John Walters's Blog, page 79

Book Review: Deathbird Stories by Harlan Ellison, Part Two: More Ellison Reminiscences, and The Stories Themselves

So then, after having reread "Deathbird Stories" I realize that at least part of the motivation was to pay homage to one of the great literary influences of my life.  Harlan Ellison's stories are vivid and emotional, and I have tried to absorb those good qualities and use them in my own writing.

To finish the history begun in part one of this review:  By the time I was ready to strike out on my own, as a writer and as a man, I had accumulated a sizeable collection of Ellison's books, including first editions that sell for decent amounts of money online these days.  But I had to hit the road, and to do so I had to forsake my possessions; I could not hitchhike around the world dragging a library.  So I took the whole mess of books down to a used bookstore and took the first price I was offered:  thirty dollars, I think it was.  The owner of the shop certainly profited by my haste.  What could I do?  If I had not left everything behind I would never have left.  I had to go out fresh, clean, new, empty, willing to be filled with whatever was my destiny.

Once I visited Harlan Ellison's home in the hills of Sherman Oaks.  It was about a year after Clarion West 1973, and I was invited and accompanied by a fellow Clarion attendee, one who at the time was Ellison's friend and had even stayed there from time to time.  The door was unlocked and we walked right in, which my friend informed me was standard procedure.  He led me to the small desk area where all the awards were laid out on shelves:  the Nebulas, the Hugos, the Writers Guild Awards, and so on.  Then Harlan Ellison himself made an appearance, explained that he was sick with a cold and that it wasn't a good time for a visit, and that was the end of the matter.  I never met him personally again.  Though I had gone to Los Angeles to try my hand at screenwriting nothing had come of it, for the reasons I mentioned in part one of this review:  that I first needed to experience life, before I could write about life.  So I got rid of my books, my television, and anything else I owned that couldn't be fit into my duffel bag, and hit the road.

Now on to the book itself, and the stories.

As I read it this time, I wasn't disappointed.  I expected some stories to impress me and some not, and that's what happened.  Overall, for me it was too much sameness of theme to suit my tastes, too much of the same story told over and over in different ways.  However:

This collection contains what I consider one of the greatest short stories ever written:  "Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes".  It is Ellison at his finest.  All his skills of vivid imagery, stark emotion, and so on come together to great effect and tell a tale of tragic love and loss.  Some of the other stories are first-rate as well, among them "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs", "Delusion for a Dragon Slayer", "Paingod", and "Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans".  Others don't work so well, don't rise up to the level of art of the very best, and yet others are – I would hesitate to call them mediocre, but they are not extraordinary.  If put by themselves in an anthology of other writers' stories with which they had no similarity they would be fine, but placed alongside some of the superlative stories in "Deathbird Stories" they pale in comparison.

Is it Ellison's best collection?  Many seem to think so.  But in a short story collection personally I prefer more diversity in the fare.  For me as I read story after story there was, as I said, too much sameness.  So for me I would probably choose "The Essential Ellison" as a superior collection, with its mainstream stories, essays, and even a teleplay, as well as science fiction and fantasy.

That said, I have to add that when Ellison is at his best he is a unique literary experience, unsurpassed and unequaled, and I am grateful for his influence in my own journey as a writer.

Book Review: Deathbird Stories by Harlan Ellison; Part One: Clarion West 1973 Revisited

I honestly don't know exactly what made me read "Deathbird Stories" again after all this time.  I usually alternate between fiction and nonfiction books in my reading program.  I was just finishing a nonfiction book and considering that I wouldn't mind reading a book of short stories, but I didn't have anything on hand and nothing came to mind that was at the local library and it was too late to order something online even if I could afford it, which at the moment I can't.  Then I thought of "Deathbird Stories".  I knew the library had a copy.  I thought, why not?

That's part of it.

I had not read much of Harlan Ellison for a long time, though back in the early seventies he was my favorite writer and my mentor – though I'm sure I made so little impression he would have no recollection of me at all.  More on that in a minute.  A few years ago I bought a copy of the mammoth tome "The Essential Ellison" because I wanted to have some of Harlan Ellison on my shelf.  I read some of the science fiction and fantasy stories for old time's sake, but what really fascinated me in that collection were the essays, many of which I had never read before, and one mainstream story which I had read long, long ago:  "Punky and the Yale Men".  That's one hell of a story.  Anyway, when I struck out on the road in my world-wandering days I sort of left science fiction behind, being more enthralled with the works of Jack London, Jack Kerouac, and the incomparable Henry Miller.

But back in the early 70s I read almost nothing but science fiction, and I got turned on to it after reading a story of Ellison's, "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" in a university textbook anthology.  At that same time I determined that I had to be a writer and learn to compose such brilliant stories.

