Kevin Wright's Blog: SaberPunk, page 3
September 22, 2017
Madam Spew - Chapter 4 - The Swamp Lords Chronicles
Part 4. A Vintage worthy of Spew
“Grim-damned Luzgar…” Spew growled. Luzgar, the Swamp Rat Tavern’s owner, had not only low-balled Spew on her chitterling-stew offer but had also charged her a delivery fee to drag the carcasses into his bar which had left Spew with but two copper plogs scraping sadly in her bag. And two would make nary a dent in her debt to Abzgorn.
Lorgex would take the bounty.
The credit.
The coin.
“And Grim-damned Lorgex.” Spew glanced up at the Obsidian Gates, a warped giant’s skull, its open mouth the Black Temple’s entrance. A long night of alms collections lay before her. Best get earning to recoup the losses, maybe pay Abzgorn the Ribspreader back a trifle, promise the rest, hope he didn’t kill her in her sleep. Or her awake. And better sooner rather than later. She took her post at the gates, mentally preparing herself to accost anyone who ventured near.
“Halt!” a challenge rang out. “Who goes there?”
“Shut your gob-holes,” Spew croaked. There were two guards guarding the Obsidian Gates, she knew, though she could see neither. “It’s me. Again.” There were always two guards, and they were always hiding. “Imbeciles…”
“It is our sacred duty,” said the second guard solemnly, possibly hidden behind a potted angler plant.
“We have to ask for verification, Acolyte Spew,” whined the first guard, who might have actually been the potted angler plant. “You shan’t grow cross. As it stands — ooh — someone approaches — Shhhhh! Hide. Don’t tell him we’re here. Please!”
“Hail, Grimnir,” Spew said to a figure as it stumbled drunkenly — it had to be drunk or it would never wander near the Black Temple — from the dark and into the temple wall, passing out nearly within the teeth of the Obsidian Gates. Spew hopped tentatively toward it. “Give to the Temple of Grimnir, or I’ll curse your loins flaccid!”
The goblin twitched once or twice. Then it burped and farted. Simutaneously.
“Shhhh. Don’t move,” whispered the second guard. “He’s right at your feet.”
“Did he see us?”
“I don’t think so. Spew, did he see us?”
“Did she do that to him? He looks fairly flaccid.”
“Pathetic.” Spew commenced one of the more common and less savory tasks of the Alms Acolyte: rifling through the pockets and orifices of drunk and indigent goblins. The problem wasn’t not knowing what she’d find. It was knowing exactly what she’d find. Spew began tossing teeth, hairballs, pig ears, and other such dregs and grossery over her shoulder.
“Find anything?” the first guard hissed on bated breath.
“A half-drank flask of Gat’s Green-spume.” Spew held up a bone flask and shook it a bit. “Hmmm. Fetch a plog. Maybe.”
“How old?” the second guard drooled audibly.
“Eh?” Spew sniffed it, ventured a swig. Swallowed. Shuddered. “Two days.”
“Ooh. Vintage,” the first guard groaned. “Might we sample it?”
“Nads on a zombie, you two are.” Spew took another swig of the sour red. They called it Gat’s Green-Spume for its color on its way out which was not uncommonly instantaneous and exceptionally explosive. “Worst. Guards. Ever.”
“Alas,” whispered the second guard, “we’re miscast as guards. If it weren’t for the gossip we garner, I don’t know how we’d get on.”
“Ooh, gossip, yessss,” the first guard whispered. “Anything juicy we might glean from your recent travels and travails? Scuttlebutt as of late centers upon Wrackolyte Lorgex the Eyes and you. Back alley fisticuffs. Kidnappings. And intrigue.”
“Oh, do tell.”
“Have you two seen Lorgex?” Spew looked up sharp.
“Not more than an hour ago,” the second guard whispered. “He came through with a pilloried boy in tow. Who was he? A fugitive?”
“Probably just a sacrifice, right?” the potted angler plant broke in. “A good sacrifice, though, yes? A blood tithe, maybe? Or a stranglee? Is he the son of a king? Yes? No…?”
“The son of a king?” Spew rasped, incredulous. “He’s naught but a pig boy.”
“Heh? Then why’d Lorgex bring him directly to the High Wrackolyte? Please, oh please, tell us. We can keep a secret. He’s the seventh son of a seventh son, yes?”
“Lorgex did look rather pleased with himself for someone his advanced age.” The angler plant nodded emphatically. “Ooh! Acolyte Spew, forgive me. The High Wrackolyte requested your presence as soon as you got in. Said she has some business to work out between you and Lorgex. In the lower crypt.”
The torture crypt! Spew gulped. Business with the High Wrackolyte Diathama Sneering typically involved the asystematic removal of one’s vertebrae from whatever orifice lay anatomically furthest away. She clasped her torture bag under arm, pivoted on heel and commenced marching directly toward Westleaf. It’d only take her about a year or two to get there…
“She said that he’d be scrying for you,” said the first guard. “Lorgex, that is. And she’d expect you directly.”
Spew froze, one foot poised mid-step. Lorgex! Damn his scrying eyes! Damn, damn, damn. Could she run? No. Hide? No. There was no escaping the Eyes. No evading them. Not for long. She’d best go. Take her prescribed dose of medicine. Hemlock most likely. Or perhaps the High Wrackolyte was excessively drunk and would somehow see fit to lay mercy on her. Or maybe she’d just kill her once and not torment her eternally through resection-resurrection.
Crestfallen, Spew moped back in through the Obsidian Gates, wishing Izula had been conscious enough to accompany her. She might have been useful. Spew could have dressed her up in a purple wig and robe and pawned her off as herself.
“Grim-damned Luzgar…” Spew growled. Luzgar, the Swamp Rat Tavern’s owner, had not only low-balled Spew on her chitterling-stew offer but had also charged her a delivery fee to drag the carcasses into his bar which had left Spew with but two copper plogs scraping sadly in her bag. And two would make nary a dent in her debt to Abzgorn.
Lorgex would take the bounty.
The credit.
The coin.
“And Grim-damned Lorgex.” Spew glanced up at the Obsidian Gates, a warped giant’s skull, its open mouth the Black Temple’s entrance. A long night of alms collections lay before her. Best get earning to recoup the losses, maybe pay Abzgorn the Ribspreader back a trifle, promise the rest, hope he didn’t kill her in her sleep. Or her awake. And better sooner rather than later. She took her post at the gates, mentally preparing herself to accost anyone who ventured near.
“Halt!” a challenge rang out. “Who goes there?”
“Shut your gob-holes,” Spew croaked. There were two guards guarding the Obsidian Gates, she knew, though she could see neither. “It’s me. Again.” There were always two guards, and they were always hiding. “Imbeciles…”
“It is our sacred duty,” said the second guard solemnly, possibly hidden behind a potted angler plant.
“We have to ask for verification, Acolyte Spew,” whined the first guard, who might have actually been the potted angler plant. “You shan’t grow cross. As it stands — ooh — someone approaches — Shhhhh! Hide. Don’t tell him we’re here. Please!”
“Hail, Grimnir,” Spew said to a figure as it stumbled drunkenly — it had to be drunk or it would never wander near the Black Temple — from the dark and into the temple wall, passing out nearly within the teeth of the Obsidian Gates. Spew hopped tentatively toward it. “Give to the Temple of Grimnir, or I’ll curse your loins flaccid!”
The goblin twitched once or twice. Then it burped and farted. Simutaneously.
“Shhhh. Don’t move,” whispered the second guard. “He’s right at your feet.”
“Did he see us?”
“I don’t think so. Spew, did he see us?”
“Did she do that to him? He looks fairly flaccid.”
“Pathetic.” Spew commenced one of the more common and less savory tasks of the Alms Acolyte: rifling through the pockets and orifices of drunk and indigent goblins. The problem wasn’t not knowing what she’d find. It was knowing exactly what she’d find. Spew began tossing teeth, hairballs, pig ears, and other such dregs and grossery over her shoulder.
“Find anything?” the first guard hissed on bated breath.
“A half-drank flask of Gat’s Green-spume.” Spew held up a bone flask and shook it a bit. “Hmmm. Fetch a plog. Maybe.”
“How old?” the second guard drooled audibly.
“Eh?” Spew sniffed it, ventured a swig. Swallowed. Shuddered. “Two days.”
“Ooh. Vintage,” the first guard groaned. “Might we sample it?”
“Nads on a zombie, you two are.” Spew took another swig of the sour red. They called it Gat’s Green-Spume for its color on its way out which was not uncommonly instantaneous and exceptionally explosive. “Worst. Guards. Ever.”
“Alas,” whispered the second guard, “we’re miscast as guards. If it weren’t for the gossip we garner, I don’t know how we’d get on.”
“Ooh, gossip, yessss,” the first guard whispered. “Anything juicy we might glean from your recent travels and travails? Scuttlebutt as of late centers upon Wrackolyte Lorgex the Eyes and you. Back alley fisticuffs. Kidnappings. And intrigue.”
“Oh, do tell.”
“Have you two seen Lorgex?” Spew looked up sharp.
“Not more than an hour ago,” the second guard whispered. “He came through with a pilloried boy in tow. Who was he? A fugitive?”
“Probably just a sacrifice, right?” the potted angler plant broke in. “A good sacrifice, though, yes? A blood tithe, maybe? Or a stranglee? Is he the son of a king? Yes? No…?”
“The son of a king?” Spew rasped, incredulous. “He’s naught but a pig boy.”
“Heh? Then why’d Lorgex bring him directly to the High Wrackolyte? Please, oh please, tell us. We can keep a secret. He’s the seventh son of a seventh son, yes?”
“Lorgex did look rather pleased with himself for someone his advanced age.” The angler plant nodded emphatically. “Ooh! Acolyte Spew, forgive me. The High Wrackolyte requested your presence as soon as you got in. Said she has some business to work out between you and Lorgex. In the lower crypt.”
The torture crypt! Spew gulped. Business with the High Wrackolyte Diathama Sneering typically involved the asystematic removal of one’s vertebrae from whatever orifice lay anatomically furthest away. She clasped her torture bag under arm, pivoted on heel and commenced marching directly toward Westleaf. It’d only take her about a year or two to get there…
“She said that he’d be scrying for you,” said the first guard. “Lorgex, that is. And she’d expect you directly.”
Spew froze, one foot poised mid-step. Lorgex! Damn his scrying eyes! Damn, damn, damn. Could she run? No. Hide? No. There was no escaping the Eyes. No evading them. Not for long. She’d best go. Take her prescribed dose of medicine. Hemlock most likely. Or perhaps the High Wrackolyte was excessively drunk and would somehow see fit to lay mercy on her. Or maybe she’d just kill her once and not torment her eternally through resection-resurrection.
Crestfallen, Spew moped back in through the Obsidian Gates, wishing Izula had been conscious enough to accompany her. She might have been useful. Spew could have dressed her up in a purple wig and robe and pawned her off as herself.
