Brian Murphy's Blog, page 7

Knightriders, a review

(Warning: Spoilers)

Utopias cannot survive contact with the world of commerce. It’s a message delivered in brutal fashion in the catastrophic ending of George Romero’s Knightriders (1981). Idealism meets the hurtling steel of a freight truck, alternative counterculture going under the wheels of the unstoppable economic engine of the 1980s.

The outcome is predictable and sad. But the leadup and the message of the film is magic.

Weird and flawed, too on the nose perhaps with heavy-handed messaging, Knightriders nevertheless succeeds. It’s unpredictable, meaningful, wonderfully anti-establishment, and utterly singular.

The film opens with a knight (Ed Harris) waking up in a forest, naked and in the arms of his paramour. He kneels and prays over the hilt of his sword, enters a nearby pool to bathe … and proceeds to beat his back with a branch in what we can only presume to be some sort of purification ritual.

Right then you know you’re in for an offbeat movie. And if you had any doubts Knightriders goes straight off the deep end when instead of a horse Harris climbs on a motorcycle and rides back to “Camelot.” 

Romero apparently got the idea for Knightriders from the violent medieval reenactments hosted by the Society of Creative Anachronism (SCA). He had planned on horses but producer Sam Arkoff told him to put his knights on motorbikes. The rest is history. Despite the obvious anachronisms it makes painstaking efforts toward medieval realism, from the forging of weapons, romance, and chivalric oaths sworn in fealty to a king, who is really only a man (and a flawed one at that) full of grand ideas and a vision of something better.

Knightriders engages with the myth of King Arthur in a very unique way, demonstrating the extreme malleability of the old stories. It skips the “historical” Arthur of the 5th/6th century and the romantic late medieval-ish setting of Excalibur and instead leaps straight into 1980. There are no knights, no nobles, no real king. The story instead follows a troupe of traveling entertainers who put on a combination renaissance fair and tournament, complete with jousting and full-on melee conducted by knights riding motorcycles. At its head is Billy (Harris), a stand-in for Arthur. He is the heart of this comic but earnest ragtag group of misfits.

Instead of Camelot Billy’s “kingdom” is a commune of outsiders, all wanting something different than the 20th century has to offer. It’s got some similarities with the hippie communes of the 60s, perhaps the last gasp on the verge of the decade of excess.

It wasn’t at all what I was expecting. I of course know Romero from Night of the Living Dead and its various sequels, and so I thought I might be getting ultraviolence, apocalypse, bloodshed. Knightriders is none of the above. There’s plenty of action, of course (the stunts are fantastic and I winced at a couple of the crashes--stuntmen hit the ground HARD. These guys were not making an easy paycheck). But its basically a character drama spread across a large troupe of actors. All of Romero’s old cronies are in the film … as I was watching every five minutes I was like, “wait, there’s the guy from Dawn of the Dead, and another guy from Dawn of the Dead. That’s the guy from Day of the Dead! Wait is that a Stephen King cameo?” (answer—yes.) Tom Savini plays a major role, not a villain but a foil to the king, and who knew—Savini can act. It’s got an interesting Merlin too, a dude with some medical training but equal parts witch doctor, harmonica playing savant, and prognosticator.

It’s amazing Knightriders ever got made, and unsurprisingly it was a commercial flop. Harris admits in a relatively recent interview that while he remains a fan he knew it was destined for obscurity. It’s too odd and offbeat, non-genre, and the intended audience is unclear. Truth be told it’s also flawed. Some of the acting is, to be charitable, pedestrian. The dialogue in many places is stilted. It’s at least 30-40 minutes too long and badly in need of an edit. It meanders and threatens to lose the thread of story. 

But I can deal with these imperfections, even its deep and abiding flaws, for what we did get. Imperfection is the way of the world. The courage of knights wavers, their honor and fealty are tested by fortune and fame and lust, and often fail. This film does not fail, and for what it lacks in technical artistry it succeeds through heart. I can think of very few films as earnest and sincere. Romero set out to make a statement about the pressures to sell out vs. staying true to your art, and of the extraordinary difficulties of leading a principled life. Of living a values-led life, to whatever end. 

