Oz’s Alembic: A Brief Introduction

Oz’s Alembic: A Brief Introduction

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Photo taken by author at House on the Rock in Spring Green, WI

Hello, fellow connoisseurs of fantasy and horror, and welcome to the first installment of my yet-to-be titled Sunday blog. In a much earlier time of my life (and sometimes it seems like another life altogether), I was a youth pastor with aspirations to be a full-time preacher (for those who know me and are chuckling right now: yes, believe it or not), so perhaps it’s fitting that I’m on Sunday; this is my Sunday sermon.

In coming weeks, I’ll be jawing about everything from obscure fantasy comics (e.g. Arak, Son of Thunder) to the origin of seminal Dungeons and Dragons monsters (rust monster, anyone?) to the latest Hollywood blockbusters. My interests, even when limited to the boundaries of the fantasy genre, are broad.

But for this first installment, I’d like to share the perspective I bring to these topics. I’ll also share — briefly — my credentials, but I’ll keep that short and sweet, because too often that can devolve into sounding like you’re tooting your own horn (as my wife would say), which is why — a little insider fact of the trade here — most authors’ bios are in third person even though they’re usually written by the author.

My tastes always have been rather eclectic, but with fantasy and horror consistently predominant. My imagination is attracted to the peculiar slant, the odd angle, the ghost lurking in the corner of the dusty room. J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis were my early masters, and E.A. Poe and E.R. Burroughs. Later, H.P. Lovecraft pulled up a seat at the table, and R.E. Howard and T. Powers (all right, Tim. Enough with the initials!). And many others, from Hayao Miyazaki to Joss Whedon.

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New Treasures: The Mammoth Book of Steampunk, edited by Sean Wallace

New Treasures: The Mammoth Book of Steampunk, edited by Sean Wallace

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Mammoth Book of Steampunk-smallBack in 1987, I was reading novels like Tim Powers’s On Stranger Tides, James Blaylock’s Homunculus, and K.W. Jeter’s Infernal Devices.

Although I didn’t know it at the time, all three men were friends. What I did notice was that all three shared a common fascination with Victorian-era manners and plots, and their books likewise shared a common aesthetic, an alternate-history extrapolation and love of steam-powered gadgetry. I remember Jeter’s famous letter, published in the April 1987 issue of Locus, in which he coined the term ‘steampunk’ to describe what he and his friends were doing, and make a modest prediction:

Personally, I think Victorian fantasies are going to be the next big thing, as long as we can come up with a fitting collective term for Powers, Blaylock and myself. Something based on the appropriate technology of the era; like ‘steam-punks,’ perhaps.

How right he was. Steampunk did become the next big thing, gradually displacing the “cyberpunks,” who were widely considered The Next Big Thing in 1987. No one predicted steampunk would be just as much a clothing and cosplay phenomenon as a literary trend, but no one had heard of cosplay in 1987 either, so that’s understandable.

If you want to get into steampunk fashion, you’re on your own. But if you’re looking for a great introduction to the ideas and writers behind the defining SF aesthetic of the 21st Century (so far), Sean Wallace’s The Mammoth Book of Steampunk is a fine place to start. Reprinting fiction from Jeff VanderMeer, Aliette de Bodard, N.K. Jemisin, Eileen Gunn & Michael Swanwick, Margo Lanagan, Amal El-Mohtar, Barth Anderson, Jeffrey Ford, James Morrow, Mary Robinette Kowal, Jay Lake, Cherie Priest, Catherynne M. Valente, Genevieve Valentine, and many other, this fat anthology will make you an expert on the sub-genre in short order.

The Mammoth Book of Steampunk was published by Running Press in June, 2012. It is 498-pages in trade paperback, priced at $13.95, or $11.12 for the digital edition. Check it out.

Arisia 2013

Arisia 2013

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Our stalwart audience. The Puffin is named Edgar, apparently. "A very good listener," says his buddy, Justine Graykin.
Our stalwart audience. The Puffin is named Edgar, apparently. “A very good listener,” says his buddy, Justine Graykin.

SATURDAY: 11:48 AM

This morning in the Green Room, as I nibbled at my pastry or bagel or whatever, mourning my lack of PG Tips with the bleary lamentations of a woman who has experienced the Awfulness of Dawn to commute in for an 8:30 AM panel about Discworld, I overheard one fellow say to another over the cream cheese, “In my world, I run the Federation.”