September 7, 2017
Writer's Stumbling Block
I’ve said before that I don’t believe in writer’s block.
That being said, I’ve been experiencing it for roughly the past three months and have only this past week finally worked my way through it.
Let me explain.
With the first draft of my current project, a sequel to ‘Lords of Asylum,’I was moving right along for about four months when I began experiencing difficulties maintaining a good flow and most importantly, consistent forward momentum. I have various reasons/excuses/rationalizations for this loss of momentum, but I won’t bore you with them. I’ll bore you with something else.
My goal in first draft writing is maintaining consistent forward momentum. And that means pushing the story forward at all costs. Keep moving ahead. Forget about stuff that doesn’t make sense. Stuff that sucks. Stuff that I know is awful.
When I lose that momentum my goal is always getting it back. The trick is always finding out why I’ve lost it in the first place.
So I sat down and had a heart to heart with myself and through much cajoling and a little manly weeping I realized I had lost the thread of my story. I’d lost touch and needed to get reacquainted. I needed to get the magic back.
So here’s what I did: roughly 40,000 words in, I willfully ditched my quest for the all-important forward momentum. Instead of continuing on with the tip of the spear of my story, I decided to go back and reacquaint myself with the butt end. The beginning, in this case.
I did this by starting my second draft before my first was even done. Not my favorite move. In a perfect world, I’d have finished my first draft in a wave of inspired momentum before going back to work the nuts and bolts with a second draft. But that didn’t happen. Obviously. And drastic problems require drastic measures, and going back and reacquainting myself with my story was necessary. I was foundering in the doldrums. So I fashioned myself a paddle. And it’s working.
I started by moving my first chapter to a later position(I had started en media res) and then completely rewriting a new first chapter. Then I moved onto the second chapter, adding little touches here and there. The same with the third. The fourth chapter is completely new and adds a small but crucial element to the mix. I can see down the road how it’s going to affect the rest of the story.
That’s as far as I’ve traveled. A new chapter one and four along with some knick-knacky changes. I’ll start work on chapter five tomorrow then see where I stand, working my way through, adding, rearranging, doing whatever necessary. Part of me feels like I’m just retreading waters already discovered, but another part of me sees this as re-engaging my forward momentum. I’m not currently moving along at the tip of the spear, but any movement at the back also moves the fore. My word count is rising. My story’s filling out. And when I get back to the tip of the spear, I’ll be more informed and able to know where the story’s going rather than to hazard guesses.
It’s a long road, but writing a book always is.
Kevin Wright
-Amazon Author Page http://amzn.to/2noAXKj
That being said, I’ve been experiencing it for roughly the past three months and have only this past week finally worked my way through it.
Let me explain.
With the first draft of my current project, a sequel to ‘Lords of Asylum,’I was moving right along for about four months when I began experiencing difficulties maintaining a good flow and most importantly, consistent forward momentum. I have various reasons/excuses/rationalizations for this loss of momentum, but I won’t bore you with them. I’ll bore you with something else.
My goal in first draft writing is maintaining consistent forward momentum. And that means pushing the story forward at all costs. Keep moving ahead. Forget about stuff that doesn’t make sense. Stuff that sucks. Stuff that I know is awful.
When I lose that momentum my goal is always getting it back. The trick is always finding out why I’ve lost it in the first place.
So I sat down and had a heart to heart with myself and through much cajoling and a little manly weeping I realized I had lost the thread of my story. I’d lost touch and needed to get reacquainted. I needed to get the magic back.
So here’s what I did: roughly 40,000 words in, I willfully ditched my quest for the all-important forward momentum. Instead of continuing on with the tip of the spear of my story, I decided to go back and reacquaint myself with the butt end. The beginning, in this case.
I did this by starting my second draft before my first was even done. Not my favorite move. In a perfect world, I’d have finished my first draft in a wave of inspired momentum before going back to work the nuts and bolts with a second draft. But that didn’t happen. Obviously. And drastic problems require drastic measures, and going back and reacquainting myself with my story was necessary. I was foundering in the doldrums. So I fashioned myself a paddle. And it’s working.
I started by moving my first chapter to a later position(I had started en media res) and then completely rewriting a new first chapter. Then I moved onto the second chapter, adding little touches here and there. The same with the third. The fourth chapter is completely new and adds a small but crucial element to the mix. I can see down the road how it’s going to affect the rest of the story.
That’s as far as I’ve traveled. A new chapter one and four along with some knick-knacky changes. I’ll start work on chapter five tomorrow then see where I stand, working my way through, adding, rearranging, doing whatever necessary. Part of me feels like I’m just retreading waters already discovered, but another part of me sees this as re-engaging my forward momentum. I’m not currently moving along at the tip of the spear, but any movement at the back also moves the fore. My word count is rising. My story’s filling out. And when I get back to the tip of the spear, I’ll be more informed and able to know where the story’s going rather than to hazard guesses.
It’s a long road, but writing a book always is.
Kevin Wright
-Amazon Author Page http://amzn.to/2noAXKj
August 25, 2017
Madam Spew - Chapter 3 - The Swamp Lords Chronicles
Chapter 3. Mugger’s Folly
“Come back and fight!” Acolyte Spew tore her whip round in snapping circles above her head. CRACK! “Come back!”
Atop the marsh-oak pillory fastened about Malving’s neck and hands, Spew clutched on like some tree-frog goddess. And upon that altar of pillory wood and flesh she was wrath incarnate. And before her wrath they fled, a stumbling mass of arms and legs, bone weapons and rattling armor, stinking bodies scrambling madly for escape— Regrettably for Spew, the ‘they’ were four out of the five mercenary guards she had hired on implied-retainer. And the only reason she had not fled before them was the simple fact that for her mount she had chosen a stooped thirteen-year-old pig boy who was muzzled, pilloried, and dead-tired from the fifty-pound croaker attached to his head.
Spew glanced to her left. Only Izula still stood by her, and only because she was extremely stupid. The giant sword she wielded trembled between her grotesquely knuckled fists. Her huge croaker pupils had constricted to pinpricks of black on yellow. And she was drooling. Copiously.
“A pity.” Lorgex the Eyes smirked as the greater portion of Spew’s entourage fled down the back alleys of Cesstern.
“That’s Acolyte Spew, you shriveled abortion.” Spew feverishly tore about for some sort of escape.
“Give me the Chosen One, and you can go free,” Lorgex crossed his skinny arms.
“The wha—?” Spew raised a non-existent eyebrow.
“Relinquish him not and my chitterling horde shall chew the very flesh from your bones,” Lorgex sneered. “It is said croakers are something of a delicacy in chitterling cuisine.” He smiled so wide that for a moment Spew thought the drum-tight skin over his emaciated face might rip free of the skull so prominent beneath.
“Eat-eat, chew-chew, froggy-froggy,” the chitterlings chattered. They stood waist high all about Lorgex. A ragged pack of them. Stooped, giant man-rats they were, with all of the charm of sewer rats coupled incestuously with the morals and opposable thumbs of men. Like paired gravestones, huge slanted chisel teeth jutted from beneath dripping whiskered muzzles.
“He’s mine.” Spew blustered herself up. She had to get the hell out of here. There were too many foes — one was generally too many. “Be gone, Lorgex, or Izula, here — hey, stop drooling.” She nudged her with her whip handle. “Ahem, Izula will give you and your rats something to chew on!” So long as that something was Izula and not Spew.
“Attaaaaaack!” Spew screeched.
In response, Izula huffed hard and slow then started foaming at the mouth, which was, possibly, an improvement over the drooling? Either way, it would still take the chitterlings a few precious moments to eat her. Then the boy. Of course, by then Spew could be — staring down the long crooked alleyway she calculated her torpid land speed — not very far. She was built for many things: power, torture, seduction. Alas, speed was not on that list. Then her eyes lit upon it — the heaped garbage pile from the Swamp Rat Tavern. The back door lay buried somewhere beneath that glacial midden-heap. Somewhere…
“Very well, Spew, you had your chance.” Lorgex raised both of his twizzled arms. “Take them, chitterlings! Bite them! Gnash them! Sharpen your teeth on their marrow!”
A wave of red eyes and chipped teeth and damp hairy limbs broke over Izula and surged round Malving’s legs. Spew struggled amidst the tide to hold on as Malving screamed in muzzled terror, turned to flee but was knocked from his shackled feet, slamming pillory first to the ground.
“Gimpy! Do not gnaw the man-child!” Lorgex ran forward. “NO! Gimpy. Bad Gimpy!”
Spew’s whip flew from her hand as she smacked down hard, bouncing twice and rolling hard like a wad of snot. Into the Swamp Rat’s midden heap she slammed, an avalanche of filth and animal bones cascading down, engulfing her immediately as dozens of clawed rat feet stomped towards her. Sniffles and snuffles and teeth gnashed through the trash all around her, searching.
“Bring him to me, Gimpy!” Lorgex screamed. “No! No bites—”
As Spew scrambled free of her tomb, a huge chitterling soared through the air, tackling her. Its bulk pressed her deep into the midden heap. Suffocating. Claws digging in. Slavering, its whiskered rat muzzle pressed toward her face, teeth bared to the black gums. Snap! A roar suddenly exploded up the alleyway. Piercing squeals instantly followed flying rat carcass.
Spew’s chitterling sprayed black breath as it hissed down to gnaw into her—“!@#STOP#@!” — spat Spew dead to rights into the chitterling’s face. Her voice fissured the air.
The chitterling froze. It blinked. Twitched.
Spew weaseled and clawed, sputtering from beneath the frozen rat-thing, scrambling towards the Swamp Rat’s back door. She hopped onto the door handle and pulled with all her might, but the door would not budge. “By Grimnir’s black name, open this door!” She pounded away to no avail. She turned and the huge chitterling was moving again, at her feet. But something was different.
It lay twitching…
It lay dying.
It lay dead.
It’d been cut in half below its stomach. Black tentacles of gore and innard trailed it like some doomed comet’s tale. A yellow wind oozed down the alley, and in the distance, Spew could hear the flesh-peddlers’ hawkings from the Sickamore Slave Market.
“Izula…” Spew whispered.
In the alley, nothing moved.
Flies buzzed.
Lorgex was gone. So too Malving.
No matter. Spew yet lived.
She adjusted her purple wig and tiara. Brushed herself off.
Clutched her torture bag.
She found Izula amidst the circle: the circle of limbs, of torsos, of rat heads flung about as though some sort of great razorback tornado god had inhaled them all in one great gout, chewed them up, then vomited them all forth. Impossible to tell how many.
Gashes and flaps of hanging green skin covered Izula’s body. Blood eeked out. Her long, bone saw-sword lay across her chest, clutched red in her monstrous hammer fists. Her eyeballs lolled back beneath barely cracked lids.
Spew reached forward, tentatively, closing Izula’s eyes then touched the hilt of the blade with a delicate wet finger. Fine craftsmanship, really. The work of a master bone-smith. It would fetch a good price at market. Her armor, too. And, perhaps Izula had some other goodies as well. Oooh. She rifled Izula’s corpse.
