Brian Murphy's Blog, page 17

Neither Beg Nor Yield, and other S&S developments

Keith Taylor was one of the most talented authors to come out of the “second wave” of sword-and-sorcery in the mid-late 70s. Upon a re-read of his wonderful novel Bard I was inspired to get a hold of Keith for a two-part Q&A for DMR Books.

You can read part one here and part two here, which cover his literary inspirations, early writing career and breaking into Fantastic Stories, then Swords Against Darkness, and eventually landing a book deal at Ace. And much more. 

Keith is not only still writing, but is due to appear in a new anthology I’m excited about—Rogue Blade Entertainment’s Neither Beg Nor Yield.

The past couple months have seen the announcement and/or publication of several new S&S anthologies. I recently purchased DMR Books’ Die by the Sword, which is getting some good press and has made it to the top of my TBR. The dudes over at Rogues in the House published a Book of Blades which I bought and enjoyed, and are planning a Book of Blades vol. 2. And I recently backed Swords in the Shadows, which leans hard into S&S’s horror roots. This last one should be shipping soon.

I’m awash in contemporary S&S but there’s always room for more.

Neither Beg Nor Yield is going all-in on attitude. With Judas Priest’s Hard as Iron on the landing page and the explicit inspiration for the anthology’s title you kind of know what you’re in for. 

Can we pause for a minute and remind ourselves that Conan kicks ass, and that’s why we love him? That he never begs nor asks for quarter, and doesn’t stop until he claims the crown? There is a spirit to (some/most) S&S that speaks to the unconquerable spirit in us.

Editor Jason Waltz is seeking to capture that attitude with his latest and evidently last anthology, his publishing swan song. He previously published the anthologies Return of the Sword (2008), an important early title in the S&S revival, Rage of the Behemoth (2019), and others. Waltz later under the non-profit imprint Rogue Blades Foundation published the likes of REH Changed My Life and most recently Hither Came Conan (in which I have an essay).

That’s a solid 15 year run but it ends with Neither Beg Nor Yield.

Jason tells me that he drew inspiration for the title while writing the foreword to Lyn Perry's recent Swords & Heroes, in which he cuts through all of the various bandying definitions of S&S (including my own) and boils it down to the powerful heroic spirit, the “indomitable will to survive.”

Awesome.

There will be a total of 17 stories in the collection, and possibly an 18th if a stretch goal is reached. We know at least one is from Keith Taylor, we’ll see who else lands a credit.

Sign up here to be notified when the kickstarter launches.

Cormac McCarthy, 1933-2023

I want to be with you.
You cant.
Please.
You cant. You have to carry the fire.
I dont know how to. Yes you do.
Is it real? The fire?
Yes it is.
Where is it? I dont know where it is.
Yes you do. It’s inside you. It was always there.
I can see it.

--Cormac McCarthy, The Road
RIP. He carried the fire.