I felt a deep stir of emotion near the end of the film when Harris/Billy/Arthur sees himself not on a bike, but a horse, galloping off on some quest through green lands in a better place. He passes on his legacy in the form of a sword, handing it to a wide-eyed young fan who wanted only an autograph but got much more.

Even if we cannot ever experience earthly utopia the elusive search continues. As long as nonconformists and artists and the disaffected yearn for something more, Camelot beckons.

Stoner by John Williams, a review

(warning: spoilers… though you can’t really spoil a book like this)
It’s not worth talking about the plot of Stoner (1965, John Williams). But because you need some of this in a review, I’ll do it in one short paragraph: Farmer’s son goes off to school to study agriculture. Falls in love with literature instead, and becomes a college professor. Gets married to a loveless woman, has great affair with a younger graduate student, is stymied in his career by petty men, dies. 
Very banal and recognizably average, especially compared to what I usually write about here. But plot is not why you read a book like Stoner.
This book is not about plot. It’s about revelation of character. It’s about love. It’s about illuminating the past. It’s about life and whether it has any meaning and how we might live it in between, against a tide of pettiness and unfairness.
Many men live lives of quiet desperation. They toil in thankless professions and when they pass the mark they leave on the world is ephemeral. But in between, we find moments of glory. Love, great passions that cannot last, but briefly burn as bright as the sun. 
Stoner finds these, and he needs them, because his home life sucks. His wife Edith is a terribly flawed human being, shallow and petty and devoid of passion save when she’s roused by jealousy. There is a breathtaking scene of vindictive selfishness in this book that is a little piece of Mordor. I wanted to reach through the pages and choke this bitch, which to be honest is an indicator of a remarkable piece of writing. In sparse sentences and mainly through dialogue and action Williams brings characters to life through black letters on a white page. We don’t exactly know why Edith is the way she is, but get glimpses in the way she burns everything related to her father upon his death. There is some quiet tragedy in her past that haunts her forever and prevents her from ever being an accessible, whole person.
Writing is awesome, isn’t it?
Stoner is also a book about love.The unqualified love Stoner feels for his daughter, Grace, and the sad separation that comes inevitably with the passage of time. Grace emulates her dad and for a time is cool water to a man in a parched desert.
It’s about the love we can have for literature, which pours through these pages. Of the joy of teaching, the connections you can forge with other people when your passions for a common subject have been aroused. I was a failed teacher but a romantic student and understand every bit of this. Passions doused by petty politics playing out in the halls of academia, the power struggles of tenured professors that are all but un-fireable but whose lives can be made sufficiently miserable such that they question the whole enterprise.
Stoner is sad and sometimes pathetic but also surprises with quiet acts of unremembered integrity. Refusing to pass an unqualified, fraudulent student, drawing the great ire of the department chair. The subsequent 30 year war of professional coldness waged by Lomax on Stoner is the great battle. Not the Somme or the Pelennor Fields but a great battle nonetheless, with great casualties.
Yeah, I admire this book. Its sad and wonderful and utterly absorbing. Only 278 pages and there are no spare words, nothing wasted. The style is remarkable, a wonderful blend of startling scenes and images mixed with a wonderful interiority to the character of Stoner. Stoner’s great passions are contrasted with the terrible hardness of early 20th century farmlife, the back-breaking effort that is farming by hand with horse drawn plows. I read this and thought, thank god that is not my lot, I can’t imagine living in that hard world. 
Fantasy comes in many forms and it’s all made up anyway, realistic fiction like Stoner is no more real than Robert E. Howard’s Conan, save that both convey pieces of the truth. That part of the past is now inaccessible to us, but can come to life in the pages of a book.
I’m drawn to the past, and not because I think everything was better back then (though some things were, and other things were not, such is the nature of change). I’m drawn to the past because I’m fascinated by time, which used to be vividly now and is now irretrievably gone. I’m drawn to the past because I get weary of the now, the endless cycles of social media and 24-hour news cycle despair and gnashing of teeth. Of course there was great pettiness in people then as now, and Williams shows us this, unflinchingly. Stoner does not offer nostalgia, and I have not mentioned this but brings home the catastrophe of World War I on a campus of young men, and to a lesser extent the second war. The past was hard, but getting immersed in a novel of a distant place breaks the spell of now, so oddly offers some measure of consolation.
Stoner is a different country, but the human emotion in it rendered so well by Williams is familiar and timeless.