“Crrrrrrrrrrrrrrroooooooooak…” Izula croaked meekly.
“Hop toward the dark.” Spew dug into a coin purse.
“Crrrrrrrrroak…”
Spew upended the coin purse. It was full of teeth. Spew hadn’t paid her yet. And that meant she still owed her the implied-retainer. And a debt owed and left unpaid was possibly the one thing Spew could not swallow. Bad business. Word would get out. No more meat-shields to work for her. Protect her. Die for, and more importantly instead of, her. And Izula had proved rather useful in that function, despite the overwhelming drooling problem. Spew looked around in awe, counting chitterling heads. Five… Six… Eight… Nine!
All by herself.
“Croooooak…” Izula coughed up a dribble of pink foam.
Yes, Izula was useful, but more importantly, she was very stupid. And very stupid meant she was probably very loyal as well. And very loyal people were generally very willing to do stupid things for other people. And Spew was habitually asking people to do stupid things for her.
“Grimnir’s grimy ball-sacks…” She pushed back her indigo sleeves. Scraping a handful of dirt from the muddy streets, she packed it into a ball and shoved it into her mouth. And she chewed. And she grimaced. And she swallowed. It went down like a wire-haired cat. Hocking deep from within the bowels of her black soul, she tore open Izula’s cavernous maw, and spat the black earth bile in. She closed Izula’s mouth, her shattered skull shifting and scraping like a bag full of pottery shards beneath Spew’s hands.
Leaning in close then, Spew whispered, “!@#LIVE#@!”
And live she did.
“Come back and fight!” Acolyte Spew tore her whip round in snapping circles above her head. CRACK! “Come back!”
Atop the marsh-oak pillory fastened about Malving’s neck and hands, Spew clutched on like some tree-frog goddess. And upon that altar of pillory wood and flesh she was wrath incarnate. And before her wrath they fled, a stumbling mass of arms and legs, bone weapons and rattling armor, stinking bodies scrambling madly for escape— Regrettably for Spew, the ‘they’ were four out of the five mercenary guards she had hired on implied-retainer. And the only reason she had not fled before them was the simple fact that for her mount she had chosen a stooped thirteen-year-old pig boy who was muzzled, pilloried, and dead-tired from the fifty-pound croaker attached to his head.
Spew glanced to her left. Only Izula still stood by her, and only because she was extremely stupid. The giant sword she wielded trembled between her grotesquely knuckled fists. Her huge croaker pupils had constricted to pinpricks of black on yellow. And she was drooling. Copiously.
“A pity.” Lorgex the Eyes smirked as the greater portion of Spew’s entourage fled down the back alleys of Cesstern.
“That’s Acolyte Spew, you shriveled abortion.” Spew feverishly tore about for some sort of escape.
“Give me the Chosen One, and you can go free,” Lorgex crossed his skinny arms.
“The wha—?” Spew raised a non-existent eyebrow.
“Relinquish him not and my chitterling horde shall chew the very flesh from your bones,” Lorgex sneered. “It is said croakers are something of a delicacy in chitterling cuisine.” He smiled so wide that for a moment Spew thought the drum-tight skin over his emaciated face might rip free of the skull so prominent beneath.
“Eat-eat, chew-chew, froggy-froggy,” the chitterlings chattered. They stood waist high all about Lorgex. A ragged pack of them. Stooped, giant man-rats they were, with all of the charm of sewer rats coupled incestuously with the morals and opposable thumbs of men. Like paired gravestones, huge slanted chisel teeth jutted from beneath dripping whiskered muzzles.
“He’s mine.” Spew blustered herself up. She had to get the hell out of here. There were too many foes — one was generally too many. “Be gone, Lorgex, or Izula, here — hey, stop drooling.” She nudged her with her whip handle. “Ahem, Izula will give you and your rats something to chew on!” So long as that something was Izula and not Spew.
“Attaaaaaack!” Spew screeched.
In response, Izula huffed hard and slow then started foaming at the mouth, which was, possibly, an improvement over the drooling? Either way, it would still take the chitterlings a few precious moments to eat her. Then the boy. Of course, by then Spew could be — staring down the long crooked alleyway she calculated her torpid land speed — not very far. She was built for many things: power, torture, seduction. Alas, speed was not on that list. Then her eyes lit upon it — the heaped garbage pile from the Swamp Rat Tavern. The back door lay buried somewhere beneath that glacial midden-heap. Somewhere…
“Very well, Spew, you had your chance.” Lorgex raised both of his twizzled arms. “Take them, chitterlings! Bite them! Gnash them! Sharpen your teeth on their marrow!”
A wave of red eyes and chipped teeth and damp hairy limbs broke over Izula and surged round Malving’s legs. Spew struggled amidst the tide to hold on as Malving screamed in muzzled terror, turned to flee but was knocked from his shackled feet, slamming pillory first to the ground.
“Gimpy! Do not gnaw the man-child!” Lorgex ran forward. “NO! Gimpy. Bad Gimpy!”
Spew’s whip flew from her hand as she smacked down hard, bouncing twice and rolling hard like a wad of snot. Into the Swamp Rat’s midden heap she slammed, an avalanche of filth and animal bones cascading down, engulfing her immediately as dozens of clawed rat feet stomped towards her. Sniffles and snuffles and teeth gnashed through the trash all around her, searching.
“Bring him to me, Gimpy!” Lorgex screamed. “No! No bites—”
As Spew scrambled free of her tomb, a huge chitterling soared through the air, tackling her. Its bulk pressed her deep into the midden heap. Suffocating. Claws digging in. Slavering, its whiskered rat muzzle pressed toward her face, teeth bared to the black gums. Snap! A roar suddenly exploded up the alleyway. Piercing squeals instantly followed flying rat carcass.
Spew’s chitterling sprayed black breath as it hissed down to gnaw into her—“!@#STOP#@!” — spat Spew dead to rights into the chitterling’s face. Her voice fissured the air.
The chitterling froze. It blinked. Twitched.
Spew weaseled and clawed, sputtering from beneath the frozen rat-thing, scrambling towards the Swamp Rat’s back door. She hopped onto the door handle and pulled with all her might, but the door would not budge. “By Grimnir’s black name, open this door!” She pounded away to no avail. She turned and the huge chitterling was moving again, at her feet. But something was different.
It lay twitching…
It lay dying.
It lay dead.
It’d been cut in half below its stomach. Black tentacles of gore and innard trailed it like some doomed comet’s tale. A yellow wind oozed down the alley, and in the distance, Spew could hear the flesh-peddlers’ hawkings from the Sickamore Slave Market.
“Izula…” Spew whispered.
In the alley, nothing moved.
Flies buzzed.
Lorgex was gone. So too Malving.
No matter. Spew yet lived.
She adjusted her purple wig and tiara. Brushed herself off.
Clutched her torture bag.
She found Izula amidst the circle: the circle of limbs, of torsos, of rat heads flung about as though some sort of great razorback tornado god had inhaled them all in one great gout, chewed them up, then vomited them all forth. Impossible to tell how many.
Gashes and flaps of hanging green skin covered Izula’s body. Blood eeked out. Her long, bone saw-sword lay across her chest, clutched red in her monstrous hammer fists. Her eyeballs lolled back beneath barely cracked lids.
Spew reached forward, tentatively, closing Izula’s eyes then touched the hilt of the blade with a delicate wet finger. Fine craftsmanship, really. The work of a master bone-smith. It would fetch a good price at market. Her armor, too. And, perhaps Izula had some other goodies as well. Oooh. She rifled Izula’s corpse.
“Crrrrrrrrrrrrrrroooooooooak…” Izula croaked meekly.
“Hop toward the dark.” Spew dug into a coin purse.
“Crrrrrrrrroak…”
Spew upended the coin purse. It was full of teeth. Spew hadn’t paid her yet. And that meant she still owed her the implied-retainer. And a debt owed and left unpaid was possibly the one thing Spew could not swallow. Bad business. Word would get out. No more meat-shields to work for her. Protect her. Die for, and more importantly instead of, her. And Izula had proved rather useful in that function, despite the overwhelming drooling problem. Spew looked around in awe, counting chitterling heads. Five… Six… Eight… Nine!
All by herself.
“Croooooak…” Izula coughed up a dribble of pink foam.
Yes, Izula was useful, but more importantly, she was very stupid. And very stupid meant she was probably very loyal as well. And very loyal people were generally very willing to do stupid things for other people. And Spew was habitually asking people to do stupid things for her.
“Grimnir’s grimy ball-sacks…” She pushed back her indigo sleeves. Scraping a handful of dirt from the muddy streets, she packed it into a ball and shoved it into her mouth. And she chewed. And she grimaced. And she swallowed. It went down like a wire-haired cat. Hocking deep from within the bowels of her black soul, she tore open Izula’s cavernous maw, and spat the black earth bile in. She closed Izula’s mouth, her shattered skull shifting and scraping like a bag full of pottery shards beneath Spew’s hands.
Leaning in close then, Spew whispered, “!@#LIVE#@!”
And live she did.
August 12, 2017
Madam Spew - Chapter 2 - The Swamp Lords Chronicles
Chapter 2. The Chosen One
A maelstrom of screaming demon skulls tore through the chamber. Eldritch energies and arcane forces sparked like lightning, bouncing off the ceiling, rattling the skeletons and iron masks spiked to the walls. Within the safety of the pentagram etched into the floor, before the Altar of Woe, the two Wrackolytes stood yet untouched, protected by an invisible shield-barrier.
“Do you see her?” Abzgorn the Ribspreader hissed.
“By Sanctos…” Lorgex the Eyes growled. “I’ve harnessed the demon, but… ” His old bones creaked as he straightened from gazing into the empty sockets of his seer-skull.. “Spew cannot hide from me. Not from the Eyes.” He wiped smears of sweat down either side of his leather slicks then started patting down his pockets. “Damn.” He looked to his torture slab across the room.
“What in the Craw—?” Abzgorn asked. “Stop!”
Through the invisible barrier Lorgex suddenly leaped, arcane winds searing his skin, his lungs. Ducking, dodging, screaming, he skidded to a halt at his slab. “Where?” Across it he searched, scattering a thousand haphazard trinkets and paraphernalia in the process. “They’re here. They must be!”
“Hurry, you old fool,” Abzgorn watched on in growing irritation. “The ice you tread was rotten already.” He adjusted his hold on the Elder Sign, held quivering above him, generating the shield-barrier. “Grimnir’s teeth.” He winced as arcane an eldritch horror slammed the barrier.
“Curse you!” Lorgex swept his arm across his slab, a hailstorm of sharp instruments clattering onto the floor.
“The High Wrackolyte has already considered castrating your appointment as Wrackolyte,” Abzgorn roared. Cracks began to fissure through the barrier. “Fail me now, and I shall will it done!”
“I need more goblin eyes—” Lorgex looked under his slab.
“The barrier is failing!”
