a fierce passion. Norman Bridwell’s How To Care For Your Monster, John Peterson’s The Secret Hide-Out, Bertrand R. Brinley’s The Mad Scientist’s Club, Robert McCloskey’s Homer Price, and especially Lester Del Rey’s The Runaway Robot… these were the books I devoured again and again as a child. And the ones that most shaped my future reading tastes, now that I look back on it.

I’ve been able to interest all of my kids in at least one or two. And as you might expect, they disagree on which one is the best. The only one to receive universal praise is a thin collection of short stories originally published in 1961: I.G. Edmonds’s The Case of the Marble Monster.

The Case of the Marble Monster collects the tales of the legendary Judge Ooka, the 17th-century Japanese samurai in the service of the Tokugawa shogunate. Even if you’ve never heard of Ōoka Tadasuke, you’ve almost certainly heard of his cases, some of the most famous legal decisions in history. They include “The Case of the Stolen Smell,” in which an obnoxious innkeeper accuses a poor student of stealing the smell of his food, and ”The Case of the Bound Statue,” in which Ooka is asked to uncover the thief of a cartload of cloth, and he orders a statue of Jizo (a stone guardian) to be bound and arrested for dereliction of duty. All three of my children are in agreement that The Case of the Marble Monster is a fabulous book, and I can’t argue with their judgment. The tales have been passed down for hundreds of years, and it’s not hard to see why.

The Case of the Marble Monster was published by Scholastic Books in 1961. It was 45 cents in paperback for a slender 112 pages; you can buy copies on e-Bay for roughly ten times that. It’s well worth it.

Teaching and Fantasy Literature: Hefting the Dramatist’s Toolkit

Teaching and Fantasy Literature: Hefting the Dramatist’s Toolkit

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the-dramatiste28099s-toolkit-smallHere’s a silly but common way to organize a creative writing program: The absolute prerequisite for any class that specializes by genre–and in this context, genre means the big divisions into fiction, poetry, and drama–is a general creative writing class that purports to introduce students to the the basics of all three genres in a fourteen-week semester. Assume your first class meeting is lost to administrivia, your last class meeting is a wash because students are packing out for their winter or summer holidays, and you’ll lose one or two others to snow days or the flu. You have to give thirty–yes, thirty–undergrads a grounding in all the technique they may ever get in fiction in four weeks. All they may ever get of poetry, all they may ever get of drama–four weeks each.

Moreover, odds are that you’re not a generalist yourself, any more than your students are. At least one of those mega-genres is going to be your weak spot, and now you have to prioritize all the technique you don’t know in that weak genre to figure out what’s most important to introduce your students to in the four weeks they’ll spend trying to be, say, playwrights.

Fortunately for me, I knew a Real Live Playwright who helped me figure out what the most important basics were in her genre. She pointed me to Jeffrey Sweet’s book, The Dramatist’s Toolkit: The Craft of the Working Playwright. Sweet’s book didn’t make a dramatist of me, but it did illuminate what Joss Whedon and his writers were up to in all that crackling dialogue on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. As I studied the more uneven shows I loved, like Babylon 5 and The X Files, what separated the glorious episodes from the episodes that fell flat was much easier for me to pinpoint. When I turned my hand to fiction again after a decade as a poet and scholar, most of what I got right was the result of using Sweet to dissect Whedon.

So, what are the tools in that toolkit? And which are the ones we need?

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New Treasures: Dead in the Water, a Warhammer 40K Audio Drama

New Treasures: Dead in the Water, a Warhammer 40K Audio Drama

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dead-in-the-water-sandy-mitchellLast week, I wrote a brief introduction to the Warhammer 40K universe, under the guise of a review of The Achilus Assault gamebook. It was a cheap gimmick, I know, but life is short and filled with great things you need to know about.

In the comments section Joe H wrote:

I love the WH40K setting, the thing that bothers me is that they have this vast sprawling galaxy full of wonders and terrors and way too much of the content seems to boil down to Space Marines vs. Space Orks… That’s why I was so intrigued by Rogue Trader — a WH40K setting that’s not just about FOR THE EMPEROR! I just wish we’d get more of that kind of thing in the novels. Are there any current novels that move outside of the Space Marine paradigm?

I love these kinds of questions. The kinds I actually have an answer to, I mean. And the answer in this case is yes.