After I messed up my year at university and moved back to Seattle, I somehow heard that Harlan Ellison was in town and attended a reading/lecture at the University of Washington, where Clarion West was being held.  The next year, 1973, at twenty years of age, I attended Clarion West myself, and Harlan Ellison was once again one of the teachers.  I did not distinguish myself.  I wrote what must be the worst story I have ever written the week he was there.  As I mentioned, I doubt he would remember me.  I wouldn't remember myself either, had I been him.  Unless it was because my prose hit new heights of mediocrity.

I was heavily into drinking at the time; that was one problem.  Russell Bates, Paul Bond, some of the other attendees and myself would, whenever we could, head off to one of the numerous taverns I knew of that didn't ask for ID and quaff pitcher after pitcher of beer when we probably should have been back at the dorm pounding on the typewriter.  But it wasn't just that.  I was immature, naive, clueless about the realities of life.  I wasn't ready to produce anything meaningful.  I was too frightened to step out on my own and live, and without living you can't really write about life.  You might be able to come up with some sort of half-assed approximation, but it won't be the real thing.

So from a writing standpoint Clarion didn't do me much good, but it was not the fault of the teachers or the workshop itself; it was my fault.  I wasn't ready.

To get back, though, to "Deathbird Stories" and Harlan Ellison.  At the time he was in the midst of composing the stories that would constitute the collection, and he would talk to us about the inspiration and theme and so on.  But also, and above all, during his reading/lecture at the end of the workshops, one of which I attended in 1972 and the other in 1973 after the one I attended, he would read the stories themselves.  Back then he was at his energetic peak.  He was winning award after award.  "Dangerous Visions" and "Again Dangerous Visions" had been published, and he was being acclaimed as an editor as well as a writer.  He was then, in 1973, seeking stories for the third and last volume of "Dangerous Visions", and it was the dream of every Clarion attendee to sell him a story for what was then the most prestigious speculative fiction anthology series in the world.  As I said, I never came close.  But all this is to explain what a phenomenon Ellison was at the time, and he was hard at work on this cycle of stories that he considered his magnum opus.  The first of the stories I heard him read, back in '72, was "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs".  He had all the lights in the auditorium extinguished except a tiny reading lamp at the podium, and stunned all of us with this powerful, image-laden, horrific story.  As I remember he got a standing ovation, and it was well-deserved.  Now, my memory may not be spot-on about which story he read when, but I think that afterwards, as an encore, he read "Bleeding Stones".  Then, in 1973, he read the first part of what was then a work-in-progress, "Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans".  So I have heard him read live two and a half of the stories from "Deathbird Stories".

This book and I have a history.

To be continued.  In the next installment I will give my impression of the book itself based upon this current reading.

Book Review: Life by Keith Richards

When I was growing up I listened to the Rolling Stones sometimes on popular radio stations, and I liked some of their songs but was never particularly attracted to the group itself as a fan.  I was more into the Beatles, later Creedence Clearwater Revival and, in my psychedelic drug days, the Grateful Dead.  The Stones, though doubtlessly talented musicians, came across as too dark and raunchy for my tastes.  Later, as I saw them continue touring in middle age and then as gray-haired old men, I wondered what was up with them, how they had managed to keep it together for so long.

This book tells what was up.

It's a very entertaining read.  Keith Richards is intelligent and erudite beyond all expectation.  He had a ghost writer, or at least an assistant, true, but his personality shines through clearly.  It's a complex yet affable personality, wild, unorthodox, rebellious, prone to outbursts of violence, faithful to friends and family.  Yet one thing comes across more than anything else:  his sincere and heartfelt love of music.  It is this that gives the book its quality and depth more than anything else.

Yes, it goes into all the sordid details:  the parties replete with booze and drugs, the loose sex with groupies and other girlfriends, the animosity between Keith and Mick, the squalid desperate decrepit years as a heroin junkie.  As I read about all these crazy debaucheries I was reminded of the band of outlaws in "Blood Meridian" By Cormac McCarthy:  they hunted Indian scalps through Mexico and the southwestern US; they were savage and violent and went through incredible hardships; yet when they finally got a hold of a little money they would blow it all on a drunken spree, go absolutely nuts and get in fights and break things until they would be driven out of or turn on the very towns that had rewarded them.  So it was with the Stones, especially in the 70s.  They had achieved fame and riches but on their tours would indulge in heaps of drugs and damage hotels until they were blacklisted from the best ones; in addition, narcotics agents were continually on their trail.  Keith Richards went from one drug bust and trial to another, each time escaping by the skin of his teeth with the aid of high-positioned friends and the best lawyers money could buy.