“They’re here—”
“Curse your eyes!”
“I left them right here!” Lorgex sweat coursed down his liver-spotted egg of a head. Airborne ethereal demon-skulls buzzed past him, snapping with sharp, pointy teeth. “I know it.” He snatched up his torture bag, looked under it, cursed, then dove back into it, rifling through with reckless abandon. Metal forks flew, spike-spirals, chisels and other horrible blood-crusted instruments all over his shoulder. “Aaaarch!” He upended his bag, flung it against the wall and started slamming his puny fists against the slab.
“Damn you, Spew!”
“I-In m-my b-bag!” The Elder sign in Abzgorn’s hands vibrated so badly his teeth chattered. A demon-head broke through the barrier, biting onto his leg. “Arrgh!” He kicked, flinging it off. “The b-bottom left—”
Lorgex was there in an instant, elbow deep in the bag, rifling through it, ducking demons, yelping at the burn of hellfire gales. “Aha!” Lorgex yanked a jar free. Orc eyes stared out numbly from within. He deflated. “The demon won’t like these…”
“Do it!” Abzgorn roared. “Give it something! Or I’ll see Spew made Madam and you—” that thought went unfinished as spurting balefire drove him to one knee.
“She’ll be no Madam!” Lorgex ducked another skull, dove across a slab and hurled himself back into the pentagram. Blood streamed from a myriad of cuts and bites to his head, his face, his arms. “No damned wart-back croaker’ll be a full Wrackolyte.” He latched onto the Elder Sign alongside Abzgorn. “Not while I still live and breathe!” As one … they rose.
“Enough. Forget her quest—”
Lorgex’s blue eyes beamed ravenous in the polychromatic swirls. “You know the object of her quest?”
“Go!”
Lorgex obeyed, abandoning Abzgorn and the Elder Sign for the Altar, the seer skull perched atop it. Abzgorn screamed in pain. Lorgex drew the jar from his slicks and smashed them on the altar. Snatching two rolling orbs and took up the skull. “Yeouch!” It snapped at his fingers. “Please — what quest?”
Abzgorn withered beneath the falling barrier. “I… Rrrrrg… cannot say…”
“But you must!” Lorgex begged, kneeling, contorting now beneath the collapsing barrier. “You must tell me. I must know—”
“Harness it!” Abzgorn cried. “Do it now, or we’re doomed.”
Leaning his head back, holding the skull above him, staring into its bulging eyes, Lorgex squeezed his thumbs into the eye sockets. The aqueous-humors squirted, pouring down his arms, first a trickle then raining down onto his face, his own eyes. The seer skull moaned luridly. Its jaw slackened hanging now open. Sated.
Abzgorn collapsed to the ground, dropping the Elder sign rolling across the floor. Cold silence filled the room. The demon-heads were gone, the arcane energies harnessed.
Dark words Lorgex muttered then, the language of pain and jealousy and rage, the tongue of fear and hate. Of the Woebringer. The clear juices upon him began to hiss, steaming, sizzling as though Lorgex were aflame. The white steam swirled around him, entering him through his mouth, his nose, his ears, his eyes. The crypt shook, a cacophony of vibration, tools dancing across the torture tables. Lorgex shuddered in ecstasy as he SAW…
“I can see her, Abzgorn. Her shade. She walks— No, she rides,” Lorgex whispered. “Yes… Yes… She rides in the company of others. Five.” Lorgex stared deep into the eye sockets. “Yes… Yes, I see you, Spew. What is it you’re doing? Where is it you’re going? No. Coming. You are coming here, yes, but what are your words? What are you saying? What task has the High Wrackolyte set you?”
“There is no one else with her?” Spent, broken, exhausted, Abzgorn lifted his hooded head from the stone floor. Barely.
“No. I see nothing — wait. There is more.” Lorgex’s face peeled back in a rictus of ecstasy. “She rides atop a child — a pilloried child?” Lorgex muttered. “Who is he?”
“She brings him here?” Abzgorn asked in awe. “Now?”
“Who is this child?” Lorgex turned. “I must know! You shall have whatever you want of me! Name it.” He blinked, seeming to lose his balance for an instant, legs wobbling, but regained it by clutching onto the Altar. “Is he a sacrifice?”
“I-I cannot say,” Abzgorn gasped.
“Tell me!” Murder in his eyes, Lorgex stood above him, the seer skull raised for a killing blow.
“The child is the one sent to usher in a new age of darkness.” Abzgorn cringed. “Blood of the Ancients reborn anew, he shall lead Grimnir’s hordes forth from the Craw. He shall destroy and defile all that is Shagra’lor! Spew brings the Chosen One! The Chosen One of Grimnir!”
“What? No. It cannot be.” Lorgex clutched his chest. “It must be me! It should be me! It shall be ME!”
A maelstrom of screaming demon skulls tore through the chamber. Eldritch energies and arcane forces sparked like lightning, bouncing off the ceiling, rattling the skeletons and iron masks spiked to the walls. Within the safety of the pentagram etched into the floor, before the Altar of Woe, the two Wrackolytes stood yet untouched, protected by an invisible shield-barrier.
“Do you see her?” Abzgorn the Ribspreader hissed.
“By Sanctos…” Lorgex the Eyes growled. “I’ve harnessed the demon, but… ” His old bones creaked as he straightened from gazing into the empty sockets of his seer-skull.. “Spew cannot hide from me. Not from the Eyes.” He wiped smears of sweat down either side of his leather slicks then started patting down his pockets. “Damn.” He looked to his torture slab across the room.
“What in the Craw—?” Abzgorn asked. “Stop!”
Through the invisible barrier Lorgex suddenly leaped, arcane winds searing his skin, his lungs. Ducking, dodging, screaming, he skidded to a halt at his slab. “Where?” Across it he searched, scattering a thousand haphazard trinkets and paraphernalia in the process. “They’re here. They must be!”
“Hurry, you old fool,” Abzgorn watched on in growing irritation. “The ice you tread was rotten already.” He adjusted his hold on the Elder Sign, held quivering above him, generating the shield-barrier. “Grimnir’s teeth.” He winced as arcane an eldritch horror slammed the barrier.
“Curse you!” Lorgex swept his arm across his slab, a hailstorm of sharp instruments clattering onto the floor.
“The High Wrackolyte has already considered castrating your appointment as Wrackolyte,” Abzgorn roared. Cracks began to fissure through the barrier. “Fail me now, and I shall will it done!”
“I need more goblin eyes—” Lorgex looked under his slab.
“The barrier is failing!”
“They’re here—”
“Curse your eyes!”
“I left them right here!” Lorgex sweat coursed down his liver-spotted egg of a head. Airborne ethereal demon-skulls buzzed past him, snapping with sharp, pointy teeth. “I know it.” He snatched up his torture bag, looked under it, cursed, then dove back into it, rifling through with reckless abandon. Metal forks flew, spike-spirals, chisels and other horrible blood-crusted instruments all over his shoulder. “Aaaarch!” He upended his bag, flung it against the wall and started slamming his puny fists against the slab.
“Damn you, Spew!”
“I-In m-my b-bag!” The Elder sign in Abzgorn’s hands vibrated so badly his teeth chattered. A demon-head broke through the barrier, biting onto his leg. “Arrgh!” He kicked, flinging it off. “The b-bottom left—”
Lorgex was there in an instant, elbow deep in the bag, rifling through it, ducking demons, yelping at the burn of hellfire gales. “Aha!” Lorgex yanked a jar free. Orc eyes stared out numbly from within. He deflated. “The demon won’t like these…”
“Do it!” Abzgorn roared. “Give it something! Or I’ll see Spew made Madam and you—” that thought went unfinished as spurting balefire drove him to one knee.
“She’ll be no Madam!” Lorgex ducked another skull, dove across a slab and hurled himself back into the pentagram. Blood streamed from a myriad of cuts and bites to his head, his face, his arms. “No damned wart-back croaker’ll be a full Wrackolyte.” He latched onto the Elder Sign alongside Abzgorn. “Not while I still live and breathe!” As one … they rose.
“Enough. Forget her quest—”
Lorgex’s blue eyes beamed ravenous in the polychromatic swirls. “You know the object of her quest?”
“Go!”
Lorgex obeyed, abandoning Abzgorn and the Elder Sign for the Altar, the seer skull perched atop it. Abzgorn screamed in pain. Lorgex drew the jar from his slicks and smashed them on the altar. Snatching two rolling orbs and took up the skull. “Yeouch!” It snapped at his fingers. “Please — what quest?”
Abzgorn withered beneath the falling barrier. “I… Rrrrrg… cannot say…”
“But you must!” Lorgex begged, kneeling, contorting now beneath the collapsing barrier. “You must tell me. I must know—”
“Harness it!” Abzgorn cried. “Do it now, or we’re doomed.”
Leaning his head back, holding the skull above him, staring into its bulging eyes, Lorgex squeezed his thumbs into the eye sockets. The aqueous-humors squirted, pouring down his arms, first a trickle then raining down onto his face, his own eyes. The seer skull moaned luridly. Its jaw slackened hanging now open. Sated.
Abzgorn collapsed to the ground, dropping the Elder sign rolling across the floor. Cold silence filled the room. The demon-heads were gone, the arcane energies harnessed.
Dark words Lorgex muttered then, the language of pain and jealousy and rage, the tongue of fear and hate. Of the Woebringer. The clear juices upon him began to hiss, steaming, sizzling as though Lorgex were aflame. The white steam swirled around him, entering him through his mouth, his nose, his ears, his eyes. The crypt shook, a cacophony of vibration, tools dancing across the torture tables. Lorgex shuddered in ecstasy as he SAW…
“I can see her, Abzgorn. Her shade. She walks— No, she rides,” Lorgex whispered. “Yes… Yes… She rides in the company of others. Five.” Lorgex stared deep into the eye sockets. “Yes… Yes, I see you, Spew. What is it you’re doing? Where is it you’re going? No. Coming. You are coming here, yes, but what are your words? What are you saying? What task has the High Wrackolyte set you?”
“There is no one else with her?” Spent, broken, exhausted, Abzgorn lifted his hooded head from the stone floor. Barely.
“No. I see nothing — wait. There is more.” Lorgex’s face peeled back in a rictus of ecstasy. “She rides atop a child — a pilloried child?” Lorgex muttered. “Who is he?”
“She brings him here?” Abzgorn asked in awe. “Now?”
“Who is this child?” Lorgex turned. “I must know! You shall have whatever you want of me! Name it.” He blinked, seeming to lose his balance for an instant, legs wobbling, but regained it by clutching onto the Altar. “Is he a sacrifice?”
“I-I cannot say,” Abzgorn gasped.
“Tell me!” Murder in his eyes, Lorgex stood above him, the seer skull raised for a killing blow.
“The child is the one sent to usher in a new age of darkness.” Abzgorn cringed. “Blood of the Ancients reborn anew, he shall lead Grimnir’s hordes forth from the Craw. He shall destroy and defile all that is Shagra’lor! Spew brings the Chosen One! The Chosen One of Grimnir!”
