Edward M. Erdelac's Blog, page 30
March 14, 2013
Talkin’ Up Merkabah Rider and Abraham Van Helsing At The Book Cave Podcast
Drop in to Ric Croxton’s Book Cave Podcast and here me talk up Merkabah Rider, Abe Van Helsing, and other diverse subjects. Thanks to Ric and Art for having me.
http://www.firstcomicsnews.com/?p=68268
March 7, 2013
I Got PULPED!
Hey all, listen as Tommy Hancock interviews me about such diverse subjects as Merkabah Rider, Robert E. Howard, religion, Van Helsing, and The Creature From The Black Lagoon over at PULPED!
Excuse the “uhs” and “awesomes.” It’s my first podcast interview.
http://pulped.libsyn.com/pulped-the-official-new-pulp-podcast-ed-erdelac-gets-pulped
March 6, 2013
DT Moviehouse Review: Beneath The Planet Of The Apes
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. Weird….Chuck Heston movies in a row. As I’m going strictly by alphabet, occasionally I find I’ll be reviewing a series out of order. Case in point, today’s entry – Beneath The Planet Of The Apes – the second installment in the classic Planet Of The Apes series.
(1970) Directed by Ted Post
Screenplay by Paul Dehn
Tagline: The bizarre world of “Planet Of The Apes” was only the beginning…WHAT LIES BENEATH MAY BE THE END!
What It’s About:
Immediately following astronaut Taylor (Charlton Heston)’s earth shattering discovery at the end of the original Planet Of The Apes, he and the mute primitive Nova (the gorgeous Linda Harrison) ride deeper into the Forbidden Zone, where Taylor, after being confronted by a variety of illusions, appears to fall through a stone mountainside. Elsewhere, a rescue mission following Taylor’s space trajectory crash lands on the planet, leaving Brent (James Franciscus), the only survivor. Brent runs across Nova (discovering Taylor’s dog tags around her neck), and they are secreted into the Forbidden Zone by Cornelius (David Watson, standing in for Roddy McDowell) and Zira (Kim Hunter) at the same time Dr. Zaius (Maurice Evans) and gorilla general Ursus (James Gregory) lead a military expedition to explore and conquer the area. After fleeing into an underground tunnel, Brent and Nova discover the remains of an irradiated New York City populated by the mutated descendants of the original human population, evolved into powerful psychics but worshipping an atomic doomsday bomb.
Why I Bought It:
Like Back To The Future II, Beneath The Planet Of The Apes is kinda indispensable in terms of following the overall timey wimey storyline of the series. I got it as part of the blu-ray set, but I don’t say this grudgingly (as I would about Battle For The Planet Of The Apes, which IS flat out awful). I do like Beneath The Planet Of The Apes. Before the advent of prevalent home video and my discovery of the other Apes movies, the series was a duology and this was the end.
And what an ending!
BtPotA is that rare movie that actually starts off not so great and gets increasingly better the further along you get. The reason for this is the Brent character, who is basically Taylor v2, and logically (for the character) has to quickly pass through the entire “Oh my God Apes are in charge/Oh my God we’re on Earth!” arc BEFORE he can descend Beneath The Planet Of The Apes. Franciscus even looks basically like Taylor with his blonde beard and loincloth. Couldn’t they have cast an African American or somebody physically more different than Heston?
In this case, that process takes about 42 minutes out of the movie, the entire first half, if not a little more than half.
So for 42 minutes, you get something of a derivative, rushed re-hash of the original movie, punctuated by moments of brilliance from James Gregory as the swaggering, boisterous, “The only good human is a dead human” gorilla general intent on investigating reports of a human settlement in the Forbidden Zone and wiping it out to protect ape crop belts.
It’s not really anybody’s fault other than Charlton Heston’s, who only agreed to do a bookend “cameo” of Taylor and not the full movie. Had the writers only been required to continue Taylor’s story instead of introducing Brent, things would’ve flowed better.
Anyway, 42 or 43 minutes into the movie it really picks up, with Brent encountering the mutants, who declare their peacefulness again and again even as they use their psychic abilities to force Brent to hold Nova’s head underwater and strangle her (why she agrees to even go near Brent after all that, considering her presumed inability to understand the mutants’ power, I don’t know), and compel Taylor (imprisoned by the mutants for his nosiness in the beginning of the film) and Brent to fight to the death.
