John Meszaros's Blog, page 2
September 19, 2016
My Favorite Book
Every author gets asked at some point “what’s your favorite book?” And I feel like there’s a lot of pressure behind that. I feel like I need to point to something epic and deep. A tale that resonated with me at the core and changed me on a fundamental level. A classic. Something from Robert Heinlein or John Steinbeck. Edgar Allen Poe or John Irving. Andre Norton or Octavia Butler. Maybe Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or Frank Herbert’s Dune. At the very least, maybe it’s one of Lovecraft’s Weird Tales. Or China Mieville’s.
But it’s not. My favorite book is nothing so grandiose. It didn’t change my life. It’s not a milestone in any genre. It’s just a little book that gives me the good feelings when I read it.
It’s The Goblin Companion: A Field Guide to Goblins. Illustrated by the immortal Brian Froud, with flat-out Englishly-silly text by Terry Jones of Monty Python fame.
This book is actually a collection of sketches and character designs Froud created for the movie Labyrinth-every fantasy-loving 80s kid’s major nostalgia button. The drawings feel a bit messy at times. There are little sketches and doodles everywhere. It literally looks like Froud took pages from his sketchbook and published them. But that actually adds to the charm of the book. It’s clear he was having fun while he was doing all those illustraions.
So why is this my absolute favorite book? A couple reasons.
First, a little background about how I came across it. It was the first week at my new middle school- about twenty years ago now- right after moving to Ann Arbor, Michigan from my old town. I’m sure a lot of you can relate to being the new kid at school. Feeling out of place and uncomfortable. Having left your old friends and familiar things behind. Plus new, insecure kids are the natural prey of assbutt bullies. So, naturally, I wasn’t feeling so great by the end of the week. To cheer myself up, I took a walk down to the local Barnes and Nobles and browsed that Sale section they’ve always got at the front. That’s where I found The Goblin Companion. The fun drawings and humorous writing- not to mention the nostalgia for Labyrinth- really helped me through the adjustment period.
Beyond that, The Goblin Companion was also one of the books that inspired my interest in field guides as literature- I subject I’ll discuss in more depth in a future post. The biologist in me adores field guides. I love the way they bring order to nature, and in so doing actually enhance one’s understanding and appreciation of the world. Not to mention the way they integrate art and writing. As my own writing continues to evolve, I’m finding more and more that my interests lie in that synthesis of drawing and text. In the details of ecology and natural history. The Goblin Companion, of course, isn’t an in-depth, Petersen-esque handbook to Labyrinth ecology. It’s just a series of silly anecdotes about the weird critters that inhabit the place. But the categorizing (and Jones’ frequent footnotes) give the goblin world a sense of place, rather than just being a series of flat sketches.
So there you have it. My favorite book. Nothing grand, but it works for me.
September 14, 2016
A Found Document Story
For the past year I've been creating a serialized epistolary story as a gift for my dad. The story is told in the form of letters, drawings and other found documents. I've been sending him a package of documents at Christmas, Father's Day and his birthday. It's inspired by the Weird Fiction works of Lovecraft, Poe William Hope Hodgson, Arthur Machen, Bram Stoker and others, though the story and setting are entirely my creation.
Now I'd like to share this slowly unfolding story with other folks in the form of a blog.
Check it out here, and come back occasionally to see what new documents I've posted.
http://astarapompdossier.blogspot.com/
Now I'd like to share this slowly unfolding story with other folks in the form of a blog.
Check it out here, and come back occasionally to see what new documents I've posted.
http://astarapompdossier.blogspot.com/
September 7, 2016
An early Halloween Treat!
I know it's only early September, but I'm already starting to get into the Halloween spirit. I'll be posting tons of Halloween-related stuff once it gets closer to October, but for now I thought I'd share a short story I wrote a few years ago.
This tale was part of a "Creepypasta Cook-off" at Bogleech.com. For those who don't know, Creepypasta are short bits of media that are meant to be brief but eerie. Rather like flash horror fiction. Though creepypastas usually take the form of short stories, there are also videos, pictures and even mini-games that fall into this umbrella of fiction.
