Brian Murphy's Blog, page 6

The Empress of Dreams—an (overdue) appreciation of Tanith Lee

I don’t write fiction, but I’ve read enough of it to make some observations about what makes for good writing. Here’s one: Good writing results from knowing what to emphasize, and what to leave out. 
Poor writing is usually not the result of a bad idea, nor even of clumsy or artless style. Rather it suffers from being bogged down in needless detail, not placing proper emphasis on the right things. Good storytellers know where to aim the lens. When to let it linger, and when to move it along. Then comes inventive plot, believable character, and good word choice and style. In no particular order.
Tanith Lee is such a storyteller. She’s a writer of atmosphere and romance and decadence and depth who accomplishes this with an economy of words that astonishes. She seems to have an unfailing instinct for what is boring (what to leave out), what keeps the story moving (what to emphasize). Lee then harnesses these principles to a wonderful and unique style that makes every word a pleasure, the act of reading immersive. Dense yet somehow elegant, evocative, lush, and dreamlike. A master of the craft.
The result is that a short story collection like The Empress of Dreams moves, and contains multitudes. 
This 2021 collection from DMR Books includes16 stories written over the course of Lee’s career, the earliest from 1976 (“The Demoness,” originally published in The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories 2), and the latest 2013, just two years before her death (“A Tower of Arkrondurl,” originally published in Legends: Stories in Honor of David Gemmell). All can be grouped loosely as sword-and-sorcery. There are some who seem to want beefcake heroes and epic battles and slaughter out of S&S. You don’t get that here. What you do get is dark magic. Atmosphere. The true weird, displacement and strangeness in quasi-medieval settings that derived from Lord Dunsany and Clark Ashton Smith and continued through to Jack Vance and Michael Shea. For modern comparisons, look to the likes of Schuyler Hernstrom or John Fultz.
Some of these stories are S&S through and through. Mercenaries in search of gold, a hot meal, or a new start in life. Warriors encountering strange towers. Everything is small stakes (well, if you count your life as small stakes).  But there’s also deep symbolism, engagement with themes and the human condition. “The Woman in Scarlet” explores the fickleness and disloyalty of women in a frank albeit oblique way—it’s told from the vantagepoint of a female sword--that I think a man would have trouble writing. Fearless, edgy stuff. “Odds Against the Gods” is about a young woman in search of her past, and her identity. Lee writes strong men and women in her stories, lusty and brave and three dimensional. Four pages into this collection a woman is enjoying the pleasures of another woman, and later on the attentions of a man. If this type of thing offends you, sorry? Look elsewhere. 
I haven’t even mentioned her imagination which at times seems unshackled from the earth. In “The Pain of Glass” Lee conjures a story about a goblet spun from a patch of desert on which a dying woman is separated forever from her true love. Part of her ethereal voice and spirit is absorbed into the sand and later heated and molded into a glass that seeks its soulmate, traveling from hand to hand over years. Those who drink from it are changed:

“Is the cup ensorcelled?”
“I cannot definitely tell you,” Jandur answered. It was a fact, he could not.
“It is—what is it?”
“Alas, I cannot say. Mystical and magical certainly.”
“Does it affect all—who—touch it?”
“In various ways, it does. Some weep. Some blush. Some begin to sing.”
“And you,” said Razved, with another warning note suddenly entering his voice; that of jealousy, “what do you feel when you take hold of it?
“Fear,” Jandur replied simply.
“Ah,” said Razved. “It is not meant for you, then.”

But again, what unites all of these disparate stories is terrific writing. Here’s how Lee renders the changing face of an arrogant town guardsman, whose veneer of invulnerability crumbles beneath the insult of an insouciant outsider who refuses to be intimidated:

Razibond’s face was now a marvellous study for any student of the human mood. It has passed through the blank pink of shock to the crimson of wrath, sunk a second in superstitious, uneasy yellow, before escalating into an extraordinary puce—a hue that would have assured any dye-maker a fortune, had he been able to reproduce it. More than this, Rozibund had swollen up like a toad. He cast his wine cup to the ground, where it shattered, being unwisely made of clay, and, disdaining his knife, heaved out a cleaverish blade some four feet long.