The Apocalypse Of Zaius
The movie becomes a commentary on religious-inspired fanatical conflict, with Zaius and Ursus championing God and the Lawgiver (sort of a simian Moses) and touting Manifest Destiny, and the mutants professing their worship of “The Almighty Bomb and the fellowship of the holy fallout,” and adopting the mutant version of a Samson Option when the apes inevitably discover them and invade. Is it all a veiled meditation on the insanity of the perennial Israeli-Arab conflict? A look at the theolocratic manipulation and political conniving of the bloody Crusades? It’s probably both, and that’s what keeps it from being an embarrassment to the original (like Battle For…).
There’s also an obvious dig at the ongoing Vietnam War and the homefront anti-war movement when the chimpanzees demonstrate for peace and get their signs trampled by the gorilla army.
Yowza
Caught in the midst of all this are the astronauts and most especially Nova (did I mention how staggeringly beautiful Linda Harrison is?), who basically has no dog in the fight except the unwilling Taylor, and winds up becoming the first named casualty, which in turn inspires the later mortally wounded Taylor to trigger the doomsday bomb as his dying act, consuming mutants, humans, and apes in the ensuing atomic fireball.
As a kid, I loved PotA. I think it was my first introduction to the post apocalyptic genre of sci-fi, and this was the first movie I ever saw where nobody got out alive at the end. I was floored. In its way, the lesser first half actually works for it, lulling the audience into a sense of familiarity (and keeping your attention with the mystery of Taylor’s disappearance) and then pulling the rug out from under you in the end with an ending as shocking if not as monumental as its predecessor.
The design of the mutant underground is effective, sort of a molten subway system with bits of tile and buses emerging from the moon milk. The church is the set piece, with the Alpha and Omega bomb rising like a golden bullet out of the dais – a great setting for the end of the world.
Best Dialogue:
For me, it has to be the inspired perversion of the closing benediction of the Catholic Mass, which as a Catholic, I always found particularly chilling and memorable (I used to quote it to my school friends) and General Ursus’ rousing speech.
“May the Blessings of the Bomb Almighty, and the Fellowship of the Holy Fallout, descend upon us all. This day and forever more.”
Best Scene:
Easily the big reveal of the mutant New Yorkers.
After being interrogated by the mutant leaders, Brent and Nova are compelled to sit it on one of their church services, where it is revealed that they revere an intact nuclear missile with an apparently working launch mechanism the prayer leader uses to cause their golden idol to ascend from the floor.
The communion equivalent comes when the minister intones,
“I reveal my inmost self, unto my God.”
“Unto my God,” the congregation responds.
“UNTO MY GODDDDDDD,” sings the choir, holding the note in angelic precision as they all
reach up and pull their faces (revealed to be latex masks) off, uncovering their radiation scarred, hairless faces, which appear chillingly uniform in their ghastliness.
As a kid, this scene, which I DID NOT see coming (love childhood) caused the pit of my stomach to bottom out.
The musical cue is also very effective, with a strange high pitched whine happening as each mutant face gets a close up, ending with Natalie Trundy (who later plays the one of the veterinarians in Escape From The Planet Of The Apes – is this her descendant? And Liza, Caesar’s love interest in Conquest)’s horrible, incongruous face.
Would I Buy It Again?
It’s not the best of the series, but it’s very far from the worst, and it’s a better movie than Back To The Future II. Had I been buying the series installments separately, it might’ve been the last one I purchased, but it’s pretty good. I WOULD buy it. Yes.
Next In The Queue: Better Off Dead
February 28, 2013
Mistress Of The Macabre From Dark Moon Books
Out now and featuring MOTHS, a story from my eight year old daughter, Magnolia, is MISTRESSES OF THE MACABRE, a new all-female horror anthology from Dark Moon Books.
You can also check out an interview editor Lori Michelle conducted with my daughter here -
http://www.lastwritesdmd.com/mischievous-magnolia-erdelac/
Very proud of her.
February 19, 2013
DT Moviehouse Review: Ben-Hur
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. This go round, I took another look at William Wyler’s epic 1959 remake of Lew Wallace’s Ben Hur.
