Adrian Collins's Blog, page 121

REVIEW: House of the Dragon – Episode 7 ‘Driftmark’

This show just gets better and better. House of the Dragon E7 continues the near perfect first season as the prequel to Game of Thrones goes from strength to strength. The big players are pulled together for a funeral and the decision between the greens and blacks grow, much to the dismay of the ill King Viserys I. Old dragons and young children are drawn into the fight and sides are made clear by the end of the episode.

House of the Dragon E7 is what you want from a grimdark fantasy series. Moments of brief joy are dampened by despair as the Targaryen rule appears to crumble with two women who were once best friends, firmly standing opposite one another with a clear eye on ruling Westeros. A great dragon chooses a new rider, children fight and spill blood like the adults, and Prince Daemon watches it all with the smirk of a man who lives for chaos and thrives on seeing the growing madness around him. The Rogue Prince grows close once more to his niece, sharing a night with her on the coast as rumours of Rhaenyra’s bastard children grow louder and threaten to tear the King’s court apart. Alicent’s desperation for her children to take the throne is heightened with her father now once again the hand to the king and each side seems to be pulling people to their cause to prepare for what they know is a deadly war to come. The sick Viserys is the only thing holding it all apart and everyone can see that he is not long for this world.

House of the Dragon E7 has great characters, a great story, and is a near perfect episode. Sadly, it has one major flaw. The lighting. Too much of the episode was too dark for the audience to see what exactly was going on and the fact that the episode was directed by the same guy who directed the infamously dark The Long Night episode makes me feel as though this was a choice more than an error. Well, it was a poor one. In a world as beautiful as Westeros, its audience wants to see the detail that is evidence of the hard work so many people put into creating the sets and costumes. The darkness of the episode (literally, we’re grimdark fans, dark content is our thing) is the only thing that pulls this episode away from being one of the very best based on George RR Martin’s world. It’s a minor grumble, but as it is not the first time this has happened, it has to be mentioned.

House of the Dragon E7 is grimdark at its finest. The grudges and rivalries of the adults are passed onto their children and the cold war becomes hot and bloodier for it. The lines have been drawn and even the dragons are picking sides. The dance is about to begin and its time to see if this great series can stick the landing. I just hope we’ll be able to see it clearly.

 

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REVIEW: Silverweed Road by Simon Crook

Silverweed Road, the collection of short horror stories, is dark, unique, chilling, and very British. Silverweed Road, the road, is made up of around 40 mock-Tudor houses, is J-shaped, has a dead-end that leads to ominous woods, is full of peculiar characters, and strange happenings are a regular occurrence.

Short story horror anthologies aren’t typically my go-to reading fare yet something about Silverweed Road seemed to tick the boxes so it pole-vaulted to the top of my to-be-read list. It features 12 horror stories, each of which follows the occupants of one of the houses on the titular road. One of the stories will take about thirty minutes to read and they are self-contained whilst neatly relating back to elements of previous stories such as the crash site, foxes, the woods, jackdaws going “ack-ack” etc… By the time I was reading the last two stories, the importance of the slight crossing over, the strange happenings being significant to numerous neighbours, and the general creepy and supernatural nature of all the stories led to an exciting, surprisingly deep and fulfilling climax. Crook impressively merged these singular tales into a collection of cohesive stories, as unsettling and bizarre as Silverweed Road itself.

The stories are varied, some feature various horror tropes as homage, they are kooky, sometimes gritty, and they showcase slick humour with their overall weirdness and also with the character interactions. Off the top of my head, I could summarise some of the tales as 1) A Gardener vs. Some Birds, 2) A Darts Player Sells His Soul to a Devil, 3) The Abandoned House and What Leaves it Every Morning, 4) A Valuable Ring and a Haunting Hand, 5) Ashes of a Lost Love, 6) A Tree That Wants to Drink Wine, and 7) The Artist and the Swimming Pool. This would give potential readers an idea of what to expect, without really giving that much away.

Lots of bad things happen to the characters that we follow. So much so that, between stories, we are witness to short intermissions by Former Detective Chief Inspector Jim Heath of Kent Police. The ex-officer tries to make sense of the many disappearances, uncharacteristic murders, and unexplainable catastrophes. These were welcome breaks and they bring us back to how all the strange occurrences on Silverweed Road appeared to the general public. His blog entries were an extra layer to the narrative and it was interesting to see him feature in some of the stories, before his dismissal. Again, this was a neat crossing over.

I had a mostly positive time with Silverweed Road. After about the fifth story, which was about the time I started to understand that the stories were connected and the piecing together mattered, I found myself more engaged. They aren’t reported in chronological order. So, when characters we’re familiar with pop up to argue with a neighbour, even though in their story they either died or were placed in a psychiatric ward, it doesn’t appear jarring, in fact, it seems to fit with the weirdness and the humour of the novel and the road. At about the 9th story, I was feeling a bit fatigued with the read and that’s probably down to the fact that I raced through this novel in a week, and should perhaps have taken my time and savoured each entry. That being said, getting over that minor hump, the last two chapters were two of the best in the collection, wrapping events up nicely. The very strong finish brought my rating up to a 7/10 and I’m interested to see what Crook releases next.

I received a review copy of Silverweed Road in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to Simon Crook and Harper Voyager.

Read Silverweed Road by Simon Crook

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An Interview with Jennifer Thorne

Today (Oct. 4, 2022) marks the publication of Jennifer Thorne’s highly acclaimed folk horror, Lute (read our review). The novel is set on the small British island of the same name, whose inhabitants experience tragedy-free lives even during a time of war. But the island’s blessings also require sacrifice: every seventh summer solstice the island claims the lives of seven people.

Lute is told from the perspective of Nina, a young American who marries into the aristocratic Treadway family, the long-time caretakers of the island who bear responsibility for ensuring the delicate balance between peace and sacrifice. Read our complete review of Lute here.

I recently had the pleasure of discussing with Jennifer Thorne about her newly published novel, her tips for young authors, and more.

[GdM] After publishing several highly rated young adult books as Jenn Marie Thorne, you’ve just made your debut on the horror scene with Lute, published by Tor Nightfire. Tell us about your journey as an author from YA to horror. How have your experiences as a YA author influenced your approach to horror?

[JT] I’m one of those writers who juggles dozens of totally disparate book ideas, so moving from YA romantic comedies into adult horror was not as jarring a transition as you might imagine! There’s an immediacy to YA that I think translates particularly well to writing horror—in both you’re depicting a scenario in which your protagonist is forced to step up and define or redefine themselves. The difference is that in horror, the stakes are life and death (or worse), whereas in YA it may just feel that way.

[GdM] The narrator of Lute is a young woman from Florida who has trouble assimilating on the isolated British island of Lute. As someone who has lived in both the United States and England, what advice do you have for overcoming the culture shock of moving to another country and making the most out of this experience?

[JT] I’ve been fortunate to fall straight into a wonderful community of friends here in my little rural town, but even five years into living here, there are moments of disorientation. They can be as small as everyone laughing about a comedian you’ve never heard of, but it feels like a little psychic hiccup, like the moment in a dream when you realize you have no idea what’s happening. Nina, Lute’s narrator has a tougher time than I’ve had because she doesn’t have as strong a sense of who she is and what she’s capable of by the time she arrives. I think those who adapt best are those who are grateful for the broadened life experience of living abroad, but who take it for what it is, rather than needing personal validation from how “well” they fit into a new community.

[GdM]  Folk horror is a fascinating genre focusing on the dark and foreboding side of folklore. What was your inspiration for entering this genre and writing Lute?

[JT] I have always adored folklore. I think for some people, it fades with adulthood, but not me. When I go out to walk my dog, I stay on the lookout for green men and fairies and ghosts lurking in the background. On some level, I believe in it all—or at least, I’ve been unwilling to accept the version of reality that says all that exists is what we can immediately discern. When you’re someone who believes that anything might be possible, it becomes very easy to say “what if.” What if (real-life) Lundy were instead an island called Lute, where life is wonderful, but there’s a hefty price? And what if, unlike in many other folk horror stories, this dark tradition is ultimately an equitable and fair one?