There are several great series I could point you to, but because it’s after 9:00 pm and my family is impatiently waiting for me to start our family movie, I’m going to limit it to one: You should try the Ciaphas Cain novels by Sandy Mitchell. Commissar Cain is a revered hero of the Imperium, a man who’s seen action in some of the deadliest hot spots in the galaxy… and he’s pretty much done with that. All he wants to do is keep his head down and serve out his tour of duty… but alas, fate has other plans.

Cain is an entertaining rogue in a universe of dark horrors, and it’s a winning combination. There are several excellent omnibus collections of his novels available, but I recommend you start the same way I did: with Dead in the Water, a terrific one-hour audio drama that serves as the perfect intro to both Cain and the Warhammer 40K universe.

Cain is enjoying a quiet posting to a backwater river world when a squad on a routine mission goes missing. Pressed into investigating by his commanding officer, Cain quickly discovers that all is not what it seems… and a sinister opponent is manipulating events behind the scenes. The action is quick, the characters memorable, and the narration by Toby Longworth is excellent. The production quality of these Black Library Audio Dramas — with their dead-on sound effects, moody original music, and tight plotting — has been consistently excellent, and they have quickly become highly collectible. Already the early releases are out of print and starting to command collector’s prices on Amazon.com. I suggest you grab this one while you can.

Dead in the Water was published by Black Library in June, 2011.  It is one hour on a single CD, priced at $17.

Dabir and Asim Discover England

Dabir and Asim Discover England

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bones-of-the-old-onesOur Managing Editor Howard Andrew Jones posted the news on his blog on Friday, but I thought it was worth repeating here: new British publisher Head of Zeus has picked  up The Chronicles of Sword and Sand (known around these parts as the adventures of Dabir and Asim) for British publication.

The first volume, The Desert of Souls, was published here in the US on February 15, 2011, and the exciting sequel, Bones of the Old Ones, is scheduled to arrive in less than three weeks. Head of Zeus will bring both into print overseas for the first time beginning in April of 2013.

The Desert of Souls was called “An Arabian Nights adventure as written by Robert E Howard” by Dave Drake, and Bones of the Old Ones received a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly. In a recent feature review, SF Signal called the second volume “A damn good tale that not only pays homage to the masters, but sets its own print on the genre.”

Bones of the Old Ones is the best fantasy I’ve read in years. It’s a rollicking adventure that follows Dabir and Asim on a daring quest across the landscape of 8th Century Arabia, packed with ancient secrets, underground lairs, dread pacts, mysterious sorcery, desperate heroism, and moments of laugh-out-loud humor. The cast is much larger than The Desert of Souls, and the stakes are higher, as Dabir and Asim race against time to prevent an ancient sorcerous cabal from plunging the world into eternal winter.

Goodreads is offering signed copies of The Bones of the Old Ones — and copies of The Desert of Souls — to three lucky winners this month; visit Goodreads to enter. The winners will be announced December 19th. And now that The Desert of Souls is available in trade paperback, Amazon.com is selling the hardcover for just 10 bucks — get them while they last.

The Bones of the Old Ones will be released in North America on December 11. We first reported on it back in August.

The Fantasy Adventures of Alexander the Great

The Fantasy Adventures of Alexander the Great

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alexanderI think my favorite parts of Alexander the Great’s life involve his fight with the dragon, and the time he climbed to a mountain summit and saw the angel of death. Not to mention his conversation with the speaking tree. After that, his meeting with the Emperor of China was almost superfluous.

I haven’t been dropping acid. I’ve been reading from the Shahnameh, the Persian Book of Kings, an epic poem and a national treasure of Iran, written by Abolqasem Ferdowsi over the course of many decades in the 9th century O.C.E. It purports to tell the history of Persia until the time of the Arab conquest, but what it mostly does is collect fabulous tales of adventure, betrayal, war, and love centered around Persian rulers. And because Alexander the Great came to rule Persia, there’s a long section devoted to him.

Alexander the Great from history and Sekander from the Shannameh have very different lives, and the version told by Ferdowsi reads an awful lot like an abbreviated fantasy epic.