(1959) Directed by William Wyler
Screenplay by Karl Tunberg
Tagline: A Tale Of The Christ/The Enterainment Experience Of A Lifetime
What It’s About:
During the reign of Emperor Tiberius, Jewish nobleman Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston) reunites with his childhood friend, Roman Tribune Messala (Stephen Boyd) and clash over differing ideologies. When Messala, seeking to weed out Jewish dissidents in the Judean province, demands that Judah inform him of the identity of Judean rebels, Judah refuses. After a loose roof tile slips from the roof of his house and strikes the passing governor in the street, Messala uses the incident as an excuse to make an example of his old friend, imprisons his wife and sister, and condemns him to enslavement and certain death in the belly of a war galley. Judah vows revenge, and begins an epic odyssey that will take him from slave to Roman noble, to champion of the Circus Maximus, and bring him face to face on several momentous points in both their lives, with Jesus Christ.
Why I Bought It:
A perennial Easter season movie on TV when I was a kid, I was already a fan of Charlton Heston from his outings in The Ten Commandments and Planet Of The Apes when I finally sat down to watch Ben-Hur around the age of ten or eleven. That a movie this big (plus three hours running time and using every glorious inch of its 16×9 CinemaScope ratio) crammed into a 4×3 TV and generously padded with numerous Snuggle, Dr. Pepper, and 501 Blues ads still held the attention of a pre-teen kid ought to be a testament to its riveting story. I’m hard pressed to think of any more compelling revenge story in the history of Hollywood movies, moreso because even after Judah attains his vegeance, there’s still nearly an hour of running time to go, and seeing him come to terms with the hollowness of his purpose and seek and find (in what is the most literal example of Deus ex machina in cinema) redemption is just as emotionally satisfying as seeing the fascist Boyd get trampled by horses.
It was the story that grabbed me that first go-round, but every time I watch Ben-Hur I come away with something more. I never really understood the grandeur of it as an experience until I had the opportunity to see it screened in Chicago. The presenter memorably reiterated the movie’s spectacle, running off an amusing grocery list of its various aspects including “Roman soldiers, a chariot race, a screenplay by Gore Vidal (uncredited), the three Magi, Charlton Heston in a loincloth, Pontius Pilate, and Jesus Christ.”
Up to that point I don’t think I’d ever seen Ben-Hur in its intended format, and I was blown away by the color, details, but most especially by the sound. In a theater, the trumpet blasts of Miklos Roza’s deservedly Academy Award winning score are akin to being in the audience during a real Roman triumphal parade, and most memorably for me, the scene in which the blood of Christ heals Miriam (the wonderfully empathetic Martha Scott) and Tirza (the lovely Cathy O’Donnel), with its accompanying crashes of lightning and rolling thunder are an incredible achievement in sound design. Each peal actually resonates in the breast, each crack of lightning illuminates the entire darkened theater, forcing you to squint. It’s like having God Himself coughing in the seat in front of you.
Wyler populates the screens with dramatic, larger than life compositions that call to mind the masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance, and probably inform the heroic works of later masters like Frazetta, Jeffrey Jones, and Vallejo. For a movie often called A Tale Of The Christ, it’s an interesting and effective stylistic choice to never show Jesus’ face. Definitely adds to the mystique and makes the miraculous nature of the ending more believable.
Heston is fabulous as the driven Judah, going from quiet dignity to obsessive, righteous wrath, and finally spiritual awareness admirably, but his foil, Stephen Boyd as Messala is a standout for me, one of the greatest villains in any movie. He’s attractive and arrogant, refined and harbors a barely contained sadism that comes to the forefront whenever he loses his temper, and nowhere moreso than in the chariot race, when he employs a ‘Greek chariot’ with spiked wheel hubs (yeah like in Grease) and actually turns his whip on Judah as they race neck and neck.
His rabid admiration for Rome and all her policies is apparent at almost every turn. When Judah jokes about the local inferior wine being especially brewed for the Roman garrison, Messala slips in “You’re very cruel to your CONQUERERS” and looks Judah straight in the eye, daring him to say anything. His very intonation of the word Roman is robust and loving. He takes pleasure in its sound. When Judah calls his quarters grim, he says, “Not grim. Austere. Virtuous. Roman.” When Messala speaks of his military campagins to Tirza, he boats, “Other countries have armies. Fine armies. I know. I fought them.” And beat them, you can hear in his voice.
