Edward M. Erdelac's Blog, page 24

The Wood Of Ephraim in Sword And Mythos

My Lovecraftian sword and sorcery story The Wood Of Ephraim appears in Sword And Mythos, a beautiful new book from Innsmouth Free Press featuring stories from the ever lovin’ Willie Miekle, my friend and master of steamfunk/sword and soul,  Balogun Ojedate, Maurice Broaddus, Graham J. Darling, Paul Jessup, Nadia Bulkin, Bogi Takacs, Orrin Grey, Diana L. Paxson, Adrian Chamberlain, Thana Niveau, E. Catherine Tobler, Nellie Geraldine Garcia-Rosas, and Greg Yuen, and featuring essays by G.W. Thomas, Paula Stiles, and Silvia Moreno-Garcia, who is even now bringing you She Walks In Shadows, an all-female author anthology of Lovecraftian fiction.

Set during the reign of King David, The Wood Of Ephraim is a retelling of the Biblical account of the death of David’s rebel son Prince Absalom. While fleeing David’s men, Absalom’s long and lustrous hair was famously caught in the low hanging branches of a tree. He was discovered by David’s high general, Joab, who hated Absalom’s guts over various slights in the past, and promptly slain.

I suppose indirectly this story takes place in the universe of my Merkabah Rider series, which posits the existence of the Outer Gods as being which existed in the chaos prior to the creation of the physical universe, and directly references an idea put forth by one of the characters in MR, that the Old Ones (in particular, Shub Niggurath) were unleashed on the earth in Noah’s time, and once again, unwittingly, by King David himself….

But it’s also a sword swinging adventure/ survival horror story of the type I absolutely loved to read in my teenaged years, as penned by Robert E. Howard, and probably takes a bit of inspiration from a King Conan comic (#15) I read and re-read as a kid (and also, just a little bit, Xenophon’s Anabasis). It features the Gibborim – David’s legendary hand picked band of elite warriors, who were the ancient Hebrew equivalent of the Argonauts and Robin Hood’s Merry Men wrapped into one.

This is a great book with some excellent, diverse stories and settings, ranging from Africa to Albion. I love what I’ve read of it so far.

Here’s an excerpt from my own offering.

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At their approach the aspect of the hanging man grew clear. The ostentatious purple cloak, better suited to the court than the battlefield, the handsome mail, the golden spangles adorning the thin, struggling arms, the rich, jewel studded sandals ten feet off the ground.

Prince Absalom’s grimacing face was partly obscured in the tangle of branches and his own famously long and lustrous hair, which was drawn tightly across his eyes, likely a result of his own efforts to extricate himself.

They came to stand immediately below him in the road. Some of them smiled to see the unfortunate traitor so lucklessly suspended by the chief object of his own vanity.

Joab laughed aloud.

“It seems your pretty locks have caught you up, O prince,” he remarked.

“Shall we pluck this fruit down for you, General?” roared Ira ben Ikkesh.

“Let it ripen!” shouted Hezro.

“Yes,” laughed Gareb, “it’s yet too bitter for the general’s plate!”

“Perhaps we should leave it here to rot,” Elez suggested in all seriousness. “Or divide it amongst us.”

The laughter died down at that. All eyes went to Joab.

Naharai frowned.

“No,” said Joab. “We will cut him down.” He looked back at Zalmon. “The king’s orders are clear.”

“Yes master,” said Zalmon, nodding his approval and glancing at Naharai, who smiled broadly, vindicated.

Joab looked up at the prince, kicking and whimpering in the branches.

“Don’t worry about sparing his lovely hair, men,” said Joab. “He left me once with a bare field because I didn’t come quickly enough when he called. Now we’ll leave him stubble-headed because he didn’t come running when his father bade him.”

Zalmon and two other men moved off the road, intending to scale the tree and hack through bough or hair.

Then Jeribai the charioteer called out from behind.

“Wait!”

The three Gibborim stopped and looked back.

Naharai felt a chill then, as something wet splashed his bare arm. He looked down to see a perfectly round spot of blood, followed quickly by another.

“Look to his face!” Jeribai urged, pointing up at Absalom, his eyes bugging.

The men on the road moved around to Jeribai’s vantage to get a better look. Naharai backed away, smearing the blood down his arm.

They saw that the spindly fingers of the tree branch were hooked into the corners of Absalom’s clenched mouth, which oozed blood.

For a moment Naharai wondered why Absalom suffered the intrusion as a simple movement of his jaw could have easily dislodged the offending branches. But then he saw; they all saw. The tendons in his neck, the muscles in his jaw, were bunched in an effort to keep his teeth shut against the pull of some unknown force. There were ragged cuts in his lips. His breaths came out in terrified white puffs in the cold air. Before their eyes, his jaw wrenched open with a pop and he screamed.

Then with a hiss, something snaked its way rapidly up the branch, faster than any serpent, snapping twigs and shedding a few brown crackling leaves in its haste. White, shiny tubers circled up the base of every branch, converging on Absalom. They flowed down his throat, filling his gaping mouth with thick wood stuff, choking off his screaming.

The whole tree shuddered as if in ecstasy. A wet sucking sound came down to them. The slick tubers in his mouth quivered. The men staggered back at the perverse spectacle of the blindfolded prince dancing jerkily in the tree limbs. Something dark that was not blood filled the tubers spilling from his mouth, which were translucent enough to see the course it took back to the trunk of the great tree.

“Lord!” Naharai exclaimed. “What is it?”

Eliam looked about to answer when Joab commanded;

“Save the prince!”

Zalmon and the two other warriors at the edge of the road drew their swords and axes and hesitated, unsure whether to pursue their earlier course and climb the tree to reach Absalom, or hew it down instead.

“General!”

It was Eliam, now at Joab’s shoulder.

“It’s too late.”

Joab opened his mouth to protest, but then saw the weird wet stalks thrusting themselves further down Absalom’s throat, so far his neck bulged hideously outward beneath his chin.

He flipped the spear in his hand, drawing it back over his shoulder.