[GdM] Lute is an example of a shared tragedy bringing a community together, but tragedies can also be politicized to create division. Obviously, we live in a world with many terrible tragedies. What lessons can we learn from Lute about how to come together during catastrophic times?

[JT] It’s close to impossible to get through life without facing tragedy—and it’s absolutely impossible to escape death—and yet people try like hell to pretend neither exists, to run from the reality of them. I think the communities that thrive and heal post-tragedy are the ones where everyone is willing to look fearlessly at what’s happened and move from there to providing help and comfort. The ones that fracture are the more cowardly ones, in which, in the face of tragedy or threat, people start looking out only for themselves and their immediate families, insulating themselves from death, which of course is ultimately futile. And if you think I’m talking about America here…um…I’ll leave that up to the reader.

[GdM] Lute has the feel of a modern classic. Who were some of your primary influences when writing Lute among both classic and modern authors?

[JT] Daphne du Maurier is a major touchpoint for me, although I only started reading her books (and from there, tearing through everything she’d ever written) after I’d already finished Lute. Her writing is not at all what I’d assumed! I’d pictured sort of florid, overwrought Gothic nonsense, I’m embarrassed to admit, and her work is almost the exact opposite. In terms of contemporary authors, I love Michelle Paver, Naomi Novik, Alma Katsu, Paul Tremblay, Catriona Ward.

[GdM] To quote our review of Lute, your prose is “elegant in its simplicity, embracing a quiet minimalism that only enhances its sense of horror.” Tell us about your writing process. Are you someone who goes through multiple rounds of edits until you find just the right choice of words?

[JT] So many rounds of edits! Actually, the word choice bit is one of the later edit rounds, and it’s my absolute favorite part of writing, apart from coming up with the story in the first place. Drafting is psychological torture. Large-scale revision feels like performing surgery on a loved one. But making the words sparkly…that’s the good stuff. That’s where the fun lives.                                                                            

[GdM] What advice do you have for young authors who are just getting started?

[JT] My first piece of advice is to ignore all the advice you don’t like. All my author friends and I work completely differently and have had wildly divergent journeys to publication. That being said…I do have two suggestions. 1) Finish the book. 2) When you’ve finished the book, write another book. It seems simple, but I’ve seen so many writers languish after that first book, pinning all their hopes on this one idea and leaving none for the books to come. I wrote two novels before my first YA was published, and there have been several additional unpublished manuscripts along the way. I kept going. That’s why I’m still publishing today.

[GdM] What was the experience like publishing in a new genre? Were there any particular challenges that you had to overcome?

[JT] I had to get out of my own way at first. There’s always a little critical voice in one’s head, and while I’m generally good at telling it to shut the hell up, there were moments when it would pipe up with, “You can only write teenagers realistically.” I reminded this voice that I am, in fact, an adult mother of two small British children, and got back to work without any further concern for “voice.” Once I was over that hurdle, it was a pretty easy adjustment!

[GdM] What’s next for Jennifer Thorne? Any more horror novels in the works?

[JT] Next up is The Antiquity Affair, an Indiana Jonesesque historical adventure novel I’ve co-written with my dear friend, Lee Kelly, out next June. My next horror with Tor Nightfire is called Diavola—I’ve been describing it to friends as Fleabag in a haunted Italian villa. I’m not sure I’m going to let my parents read that one.

Read Lute by Jennifer Thorne

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REVIEW: The Wolftime by Gav Thorpe

In The Wolftime by Gav Thorpe we explore the struggles of the primaris space marines as they try to implant themselves into space marine chapters that have grown and changed for 10,000 years. It’s a book about the outsiders wanting to be insiders, and the insiders not understanding how they could ever be so. The Wolftime is a relatively standard 40K book, packed with action and awesomeness, wrapped around a core question the 40k community has been asking since the announcement of the primaris marines: “how are these primaris marines going to fit in with the lore of the established space marine chapters?” It’s a challenging question to respond to, but Thorpe does it really well.

The overarching story of the book is about the Indomitus crusade to recapture the half of the Imperium lost to the great warp storm that has split an empire of billions of worlds in half. With a great mass of orks assaulting the part of the sector the Space Wolves are responsible for defending, the mighty Roboute Guilliman seeks to re-establish contact with the Wolves, reinforce them with thousands of primaris space marines (remembering even the Wolves are unlikely to have more than a couple thousand space marines left, all told), and have them defend one of his crusade’s flanks while he charges off to reclaim the lost worlds of the Imperium. It’s far-reaching, broad, space military sci-fantasy, and it’s fucking awesome.

The Wolftime has a range of characters telling this story that every Space Wolf fan is going to love, with Logan Grimnir’s great company front and centre and all of the almighty heroes therein getting plenty of screen time. You’ll also get time with the only confirmed live loyal primarch, Roboute Guilliman, some chaos characters (I love Thorpe’s depiction of the Raptor traitor space marines), and a naval crewman on an imperial ship captured by orks. However, the key character in showcasing the very core of the story is Sergeant Gaius. Gaius is a newly minted primaris space marine, one of the Unnumbered getting assigned to a storied space marine chapter. Gaius is taller and bigger than his firstborn Space Wolf brothers who have waged war in defence of the imperium these last ten millennia, but he’s also younger, inexperienced in battle, and lacking the native-born understanding of the chapter–the “why” you might call it, were you in sales. Having landed upon a world stricken by war, he now stands against the traitorous brothers of the Night Lords traitor space marines who are clad in armour more ancient than the city in which he stands, their hatred older and fiercer than his will ever be. And that, fellow 40K fans, is not the biggest challenge Gaius will face.

As always with 40K novels, everything is on the line in The Wolftime. If our heroes fail, all will fall, and our heroes sometimes do pretty shitty things to benefit the greater whole–which is why I love 40k fiction. Thorpe does an excellent job in staying true to why the absolutely obsessed 40k fanbase devour anything the Black Library publishes, while also doing well to continue the thematic pulling away of the Wolves from being roudy space vikings that Dan Abnett started in Prospero Burns, while also making sure the core purpose of the story drives the overarching narrative of the primaris space marines forward.

The one thing that bugged me in The Wolftime isn’t a problem with the writing or story. It’s not the author’s fault; it’s probably not even Black Library’s fault (probably). For Space Wolf fans, we know what The Wolftime means. We know who is supposed to be returning when it happens. And we know the stakes that are in play that would dictate that character returning. And I’d be lying if I said I did not pick up this book and ramp it straight to the top of the TBR because I thought the title meant that character returned. I’m going to save Space Wolf fans the heart break: He doesn’t.

The Wolftime by Gav Thorpe is full of action and characters fans of the setting will know and love. The pressure and risk is there, the desperation on full display, the awesome moments drop on you like bombs of awesomeness. Even better, the purpose of the book is clear and really well done. This is Thorpe at the top of his 40k game. Pick up this book; you’ll love it. Just don’t expect him to show up.

Read The Wolftime by Gav Thorpe

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REVIEW: The Rings of Power- Episode Six

The Rings of Power E6 is the best episode so far from Amazon’s TV series based on Tolkien’s works. Finally, The Rings of Power delivers an episode with some action and answers, leaving its audience excited for what is to come. For too long the show has rested on the fact it is a stunningly shot series based on a much-loved world; now, it has delivered an episode that newcomers to Middle-earth and longtime fans can be proud of.