For all intents and purposes, Messala IS Rome, in its worst sense. He IS tyranny. He IS power. He glories in his authority and cruelty. At the same time, he is baffled by opposition to Rome. When Judah, aghast that Messala intends to prosecute him for attacking the governor when he knows he is innocent, exclaims “You know? You are evil!” Boyd’s tone is one of hurt. “No Judah I am not evil. I wanted your help. Now you’ve given it to me.”
Then again…maybe Chuck WAS aware of the subtext.
Much has been made of the gay subtext in the relationship between Judah and Messala. Heston claimed there was none that he was aware of, but supposedly Boyd said he played it with that awareness, and Vidal swears it was in there. It’s interesting to watch their reunion scene with that in mind, where they embrace (Boyd perhaps a little more intensely, a little more lingeringly), cast spears together (“Down Eros! Up Mars!” or “manly warfare is worth more than feminine love!” it could be interpreted), etc. I suspect all parties involved were telling the truth. Heston probably wasn’t informed of the subtext because he wouldn’t have gone along with it. It still plays out great.
There are a number of supporting performances that add to the greater whole. Frank Thring as Pontias Pilate is pretty good – yes, Frank Thring who played The Collecter in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Sam “Gunga Din” Jaffe as the blinded Simonides, Finlay Currie as the humanistic third wise man Balthazar, the great Jack Hawkins as Quintus Arrias, and Hugh Griffith as the horse loving Sheik, Haya Harareet as the gentle Esther – no flat notes in any of the performances.
Ben-Hur is one of those rare instance of a movie totally transcending its source material. Of course the source material dated back to 1880, so the prose is a bit lofty and flowery, definitely in the Deerslayer style, with lots of people telling you exactly what they’re feeling and why for a couple pages at a time. It was written by General Lew Wallace. At the time, he was governor of New Mexico, and his drafting of the classic novel may have been part of the reason Billy The Kid’s deal with the Guv fell through or went unfulfilled/unanswered anyway.
And the sets! The sets are gorgeously designed, from the deck of the Roman galley to the incredible achievement of the Circus Maximus.
Best Bit Of Dialogue:
When Messala condemns Judah to enslavement, Judah lunges across the desk at him, restrained by the centurions.
Judah: May God grant me vengeance. I pray that you live until I return!
Messala: Return?
Best Scene:
I would be remiss to not name the incredible chariot race as the best part of Ben-Hur. It really is that great. One of the best action sequences in all of cinema – no exaggeration. The stunts are amazing, the pacing and editing superb. Lucas based the Pod Race sequence in Star Wars Episode I The Phantom Menace on this sequence.
HOWEVER.
My personal favorite non-action scene is in the aftermath immediately following the race.
To set the scene up, Judah believes his mother and sister, long imprisoned, are dead. In reality, Messala’s man Drusus discovered them alive in their cell, but infected with leprosy – a death sentence in that age.
Following his spectacular wreck in the chariot race, the once proud Messala is physically smashed and torn. He lashed to a table, wheezing and groaning. The surgeons wish to amputate his shattered limbs, but he refuses, not wanting to confront the triumphant Judah as less than a whole man. The surgeons are about to force the matter, when the protesting Messala spies the statuesque silhouette of Judah standing in the doorway, holding his victory laurels.
Judah enters, and Messala hisses up at him
MESSALA: Triumph complete, Judah. The race won. The enemy destroyed.
JUDAH (pitying his old friend at last): I see no enemy.
Messala is angered.
MESSALA: What do you think you see?? The smashed body of a wretched animal? Is there enough of a man left here for you to hate? Let me help you. You think they’re dead. Your mother and sister. Dead. And the race over. It isn’t over, Judah. They’re not dead…
Judah grips Messala, almost unable to contain himself.
JUDAH: Where are they? Where are they? (finally, whispering, almost pleading). Messala…where are they?
Messala manages a bloody grin.
MESSALA: Look for them in the…valley…of the….lepers. If you can recognize them.
Judah lowers his head and stifles an indescribable groan of anguish through his teeth.
Messala paws at Judah’s cuirass, hissing.
MESSALA: It goes on. It goes on, Judah.