Wonderful.
Admission—I had read Lee prior in the likes of Swords Against Darkness, The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories, and Amazons, which I re-read while researching and writing Flame and Crimson. But I’ve never any of her many novels, of which she’s written more than 90(!), nor a collection. This was a mistake. I think she is close to a first rank S&S writer. She’s that good. In fact she might now rank as my favorite female S&S writer. I feel that strongly after reading this collection. C.L. Moore’s best short stories (Black God’s Kiss, Shambleau, Hellsgarde) and Leigh Brackett’s The Sword of Rhiannon are as good or arguably better as anything in here but The Empress of Dreams as a whole is in incredibly diverse and strong all the way through, hit after hit or at least strength to strength.
Lee’s literary debt to Vance is evident and admittedly her greatest influence, and so it is appropriate that the collection ends with “Evillo the Uncunning,” which originally appeared in Songs of The Dying Earth: Stories in Honor of Jack Vance (2009). This story ends with Lee’s short appreciation of Vance, in which she writes, “I don’t quite believe Jack Vance invented the Dying Earth. Part of me knows he’s been there. Often.” 
Lee seems to be having a bit of a resurgence these days due to the Neil Gaiman controversy, which has brought to light Gaiman’s liberal borrowing from Lee’s flat earth stories. No one would have a problem with this had Gaiman admitted as much; Lee certainly admits to her own great indebtedness to Vance, for example. The fact he has seemingly never admitted to Lee’s influence does him no honor. See more here. 
What criticisms do I have of this collection, if any? Lee loves open-ended endings perhaps a little too much. Not all her stories do this, but enough fall into the category of leave it up to the reader to figure out the meaning. I’m of a mixed mind of these types of stories; it can rob them of impact, leaving you with the feeling you’ve read something unfinished, scratching your head. But these are also the sort of stories that stay with you; you are made to put the pieces together and assemble the meaning, and when you do, you participate in the story. And it lingers. As this collection does.

We're living in an outrage machine

Tanith Lee = anti-outrage.Ronnie James Dio once sang that you’re living in a time machine. Today we’re all living in an outrage machine. I don’t like it … yet here I am, in the machine, expressing my outrage. 
Outrage sells, and consumes.
I am old enough to have worked in a pre-internet era. As a newspaper reporter I conducted interviews with a hand-held notebook. Typed the stories into a computer disconnected from the internet. Formatted the stories into columns, printed them out. Then with Xacto knife and wax created pages that were shot with a camera and eventually printed.
And there was your newspaper. I even delivered them for extra cash. 
Yes I’m a dinosaur.
As quickly and efficiently as we worked this process took time. A breaking story would need at least 12 hours to make it into the next edition. Newspapers and nighttime television were our primary mechanism for consuming the news. There was a sane rhythm to it, a chance to consume and discuss. Or ignore it altogether.
Then, like today, stories provoked outrage. But the way to express it was to vent to your significant other, or your friends over a beer at the bar. Then you went back to the real world.
That model is long dead. Newsprint and ink were replaced by cable news, which in turn has been replaced by ubiquitous, permanently connected devices, fueled by algorithms which serve up outrage 24-7.
We read outrageous things, post angry comments, people shout back and attempt to “own” each other.
Balanced reporting that took some modicum of measured thought has been replaced by polarized information.
There are advantages to screens and 24-7 news cycles and social media. Speed of reporting and dissemination. More perspectives. But it comes with a cost. 
Algorithms manipulate our emotions by showing us viral posts of outrage and angry comments. These clicks drive ad revenue. And so we’re being fed a lot of outrage. Overfed.
There’s too much of everything. Endless scrolling is not only possible, it’s incredibly easy to fill hours. 
Yes, there are corners of sanity online, good people doing good work. But the algorithm doesn’t prioritize these. It takes work to find them.
Somehow we need to break the cycle and take back our attention. Focus on the things that matter. And stop walking around staring at our machines, distracted. And outraged.
Do you feel this? I do. And yet I find myself doom scrolling, time and again. Beat myself up over it and promise to do better next time.
One way to break the cycle is through sustained, offline reading. I’m currently reading Tanith Lee’s The Empress of Dreams and it’s conjured a wonderful spell in my mind of somewhere else. A place of danger and dark fable and the weird and unexpected, happily somewhere else than online hell.
Your thoughts (and outrage) are welcome as always.