Adar and his army of orcs, or Uruk, attack the humans in the Southlands, looking for the magical, dark hilt found earlier in the season by Theo. The humans are outnumbered and out-skilled but the clever elf Arondir who, along with Galadriel, continues the Lord of the Rings tradition of elves getting all the cool things to do in battles. His romance with the human Bronwyn kicks up a notch in the episode as the danger she finds herself in defending her people’s village ramps up the tension in the episode. Meanwhile, the men of Numenor are racing towards the village to fight the orcs, giving the episode the feel of an echo of Helm’s Deep when a human force held off against a greater force before Gandalf and the riders of Rohan entered the fray. Whilst the episode feels like a retread of that battle, it is well done, with unexpected twists and turns to keep the excitement ramped up throughout. The Rings of Power E6 feels like the episode that closest resembles Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and that is no bad thing at all.

It is often difficult with prequels to surprise an audience. We know what happens to many of these characters but The Rings of Power E6 does a great job of surprising its audience and making us care about the journey. It plays with things that are familiar to fans of Lord of the Rings and the end of the episode had me on the edge of my seat eagerly waiting for the next episode to drop. Adar and Galadriel are two of the most fascinating characters in the series for different reasons and in this episode, further layers are added to their characters that add some depth to the show. One criticism of Tolkien’s work has always been in the depiction of race. Adar’s character, whilst true to the history and lore of Middle-earth and the world created by Tolkien, allows the audience to see the orcs as more than just mindless beasts who kill. Their history is a cruel and sad one, and Adar is able to shine a light on the relentless nature of the elves such as Galadriel who are almost fascist in the way they wish to wipe out a whole race. It has been interesting to see the way elves treat the other races with such arrogance and it leaves room for Galadriel to grow as the series continues and evolve into the character we see in Lord of the Rings. Little things like this are what make such adaptations stand out – instead of just rehashing what the audience has already seen or knows. It no longer feels like a show about good and evil and I know that fans of grimdark will be pleased with the areas soaked in grey morality.

Full of some of the best action seen in any fantasy TV series to date, The Rings of Power E6 finally quickens the pace and delivers an episode full of confidence and intrigue. It uses the history of Middle-earth wisely and the new characters created for the show are now a clear sign of strength showing that the showrunners are not just willing to rest on what the audience already knows. The show is taking risks and in The Rings of Power E6, those risks are starting to pay off. No sign of the rings just yet, but there is a power in this episode that cannot be denied. The most brutal, yet thoughtful episode yet. Brilliant.

Watch  The Rings of Power  on Amazon Prime.

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REVIEW: The Spite House by Johnny Compton

Ghosts of the past haunt a family on the run in Johnny Compton’s extraordinary debut novel, The Spite House, a Black Southern Gothic horror set in modern-day Texas.

Spite houses are buildings constructed for the sole purpose of aggravating neighbors, for example, to obstruct their view or to create an eyesore adjoining their property. Spite houses are dotted across the United States, in many cases becoming tourist attractions due to their unusual designs, which are meant specifically for irritation rather than inhabitation.

In Johnny Compton’s novel, the titular structure is the Masson House, a menacing four-story home with a bizarre architectural design built adjacent to an orphanage in Degener, Texas. The Masson House practically seethes with spite and is believed to be one of the most haunted buildings in the state.

As the novel opens, an unemployed single father, Eric Ross, arrives in Degener with his two daughters, eighteen-year-old Dess and seven-year-old Stacy. The Ross family is living a peripatetic existence, hopping among seedy motels, on the run from a mysterious past.

Eric’s arrival in Degener presents him with a unique job opportunity: to become caretaker of the Masson House and record an objective account of its supposed paranormal activities. The generous pay for this work would create a financially secure future for his family, but is it worth the danger to him and his girls?

The setup for The Spite House mirrors that of Shirley Jackson’s 1959 classic, The Haunting of Hill House, which also features a main character investigating a notorious haunted home. Johnny Compton provides a modern update of the haunted house trope, while also mining new depths of horror beyond that of Jackson’s classic.

The supernatural elements in The Spite House reflect specters of the Civil War, pitting neighbor against neighbor on both national and local levels. The Masson House is the incarnation of spite itself, unable to contain the evil that constitutes its very existence. Its paranormal activity is accompanied by an unbearable, paralyzing coldness, plunging the nearby temperature close to absolute zero.

Johnny Compton builds layers of complexity throughout the first two-thirds of The Spite House and then expertly ties it all together in the final part of the book. The Spite House features several unexpected plot twists, including a major reveal that left me completely blindsided. I also found the modern setting to be a refreshing change from the usual Victorian or Edwardian settings of traditional Gothic horror.

Eric Ross is a highly compelling, multi-layered main character, a fundamentally good, hard-working father who cares deeply about his family and will risk his own safety to ensure their livelihoods. Johnny Compton did an excellent job balancing the mysteries of Eric’s past with his present-day efforts to secure a better future for his daughters.

I also enjoyed reading from the viewpoints of Dess and Stacy. However, I felt that too many chapters were told from the perspective of minor side characters, and the story would have been stronger if told exclusively from the viewpoint of the Ross family.

Overall, The Spite House is an exhilarating debut that will both warm your heart and leave you chilled to the bone. I look forward to reading more from Johnny Compton in the future.

4/5

Read The Spite House by Johnny Compton

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REVIEW: The Blueprint by Wesley Cross

The Blueprint by Wesley Cross is a cyberpunk political thriller and corporate conspiracy. The former is virtually unknown in the genre while the latter is usually, “guys bust in to steal stuff” not “a bunch of guys use illegal stock manipulation in order to facilitate a hostile takeover. Actually, no, they did that in Hardwired by Jon Walter Williams and that may be the only time in history that the heroes successfully beat the megacorporations in a way I completely believe.

The premise is that it is the near-future, maybe a couple of decades, with 9/11 as well as the 2008 Banking Crisis in recent memory. Corporations have become even more powerful and started using mercenary teams to eliminate competitors as well as intimidate businessmen into selling their property to those attempting to buy them out. The police have grown so jaded about the prospect that they don’t even respond to these sorts of calls.

Jason Hunt manages to barely survive an attempt on his his and wife’s life when she accepts a job offer from a cybernetics developer. This is only the start of his problems as they’re soon faced with a cancer scare, people determined to put him underground, and a potential coup happening in the United States government. The conspiracy webs are thickly woven throughout the story and I was reminded pleasantly of Tom Clancy without a cyberpunk sheen. Wesley Cross lacks the former’s excesses, though, like lecturing the reader and using ten words when one would suffice.

I really enjoyed the characters and watching them try to figure out how to deal with enemies who have billions of dollars and a bunch of surprisingly well-developed sociopaths on their payroll. This includes attempting to get their own resources and making contact with other people they think might be able to help. The technology level is established firmly here as well. It’s not a bunch of chrome cyborgs punching things but setting up that to occur in the future.

Despite its somewhat more grounded premise, I wouldn’t say this is a particularly “realistic” book. In addition to its fun action scenes, some of the events stretch reader credibility like the fact that anyone wouldn’t think Jason Hunt is a massive fraudster after his hostile takeover using computer hacker trickery. The thing is, “realism” is overrated and the story benefits strongly from the believability of the characters, which is more important. Besides, a lot more overt fraud has been gotten away with in RL.

Wesley Cross also notably eschews the usual moral ambiguity of the genre as his protagonists are very good and his antagonists are complete scum. A warning that a sexual assault is implied to happen in the book as part of the villain’s activities for those who are sensitive to said things. However, generally The Blueprint is an action and intrigue-filled thriller that will appeal to both fans of spy fiction as well as those who like near-future sci-fi.

I was well and truly engrossed by The Blueprint at the end and eager to pick up the next installment of the series. Cyberpunk is too often limited to street punks trying heists against megacorporations while this gives us an unusal hero in a white collar businessman as well as some ex-veterans. I think it adds a very different sort of feel and I could easily see this adapted to a regular network television show rather than streaming. The Blueprint is a great book and I think a good example of its genre.