And he dies.
What. A. Bastard. Haha.
Would I Buy It Again: Yes
Next In The Queue: Beneath The Planet Of The Apes
February 15, 2013
An Interview With My Daughter Magnolia Erdelac at Dark Moon Books
Here’s a very concise interview conducted by Lori Michelle of Dark Moon Books with my eight year old daughter Magnolia, on her writing process and her second published story, MOTHS (appearing in their forthcoming Mistresses Of The Macabre anthology), about a group of kids and their hapless chaperones on an overnight camping trip in the Redwood forest who run into something worse than the average mosquito.
http://www.lastwritesdmd.com/mischievous-magnolia-erdelac/?fb_source=pubv1
February 12, 2013
Grab FOUR IN THE MORNING for FREE
From now until Friday the FOUR IN THE MORNING collection is absolutely free in eb-book on Amazon.
Featuring novellas from Lincoln Crisler, Tim Marquitz, and Malon Edwards, it also features my supernatural gangsta novella GULLY GODS, about J-Hoss, a young gangbanger from the south side of Houston Texas who, after killing a rival in a parking lot, hides out with family in Chicago. Toeing the line doesn’t last long, and J-Hoss falls in with a violent crew of Liberian ex-child soldiers calling themselves the Trip Sixes, led by an ambitious youth nicknamed Hitler. As the Trip Sixes go to war with the local Mexican gang, J-Hoss learns the terrible truth of the Trip Sixes’ power, gleaned from their allegiance to a dark and terrible deity.
Read an excerpt here -
http://emerdelac.wordpress.com/2012/05/16/some-words-and-an-excerpt-from-gully-gods/
And here’s some words from co-author Malon Edwards (whose wonderful steamfunk story Half Dark kicks off the collection) about my novella –
http://eastofmars.blogspot.ca/2012/07/four-in-morning-gully-gods.html
So if you’ve been waiting to pick this one up, don’t wait much longer. It’s free till Friday, and in three months it’ll be out of print for good.
-Hasta pronto
February 2, 2013
DT Moviehouse Review: The Beast Must Die
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. This go around, The Beast Must Die.
(1974) Directed by Paul Annett
Screenplay by Michael Winder, based on the story “There Shall Be No Darkness” by James Blish.
Tagline: When The Moon Is Full, One Of These Eight People Will Turn Into A Werewolf! Can You Guess Who It Is When We Stop The Film For THE WEREWOLF BREAK? See…Solve It…But Don’t Tell!
What It’s About:
Rich, eccentric big game hunter Tom Newcliffe (Calvin Lockhart) invites six guests to his mansion and locks them in along with his wife, Caroline (Marlene Clark). The guests include bon vivant artist (and convicted cannibal) Paul Foote (Tom Chadbon), pianist Jan Jarmakowski (Michael Gambon) and his lover Davina Gilmore (Ciaran Madden), diplomat Arthur Bennington (Charles Gray), and lycanthropy expert Professor Lundgren (Peter Cushing). He confronts them with his belief that one of them is an actual werewolf, and he intends to figure out who and hunt them down.
Why I Bought It:
Every year writer Jeff Carter hosts a Black-O-Ween party, in which we all get together and watch blacksploitation horror movies from the 70′s. Past showings have included The Thing With Two Heads, Blackenstein, Blacula, Scream Blacula Scream, Sugar Hill, Abby, Dr. Black And Mr. Hyde, and JD’s Revenge. As the tradition has progressed, it’s become steadily more difficult to obtain movies. Netflix has a lot, but just this past year, our selections were unavailable. So my buddy Elliot purchased Abby, and I got The Beast Must Die, sight unseen.
Technically, as a British production, The Beast Must Die isn’t really a blaxsploitation movie. But, the legendary Werewolf Of Watts was never actually produced, and as one of the alternate titles for this movie is (SPOILER)……..Black Werewolf……. (END SPOILER), we decided to take a chance on it.
I’m frankly glad I picked this up. It was a better movie than Abby, with a very pulpy feel. It was refreshing too, to see the debonaire Lockhart as the main character (a great black hunter, if you will – you might remember him as the rastafarian leader in Predator 2 – “There’s no killin’ what can’t be killed…”) with a loyal white manservant (butler Sam Mansaray) who unbenknownst to the guests, sits alone in a room of TV monitors and watches each of them, reporting to his master. The characters are all well portrayed, non-stereotypical, and sufficiently sinister and sketchy to cast reasonable blame on every one of them. By the end I wasn’t sure who the werewolf was.