Bogleech's Cook-Off is an annual open-call for fans of the site to submit their own tales for inclusion into a huge anthology. I definitely recommend checking them out at the archive.
I submitted this story to the very first Cook-off back in 2012. I've been meaning to do one every year since, but life always just seemed to get in the way. This year, though, I'm going to try to submit something new.
My story, Dive Log, was inspired by my years of experience as a SCUBA diver.
You can download a PDF of the story here: http://www.nocturnalseapress.com/dive...
This tale was part of a "Creepypasta Cook-off" at Bogleech.com. For those who don't know, Creepypasta are short bits of media that are meant to be brief but eerie. Rather like flash horror fiction. Though creepypastas usually take the form of short stories, there are also videos, pictures and even mini-games that fall into this umbrella of fiction.
Bogleech's Cook-Off is an annual open-call for fans of the site to submit their own tales for inclusion into a huge anthology. I definitely recommend checking them out at the archive.
I submitted this story to the very first Cook-off back in 2012. I've been meaning to do one every year since, but life always just seemed to get in the way. This year, though, I'm going to try to submit something new.
My story, Dive Log, was inspired by my years of experience as a SCUBA diver.
You can download a PDF of the story here: http://www.nocturnalseapress.com/dive...
September 2, 2016
New Used Books!
I visited my folks this past weekend in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Having grown up there, I’ve developed a couple of rituals I like to do whenever I return for nostalgia’s sake.
Visiting the Matthei Botanical Gardens. Stopping by the Natural History Museum where I used to work, and spending some quality time enjoying the Life Through the Ages room . Collecting a couple scientific articles from the University Science Library.
And of course, I have to stop by the Dawn Treader Book Shop. on Liberty Street. Dawn Treader is what you think of when you picture a classic used book store. Floor-to-ceiling shelves of sturdy wooden boards stacked close together so you almost have to squeeze through sideways, and overflowing with paperbacks, textbooks, big art books, old magazines. Books even run along the floor at the base of the shelves like speleotherms coagulated from letters dripping off the stacks.
And of course the place is full of artifacts. Masks. Paintings. Glass cases holding delicate leather-bound first editions over a hundred years old. There’s even a full-size plaster Egyptian sarcophagus (I really should ask what the story is behind that). The front desk has a little jar labeled “take a marble, leave a marble”. You can probably guess what it’s filled with.
I’ve been getting books from Dawn Treader ever since middle school. And will keep going back as long as they’re in existence.
So here’s what I picked up this time.
Gentlemen Junkie and Other Stories of the Hung-Up Generation.
Despite being a fan of science fiction and fantasy, I haven’t read most of the authors I’m “supposed” to read. Never read any Heinlein. Nor Asimov or Card. Never even touched A Song of Ice and Fire or its sequels. Never cracked open Dune. Only read a bit of Arthur C. Clarke and Edgar Rice Burroughs. Heck, I don’t even think I’ve read all of the Lord of the Rings.
At least I’ve read Lovecraft, LeGuin and some Poul Anderson. And one or two Larry Niven novels. Plus a bunch of Fritz Leiber and Michael Moorcock. But honestly, it’s exhausting trying to keep up on the speculative fiction culture.
So, anyway, I feel I should try to familiarize myself with at least a few of the famous authors. I’ve read a little Harlan Ellison before, and I like his style. Plus, I gotta be honest, I was amused by the fact that Ellison appeared as himself in this new Scooby Doo series my son has been watching lately (Mysteries Incorporated, in case you were curious).
The inside blurb says, rather breathlessly, “This is it! This is the book that established Harlan Ellison once and for all as a master of short fiction; this is the book that took Ellison to Hollywood; and this is the only paperback book, ever, reviewed by the legendary Dorothy Parker in Esquire magazine.”
Sp apparently I picked out a good book to start with.
Un Lun Dun by China Miéville.
I became a fan of Mieville after reading the first two books of his Bas-Lag series, Perdido Street Station and The Scar. His stuff is frequently fantasy, but veering more towards the capital W Weird of 1930s pulp like Lovecraft, William Hope Hodgson and Clark Ashton Smith. I’ve read that he’s trying to write a book in every genre, and it seems like Un Lun Dun is his Neil Gaiman/Phillip Pullman-style Young Adult Adventure fantasy.