“What? No. It cannot be.” Lorgex clutched his chest. “It must be me! It should be me! It shall be ME!”
August 9, 2017
The Greatest Feat in the History of Writing
So. What is the greatest feat in the history of writing? It’s ‘Beowulf’ or ‘The Epic of Gilgamesh,’ right? No. Something more contemporary… Hmmm, Dickens? Or Virginia Wolfe. No—wait, James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses.’ That’s the novel every best novel list lists as the greatest novel ever. It has to be. The only problem is, no one has ever read it. Not even James Joyce.
I’m playing with you. The greatest feat isn’t by one of those hacks. The greatest writing feat in history was clearly perpetrated by George R.R. Martin and here’s why in two words: Jaime Lannister.
Yes. That’s right. Him.
Let me explain.
Jaime Lannister is introduced in ‘A Game of Thrones,’ book one of ‘A Song of Ice and Fire,’ as a bad guy. No, wait. Not a bad guy. He’s set up as the worst guy. He’s a dick. Right off the bat. A spoiled golden boy who’s handsome, entitled, and awful in his gleaming perfection. And he only gets worse.
His subsequent relations with his sister Cersei, the queen, clearly don’t raise our opinion of him. The coup de grace is of course when he catches Bran catching him and Cersei in flagrante delicto. Jaime snatches the startled lad by the scruff and saves him from falling to his death. Whew! That was close. Maybe Jaime’s not such a bad guy…? Maybe our instincts were wrong? Nope. After a dramatic pause and semi-witty rejoinder, “The things I do for love,” he hucks the ten-year-old boy out the window.
Now, he doesn’t do it in a fit of rage or passion. He does it coldly. He does it thoughtfully. Premeditatedly(this is an actual word but it sounds terrible).
Later, we find Jaime Lannister butting heads with Ned Stark, the obvious hero of ‘A Game of Thrones.’ Which makes Jaime the obvious villain. The two have an exchange in the streets of King’s Landing which ends with Ned in chains and in a shitty dungeon(not a nice one), and nursing a broken leg and dented spirit.
So. We are clearly meant to hate Jaime Lannister from the get go.
However, an interesting thing happens when you continue on through the saga. Jaime Lannister is laid low by Rob Stark at the Battle of the Whispering Wood. The reader is elated! The foul dog has been defeated, taken prisoner, and his treatment is a mirror of Ned’s. He’s tarnished. Caged. Mistreated. And like Ned, he defiant. He’s unbent. Unbroken.
Justice has reared its head at last.
But in his imprisonment, he has an exchange with Catelyn Stark in which, as a reader, you gain a grudging respect for him in his haughty verve. “There are no men like me. There’s only me.” And with that sliver respect, the hatred is fractured.
And on his river trip downstream with Brienne of Tarth, holes begin to form in the hatred as shards of it fall. The two of them battle, and despite his malnourishment, sickness, and chains, he gives nearly as good as he gets.
The seed of grudging respect has sprouted, grown. Here is a worthy adversary.
When he loses his hand to the villainous Vargo Hoat, his sword hand, mind you, there is a sense of loss greater than a mere appendage. It’s who he is. His strength. His power. His soul.“It was one thing to slay a lion, another to hack his paw off and leave him broken and bewildered.”
Vargo Hoat is clearly a worse example of humanity than Jaime… So maybe Jaime’s not as bad as we thought… Thoughts like this begin to materialize from the ether.
Despite being maimed, shattered as a human being, Jaime still manages to, if not triumph, at the very least, survive (with help from Brienne).
The grudging respect that sprouted blossoms fully when Jaime is safely on the road to King’s Landing. He knows he has left Brienne behind and at the mercy of the merciless Hoat. He turns back to save her. At the eleventh hour, he risks life and limb to shield her from doom. He has nothing to gain by doing so. Nothing but the respect of someone no one but he respects. And he succeeds.
With this act, Jaime has proven himself a dynamic character capable of change. Good change. The tough kind of change. And he goes on further to prove himself a capable and compassionate leader in King’s Landing. He does what’s right, or as close as he can to what’s right, which is about all any of us can do. He has run the gamut from blackguard to hero. He has crawled up from the darkness and into the light.
(Jaime does have sex with his sister in front of his dead son’s casket on his arrival at King’s Landing, but hey, no one’s perfect. And this actually goes some length to further softening our view of Jaime as it shows him as something of a puppet to the Svengali-like Cersei. Jaime didn’t hurl Bran out the window because he wanted to. He did it because she wanted him to! So everything’s okay. He’s a good guy. And later when Cersei reaches out to him via letter, begging him to come back and save her from the clutches of the High Sparrow, he cuts those puppet strings once and for all by burning the letter and leaving his Cersei to her fate. He is his own man for once.)
So why is this the greatest feat in the history of writing? Because in Jaime Lannister, Martin began by building an odious character bereft of morality, slathered in entitlement and prurient desire, a character whose very deeds were unforgivable. And yet somewhere on this journey, at some undefinable moment, we do just that. Forgive him. The man who tossed a child out a window. Somehow. Martin has conducted a magic trick by turning Jaime into someone admirable. His story arc is an incremental about face that, to me, is one of the great joys of reading and re-reading ‘A Song of Ice and Fire.’
Even at Jaime’s worst, he’s at least a man you would want on your side in the thick of battle. And at his best? I’m still waiting and hoping to see.
Kevin Wright
-Amazon Author Page http://amzn.to/2noAXKj
I’m playing with you. The greatest feat isn’t by one of those hacks. The greatest writing feat in history was clearly perpetrated by George R.R. Martin and here’s why in two words: Jaime Lannister.
Yes. That’s right. Him.
Let me explain.
Jaime Lannister is introduced in ‘A Game of Thrones,’ book one of ‘A Song of Ice and Fire,’ as a bad guy. No, wait. Not a bad guy. He’s set up as the worst guy. He’s a dick. Right off the bat. A spoiled golden boy who’s handsome, entitled, and awful in his gleaming perfection. And he only gets worse.
His subsequent relations with his sister Cersei, the queen, clearly don’t raise our opinion of him. The coup de grace is of course when he catches Bran catching him and Cersei in flagrante delicto. Jaime snatches the startled lad by the scruff and saves him from falling to his death. Whew! That was close. Maybe Jaime’s not such a bad guy…? Maybe our instincts were wrong? Nope. After a dramatic pause and semi-witty rejoinder, “The things I do for love,” he hucks the ten-year-old boy out the window.
Now, he doesn’t do it in a fit of rage or passion. He does it coldly. He does it thoughtfully. Premeditatedly(this is an actual word but it sounds terrible).
Later, we find Jaime Lannister butting heads with Ned Stark, the obvious hero of ‘A Game of Thrones.’ Which makes Jaime the obvious villain. The two have an exchange in the streets of King’s Landing which ends with Ned in chains and in a shitty dungeon(not a nice one), and nursing a broken leg and dented spirit.
So. We are clearly meant to hate Jaime Lannister from the get go.
However, an interesting thing happens when you continue on through the saga. Jaime Lannister is laid low by Rob Stark at the Battle of the Whispering Wood. The reader is elated! The foul dog has been defeated, taken prisoner, and his treatment is a mirror of Ned’s. He’s tarnished. Caged. Mistreated. And like Ned, he defiant. He’s unbent. Unbroken.
Justice has reared its head at last.
But in his imprisonment, he has an exchange with Catelyn Stark in which, as a reader, you gain a grudging respect for him in his haughty verve. “There are no men like me. There’s only me.” And with that sliver respect, the hatred is fractured.
And on his river trip downstream with Brienne of Tarth, holes begin to form in the hatred as shards of it fall. The two of them battle, and despite his malnourishment, sickness, and chains, he gives nearly as good as he gets.
The seed of grudging respect has sprouted, grown. Here is a worthy adversary.
When he loses his hand to the villainous Vargo Hoat, his sword hand, mind you, there is a sense of loss greater than a mere appendage. It’s who he is. His strength. His power. His soul.“It was one thing to slay a lion, another to hack his paw off and leave him broken and bewildered.”
Vargo Hoat is clearly a worse example of humanity than Jaime… So maybe Jaime’s not as bad as we thought… Thoughts like this begin to materialize from the ether.
Despite being maimed, shattered as a human being, Jaime still manages to, if not triumph, at the very least, survive (with help from Brienne).
The grudging respect that sprouted blossoms fully when Jaime is safely on the road to King’s Landing. He knows he has left Brienne behind and at the mercy of the merciless Hoat. He turns back to save her. At the eleventh hour, he risks life and limb to shield her from doom. He has nothing to gain by doing so. Nothing but the respect of someone no one but he respects. And he succeeds.
With this act, Jaime has proven himself a dynamic character capable of change. Good change. The tough kind of change. And he goes on further to prove himself a capable and compassionate leader in King’s Landing. He does what’s right, or as close as he can to what’s right, which is about all any of us can do. He has run the gamut from blackguard to hero. He has crawled up from the darkness and into the light.
(Jaime does have sex with his sister in front of his dead son’s casket on his arrival at King’s Landing, but hey, no one’s perfect. And this actually goes some length to further softening our view of Jaime as it shows him as something of a puppet to the Svengali-like Cersei. Jaime didn’t hurl Bran out the window because he wanted to. He did it because she wanted him to! So everything’s okay. He’s a good guy. And later when Cersei reaches out to him via letter, begging him to come back and save her from the clutches of the High Sparrow, he cuts those puppet strings once and for all by burning the letter and leaving his Cersei to her fate. He is his own man for once.)
So why is this the greatest feat in the history of writing? Because in Jaime Lannister, Martin began by building an odious character bereft of morality, slathered in entitlement and prurient desire, a character whose very deeds were unforgivable. And yet somewhere on this journey, at some undefinable moment, we do just that. Forgive him. The man who tossed a child out a window. Somehow. Martin has conducted a magic trick by turning Jaime into someone admirable. His story arc is an incremental about face that, to me, is one of the great joys of reading and re-reading ‘A Song of Ice and Fire.’
Even at Jaime’s worst, he’s at least a man you would want on your side in the thick of battle. And at his best? I’m still waiting and hoping to see.
Kevin Wright
-Amazon Author Page http://amzn.to/2noAXKj
July 29, 2017
Madam Spew - Chapter 1 - The Swamp Lords Chronicles
Chapter 1. The Quest
Acolyte Spew waddled across the muck floor of the hovel, a bone stiletto jutting tooth-like from her fist. “Forever don’t always take so long as you think it might, boy,” her croaking voice sawed the sweltering air like a bog owl’s screech, “sometimes it takes but a moment.”
“Blow it out your arse, hag.” Malving’s vision began to clear. To focus. Where was he? His hovel. The floor. His hands were bound! “RRRrrrrg… What the Craw do you want?”
The croaker crept forward with amphibian coolness, her round red croaker eyes blazing.