Read The Blueprint by Wesley Cross

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REVIEW: Ciaphas Cain: Hero of the Imperium by Sandy Mitchell

Ciaphas Cain: Hero of the Imperium by Sandy Mitchell (pseudonym for Alexander Michael Stewart) is a collection of the first three short stories and first three novels featuring Commissar Ciaphas Cain as the main character. This collection was first published in 2007.

I must qualify that I am not an expert on Warhammer 40k. As such, this should be read as a review by someone who has a mild interest in this fictional universe.

The stories are presented as Cain’s memoirs, obviously written in first-person. To almost everyone else, Cain is a hero who is loyal, capable and, unlike some commissars, fair-minded and even caring. By Cain’s own admission, however, he is a coward who just wants to survive and will go to some lengths to avoid danger. And that includes not merely running from imminent danger but also scheming to avoid potentially unpleasant assignments.

Whilst Cain has a certain simplicity about him, Mitchell writes him with some complexity. Cain is basically a mix of the “accidental hero” and the “reluctant hero” who fulfills his duty in his own selfish but not entirely dishonorable way either by fluke and/or by manipulation. Although not the most original idea, the results are at times comical.

Cain is a morally grey character, at least that would register as such intellectually although it may not resonate emotionally. It’s unlikely a reader will “feel” that ambiguity like one might about Garak or Quark in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine or Tyrion Lannister in Game of Thrones.

Nonetheless, Cain is an interesting person and, more importantly, relatable and even likable. This is probably because just about anyone can relate to self-preservation. The author has constructed the pathos quite nicely as Cain has some sense of honor. It is not that he wants to maliciously hurt others, he just wants to cover himself which, up to a point, is fair enough. And although he constantly takes this self-centered approach, he still tries to strike a balance and not be too selfish.

Cain’s qualities or lack thereof are most apparent when dealing with recurring characters. One does not expect anyone to care much about strangers but how they treat those who are closer reveals what they truly are. Although Cain admits to using people and merely pretending to care, he actually does care and this is most apparent when he deals with his loyal aide Jurgen and Colonel Kasteen of the 597th, amongst a few others. The irony is that sometimes he realizes that doing the right thing actually benefits him in the long term anyway.

Cain rarely boasts in an overt manner or at least rarely mentions such occasions. He does, however, frequently admit to being a coward as well as to deliberately playing the false modesty card. Whether he realizes it or not, he sometimes is genuinely modest and not as cowardly as he thinks. Mitchell admits to some uncertainty about that in the Introduction:

Is he [Cain] really the cowardly scoundrel he paints himself to be, or far more courageous than he gives himself credit for? To be perfectly honest, I don’t really know, although I suspect a little of both; but that’s one of the real joys of a writer’s life.

Despite that, I think Mitchell does well by giving the audience varying cases, each with sufficient clarity as to what Cain is truly thinking to any reader who is half paying attention but without always being in your face.

At times, the text can use a little less “telling” but, as a memoir, there is the excuse to do so. Whether one considers Cain a reliable narrator is another question. These memoirs are a part of the “Cain archives” and the novels are prefaced by an inquisitor who informs the reader that the writings are placed under an “Inquisitorial seal” (as it obviously contains classified material) and are intended only for study. This, however, does not exclude the possibility that the text has been edited even if the said inquisitor explicitly states that she has merely broken the text into chapters to facilitate reading and her annotations are clearly marked.

To keep the story fresh and provide the bigger picture, the author breaks up Cain’s narration with the occasional snippet from a history book or memoir, frequently one written by the retired General Jenit Sulla. And as part of the joke, her writing is annoyingly bombastic. She was a young officer at the time of the novels who looked up to Cain. The commissar, however, does not like her much. I think the author can add more snippets from varying sources to improve storytelling and comedy.

As for the comedy, one could describe it as on the drier side of things. Since the author plays on the irony of the situation, it vaguely reminds me of Terry Pratchett’s work. The Discworld novels are obviously a different genre and Pratchett regularly employs wordplay, but he does play on the irony of the moment. His comedy is more profound as it is satire of how the world works or doesn’t work as well as commentary on the human condition.

Mitchell, on the other hand, takes a narrower approach; any commentary on humanity and society is made mostly through (the perspective of) Cain. More generally, it does parody itself up to a point and there are a few references to sci-fi films as well as a few jokes on theology. And, of course, some of the characters’ names are biblical and historical references. It’s not as if the stories are laugh-out-loud from start to finish nor are they intended to be, but they are amusing.

In terms of pacing, the author has a real gift for writing novels. Some writers break up their novels into chapters that are more-or-less equal in length. There is nothing wrong with that approach in itself but sometimes it can feel forced. Mitchell does not do that; whatever needs to be told is told, each chapter is as long as it needs to be even if it means some variation. He does well with providing just enough setup for subsequent chapters, thereby creating that tension that continues to captivate the audience. This is a real credit to his writing because the reader knows Cain will make it. The short stories, however, can improve in pacing as they take a little too long to build.

Below are brief descriptions of the works included in the collection in the order in which they are presented. It alternates between short story and novel as the short story serves as an introduction to the novel that directly follows.

Fight of Flight (2002)

In his first assignment as commissar, Cain arrives in Desolatia IV, joining the Valhallan 12th Field Artillery. As the title suggests, it is during Cain’s attempt to avoid danger that he runs into more. It is also during this episode he meets Jurgen who becomes his loyal aide.

For the Emperor (2003)

This novel is set approximately 13 years later, around 931, when Cain is assigned to the newly combined Valhallan regiment formed from the remaining 296th and 301st, subsequently designated ­the 597th. The plot follows the “Gravalax incident” in which Cain and the 597th deal with a backwater world with substantial Tau influence. Although the Tau are reasonable, a portion of the local population rebels in an organized fashion that hints at a conspiracy.

Echoes of the Tomb (2004)

Set sometime after 928, Cain boards a ship that is supposed to rendezvous with the one that he is actually transferring to. The former is run by the Adeptus Mechanicus heading to the expedition on Interitus Prime. Cain is convinced to visit the planet while waiting for the rendezvous and… well, things can’t possibly go well with tech-priests turning things on.

Caves of Ice (2004)

This novel is set in 932, just over one year after For the Emperor, when Cain and the 597th are assigned to protect a Promethium mine and refinery on the ice-world Simia Orichalcae from an Ork incursion. In order to avoid the main battle, Cain decides to secure the mines instead, being more comfortable in the tunnels. Of course, he runs into more trouble there.

The Beguiling (2003)

This short story is set sometime after “Fight of Flight” but at least ten years before For the Emperor. Cain is assigned to Slawkenberg to deal with Chaos worshippers. In his boredom, he decides to go for a ride, hoping to check out “recreational possibilities of some of the nearby towns” under the guise of verifying intelligence. Not surprisingly, he gets shot at but then runs into some damsels in distress.

The Traitor’s Hand (2005)

This novel is set in 937 when Cain and the 597th are sent to Adumbria as an advanced party to deal with a Chaos incursion. Unlike the previous stories, more imperial parties are involved (as well as elements of the planetary government) such as Lord General Zyvan, a spook, a navigator and another guard unit with their commissar. This gives the reader an opportunity to see at least a little of how Cain deals with internal politics.

The first short story and novel, “Fight of Flight” and For the Emperor, are probably the funniest. This is not because of its novelty value; whether intended or not, it is just written that way. As a matter of personal taste, I would like to see more comedy, particularly black comedy, across all the works.

As for action, these stories do not rely on constant cheap action. Since the viewpoint character is not a common soldier, a lot of the actions are numerically small in scale. These are not the type of stories where one is in the middle of armies clashing. But whatever the scale, there are enough action scenes. On balance, these stories are generally well-constructed in every respect, easy to read, amusing and satisfying.

Read Ciaphas Cain: Hero of the Imperium by Sandy Mitchell

The post REVIEW: Ciaphas Cain: Hero of the Imperium by Sandy Mitchell appeared first on Grimdark Magazine.