Star Rider by Doris Piserchia
Outside of the Dawn Treader are a couple of racks of “last chance” books for 50 cents. I’ve been trying to get back into the lifestyle of a reader/writer, voyaging through as many imagined worlds as I can. So I figured I’d pick up a couple “wild card” books out there. Maybe I’ll find a gem in one of these.
The back of Star Rider reads: “They called her Galactic Jade, a footloose, star-flung loner who roved space on her telepathic mount Hinx, ever searching for the fabled city of Doubleluck with its waterfalls of diamonds, lakes of sweet perfume and streets of flowing gold. But she held a secret the whole universe wanted, a secret that sent her on a galactic odyssey of self discovery to escape the prisons of her own mind.”
Groovy.
The Shadow of the Ship by Robert Wilfred Franson
Sounds like it’s about a man, Eiverdein, looking for a lost ship to help him return to known space. I mostly picked it up because the cover looks like a mid-80s Tangerine Dream LP record. I can practically hear this thing pumping out “Love On A Real Train”.
I’ll give you more details once I have a chance to read it.
Visiting the Matthei Botanical Gardens. Stopping by the Natural History Museum where I used to work, and spending some quality time enjoying the Life Through the Ages room . Collecting a couple scientific articles from the University Science Library.
And of course, I have to stop by the Dawn Treader Book Shop. on Liberty Street. Dawn Treader is what you think of when you picture a classic used book store. Floor-to-ceiling shelves of sturdy wooden boards stacked close together so you almost have to squeeze through sideways, and overflowing with paperbacks, textbooks, big art books, old magazines. Books even run along the floor at the base of the shelves like speleotherms coagulated from letters dripping off the stacks.
And of course the place is full of artifacts. Masks. Paintings. Glass cases holding delicate leather-bound first editions over a hundred years old. There’s even a full-size plaster Egyptian sarcophagus (I really should ask what the story is behind that). The front desk has a little jar labeled “take a marble, leave a marble”. You can probably guess what it’s filled with.
I’ve been getting books from Dawn Treader ever since middle school. And will keep going back as long as they’re in existence.
So here’s what I picked up this time.
Gentlemen Junkie and Other Stories of the Hung-Up Generation.
Despite being a fan of science fiction and fantasy, I haven’t read most of the authors I’m “supposed” to read. Never read any Heinlein. Nor Asimov or Card. Never even touched A Song of Ice and Fire or its sequels. Never cracked open Dune. Only read a bit of Arthur C. Clarke and Edgar Rice Burroughs. Heck, I don’t even think I’ve read all of the Lord of the Rings.
At least I’ve read Lovecraft, LeGuin and some Poul Anderson. And one or two Larry Niven novels. Plus a bunch of Fritz Leiber and Michael Moorcock. But honestly, it’s exhausting trying to keep up on the speculative fiction culture.
So, anyway, I feel I should try to familiarize myself with at least a few of the famous authors. I’ve read a little Harlan Ellison before, and I like his style. Plus, I gotta be honest, I was amused by the fact that Ellison appeared as himself in this new Scooby Doo series my son has been watching lately (Mysteries Incorporated, in case you were curious).
The inside blurb says, rather breathlessly, “This is it! This is the book that established Harlan Ellison once and for all as a master of short fiction; this is the book that took Ellison to Hollywood; and this is the only paperback book, ever, reviewed by the legendary Dorothy Parker in Esquire magazine.”
Sp apparently I picked out a good book to start with.
Un Lun Dun by China Miéville.
I became a fan of Mieville after reading the first two books of his Bas-Lag series, Perdido Street Station and The Scar. His stuff is frequently fantasy, but veering more towards the capital W Weird of 1930s pulp like Lovecraft, William Hope Hodgson and Clark Ashton Smith. I’ve read that he’s trying to write a book in every genre, and it seems like Un Lun Dun is his Neil Gaiman/Phillip Pullman-style Young Adult Adventure fantasy.
