My City’s Heroes (Part 1 of 2)

My City’s Heroes (Part 1 of 2)

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My Life in HockeyThere’s a post I’ve wanted to write for this site for some time. I wasn’t sure exactly how to approach it, but I knew the general subject. I’d thought it’d fit here because it would be about myth and heroes. About stories and storytelling, and about the importance of story. In the wake of recent events I’ve come to feel the time has come to finally write that post. So here, on the shortest day of the year, are a few words about legends; about those that bear a torch through the longest darkness and inspire us to follow them. About heroes, in reality and in stories. And about the Montréal Canadiens.

Jean Béliveau died on December 2 at age 83. He played for the Montréal Canadiens hockey franchise for eighteen full seasons, and won the Stanley Cup ten times. He was the team’s captain from 1961 until his retirement after winning the Cup in 1971. I’m not going to get into his career statistics — though they are impressive, enough so to put him in conversations about the greatest player of all time — because the numbers aren’t really the reason I’m writing about him here. I’m writing about him because beyond being a hockey player, he was, by any measure, a legend. And what I mean by that is that beyond the facts of his career, he was — is — a man about whom stories are told. And these stories have a common theme.

As I write the first draft of this post, I have the live broadcast of his funeral on TV; it’s being carried in both French and English. I’m seeing figures from beyond the world of hockey: past and present Prime Ministers and Premiers of Québec are filling Cathédral Marie Reine-du-Monde as, amid the grey of a major snowstorm, a crowd lines the street outside. Commentators are recalling stories about the man. The most telling stories aren’t about Béliveau’s remarkable scoring talent. They’re about his grace, kindness, and instinctive nobility: the guidance he gave to other players, the charisma of his presence, even simply the man’s smile and the time he gave freely to perfect strangers. As much or more is said about the man’s life after he retired from hockey as it is about his career. This is not surprising to me. I’ve been hearing Jean Béliveau stories all my life.

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Future Treasures: Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch

Future Treasures: Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch

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Foxglove Summer-smallBen Aaronovitch began his writing career with two Doctor Who serials, Remembrance of the Daleks (broadcast 1988) and Battlefield (1989), which means he’s already living the dream life millions of aspiring American fantasy writers. He was a regular writer on the Galaxy Channel’s science fiction series Jupiter Moon.

He became a novelist in 1990 with his first Doctor Who book, a novelization of Remembrance of the Daleks. He produced three more (and one featuring the adventures of companion Benny Summerfield), before launching the best selling series Rivers of London in 2011. The fifth volume, Foxglove Summer, will be published in paperback on January 6th.

When two young girls go missing in rural Herefordshire, police constable and wizard-in-training Peter Grant is sent out of London to check that nothing supernatural is involved. It’s purely routine — Nightingale, Peter’s superior, thinks he’ll be done in less than a day.

But Peter’s never been one to walk away from someone in trouble, so when nothing overtly magical turns up he volunteers his services to the local police, who need all the help they can get. But because the universe likes a joke as much as the next sadistic megalomaniac, Peter soon comes to realize that dark secrets underlie the picturesque fields and villages of the countryside and there might just be work for Britain’s most junior wizard after all.

Soon Peter’s in a vicious race against time, in a world where the boundaries between reality and fairy have never been less clear….

I’m a big fan of this series. We covered the first novel, Rivers of London (published as Midnight Riot in the US), which Diana Gabaldon describes as “What would happen if Harry Potter grew up and joined the Fuzz,” in March 2011, and the fourth, Broken Homes, back in February. Foxglove Summer will be published by DAW Books on January 6, 2015. It is 326 pages, priced at $7.99 in paperback and $6.99 for the digital edition.

After Forty Years: The War of the Worlds Revisited

After Forty Years: The War of the Worlds Revisited

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Tripod-smallIt’s that time of year, friends, the time when we look back in sorrow on the New Year’s resolutions that drooped and faded before the first bloom of spring, and when we start to formulate the resolutions that we know we’re really going to keep this time, dammit. I generally don’t make new year’s resolutions myself, for the reasons implied above, but last year I did — I decided that 2014 would be the year of rereading.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve discovered that even as I’m reading more than ever, I almost never do any re-reading. There are just so many books, both enticing new ones and old ones that I’ve always meant to get around to and never have (you know, all those great books, old and new, that you find out about whenever you visit a certain website which shall remain nameless).

When I finish one book and reach for another, the pressure exerted by both the never-ceasing pile up of the present and the still-unexplored past seems to weigh overwhelmingly in favor of the as-yet-unread. Rereading falls by the wayside.

This is in sharp contrast to my adolescent days, when I would regularly reread my favorite books, some of them many times. (I’ve probably read Robert Heinlein’s Have Space Suit, Will Travel and Edgar Rice Burroughs’s The Gods of Mars eight or ten times each, for instance.)