Peter Cushing is pretty much a less action oriented version of his Hammer Studios Van Helsing here, and young Dummbledore is nearly unrecognizable.
The tests Lockhart comes up with are pretty cool, guided by Professor Lundgren. They range from holding silver candlesticks and silver bullets in their mouths, to inhaling wolfsbane. The werewolf is of the big shaggy dog variety (the ‘true’ werewolf), but it didn’t detract from the experience. There was a particularly harrowing scene where Lockhart’s loyal hunting dog tangles with the werewolf to protect its mistress. Good animal action.
Not much more to say about it without giving it away. It’s worth a watch.
Best Bit Of Dialogue: Pavel the butler, observing Davina Gilmore, remarks, “She looks like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.” To which Tom replies, “Maybe she prefers MEAT.”
Best Scene:
About ten minutes from the end, the promised Werewolf Break occurs. I’m just gonna put it right here…
It reminded me of the ‘you have two minutes to leave the theater’ break before the bloody ending of Il Contre Tous (I Stand Alone), and had us all giggling and racing to voice our theories. Great Halloween party movie.
Would I Buy It Again: Yes, I’m glad I picked it up.
Next In The Queue: Ben Hur
January 22, 2013
Happy 107th, Robert E. Howard
Today marks what would’ve been the 107th birthday of my all-time favorite writer and chief influence, Robert Ervin Howard, the creator of Conan, Solomon Kane, and a slew of others, and the father of the sword and sorcery genre.
Howard was an extraordinary writer and sometime poet who took his own life before he had the chance to truly blossom or gain the recognition he deserved. He never knew fame or steady success in his lifetime, but he accomplished enough to still resonate with fans all over the world to this day, including myself. There is no greater writer of sword swinging action in my opinion.
Writing is a kind of alchemy, and the best practioners find a way to string base, everyday words together into a mystic formula that shines golden on the page long after the author is dust. The best parts of his stories enflame the spirit and plunge the imagination down lustrous, vivid paths. Howard was a man out of time and place, who dreamed of the past and idolized it, who could look at fields of churning oil derricks and see groaning monsters, who turned liquor store bullies into barbarians and saw dragon fire in the sun over the West Texas hills. He partly believed his own stories I think, saying they were merely related to him by individuals who existed somewhere, sometime. It’s his own belief in the worlds he is responsible for bringing to light that make them so enduring.
Everybody dreams, but not everybody can relate those dreams in a way that strangers can share in them and believe them too.
Hats off to the man from Texas. Next year, in Cross Plains!
Recompense
I have not heard lutes beckon me,
nor the brazen bugles call,
But once in the dim of a haunted lea I heard the silence fall.
I have not heard the regal drum, nor seen the flags unfurled,
But I have watched the dragons come, fire-eyed, across the world.
I have not seen the horsemen fall before the hurtling host,
But I have paced a silent hall where each step waked a ghost.
I have not kissed the tiger-feet of a strange-eyed golden god,
But I have walked a city’s street where no man else had trod.
I have not raised the canopies that shelter reveling kings,
But I have fled from crimson eyes and black unearthly wings.
I have not knelt outside the door to kiss a pallid queen,
But I have seen a ghostly shore that no man else has seen.
I have not seen the standards sweep from keep and castle wall,
But I have seen a woman leap from a dragon’s crimson stall,
And I have heard strange surges boom that no man heard before,
And seen a strange black city loom on a mystic night-black shore.
And I have felt the sudden blow of a nameless wind’s cold breath,
And watched the grisly pilgrims go that walk the roads of Death,
And I have seen black valleys gape, abysses in the gloom,
And I have fought the deathless Ape that guards the Doors of Doom.
I have not seen the face of Pan, nor mocked the Dryad’s haste,
But I have trailed a dark-eyed Man across a windy waste.
I have not died as men may die, nor sin as men have sinned,
But I have reached a misty sky upon a granite wind.