But all of this would be nothing more than an extended People Magazine article, sensational tabloid rubbish, except for one thing:  Keith Richards sincerely loves his music.  When he writes about music, whether it is discovering new chords or new techniques of playing, or meeting and jamming with other musicians he admires, or writing songs and putting together albums – then this book rises above the tabloid and becomes a great literary experience.  It is clear that KR loves his music as much as I love my writing, and that is saying a lot.  It defines him as a person; it defines his life.  It is all about the music, in the end.  That's what I found myself admiring about him, despite his sordid past.  He is an artist, and gives first place to his art.  He must have music; there is no alternative.

Don't get me wrong.  The rest of the book is a worthwhile read too.  As I said, Richards is highly intelligent and it is much better written than a tabloid magazine article.  In fact, it is fascinating.  He holds nothing back; he gets down and dirty with the details.  But when all is said and done it is his art that has made him what he is.  That's why the Stones continue to tour when most folks have retired – in fact, when most rock musicians are already dead and gone.  They love the music, and can't think of a life without it.  He says he'll keep playing and writing songs until he croaks; he can't imagine doing anything else.  Having read this I will listen to the Stones with greater interest and appreciation.

Another aspect of the book that I appreciate is how it defines an era.  It's a big book, and most of it describes the period during the 60s and 70s when the Stones evolved their own style and achieved a meteoric rise to success which was only surpassed by the Beatles.  I am fascinated by the 60s and 70s and read any good books I can get my hands on of that period of modern history.  I became caught up in a good part of it myself, becoming involved in psychedelic drugs and hippydom first during my abortive year at Santa Clara University and later during my travels up and down the West Coast.

In conclusion, I highly recommend this book, whether you are into the Rolling Stones or not, as great entertainment, engrossing modern history, and the fascinating story of one of the greatest rock and roll guitarists of all time.

Paper Dragons

Sometimes the systems of this world just kind of fall into place.  They are the results of a lot of decisions by a lot of people and gradually evolve over the years, usually as the result of reactions to crises.  Political systems, economic systems, social systems, all the same.  Circumstances vary, details vary, but usually the base instinct is survival.  Rarely does love enter into play, or at least rarely is it a deciding factor, whether it is love of God, or humanity, or country, or art.  The deciding factors are usually far more base:  power, fear, profit.

Ah, you damned cynic, you say, I am far more idealistic than you.  I believe in people's innate goodness.  Everyone comes round to it in time.  Yeah, sure.

Anyway, today we are speaking of art and artists, if you will permit me to use such grandiose terms.  And this train of thought all came about when I was musing on the state of publishing today.  Even the most myopic observer would say that it is in a state of flux, of transition, with the rising star of e-publishing and the demise of many print bookstores, with the wide open possibility of self-publishing, or so-called indie publishing, and the besieged citadel state of traditional publishers.  Yes, things are changing, and systems which have remained in place for decades, petrified in the attitude of "this is the way it is done because this is the way it has always been done and there's no other way" are suddenly confronted with the fact that there are other ways.  The reaction of many is to plunge their heads as deeply as possible in the sand and hope that it all goes away.

It's not going to go away.

For a long time only one road has existed.  Now there are others, and it does no good to exclaim in chagrin and self-aggrandizement that "it's my way or no way".  Considering the evidence it would be ludicrous to do so, when the other paths to take are so plain to see.

An artist creates.  A painter paints, a musician plays music, a writer writes.  When the creation has been accomplished, the artist wishes to share it.  Whatever is expedient and available is the proper means to do so.

But then bigshots in offices, that is, executives, accountants, publicists, and so on, many of whom have had no training in art at all, say, "No, wait a minute.  The only way to present your art is through us.  We will be the filters, we will be the judges; we will decide if your work is fit to be seen by the public."  And on what do they base their decisions?  Invariably it is the company's bottom line.

The artist, meanwhile, just wants to create and then present the work.  In publishing, until recently, there was no alternative to going through the bastion of traditional publishing.  Now, alternatives exist.  And traditional publishers are calling foul.  Surprised?  Not at all.  Their exclusivity is threatened.  Well, let's put that into perspective.  It was threatened.  By now it is long-gone, never to return.  It's not that they don't still have their place, their function – but they are no longer the only game in town.  That's something to which they have to adjust.

I find it ludicrous that publishers, agents, editors, even writers themselves, rush frantically about trying to prop up the collapsing house of cards of the exclusivity of traditional publishing.  Note that I did not say traditional publishing itself, but only its exclusivity.  Traditional publishing will survive, but it must accept the fact that it will never again be the only source of creative prose output.  To continue with the self-imposed blinders in the face of reality would be laughable at best and tragic at worst.  It reminds me of the scene in the Mel Brooks movie "Blazing Saddles" where the cowboys in the desert are confronted with a toll booth and they all dutifully line up and pay, whereas all around them are endless spaces of open country through which they could easily and freely ride.

Some speak of quality control.  But is some suit in an office in New York who has never been and never will be a writer a better judge of my work just because he has a rich and powerful organization to back him up?  I think not.  I can't speak for any other writer in the history of the world, but I have paid my dues, and I have the right to create and publish and promote my work just as much as he has the right to publish and promote whatever works he deems appropriate.