Star Rider by Doris Piserchia
Outside of the Dawn Treader are a couple of racks of “last chance” books for 50 cents. I’ve been trying to get back into the lifestyle of a reader/writer, voyaging through as many imagined worlds as I can. So I figured I’d pick up a couple “wild card” books out there. Maybe I’ll find a gem in one of these.
The back of Star Rider reads: “They called her Galactic Jade, a footloose, star-flung loner who roved space on her telepathic mount Hinx, ever searching for the fabled city of Doubleluck with its waterfalls of diamonds, lakes of sweet perfume and streets of flowing gold. But she held a secret the whole universe wanted, a secret that sent her on a galactic odyssey of self discovery to escape the prisons of her own mind.”
Groovy.
The Shadow of the Ship by Robert Wilfred Franson
Sounds like it’s about a man, Eiverdein, looking for a lost ship to help him return to known space. I mostly picked it up because the cover looks like a mid-80s Tangerine Dream LP record. I can practically hear this thing pumping out “Love On A Real Train”.
I’ll give you more details once I have a chance to read it.
July 26, 2016
Netsuke
In At Yomi’s Gate, both Takashi and Sakura carry small carvings called netsuke to remind them of their loved ones. Takashi carries the image of Kannon- the Buddhisatva of compassion and mercy- that Yoko’s father was carving just before he was murdered by her uncle, while Sakura possesses an image of Ikuko fighting the Fire God that has been tormenting them both.
Today I thought I’d give a little more explanation as to just what netsuke are. Traditional Japanese kimono did not have pockets, so money, medicine, ink stones and other personal items were carried in small wooden or metal containers, collectively called sagemono (hanging object) or sometimes inro, that were hung from a cord tucked under the obi sash.
To keep these cords from simply sliding out of the obi, a toggle called a netsuke (pronounced net-skay since the “u” sound is often dropped in spoken Japanese) was attached to the other end. Early netsuke were simple objects like seashells or lengths of wood, but over time carvers turned these items into beautiful works of art.
According to netsuke collector Joseph Kurstin, sumptuary laws in medieval Japan prevented people from displaying overt expressions of wealth on their bodies. However, since netsuke were technically considered utilitarian, they allowed individuals a loophole to show off their wealth,.
Netsuke carvers, called netsuke-shi, would often infuse their works with humor and liveliness. many netsuke referenced well-known legends and folk tales, often depicting an iconic scene from the story.
To see a good sample of the variety and intricacy of netsuke, check out this short gallery from the Fitzwilliam Museum at the University of Cambridge in England: http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/galle...
REFERENCES
Netsuke: Story Carvings of Old Japan by Joseph Kurstin
The Anime Companion Gilles Poitras
Today I thought I’d give a little more explanation as to just what netsuke are. Traditional Japanese kimono did not have pockets, so money, medicine, ink stones and other personal items were carried in small wooden or metal containers, collectively called sagemono (hanging object) or sometimes inro, that were hung from a cord tucked under the obi sash.
To keep these cords from simply sliding out of the obi, a toggle called a netsuke (pronounced net-skay since the “u” sound is often dropped in spoken Japanese) was attached to the other end. Early netsuke were simple objects like seashells or lengths of wood, but over time carvers turned these items into beautiful works of art.
According to netsuke collector Joseph Kurstin, sumptuary laws in medieval Japan prevented people from displaying overt expressions of wealth on their bodies. However, since netsuke were technically considered utilitarian, they allowed individuals a loophole to show off their wealth,.
Netsuke carvers, called netsuke-shi, would often infuse their works with humor and liveliness. many netsuke referenced well-known legends and folk tales, often depicting an iconic scene from the story.
To see a good sample of the variety and intricacy of netsuke, check out this short gallery from the Fitzwilliam Museum at the University of Cambridge in England: http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/galle...
REFERENCES
Netsuke: Story Carvings of Old Japan by Joseph Kurstin
The Anime Companion Gilles Poitras
June 9, 2016
Cryptids State-by-State
As you may have noticed from my reading list and my novel, I'm quite the fan of monsters.