“Let me go!” Like some half-drowned kitten, he batted at her stiletto.
“After I just finished tying you up?” Spew hopped closer, the slap of her belly against the ground splashing slime and brown putridity alike. “Pretty-pretty pink.” She draped her slim fingers on his forehead. Petted him. Left four snail trails glimmering. “So soft. So smooth.” Her eyes narrowed. “I could cut out your heart and wear it beating round my neck as a pendant, boy,” she loomed over him, eclipsing the light, “or … I can not.”
“Huh?” Malving grunted. “What?” What in hell was she saying? If he could just slip free. Just his hands. One hand. Almost… He was bigger. Stronger. He’d beaten stupid croakers raw before. His face burned crimson as he struggled. “Cannot what?”
“Can … pause … not.” Spew articulated the stiletto like a teacher’s pointer.
“What!?” Malving spat. Come on.
“Cretin!” Spew raised her stiletto overhead.
“I know you are but what am I!” Malving barked.
“I’ll shut you up for good!” Two-handed, Spew stabbed down.
Malving jack-knifed a squirm.
Snap! Spew missed wide, breaking her stiletto blade off at the hilt. “Damn you!”
Malving wriggled further back through the muck. The blade had landed behind him. Somewhere. He had to get it.
Laughter filled the hovel.
Spew whipped around. Her glare choked the laughter dead.
Malving’s newfound hope plummeted through him like Swamp Rat stew. The fat croaker hag wasn’t alone. He squinted past her. Into the dark corner of the hovel. A shadow gallery of silhouettes stood lined up against the far wall. Watching. Snickering. Five of them. Elbowing each other. Whispering.
Yes… Now he remembered. Villains. Blackguards. Weirdos. All of them. Spew had come to his sty. To buy a pig, she’d claimed. And when he’d gone out back? All six had jumped him.
Malving squirmed closer to the blade. She hadn’t noticed it. Almost…
“Ahem…” Spew adjusted her purple wig. “As I was saying before I was rudely interrupted,” she cast the gallery a fell glare, “I can, or conversely, I can not cut out your worthless heart. It depends solely upon you and your attitude. Forthwith.”
“Wartback,” Malving hissed.
“Tsk. Tsk.” Shaking her head, Spew withdrew a fish club from within her bag.
“I’m just a kid,” Malving pleaded at Spew. At the five. But his fingertips touched the blade! “You gonna just stand there and let her gut me?”
An uncomfortable silence blanketed the room.
“Well, that was the plan,” one finally admitted.
“Ridiculous,” another scoffed, “can’t gut anyone with a fish club.”
“You bunch of sissies!” Malving seized the blade! “Took six of you to kidnap one kid.”
“Is he questioning our villainhood?” One was obviously taken aback.
“It was five, really,” another confided behind a hand. “Spew barely helped.”
Behind his back, Malving sawed feverishly at his bindings.
“A worm on a hook you are, boy.” Spew polished the fish club on her robe sleeve. “And the nether-gator’s come cruising.”
“GET BACK!” The bindings split off his hands, and Malving surged to his feet, stiletto blade forth. “I’ll cut you!”
Feet pounded across the mud floor as the shadow gallery trampled one another fighting for the exit.
Malving smirked as he watched them fighting at the door. He turned to Spew, “Just you and me now, hag” and tore after her—
“!@#STOP#@!” Spew’s command reverberated through space and time, sundering reality in waves of purple energy. A cavernous echo whipped swirls of indigo energies devil dusting away.
Magic. Black Magic.
A hair’s breadth from stabbing Spew, Malving stood quivering still as a statue, teeth gritted, sweating, whimpering, arcane forces slithering on him, in him, through him.
“Pathetic.” Taxed ragged, gasping, Spew wiped her mouth.
Malving sneered, the only thing he could do.
“You’re nothing but a fodder, boy.” Spew plucked the bone blade from Malving’s inert hand, turned to the shadow gallery, all five of them jammed in the doorway. “Grab him. The Ribspreader wants him.” Her grin oozed evil. “A new project.”
Acolyte Spew waddled across the muck floor of the hovel, a bone stiletto jutting tooth-like from her fist. “Forever don’t always take so long as you think it might, boy,” her croaking voice sawed the sweltering air like a bog owl’s screech, “sometimes it takes but a moment.”
“Blow it out your arse, hag.” Malving’s vision began to clear. To focus. Where was he? His hovel. The floor. His hands were bound! “RRRrrrrg… What the Craw do you want?”
The croaker crept forward with amphibian coolness, her round red croaker eyes blazing.
“Let me go!” Like some half-drowned kitten, he batted at her stiletto.
“After I just finished tying you up?” Spew hopped closer, the slap of her belly against the ground splashing slime and brown putridity alike. “Pretty-pretty pink.” She draped her slim fingers on his forehead. Petted him. Left four snail trails glimmering. “So soft. So smooth.” Her eyes narrowed. “I could cut out your heart and wear it beating round my neck as a pendant, boy,” she loomed over him, eclipsing the light, “or … I can not.”
“Huh?” Malving grunted. “What?” What in hell was she saying? If he could just slip free. Just his hands. One hand. Almost… He was bigger. Stronger. He’d beaten stupid croakers raw before. His face burned crimson as he struggled. “Cannot what?”
“Can … pause … not.” Spew articulated the stiletto like a teacher’s pointer.
“What!?” Malving spat. Come on.
“Cretin!” Spew raised her stiletto overhead.
“I know you are but what am I!” Malving barked.
“I’ll shut you up for good!” Two-handed, Spew stabbed down.
Malving jack-knifed a squirm.
Snap! Spew missed wide, breaking her stiletto blade off at the hilt. “Damn you!”
Malving wriggled further back through the muck. The blade had landed behind him. Somewhere. He had to get it.
Laughter filled the hovel.
Spew whipped around. Her glare choked the laughter dead.
Malving’s newfound hope plummeted through him like Swamp Rat stew. The fat croaker hag wasn’t alone. He squinted past her. Into the dark corner of the hovel. A shadow gallery of silhouettes stood lined up against the far wall. Watching. Snickering. Five of them. Elbowing each other. Whispering.
Yes… Now he remembered. Villains. Blackguards. Weirdos. All of them. Spew had come to his sty. To buy a pig, she’d claimed. And when he’d gone out back? All six had jumped him.
Malving squirmed closer to the blade. She hadn’t noticed it. Almost…
“Ahem…” Spew adjusted her purple wig. “As I was saying before I was rudely interrupted,” she cast the gallery a fell glare, “I can, or conversely, I can not cut out your worthless heart. It depends solely upon you and your attitude. Forthwith.”
“Wartback,” Malving hissed.
“Tsk. Tsk.” Shaking her head, Spew withdrew a fish club from within her bag.
“I’m just a kid,” Malving pleaded at Spew. At the five. But his fingertips touched the blade! “You gonna just stand there and let her gut me?”
An uncomfortable silence blanketed the room.
“Well, that was the plan,” one finally admitted.
“Ridiculous,” another scoffed, “can’t gut anyone with a fish club.”
“You bunch of sissies!” Malving seized the blade! “Took six of you to kidnap one kid.”
“Is he questioning our villainhood?” One was obviously taken aback.
“It was five, really,” another confided behind a hand. “Spew barely helped.”
Behind his back, Malving sawed feverishly at his bindings.
“A worm on a hook you are, boy.” Spew polished the fish club on her robe sleeve. “And the nether-gator’s come cruising.”
“GET BACK!” The bindings split off his hands, and Malving surged to his feet, stiletto blade forth. “I’ll cut you!”
Feet pounded across the mud floor as the shadow gallery trampled one another fighting for the exit.
Malving smirked as he watched them fighting at the door. He turned to Spew, “Just you and me now, hag” and tore after her—
“!@#STOP#@!” Spew’s command reverberated through space and time, sundering reality in waves of purple energy. A cavernous echo whipped swirls of indigo energies devil dusting away.
Magic. Black Magic.
A hair’s breadth from stabbing Spew, Malving stood quivering still as a statue, teeth gritted, sweating, whimpering, arcane forces slithering on him, in him, through him.
“Pathetic.” Taxed ragged, gasping, Spew wiped her mouth.
Malving sneered, the only thing he could do.
“You’re nothing but a fodder, boy.” Spew plucked the bone blade from Malving’s inert hand, turned to the shadow gallery, all five of them jammed in the doorway. “Grab him. The Ribspreader wants him.” Her grin oozed evil. “A new project.”
July 11, 2017
Sandbox vs. Railroad: Some Thoughts on World Building for Writing
I’ve been a world builder for about thirty years now. I started when I was around nine or ten. I’m not exactly sure. My first worlds were populated by gods and monsters and two-dimensional heroes. Quite often, they all did not get along.
Nerds and geeks know what I’m talking about. Role-playing games. Dungeons and Dragons specifically.
I was born a few years after D&D was first released and on a Christmas Eve in Winthrop, Massachusetts, I received the first edition boxed expert set with the dragon rising up over a horse-borne warrior(my older brother received the basic set that same day). Back then I didn’t know what D&D was, but the artwork on the box had me before I even opened it.
I see articles nowadays on world building. On the internet. In magazines. You can buy innumerable books and eBooks on the subject on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Some of them look great. Some of them maybe not so much. Either way, I’ve never been tempted to make a purchase. And I’ve bought books on virtually every aspect of writing. I have a problem. But it’s never occurred to me to do so with world building because that’s something that was ingrained in me at a young age through D&D(#Iwasnotcool).
You see, I had the luck to be one of those kids that enjoyed being a dungeon master, or DM for short. For those of you who don’t know what a DM is, it makes you as valuable to nerds as a kid who likes to play goalie is to a hockey team. Which is to say quite (but still not cool).
The ultimate goal of any good DM, or guy who runs the game, is to run a string of adventures together into a campaign and tell an awesome story in the process. Characters live. They breathe. They triumph. And sometimes they die. Just like in books.
In fact, the process of writing a campaign is very much like writing a book. The only difference is that in D&D the overall story is ultimately a collaborative effort that can be occasionally derailed, often hilariously, by the roll of dice or the mad antics of your insane friends who just wanted to see what would happen if they summoned an earth elemental in the middle of a tavern. But I digress.
Now here is the crux of the title of this blog: are you a sandbox writer or a railroader?
When writing a story, do you provide a sandbox, or enclosed realm, for your characters to explore? This is an immersive experience that requires you to flesh out an entire world, including but not limited to: geography, sociology, races, river systems, trade agreements, wars, history, level of technology, existence of magic, etc…
Or, do you railroad them along a story that creates a path through your world that’s fleshed out just enough so that the characters don’t see that the buildings in town are merely facades?
Both are viable options.
But which is the more effective method? The answer to the question is, anticlimactically: it depends.
It depends mainly on how much time and effort you have and are willing to invest in the process. Generally speaking, sandboxing is more work up front. A lot more. You’re fleshing out cities and continents and places characters may never go, which means a lot of potentially wasted effort. The upside is it also means that you now have a treasure trove of story ideas for present and future use, which pays dividends. (I often find that when I encounter ‘writer’s block’ it’s that I haven’t fleshed out some aspect of my world enough to move past the ‘block.’)
