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A Hero in the Service of Organized Crime: A Review of Jhereg by Steven Brust

A Hero in the Service of Organized Crime: A Review of Jhereg by Steven Brust

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oie_250265755JIVFDZI’m always excited to find a new author, especially one with a long back catalogue for me to plunge into. With 26 novels to his name, Steven Brust is one of those finds.

When I first started blogging about swords & sorcery I spent some time looking around for newer books and series (newer for me meaning anything written after 1984). Again and again, people suggested Steven Brust’s Dragaeran Empire series. Without reading too much about it I learned the main protagonist, Vlad Taltos, had a little pet dragon. Right away my brain flashed some kind of warning and, fearing the books might be too cute by half, I rejected them.

Well, a few weeks ago Bill Ward wrote very highly of the adventures of Vlad Taltos. I figured why not? For a penny (plus $3.99 shipping) I ordered The Book of Jhereg (1999), an omnibus containing the series’ first three books: Jhereg, Yendi, and Teckla. Though still apprehensive of the little dragon, I started on Jhereg (1983) and blew through it in two days. Well I’m feeling a little foolish now for not having overcome my dracophobia much sooner.

The Dragaerans are nearly immortal, seven foot tall beings with slightly pointed ears and more finely featured than humans. Their society is divided into seventeen houses, each with its own traits and skills. Humans are a small and disfavored minority. The human Vlad Taltos is an assassin in House Jhereg, the Dragaeran equivalent of the mafia.

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Spotlight on Interactive Fiction: Fallen London

Spotlight on Interactive Fiction: Fallen London

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The Wolfstack Docks icon for Fallen London
The Wolfstack Docks icon for Fallen London

There are several styles of interactive fiction games that can be found on the Internet, and while I’ve spent quite a bit more time with the Choice of Games catalog of adventures (my bias as one of their writers), I’ve also dabbled in a number of other games. Some of them are a bit more like CRPGs (computer/console role playing games) than storytelling, and combine words, pictures, and strategy games with the plot — they’re story heavy, but you as a player don’t really drive what happens next. Others, however, are quite a bit more open-ended, and Fallen London is one of those. In fact, Fallen London‘s greatest strength — the sheer quantity of it’s material and its open-ended paths — is also its greatest challenge.

In Fallen London, you begin as an escapee from new Newgate prison in a Victorian-feeling England that is populated by devils, rubbery men (reminiscent of Lovecraftian horrors or illithids from Dungeons and Dragons), people who have died but haven’t quite given up on moving about, and other strange things. You are, of course, a criminal, but it’s up to you to decide just how much you’ll continue to be one. You choose tasks, in text accompanied by small illustrations, that challenge and improve your basic statistics: watchful, shadowy, dangerous, and persuasive. The punishments for failure can be madness, death (though that’s not as permanent as you’d think), being the center of scandal to such a degree that you have to flee to a “tomb colony,” and suspicion to the point where the police arrest you. Thankfully, it takes quite awhile to build up enough failures to face any of these consequences, and sometimes being in prison or in a tomb colony — or even going mad or dying — can be just as interesting as the rest of the game. The “storylets” (as the folks at Failbetter Games, the company that makes Fallen London and other interactive worlds) help you both explore the world and build your skills, until you become a Person of Consequence (having raised one of your stats to over 100).

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Revisiting the Scene of the Crash: John Carpenter’s Ghosts of Mars

Revisiting the Scene of the Crash: John Carpenter’s Ghosts of Mars

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Ghosts of Mars One SheetI thought writing two John Carpenter articles in a row was sufficient. I had a strong enough excuse to go two-for-two with Carpenter because of the Blu-ray debuts of Prince of Darkness and In the Mouth of Madness, films that have developed a growing and appreciative fan base. The idea of doing a third article on a John Carpenter film, let alone one on the critically rejected Ghosts of Mars… no that never crossed my mind when I penciled in on my calendar, “Blu-rays for PoD and ItMoM! Write for Black Gate!”

However, enthusiastic comments on both Black Gate and Facebook made it imperative I complete a John Carpenter on Blu-ray trilogy of articles.

(Oh, wait: Assault on Precinct 13 arrives on Blu-ray today. Should I go for four in a row? Or instead do that examination of the Russian animated film The Snow Queen in time for the release of Frozen? I wish more of life’s dilemmas were of this type.)