“No!” Naharai interrupted, pushing forward and grabbing Joab’s arm. “Remember the king’s edict!”

By now word had reached King David that the battle had ended in victory and that his son had fled. If Absalom were killed, no one would believe Joab had not murdered him.

But the general was a bull, and the strongest of them. With a mere shrug, Naharai clattered to the road.

Joab regained himself and cast the spear. It transfixed Prince Absalom through the chest, a killing blow. Yet still the prince thrashed and fought. His teeth ground loudly against the tubers, finally cracking off in his mouth under the strain.

“Spear!” Joab cried.

Jeribai took hold of one of the general’s spears and tossed it to Joab.

Joab ran Prince Absalom through a second time. The body lurched and sagged in the grip of the tree, blood spurting down the haft.

The flow of stuff from the corpse ceased. There was a sound like a cross between the groan of falling timber and a hysterical chittering.

Then before their eyes, the branches entwined about the dead prince’s head moved.

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Pick up a copy of the book here or on Amazon -

http://www.innsmouthfreepress.com/blog/tb-books/sword-and-mythos/

 

 

 

 

 

Congratulations To Eric J. Guignard On His Stoker Win

Huge congratulations to editor/author Eric J. Guignard on his Bram Stoker Award for Best Anthology for After Death (Dark Moon Books), an anthology speculating about what people experience once the lights go out for good.

You can read about my own contribution, Sea Of Trees, right HERE.

The Day Darth Vader Came To My House

I shared this story once a lonnnng time ago on my old Official Star Wars Blog, but as all that content was given the superlaser treatment ages agone, I figured I’d rewrite it here for May The Fourth, International Star Wars Day.

It was probably my fourth or fifth birthday, as I remember it. My buddy Dave was over for the occasion an we were playing my room, probably either GI Joe or Star Wars figures, when my mom came in and said;

“Hey kiddo. Somebody’s here to see you for your birthday.”

I figured it was some relative or something bearing gifts, but when I idly asked “who?”

She answered, “It’s a surprise.”

So I knew it wasn’t.

That got my disengaged from my toys and present company, and Dave and I skedaddled out into the kitchen to the door that led to the front hallway.

The door opened just as I got there, and I ran smack into the stomach of whoever was coming in.

When I looked up, I think I felt all the blood drain out of my head.

Darth Vader was towering over me.

Now these were the 70′s, the days before widespread costuming and fan culture so far as I know. When a ‘character’ came to your birthday it was probably gonna be a magician or a clown…maybe a guy in a Superman outfit. To have a character from a popular franchise appear in your house was unheard of.

Reality collapsed in that terrible instant. Even then, though I was a pretty imaginative kid, I mostly understood the concrete difference between fact and fiction and watched things with a hopeful disconnect; hopeful for the things in movies and books that were wonderful, and securely disconnected from the things that were dark.

So here I was looking up at Darth Vader, the Dark Lord Of The Sith (according to his byline in my well-worn Star Wars Storybook). The guy who killed Ben Kenobi and Luke’s parents, and could choke you out without even laying a finger on you. I’m pretty sure he was even doing the breathing, possibly with a tape recorder disguised as his life support regulator on his chest. The top of that shining black helmet brushed the top of the door frame so he had to duck to come in, and with those blinking chest lights and that voluminous black cape, it looked like he was stepping right out space itself.

Somewhere 8mm film of this encounter exists, though I don’t even remember my Aunt Barb being there with her camera.

I guess my family thought I’d be thrilled.

If it had been Han Solo, or Luke, or Chewbacca, I probably would have been. Jesus, even Hammerhead (yes yes, Momaw Nadon) would have been a treat.

But Darth Vader, he was evil.

I have never since that day screamed in fear, but I know it’s possible, because that’s what I did. I just lost it, and started shrieking and crying all at once, totally uncontrolled, just heaving, vomiting abject horror. I turned tail and ran out of that kitchen in less than twelve parsecs (yes, I know it’s a unit of measurement), and literally dove like a baseball player sliding into home plate under my bed and I stayed there for the rest of the party.

Nobody could coax me out, not even my grandfather, who once brought me home from the neighbors after I ran into their house and took similar cover in the face of my father’s terrible rage the day he came outside from lunch to find me painting the side of his 1931 Model A stark white with paint from the can that had been left next to the drying garage door.

My buddy Dave was a braver soul than I. He went out there and orbited Vader for a while (they gave him a chair in the living room) grinning sheepishly, till the Dark Lord reached out to him and tried to pick him up. I know this happened because I saw the film later.

He started whimpering in Vader’s grip, and when he was released, he scurried off and joined me under the bed.

I’m not really sure what happened next, but apparently Darth Vader went outside and walked around the block a bit (I guess just taking in the sights). I think he passed by Hegewisch Records, because when I looked out my window, I saw him returning with an army of kids of every age following him. Even teenagers.

After a bit, my mom came into my room and asked Dave and I if I wanted to come out, as Darth Vader had taken off his mask.

NO! I think I shrieked. Of course not! Was she crazy? God only knew what horrors dwelt behind those fathomless black lenses. In my mind, he looked like The Orb from Ghost Rider, that evil motorcyclist who had ditched his bike and went skidding along the pavement on his face and was no horribly disfigured behind his big eyeball helmet (see HERE).

But Dave, again, the braver of our dynamic duo, slipped out and left.

A few minutes later he came back and said;

“It’s OK, Ed. He’s just a regular guy.”

“Really?” I said.

“Yeah. He’s answering questions about Star Wars.”

So I went out there, and found all these kids sitting on the sofa and on the floor and leaning against the wall of our front room (even teenagers!). It looked surreal in there. In my mind’s eye I can see this guy with dark curly hair (my blurry memory has retroactively cast him as Eric Begosian) sitting in a folding chair, totally Darth Vader from the waist down. He was passing his helmet around to the curious kids and talking, like a strange Sermon On The Mount being related to the scruffy, long haired and bell-bottomed cast of The Bad News Bears.