Sign of the Southern Cross, Black Sabbath

Don't live for pleasureMake life your treasureFade away

Martin Eden (1909), Jack London

A great voyage of the soul...Jack London is a great writer, full stop. Upon reading Martin Eden (1909) I declare he now resides firmly in my top 10 favorite authors. A list still in progress and subject to change but probably looks something like this (not in any order):

1. JRR Tolkien

2. Robert E. Howard

3. Jack London

4. TH White

5. Stephen King

6. Ray Bradbury

7. Bernard Cornwell

8. Poul Anderson

9. Karl Edward Wagner

10. HP Lovecraft

Reading London is akin to receiving an electric shock. The intensity with which he writes is almost unrivaled. In fact, there’s really only one author I’ve encountered who writes with the same poetic, romantic verve, great splashes of color and blood and rage and wild passion: Robert E. Howard.

I didn’t necessarily think Martin Eden would deliver the same visceral experiences as The Call of the Wild, The Sea Wolf, or The Star Rover, but as it turns out, it did. These are mostly contained in the heart and mind of the titular protagonist Martin Eden, though there are some all-time great fistfights. But even with no swordplay or sorcery, I literally aloud mouthed, “god damn” after reading various lines and passages. Probably at least a dozen times.

Why read Martin Eden if you a sword-and-sorcery fan, or a fan of REH? 

Howard was directly influenced by London, in all ways. 

If you want to know how Robert E. Howard felt, read Martin Eden.

If you want to know how Howard wrote, read Martin Eden.

How Howard struggled with life, with relationships, with his disappointment for the world--it’s all here, in this book. Martin Eden is almost as vital to understanding Howard as his personal correspondence, or One Who Walked Alone. IMO.

How can I make such a wild declaration? Martin Eden was the chief influence on Howard’s own autobiographical novel, Post Oaks and Sand Roughs. It likely influenced Howard’s life choices and how he viewed himself, too. REH scholar Will Oliver does a nice job tracing these influences in his essay “Robert E. Howard and Jack London’s Martin Eden: Analyzing the influence of Martin Eden on Howard and his Semi-Autobiography” (The Dark Man: Journal of Robert E. Howard and Pulp Studies, Vol. 11, Issue 1, June 2020). Which I sought out and read after finishing the book.

Martin Eden is a writer, a frustrated romantic, a boxer. He worked long hours in soulless jobs while wanting to do something else. The book is a story of romance colliding with commerce. Just as Howard was foiled by the whims of magazine publishers and the late payments of Weird Tales, so too is Martin Eden consumed with these struggles, living on the edge of poverty and needing to work back-breaking jobs that left him too tired to write. Yet he pressed on, because he refused to let passion and truth succumb to conformity and mindless work.

But it’s a brutal struggle, and a tragedy, just as Howard’s life was.

Martin Eden is many other things besides. A critique of early 20th capitalism, its long and inhumane working conditions. A critique of class, the cultural elites who look with scorn upon the working-class men and women who actually make the world go round. It’s a critique of the weakness of people, who are fickle and disloyal and petty. 

Eden’s great love, Ruth, abandons him when he needs her most. When he finally meets with success the world comes crawling back but Martin sees through the grift and shallowness. He’s like Conan, a barbarian at odds with corrupt civilization. A rough and uncultured sailor, Eden desperately wants to be civilized, and spends the whole book in this pursuit. He makes, it, but at the expense of his soul. When he finally learns of its cultured ways, “the gilt, the craft, and the lie,” it breaks his heart. 

“I’m no more than a barbarian getting my first impression of civilization,” he observes.

I won’t it spoil any further, just to add if not already apparent: Martin Eden=Recommended.

Rest in peace James Silke

James Silke, best known in S&S circles as the author of the Death Dealer series, recently passed away. He was 93 and lived a full and varied life as a photographer, writer, art director and more.

I'd been slowly working my way through the Death Dealer series and am posting here links to my prior reviews. These unfortunately are not great books, certainly not as good as their fantastic Frank Frazetta cover art ... but they do possess a ridiculous charm of their own, a bit of a "WTF did I just read?" unpredictability that makes them ... notable.