An Interview with Satyros Phil Brucato

Writer. Game designer. Storyteller. Musician. Seeker of magic. Firebrand. Satyros Phil Brucato (aka Satyr) is all these things and more, and he has had a remarkable career spanning multiple medias and decades. His body of work truly speaks for itself. Perhaps best known as of the primary architects of the World of Darkness series of roleplaying games (originally published by White Wolf), Phil’s creativity, and the passion he brings to every project he gets behind, are inspiring. Recently, I was graced with the incredibly good fortune to spend some time talking to Phil and pick his brain.

[Matt] These days it’s easy enough to look a person up and see what they’ve done, where they’ve been. To start with, if you don’t mind and in your own words, how would you describe your career? You’ve stuck with it for so many years; do you find you still have the same passion for creating and telling stories that you did back at the beginning? How has your path evolved?

[Phil] My career essentially consists of throwing myself off interesting cliffs and flapping my arms while screaming OHSHITOHSHITOHSHIT until I fly.

Despite a few close calls, I haven’t crashed yet.

In the 33 years I’ve been paid to write stuff, I’ve published comics, novels, games, novellas, political op-eds, screenplays and teleplays, short fiction, self-help, marketing text, poems, songs, reviews, interviews, and more. I began as a film critic but sold my first mass-market fiction a few months later. By the time my college friend Bill Bridges got a job at White Wolf Game Studio, I’d been writing professionally for over two years. I began freelancing for Bill 30 years ago this coming month. The following year, I joined the Wolf Pack full-time. I’ve made money with my words every year since 1989, and my living from them for most of the years since then.

As dark as my work can get, my hallmark is empathy. I write about how things feel, and I strive to share that feeling with my audience. Especially these days, I think we need more empathy. As I wrote in The Book of the Fallen, empathy is the speedbump of evil. The more we consider how another living being feels, the less pain we’re likely to spread around.

Pain is a major inspiration for me. I’ve been through some shit. As much as I’ve experienced, though, I realize I’ve been fortunate. Most people have much harder lives than I’ve had. Recognizing the scars and trauma of my own experience keeps me cognizant of the effects my actions have on other people, and furious about the effects many people’s actions have on the folks they harm. That blend of compassion and rage fuels my writing. Especially now, our world provides me with plenty of inspiration.

My very first published work, which appeared in a school newsletter when I was in 4th or 5th grade, was a poem about skulls that, for such a little kid, revealed unusual insights about mortality. The first thing I published that got a wide audience was a requiem I wrote about a teacher who had died my junior year. That piece got published in the school paper and, later, in our yearbook. The acclaim I got for that poem helped turn me from a shy introvert on the social fringes to a budding extrovert who got invited to parties and stuff. I thought about pursuing English as a college major but had a major obstacle: I’m dyslexic. Until computer technology allowed me to work around that disability in the late 1980s, I had a very hard time writing anything of length. And so, I pursued acting instead – a choice that changed my life and which influences my approach to writing even now.

In hindsight, I realize I’m on the autistic spectrum, compounded by dyslexia, dyscalculia, and a queer gender identity. Back when I was a kid in the 70s, though, they didn’t have names for all that stuff. To the doctors, I had “minimal brain dysfunction”; to other kids, I was “spastic, retarded, and weird”; to my parents and teachers, I “was very smart and just not trying hard enough.” And so, I retreated as far into myself as I could get. By 7th grade, when my parents split up and our household went from “comfortably middle class” to “financially precarious,” I had no idea how to interact with the rest of the world except through fantasy, horror, and occasional bursts of violence.

And then I discovered heavy metal, punk rock, drama class, and roleplaying games.

With those toolkits, I built the rest of my adolescence. Eventually, I built my career with them, too.

The short version of the long story: I started drama class in 9th grade, started acting in 10th grade, and was doing local theatre and films by 11th grade. Senior year, I added writing, music, politics, and photography to that list. Thanks to metal, punk, acting, the creative crowd I hung around with, and – by my senior year – minor-league psychoactives, I built a charismatic persona who punched everyone who gave me a hard time. After graduation, I joined a medievalist sparring group, too. By the time I got to college, I was fit, aggressively social, and powering through every obstacle in my path. Throw in mosh pits, our college’s Gamesmasters society, a brief modeling career, a bit of partying, lots of sex, a DJ gig with our college radio station, malcontent politics, no money, and very little sleep, and you’ve got snapshots of my college years.

I wasn’t writing, though, if I could help it. That shit was hard.

Thanks to my friends John and Laurie Robey, I finally learned how to use the college LAN system around 1987. The ability to spellcheck and edit my work on the fly, then have the printer print it out for me, opened the floodgates for my words.

Which saved my life.

Thanks to an ugly sequence of events, my then-girlfriend moved in with me at the tail-end of my senior year.[1] That didn’t go well. By the following year, we were broke, miserable, in debt, stuck in wretched jobs, trapped in a crime-ridden neighborhood we couldn’t afford to leave, and quickly learning to hate each other.

That’s when my writing career kicked in.

I’d given up on acting but stuck with photography. When the movie critic quit from a newspaper I was shooting photos for, I jumped at the gig. When a story began writing itself in my head at my job, I wrote parts of it down on index cards, stuck them in my pocket, and wrote the story at home on my day off. Marion Zimmer Bradley bought that story for her Sword & Sorceress series, and that acceptance gave me the confidence to keep writing. Bill joined White Wolf two years later, and I followed him in 1993.

After roughly five years on staff, I left White Wolf. Shortly afterward, I co-founded Laughing Pan Productions, which published Deliria: Faerie Tales for a New Millennium and several other projects. That was an adventure! I had fun but went bankrupt, quit the company, and rebuilt my career for the third or fourth time. This time around, I focused on journalism, short fiction, ghostwriting, screenplays, and comics. During that period, I met several of my best friends, shared some life-changing relationships and, in 2007, got introduced to my spouse, Belovedest, and partner-in-all-things, Sandra Damiana Swan. Sandi and I formed Quiet Thunder Productions in 2009, and we’ve created numerous projects, including Powerchords: Music, Magic & Urban Fantasy, the landmark benefit anthology Ravens in the Library, my novel Red Shoes, and other publications. In 2011, I returned to the World of Darkness for Werewolf 20th Anniversary Edition. The following year, Richard Thomas founded Onyx Path Publishing, we decided to do Mage 20, and the rest is history. Since that point, I’ve juggled freelance work for other publishers, and self-owned work through Quiet Thunder.

I’d always been a malcontent. My political consciousness began with Watergate; the older I get, the more injustices I see and so the angrier I become about them. Those hard and sometimes violent years after college provided me with enough hate to last a thousand years. It’s one thing to know that rich people fuck us over; it’s another thing to live downstairs from a soul-broken Vietnam vet who pounds his wife into paste in the middle of the night, then go into work where your boss makes millions while paying his workers pennies and putting you all in constant physical danger, then go in to work another shitty job at the mall, ride home on the last bus of the night, go to bed listening to your neighbors fighting in the halls, and repeat that process until you wanna fucking die.

I was lucky enough to get out of that situation. Many people never do. And so, I don’t just write for me. I write to give voices to the people whose voices are seldom heard.

If anything, I have more passion for that mission now than I did in the early days. Back then, I was just telling stories to get myself out of hell. Now, I do it to help other people see the miracles and horrors around us so that maybe a few of them can escape it too… maybe even inspire them to change it so there’s less suffering than there’d been before.

[Matt] You inject a lot of character into your work, create an impressive amount of atmosphere in your worlds and breathe life into them. You obviously draw a lot from personal experience as well as do an extensive amount of research. That, in itself, has got to involve an impressive amount of work. How would you describe your creative process?

[Phil] Thank you! My creative process draws from my training as a Method actor.