Branching out in my reading, and reaching a crossroads

Squint, and it's Conan? I’m a man of multitudes. I read in many genres, including (gasp) beyond the borders of speculative fiction.

I’m not someone who thumbs my nose at literary fiction (though I wish that worked the other way). As an English major I was exposed to wide range of authors, and loved almost everything I read, from Greek tragedies and Homer to Romantic and Victorian poetry to Hemingway and the modernists. I will pick up contemporary literary/realist works if I find the subject matter sufficiently interesting. 

What interests me most is good writing. Genre is not unimportant, but is secondary. A decade or two ago I was reading every S&S title I could get my hands on, but at present moment I’d rather read a well-written novel than mediocre S&S, or yet another generic epic fantasy series.

Tangible example: I’m currently reading and nearly finished with John Williams’ Stoner. I picked this up following a booktube recommendation and frankly I’m blown away by how good it is. It’s a quiet character study, and yet the emotion and intensity—all within the breast of the protagonist—are equal to epic fantasy. Stoner’s created fictional world of college professordom, if not as original as Barsoom, is just as carefully constructed. The (petty) evils of Stoner’s jealous, flawed, and self-centered wife are as wicked and greedy as Sauron. It is full of wonders of a different and more ordinary but no less potent sort.

But my broad reading palette leaves me in a bit of a bind here.

On the one hand, this is my own damn blog, and can write about whatever I want. It’s unmonetized, I have no obligations to fulfill. If you don’t like the subject matter of a given post, it’s easy to skip it. 

On the other hand, visitors and readers have a reasonable expectation of discussion of speculative fiction and other fantastic content (I include heavy metal under this broad tent). If I started for example writing about the NFL here it would get downright weird on a blog named after an HP Lovecraft short story.

Do I review Stoner here? Or John Gardner’s On Moral Fiction? I don’t know. I don’t really want to start a new blog—I don’t have the energy and I suspect it would be infrequently updated. But that might be a better option.

Is this question even worth asking? Eh. Probably not. Nevertheless I welcome your opinions, and beer recommendations. 

Blogging the Silmarillion--all parts linked

I've finished uploading all my prior Blogging the Silmarillion posts. In hindsight I feel like I wrote as many words as The Silmarillion itself. Hopefully not as dry as an ancient Second Age scroll found in the library of Gondor.
Just a final note, I made no attempt to preserve any spoilers. These are reflections on the text as I read along with it. If you do decide to read/re-read The Silmarillion use these to gauge your own interpretation of the text. I welcome any thoughts/comments.
Introduction
Part 1: The Creation of Arda and Myth-Making
Part 2: Of the coming of elves, and several degrees of separation
Part 3: Melkor strikes back, and the pride and exile of Fëanor
Part 4: Of northern-ness, the death of Fëanor and the creep of doom
Part 5: The breaking of the siege of Angband and other (myth) busting
Part 6: Of Túrin Turambar and the sightless dark of Tolkien’s vision
Part 7: Out of ruined lands and cities, a star of hope arises
Part 8: A straight road is bent and Men suffer punishment divine
Part 9: Closing the book on the Third Age
Conclusion

Rest in peace, Howard Andrew Jones

The news is out, and it is terrible though not unexpected. Howard Andrew Jones, author of The Desert of Souls, the Hanuvar chronicles, and former editor of Tales from the Magician’s Skull, passed away yesterday following a short battle with brain cancer.

Make no mistake, this is a first order tragedy. Howard was not old—56 is the middle of a writer’s career, an age where most are still working and at the height of their powers. He was in the midst of a popular series of books published by Baen, the Hanuvar chronicles, one that will probably be remembered as his best work. 

More than his professional life, Howard had a vibrant, loving family around him that are suffering an unimaginable loss. And it’s all over.

Howard’s death is a catastrophe. Depressing, and a grim reminder of our own frailty and mortality.

Sad and terrible. 

Others knew Howard far, far better than I did, and you can find those tributes elsewhere. Joseph Goodman at Goodman Games, a close friend and collaborator on Tales from the Magician’s Skull, wrote a nice piece. I also found a fantastic and moving tribute on Facebook by author Greg Mele.