It's a matter of expediency.  I am not against traditional publishing; I have published short stories in traditional markets and will do so again.  What I am against is the self-righteous, condescending attitude that says, "My way or the highway," that says, "If you don't go through me your work is worthless."  The hell with that.  I'm willing to concede you your place in the grand scheme of things if you will concede me mine, whatever I choose to make it.  But my career is mine, not yours.

Book Review: The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy by David E. Hoffman

The "Dead Hand" of the title refers to a proposed Soviet doomsday machine that would provide devastating retaliation in the event of an American nuclear first strike.

Lacking the technology to make the device completely automatic, the Soviets instead devised a semi-automatic program in which personnel hidden deep in concrete bunkers would launch the missiles.  In a broader sense, the dead hand refers to the overwhelmingly huge stockpile of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons left over after the breakup of the Soviet Union and their ongoing potential for destruction.

The book follows two main threads:  the quest for nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament, mainly pursued by US president Ronald Reagan and Soviet Premier

Mikhail Gorbachev, and the Soviet program for developing biological weapons for

military use, which went on long after the USSR signed treaties banning such activity.

Both Reagan and Gorbachev sought to completely eliminate nuclear weapons, realizing that no war using them could be won.  The book shows the stagnation and decay of the pre-Gorbachev years under Brezhnev and Andropov, the relentless military buildup which consumed all the national resources and more, and strangled and starved the common people.  The contrast puts Gorbachev's achievements in perspective and makes what he was able to accomplish seem all the more amazing.  That he and Reagan were able to get together and discuss scaling down the arms race was a tremendous feat.  Both faced great opposition at home:  Reagan from right-wingers suspicious of Soviet intentions, and Gorbachev from generals who were determined to preserve the powerful  military/industrial complex.  In the end, the two leaders did not meet their ultimate goal, which was total elimination of nuclear weapons, but they made great strides in that direction.

In the meantime, though, the Soviet program to develop and prepare for use as weapons such biological agents as anthrax, plague, and smallpox went on unabated.  Though strict

treaties were signed, the Soviets, and later after the breakup of the Soviet Union the Russians, continued research and production of both biological and chemical weapons on a massive scale.

History intervened.  Gorbachev allowed the Berlin Wall to fall and one East Bloc country

after another to declare independence.  This left nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons scattered all across the Soviet Union in hundreds of locations, for the most part ill-guarded, neglected, without funding, staffed by scientists who received little or no pay.  The last part of the book documents the gradual realization by the Western governments that this network of weapons existed, and their efforts to do something to reduce the risk before terrorists and rogue states moved in and got to them first.  It's a story of real-life espionage and intrigue, of investigation and heroism.

The story does not end well.  Many of those weapons are still out there, still available to wreak havoc and destruction.  They have not all been dismantled or neutralized or placed in secure locations.  They are dormant for the moment but still exist as a "Dead Hand", a doomsday device of potential annihilation.

This is a terrifying book.  At the same time, it is brilliantly written, a terrific read, as

compelling and as hard to put down as a novel.  It won the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction in 2010, and that prize was well-deserved.  It's an invaluable study of an important aspect of modern history – all the more so because that history is ongoing.

Book Review: Silence by Shusaku Endo

The first novel by Shusaku Endo I read was "Scandal", which he wrote late in his career.  It's set in Tokyo, and is a surreal story of an aging writer discovering the underworld of extreme sex and at the same time the darker, hidden side of his own psyche.  It was quite a radical introduction to one who is usually identified with the Christian aspects of his novels.  Afterwards, while searching a library here in Thessaloniki for "Silence", which they didn't have, I came across "Deep River", a novel about a group of Japanese tourists on a tour to Varanasi, the sacred city beside the Ganges in India.  I greatly enjoyed this one; Endo explores the backgrounds of each of the characters so that when they are brought together in Varanasi their reactions and interplay and destinies are inevitable.

But the story I had most wanted to read was "Silence".  Many consider it to be his masterpiece.  Martin Scorcese has for years been planning to film an adaptation of the novel; rumor has it he has signed Daniel Day-Lewis and Benicio del Toro, which would make it a major project indeed.  Finally during my last visit to the States I bought a used copy at Strand Bookstore in New York and decided to give it a try.

It starts slowly, if truth be told.  Endo is not an action writer; he carries on his tales at an even, thoughtful, well-crafted pace, with poetic description so that the reader is immersed in the landscapes and the experience.