Ah.

I must be at a Science Fiction convention.

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“Releasing the Kraken”: Tangent Online on E.E. Knight’s “The Terror in the Vale”

“Releasing the Kraken”: Tangent Online on E.E. Knight’s “The Terror in the Vale”

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EE Knight-smallCyd Athens at Tangent Online reviews E.E. Knight’s Blue Pilgrim tale for Black Gate, published here on Sunday, January 13:

The Evil Overlord in E.E. Knight’s “The Terror in the Vale” is the Scripton, who is angered when the peaceful vale folk take offense that his soldiers are lifting the skirts of females to determine whether they are girls or women. He alleges that this is necessary because some adults are weaseling their way out of paying taxes by impersonating children…

As is the way of these things, the people resist and fight. This, of course, ups the stakes…

The Scripton decides to change tactics and does this story’s equivalent of releasing the Kraken — he creates a monster.

E.E. Knight is a scifi/fantasy author. He lives with his wife and three kids in Oak Park, IL. He may be contacted through his website at eeknight.com. The Blue Pilgrim was last seen in “That of the Pit,” published in Lords of Swords (2005).

You can read Cyd’s complete review at Tangent Online and “The Terror in the Vale,” a complete 9,400-word novelette of heroic fantasy, free here.

The complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including stories by John R. Fultz, Mark Rigney, C.S.E. Cooney, Donald S. Crankshaw, Judith Berman, Howard Andrew Jones, Dave Gross, Sean McLachlan, Harry Connolly, and Jason E. Thummel, is here.

Blogging Austin Briggs’ Flash Gordon – Part Eleven, “Kang the Cruel” / “The Skymen”

Blogging Austin Briggs’ Flash Gordon – Part Eleven, “Kang the Cruel” / “The Skymen”

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p101745754-3p30920910-3“Kang the Cruel” was the twenty-third installment of the Flash Gordon Sunday comic strip serial for King Features Syndicate. Originally published between February 11 and May 20, 1945, “Kang the Cruel” was the first strip without the story input of creator Alex Raymond. It was illustrated by Austin Briggs, who had succeeded Raymond as the strip’s artist the previous year, and was scripted by Don Moore.

The story gets off to a strong start with Flash, Dale, and Dr. Zarkov returning to Mingo City unaware that Prince Barin has been deposed and a usurper sits on the throne. The usurper is Kang the Cruel, the son of Ming the Merciless. This is a strong concept in the classic tradition. The only disappointment is that Austin Briggs’ artwork pales in comparison with Alex Raymond.

Zarkov’s rocketship is shot down by an air patrol led by Kagi, Kang’s lieutenant. Firefighters rush to the crash site as Kang has given orders the Earthmen are to be taken alive. Flash is spirited away by Darin, a freedom fighter who has infiltrated Kang’s air patrol. The new emperor proves he is as cruel a despot as his father, ordering the firefighter who allowed Darin to escape to be flayed, sprayed with ice, and then placed in steam until he dies.

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Teaching and Fantasy Literature: Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads in Them

Teaching and Fantasy Literature: Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads in Them

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No wonder the writer I was back in college never finished anything big. She lacked the patience for the kind of slog I’m slogging through now. She knew some nice tricks — could turn out a kickass sonnet in two hours by writing backwards, last line to first — but if she had ever managed to produce a complete book-length draft, she would have wandered off to a next never-to-be-finished project once the revision got tough. She would not have been game for as many rounds of tightening, fact-checking, and continuity repairs as I have had to do for the novella collection I’m sending off to its small press publisher next week.

Most of my college-self’s potential novels never made it past the preliminary notes stage. If my current teacher-self were saddled with that girl as a student, what on earth would I do with her?

Different preoccupations drive different teachers. I’ve been told I teach because it’s as close as I can get to going back in time to rescue myself from various mistakes and misfortunes. It’s probably true. A more virtuous person might teach out of a desire to change the world, or lift people out of poverty, or whatever. Instead, I wander around offering the help I wished I could have found when I was younger — or a variation of that help wrapped in a concealing layer of SAT preparation.

That girl I used to be understood the why of late-stage manuscript drudgery. If asked, she could have explained that a work of fantasy has a greater need than a work of realism for verisimilitude. She’d have quoted Marianne Moore about the “imaginary gardens with real toads in them,” but she could not have kept to her seat long enough to make her toads real.