Read those pieces, they are from people who knew Howard at a personal level I never did.

I enjoyed Howard’s fiction. My favorite was probably The Desert of Souls. But I think one of his greatest accomplishments were his wealth of posts and essays on S&S, Robert E. Howard, and of course, Harold Lamb. I credit Howard fully for introducing me to Lamb. I’ve got a couple of his Bison Books edited volumes on my bookshelves. A great recommendation, thank you Howard.

As noted previously I served on at least one virtual panel with HAJ, and a podcast. We messaged each other publicly on forums and occasionally privately. He had some nice things to say about Flame and Crimson. I can confirm he was a wonderful human being, friendly and encouraging, non-confrontational and supportive, broad-minded and beneficent. Traits which are increasingly rare these days.

I’ll miss him, and the S&S community will miss him. 

I hope one of the enterprising S&S publishers starts an annual award in Howard’s name. Or keeps his wonderful Skull mascot alive, or The Day of Might going, in his honor. 

There was something of Hanuvar in him, and so his spirit will live on, eternally, in his works.

Gone to the Wolves by John Wray, a review

80s metal... take me back.Heavy metal ebbs and flows in my veins—but never leaves. Even as alternative forms of audio entertainment from podcasts to YouTube videos compete for my time, it resurfaces in my workouts, or on long drives where I need to decompress. It is the music I grew up with, it is still the music I listen to most today, and it will remain my favorite genre forever. 

These days metal claims a larger portion of my mind. In part because, as readers of this blog know, I’m writing a memoir about growing up in the context of this unique genre of music. But also because I just finished a wonderful work of fiction on the subject—John Wray’s Gone to the Wolves. 

I’ve read a fair number of works of heavy metal non-fiction, including history (Sound of the Beast, Ian Christe, others) sociological studies (Heavy Metal: The Music And Its Culture, Deena Weinstein), and autobiographies (too many to count). But I can’t say I’ve encountered a work of literary fiction in which heavy metal plays such a starring role.

Gone to the Wolves begins in Florida in the late 80s, a region and a point in time that saw a underground surge of death metal, the emergence bands like Cannibal Corpse and Death. It then shifts the action to the LA Strip and glam/hair metal, before finishing with a third and final act in Norway, home of black metal. We get the time, the culture, and the place of these three culturally and geographically diverse areas, all done well.

And we get the music. There is a lot to like here. Wray is a very good writer, but has a unique talent for capturing sound and the emotion it engenders in its subjects. Reading the book feels like going to a concert, and at times casts a potent spell.

But, more than music Gone to the Wolves is really about the unique friendship shared by its three main characters. The protagonist is Kip, a teen who leaves an out of state broken home to move in with his grandmother in Venice, FL. There he falls in Leslie, a gay, black, nerdy teenager with a big brain for metal. The two later meet Kira, a wild, untamed thrill seeker and Kip’s love interest. The characters don’t speak like any teenagers I know, or knew of; they are too glib, too smart, too informed. But it works in a dramatized novel.

The dynamics are fun, the characters work, and the story pulls you in. The trio fall into the underground of Florida death metal, graduate high school and leave for L.A. and the crazy party scene on the strip. When that begins to spin out of control and Kira loses patience with its falsity, she ultimately ends up in Norway in the early 1990s. Which as anyone who knows heavy metal’s history was home to some crazy shit—church burnings, an attempted overthrow of a Christian nation, and the revival of the pagan gods of the old north.

I love the details and the commentary of the time. A character named Jackie launches into a soliloquy about the division in metal, one side Dionysian ecstasy and the other set the chaos of Set. Chick friendly hair metal vs. the heavy, real shit. It struck me as true. As did the early scenes of hanging out in the middle over nowhere over a fire, drinking and living for today, in the now. I had similar experiences.

I also identified with being an outsider, apart from the conversations about popular music and fashion-seeking, but instead embracing loud and commercially unfriendly bands, adopting their fashion and making it and the metal lifestyle, well everything. 

I recognize these kids.

But I did have some issues with the book, and a look at Goodreads indicates that others had similar.