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Want to Break into Comics? Check out the Make Comics Podcast!

Want to Break into Comics? Check out the Make Comics Podcast!

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Like most writers, I too dream the unreasonable dream of breaking into comics as a writer.

header-img-11Who wouldn’t want to correctly and appropriately use the word “Bam!” as part of their daily writing? Nobody.

So while writing short fiction and novels, I continue to do my research and recently stumbled onto the Make Comics Podcast.  The format is pretty simple. Each episode, Joey Groah posed a comics-making question, sometimes his own, but more often from the mail bag of listeners. Then, Andy Schmidt, former Marvel and IDW editor, answers. Sometimes they switch it up with special guests.

Now, this isn’t 100% altruistic on their part. They’re obviously promoting classes on making comics for the Comics Experience company. That’s cool though. Power to them. If I was just starting my writing career, it’s just the sort of thing I would have loved to have taken. But with that very minor caveat, these guys are giving out amazing stuff, and needless to say, I listened to a bunch on my commute and took notes.

There’s way too much good stuff in there for me to talk about all of it, so I’ll mention a few high points.

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The Return of Horror on the Orient Express

The Return of Horror on the Orient Express

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Horror on the Orient Express-smallIn 1991, more than 23 years ago now, Chaosium published the most ambitious Call of Cthulhu adventure ever created: Horror on the Orient Express.

It was a huge undertaking — a complete campaign that  spanned the European continent, crammed into a box containing four lengthy books, numerous player handouts, a European route map; cardstock plans of the train that could be laid end-to-end; scrolls, and even luggage stickers. It wasn’t merely a high water mark for CoC; it was a template for how mega-adventures could be created.

The box retailed for $39.99, a lot for a role playing supplement in those days, and it didn’t really sell that well. It wasn’t long before it went out of print, and Chaosium — which invested heavily in the failed Mythos card game in the mid-90s — ran into financial difficulties and broke apart a few years later.

As a result, Horror on the Orient Express got lost in the shuffle. It was never reprinted and it rapidly became almost impossible to find. It was still talked about for many years by dedicated fans, however, and the combination of scarcity and its status as the pinnacle of CoC adventures meant it gradually acquired a legendary status.

Well, you know what happens to those rare game supplements (or books — or anything, really) that even determined fans can’t get their hands on. They become a holy grail for collectors. And that’s exactly what happened to Horror on the Orient Express. I started to see copies selling for $200-$300 and up, on those rare occasions I saw one at all.

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The German Indiana Jones: Out of the Rat Trap: Desert Adventures with Rommel by Max Reisch

The German Indiana Jones: Out of the Rat Trap: Desert Adventures with Rommel by Max Reisch

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Out of the Rat Trap
What should we see in the middle of the desert but a bedside cabinet! Yes, really…no human brain could be capable of inventing something so idiotic

Why, you ask, am I reviewing a book by a former Africa Korps officer?

Partly, this:

What should we see in the middle of the desert but a bedside cabinet! Yes, really… the picture is pointless because all it shows is a single piece of furniture. There’s nothing to prove that it is standing in the middle of the Libyan desert. But you can take my word for it… because no human brain could be capable of inventing something so idiotic.

Reisch, Max. Out of the Rat Trap: Desert Adventures with Rommel.

But also because it reads like something Edgar Rice Burroughs might have written.

In a classic ERBish foreword, Reisch describes how he wrote the manuscript high in the Italian mountains. The Nazis were in retreat, and this seemed like a good place to wait out the mayhem and surrender on his own terms. To pass the time, he purchased writing materials from a local farmer and recounted his escape from another military disaster — the collapse of the Africa Korps.

As we read, we discover that he’s the German motorised Indiana Jones, with pre-war capers including biking from Vienna to Bombay.

Come World War II, he found himself in the desert, helping run transport for Rommel’s army. This meant scavenging abandoned British equipment picked up during long missions into the desert flank.

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New Treasures: Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor

New Treasures: Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor

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Lagoon Nnedi Okorafor-smallWhen Nnedi Okorafor’s first novel for adults, Who Fears Death, won the 2011 World Fantasy Award, a lot of people sat up and took notice.

It was also a 2011 Tiptree Honor Book, and a Nebula nominee. She followed it up the same year with her third YA title, Akata Witch, a Junior Library Guild Selection and an Andre Norton Award nominee. Her first collection, Kabu Kabu, appeared from Prime Books in 2013 — with a foreword by Whoopi Goldberg.

But it’s her second novel for adults that looks like it will really put her on the map. A tale of a strange alien invasion just offshore of the Nigerian city of Lagos, Lagoon has been getting a lot of the right kind of attention. It’s not yet for sale in the US, but it’s worth the effort to track drown a copy of the British edition.