Recently, I've been especially intrigued by cryptid monsters such as Mothman, The Van Meter Visitor, Sasquatch, etc and have created been writing a blog all about these modern monsters called Cryptids State-by-Ste:
http://statecryptids.blogspot.com/
The premise beyond the blog is to give every state it's own "official unoffical" state cryptid, much like how many states have an official flower, mineral, tree, mammal, fossil, etc.
For some of the entries I've had to stretch the definition of a "cryptid" a bit. The monster of Colorado, for example, is the Solid Muldoon l, a "petrified man" much like the Cardiff Giant.
With each entry I discuss the history of sightings, along with possible explanations of what the creature actually is, along with the occasional bit of speculative biology just for fun.
You can also follow Cryptids State-by-State on Tumblr at: www.statecryptids.tumblr.com
and at its facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/statecryptids/
Recently, I've been especially intrigued by cryptid monsters such as Mothman, The Van Meter Visitor, Sasquatch, etc and have created been writing a blog all about these modern monsters called Cryptids State-by-Ste:
http://statecryptids.blogspot.com/
The premise beyond the blog is to give every state it's own "official unoffical" state cryptid, much like how many states have an official flower, mineral, tree, mammal, fossil, etc.
For some of the entries I've had to stretch the definition of a "cryptid" a bit. The monster of Colorado, for example, is the Solid Muldoon l, a "petrified man" much like the Cardiff Giant.
With each entry I discuss the history of sightings, along with possible explanations of what the creature actually is, along with the occasional bit of speculative biology just for fun.
You can also follow Cryptids State-by-State on Tumblr at: www.statecryptids.tumblr.com
and at its facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/statecryptids/
March 20, 2016
Yokai
Mathew Meyer, the amazing cover illustrator for my book, has created an extensive encyclopedia of yokai monsters. Check it out: http://yokai.com/
You should also check out his books:
The Hour of Meeting Evil Spirits: An Encyclopedia of Mononoke and Magic
The Night Parade of One Hundred Demons: A Field Guide to Japanese Yokai
You should also check out his books:
The Hour of Meeting Evil Spirits: An Encyclopedia of Mononoke and Magic
The Night Parade of One Hundred Demons: A Field Guide to Japanese Yokai
Writing Resources: Tne Anime Companion
If you've read At Yomi's Gate, you can probably tell I used to be a pretty huge fan of Japanese anime (still am, though I don't have time to watch it as much anymore). Like a lot of people, those shows got me interested in Japanese culture.
One of my favorite resources for information about the things I was seeing were the Anime Companion books by Gilles Poitras. They were basically encyclopedias of everyday items, festivals, mythological references, history and other cultural details in anime.
The books came out in 1999 and 2003, before the major surge in anime's popularity in the US. Thus, the anime they covered were fairly limited-- lots of stuff from Tenchi Muyo, Ranma 1/2, Patlabor, You're Under Arrest, Oh My Goddess, etc. But the cultural references they covered were pretty comprehensive.
Gilles' books were a major resource when I was writing At Yomi's Gate for all the little everyday things like geta, ranma transoms, shoji, sando-gasu and so on.
The books are out of print now, but you can find copies pretty easily on Amazon.
The Anime Companion: What's Japanese in Japanese Animation?
The Anime Companion 2: More What's Japanese in Japanese Animation?
One of my favorite resources for information about the things I was seeing were the Anime Companion books by Gilles Poitras. They were basically encyclopedias of everyday items, festivals, mythological references, history and other cultural details in anime.
The books came out in 1999 and 2003, before the major surge in anime's popularity in the US. Thus, the anime they covered were fairly limited-- lots of stuff from Tenchi Muyo, Ranma 1/2, Patlabor, You're Under Arrest, Oh My Goddess, etc. But the cultural references they covered were pretty comprehensive.
Gilles' books were a major resource when I was writing At Yomi's Gate for all the little everyday things like geta, ranma transoms, shoji, sando-gasu and so on.
The books are out of print now, but you can find copies pretty easily on Amazon.
The Anime Companion: What's Japanese in Japanese Animation?
The Anime Companion 2: More What's Japanese in Japanese Animation?