It feels like too much is crammed into its cover, in particular with its third and final act which morphs into a dark crime thriller. Its tonally different and a bit jarring after the character studies and bildungsroman of parts 1 and 2.

Kira is suffering from deep trauma that is not given adequate treatment, leaving her feeling a bit like an archetype than a believable character. And yet, Kira is possessed of something I recognize—the need for authenticity, to move beyond the falsity that papers over so much life and into the genuine. This was a big part of metal subculture, as sung in explicit fashion by the likes of Manowar, and demonstrated implicitly by the ever heavier, ever darker, strains of metal. Wimps and posers, leave the hall.

Metal bands fall along on a spectrum, from the tongue-in-cheek “evil” antics of Ozzy Osbourne to actual death worshipping bands like Mayhem and Burzum. So if you’re a metal fan you know which direction the book is heading, toward Norway, drawn by Kira’s authenticity seeking. Wray seeks to explore metal’s darkest recesses but it requires a bit of a stretch to get the action there. Overall I enjoyed the first 2/3 of the book a lot more, which felt true, and the latter section something of the false. But I get why Wray went went there.

I’ve got my limits and black metal is a bridge too far; some of it has atmosphere I can appreciate but it’s too one note/wall of sound for me, as well as genuinely disturbing, even enervating. I made it to Slayer and Sepultura and that was far enough. Metal has dark corners I don’t need to explore and the characters in the book come to feel the same: “This isn’t where I thought my love of rock ‘n’ roll was going to take me,” Kip says at one point, as they pursue Kira’s trail into the heart of Norway, toward a possible rendezvous with death.

Metal remains an untapped source of literary expression, and with Gen-X in the ascendancy and the Boomers and the Beatles mercifully in the rear-view mirror it’s time to reflect on what it all meant. Wray’s novel is a welcome addition to the conversation.

Celebrating Rob Zombie, graphic artist, at sixty

Master of many arts, including graphic.Editor's note: We don't get many offers to guest post here on The Silver Key, but here's a rare exception--my old Cimmerian and DMR Books collaborator Deuce Richardson. And he's chosen a subject who hails from a city about a 5 minute drive from my house. Enjoy! And thanks Deuce.
By Deuce Richardson
Rob Zombie turned sixty yesterday. Where have the years gone?
I don't wish to discuss Rob's musical legacy (some excellent stuff, but very uneven), nor his cinematic work (I haven't seen enough to have an opinion). No, I'd like to examine his creative endeavors in the realm of graphic arts. 
Let's start at the start. Robert Bartleh Cummings--the Man Who Would Be Zombie--was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, in the heart of Lovecraft Country, to a couple of carnies. That's correct; his parents worked for a carnival. That ended in 1977 when a violent riot broke out at the carnival, with Mr. and Mrs. Cummings deciding to find a better line of work and a better environment for their children.
Rob lived most of his childhood and teen years in the 1970s. It was a decade of grooviness, decadence, schlock and pop culture masterpieces. His young brain soaked all of it up like a sponge. Musically, he gravitated to theatrical bands like Alice Cooper and KISS. Cinematically, Italian horror movies and the oeuvre of John Carpenter. 
When it came to the graphic arts, the Seventies were also bursting at the seams with groovy energy. There was Frazetta, of course, but Marvel comics and the horror mags over at Warren as well. In addition there was plenty of gonzo art in ads aimed at kids. I vividly remember seeing such in comics ads from that period. This was the era of Jack Kirby, Big Daddy Roth, Basil Gogos and Jim Phillips. Rob has name-checked all of them as artists he admires. I don't see much of Gogos in his own work, but plenty of the others, plus a little bit of Bernie Wrightson. 
So, there was Robert Cummings growing up in the white trash section of Haverhill--not that far, incidentally, from an even younger Brian Murphy---dreaming lurid Technicolor dreams and working on his art skills. Upon his graduation in 1983, Rob packed up for New York City and enrolled at Parsons School of Design. Almost immediately, he formed White Zombie with Sean Yseult. 
White Zombie released Soul-Crusher in 1987 and Make Them Die Slowly in 1989, along with a couple of EPs. Rob's art was featured on all of those, as well as on playbills and promotional materials. Incidentally, 1989 was when he adopted the "Rob Zombie" moniker.
Below is the original artwork from the 1985 Gods on Voodoo Moon EP, which came out before Soul-Crusher.