The kids were asking him Star Wars questions, like what was going to happen in the next movie (there’s a next movie? How’d they know that??), what was it like on Chewbacca’s planet (I’m sure he got his answers from the Holiday Special, which I clearly remember watching, even though for years nobody believed me when I swore it existed), etc. My buddy Dave asked him how they made the Millenium Falcon fly.

To us, this guy was the first ambassador of Star Wars. He might’ve been the actor from the movie as far as we knew, and we all treated him like a visiting dignitary. He graciously answered every question, and if we ever stumped the guy, I don’t remember it. He sure sounded to me like he knew what he was talking about.

Later that week, I can remember my mother showing me an article in the local newspaper about the guy who had played Darth Vader at my party, how he went around to other kid’s parties, and movie openings, etc. I wish I still had the clipping, but I’m pretty sure it’s long gone.  I sometimes wonder whatever happened to that worthy fan. He was my earliest encounter with the extended Star Wars community, something my writing has brought me into contact with more in the last few years.

From one guy doing the rounds of kids’ birthdays, Star Wars costuming has branched out immensely, perhaps culminating in the illustrious 501st Legion, an organization which itself has evolved from a simple themed costuming club to a worldwide organization that uses its public appearances, and diverse volunteer and fundraising resources to contribute to a number of worthy charity events (check ‘em out HERE).

I’ve seen them in action around the various Cons and parades. They’re level of quality is unparalleled (and they’re not nearly as terrifying as my first experience).

May The Fourth Be With You

 

—-

A little update. A friend who grew up in the same area as me (Calumet City, Illinois was where my house was) read this post and sent me this …..

Ed, loved your story about Darth coming to your party. I remember wanting Darth Vader to come to my party when I was a kid, but I got the magician instead. Anyway… when I was living in Homewood before I moved to NY, I was at the local target right around Halloween and I was checking out the DVDs. I am a member of the 501st and had a midwest garrison patch with a stormtrooper on it on my jacket. This guy who had to be in his 50s or 60s was checking out the DVDs as well and he kept looking at my patch. Finally, he asked me about it and I told him what the 501st was. He said that he was a huuuuge Star Wars fan and that right after the film came out, he made this pretty close-to screen accurate Darth Vader costume. He said he’d wear it and go to birthday parties and local events. He was a really cool guy and we just stood there talking about Star Wars and Halloween for a good while. Finally we parted ways and left it with a “nice to meet ya. “I’m sure I’ll see ya around.” I wonder if that was the same guy. Hahah! I can’t imagine there were too many guys from the southwest suburbs doing that kind of thing back then. hahah!

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Awesome. Whether it really was the same guy or not, in my mind, that was him.

 

The Buckaroo Bookshop At The Santa Clarita Cowboy Festival

Tomorrow, 4/26, I’ll be appearing at the Buckaroo Bookshop at the Santa Clarita Cowboy Festival at Melody Ranch (where HBO’s Deadwood was filmed among other things), alongside authors Jim Christina and C. Courtney Joyner.

Specifically, I’ll be there selling books from 10AM to 6PM.

From 1:30 till 2pm I’ll be on a panel with Jim and Court moderated by Henry Parke of Henry’s Western Roundup.

Stop by and say howdy. The Cowboy Fest is a great time. Try the peach cobbler.

 

 

DT Moviehouse Review: A Bullet For The General

After a long hiatus, it’s time once more for my blog feature, DT Moviehouse Reviews, in which I make my way alphabetically through my 200+ DVD/Blu-Ray collection (you can see the list right here) and decide if each one was worth the money. Today I review the 1966 Spaghetti/Zapata classic A Bullet For The General.

A Bullet For The General AKA Quien Sabe?/Yo Soy La Revolucion

Screenplay by Salvatore Laurani (story) and Franco Solinas

Directed by Damiano Damiani

Tagline: Like the Bandit…Like the Gringo…A bullet doesn’t care who it kills!

What It’s About:

In Mexico during the Revolution, mercenary bandit Chuncho (the incomparable Gian Maria Volonte) and his gang steal a machinegun from a train and free a stoic young American outlaw, ‘Nino’ (Lou Castel). They set out to sell the machinegun to General Elias (Jaime Hernandez), an acclaimed rebel commander. Unknown to Chuncho, Nino is an assassin hired by the government to kill Elias.

Why I Bought It:

A Bullet For The General doesn’t have the inimitable style of a Leone or Corbucci western, being cast in washed out Spanish hues and dull colors, but its lean, direct story is arresting from the opening scene when Chuncho’s gang ties a federale captain to the tracks to stop a train to its stunning, heartbreaking ending, which is right up there with anything Peckinpah has done.

Like The Wild Bunch or Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid, A Bullet For The General is a contemplation of the camaraderie of violent men and the peculiar honor even the most mercenary and unscrupulous of them hold dear. Like Pike, Chuncho is a slave to his code, which is not evident at first to Nino or to us. Though everybody in Chuncho’s gang seems to distrust Nino at the outset, seeing him for the dangerous adder he is, Chuncho can’t help but like the young self-professed outlaw, sensing a kindred mercenary spirit out for money and unmoved by the high minded platitudes of revolutionaries. He mistakes Nino’s single-minded eagerness to help deliver the stolen weapon for efficient earnestness, and consistently interposes himself between his old gang members, siding with Nino even against his own fiery brother, Santo.

It also shares some thematic similarities with Leone’s own Zapata-western, Duck You Sucker/A Fistful of Dynamite. Both Chuncho and Steiger’s character from that film undergo a similar awakening, although, I think, Chuncho’s is a little less on the nose. Chuncho wants to be a mercenary, but in his heart he loves his country and the poor, and is in fact an idealist.

Volonte, famous for playing villains opposite Eastwood in two of his Leone outings (particularly his awesome turn as the sociopathic Indio in For A Few Dollars More), shows a fantastic range of emotion while never betraying the Tuco-esque simplicity of his character. His tired acceptance of his own rightfully deserved death and bewildered slow-burning realization at the end is unforgettable. His mugging with the peons of San Miguel when he’s training them to shoot, belies his grudging love of the peasantry that was his own nativity.