Railroading seems like the easier method, it’s more streamlined with seemingly less wasted work, and depending on you as a writer, it may be. I have a friend who writes by the seat of his pants, and he writes damn fine books. He doesn’t outline or world build, he just goes and sees where it takes him.
Me? I’m a sandboxer (albeit a lazy one). And while I don’t outline, I find that I do need the rules and history and geography of a structured world to have the freedom to write uninhibited.
But as I said, I’m lazy.
So, my little trick is to set my fantasy/sci-fi in the real world and then just tweak it enough to satisfy my story needs. I read history for ideas and settings. Then I set rules for levels of technology and magic and create alternate histories, but only when and where needed.
Then I railroad the hell out of my characters and build only the cities and places they go.
Kevin Wright
-Amazon Author Page http://amzn.to/2noAXKj
Nerds and geeks know what I’m talking about. Role-playing games. Dungeons and Dragons specifically.
I was born a few years after D&D was first released and on a Christmas Eve in Winthrop, Massachusetts, I received the first edition boxed expert set with the dragon rising up over a horse-borne warrior(my older brother received the basic set that same day). Back then I didn’t know what D&D was, but the artwork on the box had me before I even opened it.
I see articles nowadays on world building. On the internet. In magazines. You can buy innumerable books and eBooks on the subject on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Some of them look great. Some of them maybe not so much. Either way, I’ve never been tempted to make a purchase. And I’ve bought books on virtually every aspect of writing. I have a problem. But it’s never occurred to me to do so with world building because that’s something that was ingrained in me at a young age through D&D(#Iwasnotcool).
You see, I had the luck to be one of those kids that enjoyed being a dungeon master, or DM for short. For those of you who don’t know what a DM is, it makes you as valuable to nerds as a kid who likes to play goalie is to a hockey team. Which is to say quite (but still not cool).
The ultimate goal of any good DM, or guy who runs the game, is to run a string of adventures together into a campaign and tell an awesome story in the process. Characters live. They breathe. They triumph. And sometimes they die. Just like in books.
In fact, the process of writing a campaign is very much like writing a book. The only difference is that in D&D the overall story is ultimately a collaborative effort that can be occasionally derailed, often hilariously, by the roll of dice or the mad antics of your insane friends who just wanted to see what would happen if they summoned an earth elemental in the middle of a tavern. But I digress.
Now here is the crux of the title of this blog: are you a sandbox writer or a railroader?
When writing a story, do you provide a sandbox, or enclosed realm, for your characters to explore? This is an immersive experience that requires you to flesh out an entire world, including but not limited to: geography, sociology, races, river systems, trade agreements, wars, history, level of technology, existence of magic, etc…
Or, do you railroad them along a story that creates a path through your world that’s fleshed out just enough so that the characters don’t see that the buildings in town are merely facades?
Both are viable options.
But which is the more effective method? The answer to the question is, anticlimactically: it depends.
It depends mainly on how much time and effort you have and are willing to invest in the process. Generally speaking, sandboxing is more work up front. A lot more. You’re fleshing out cities and continents and places characters may never go, which means a lot of potentially wasted effort. The upside is it also means that you now have a treasure trove of story ideas for present and future use, which pays dividends. (I often find that when I encounter ‘writer’s block’ it’s that I haven’t fleshed out some aspect of my world enough to move past the ‘block.’)
Railroading seems like the easier method, it’s more streamlined with seemingly less wasted work, and depending on you as a writer, it may be. I have a friend who writes by the seat of his pants, and he writes damn fine books. He doesn’t outline or world build, he just goes and sees where it takes him.
Me? I’m a sandboxer (albeit a lazy one). And while I don’t outline, I find that I do need the rules and history and geography of a structured world to have the freedom to write uninhibited.
But as I said, I’m lazy.
So, my little trick is to set my fantasy/sci-fi in the real world and then just tweak it enough to satisfy my story needs. I read history for ideas and settings. Then I set rules for levels of technology and magic and create alternate histories, but only when and where needed.
Then I railroad the hell out of my characters and build only the cities and places they go.
Kevin Wright
-Amazon Author Page http://amzn.to/2noAXKj
June 14, 2017
Review of 'The Black Company' by Glen Cook
Review of ‘The Black Company’ by Glen Cook
I’m not sure how I missed ‘The Black Company’ for the forty-one years of my life. It’s a fantasy novel that was published in 1984. I was born in 1976. I give myself a grace period for the first twelve to fifteen years of not having reading it. The other 26 to 29 years are a mystery/embarrassment.
I remember groping around in the late eighties and early nineties for decent fantasy books to read and coming up with a seemingly never-ending conveyor belt of Lord of the Rings rip-offs. Now, nothing against LOTR rip-offs, because some of them were pretty good (And also because I later wrote one and it was not pretty good). But ‘The Black Company’ was and is something different. It may have been ground zero for the birth, or rebirth, of the grimdark fantasy genre (When grimdark started is subject to debate, but look to the ‘Conan’ stories by Robert E. Howard and the ‘Elric’ series by Michael Moorcock).
So how is ‘The Black Company’ different than ‘Lord of the Rings?’
Let me start by saying that the Black Company from ‘The Black Company’ is a mercenary band. That means their motivation as a group is less about Nine Walkers bringing the One True Ring to Mordor for destruction and saving the world from darkness than it is about making cold hard cash to spend on gambling, women, and booze. These men are not heroes. These are cold hard men who are good at what they do, and what they do is what you pay mercenary companies to do. And often what you don’t pay them to do.
As an example, if the Black Company were working in Middle Earth, they would probably be working for Sauron. And in ‘Return of the King’ they would probably have sapped under the walls of Minas Tirith while simultaneously slinging sorcerous fireballs and attacking on all fronts with siege engines. On top of all that, behind the scenes, long before the siege even began, the baddest of the bad would have infiltrated the walls of the much vaunted seven-walled city and very likely have murdered Denethor and Faramir and any other nobleman with three or more syllables to their name. In fact, the only person left to lead the defense against the horde invasion would probably have been some dude named Doug who once, in his own words, ‘Used to swing swords with that guy named Boromir. Way back in the day.’
Conventional wisdom theorizes that Doug would not have lead a successful defense campaign against the orc horde.
Which means that Sauron wins.
And Middle Earth falls into shadow.
But most importantly, the Black Company gets paid.
So the Black Company is not a bunch of good guys. There’s not a white hat amongst the bunch. But they’re not morally bankrupt in every sense of the word. There are redeeming qualities amongst its many brethren despite the fact that you wouldn’t want to meet most of them in a dark alley. There are innocents who they save. There are lesser goods perpetrated in the name of greater evil. And there may not be honor amongst thieves, but there is amongst the Black Company. They fight as a unit, always having each other’s backs despite often being at one another’s throats. Petty squabbles are thrust aside when the chips are down. Which is often. Sacrifices are made in the name of honor and camaraderie. Ultimate sacrifices. Here are men who fight not for ideals or for king or country but for the man standing next to them in the lines, in the melees, in the trenches.
These are strong men. These are weak men. These are simply men.
So why am I reviewing ‘The Black Company’ some thirty-odd years after it was published? Because it’s good. Because I missed it. Somehow. And because maybe you missed it, too. And because there are ten books in the series. Ten. And that’s a beautiful damn number of books to have to look forward to.
Kevin Wright
-Amazon Author Page http://amzn.to/2noAXKj
I’m not sure how I missed ‘The Black Company’ for the forty-one years of my life. It’s a fantasy novel that was published in 1984. I was born in 1976. I give myself a grace period for the first twelve to fifteen years of not having reading it. The other 26 to 29 years are a mystery/embarrassment.
I remember groping around in the late eighties and early nineties for decent fantasy books to read and coming up with a seemingly never-ending conveyor belt of Lord of the Rings rip-offs. Now, nothing against LOTR rip-offs, because some of them were pretty good (And also because I later wrote one and it was not pretty good). But ‘The Black Company’ was and is something different. It may have been ground zero for the birth, or rebirth, of the grimdark fantasy genre (When grimdark started is subject to debate, but look to the ‘Conan’ stories by Robert E. Howard and the ‘Elric’ series by Michael Moorcock).
So how is ‘The Black Company’ different than ‘Lord of the Rings?’
Let me start by saying that the Black Company from ‘The Black Company’ is a mercenary band. That means their motivation as a group is less about Nine Walkers bringing the One True Ring to Mordor for destruction and saving the world from darkness than it is about making cold hard cash to spend on gambling, women, and booze. These men are not heroes. These are cold hard men who are good at what they do, and what they do is what you pay mercenary companies to do. And often what you don’t pay them to do.
As an example, if the Black Company were working in Middle Earth, they would probably be working for Sauron. And in ‘Return of the King’ they would probably have sapped under the walls of Minas Tirith while simultaneously slinging sorcerous fireballs and attacking on all fronts with siege engines. On top of all that, behind the scenes, long before the siege even began, the baddest of the bad would have infiltrated the walls of the much vaunted seven-walled city and very likely have murdered Denethor and Faramir and any other nobleman with three or more syllables to their name. In fact, the only person left to lead the defense against the horde invasion would probably have been some dude named Doug who once, in his own words, ‘Used to swing swords with that guy named Boromir. Way back in the day.’
Conventional wisdom theorizes that Doug would not have lead a successful defense campaign against the orc horde.
Which means that Sauron wins.
And Middle Earth falls into shadow.
But most importantly, the Black Company gets paid.
So the Black Company is not a bunch of good guys. There’s not a white hat amongst the bunch. But they’re not morally bankrupt in every sense of the word. There are redeeming qualities amongst its many brethren despite the fact that you wouldn’t want to meet most of them in a dark alley. There are innocents who they save. There are lesser goods perpetrated in the name of greater evil. And there may not be honor amongst thieves, but there is amongst the Black Company. They fight as a unit, always having each other’s backs despite often being at one another’s throats. Petty squabbles are thrust aside when the chips are down. Which is often. Sacrifices are made in the name of honor and camaraderie. Ultimate sacrifices. Here are men who fight not for ideals or for king or country but for the man standing next to them in the lines, in the melees, in the trenches.
These are strong men. These are weak men. These are simply men.
So why am I reviewing ‘The Black Company’ some thirty-odd years after it was published? Because it’s good. Because I missed it. Somehow. And because maybe you missed it, too. And because there are ten books in the series. Ten. And that’s a beautiful damn number of books to have to look forward to.
Kevin Wright
-Amazon Author Page http://amzn.to/2noAXKj
May 29, 2017
Review of 'Kings of the Wyld' by Nicholas Eames
Sometimes when reviewing a book, I tend to get lost in minutiae and overthink things. What did the book mean? Was it good? How was it good? Or was it bad? Did it meet or fall short of my expectations? In reviewing ‘Kings of the Wyld,’ I’m using a much simpler system: speed of the read.