Watching Ghosts of Mars on Blu-ray was my first time seeing the movie since August 2001, when it managed to hold onto multiplex screens for a week. The horrific opening weekend — coming in ninth place — meant Ghosts of Mars rapidly evaporated into the thin atmosphere, leaving a carbon blast mark people interpreted as the end of John Carpenter’s career. The $28 million science-fiction action/horror film managed a dismal $14 million global gross. Yes, global. Even in a career like Carpenter’s, filled with disappointing box-office returns, Ghost of Mars crashed epically. The critical and audience reaction was also murderous; it seemed unlikely the film would join some of Carpenter’s other financial disappointments like The Thing and Big Trouble in Little China in future fan appreciation.

Yet Carpenter has always had a reputation for being ahead of his time. Was it now time for Ghosts of Mars? Did the passage of twelve years give the film a better sheen, offer more to digest?

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Battle in the Dawn: The Complete Hok the Mighty by Manly Wade Wellman

Battle in the Dawn: The Complete Hok the Mighty by Manly Wade Wellman

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oie_1743857GRCQJimHHistorical adventure fiction is one of the primary roots of swords & sorcery. From it you get the same fast-paced adventure in exotic settings.

Some writers of S&S, Robert E. Howard and Sprague de Camp for example, wrote historical adventure fiction alongside their more fantastic stories. Often the tales involve battling Crusaders and Saracens, high seas Viking adventures, swashbuckling freebooters, or Roman centurions fighting Teutonic hordes. Sometimes, though, they star cavemen.

Manly Wade Wellman spent his childhood in a primitive village in Portuguese West Africa. Till he died Wellman spoke of a young boy forced to kill a leopard in order to protect cattle. Other boys had been less lucky and had fallen prey to leopards. His time and experience in Angola was perhaps the greatest influence on his life, but most certainly on his prehistoric stories.

In 1939, after a decade of writing pulp science fiction with titles like “The Disc-Men of Jupiter” and “Outlaws on Callisto,” Manly Wade Wellman introduced his Cro-Magnon hero, Hok the Mighty, in the novelette “Battle in the Dawn.” Four stories followed before he retired the character. While there’s a strong anthropological component to the Hok stories, with footnotes explaining then-current thoughts on the discoveries made by early man, these five tales get progressively more fantastic.

In 2010 Paizo collected all the Hok stories, along with several fragments and the cavenmen vs. Martians mini-epic “The Day of the Conquerors,” in Battle in the Dawn: The Complete Hok the Mighty for their Planet Stories line.

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Amazing Science Fiction, December 1959: A Retro-Review

Amazing Science Fiction, December 1959: A Retro-Review

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Amazing Science Fiction December 1959-smallHere’s an issue from very early in Cele Goldsmith’s tenure (and very early in my life, I might add – this issue presumably appeared about a month after I did). It was in fact the first issue of Goldsmith’s second year at the helm.

The cover is by Leo Summers, illustrating (not too accurately) Alan Nourse’s novel Star Surgeon, which appears complete in this issue. Above the magazine title is the title of another story, “Knights of the Dark Tower,” without mention of the author, as was Amazing’s curious habit. Interior illustrations are by Summers, Virgil Finlay, and Mel Varga (with one uncredited).

The editorial, by Norman Lobsenz, celebrates Walter X. Osborn, a man living in the Philippines who was then 85 and had been reading Amazing since its beginning. Osborn’s favorite story? Possibly “The Green Man Returns,” by Harold M. Sherman from December 1947. His least favorite? The Shaver mysteries.

S. E. Cotts’ book review column, The Spectroscope, is extremely short. The one novel covered is Seed of Light, by Edmund Cooper, which Cotts criticizes for being too ambitious. But high praise goes to two anthologies, The World That Couldn’t Be, edited by H. L. Gold, and Mary Kornbluth’s Science Fiction Showcase, which she put together with Fred Pohl’s help (Pohl insists she picked the stories, though – he just helped clear the rights) after Cyril Kornbluth’s death.

The letter column features Bob Anderson, John Hitt, Ray Hahn, Jacqueline Brice, James S. Veldman, Paul Matthews, and Bobby Gene Warner (no names familiar to me, though Warner, as I recall, showed up in another Amazing lettercol from this period). No real controversies. Lots of Praise for Murray Leinster’s “Long Ago, Far Away”.

There is one “Complete Novel”, and 6 short stories, one of them a very brief vignette.

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The Crawling Horrors of Mars: Clark Ashton Smith’s “The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis”

The Crawling Horrors of Mars: Clark Ashton Smith’s “The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis”

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Xiccarph-smallI have a confession to make. I’ve read almost nothing by Clark Ashton Smith.

I know. I suck. CAS was one of the most important fantasy writers of the pulp era. Alongside H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, he established Weird Tales as the most important and influential fantasy magazine of the early 20th Century.