The Method crafted by Konstantin Stanislavski and Uta Hagen provides a toolkit for finding and sharing dynamic emotional reality within artificial circumstances. Everyone knows the play or novel or whatever is artificial; nothing within it is real except for the emotions it evokes. The Method helps an actor find the emotional core of the character and situation, connect it with the actor’s own emotional experiences, and express those emotions in ways that, ideally, connect with the audience’s emotions too.

I write like an actor.

Rather than write about which things happen, I wrote about how things feel.

To do that, I combine deep dives into my own experiences, observation of people and other living things, research into media that ties in with the subject I’m writing about, evocative music (usually played loud enough that I feel it rather than listen to it), and a lot of imaginative projection into the physical and emotional sensations experienced by my characters. That last step, I’ll add, can really fuck up your head. Envisioning at 3:00 a.m. how it must feel to get sawed in half is not a great recipe for peaceful slumber! When writing, I get into a semi-trance state where the impressions flow through my mind and fingers into words. Thanks to 30-someodd years of practice (including ego-searing work with my editors), I tend to edit on the fly while keeping that flow going. Early in my career, I didn’t have the luxury of drastic revisions and multiple drafts. And so, I tend to write publication-ready drafts, print them out, and do one or two polish-passes over them to catch mistakes and tighten the prose. By the time I print that draft out, my inner editor and I have already explored that piece for flaws.

As often as possible, I also maintain a brain-trust of people I share my work with along the way.

As I tell them, I’d rather hear about my mistakes from friends while I can still fix them than from strangers after it’s too late. Whenever I’m dealing with people or situations outside my realm of personal experience, I check in with my brain-trust to make sure I’m not fucking it up. Even when I am dealing with my own experiences, I tell my brain-trust to point out the blind spots.

Three rules that guide my work:

Make dynamic choices.

Swallow your ego.

Keep your audience engaged.

My process also involves what I call aspecting and the Four Questions Approach. You can read about those elements of my process here:

https://satyrosphilbrucato.wordpress.com/2013/04/23/aspecting-song-of-my-selves/

…here:

https://satyrosphilbrucato.wordpress.com/2013/09/11/some-writerly-advice-the-four-questions-approach/

… and here:

https://satyrosphilbrucato.wordpress.com/2014/09/18/green-room-writing-the-scenes-they-never-see/

[Matt] You’ve mentioned before you hope for your work to inspire others, for them to build upon it and create even greater things. Hope and inspiration happen to be major themes that weave through a lot of your material. Do you feel they’re more important in the world now than ever, especially in fiction and games?

[Phil] Oh gods, yes.

The last few years have made it hard for me to hold on to hope. Between personal losses, political fuckery, climate change, endless pandemics, and the sheer weight of age, I’ve struggled with depression myself. Thankfully, I have good friends, great fans, and my spouse and business partner Sandi – the greatest mate imaginable. Gradually, I’ve extracted myself from creative malaise. These days, I have a pile of projects in the works, as well as new books like Red Shoes and Fallen Companions, and a bunch of impending publications like Midnight World, Victorian Mage, and my novella Dream Along the Edge (which is being released under my pen name Cedar Blake).

Seeing younger generations get up and fight back has been a huge boost for me. Too many folks in my age range (Boomers and Gen X) have either joined the enemy or retreated into complacency or despair. As Millennials and Zoomers have grown fed up with their elders’ bullshit, I regain more hope and fire for the inevitable fights.

[Matt] It definitely feels like the world is getting darker lately. The light is harder to find, magic becoming rarer. Where do you go, what do you do to inspire yourself? What are the little magics you fill your life with?

[Phil] Although absurdity rules the current age, I disagree that magic is hard to find. As I reiterate throughout the Mage 20 series, we are living in a magical age. From fantasy media to incredible technology, this era overflows with wonders.

Thing is, magic isn’t fluffy-bunny stuff. Wonder can take really ugly forms, and we’re seeing a lot of that kind of magic too.

There are reasons people fear wizards and witch-types. The ability to take command over another person’s reality is terrifying, and the conviction that the world would be better off if everyone dances to your tune is innately authoritarian no matter how noble your intentions might be. In M20’s Book of Secrets, I wrote an essay called “Magick and the Fascist Urge.” It points out that in both real life and fantasy, occult societies striving to remake our world in their image are seriously fucked up. That element of Mage always bothered me, and so I began critiquing and deconstructing it with my first Mage project, The Book of Chantries. In Mage’s 1st Edition rulebook, which was written before I got involved, the idea of “bringing back the Mythic Age” was presented as an ideal. My take on it, throughout my involvement with the series, has been: “Are you SURE about that? Because I don’t think so.” The Traditions are every bit as capable of evil and tyranny as the supposedly evil Technocracy. As far as I’m concerned, magic demands a sense of responsibility, empathy, and consequence. Otherwise, you become the monster you oppose.

That theme is key to The Book of the Fallen and Fallen Companions. Those books address people who seek power without empathy or constraint, and they point out that such evils aren’t limited to the Nephandi.

In real life, we’re seeing how dangerous metaphysical forces and practices can be. Whether or not one believes in “magic,” the associated archetypes and techniques are deeply associated with philosophy, business, media, religion, and technology. In his book Techgnosis: Myth, Magic, And Mysticism in the Age of Information, Erik Davis explores the metaphysical elements underpinning IT culture and innovation. Gary Lachman’s Dark Star Rising reveals how deeply certain political groups and figures draw from occultists like Julius Evola and practices like Theosophy. You don’t need to chant Enochian and inscribe diagrams from The Lesser Key of Solomon to invoke metaphysical principles and forces. Evangelical Christianity and fundamentalist Islam are magical sects; QAnon employs occult lore, tropes and methods; Trumpism, Brexit and the various anti-vaxxer groups employ magical thinking straight out of Harry Potter, and don’t even get me started on how J.K. Rowling popularized magic before turning her pervasive global influence toward distinctly malignant activities. Whether or not one considers what they’re doing to be “magic” in the popular sense of that word, there are metaphysical forces at work in what such people do. You can consider those forces psychological phenomena or “the madness of crowds” if you like. Their effects on reality are undeniable.

For good and ill, we’re surrounded by magic. You and I are conducting this interview on magical boxes that transform our thoughts into patterns of light dispatched through the air across time and space through streams of electrons and hypermathcodes. Folks will read it these words off enchanted elemental constructs that even their inventors don’t entirely understand. This miraculous technology facilitates global communion, empowerment and awareness in ways that were impossible within my own early adult life. Contrary to popular misconception, technology is not the enemy of magic. Technology is magic, and magic is technology. And despite the fears of older generations (including the first edition of Mage: The Ascension), this magical technology has not flattened humanity into homogenized, dehumanized stasis; instead, it’s made things more colorful and diverse, opening new ideas and languages and conversations and perceptions.

Much of what scares people so much about the current era concerns the ways in which these transformations have reworked “the way things used to be.” Identity, society, commerce, war – they’ve all been altered in amazing and terrifying ways. No one knows what to expect because things have never appeared to us this way before.

Personally, I find it all fascinating.

That said, such miracles cannot exist without cost.

How catastrophic that cost will eventually be is anybody’s guess.

And none of us can say with any certainty whether humanity will be better off in the long run or not.

What keeps me going? Music, videogames, and seeing so many people from younger generations fired up by this era’s magic and willing to fight for a future of their own. I’ve also got more books and other media than I could possibly experience in a lifetime, and more ideas in my head than I have years left in this life to produce. Whenever Old Boney shows up to ring down the curtain on this life for me, my last words will probably be something like, “But I wasn’t finished yet.”

[Matt] What are some foundational works from others that are integral to you? Things you look back on, that you hold dear to yourself. Books, music, games—anything.