Rob seems to have really come into his own, art-wise, in the run-up to the release of 1992's La Sexorcisto. White Zombie fans would see a flood of art from Rob Zombie for the next few years. Below is the inside artwork for La Sexorcisto. 

Rob not only did art for the band. In March of 1993, he was invited onto Headbangers Ball. He proceeded to paint, in real time, various gonzo macabre art on the divider screens of the set. None of it was Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel, but it was certainly cool. A great demonstration of Rob Zombie's raw talent.

Rob Zombie on Headbangers Ball - March 6, 1993
Mike Judge played a big part in breaking White Zombie via Beavis and Butt-Head. He took it one step further, bringing on Rob Zombie to come up with the art for the "Peyote Sequence" in 1996' Beavis and Butt-Head Do America. It was a match made in White Trash Valhalla. As Rob said in an 2018 interview:
“The best time I ever had was, I was driving around Austin with Mike Judge, and he was trying to explain something to me, and he was doing it in [Beavis and Butt-Head’s] voices. He’d do one, then do the other, just back and forth. Really bizarre to watch the two different voices come out of him,” Zombie chuckles. “It’s like Billy Bob Thornton doing the Sling Blade voice. You just can’t believe that’s the same person, that this is happening.”
 “I had the script, and it just said, ‘Beavis hallucinates the greatest music video of all time.’ That was all it said. And then he let me just come up with whatever crazy stuff I came up with. I was on tour, and I was drawing all these designs, and I kept faxing them to Mike Judge at that time. And that was the sequence. … It was just crazy stuff, like monsters playing guitars, TVs morphing into creatures; I don’t know, it was just supposed to be some trippy LSD thing. … Seemed to work out OK!”
It certainly did. I remember sitting in the theater and seeing that sequence and telling my bud, "Rob Zombie did that. I guarantee it!"
Rob Zombie's art output slacked off sharply after that. I have no idea why. It coincided with the break-up of White Zombie. History seems to indicate that we usually get about five to ten years of top-drawer work from most artists. I'm just glad to have been there when Rob was cranking out his cool retro-groovy-shock art.
Below, you can find a gallery of Rob's work.

Blogging the Silmarillion--of faith and resisting despair

I finished re-reading The Silmarillion last night and so will update the remainder of my prior posts on the book.

I don’t have a whole lot else to add, other than if you haven’t yet read The Silmarillion, you ought to make the attempt. In fact, I’ll say you must give it a valiant effort, if you’ve read and enjoyed The Lord of the Rings. It adds a tremendous resonance and depth to the events of that book, and to a lesser degree The Hobbit.

Upon re-reading my old posts I do have one thing to add.

In Blogging the Silmarillion I talked a lot about the problems Tolkien explores within his broader legendarium: Death, and the pursuit of deathlessness. Power, and possessiveness. Loving the works of one’s hands too much. But I wrote comparatively little on the answers offered in The Silmarillion. These include courage and companionship, but above all, faith. That there is, as Sam sees in the star of Eärendil far above the Ephel Dúath, light and high beauty for ever beyond reach of the Shadow.

Even if you’re not of religious faith it’s important to have it in a general sense. Faith in our basic goodness. Faith that life is worth living. And that something greater may always be waiting, even at the brink of disaster, as long as we do not give in to despair.

Eärendil’s perilous voyage to Valinor succeeds because he refuses to succumb to despair. Húrin and Túrin give in to it, and commit the ultimate capitulation of suicide. Despair is a tool of the enemy (think of the Ringwraiths, for whom its their primary weapon) and a deadly foe. But even a bitter defeat can be a step towards ultimate victory. It’s perhaps the greatest lesson The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion have to teach us.

Aragorn is a descendant of the faithful, a group led by Elendil who obeyed the law of the Valar and kept the friendship of Elves. The faithful preserved the seed of Nimloth the Fair, survived the drowning of Numenor and carried the seedling of the white tree to Middle-earth. And ultimately prevailed against the overwhelming might of Sauron.