It’s not like I haven’t had plenty of folks on the BG staff trying to steer me right. Ryan Harvey’s epic four-part examination of The Fantasy Cycles of Clark Ashton Smith, starting with The Averoigne Chronicles way back in 2007, was a terrific bit of scholarship, and I was proud to publish it. More recently, John R. Fultz offered a detailed study of Smith’s poem “The Hashish Eater,” and Matthew David Surridge joined the discussion with his 2012 article “A Few Words on Clark Ashton Smith.” Just a few examples.

I blame Isaac Asimov for my early ignorance. Asimov strongly disliked Smith’s ornate style, famously relating the tale of the first CAS story he tried to read, in which he encountered the word “veritas,” which Smith used instead of “truth.” Yes, Asimov noted, veritas does mean truth, but he couldn’t fathom why anyone would use it instead of simply using “truth.” He put the story down and never tried Smith again.

Asimov introduced me to most of my early pulp heroes, in books like Before the Golden Age, The Hugo Winners, and The Early Asimov. His prejudice must have stuck with me, since I read almost nothing by Clark Ashton Smith for my first few decades as an SF reader.

Fortunately, this genre gives you lots of chances. Back in September I purchased a marvelous collection of 28 vintage paperbacks. One of the prizes in the lot was Xiccarph, part of Lin Carter’s highly collectible Ballantine Adult Fantasy library. Before putting it away I decided to dip into it. Here’s what I found on page two of Carter’s intro:

Since Weird Tales quite logically had a right to prefer tales that were weird, Smith conformed. In doing so he invented a minuscule sub-genre all his own.

To see precisely what I mean, turn to the story called “The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis,” which is included in this book.

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Deepest, Darkest Eden edited by Cody Goodfellow

Deepest, Darkest Eden edited by Cody Goodfellow

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oie_11233710dfgxIM2cClark Ashton Smith, one third of the Weird Tales triumvirate along with H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, has been a favorite of mine ever since I bought a copy of the Lin Carter-edited collection Hyperborea. I was thirteen or fourteen and Smith’s archly told stories of the titular prehistoric land and its impending doom before an encroaching wall of ice, stunned me. I was long familiar with Lovecraft’s purple prose, yet nothing had really prepared me for Smith’s cynical, lush, and utterly weird writing. The stories were stunning and I was a fan.

I was pretty excited when John R. Fultz announced that he had a story in soon-to-be-published Deepest, Darkest Eden,  a collection of new stories edited by Cody Goodfellow and set in Smith’s Hyperborea. As soon as I finished reading Fultz’ post (and letting my brain drink in the gloriously pulpy cover by Mark E. Rogers) I headed over to publisher Miskatonic River Press’ site and ordered my copy. I couldn’t wait to get the return to Clark Ashton Smith’s decadent, dying land into my hands.

For me, stories set in someone else’s created world, or using their characters, need to center on what makes the original special. They don’t need to replicate it exactly, and with Clark Ashton Smith’s idiosyncratic prose it would be a mistake to try, but they should aim for similar artistic goals. Ryan Harvey, in his long article about Smith’s Hyperborean Cycle, concluded that it’s an “unusual medley of elements, with Lovecraftian themes rubbing against satiric jabs, elevated mocking language, black jokes, and a sense of a slow, chilly annihilation that cannot be escaped”. That gives any author setting out to play in Smith’s imaginary Hyperborea a wide array of ideas to pursue.

Many of the stories in Deepest, Darkest, Eden — and there are eighteen plus two poems — are very successful at meeting my test for success. Several of the authors have clearly subsumed the alternately funny and despairing world view of Smith and mixed it with their own talents to create worthwhile additions to the Hyperborean Cycle.

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Neoclassical Adventure

Neoclassical Adventure

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afgIf you’ve been following the online discussion of tabletop roleplaying games (especially fantasy roleplaying games) over the last few years, odds are good you’ve heard of the “Old School Renaissance.” For that matter, if you’ve been following the RPG coverage here at Black Gate, you’ve probably already noticed this term being used in numerous blog entries before this one. As folks online are wont to do, some will quibble and kvetch about the precise meaning of the OSR (as it’s come to be known; it even has a logo!), but, at its most basic, the Old School Renaissance is a renewed appreciation for the RPGs of the 1970s and ’80s, as well as a renewed interest in playing these classic games.