January 21, 2013
MONSTER EARTH out now from Mechanoid Press
Out now in print and e-formats from Mechanoid Press is Monster Earth, in which my short story Mighty Nanuq vs. The Sea Wolf appears, alongside stories by I.A. Watson, Jim Beard, Fraser Sherman, James Palmer, and Nancy Hansen.
Ah look at that swell Eric Johns cover….
Every once in a while I hear about an anthology that I have to drop everything and write something for. Last year, though I was in the midst of finishing the last Merkabah Rider novel and a couple other projects, Jim Beard’s and Jim Palmer’s Monster Earth was it.
I LOVE kaiju or giant monster movies. When I was a kid in the south suburbs of Chicago there was a show called Son of Svengoolie, where local TV personality Rich Koz (in KISS-like makeup) would stand in a 70′s rock art casket telling goofy jokes and dodging rubber chickens over various classic genre movies like CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON and I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF.
The Son of Svengoolie introduced me to giant monster flicks, via THE GIANT GILA MONSTER, TARANTULA, THE DEADLY MANTIS, THEM!, and of course, dubbed Japanese fare like GAMERA VS. BARUGON, GODZILLA VS. THE SMOG MONSTER, and GODZILLA VS. KING KONG.
When I was a kid bouncing around in the back of my dad’s blue Ford Bronco along country roads at night, I’d imagine the spindly legs of a giant spider dragging its horrendous bulk over the hills as we drove past, and I couldn’t simply disassemble a house of LEGOS without kicking it over and breathing imaginary atomic fire.
So when the Jims announced calls for MONSTER EARTH, an anthology of giant monster stories in a shared world, it took all my willpower not to respond, and when they contacted me personally, I caved like Osaka Castle in an Angirus and Godzilla sandwich.
The premise of MONSTER EARTH is that following World War II, the nations of planet earth became embroiled in a Cold War based not around the proliferation of nucelar arms, but giant monsters. Each country fields its own legendary giant creature discovered and harnessed (in various ways) within its borders. America has an immense sasquatch like creature, etc.
When folks were picking their countries and kaijus, I decided on Canada.
Yeah, Canada. So what?
I had always wanted to write a story about Inuit culture, and combining that with my love for old school 1950′s giant animal attack movies, I came up with Mighty Nanuq, a colossal polar bear that breathes subzero breath and has luminous blue eyes.
Now MONSTER EARTH is not entirely about monsters. To bring it down to a relatable level there’s a human element. Mine is the strained relationship between a young Inuit man of the 60′s counterculture and his uncle, an angakkuq or shaman, who came into his birthright in the 1940′s, at the height of World War II and now works for the Canadian government.
As inspiration for the 1940′s segement of the story (which the uncle relates to his wayward nephew), I used the real life Nazi U-boat landing at Martin Bay in northern Labrador in 1943, a little known incident in which the Germans actually landed in a remote part of Canada and installed a battery powered weather station to transmit radio signals the U-boats and ships of the German navy in the North Atlantic could then use in their fight against the allies. Extreme cold weather killed the station after only three days, and a sub sent out to repair the station (named Kurt after the initial mission leader Dr. Kurt Sommermeyer) was sunk. The entire event was totally unknown to history until a German engineer researching a history book in the 1970′s wrote to the Canadian government inquiring as to the status of the weather station. As the Canadian government was completely unaware of its existence, the historian provided them with its coordinates (from Sommermeyer’s original notes), and it was discovered intact and now resides in the Canadian War Museum.
Of course, in MIGHTY NANUQ VS. THE SEA WOLF, no mere weather station is going to warrant the intervention of Canadian intelligence or an enormous polar bear, so that was just a springboard I used to depict a giant kaiju battle on the icy shores of Labrador, with Nazis duking out with a Canadian commando in the background.
Another historical event I tweak in the course of the story is the 1969 occupation of Alcatraz Island by the IAT (Indians Of All Tribes), an aboriginal rights group that incuded John Trudell. At the time, Alcatraz Prison was shut down and closed to the public, so citing The Treaty Of Fort Laramie, which stated that unused federal land was to be turned over to the Native Americans, the group seized control of Alcatraz with the intent of creating an Indian cultural center on the spot, as well as meeting other native demands.
Now if Nixon had access to a giant monster, I propose there was no way he would’ve allowed a bunch of long hairs to conduct a sit-in on federal land for nineteen months.