It's set in the 1600s, and is based upon real events and people.  The main character is a priest named Sebastian Rodrigues, usually referred to simply as "the priest".  Hearing that a former mentor of his who is now a missionary in Japan has apostatized, that is, renounced his faith under torture, he is unable to believe it.  With two other companions he determines to journey to Japan to find out the truth.  After a voyage of many months, with stopovers in Goa, India, and Macau, China, two of the priests (one succumbs to illness and is left behind in Macau) arrive in Japan and are smuggled into the country, where they find small villages of Christians being hunted down and executed for their faith.  As Rodrigues sees these simple souls being tortured and killed he wonders at the silence of God through it all, and why God does not intervene more directly.  Finally he is himself captured.  He is not tortured, but he is unable to bear the pitiful cries of Japanese peasants being tortured in his stead, and apostatizes to save them.  As a symbol of his apostasy he is asked to step, or "trample" on an image of Christ, and as he, in tears, hesitates, he finally hears the voice of God, telling him to go ahead and trample, that it was to share humanity's pain that he endured the cross.

Shusaku Endo was raised a Catholic in Buddhist Japan, and many of his works reflect the experience of being one of a minority, an outsider, an outcast.  In his prose he explores the contrast between East and West, and the difficulty, even near-impossibility, of the two cultures existing harmoniously.  Both as a Christian in Japan and as a Japanese in Europe he was despised, bullied, rejected, alienated, misunderstood.  His works show a deep appreciation of the underdogs, the persecuted, the castoffs.

Though I do not wish to delve much into the theology of the situation, a few thoughts that occurred to me as I read must be mentioned.  First of all, as one Japanese magistrate in the novel pointed out, the various Christian denominations that arrived in early Japan to set up missions were like a bunch of squabbling concubines each vying for the attention of their master.  Though the Christian religion professes love and unity, each of the four

countries claimed a different, and better, brand of Christianity, and ridiculed  and tried to turn their hosts against the others.  What were the Japanese to think of such a situation?

As for the priest and his Catholic religion, it was imported as-is; the Japanese were expected to conform to the customs and rituals from the West without any concession at all to the uniqueness of their own culture and traditions.  These factors of warring

denominations and all-or-nothing demands to absorb starkly alien ways made it much more difficult for the proud Japanese to accept or at least tolerate the strange foreign religious presence.  If the Christians had been more flexible, more malleable, and especially motivated not so much by politics and trade and self-righteous pomposity but by a sincere desire to offer the illumination of Christianity to Japan in a spirit of unity,

they might have done much better and avoided the persecution and expulsion of

Christians.

Be that as it may, in the end Endo's goal is not to criticize the missionary effort but to present a Jesus whose love encompasses the beggars, the lepers, the criminals, the outcasts, and yes, even the apostates.

Regardless of the Christian theme, which may appeal to some and be unappealing to others, this novel is a worthwhile read for the excellence of the writing, for its depiction of the juxtaposition and clash of cultures, and for the intense and brilliant portrayal of its characters.

Painsharing and Other Stories by John Walters – Now Available in Paperback!

My second short story collection, "Painsharing and Other Stories" is now available in paperback through Amazon.  You can order it here.  It's still available for Kindle here and in other electronic formats at Smashwords here.

Here's the description from the back cover:

After nuclear war, a survivor of the monster-populated ruins of Oakland California joins the crew of a clipper ship sailing the waters of the Pacific; a typhoon shipwrecks him on a tropical island whose inhabitants share a bizarre secret.

An unlikely team investigating the deaths of the crew of an interstellar spaceship near Pluto are confronted with a life-or-death conundrum stranger than anything they could have imagined.

On a distant planet the ultimate civil punishment is to be genetically deformed into an abhorrent beast and forced to live in the forbidden compound called Purgatory as slaves of the State.  When authorities arrest and condemn the woman he loves, a man determines to find and save her, even if he must descend into Purgatory itself.

In these and other gripping science fiction tales John Walters explores possible futures on Earth and other worlds.

Standing Up to Intimidation

I'm a pushover.  I have been all my life.  I don't easily get feisty and quarrelsome, and I don't easily question what others tell me.  I want to believe that they are sincere; I want to believe that people naturally tell me the truth, even though I have overwhelming evidence to the contrary.  I always say, "I'm not going to let other people's bad behavior influence the way I decide to behave."  And in an abstract sense, this is correct.  We should make our own moral decisions no matter what others do.  But there comes a point when others cross too many lines and even easy-going fellows such as myself must take a stand.

To illustrate what I mean I have come up with three examples from literature and film.  I

bring these up from memory and these memories may not be clear, but they will be sufficient for the points I want to make.