Gamers being what they are (and always have been), it wasn’t long after the OSR picked up steam that people wanted to start producing new material for their favorite RPGs, a desire facilitated by the Open Gaming License and System Reference Document that Wizards of the Coast released at the same time as the Third Edition of Dungeons & Dragons in 2000. Together, they made it possible to create and sell “clones” (or “retro-clones”) of popular roleplaying games from the past, games that are in many cases are long out of print or locked away in the IP vaults of a corporation. Want to write an adventure for your beloved 1981 edition of D&D? Labyrinth Lord lets you do that. Want to publish a new campaign setting for AD&D? OSRIC gives you the tools for just that. There are also clones for games like RuneQuest, Gamma World, Chill, and many more, not to mention many older games that have come back into print as a result of the renewed interest the OSR has generated in them. Whatever your favorite game of the past, odds are good that you’ll be satisfied.

There’s another category of old school RPGs, however. They’re not clones, since they aren’t modern-day restatements of older rules sets, but they do take clear inspiration from their predecessors of yore. They are, for lack of a better term, neoclassical roleplaying games.

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Sharon Shinn’s Royal Airs: A Review

Sharon Shinn’s Royal Airs: A Review

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BGRAFirst of all, I love getting snail mail. Postcards are great, letters are better — but best of all is a lumpy Manila package with something mysterious inside of it.

But when I came home to see my mailbox was stuffed full of a Manila envelope from Sharon Shinn, there was no mystery.

There was only a short squeal and a jig. I knew what awaited me. I bounded up the stairs to the third floor, reciting all the while:

“Her book! Her book! Her newest book!!!”

Because Sharon? Rocks.

(I mean, I thought she rocked long before I met her, but after John O’Neill introduced us at one of those World Fantasy breakfasts where you can’t believe you’re eating pancakes with a woman whose books you devour regularly, she rocked about a thousand times more.)

Royal Airs is the second in the “Elemental Blessings” series, which take place in the Kingdom of Chialto. It’s an exciting time in this secondary world, with “smoker cars” taking over for horse-drawn carriages, the blushing dawn of flying machines, alliances forming and falling apart with realms across the mountains and seas, the delicate balance of power between the regent, the primes of the Five Houses, and the heirs to the throne.

All of this and magic too!

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Spotlight on Fantasy Webcomics: Thistil Mistil Kistil‘s spin on Loki

Spotlight on Fantasy Webcomics: Thistil Mistil Kistil‘s spin on Loki

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It’s the official release date for Marvel’s Thor: The Dark World, and posts on Norse Mythology, the Thunder God, and the Trickster Loki are cropping up all over the Internet. (Fantasy author Max Gladstone’s post on “The Real Loki” at Think Progress is one of my favorites.) I’m grateful to Marvel for drawing attention to Asgard, especially because it gives me the excuse to write about one of my very favorite webcomics, Thistil Mistil Kistil (TMK) by Sarah Schanze. It’s a unique spin on Norse mythology that features Loki as one of the major protagonists — and while he’s still a trickster with a distinct tendency toward chaos (and probably ADHD), he’s not the villain that the stories so often make him out to be.

An early page from Sarah Schanze's Thistil, Mistil, Kistil, featuring hero Coal and trickster god Loki.
An early page from Sarah Schanze’s Thistil, Mistil, Kistil, featuring hero Coal and trickster god Loki.

The story begins with Coal, a young Viking warrior who ought to be on his way to Valhalla. But despite his heroic death, he’s brought to Odin and the All Father (with the help of an irritable Thor) explains that Loki has stolen the weapons of the gods and it’s up to Coal to get them back. Since Loki once saved Coal’s life, Coal believes he might just be able to accomplish the task — but Loki being Loki, it’s not going to be simple. Set during the Viking Era, with plenty of detail about the world in which the historical (rather than mythical) Vikings explored, TMK combines fantasy, history, and mythology in one big quest tale. And as Coal and Loki search for the missing weapons (because of course Loki doesn’t have them any more — that would be too easy!), new non-Viking characters–including shy Hedda, the former thrall, and Ibrahim, a Moor scholar–get pulled into the adventure.

I discovered TMK in 2010, through Comic Creators for Freedom, a group that does a fundraiser every year to promote awareness of and fight against human trafficking. That was where I first met Hedda, who doesn’t appear until Chapter 5 of the story (so I had to wait a while to actually see her appear). For people unfamiliar with CCF’s fundraiser, the comic creators collaborate on a desktop wallpaper featuring characters from each of their comics, which donors to the fundraiser receive. All of the donations go to the charity Love146. I’ve found several of my favorite webcomics through the fundraiser, and I feel good about supporting artists who are involved with the charity.

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