[Phil] I could double the word count of this interview with that list. A few notable items from it, though, would include:

BOOKS33 1/3: Led Zeppelin IV and Techgnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information, by Erik DavisAlong for the Ride, Just Listen, and Whatever Happened to Goodbye? by Sarah DessenBetween Lovers and Liar’s Game, by Eric Jerome DickeyBill Bruford – The Autobiography, by Bill BrufordThe Dark Side of the Light-Chasers, by Debbie FordFeed, Sparrow Hill Road, Middlegame, and Every Heart a Doorway, by Seanan McGuireJitterbug Perfume, by Tom RobbinsLiving in Fear: A History of Horror in the Mass Media, by Les DanielsMisery, Lisey’s Story, On Writing, Danse Macabre, Night Shift, and Revival, by Stephen KingMy Heart is a Chainsaw, by Stephen Graham JonesThe Re-Enchantment for Everyday Life, by Thomas MooreReservation Blues and The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, by Sherman AlexieStalking the Nightmare, An Edge in My Voice, Deathbird Stories, and I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, by Harlan EllisonThe Spiral Dance, by StarhawkFILMSCasablancaThe CrowDeadpool and Deadpool 2The FountainInkKoyaanisqatsiLiquid SkyMandyThe MatrixRashomonThe Road WarriorRepo ManShakespeare in LoveSpirited AwayStrange DaysGAMESAdvanced Dungeons & DragonsAge of ConanAge of Empires II and IIIAssassins Creed OdysseyBluebeard’s BrideChampions/ HERO SystemD&D5EGrand Theft Auto VMonsterheartsRed Dead Redemption 2Rock Band 2 and 3SkyrimTomb Raider “Survivor” TrilogyVampire: The MasqueradeWerewolf: The ApocalypseAnd, of course, Mage: The Ascension, M20, Mage: The Sorcerers Crusade, and other games I created myself.MUSIC [2]Laurie Anderson: Big ScienceBastille: Bad BloodBlack Sabbath: first five albums, plus Mob Rules and Heaven and HellKate Bush: The Dreaming, Hounds of Love, and The Kick InsideThe Crow (soundtrack)Miles Davis: Bitches Brew and Birth of the CoolDead Can Dance: A Passage in Time, Aeon, Into the Labyrinth, In the Realm of a Dying SunDead Kennedys: Fresh Fruit for Rotting VegetablesThe Doors: self-titled debutFaith and the Muse: Their entire discography, but especially Annwyn, Beneath the WavesFunkadelic: Maggot BrainPhilip Glass: Koyaanisqatsi, Etudes, Solo Piano, and PerpetulumIndigo Girls: Indigo Girls, Rites of Passage, and Indians Nomads SaintsJanis Joplin: Best of Janis JoplinJethro Tull: Aqualung, Stormwatch, Stand Up, and Songs from the Wood (the Steven Wilson remix versions of all)Sass Jordan: RatsJudas Priest: Unleashed in the East, British Steel, Sad Wings of Destiny, Painkiller, and Sin After SinKilling Joke: both self-titled albums, Pandaemonium, Brighter Than a Thousand Suns, Extremities, Dirt and Other Repressed Emotions, Night Time, Absolute Dissent, MMXXII, and Hosannas from the Basement of HellKISS: self-titled debut, Dressed to Kill, Destroyer, Double Platinum, Alive and Alive II, and Carnival of SoulsClint Mansell: The FountainMoby: Play, 16, and Everything is WrongMotown: Best-Of collections from the Supremes, the Temptations, and the Four TopsThe Nails: Mood SwingOingo Boingo: Nothing to Fear, Best o’ Boingo, Dead Man’s Party, Good for Your Soul, and FarewellPearl Jam: TenThe Plasmatics: New Hope for the Wretched, Metal Priestess, and Beyond the Valley of 1984The Pretenders: self-titled debutRepo Man (soundtrack)Diana Ross: her self-titled solo albumRush: Every studio album except Vapor Trails and Hold Your FireTaylor Swift: 1989, folklore, evermore, and reputationThe Sisters of Mercy: A Slight Case of OverbombingS.J. Tucker: her entire discography, but especially Haphazard, Sirens, and BlessingsVas: In the Garden of SoulsJamin Winans: Ink (soundtrack)

[Matt] AI art is a hot button topic today (AI in general is becoming more and more of a sensitive subject). What are your thoughts on it? You recently used it to pretty spectacular results in your recent book Among the Masses. Some artists and others decry it as a kind of artistic, philosophical apocalypse even going so far as to refer to it as a kind of “death of the soul of art.” Others see it as the birth of a new tool, something to be embraced and celebrated. It’s a complex topic for sure. Where do you see it going?

[Phil] It’s a toolbox. Many artists I know have already adopted it; in fact, I got interested in it myself after seeing the results a few artist friends of mine were getting with the app. It’s limited as hell, lacks soul, and there are many things it cannot do and probably never will be able to do.

That said, it is a damned useful tool for self-publishers and micropress game designers. In a perfect world, I would have tens of thousands of dollars with which to commission artists. That’s not the world we live in. For Fallen Companions, I invested $800 to pay four artists for reprint rights of existing work. How much art did that get me? Eight images. Commissioning original art at even the low end of professional rates would have cost me at least double that amount for the same eight images. As of this writing, I have not yet made back that investment. That’s despite having the #1 seller on the Storyteller’s Vault for four weeks running – which means that every other publisher (including one who released their book the same day I released Fallen Companions) has sold fewer copies than I have. And again, that was for eight images. Fallen Companions has dozens of images. Commissioning that much art would have cost at least $5000 and probably a great deal more.

For obvious reasons, that’s financially impossible.

Now, I can crowdfund original books for which I own the rights. That’s what I do when I’m not using AI art, and it’s what I’ll continue doing for projects when AI art can’t create the images I want. For things like the Storytellers Vault or the Dungeon Masters Vault, however, you cannot, under the current terms, crowdfund those projects. That’s explicitly forbidden in the Terms of Service. If you want to publish on those marketplaces, you have four choices: Use AI art, use existing art, use no art, or pay more for art than you’ll make back from sales.

If not for Midjourney, I’d have needed to re-use a handful of images that were made available on the Storytellers Vault – which is another form of exploitation, as those images were created on a work-for-hire basis by artists who were paid for them decades ago – used stock art (which would not have fit the tone I wanted that book to have), or criminally underpaid artists who were hungry enough to make images for next to nothing.

Those are the economics of the industry as it stands.

I notice that many of the folks howling about AI art on social media are the same folks who howl about how game products cost too much.

A common complaint I’ve seen is that AI art violates copyright law. It doesn’t. Certain images may violate likeness-rights laws; if you feed in, say, “Robin Williams as a wizard” for your prompt, the resulting image of Robin Williams might be actionable by the holders of Robin Williams’ estate. Under existing copyright law, however, works that incorporate elements of other works are not actionable unless they directly reproduce distinct and recognizable portions of that original work. That’s not generally what these AI art programs do. Instead, they scramble a bunch of images from different sources and use them to shape entirely new images. Unless someone runs an AI pass over a single image whose copyright belongs to someone else, that is not a violation of copyright.

Whether or not it’s ethical to scan a bunch of images into a database and then use them as foundations for new images is a subject people can (and will) argue about for ages. Eventually, lawyers will argue about it too. Like audio sampling in the 70s and early 80s, AI art will probably remain a Wild West until someone does the publishing equivalent of what MC Hammer did on “Can’t Touch This” and gets sued by the illustrator equivalent of Rick James. Right now, it’s a useful but extremely limited toolbox whose hype is greater than its utility.

For Fallen Companions, Midjourney’s limitations provided an aesthetic I’d wanted anyway. Back when we did The Book of the Fallen, I’d wanted a surreal nightmare-fuel quality to the illustrations. [3] Samuel Araya, who I hired for Fallen Companions, used that approach. The other illustrators employed a more straightforward RPG-illustration aesthetic. The thing that caught my eye when my friend Madi Huffman (a trained professional artist I’d been planning to work with anyway) posted her experiments with Midjourney was that those images had the nightmarish quality I’d wanted all along. I paid to publish some of the images Madi and her partner had already created, then got my own Midjourney subscription and began experimenting. Because I have a background in art myself, I was able to get some potent images out of it – more, really, than I needed for the book. Between Sam, Madi, Daniel, and myself, we created a visual reflection of a very dark text. That approach certainly won’t work for most projects. It worked wonderfully, though, for this one.