Sword-and-sorcery’s endgame: James Silke’s Prisoner of the Horned Helmet

“This goes to 11:” A Review of Death Dealer Book 2: Lords of Destruction

Death Dealer 3: Semi-enjoyable (?) train-wreck

I'm sure I will get around to book IV.

God speed James Silke!

Some recent acquisitions

Some treasures acquired while out and about or through the post.
The three other images below are postcard ads included w/Lee volume.
About time I picked up Empress of Dreams by Tanith Lee. DMR collected all her tales of S&S in one volume. 

I now have the first six issues of SSOC. I’ve only read the first three of the new run from Titan but plan to read the next three ASAP. Covers are still looking fantastic.

The Trooper is not a great beer, but not bad either. Drinkable, pleasant, reliable British brown ale. And of course it’s all about the can art.
When My Body’s Numb and My Throat is Dry, I grab a Trooper.

Paper books are better than digital: Five reasons why

In many ways life is better today than it ever has been. In other ways, not so much. Parse this statement in whatever way you choose.
One area in which I think we’ve declined is our addiction to devices. We check our phones in Pavlovian, notification driven mindlessness. When we’re not incessantly reaching for our Androids or iphones we’re staring at other screens—televisions, laptops, and digital readers.
This last is arguably the least concerning … until the most recent news. I never switched to the Kindle and today I’m feeling vindicated.
I’m not here to brag, just stating the undisputed fact not all change represents progress. Sometimes we regress and must course correct. Or, we realize that tried and true is so for a reason.
Even without Amazon’s incredibly selfish decision to prohibit downloading books you’ve already bought starting Feb. 26, analog books were already a superior option. 
I get it, Kindle fans. You’ve got bookmarking and search at your disposal. You can “buy” a book and immediately begin reading while I wait for the mail. When you take an extended vacation you’ve only got a single slim device to manage rather than cargo for the overhead bins. 
Good for you. I’m still team paper.
I’m also a digital consumer and user. I’m online, all the time. I have a paid subscription to Spotify. I watch a lot of YouTube content. It’s incredibly convenient to search .PDFs and other e-text for keywords, which I did while writing Flame and Crimson.
But I’m still team paper. Here’s five reasons why:
1. We have enough digital distractions. We don’t need devices to read books when already have a better technology that allows for an undistracted experience. Studies have proven that reading on screens leads to more shallow processing and can hinder reading comprehension. 
2. Digital media enables piracy. Musicians can no longer depend on album sales for revenue. Being a full-time author today is almost impossible unless you happen to be Stephen King. Midlist paperback author careers that were a real thing once have been undone for many reasons, but one is digital piracy.
3. Paper is a more durable medium. It isn’t going anywhere, once purchased no one can take it back. Unlike what we’ve seen this week due to corporate greed, and in other instances with bowdlerization (see point 5). I have a couple books on my shelves more than a hundred years old… your e-reader will be outdated in less than a decade and you’ll forced to upgrade.
4. You don’t actually own anything with digital based subscriptions. I’ve had songs disappear off Spotify. Kindle owners have had titles removed. George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm were taken back by Amazon when a rights issue arose (the irony of these particular titles should not be lost on anyone). I’ve got Orwell, in paper, and there they stay on my shelf. 
5. Censorship and/or lesser forms of content neutering are real. Given our grandstanding need to prove our moral superiority over previous generations by removing “problematic” elements like fictitious evil monsters from D&D I have no faith that a future publisher will not do the same to new editions of my old favorites. Denude them, round off every sharp corner and push them toward some bland middle of sameness, in an attempt to avoid offense. Which is fruitless, given that someone, somewhere is offended all the time. And probably will be offended by this post. Lest you think I’m just picking on the left, take a look at Florida.
In summary I’ll keep my paper books. Unlike digital slop they have edges that can cut.

Ardor on Aros, andrew j. offutt

A cover better than the contents... unfortunately true of many Frazettas.A very brief review of Ardor on Aros, by andrew j. offutt (1973).

(some spoilers follow)

The good

Great cover by Frank Frazetta, though unfortunately has nothing to do with the contents of the book (save perhaps symbolically, and I’m being generous).

It’s an easy, fast-paced read. Which says something for Offutt’s prose, which if not elevated or inspired does the job.