First of all, for an example of the epitome of a milquetoast, I offer "Gimpel the Fool" by Isaac Bashevis Singer.  I read this short story years ago, and had a hard time and a difficult search on the Internet before I found the title again.  But the story itself has remained

vividly with me all this time.  Gimpel is a baker in a village in eastern Europe.  He is the butt of the villager's jokes because he is so trusting.  His wife constantly cheats on him; his

children are not his own; his neighbors treat him with scorn and ridicule.  Through it all he maintains his simple honesty and does not, though he is tempted, give in to the baser and less worthy spirits which surround him.  He keeps his integrity, but at what price?  I remember wondering, after I had read the story, whether his naiveté was worth the price

he paid, being labeled and treated as a fool for so many years.  But this is an example of the flip side of the deal.  Some people who are seemingly intimidated by others are merely serene souls with a greater sense of morality, who do not want to give in and descend into the pettiness around them.

Then I thought of Peter Finch's character Howard Beale in the movie "Network".  This is

an example of a wimp who snaps and has a profound change in personality; he becomes a dynamic presence in the media with his famous rant, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore."  The network he works for, which was going to fire him, sees his ratings soar, and he becomes a symbol of defiance and outrage.  He is the ultimate mouse turned into a lion, and he pays the ultimate price in the end for his rebellion.  But at his peak, when he persuades his massive audience to open their windows and shout out, "We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it any more," causing city streets to resound with the cry of rebellion, don't we all feel sympathy with him and wish we could scream the same?

Finally, I turn to one of my favorite characters in American film, Lester Burnham in "American Beauty".  Talk about the ultimate, the consummate pathetic milquetoast:  that's Lester.  Despised by his wife, his daughter, his bosses, his colleagues, and his neighbors, he despises himself even more.  He is flabby and sycophantic and utterly without the ability to stand up for himself.  But then, he reaches a crisis point and changes.  Ostensibly the change is brought on by his smoking pot and lusting after a teenage cheerleader, but to suppose these surface manifestations are the primary motivations would be overly

simplistic.  He reached a point where he had had enough.  He didn't want to take it anymore, and he decided not to.  He re-crafted his life to re-create himself as an entirely new person, a phenomenon those around him were not able to accept.  That's the trouble with standing up to intimidation, if you have been yielding to it all your life so far:  people will not accept it.  They will fight back; you have to be prepared for that.  In Lester's case, in the end he was killed – but he died happy, which is better than living the shit-eating life he endured before his metamorphosis.

So, three different examples, three different reactions to intimidation, and I still don't know if I got the point across that I intended.  Gimpel fought intimidation by manifesting moral superiority.  Howard Beale fought it by shouting out to the world.  Lester Burnham fought it by changing.  I can't say which approach is correct – perhaps a combination of all

three.  In my case that's what seems to do the trick.  Some people who know me intimately say that I am too honest, too truthful; I hate to tell even a little white lie:  I feel the impurity will come back to haunt me.  I shout to the world through my books, my stories, my memoirs, my essays, my website.  And I am sculpting myself continually as best I can, trying to change for the better.  And why?  There are many reasons; I would hate to be accused of being overly simplistic.  But one of the reasons is this:

I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore.

All right, let's add a postscript.  If I end this here the ending will be overly simplistic.  And to be honest, as I said, I really am an easy-going person.  Though with open eyes I can see what's happening out there I rarely get angry about it.  I am very slow to anger, if truth be

told.  But I do want to tell the truth.  And stand up to intimidation.  It reminds me of what I once read about yoga:  that there is a reason it is called a practice, and that is because you never get it right – you just keep trying every time to do it better.  What brought all this on was my reading about the great changes happening in publishing nowadays.  I read about the attitudes of publishers and editors and agents and other writers; there is a surfeit of material on this subject.  And it is important for me to keep up with such trends.  But the temptation for such an easygoing one such as myself is to sway with the breeze,

to ebb and flow with the tide, to be overly influenced by the opinions of those around me.  This I must not do.  At this point I must take a stand, and do what is right for my own writing, my own career.  I have chosen to steer a course that includes both traditional publishing and self-publishing; I require independence because I choose to write in so many diverse fields and genres and I do not wish to compromise what I have to say.  Some may applaud and some may criticize, but in the end, all praise or condemnation aside, I must do what I must.

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My Emancipation Proclamation

I ruminate how to start.  I want to say it succinctly but I want to say it all.  The only way is to dive in.

I am a writer.  I have been a writer since I was about seventeen years old.  I realized it during that crazy year at Santa Clara University; it's one of the only positive things, in fact, that I salvaged out of that experience.  Writing is my talent; it defines me as an individual.

It was because of the writing that I took off on the road and traveled around the world and got myself into all sorts of bizarre and dangerous situations:  I realized that I had to live life in order to write about it.  Well, life intervened and for many years I put the writing aside, as we had our first children and they began to grow up – but around fifteen years ago I began to write again.  When I was younger I was beset with doubts that I didn't know what to write about; now I am surfeited with ideas.

But even if I discount those lost years (and I rue that I lost them, that is, that I didn't write my way through them) I have been writing altogether for about twenty-five years now.