Blog slowdown/cryptic book announcement/life news

It’s happening again. I’m afraid the blog is going to slow down quite a bit in the coming months. But for good reason.
I’ve not only started but am now confident enough to announce that a new book will be forthcoming. When, I don’t know, but it’s fully outlined and I’m perhaps 25-30% of the way through the first draft.
I hate to disappoint my tens of regular readers, but it has nothing to do with sword-and-sorcery, or literature/literary analysis of any sort. It’s a biographical project, capturing a few formative decades of my life and a piece of popular culture that was and remains very important to me. 
That’s about all I want to say right now.
If I go long stretches without posting you’ll know why. I fully expect this second book to go much quicker than Flame and Crimson, although it has presented a very different set of obstacles, including a test of my memory and my ability to tell a compelling narrative. I hope I am able to write the book that I would want to read. I’m giving it my best. But after some tenuous beginnings it’s beginning to catch fire.
All that said I will continue to post here from time to time as the spirit dictates.
***
In other news my daughter Libby graduated from high school yesterday. That now puts Sue and I in the category of very proud but financially strapped parents thanks to two daughters attending college in the fall. But we got some great news when Libby was awarded the district’s top scholarship. It was announced at the graduation ceremony and was an utter surprise, to quote Tolkien a “sudden joyous turn” that will greatly help us with her tuition and reduce the amount of debt she’ll ultimately graduate with.
***
I also want to talk a bit about my seemingly newfound role as a public speaker. I definitely did not see this coming.
This past week I was asked by Libby’s friend and Pentucket class president to give a speech at the senior banquet, an end of year celebration for graduating seniors and their parents. I was allotted just five minutes (what can be said in five minutes?) and my request was for something meaningful and funny. Somehow I managed to deliver that with a speech about friendships, and how they be cultivated and tended like a garden. It went more like 6-7 minutes and was very well received.
This followed hard on the heels of a 30-minute keynote session I gave in front of a crowd of some 1300-1500 people at a conference in the second week of May. This one I also had no choice but to accept; it was for former longtime colleague who died from breast cancer at age 48. The association (one I used to run) started a new award in her honor, and I worked with her longer and closer than anyone else, so it was my task to sum up her life and impact, as well as expound upon broader lessons in living life with authenticity. Something Melissa did every day that I knew her.
I have to say I don’t much enjoy public speaking and find it very nerve-wracking and fear-inducing. But I also discovered that I seem to have developed (through many exposures and practice) that I’ve developed some faculty for it. After each of these recent speeches I was inundated with dozens of complements, including people who seem to have taken inspiration from my words. I guess I would say, I’m pleased in each instance to have spoken. And I’ve come to realize there is a rare power in the spoken word that writing (my preferred method of communication) can’t quite replicate. If you get the chance, seize it. You can be good if you’re willing to put in the preparation. 

A week of endings

Libby with her coach, Todd Ruland.
This is a week of endings.
My daughter Libby ran her last race yesterday. She finished her high school track career at the Div. 5 state championship at Norwell High, placing 19th in the 2-mile.
It was her best time of the year by seven seconds. But she had to grind to get it.
You won���t see her name in the box score���top eight place at the state and get points���but I���ll take a top 20 finish. Because I know how far she has come to make it to the finish line.
When Libby was younger she was not in terrific athletic shape. She hated running, even though she loved soccer. She���d be the first to admit that. But during the COVID lockdowns something clicked. She was bored and started running on our treadmill in the basement. And transformed herself, and decided to go out for the cross country team.
Wild. This stuff happens with kids sometimes. You can���t predict it.
She became a three-sport captain and earned nine varsity letters, and a Cape Ann League all-star.
She did it with an amazing group of teammates, but she also did it by finding strength within.
Track and in particular long-distance running is a lonely sport.
In softball you cross home plate and your teammates are there to embrace you. Likewise in football when you get the touchdown, others are blocking for you. In track, you���re running alone.
Yesterday only a few of her teammates qualified for the states and there was no one waiting at the end of her last finish line. Except her dad, and her coach. She cried, I hugged her and told her damned proud I was of her.
I know great things will await Libby, because she has a terrific will, an incredible work ethic, and is kind and cares about people. I���ll take those over raw ability any day.
This was a week of endings.
Soon there will be a week of beginnings. She goes off to college in the fall. My wife and I will be empty-nesters, and life will change.
But first there is the high school prom tonight, and senior celebrations. I hope she enjoys every minute of the fun, because she earned it.
Happy graduation kid. Here���s to endings and beginnings.

You Must Change Your Life

Do yourself a favor and listen to this episode of Weird Studies with hosts Phil Ford and J.F. Martel.

I don���t know what it was about precisely, except that it instilled a feeling in me that magic and the weird, and awe, might still exist in the world. If we are patient and quiet and persist long enough.

The episode is ostensibly about a deep reading of poem I had never heard of before, ���Archaic Torso of Apollo��� by Rainer Maria Rilke. But you don���t have to have read it: They do it for you on the episode, and then talk about it. 