It’s unrepentant pastiche. Unlike some pastiches which dance uncomfortably with their source material, Ardor on Aros leans in all the way. The protagonist, Hank Ardor, is transported to Aros, a planet conjured from the imagination of three separate beings, one of whom is a female author writing a Burroughs pastiche. He arrives nude and is able to take huge leaps due to the thin atmosphere on the planet. We run into “Dejah Thoris” or someone closely approximating her; he names his two alien mounts “ERB” and “Kline”—the latter named after Otis Adelbert Kline, who wrote his own sword-and-planet including The Swordsman of Mars (1933) and The Outlaws of Mars (1933). Still not sure if this might not be better described as parody.

The bad

The pacing is off. It feels rushed, but not in a great barreling and breathless Burroughs manner. Too much emphasis on seemingly inconsequential details and not enough on important events.

Sexual assault and worse that will likely stop many readers dead in their tracks. Part of this is deliberate; the story attempts to tell a more “realistic” version of A Princess of Mars and what would happen were people walking around nude and taken captive by barbaric conquerors. But it’s still tough to digest.

It’s supposed to include the spicy sex ERB avoids but it’s almost as tame. The violence is more graphically described but it lacks ERBs style. In short, it doesn’t deliver what it says on the tin. The back cover trumpets, “what happens to a red-blooded young graduate looking for sex, fame, and answers when he suddenly finds himself naked, frightened, and several light years from earth? A lot.” Except, not really.

Can’t really recommend unless you’re an S&P completist.

Cold Sweat, Thin Lizzy

I love discovering old songs.
Few things are more rewarding than stumbling across or being served up in the algorithm an awesome tune, looking it up, and getting gobsmacked to discover is more than 40 years old.
See "Cold Sweat" by Thin Lizzy (1983). Never heard it until a month or so ago. Am glad I did, even if I'm pissed I wasn't cranking it 30 years ago. I think you'll enjoy it too, on this Metal Friday. 
Chalk this up to Boys Are Back in Town syndrome. It's borderline tragic that Thin Lizzy's entire legacy is wrapped up in that fine but terribly overplayed song. Thin Lizzy is massively underrated and under-appreciated.
RIP guitarist John Sykes, whom we lost back in December. I'm pouring one out on the curb for you, man. You tore this one up.

An interesting personal insight into Moorcock’s inspirations

Was just listening to an interview with Michael Moorcock on the Monsters, Madness and Magic podcast (recommended BTW). Co-host Dave Ritzlin of DMR Books posed an interesting question, which prompted an unexpected response from this grand master of fantasy (lightly edited for clarity):
Ritzlin: “Earlier, we were talking about the tragic aspect of your fiction. I was wondering if there were any tragedies from your personal life, perhaps the death of a loved one or a romantic relationship that inspired some of your writing, and did it like in a therapeutic way.”
Moorcock: “A few years ago, I would have said no. But since then, I’ve been writing the Whispering Swarm series, which is partly autobiography … as a result I’ve been having to look at myself a bit more closely, as it were. And I think probably my father leaving, which I’ve always said was a good thing for me, I mean he was a pretty dull man and it wouldn’t have been much fun, you know, with him being around when I was younger… but I also had a problem pretty much most of my life, which I didn’t really get to the roots of until I was doing this book. And it’s basically just separation anxiety. It’s abandonment issues as it were, which come from my father leaving when I was what, five or six? … I can’t really think of losing anybody, except my father. Effectively, I suppose he died.”
There is a much separation in Moorcock’s works. I haven’t read all of his stuff, but clearly it comprises a large part of the Elric and Corum stories. Lost eyes/hands, lost loves … severed and destroyed families, separation from home and country. Anything any capable writer without a great personal loss can include in his or her stories, but perhaps given additional resonance and authenticity in these stories due to Moorcock’s very personal loss.
Take this with a bit of a grain of salt. Moorcock later admits in the interview he was writing Elric at a young age, when everything seemed a tragedy (including getting dumped by his then girlfriend), and was “maybe” just channeling teenage angst. Which is a common interpretation of this very angsty character … but maybe it was something more.
Regardless this anecdote is an interesting window into Moorcock as a writer, and his influences, which I don’t think any of us writer types can ever fully know.