Three strangers, each isolated by his or her own problems: Adaora, the marine biologist. Anthony, the rapper famous throughout Africa. Agu, the troubled soldier. Wandering Bar Beach in Lagos, Nigeria’s legendary mega-city, they’re more alone than they’ve ever been before.

But when something like a meteorite plunges into the ocean and a tidal wave overcomes them, these three people will find themselves bound together in ways they could never imagine. Together with Ayodele, a visitor from beyond the stars, they must race through Lagos and against time itself in order to save the city, the world… and themselves.

Lagoon was published in the UK by Hodder Paperbacks on Sept 25, 2014. It is 301 pages, priced at £8.99 in trade paperback, and £3.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Joey Hi-fi.

Revising and Editing Part I: The Big Picture

Revising and Editing Part I: The Big Picture

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Tim Powers
Tim Powers

A very long time ago, I was taught how to write a piece of prose. Our teacher told us to write on every other line (yes, that’s how long ago it was) in order to leave ourselves room to make corrections and changes. I couldn’t think what she was going on about. Why would I want to change or correct anything? Why wouldn’t I just write it correctly in the first place? Wouldn’t that be a big savings in time and energy?

Aside: I’m a big saver of time and energy, otherwise known as a professional lazy person, or “prolazy,” as in “She’s extremely prolazy.”

Back in class, I ended up by making fake corrections to keep my teacher happy. There was no way she was going to believe that I could have gotten it right the first time. Of course, I was right, but the problem is, so was my teacher. We just didn’t realize that we weren’t on the same… well… page.

Back then, I didn’t realize that I was already changing and correcting. I was just doing it in my head before I put it down on paper. Just about anybody can do that for a paragraph or so. But no one can do it for anything much longer than that – nor for something a lot shorter, if you think about Twitter.

So, nowadays I agree with Tim Powers, who, on a panel at a World Con, once said that all professional writers revise, only amateurs think they got it right the first time.

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Goth Chick News: Redrum the Musical? Thank You Santa!

Goth Chick News: Redrum the Musical? Thank You Santa!

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The Shining-smallYou don’t have to hang around Black Gate for long to know that The Shining is my favorite horror movie of all time. So it goes without saying that today’s news is proof positive that Santa is real, I’ve been really good, and he wants me to be happy.

Indy film writer Joe Lovero, a former auto insurance salesman who sold a full-length screenplay to Universal Studios, began work on a musical parody of The Shining entitled REDRUM: The Unauthorized Musical Parody of ‘The Shining,’ back in 2009. After several years developing the show with composer Jon Hugo Ungar, they decided it was time to put the concept to the test by recording song demos and film a scene to promote the project.

They landed Broadway actor and three-time Tony Award nominee Marc Kudisch to play Jack Torrance in musical short film of REDRUM, which was released in October of last year. The short parodies the scene from the film version of The Shining between Jack and Delbert Grady in The Overlook Hotel’s red bathroom and features the original songs “Correct Them” and “You’ve Turned On My Light.”

I nearly killed myself laughing.

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Vintage Treasures: The Alien Upstairs by Pamela Sargent

Vintage Treasures: The Alien Upstairs by Pamela Sargent

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The Alien Upstairs-smallI don’t know a lot about Pamela Sargent. But I knew one thing when I saw The Alien Upstairs on eBay: I didn’t have a copy. And I wanted one.

Who wouldn’t? Big spooky house, spunky heroine in the foreground wearing a sun hat, vast stretches of blasted heath… erm, I mean unmowed lawn. Anyway, it sure looks like a modern gothic novel. Except for the honkin’ big spaceship hovering stealthily in the clouds, where it thinks no one can see it.

And the marvelous What the hell is going on? look our heroine is sporting. You just know she’s going to get to the bottom of things, like a good gothic romance heroine should. You go, spunky lady with strange fashion sense.

Sarah and Gerard were dreamers — two young lovers fighting to make something of their lives in an America battered by depression and despair.

Then a mysterious stranger came to stay in their small, rural town, a handsome, enigmatic being from another world who promised to lead them to a realm beyond their wildest imaginings. But was he an angel, come to rescue them from the harsh reality of their lives, or a darker being, bent on a strange and terrible purpose?

The Alien Upstairs. An awe-inspiring tale of worlds beyond our own by the author of Watchstar and The Golden Space.

The Alien Upstairs was published in February 1985 by Bantam Books. It is 165 pages, priced at $2.75 in paperback. The too-cool cover is by Wayne Barlowe. I bought an unread copy on eBay for $1 (plus shipping.) Don’t be jealous, there are plenty more copies available.