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Phyllis Ann Karr’s At Amberleaf Fair

Phyllis Ann Karr’s At Amberleaf Fair

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At Amberleaf FairFor some time I’ve had the idea that there are unknown treasures yet to be mined in the deep veins of 80s fantasy. That among all the many titles published in those years are overlooked tales that are worth digging up. I don’t necessarily mean neglected masterpieces, though that’s possible. I mean little gems: books offering unexpected or idiosyncratic takes on the genre. Books that to some extent operate by conventions of their own. Books that suggest slightly different ways to do things. I want to write here about an example of what I mean: Phyllis Ann Karr’s At Amberleaf Fair.

Karr’s published poetry, essays, and short stories, as well as The Arthurian Companion, are a sort of encyclopedia of Arthuriana I find immensely useful. Her first novels were published in 1980, which saw both the romance My Lady Quixote and the fantasy Frostflower and Thorn. She’s published several other novels since, some under the name Irene Radford; At Amberleaf Fair came out in 1986. The Encyclopedia of Fantasy tells me that several of Karr’s short stories feature Amberleaf Fair’s main character, but that (as of the Encyclopedia’s publication) none have been collected.

Amberleaf Fair is named for the gathering at which its story takes place. It’s an autumn trade fair in the community of East’dek. A toycrafter, Torin, proposes marriage to Sharys, a magician and healer in training; but it looks like she’ll instead choose Torin’s friend, an adventurer named Valdart. Then Torin’s brother, an accomplished ‘magic-monger,’ is struck down with some sort of illness; Valdart’s ceremonial present to Sharys, effectively his marriage proposal, is stolen and the evidence points to Torin. Torin and his friend, the storycrafter Dilys, try to work out what has happened, along with a judge named Alrathe — but the story is less about the mystery and more the tale of the relationships of the various characters as the fair goes on, and their choices in life, and how they balance their desires and their duties to their family or society. It’s understated, quick, and entertaining.

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Vintage Treasures: Alfred Hitchcock’s Monster Museum

Vintage Treasures: Alfred Hitchcock’s Monster Museum

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alfred-hitchcocks-monster-museum-smallLast month, my son came home from school and began poking through our library. “I have to read a short story collection for Lit block,” he explained.

I think “Lit block” maybe means English class. I’m not going to ask, I already get enough grief for not understanding what kids today are talking about. After a few minutes, Drew gave up. “I’ll check the school library tomorrow,” he said. Please. This is what eBay is for. And sure enough, after a short search, I found a collection he found suitably intriguing. With story titles like “Slime” and “Shadow, Shadow, on the Wall,” how could he not? There was a copy in great shape for just $2.75, and very soon it was ours.

Of course, I ended up being even more interested than Drew. Alfred Hitchcock’s Monster Museum was one of roughly a dozen anthologies published under Hitchcock’s name and ghost-edited by Robert Arthur, including 12 Stories for Late at Night, Scream Along with Me, and Stories That Scared Even Me. This one contains a terrific mix of pulp fiction from 1929 – 1954, from Murray Leinster (Will F Jenkins), Manly Wade Wellman, Theodore Sturgeon, and many others. Here’s the complete TOC:

A Variety of Monsters — Introduction by Alfred Hitchcock
“Slime” — Joseph Payne Brennan (Weird Tales, March 1953)
“The King of the Cats” — Stephen Vincent Benét (Harper’s Bazaar, Feb 1929)
“The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles” — Idris Seabright (F&SF, Oct 1951)
“Henry Martindale, Great Dane” — Miriam Allen deFord (Beyond Fantasy Fiction, Mar 1954)
“Shadow, Shadow, on the Wall” — Theodore Sturgeon (Imagination, Feb 1951)
“Doomsday Deferred” — Will F. Jenkins (The Saturday Evening Post, Sep 24 1949)
“The Young One” — Jerome Bixby (Fantastic, Apr 1954)
“The Desrick on Yandro” — Manly Wade Wellman (F&SF, Jun 1952)
“The Wheelbarrow Boy” — Richard Parker (Lilliput, Oct 1950)
“Homecoming” — Ray Bradbury (Mademoiselle, Oct 1946)

The paperback is abridged from the original 1965 hardcover, which also included “The Day of the Dragon” by Guy Endore, “The Microscopic Giants” by Paul Ernst, and Jerome Bixby’s “The Young One.” I prefer the trade paperback however, mostly because of the gorgeous and moody cover (click on the image at right for a bigger version).

Alfred Hitchcock’s Monster Museum was published by Random House in trade paperback in 1982; the original cover price was $2.50 for 213 pages.