Not that it’s easy now, twenty years later, this sitting still until the job is done. When I sent my protagonist into New Jersey’s notorious Pine Barrens, land of mob hits and mass-hysteria-induced monster sightings, that was thrilling to write. Now that I’m tracking down every reference , however oblique, to gravel roads, because it turns out the back roads in the Pine Barrens are sand, not gravel, it’s not so much fun. If I don’t get the sand roads right, a sizable chunk of my audience will be lost before I ever get to the scene where the Jersey Devil makes its appearance. Unless the toads in my imaginary garden are real enough, nobody will believe my monsters.

Sarah Avery’s short story “The War of the Wheat Berry Year” appeared in the last print issue of Black Gate. A related novella, “The Imlen Bastard,” is slated to appear in BG‘s new online incarnation. Her contemporary fantasy novella collection, Tales from Rugosa Coven, follows the adventures of some very modern Pagans in a supernatural version of New Jersey even weirder than the one you think you know. You can keep up with her at her website, sarahavery.com, and follow her on Twitter.

Goth Chick News: Getting A-head at Airport Security

Goth Chick News: Getting A-head at Airport Security

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Paging Dr WestAnd you thought your holiday travel was a nightmare…

On Tuesday of this week, “sources” from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport reported to the Chicago Sun-Times that 18 human heads had arrived from Rome just before Christmas and were on their way to a research facility in the suburbs when they were stopped by security.

For attempting to smuggle in a wheel of pecorino cheese…?

Nope. Officials initially said it was a paperwork problem that prevented the heads from reaching their final destination, but apparently the crack reporters at the Sun-Times have just discovered the hold-up is actually connected to “an ongoing investigation at the suburban facility in question.” But before you jump to all conclusions, the investigation is “absolutely not” connected to the shipment of the heads, the source said.

Paging Dr. West… Dr. West, please pick up the nearest red courtesy phone…

The heads were unceremoniously shipped as cargo on a Lufthansa Airlines flight, but “were properly preserved and tagged as human specimens,” said Tony Brucci, chief investigator for the medical examiner’s office.

The Coalition for Airline Passengers’ Rights has filed a complaint with the FAA saying the heads were confined to the cargo hold for the 9 hour and 15 minute flight without the benefit of inflight catering or entertainment.

Okay, that’s not true.  But the rest of this is.

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Tangent Online on “Glimmer Faire”: “An Enjoyable Adventure That Reveals the Power of Art”

Tangent Online on “Glimmer Faire”: “An Enjoyable Adventure That Reveals the Power of Art”

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John R FultzCyd Athens at Tangent Online reviews John R. Fultz’s fourth tale for Black Gate, “When the Glimmer Faire Came to the City of the Lonely Eye,” published here on Sunday, January 6:

This was my first encounter with John R. Fultz’s world. That in no way detracted from my appreciation… The hero, Artifice, is in the midst of a career change. He used to be “the most famous Quill in the world’s greatest city, whose books were sought after across the length and breadth of the Continent.” As the story begins, he is a penniless apprentice Playwright, travelling with a company of actors and fae musicians while working on his first play…

This is a prosaic piece, filled with vivid descriptions that make it easy to imagine the characters, their surroundings, and the play itself… Artifice and his companions are a pleasant fit and work well together. The words here are carefully chosen so as to maximize their effectiveness while minimizing the attention they draw to themselves. At its simplest, this is an enjoyable adventure that reveals the power of art and artists.

John’s tales for Black Gate include “Oblivion is the Sweetest Wine” (Black Gate 12), “Return of the Quill” (Black Gate 13), and “The Vintages of Dream” (BG 15). Seven Kings, the second book of the Shaper Trilogy, was released on Jan. 15; read an exclusive chapter here.

You can read Cyd’s complete review at Tangent Online, and “When the Glimmer Faire Came to the City of the Lonely Eye,” a complete 6,800-word novelette of heroic fantasy, free here.

The complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including stories by E.E. Knight, Mark Rigney, C.S.E. Cooney, Donald S. Crankshaw, Judith Berman, Howard Andrew Jones, Dave Gross, Sean McLachlan, Harry Connolly, and Jason E. Thummel, is here.