Anyway, all of these seemingly disparate elements come together in MIGHTY NANUQ VS. THE SEAWOLF in MONSTER EARTH from Mechanoid Press.
Here’s an excerpt.
* * *
Hallauk put the field glasses to his eyes and peered to the north.
In an inlet in the rocky shoreline, a great iron boat longer than a whale floated. A yellow bearded kabloonak, almost like the kavdlunait of which his grandfather had spoken, in a black reefer jacket stained with sea salt, and a high necked white sweater and cap, stood atop a tower in the center of the boat, shouting guttural orders to a gaggle of men in dark peacoats hustling to repair a great gash rent in the starboard bow. A group of men armed with rifles stood watch. These had red armbands over their left elbows, with white circles and strange black symbols within. A trio of men in drab grey coveralls were working to erect some kind of long, slim metal apparatus fixed to the side of the tower on which the captain stood.
“They probably ran aground during the storm. As we suspected, the Nazis are using some kind of radio antenna to control their monster. They’ve only just erected it,” said LeDuc, sliding the action on his Lanchester. “Look there off that small island.”
Hallauk swung the binoculars to the indicated area, and saw a huge swell in the sea. Something was circling nearby like an orca, but bigger even than the iron boat. Its huge wake rippled white in the icy waters.
LeDuc patted his shoulder then.
“Wish me luck, my friend.”
“What do you hope to do?”
“Well, after I blow the control transceiver, there’s forty more sailors down in the belly of that U-boat. I’ve got a hundred rounds of ammunition. Maybe I can take ‘em by surprise, if they all line up, eh?”
There was a great cracking sound then.
The submarinal creature, whatever it was, had swum beneath the sheet of ice on their side of the strait, and with a flick of its great head, thrust itself up through the frozen water.
What pulled itself from the hole and onto the shore a few yards north of the U-boat, made both men shudder uncontrollably.
It was a thing of nightmares. A monstrous dripping black wolf head, the jaws lined with fangs each the size of a tall chest of drawers, between which a massive tongue lolled. Two sharp ears like the fins of airplanes protruded from its great black skull, and two unnatural, cloudy white eyes glistened in its horrible face. It looked about briefly, snuffling its black nose, then a pair of long clawed feet smashed through the ice and hooked into the shore, pulling the rest of its bulk out of the water.
The body that followed that terrible head was even more horrendous to behold. It was nearly twice as long as the U-boat, and about midway down its torso its furry canine shoulders gave way to a greenish, scaly fish body that tapered into a serpentine, finned tail. Its two rear legs were scaled and clawed, like that of a dragon in a fairy book.
The hideous monstrosity shook its great head like a wet dog and arched back its neck, eliciting a bone chilling howl loud enough to be felt beneath their feet and in their very bones. When the terrifying cry finally died off, they could hear the distant rumble of avalanches in the Torngats.
LeDuc snatched the binoculars from Hallauk and stared through them.
“It has a collar. That must be the radio receiver,” he observed.
True enough, there was a great metal collar around the creature’s neck, marked with the same bent black crosses as the arms of the German soldiers down below.
“And there’s our monstrumfuhrer on the conning tower,” said LeDuc, pointing to the U-boat as a bespectacled man with a red armband in a green uniform and black jackboots emerged from the depths of the tower. He had a complicated looking metal helmet on, and was shouting at the men adjusting the antenna.
“Wish I had a proper rifle instead of this little typewriter,” LeDuc said bitterly.
“This man thinks you will need help,” said Hallauk.
LeDuc looked at Hallauk.
“It’s good of this man to offer, but unless he’s got a giant pussycat for that thing oversized mongrel down there to chase….”
“This man has something better,” said Hallauk, raising his arms.
From the center of the cluster of the Torngat Mountains a funnel cloud of snow gathered and rose, as if all the cold in the area were drawn towards that faraway spot. In the middle of that maelstrom of ice and snow, a huge shape reared, indistinguishable from the whirling powder but for a faint black spot in the center of its knobby peak, a hundred meters in the air.
There came a thunderous crashing noise, rhythmic and relentless, growing in power and sound, like unimaginable footsteps that sent loose rocks tumbling down the mountainsides as if fleeing its dreadful approach….
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