Lou Castel’s baby-faced Nino is a cold blooded serpent, a calculating psychopath barely tolerant of the simpletons around him, except for Chuncho, who he seems to consider some kind of amusing pet. He’s a monumental, unblinking liar (“Why do you carry a gold bullet in your valise, Nino?” “Brings me luck.”) and a vicious killer, looking a government officer in the eyes as he extends his hand to shake the man’s hand in greeting while plunging his pistol into his belly with the other and firing. His minimal flirtation with Martine Beswick’s Adelita is a matter of course. She’s just another distraction to his mission, yet in the end, he does have some strange personal code, like Chuncho, which motivates him to share his blood money. He’s American colonialism personified, right down to the blazing white three piece suit and brazenly cocked hat he wears at the end.

I have to mention Klaus Kinski as Chuncho’s revolutionary brother Santo. He’s a fascinating character, apparently a priest or ex-priest, still wearing the remnants of his Franciscan robes under his bandolier. He guns down a Jesuit giving last rites to a government man and in one awesome scene, doles out grenades and fire and brimstone curses down on a band of soldiers in the name of the father (BOOM!) and the son (BOOM!) and the Holy Spirit (BOOM!).

Best Dialogue/Line:

Chico: Senor, senor! Are you an American? Do you like Mexico?

Nino (without missing a beat): No. Not very much.

Best Scene:

Without a doubt, the end scene.

Chuncho delivers the machinegun to Elias only to learn that the people of San Miguel he left behind defenseless were all massacred by government troops in his absence. An honorable man in the end, he agrees with Elias that he should be executed for his own selfishness. Santo dutifully steps from the crowd and volunteers to carry out the sentence.

As Santo marches Chuncho off to pick his killing ground, Nino assassinates Elias with his golden bullet and kills Santo with his next shot, saving Chuncho.

Weeks later Chuncho catches up with the immaculately dressed Nino in a hotel, intending to kill him, but Nino gives him half the 100,000 pesos he got for killing Elias, and offers to make a gentleman out of him and take him to America.

After a night of carousing and high living, Chuncho accompanies Nino to the train station in his new suit, and shrugs off the attempts of an earnest peon to shine his shoes.

He watches Nino cut to the front of a line of Mexicans at the ticket counter, and something snaps in him. As he escorts Nino to the train and hears all about how he was never an outlaw, and used the gang to get him near Elias.

Chuncho: “Nino you’re a very intelligent boy and you never make mistakes, eh?”

Nino (smiling): “You can save the compliments. Jump on. Train’s about to leave.”

Chuncho: And you’ve been a great friend to me, haven’t you? Isn’t that true? I like you. It’s a shame I have to kill you.

He flings the valise of money away and draws his gun.

Nino stares at him, genuinely confused, even hurt.

Nino: “But Chuncho that’s nonsense! I’ve made you into a rich man, why do you have to murder me?”

Chuncho: I must, Nino. I must.

Nino: Why should you want to kill me?

Chuncho: “Quien sabe?”

Nino: Tell me why you must do it!

Chuncho shakes his head wonderingly, staring up at Nino, not wanting to do it.

Chuncho: “Quien sabe?”

Nino: “What do you mean Quien sabe? You don’t know the reason? You must know!”

Chuncho: “I don’t know the reason. I only know I must kill you.”

Nino: “Why?!”

He fires three times into Nino’s stomach as the train pulls away, shouting DEATH DEATH DEATH and leaving him hanging in the doorway, dead and staring.

Some men on the platform grab him and he shoves them off.

As he looks, the shoe shiner opens his castoff valise and finds the money within.

Chuncho catches his eye and laughs.

Chuncho: “Don’t buy bread with that money, hombre! Buy dynamite! Dynamite!”

He laughs boisterously, madly, shedding his good suit coat and running off between the trains as a lively Mexican tune erupts.

Next In The Queue: Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid

Black Tallow In The Dark Rites Of Cthulhu

I’m very proud to have my story BLACK TALLOW appearing in the inaugural book from Neil Baker’s April Moon Books, THE DARK RITES OF CTHULHU.

Neil is a fellow Star Wars What’s The Story alumn and Mythos enthusiast, and he’s wrangled some great talent for his house’s first book, including editor/author Brian M. Sammons, Glynn Owen Barrass, John Goodrich, Scott T. Goudsward, T. E. Grau, C.J. Henderson, Tom Lynch, the ever lovin’ William Meikle, Christine Morgan, Robert M. Price, Pete Rawlik, Josh Reynolds, Sam Stone, Jeffrey Thomas and Don Webb.

Lovecraft Ezine just did a midnight chat on the book which you can view here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRjmM...

Unfortunately I had some technical issues and wound up missing it, but here’s what I WOULD have talked about -

Brian pitched Dark Rites to me as a Hammer Studios style take on the ritualistic aspect of the Lovecraftian Mythos, akin to Dennis Wheatley’s fiction (like The Devil Rides Out) and Curse Of The Demon. I latched onto the idea immediately (and had a hand in naming the book).

My story BLACK TALLOW is about a rare book translator and lapsed occultist who is called to the house of an old friend who claims to owe all his substantial worldly success to the pursuit of ritual magic. And yet, the wealthy practitioner is as yet spiritually unfulfilled, until he comes across a rare tome whose ultimate purpose is said to be to grant the occultist the greatest desire of his heart.

The story incorporates The Infernalius, a book which readers of my Merkabah Rider series will recognize.

Perhaps I share my character’s love of physical books, but I have to take a minute and talk about how impressed I am with the look of this anthology. As you can see, Neil distressed the cover image to give the book a very 1960′s paperback feel which I love. He’s also crafted a series of minimalist representational images for each of the stories.

Here’s an excerpt from BLACK TALLOW.

He moved to the book and removed the covering.

I leaned in close.

It was an ugly little thing, less than a hundred pages. It was bound in mottled, flaking, pale leather, and rather inexpertly, I thought. Some of the pages did not quite fit, as if they were mismatched, or taken from disparate sources.  I squinted hard at the cover, which bore no markings. It was old, whatever it was.