Vintage Treasures: Creatures From Beyond, edited by Terry Carr

Vintage Treasures: Creatures From Beyond, edited by Terry Carr

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Creatures from Beyond-smallIt shouldn’t be a surprise that I didn’t discover science fiction and fantasy through novels — not really. I discovered it by reading short stories in Junior High, and especially the enticing anthologies on display every week in the library at St. Francis School in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I didn’t really know what science fiction was; but if it had monsters on the cover, I was all over it.

The first anthology I can recall reading was Creatures From Beyond, a marvelous monster-fest if ever there was one. When I tracked it down again decades later, I was delighted to discover the editor was none other than Terry Carr, the legendary editor whose Best Science Fiction of the Year and Fantasy Annual paperbacks I read avidly all through high school — and who pulled William Gibson’s Neuromancer out of the slush pile at Ace Books.

I think the reason I still remember it so well after all these years is that, unlike most of the collections I checked out of the library, it wasn’t a kid’s book. It’s a genuine SF anthology, with short stories from Henry Kuttner, Clifford D. Simak & Carl Jacobi, Theodore Sturgeon, Donald A. Wollheim, Brian W. Aldiss, Robert Silverberg, and other top-flight authors.

Carr reasoned — correctly — that there was no better source for action-filled monster tales than pulp science fiction magazines and he mined them heavily to generate Creatures From Beyond. The fiction is drawn from Amazing Stories, Astonishing, Unknown, Other Worlds, Comet, Thrilling Wonder, Future, and a smattering of anthologies.

Of course, the other reason I remember it is Eric Frank Russell’s brilliant novelette “Dear Devil,” the tale of a handful of children who survive a nuclear apocalypse on Earth… and the curious (and hideous) explorer from Mars who helps put them back on track towards a new and better civilization. Rejected by all the major SF magazines of the time, it landed at Ray Palmer’s fledgling Other Worlds, where it almost single-handedly put the magazine on the map — and instantly made a name for the young editor who pulled it from the slush, 26-year-old Bea Mahaffey, who’d been thrust the reins of the magazine when Palmer was incapacitated in an accident.

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Childhood Resurfaced: The Bermuda Depths on DVD

Childhood Resurfaced: The Bermuda Depths on DVD

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Bermuda Depths posterThe rise of Manufacture-on-Demand (MOD) DVDs from major studios has at last permitted numerous obscure and second-tier features to reach the trembling hands of collectors. Movies that a small coterie of fans despaired would only be available on bootlegs are now only one-click shopping away on a DVD-R. MOD eliminates the need for “demand” and “profitability” that once stood between the collector and a decent legal copy of The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing.

Apologies to that great Burt Reynolds Western, it’s The Bermuda Depths that best exemplifies the MOD movie and gives a reason for the format to exist: a work unknown to most, but holding in the minds of a few the status of a childhood Holy Grail. And now the Warner Archive Collection, the MOD branch of Warner Home Video, has made available the first and only romantic tropical ghost story with a giant turtle.

Released in 1978, The Bermuda Depths is a quintessential “Did I Dream It?” nostalgia pic. All of us can recall some movie from our elementary school days — glanced late nights on television, on a slow Sunday afternoon, or rented on a blurry Betamax tape — that captivated our imagination in a fuzzy way. It left fleeting, haunting impressions, so that ten years or more afterwards, it feels that maybe the movie never existed at all and we made it up from the flotsam of other childhood ephemera. We wander through life occasionally asking others if they recall “that film where…”, and then getting uncomprehending slow blinks in response, followed by:

“You made that up.”

“No, I swear I didn’t. I mean … I don’t think so. It was this film with a ghost girl on a beach, and she had glowing eyes, and then there was this gigantic turtle that knocked over a boat…”

“It must be a Gamera film.”

“No, no! I saw a lot of Gamera films. Yeah, I can’t tell them apart, but I know this wasn’t a Gamera film.”

“You’ve just got a Gamera film crossed with something else. Look, eat your yougurt and take your pills. I’ll call the doctor.”

No, you were not crazy. This is a case where the memorial reconstruction dredged up from the back of the old junk drawer is exactly right. The Bermuda Depths is indeed “That movie that took place on a tropical beach with this beautiful woman who might have been a ghost and had glowing eyes and there was also this giant turtle that had something to do with it.” That rambling sentence is a spot-on description of the plot and experience of this movie.

It exists. And, unfortunate to report, it isn’t as exciting to revisit as its description might indicate.

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