Today our own fourth age brings with it new burdens and challenges. The struggle continues, possibly toward a long defeat. But as always, new hope arises.

Blogging the Silmarillion part 5: The Breaking of the Siege of Angband and (other) Myth-Busting

Blogging the Silmarillion part 6: Of Túrin Turambar and the sightless dark of Tolkien’s vision

Evil never dies: Parts 3 and 4 of Blogging the Silmarillion updated

There is much goodness in Tolkien. But ample darkness, too.
In The Lord of the Rings, evil is exemplified in Sauron and the orcs and Shelob. But The Silmarillion greatly amplifies it. We get to know Sauron’s master, Melkor/Morgoth, the very embodiment of evil and most powerful of all the Valar. Along with dragons, balrogs, and the lust that invades even the hearts of elves like Eol and his son Maeglin.
But balanced against this Tolkien reminds us what goodness is, again and again. And how it should respond to evil: Hammerstrokes, but with compassion, to paraphrase C.S. Lewis. 
You think we’d know this but we don’t.
Evil is real. It’s not just the stuff of faerie, embodied in the evil monsters and beings of the early Ages of Middle-Earth.
It’s the twisted terrorist running a car through a crowd of partygoers.
It’s in the actions of the ruthless dictator or soulless CEO.
In Tolkien’s Catholic-inspired universe we are fallen creatures, made in the image of an omnipotent creator but imbued with free will—with all the potential for greatness but also horrors that entails.
So it’s important we be continually reminded of the good, and the incredible sacrifices required for the maintenance of peace. And how the good can fail, how good people can succumb to base impulses and commit evil. 
Being good isn’t easy.
We see this great drama played out in The Silmarillion in the chapters I’m working through. Here are the recaps, as I continue to restore my full posts from the Blogging the Silmarillion series.
Part 3: Blogging The Silmarillion: Melkor strikes back, and the pride and exile of Fëanor
Part 4: Blogging The Silmarillion: Of northern-ness, the death of Fëanor and the creep of doom