“Anthropodermic bibliopegy,” he mumbled, very close to my ear. He was standing near, hovering almost.

“Binding in human skin?” I wrinkled my nose. Claims of book jackets made from human skin usually turned out to be unfounded. Pig skin was often mistaken for human. I had once seen a copy of deSade’s Justine et Juliette with a human nipple on the front board below the title, and another time, Carnegie’s biography of Lincoln bound in a black man’s hide.  “Not very well done, is it?”

“It was stitched together by hand. By the same hand that did the fleshing and tanning.”

“Whose hand is that?” I asked, reaching out to thumb the pages.

“No, don’t open it!” he snapped. Then, more gently, “Let me.”

There was no title, only page after page of densely inscribed text, all in various hands, languages, even hieroglyphs on what looked like brittle papyrus. There were strange diagrams inside. I knew it was some kind of grimoire, but it was impossible for me to guess where it originated from.

“What is this, Paul? Some kind of scrapbook?”

“Sort of. Have you ever heard of the Infernalius?”

“It sounds….familiar.”

“Think back to the books we heard talked about in our college days, Raymond. The books your own grandfather had from his great uncle.”

That was Great Great Uncle Warren, the man family history had always told me I’d inherited my love of languages and old books from. He’d been a Classical Languages professor in Arkham, Massachussetts in the old days, and a chum of the somewhat notorious occult scholar Henry Armitage. Upon Warren’s death in 1931, most of his books and papers had been donated to his university, though a few had been passed on to his brother.

It was the revelation that I was Warren Rice’s great great grand nephew that had started off Paul’s fascination with me in school. He seemed to buy into the old story about how Warren and Armitage had had some strange mystical dealings in Dunwich in 1928 or so.

The books my grandfather had let us peruse in his study one summer that had belonged to Warren were mainly scholarly treatises, such as Copeland’s Zanthu Tablets: A Conjectural Translation, Casterwell’s Kranorian Annals, and von Junzt’s Nameless Cults.

Then I remembered.

“The Book of Books?”

Paul smiled.

“The Book of Books. Not some idle boast, but a literal description. A book hidden among the pages of seven other books.” He held up his hands and ticked them off, finger by finger. “The Book of Eibon, the Book of Karnak, the Testament of Carnamagos, the Ponape Scripture, de Vermiss Mysteriis, and the Scroll of Thoth-Amon. Each one a rare treasure in their own right.”

“Come on, Paul. It’s a fantasy,” I laughed. “The timeline’s all wrong. How could something be hidden in an ancient Egyptian scroll and a book written in 1542?”

“You know of the Akashic Record. The ethereal library of all knowledge written and unwritten which men may tap into. And the history says that The Dark Man entity dictated The Infernalius to the Hyborean wizard Gargalesh Svidren, who dispersed the knowledge through time. Abdul Al-Hazred hid the assembly instructions in the original, unexpurgated Arabic Kitab al-Azif. They’re only visible to those who already know it’s there. A book which rewards the practitioner with ultimate knowledge of the universe.”

“I thought it was supposed to end the world,” I said, pursing my lips. “How much did you get fleeced for buying this, Paul?”

“It’s the genuine article,” said Paul. “Dr. Francis Morgan recovered it from Old Noah Whateley’s personal library in Dunwich after the affair with your uncle and Professor Armitage.  It’s been in a private collection since 1966, along with Whateley’s diary.”

“Noah Whateley kept a diary?” I said, incredulous.

Whateley’s reputation as a sorcerer was renowned, but like my own as a translator, only among certain circles. As students, we’d spent our junior year spring break in Arkham and Dunwich trying to learn all we could about him and run into a wall. I’d chalked it all up to being folklore. Paul had insisted the locals had protected us from the true knowledge.

“He did, and related his assembly of the book in 1882.”

“Finding the right copies of those books, unaltered by translation….it would’ve been impossible for one man,” I said.

“He was hired by a cult, the Order of The Black Dragon. You remember them.”

I nodded. Von Junzt had mentioned them, some sort of apocalyptic cult with origins in ancient Israel and adherents all over the globe.

“Their members gathered the required books and brought them to Whateley. He assembled them, and once the Order had performed the ritual and taken what they wanted from the book, he was sent back to Dunwich with it. Apparently it was their intention to call something forth, something that should have ended the world.”

“Well, so the book’s a fraud,” I said. “Obviously the world didn’t end.”

“The book’s purpose isn’t to end the world, but to grant the ritualist his heart’s desire. The Order wanted the end of the world. The book gave them the means. The book changes to fit the magician’s desire.”

“A book that changes? That’s crazy….”

—–

THE DARK RITES OF CTHULHU is available now in Kindle, and for preorder in paperback. Neil’s made some cool perks for the special edition of the book too, so check them out here.

http://www.aprilmoonbooks.com/#!the-dark-rites-of-cthulhu/c1q0a

 

 

A Haunt Of Jackals In Betrayal On Monster Earth

Last year saw the release of Mechanoid Press’ MONSTER EARTH, a really cool little shared world anthology whose central concept was of a world where giant monsters had taken the place of a global nuclear arsenal. A Kaiju Cold War. I had to be a part of it.

You can read about my own entry, Mighty Nanuq, right HERE.

The folks at Mechanoid Press have just put out the sequel, BETRAYAL ON MONSTER EARTH, which continues the story of MONSTER EARTH, introducing a new, insidious clandestine threat, the Dissemblers.  The book features stories from Nancy Hansen, Jeff McGinnis, Fraser Sherman, I.A. Watson, James Palmer, Jim Beard, and my own contribution, A HAUNT OF JACKALS.

Set against the backdrop of the 1987 Palestinian Infitada, A HAUNT OF JACKALS follows the pursuit of a fugitive Nazi scientist by a top Mossad agent, and ends up in Jerusalem, when a pair of insurgents insinuate themselves into the population after ingesting a suicide serum which transforms them into a pair of colossal, glowing-eyed jackal creatures who proceed to lay waste to the Holy City. Israel responds with its own giant protector, the living statue called The Magen, and a destructive three way monster battle erupts across Jerusalem, culminating in an epic battle on the Temple Mount itself.