[Matt] What direction do you see yourself moving in the future? What are your plans? You’re obviously firing on all cylinders, and it seems like you’re more prolific now than ever, having just released a new Mage supplement, roleplaying game (Powerchords), and a new novel (Red Shoes) that sounds amazing. What could possibly be on the horizon?

[Phil] Thank you! Really, I’m writing and publishing at a much slower rate than I did in the White Wolf years. Back then, I worked on over a dozen books per year. That pace broke me, though, so I’m never doing it again. These days, I take more time for research and experimentation than we ever had in the 90s. That process runs slower than I’d prefer, but the quality is higher both in my work and in my life.

Currently, I’m juggling a freelance career and my own work. My projects include:

RPG sourcebooks for several clientsThe novels Black Swan Blues (the sequel to Red Shoes), Not the Final Girl, Crossways, and my perennial problem child Holy Creatures To and FroThe Cedar Blake standalone edition of my paranormal romance novella Dream Along the EdgeTwo other Mage 20 books for the Storytellers VaultSeveral short storiesSeveral collections of my nonfiction writingThe urban fantasy TV series Strowlers (which I co-created)Revised editions of my microgame RPGs Wilderlost, Storm Shelter, Life Among Aliens, Creatures of the Wood, and Singles Going Steady (all of which were initially created for my Patreon supporters)Three sourcebooks for PowerchordsThree new original RPGs (TBA)A podcast (TBA)Finishing the audiobook edition of my short fiction collection Valhalla with a Twist of Lethe

…and whatever other stuff that life, clients, and my Muse toss into my project queue between now and whenever I get around to creating them.

There are also several projects hovering in various clients’ production queues: Victorian Mage, Midnight World, Lore of the Traditions, Forgotten & Forbidden, Bizarre & Unusual, and some other commissioned projects that I’m not at liberty to reveal. My work on those books is already done. When they’ll show up is out of my hands.

My Patreon supporters receive previews and excerpts from my current projects. Occasionally, I produce things like the microgames mentioned above. For an archive with over seven years’ worth of goodies, check out: https://www.patreon.com/philbrucato

[Matt] To close, I would like to play a couple rounds of a “what if” game. First, what if you found yourself being transported to a deserted island-all amenities are cared for, there’s food and water, shelter, and such-and you only get to bring with you one book, one album, and one movie to keep you entertained for possibly forever. What do you bring?

[Phil] Aside from music, I seldom enjoy revisiting media more than once or twice. For the sake of the question, though:

The Essential Calvin and Hobbs, by Bill Watterson

Farewell, by Oingo Boingo

The Crow

[Matt] Second, what if you were able to travel back in time and talk to one person? Who would it be, and what would you talk to them about?

[Phil] Assuming I could speak Aramaic, I’d probably want to sit down with Yeshua ben Miriam and ask him what he’d had in mind and if he’d had any idea just how screwed up his teachings would eventually get.

That, or spend a long debate with Thomas Jefferson about how the hell a guy could wax so eloquently about freedom and democracy while also owning and raping his slaves.

Seriously, though, I kinda wish I could have spoken at length with Neil Peart or David Bowie. And I still wish I could hang out with Kate Bush or Florence Welsh. It won’t happen, but I wish it could.

[Matt] Thank you so much for sharing and talking with me, it’s been a privilege and a joy. Do you have anything you’d like to wrap up with or share?

[Phil] Thank you, too!

I’m an independent working creator, pushing sixty, whose primary claim to fame is multimillion-dollar Intellectual Property I will never own and don’t receive royalties for creating. As such, I depend on clients, patrons, and the audience for my non-World of Darkness works.

If you enjoy my work, or like what you’ve read in this interview, please join my Patreon, support my clients, and buy Red Shoes, Powerchords, Valhalla with a Twist of Lethe, the Mage books I release through the Storyteller’s Vault, and whatever else Sandi and I publish through our company Quiet Thunder Productions. Unlike my work with the World of Darkness (STV excepted), those projects pay my rent and bills, help feed our cats, and provide for my family.

Thank you, everyone! Stay healthy, stay safe, and stay as sane as you can in a decidedly unsane world.

——

NOTES

1: You can find that story on my blog: https://satyrosphilbrucato.wordpress.com/2016/03/07/good-riddance-you-brutalizing-hag/ and https://satyrosphilbrucato.wordpress.com/2016/03/10/cats-story-straight-inc-and-why-i-despise-nancy-reagan/

2: For a bunch of playlists that I use for work and recreation, check out my Spotify profile: https://open.spotify.com/user/satyrphil?si=718f0b08a62845bb

3: I’d provided a Pinterest page to the art director and illustrators of The Book of the Fallen, and used it for my own reference, too. To see that mood board, check out:https://www.pinterest.com/satyrdance/the-book-of-the-fallen/

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REVIEW: House of the Dragon – Episode 6 ‘The Princess and the Queen’

House of the Dragon E6 jumps forward ten years in time but the quality remains as the rivalry between Princess Rhaenyra and Queen Alicent ramps up with them staring daggers at one another whenever they share a room across from the unendingly weary King Viserys who still thinks that things can end well. Each side has grown in the time since we last saw them with the dark-haired children of Rhaenyra (who look suspiciously like the Commander of the City Watch) and the blonde offspring of Alicent begin to play a part in the division of King’s Landing.

House of the Dragon E6 is full of scenes that will still shock its hardened audience. A young man masturbating out of an open window over the city. A horrible death due to dragonfire. And more labour scenes that remind the audience that having a child is to dance with death in Westeros. The new cast smashes it out of the park, burning away any doubt that the change would be off-putting to the audience. Emma D’Arcy as Rhaenyra and Olivia Cooke as Alicent brilliantly convey the turmoil and troubles of the years that have passed in just a few glances and movements. Time has hardened the queen who is still stinging from the loss of her father as Hand to the King and the love for her children has burned any bridge that might have been there for her friendship with Rhaenyra. Viserys seems happy to meet his grandchildren and dreams of a day when Rhaenyra and Alicent are friends once again, blissfully unaware of the storm to come.

A proxy war is fought in House of the Dragon E6 as Alicent’s sons, Aegon and Aemond, are trained by Ser Criston Cole whilst Rhaenyra’s sons are watched over by her lover, Ser Harwin Strong. The children are mostly innocent and unaware of the danger brewing around them, all apart from Aegon who Game of Thrones fans will see as a new Joffrey, an annoying prick who doesn’t seem to give a shit about anyone else. He’s going to be a lot of fun to hate over the coming episodes. They will also see a new Littlefinger growing in the shadows in Larys Strong, an ambitious man scheming with Alicent to ensure that they cling to the power they have. The lengths that Larys will go to with his scheming seems to sicken even the stony Alicent, but if such actions help her family, perhaps she will turn a blind eye…

Through all the sneering and fights breaking out in King’s Landing, Daemon mopes in Pentos. He has a new family and a peaceful home, using their dragons to put down any threats to the Pentoshi people. He isn’t entirely happy but is aware of the peace he could have away from the politics of his homeland. But of course, his wife knows that this goes against the nature of the man she married. He has his own children who have, or wish to have dragons, and there are many people who would back the Rogue Prince who slayed the Crab King. A big part of House of the Dragon E6 involves the children of the powerful players in the series readying themselves to be bound to a dragon. It sets everything up very nicely for the war that is constantly in the shadows of this series, waiting to be brought into the light.

Possibly the best episode yet. House of the Dragon E6 is full of violence and scheming that fans of the show will watch with glee. An excellent cast, great writing, and the dragons look better than they ever have. This is the best fantasy series on TV since Game of Thrones in its prime and long may that continue.

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