When I was twenty I attended the prestigious Clarion West science fiction writing workshop.  Several years ago I joined Science Fiction Writers of America, a professional organization – though I must point out that I don't write only science fiction and

fantasy.  I also write mainstream fiction, essays, and memoirs.  I have had stories published in a number of science fiction, fantasy, and literary magazines and anthologies in several countries, and most of those stories have been very well-reviewed.

About a year ago I started self-publishing some of my material.  I came to this decision after studying blogs and articles about the current state of publishing in the United

States and around the world.  The rise of electronic text and e-readers certainly plays a major role, but so does the state of world finances.  The largest publishers are huge corporations whose concern is not literature but their own bottom line.  Then there are smaller publishers which turn out only a few titles per year.  But large or small, all are struggling to adapt to major changes in the field.  Borders, one of the largest bookstore chains, collapsed into bankruptcy; Barnes and Noble, the largest, is reducing its shelf space for books and stocking other odds and ends which are not books.  In other words, shelf space for physical books is decreasing.  As a result, traditional publishers both large and small are producing less books, and they are more cautious about the books they do produce.  They tend to stick to known writers and the types of books that have sold well in the past, and are less open to newer writers and unique or original or quirky books.  At the same time, though, space for electronic books is unlimited, but traditional publishers, for many reasons, have been slow to catch on to the up-and-coming phenomenon of e-books.  Now these publishers are just starting to awaken to the importance of e-rights and are offering writers horrendous terms in order to secure them.  In addition, other contract terms are getting worse and worse and author's advances are shrinking.

Well, I don't want to bore you with too many details.  Suffice it to say that things are changing in the publishing world, and not changing slowly – it is in the midst of a storm

of change.  And one trend that is becoming more and more popular with new and established writers is self-publishing.  It used to be self-publishing was equated with vanity publishing, because it was so expensive to do it and there were no outlets for the completed books.  No longer.  There are a number of self-publishing venues online, which charge nothing for their services, offer viable sales outlets, and only take a percentage of sales.  Among these are Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing and CreateSpace, and Smashwords, an e-distributer.  At CreateSpace you can upload interior and cover files to publish an actual paper book; the others publish e-books.

I began, as other published writers have, mainly with my backlist, that is, stories that had already been published.  It was an experiment, a test run.  I put together a collection, and also put the stories up individually.  Nowadays many people download individual stories to read on their phones or iPads or whatever.  Some of those early stories have decidedly mediocre covers – as I said, I was just learning.  But more recent ones have improved.  And the paper book covers are brilliant; loved ones who are graphic designers stepped in and helped me with them.  So far I have two physical books available for sale, "The Dragon Ticket and Other Stories" and my memoir "World Without Pain: The Story of a Search".

In addition, in electronic formats there are around twenty or so individual stories and two more books:  "Painsharing and Other Stories" and "Love Children", my first novel.  The

second story collection will be available on paper in about a month.

This is a phenomenon which will not go away.  As traditional publishers give up the ghost,

or constrict and shrink in fear of originality and innovation, artists will step in and make their work available themselves.  We don't need publishers anymore.  They have been a sort of bastion, a citadel guarding the gates of art, but now that production and distribution are no longer solely in their hands they themselves must adjust to the changes

too.  I still, in fact, publish my short stories traditionally sometimes.  Just a few months ago my story "The Customs Shed" appeared in the anthology "Triangulation: Last Contact".  But writers, including myself, now have a choice which we never had before, and I for one am taking advantage of it.  Royalties have begun to trickle in too.  May they become a flood.

It is a great feeling to see the writing on which I labored for so long available to readers.  And it is wonderful too to know that I can follow my muse and write whatever I feel led, without fear that powers-that-be can veto whatever they deem inappropriate.  They deride independent authors, and why?  Because they have set themselves up as watchdogs at the gates of literature, and they have been bypassed and bark in vain.  We are already inside the house, roaming freely wherever we will.

In closing, lest you think independent publishing is too much on the fringes, I will share a list of writers who in the past have self-published at least some of their work.  See if you recognize any of the names: William Blake, Willa Cather, T.S. Eliot, John Grisham, James Joyce, Stephen King, Edgar Allen Poe, Marcel Proust, George Bernard Shaw, Henry David Thoreau, Mark Twain, Walt Whitman.  They are all of them giants of literature; there are Nobel prize winners among them.  This is just a sampling; there are many more – not to mention the many best-selling contemporary authors who are turning to self-publishing.  Among them is J.K. Rowling, who is handling the electronic publishing of the Harry Potter books herself.

So support your local writer.  Buy a book.