Here’s an excerpt….

******

The Palestinian Ploni Almoni had been admitted into the hospital twenty minutes earlier complaining of stomach cramps.

Shimon had gathered the interns around for a simple demonstration in diagnosis when the convulsions started.

Shimon called for the nurses, but the man lashed an arm out wildly with enough force to send two of them crashing back into the interns. He shook and bent and contracted on the bed violently, and began foaming at the mouth, eyes bugging, screaming through his teeth.

Then the hair sprouted. The nose and face became distended. A fin-like sagittal bone crest rose from his scalp and his neck thickened.  Shimon watched fascinated as the heels popped and slid up the backs of his calves, bones grating audibly, feet elongating, ears sweeping back into elfin and then satanic proportions.

At the same time, the body swelled, spine hunching and sloping, bursting the seam of the patient’s hospital gown, displaying a layer of coarse, pale hair so thick it obscured his musculature. Black slashes occurred along his ribs.

American Werewolf In London. It reminded Shimon of the movie, American Werewolf In London.

All his training was fleeing from his mind at the sight of the transformation occurring before him. The man’s eyes grew yellow, and as he gasped in pain, Shimon saw his teeth were elongated, the gums distending before his eyes.

Shimon whimpered.

But something else was happening. The bed groaned and collapsed to the floor. The man was not just transforming, he was rapidly increasing in size and apparently mass.

One of the interns, Meyeroff, stepped forward once more, breaking from the mass of his screaming, cowering colleagues to try and restrain the man, or perhaps offer him some kind of help. Shimon didn’t know.

The floor shifted beneath their feet, and beds, cabinets, IV-stands, all fell over or began to roll toward the thing in the broken bed, as if it was attracting them. But no, it was the floor. God, the floor was collapsing beneath its weight.

And it was huge now! The remnants of the bed couldn’t even be seen beneath it. It’s canine muzzle nearly touched the ceiling. From chest to back, it was as tall as Meyeroff.

The intern yelled for a sedative.

Shimon laughed. What dosage would calm that thing? What would stop whatever it was becoming?

He turned and shoved his way past his students, his run for the exit becoming a climb as the floor of the room suddenly gave way beneath the thing. He heard screams of people falling through the hole with it as he grabbed the doorknob to keep himself from falling with them.

He looked back, and saw the fanged maw of the thing poking through the floor, felt its hot breath. The whole building rumbled and the door, the frame, and the wall into which it was set, buckled and gave. He shrieked as he slid along with tons of debris from the two floors above him into the things ever-expanding mouth…

*****

And I will cut off your carved images and your pillars from among you, and you shall bow down no more to the work of your hands; Micah 5:13

*****

I’m quite proud of this story, and I hope you’ll check it out. E-books are out now, print to follow.

Betrayal on Monster Earth

Kick A Buck: Saving Throw Over At Kickstarter!

There’s less than twenty four hours left on this project over at Kickstarter.

I only just became aware of it, but it sounds like a pretty cool project -a TableTop/Mythbusters style webseries for familiarizing people with tabletop roleplaying games.

I played RPG’s for about five or six years and it gave me a solid foundation in storytelling that I really believe helped me out as a professional writer. Elements from my gaming days have wended their way into my stories and novels. The seeds of a few of the stories in my Merkabah Rider series were planted in a weird western PBEM I ran using the HERO system (in which a friend, now a World Fantasy Award nominated novelist, was a player), and  most recently, a lightsaber gimmick I came up with in a session of West End Games’ Star Wars Roleplaying game when I was about eighteen or nineteen made it into the pages of Star Wars Insider via my story Hammer.  Roleplaying foments creativity.

I hear a lot of my friends talk about how D&D was looked down upon where they came from and so they never experienced it (but they wish they had), and a good many of them say they’re too old to learn it now, or still don’t know where to start.

Additionally, there is something of a leaning in worldwide geekdom toward non or mildly interactive gaming, something I kinda find troubling when it comes to my own children and the children they interact with. I love my Xbox, but the anonymity of online gaming can be isolating and a bit troubling sometimes. I really think that nothing compares to the thrill of face to face RPG’ing. It’s a healthy, fun way to pass the time, and if you’ll pardon while I wax lyrical a bit, I believe it links us directly to the far flung past of our furthest ancestors, who probably crouched around a fire as the light danced on their painted cave walls, and they entertained each other with dynamic, evolutionary make-believe.

So unplug a bit, and help take some of the ‘video’ out of gaming, and kick these guys a buck. They’re already making it happen. Help make it even better.

-Hasta pronto!

Full Battle Rattle: World War Cthulhu At Indiegogo

I’m involved in a new book coming from Dark Regions Press called World War Cthulhu, exploring what happens when the armed forces of various cultures and in different times comes face to face with the cosmic monstrosities of the Lovecraftian Mythos. The book is currently live at Indiegogo looking for funds, and offering some cool perks.

This fantastic promotional art from M. Wayne Miller (who also did the cover to my own Van Helsing in Texas novel Terovolas) should give you a good idea of what the book entails….

The book features stories from John Shirley, T.E. Grau, Stephen Mark Rainey, Willum Hopfrog Pugmire, Robert M. Price, Neil Baker, David Conyers, David Kernot, William Meikle, Christine Morgan, Konstantine Paradias, Cody Goodfellow, C. J. Henderson, Edward Morris, Brian Sammons, Glynn Owen Barrass, Peter Rawlik, Darryl Schweitzer, Tim Curran, and Jeffrey Thomas, with three authors waiting to be unlocked.

At $13,000, ten interior illustrations will be completed for the book by Miller, something I’d really really like to see happen. Take a look at another piece he’s done already….

Pretty cool, right?