The poem is both a convincing case that inanimate art has a spirit of its own, and call to the heroic in all of us, concluding with the line, ���For Here There is No Place That Does Not See You: You Must Change Your Life.��� A command from a stone from antiquity, the muscled torso of Apollo, that arouse you from your torpor. Very sword-and-sorcery you might say. 

There are digressions on barbarism and He-Man and Skeletor, and references to RUSH and D&D. In and amongst philosophy and whether it is possible to derive an ought from an is. 

It touched many chords in me. 

The hosts are well-spoken and erudite but also fun and spontaneous. Just an amazing listen, even if I didn���t grasp everything they said after once through it.

If Heaven is Hell, Tokyo Blade

I was too young to appreciate the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (aka., NWOBHM, love that fucking acronym) back when it washed up on American shores, circa 1975-83 or thereabouts. 

The good part about this unfortunate time mismatch is that now I can explore its various bands. Though most have long since disbanded or faded into obscurity, they are new to me, and therefore as fresh and vital as they may have been whilst playing some dingy U.K. pub circa 1978. And yes I just said "whilst." I'm putting on my English cloak for this one.

The best band to come out of the NWOBHM movement, Iron Maiden, has passed into Godhood, but most of its acts sank into obscurity. This Metal Friday features a good one from one of the semi-lost, Tokyo Blade. Obscure but apparently they had a long career, go figure.

I won't claim "If Heaven is Hell" (1983) is the best song ever, but it's pretty darned good, possessed of that rough, unpolished, energetic, guitar-forward sound that I love from this era and region of the world. The U.K. birthed heavy metal from the foundries of Birmingham and they still do it the best, IMO.

Glen Lord Symposium panel video up on YouTube

As noted in my recent writeup of 2023 Robert E. Howard Days, I was asked to present a paper at the Glen Lord Symposium. This is an academic panel and regular part of the event programming led by Jason Ray Carney, editor of Whetstone and a senior lecturer at Christoper Newport University.
The panel is now available on YouTube. You can view it here. 
The title of my paper is “Far Countries of the Mind: The Frontier Fantasy of Robert E. Howard." I had fun writing it and reading it aloud, if a little intimidating. 
Love Jason's comment that I deserve an honorary PhD in sword-and-sorcery :). I'll take it.
Enjoy!

Edge of Thorns, Savatage

Metal Friday is a day late this week but I'm just getting back from a business trip to Chicago that has me all sorts of out of sorts. 12 straight days of work that is now over.
Admittedly I am not the biggest Savatage fan but "Edge of Thorns" checks every damned box I love about heavy metal. Great vocals. Tough, poetic lyrics. An incredibly powerful build up to a breakdown at 2:55, followed by an absolutely divine guitar solo by the late Criss Oliva.
Odd video, but hey, early 90s and all that.
Balanced your dreams upon the edge of thornsBut I don't think about you anymore

"All truth is relative" is not true

“All truth is relative.”

This comment was posted on a message board I frequent, in a conversation in which I was a part, and the person who wrote it apparently expected it to go unchallenged—as if lobbing a hand grenade into a room might go unchallenged. 

I disagree with this statement and here explain why in detail, which I could not do there.

Truth is relative in many circumstances. Two longtime spouses quarreling over who should clean the garage is a hard situation to untangle, and the question: Who should clean it? very relative. Perhaps the man agreed at one point to handle all outdoor work, the wife indoor, and the garage is some liminal space that could be either. Perhaps the wife is (understandably) angry with the man because she has done all the cleaning and he has not held up his end of the social contract.

The world is full of countless, similar examples where both sides seem right, or at least share a version of the truth that point to a conclusion that all truth is relative. These range from small and domestic to the largest scale, i.e., wars between great powers.

However, there comes a point where truth is no longer relative. And when disagreement on what is true is dangerous, even hideous, and cannot go unchallenged. Particularly when applied to morality, which I believe at certain levels passes into an objective truth. At least, objective enough that we must all embrace it.

For example, take the statement: Dashing an infant’s head against a wall is bad.

Relatively true? Or, permissible, even good, in some circumstances?