I burned through ‘Kings of the Wyld.’ And it’s a fair chunk of words, just shy of five hundred pages. To give some perspective, I read it in on a family vacation that did not allow much time for anything other than walking, going on rides, growling at my children, and passing out with sore feet. Amongst all that, I managed to read it in four days, squeezing in reading sessions each night while my wife and kids did the smart thing and passed out, readying for tomorrow. So I read it pretty fast. Considering.
I find that there are books I enjoy while reading them but never really feel the need to get back to. I just sort of drift along through them and enjoy as I read. ‘Kings of the Wyld’ was not like that. I was looking forward to getting back to it, looking forward to burning through another chunk. To me, that’s the hallmark of a good book. You can analyze it, dissect it, do whatever you want to it, but if you want to get back to reading it when you’re not, you know you’ve found it. So… Read ‘Kings of the Wyld.”
‘Kings of the Wyld’ is a high-fantasy novel that follows the exploits of a band of past-their-prime mercenaries come together for one last job. A fairly simple plot but done well, extremely well. In fact, everything about ‘Kings of the Wyld’ is done extremely well.
And as I said, it moves. There isn’t a dull spot in the whole novel, and where there could have been lulls there were generous doses of humor to lubricate it along. All the characters pull their weight with the funny business, from the sarcastic internal monologue of Clay Cooper, the pov character, to the antics of easily the craziest character, the wizard, Moog. Even the psychopathic killing machine Ganelon manages a few lines that’ll make you chuckle. I didn’t find myself laughing out loud while reading it, like some of the reviewers I’ve read, but I chuckled, and I was also in a two-bed hotel room with sleeping kids whom I didn’t want to wake on pain of death.
Humor is a big part of the book, but it’s not all. The action scenes are top notch. From skirmishes to massive warfare, the scenes are all entertaining and over the top awesome.
And I apologize for going a little emo here, but there are truly some heartfelt moments in the novel and not always where you’d expect it. My favorite moment in the entire book concerns the relationship between a pair of brothers, Dane and Gregor. Sounds pretty run of the mill, but it’s not even close.
So ‘Kings of the Wyld’ is a funny fantasy novel, but it’s not just that. It’s way more. Read it and check it out for yourself. You’ll be glad you did.
Kevin Wright, author of ‘Lords of Asylum’
http://amzn.to/242AqeO
I burned through ‘Kings of the Wyld.’ And it’s a fair chunk of words, just shy of five hundred pages. To give some perspective, I read it in on a family vacation that did not allow much time for anything other than walking, going on rides, growling at my children, and passing out with sore feet. Amongst all that, I managed to read it in four days, squeezing in reading sessions each night while my wife and kids did the smart thing and passed out, readying for tomorrow. So I read it pretty fast. Considering.
I find that there are books I enjoy while reading them but never really feel the need to get back to. I just sort of drift along through them and enjoy as I read. ‘Kings of the Wyld’ was not like that. I was looking forward to getting back to it, looking forward to burning through another chunk. To me, that’s the hallmark of a good book. You can analyze it, dissect it, do whatever you want to it, but if you want to get back to reading it when you’re not, you know you’ve found it. So… Read ‘Kings of the Wyld.”
‘Kings of the Wyld’ is a high-fantasy novel that follows the exploits of a band of past-their-prime mercenaries come together for one last job. A fairly simple plot but done well, extremely well. In fact, everything about ‘Kings of the Wyld’ is done extremely well.
And as I said, it moves. There isn’t a dull spot in the whole novel, and where there could have been lulls there were generous doses of humor to lubricate it along. All the characters pull their weight with the funny business, from the sarcastic internal monologue of Clay Cooper, the pov character, to the antics of easily the craziest character, the wizard, Moog. Even the psychopathic killing machine Ganelon manages a few lines that’ll make you chuckle. I didn’t find myself laughing out loud while reading it, like some of the reviewers I’ve read, but I chuckled, and I was also in a two-bed hotel room with sleeping kids whom I didn’t want to wake on pain of death.
Humor is a big part of the book, but it’s not all. The action scenes are top notch. From skirmishes to massive warfare, the scenes are all entertaining and over the top awesome.
And I apologize for going a little emo here, but there are truly some heartfelt moments in the novel and not always where you’d expect it. My favorite moment in the entire book concerns the relationship between a pair of brothers, Dane and Gregor. Sounds pretty run of the mill, but it’s not even close.
So ‘Kings of the Wyld’ is a funny fantasy novel, but it’s not just that. It’s way more. Read it and check it out for yourself. You’ll be glad you did.
Kevin Wright, author of ‘Lords of Asylum’
http://amzn.to/242AqeO
May 24, 2017
Shedding Some Light on Grimdark
So, apparently, grimdark is a thing.
I read it. I watch it. I even write in the genre but have remained ignorant of the term ‘grimdark’ until only recently.
For those who have no idea of what I’m talking about, grimdark is a genre the encapsulates … no. Wait. It’s a sub-genre of fantasy that… No, wait again. It became recognized through the tabletop game Warhammer 40K’s tagline: ‘In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war’(At least, that’s what Wikipedia told me) and Warhammer 40K is science fiction. So, grimdark is at least a subgenre of both science fiction and fantasy.
If it’s more than a subgenre and less than a genre, what is it? How do you classify something that pervades multiple genres yet is a thing unto itself? Is it even a thing? Was I wrong at the outset of the blog? Is it like pornography, then, according to Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart: ‘I know it when you see it.’
I’ve come up with a definition: a collection of works spanning the vastness that is speculative fiction, all of which have a tone, character, and setting that reflect and aura of despair, or disease, or amorality, or all three.
Now, how to explain it simply and without using the words grim and dark? Because it is grim and it is dark. It’s also gritty( gritty gets used a lot). And violent. Very violent. The setting should be depressing(war or plague or famine or all three running rampant). Its main characters are generally not the nicest people in the world. Some of them are more than likely dicks and the only reason you cut them enough slack to keep on reading is that either you yourself are a dick and/or they are invariably awesome in at least one way. Very often, killing people is that one way.
Somewhat less often is spouting witty one-liners while killing people.
Finally, grimdark is realistic. No, wait. Again, sorry. It’s not realistic since it is speculative fiction and that pretty much means the opposite of realistic. But … it echoes the complexities of reality. Ooh, that sounds deep. But does that even mean anything?
I don’t know.
I just know I like grimdark fiction. So…do you want to check some out? Do you have a sweet tooth for dark tales? Morally repugnant choices and behavior? Protagonists that are worse than monsters? Well, here’s a list of books/series that have been habitually described as grimdark. I’ve read them all and they are at least very good, some even great.
If you want to get a feel for what grimdark is, check them out.
1. ‘Game of Thrones’ - George R.R. Martin (you’ve read it or watched it, best grimdark series)
2. ‘The Prince of Thorns’ – Mark Lawrence (a big name in grimdark)
3. ‘The First Law’ series- Joe Abercrombie (‘The Heroes’ is the best single grimdark book imho; it is not part of the initial trilogy, but I’d advise you read all of his books in order)
4. Warhammer 40K novel/series - (obligatorily included since it started it, the first three books are decent)
5. ‘Conan the Barbarian and Solomon Kane – Robert E. Howard (original sword and sorcery grimdark)
6. ‘The Centauri Device’ M. John Harrison (space opera grimdark; I’ve never seen this listed as grimdark, but I’m listing it as I feel it meets the requirements)
7. ‘Heart of Darkness’ – Joseph Conrad (novella you had to read in high school which is neither sci-fi nor fantasy nor speculative but to me is infinitely grimdark. Perhaps the granddaddy of grimdark? Give it a shot, you might impress someone by reading it, too, since it is considered literature)
Kevin Wright
http://amzn.to/2noAXKj
I read it. I watch it. I even write in the genre but have remained ignorant of the term ‘grimdark’ until only recently.
For those who have no idea of what I’m talking about, grimdark is a genre the encapsulates … no. Wait. It’s a sub-genre of fantasy that… No, wait again. It became recognized through the tabletop game Warhammer 40K’s tagline: ‘In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war’(At least, that’s what Wikipedia told me) and Warhammer 40K is science fiction. So, grimdark is at least a subgenre of both science fiction and fantasy.
If it’s more than a subgenre and less than a genre, what is it? How do you classify something that pervades multiple genres yet is a thing unto itself? Is it even a thing? Was I wrong at the outset of the blog? Is it like pornography, then, according to Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart: ‘I know it when you see it.’
I’ve come up with a definition: a collection of works spanning the vastness that is speculative fiction, all of which have a tone, character, and setting that reflect and aura of despair, or disease, or amorality, or all three.
Now, how to explain it simply and without using the words grim and dark? Because it is grim and it is dark. It’s also gritty( gritty gets used a lot). And violent. Very violent. The setting should be depressing(war or plague or famine or all three running rampant). Its main characters are generally not the nicest people in the world. Some of them are more than likely dicks and the only reason you cut them enough slack to keep on reading is that either you yourself are a dick and/or they are invariably awesome in at least one way. Very often, killing people is that one way.
Somewhat less often is spouting witty one-liners while killing people.
Finally, grimdark is realistic. No, wait. Again, sorry. It’s not realistic since it is speculative fiction and that pretty much means the opposite of realistic. But … it echoes the complexities of reality. Ooh, that sounds deep. But does that even mean anything?
I don’t know.
I just know I like grimdark fiction. So…do you want to check some out? Do you have a sweet tooth for dark tales? Morally repugnant choices and behavior? Protagonists that are worse than monsters? Well, here’s a list of books/series that have been habitually described as grimdark. I’ve read them all and they are at least very good, some even great.
If you want to get a feel for what grimdark is, check them out.
1. ‘Game of Thrones’ - George R.R. Martin (you’ve read it or watched it, best grimdark series)
2. ‘The Prince of Thorns’ – Mark Lawrence (a big name in grimdark)
3. ‘The First Law’ series- Joe Abercrombie (‘The Heroes’ is the best single grimdark book imho; it is not part of the initial trilogy, but I’d advise you read all of his books in order)
4. Warhammer 40K novel/series - (obligatorily included since it started it, the first three books are decent)
5. ‘Conan the Barbarian and Solomon Kane – Robert E. Howard (original sword and sorcery grimdark)
6. ‘The Centauri Device’ M. John Harrison (space opera grimdark; I’ve never seen this listed as grimdark, but I’m listing it as I feel it meets the requirements)
7. ‘Heart of Darkness’ – Joseph Conrad (novella you had to read in high school which is neither sci-fi nor fantasy nor speculative but to me is infinitely grimdark. Perhaps the granddaddy of grimdark? Give it a shot, you might impress someone by reading it, too, since it is considered literature)
Kevin Wright
http://amzn.to/2noAXKj
SaberPunk
My favorite genres are fantasy, science fiction, and horror. I'll be reviewing fiction books and roleplaying games from those genres.
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