The Silver Key: 2024 in review

Life is pretty good these days, both personally and creatively. Even though I slowed down a bit on the blog, I’m making an impact.
Life is imperfect and hard and 2024 was no exception. My body continues to age, and hip and knee pain have made a dent in the formerly carefree way I could train with heavy weights. Yet it’s manageable and I keep pushing.
My wife and I are dealing with aging and increasingly infirm parents. My dad is 81, immobile and prone to falls, and I spend a lot of time helping him with day-to-day life. My father-in-law, 85, has early-stage dementia and now requires 24-7 in-home assistance. We’ve got some good external help, but you can imagine what that means for us, and in particular my wife. She spends a lot of time caretaking. We both do. 
But, despite these challenges I can say unequivocally that life is good. 
Why?
We’re grateful to be in a position to take care of our parents when they need us.
I’m blessed beyond measure with two wonderful daughters and a healthy marriage and a good job.
At age 51 I’m at ease with myself at a depth and surety I’ve never previously experienced. I am no longer plagued by unrelenting self-doubt. I know my value, I know where I stand on most issues, and I know what I value. I know enough to say when I don’t know (which is often), and I know when to keep my mouth shut.
This is what true wealth looks like.
My posting here on the blog has declined, but for good reason. My forthcoming heavy metal memoir is taking serious shape, and I know it will see publication this year. Either with some third-party publisher, or more likely self-published. I still sometimes wonder why I’m bothering with a relatively banal story of a no-name heavy metal fan, but I keep pushing, because I believe it’s an important story others might enjoy and learn from. It’s my life, shared in the context of a style of music that has meant so much to me.
But, between writing the memoir, aging parents, work and careers, maintaining friendships on and on, something has to give, and in 2024 it was my posting on The Silver Key. As it publishes this will be my 59th and possibly final post of 2024. 
Last year I had 65 posts, and the year prior 101.And yet somehow my blog traffic has … gone up?
Per Google Analytics, I had 29,352 total post views in 2023, and this year through Dec. 28 I have had 45,230 views. That’s a 54% increase YOY.
How did that occur? I don’t know. Perhaps someone with knowledge of search traffic trends and Google’s air-tight algorithm can offer some insights. I’m at a loss.
It had nothing close to a viral post, but if you look at my top 10 posts by views of 2023, the numbers are significantly higher across the board this year than last. Even though I don’t monetize this blog in any way it’s nice to know people are reading.
On to the show.
Most popular posts of 2024
Normally I do a clean top 10 type post in this spot, but in 2024 I had 17 posts with more than 400 views each. Last year I only had 3 posts exceed the 400 mark. So I’m listing all of these, lowest to highest.
Going Viking at DMR Books, 404 views. A review of the Saga of Swain the Viking, vol. 1.
Of internet induced “Panic Attack” and Judas Priest’s Invincible Shield, 413 views. My review of Judas Priest’s latest, awesome studio effort.
A review of Metallica, August 2nd 2024, Gillette Stadium, 450 views. I knocked out I believe four concert reviews this year, all of which pick up regular seach traffic and occasional traffic from Reddit.
Death Dealer 3: Semi-enjoyable (?) train-wreck, 467 views. So bad its good, I am “enjoying” the Death Dealer series and am reminded I need to review vol. 4.
Ruminations on subversive and restorative impulses, and conservative and liberal modes of fantasy fiction, 482 views. I liked this essay and am glad others did too, which I believe successfully navigated a fraught political line. 
A review of Iron Maiden, Nov. 9 2024, Prudential Center, Newark New Jersey, 483 views. Glad I got see Maiden perform a heavy dose of my favorite Maiden album Somewhere in Time, and one of the final performances of drummer Nicko McBrain.
Prayers for Howard Andrew Jones, ardent sword-and-sorcery champion, 490 views. A terrible tragedy and I continue to wish the best for Howard and his family.
Our modern problems with reading, 499 views. The first of a couple rant-y type posts, people do like these (and I find them easy to write, they come out in a rush) but I’m often left with a feeling of guilt, like I’m adding yet more negativity to an ocean of internet awfulness. But I try to keep rationality at the foundation.
Not all books need be movies, 500 views. See above, I still get irked by everyone wanting a movie made out of every book or literary character. Books can just do some things better.
50 years of Dungeons and Dragons, 559 views. A big round anniversary for a game that’s meant a lot to me.
A review of Judas Priest, April 19 Newark NJ, 586 views. It’s amazing these guys are still doing it.
Some observations while reading Bulfinch’s Mythology, 605 views. Possibly the biggest surprise, a semi-review/scattered observations on an old book of mythology made my top 6 posts of 2024.
The Shadow of Vengeance by Scott Oden, a review, 634 views. A review of a book in the Heroic Signatures line by a writer with an ear for Howard’s prose style.
More (mediocre) content is not better than no content: A rant, 689 views. A true rant, I stand behind my message but need to reiterate I believe everyone should create if the urge arises. I wish I had targeted it more at the major studios and the “franchise-zation” of everything good that ultimately tarnishes art.
And now the top 3:
50 years of Savage Sword of Conan, and beyond, 776 views. SSOC was my gateway to Conan and S&S and I couldn’t let its silver anniversary slip by. One of these days I might get around to completing my collection.
Organizing my bookshelves: How I do it (YMMV—no hate), 878 views. Not sure what happened here—this post was picked up by a blog with bigger traffic and that drove many views, but I think it’s a topic that all of us book collectors can appreciate. 
The Savage Sword of Conan no. 1, Titan Comics: A review, 1388 views. SSOC is an important title, both historically and today, and overall I’m pretty happy with what I’ve seen from Titan. Though as my review points I had some issues with no. 1 (in particular the printing). But this one brought in the most eyeballs of 2024, both out of the gate and continues to do so. I’m reminded I need to pick up issues 5-6.
To sum up: People like shit posting/rants, they like reviews about Conan, they enjoy advice on how to shelve books (?), and they like heavy metal. All these things bring me great joy and I’m glad they seem to bring joy to you, too. I do very much welcome comments on the blog, and thank all my regulars, but the numbers have a power all their own, and demonstrate that which resonates with a broader audience. I’m not a numbers chaser at all and I write what I enjoy, but nevertheless I find the numbers interesting.
As always I welcome comments here about what you like, don’t like, or what you want to see more of in 2025 and beyond.