Or, It’s acceptable not to rescue a someone drowning in a pool. OK if the suit the would-be rescuer is wearing is of sufficient quality? When you’re perfectly capable, because you don’t want to get your nice clothes wet?

Of course, we can get absurd here on some theoretical, abstract plane that will never occur in real life (“what if you knew the baby would grow up to be Hitler?”) (“what if you thought your suit would weigh you down and you might drown?”) etc.? You might as well just say, “well I think we’re all living in a simulation and so nothing is real, and nothing matters!”

The fact is, we cannot know these things, and everyone with a healthy mind should recoil from these assertions.

On a philosophical level, the statement “truth is relative” is untenable and inherently contradictory, because it would mean truth can never be known—which is a statement of absolute truth. 

But the more important Truth of the matter is, having a coherent and broad set of rules about ethics and social mores that values human life is entirely necessary for a functioning culture. For example, if we can’t say, “hard work and discipline is a virtue,” but equally value sloth, then things will fall apart, very quickly. And life will become a hellscape. And I think even the postmodernists would agree that an ordered life is better than anarchy and apocalyptic disintegration.

“Truth is relative” allows you to absolve yourself of adult responsibilities. It might make you popular at parties of high culture. But it doesn’t do well when it meets reality. 

We need responsible people to avoid the descent into barbarism. Which, despite my love of sword-and-sorcery, is not an outcome I find acceptable.

Objective mortality exists, regardless of culture or upbringing, faith, creed, or race. 

If you lack the capacity to understand this, a few things are at play that are worth looking into. 

You may be mentally deficient, in which case you are worthy of sympathy and social support.You are weary of life and in a bad place, as I have been at points in my life. You have my sympathy; keep fighting and one day you will emerge from this malaise.You might be a postmodernist thinker, and simply enjoy arguing in the abstract. In which case, I will simply disagree and take my ball somewhere else.

However, if you refuse to recognize and differentiate good behavior from bad, and actively seek to tear down the social fabrics that allow us to enjoy some measure of order and security, I’m quite comfortable calling you a psychopath. If you desire to burn down the courts and our system of law and order, please read Grendel and start over at Go. Do not collect $200. You have embraced the Dragon, have arrived at the point where naked Power is the only arbiter of truth, hoarded gold the only value, and revealed yourself as the monster. 

The good news is, there is always a path back to the truth for those willing to seek it. This too, is true.

RIP to Canada's finest singer-songwriter, Gordon Lightfoot

Gordon Lightfoot is probably—nay, definitely—not metal. Not even metal-adjacent. 

Yet he is the subject of this Metal Friday. For obvious reasons.

I mourn the passing of this great man. He had a hell of a career and a hell of a life. 84 years is a pretty good run. 

But it was still tough news to hear that he passed on Monday.

I listen to Gordon Lightfoot on vinyl every summer up our family’s lakehouse. His music takes me straight to our pontoon boat, circling the lake in the early evening with a cocktail. Not quite so hazardous as Lake Superior when the gales of November come early.

Lately I had found myself listening to Gordon more often. Perhaps because I’m getting a little more mellow as I age. Metal is still my go-to but his stuff is timeless, beautiful.

Last year I got to see Gordon with my old man and brother and am so glad I did. Tomorrow isn't guaranteed.

I’m not going to waste any words explaining why Gordon Lightfoot is great, and worth listening to. He’s been extolled by Bob Dylan, Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson, Billy Joel, countless other iconic musicians. He's probably the greatest Canadian musician ever, this coming from a raging RUSH fan. Hell, if Geddy Lee says it, good enough for me.

If you want more of that here’s a tribute from one of my favorite YouTubers, Rick Beato, who gives him a proper sendoff.

I’ll just say: He’s way better than you think. Every song on Gord’s Gold is gold. He has more good songs on one album side than most artists will record in a lifetime.

Instead I’ll just offer a song.

I was thinking of going with “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” or “If You Could Read My Mind” or “Sundown” as evidence (all awesome, and deservedly remembered) but here’s “Early Morning Rain.”