My own contribution to the book is a Vietnam-era story, The Boonieman, about a squad of green berets from a remote forward firebase near the Cambodian border in the waning days of the conflict who arrive too late to save a Montagnard village from a battalion of NVA regulars, and instead bear witness to an adopted Tcho Tcho’s terrible vengeance.

I think this story’s probably been brewing in my head since my first look at native Vietnamese guerilla fighters in Kurtz’s temple compound in Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, and was reinforced by brief glimpses of the Montagnards in the TV show Tour of Duty. The grand finale was definitely inspired by the attack on the Marine firebase Khe Sanh, and that nigh apocalyptic battle at the end of Oliver Stone’s Platoon.

Here’s an excerpt….

“Beo!” he called.

The ‘yard paused at the entrance to the village.

Jatczak caught up with him. He took out his .45, chambered a round, and gave it to Beo.

“Easy, dude,” he said.

Easy. What the hell did Beo have to be easy about? It looked like the NVA had marched through with flamethrowers, like the VC had done at Dak Son in ’67. Every hootch was burned.  Black bodies lay contorted everywhere in the dirt, the cooked flesh dripping off their charred bones.  The smell was of barbequed meat. He remembered the first time he’d come to this village. Beo had killed a pig and cooked up some chocon for them.

His belly rumbled.

Christ. He needed a smoke. He reached in his pocket and found the stone Dyer had given him. He ran his thumb over it. There was a design on there, invisible because of the dark color. A circle with a warped star in the center, and an intricate little burning eye or branching column or something in the middle. Weird shit. He put it back in his pocket and got out his Lucky Strikes.

The storehouse was still blazing. It looked like they hadn’t even taken the goddamned rice. Even the yang pri, the sacred stand of five precious sua trees in the center of the village, was burned.

He thought about Dyer’s orders to radio him about the condition of the village ASAP. The ship radio was fucked, but there was an RT secured in the back.

He lit his cigarette.

They trudged through the ruins, kicking up ash. They passed the tombs, the little totem-surrounded huts packed with offerings and the belongings of the deceased. These abodes of the spirits were untouched, and he could imagine the dinks rubbing that stinking tiger balm on the backs of their necks and refusing to desecrate them, while not hesitating to immolate anything with a pulse.  They had burned children alive with no concerns about angering any ghosts or demons.

Report anything out of the ordinary, Dyer had said. Nothing out of the ordinary here, Major. Just the ‘Nam. Bravo Sierra. 

Jatczak followed Beo to the ruins of his hut. The walls and ceiling had fallen in and were nothing more than a heap of firewood now.

“You too late,” came a guttural voice.

Three men stepped out from among the tombs like ashen ghosts. They were ‘yards, and Jatczak knew the one who had spoken, a squat man in a red headwrap and loincloth, with a black VC shirt and a necklace of weird silver spirals. His name was Rin, and he was the village be gio, or sorcerer.  A tough bastard, more than a little dinky dau.  He’d once seen Rin cut a VC’s heart out and slip it still beating into a bag for God only knew what purpose. The Gia Rai grew their hair long, because cutting the hair damaged a man’s soul.  Rin kept his head shaved. Beo had told Jatczak once Rin’s grandmother had been a Tcho Tcho, but he didn’t know what that meant, and Dyer had said only that the Tcho Tchos were Cambodians and ‘bad news.’

The two men on either side, he knew only by their nicknames, Lyle and Tector. They’d once screened the movie The Wild Bunch at the base and these two had eaten it up, hollering and hooting in the back row to beat the band, declaring they wanted to meet their deaths the same way as Warren Oates and Ben Johnson. Lyle smoked a long stemmed pipe, probably packed with koon sa from the skunky smell and the red haze in his eyes. Tector had a spread of suppurating sores creeping up the side of his face, maybe leprosy.  All three were armed. Tector had an AK-47, Lyle a homemade crossbow, and Rin a sharp, curved, Cambodian dha.

Beo sank to his knees and clawed the black dust. He sobbed.

“How’d you escape?” Jatczak asked the others, slinging his rifle.

They came closer.

“They catch me, march me through bush, but I get loose, tre bien,” said Rin. “These two, out fishing when gooks come.”

“We’ve got a chopper,” Jatczak said. “It’s damaged, but maybe we can get you back to William.”

Rin chuckled, showing his black and yellow Indian corn teeth.

“No…we stay, lieutenant.”

Yeah, William was probably the last place anybody would want to be in another half hour.

“What’ll you do?”

“Mut bong pao,” said Rin.

A sacrifice. They’d adopt a water buffalo into the tribe and then kill it. Everybody present would eat some of it. The Gia Rai were big on sacrifice to the caan, the evil spirit of the mountain on which they lived. The caans slept in the rivers and the rocks and had to be appeased regularly, particularly in times of misfortune. Beo had told him once that every family killed its first born child for the caan, to ransom the spirit of the next. He’d taken it as koon sa talk as they’d been sharing a pipe of the local home growin’ at the time.

“I don’t see any animals,” said Jatczak….

*****

The book is, as of this writing, $3600 into the $10,000 goal, with 45 days left. Kick it a buck. It’s a worthy product, and again, I’d really like to see Wayne’s take on some of the stories within.

Here’s the link -

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/world-war-cthulhu-a-collection-of-lovecraftian-war-stories-with-illustrations

Devil’s Cap Brawl Now Appearing In Kaiju Rising

Ragnarok Publications had released the Kindle version of their giant monster themed anthology Kaiju Rising, which features stories from Peter Clines, Larry Correia, James Lovegrove, Gini Koch (as J.C. Koch), James Maxey,

Jonathan Wood, C.L. Werner, Joshua Reynolds, David Annandale, Jaym Gates, Peter Rawlik, Shane Berryhill, Natania Barron, Paul Genesse, Mike MacLean, Timothy W. Long, Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam, Kane Gilmour, Peter Stenson,

Erin Hoffman, Howard Andrew Jones, James Swallow, and yours truly, with killer interior art by Chuck Lukacs and Robert Elrod.

March will see the release of the print edition as well.