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Short Story Author Highlight: Jack London

Jack London was an amazingly prolific writer.  Every day he got up early and before he did anything else he fulfilled his quota of words, which varied between one thousand and one thousand five hundred.  He wrote novels, autobiography, social studies, and much more, but in my opinion his best work shines forth in his short stories, of which he wrote

many.  It's very difficult to choose just five to highlight, as he wrote so many great ones, so consider the stories I describe below as just a sampling, and go on to read more for yourself.  He had his weaknesses to be sure; he was chauvinistic and racist and pugilistic and espoused as a personal philosophy a strange mix of communism and individualism, but in his best work he rises above all that into the realm of art.  In my previous listing of my favorite short stories of all time I included "The Apostate" as his contribution, but I just as easily could have chosen one of the other stories listed below.  So here they are:

1.  The White Silence.  This one I almost put as my favorite of his works rather than "The Apostate".  Three people journey across the Arctic waste on a sled drawn by huskies:

a man, Mason, his pregnant Indian wife, Ruth, and Malemute Kid, a recurrent character in several stories.  London masterfully describes the snow-covered wilderness, the shrouded trees, the pale pitiless sky, but most of all the overwhelming, awe-inspiring silence by which they are surrounded.  At one point they pause for a rest, and a branch breaks off one of the frozen trees and crushes Mason.  This leaves the woman destitute, as she had forsaken her people and cannot return to them.  Mason obtains Malemute Kid's promise to help the woman.  Short of supplies, they wait a day but can find no game for food, and Mason falls into a coma.  In the end Malemute Kid is forced to shoot him and leave him high in a tree beyond the reach of wolves, that he might continue their journey and take Ruth to safety.  It's a tragedy, yes, but a beautiful tragedy.  The prose is stark and poetic and brings tears to the eyes.

2.  The Red One.  Jack London wrote science fiction and fantasy as well as realistic literature; this long novelette, in fact, is a blend of realism and science fiction, and is one of my favorite science fiction stories ever.  He wrote it late in his short life, after his cruise aboard his ship, the Snark, through the Pacific islands, which then were little-visited and in places rife with cannibals and headhunters.  It concerns a man, Bassett, who becomes separated from his comrades and is trapped alone on an island pursued by savages.  He hears a strange thunderous yet sweet sound deep in the interior and becomes fascinated by it.  It turns out to be a huge red object of a metal unknown on Earth; it is some sort of alien artifact and is worshiped by the ignorant natives.  The price of his discovery is his life:  Bassett is captured and sacrificed to the huge sonorous red orb.  But he had been dying anyway, and in the end achieves a measure of peace and contentment and surcease from pain.  Another tragedy, yes.  London specialized in what he himself called death-appeal, struggles against pitiless environments and circumstances.  But there is beauty in such struggles, and in his unparalleled descriptions of such environments.

3.  Love of Life.  Two men, weak and short of supplies and food, hike across the barren tundra.  One of them sprains his ankle and the other leaves him there and walks on.  The story is of the abandon man's fight for survival as he struggles to reach an outpost on the coast.  Day after day he continues, becoming weaker and weaker, searching for any scrap of food he can find.  A pitifully sick wolf begins stalking him, and eventually, after a terrible few days of being hunted, he struggles with the wolf and manages to kill it.  He

finds the body of his former companion on the way and his gold as well, but leaves it all there and crawls onward.  Unlike many London stories, however, this one has a happy ending.  He makes it to the sea and boards a ship which takes him back to civilization.

4.  In a Far Country.  Two men have joined many others in the rush to the far north to find gold.  In the company of more experienced travelers they journey through a primeval landscape as winter approaches.  Though all are exhausted, most of the party decide to trudge onward to reach a better place to winter.  The two novices, however, refuse to go further and determine to remain at a small cabin together to wait out the cold.  As winter sets in and their supplies begin to dwindle, they regard each other with suspicion and then

animosity.  Then follows a descent into madness, as the indifferent elements, loneliness, paranoia, and selfishness eat away at and consume them.  An awesome tale that builds up to a shattering climax.

5.  A Piece of Steak.  Jack London was very interested in prize fighting, and wrote several short stories and a short novel about it.  This is his best.  It concerns an aging Australian boxer with a wife and small children.  There is no money and little food left in the house, and he must win his next fight against a much younger opponent if his family is to eat.  He consumes the last bits of bread and flour gravy just before the fight, while his kids go hungry.  The young man with whom he competes is after glory, but he is concerned with survival.  London describes the fight, during which the old boxer ruminates on his

past career, with consummate skill.  For a time it appears as if the older man's experience along with the young man's overconfidence will see him through to victory, but in the end he lacks the strength to strike the knockout blow, and rues the fact that he hadn't had just

a little piece of steak with his meal to give him the extra stamina he needed.  A heartbreaking ending, but inevitable.

As I said, Jack London is a great short story writer, and many others of his stories are well worth reading.  In addition, his novella "The Call of the Wild", though long considered a children's tale, is so much more.  It's truly a masterpiece of adventure writing, and to miss it because it is ostensibly a dog story would be a mistake.  Give it a try, and enjoy.

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