My own story, Devil’s Cap Brawl, is set in the High Sierras of the 1860′s, during the Union Pacific Railroad’s race east through the mountains. Chinese and Shoshone laborers are ordered to blast their way through a certain peak called Devil’s Cap, a promontory that houses a menace that has slept for millennium.

Longtime readers will know I have a standing love for the TV series Kung Fu with David Carradine. It’s a mesmerizing piece of television centering on the journey of a Shaolin priest through the American West. I’m also a giant monster fanatic, not just of the classic 50′s B-movies America put out, but also the subsequent kaiju films of Toho and Daiei. I love the weird designs of Japanese monsters like Gigan, Megalon, and Hedorah, and my design of the giant ogre antagonist in this story, Dzoavits (the name taken from an old Native American legend) reflects that. I also have a soft spot for heroes like Ultraman and Spectreman (I missed the Power Rangers – too old) who grow to immense size and duke it out with these big rubbery monstrosities.

Marrying these diverse elements in a story appealed to me, and when I pitched the idea to Tim Marquitz and Joe Martin,they went for it, particularly as they wanted to feature a Chinese martial artist monk in their ongoing weird western series Dead West. So, the unnamed priest in this story may appear again in the future.

Go pick up the book. It’s fantastic.

Here’s an excerpt from my story, Devil’s Cap Brawl -

Dzoavits.

It erupted from the stone, doing to Devil’s Cap in seven seconds what it would have taken another eleven months for them to do with hand drills and blasting powder.

It was immense. At least a hundred and fifty feet tall. Another arm punched through the side of the rock and it extricated itself from the encasing rock like a fat man wriggling out of a barrel. It was moundish, with a huge hairy hump between its muscled shoulders, covered with spiky, quartz-like protuberances of a muddy hue that poked through its dirty grey-black hair. In the center of its chest was a hint of a head, framed by long, scraggly hair. There was an overlarge disapproving mouth that stretched almost from shoulder to shoulder, and was hung with fleshy lips and shot through with a row of yellow, serrated shark teeth. Above that maw, two bulging red eyes glowed. The thing opened its mouth, took its first cold breath of fresh air in God only knew how long, and let out a terrifying, protracted howl that washed over them in a wave that drove them all physically back in horror.

Rocks cascading off its body, it pulled itself free of its prison, revealing a pair of strange, spindly, kangaroo-like legs that ended in long grasping black talons. It seemed to rest on its massive arms, and use them for locomotion, like a great gorilla, or a man with withered legs.

The horrible thing perched atop the ruins of Devil’s Cap and surveyed the countryside, a newly emerged monarch. It sucked the air with its ponderous lungs and regarded the milling men below.

Joe tried to run, and tripped over Chow Lan, who had fallen sprawling in the snow and was groping for his spectacles. The Chinese and Indians were in full route, except for the priest, who knelt beside Tolliver, yelling in Chinese at the men who passed, apparently urging them to take him with.

Joe heard gunshots, and looked over. Several of the Indians and white men in the camp had seen the thing and had emerged from the snow tunnel. They were firing at it with shotguns and muskets. Joe almost laughed as he scrabbled to his feet.

But before he could run, the priest grabbed a hold of his sleeve.

“You must take Boss Tom with you,” said the priest.

“Let go of me, you bloody monkey!” Joe shrieked and swung at him.

It was an old prizefighter’s instinctual blow, the kind that would have knocked an untrained man unconscious had it landed. But the priest did something peculiar with his free hand, and Joe’s punch seemed to slide uselessly down his branded arm. Then the smaller man’s two fingers pinched Joe’s wrist and twisted. The pain was so intense Joe gasped and fell to his knees, all thought of struggle gone.

He found himself face to face with Tolliver, laying nearby. The man was a black and bloody mess. He must have been caught in the explosion Joe had heard earlier, the one that had awakened this thing. He had known Tolliver back when Irish muscle had done the backbreaking work, not Chinese. They had come up together. He felt ashamed at having tried to abandon him.

But they were all dead men anyhow, in the face of this thing from the pit of hell.

“Chow Lan!” the priest yelled. “Help him!”

“Where can we go?” Chow Lan yelled, having fitted his glasses back on his nose. One lens looked like a spiderweb.

The priest looked about for a moment, then pointed to the shallow western tunnel in the base of Devil’s Cap which the terrified coolies had abandoned.

He pointed.

Joe looked up as a massive shadow fell across the entire area. The air grew chill. The sky was dark.

Then were was a tremendous impact that knocked Chow Lan to the ground and sent the snow and the loose stones hovering for a surreal moment before everything crashed back down.

The thing had leapt from the summit and landed behind them.

Joe watched as it scooped up a fistful of the fleeing workmen. He saw dozens of men flailing between its huge ruddy fingers, and heard their screams as it stuffed them hungrily into its mouth.

“Let me go!” Joe yelled.

“You will help Boss Tom?”

Joe nodded, exhaling as the pressure on his wrist disappeared.

“Go then!” the priest ordered, and to Joe’s surprise, he began to strip away his shirt and pants.

“Come on, Chow Lan,” Joe urged, taking Tolliver under the armpits.

“Where he go?” Chow Lan wondered, taking Tolliver’s feet and watching mystified as the priest discarded his pants.

“Never mind him! He’s barmy! Let’s go!”

They bore Tolliver back to the shallow depression and huddled among the rubble and abandoned equipment.

The priest was bare ass naked. He sat down on the spot and closed his eyes. He was muttering something, and his fingers were interlacing in weird passes.

Tolliver groaned.

Joe reached into his coat and pulled out his bottle.

“Here Tom, here now,” he said, pulling out the cork and tipping it to Tolliver’s bruised lips. “Mother Mary’s milk, it is. You drink. I’m sorry, Tom.”

Beside him, Chow Lan gave a cry of surprise and fell to his knees, throwing his forehead to the ground.

Joe looked over and nearly dumped the rest of the firewater up Tolliver’s right nostril.

The priest was getting to his feet.

But he had changed….

Pick up the Kindle edition of Kaiju Rising here,and watch out for the print version next month all over.

Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters