Edward M. Erdelac's Blog, page 39
July 12, 2011
Some Reviews Of Merkabah Rider
Hey All,
So this is partially me tooting my own horn and partially me trying to sell you on my weird western Merkabah Rider series from Damnation Books.
What the heck is it?
It's a weird western.
OK but what's a weird western? It's essentially a western with….well, weirdness thrown in. Ghosts, demons, zombies, ghoulies, anything bizarre and out of place. Like the forthcoming Cowboys and Aliens.
So what's weird about the west of Merkabah Rider?
Set in 1879-1880, the first two installments follow The Rider, a Hasidic gunslinger tracking the renegade teacher who betrayed his mystic Jewish order across the demon-haunted Southwest.
Now, the world of Merkabah Rider is the historical west. The average joe cowboy doesn't know jack about angels and demons beyond what the local street preacher rings through his hangover on Sunday mornings.
But the thing about the Merkabah Rider series is, everything's real. Every bump in the night campfire story, every hell and damnation sermon the pulpiteers throw down, and worse things. Things people only whisper about. Terrible cosmic things.
If you've read any HP Lovecraft, you know what I'm getting at there. Things worse than the devil and demons.
OK, but what's with the Judeo-Christian stuff, Ed?
Well, a lot of people have reservations about that. They like their Judeo-Christianity separate from their Native American shamanism, separate from their Lovecraft Mythos.
Well, that ain't the way of the real world, and that ain't the way of Merkabah Rider. I like my chocolate in my peanut butter.
But if you have reservations that I'm not playing fair, that I'm biased, or you're still not sure what it's about, in the words of LeVar Burton, you don't have to take my word for it.
Read some reviews, culled from around the web.
Merkabah Rider: Tales of a High Planes Drifter
http://www.innsmouthfreepress.com/?p=12129
http://www.thecimmerian.com/merkabah-rider-a-robert-e-howard-fan-spins-some-weird-tales/
http://voyagesextraordinaires.blogspot.com/2011/07/merkabah-rider-tales-of-high-planes.html
http://allpulp.blogspot.com/2011/02/fortiers-all-pulp-reviews-gets-western.html
http://www.bookwenches.com/may10reviews.htm#576577809
http://sorcerersskull.blogspot.com/2011/05/rider-of-weird-west-merkabah-rider.html
http://monsterlibrarian.com/ghosts.htm#Tales_of_a_High_Planes_Drifter
http://shroudmagazinebookreviews.blogspot.com/2010/07/merkabah-rider-tales-of-high-planes.html
Merkabah Rider 2: The Mensch With No Name
http://www.innsmouthfreepress.com/?p=12585
If you're convinced, head over to Amazon and give Merkabah Rider a shot…print or ebook.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=merkabah+rider
July 4, 2011
Tim Marquitz on Dawn of War
This time out I'm ceding the floor to the distinguished Mr. Tim Marquitz, author and editor extraordinaire. Tim's credits include the Frank Trigg novels Armageddon Bound and Resurrection. Tim's newest effort, Dawn of War is out now in ebook on Amazon.com.
EME: Congratulations on the new release, Tim. Let's begin the beguine and talk first a bit about yourself. I already know what a spectacular editor you are. I think that a good editor necessarily has to have the instincts of a good writer too. What's your background? How long have you been writing and what drew you to it? What was your first published work?
TM: Thanks so much, Ed. I think what helps my ability to edit is exactly that: my instincts as a writer. When I sit down to examine a book, I'm not just looking at grammar and punctuation, but the book as a whole. I'm looking for characterization, consistency, continuity, and plot: all the things I worry so much about when I write. These are the things that make the difference between an okay story and a great one. Readers catch the little things and are turned off when the story stumbles. They'll forgive a punctuation error or average writing, but they won't overlook a poorly executed character or plot.
My background is pretty far removed from writing: blue collar, working man my whole life. I've always enjoyed writing song lyrics/poetry, and the occasional attempt at a story, but I've never put much effort into it. It wasn't until around 1995 that I stumbled across the motivation to try to do it right. It was kind of an ego thing. I started putting it all together and began to realize my limitations.
It probably wasn't until around 2004, 2005, that I really determined I wanted to do this as a career. Given my obsessive-compulsive interest in things I truly want to do, I dove into writing with a desperate need to succeed.
My first work published was Armageddon Bound, through Damnation Books. They gave me a chance to get my story out there and in front of people. Regardless of how things work out, I'll forever be grateful to them for taking the chance with me.
EME: Now give us the rundown on The Blood War Trilogy and its first installment, Dawn of War. What's it about?
TM: The Blood War Trilogy is my take on the epic fantasy genre. While many of the elements are similar to the genre, a focus on world-building and imagery, large plots, I changed things up a bit. There are elements of horror involved, as well as an effort to speed the pace of the story. While the book focuses on a number of points of view, the concept is of a singular adventure/circumstance that brings those points of view together.
Dawn of War is the start of it all. The Grol, a race of wolfen humanoids, find their way to a power that hasn't been seen in ages. Once empowered, their savage nature asserts itself and they begin a genocidal campaign to rid the world of their enemies.
The main character, Arrin, exiled for the last fifteen years, sees the Grol destroy a neighboring nation and knows they intend to destroy his own. He too is empowered with an ancient magic, and he races home to save the love of his life and the child born of their illicit affair, the cause of his exile.
Along the way to save them, he learns that there are more enemies about than just the Grol, the vicious races of the world seemingly mobilized against the rest, waging war across the land. As the world is enveloped in chaos, Arrin is confronted by the first race born of the world, long thought to be dead, and is given a sliver of hope that the savage races might be turned before they destroy the whole of the land.
EME: How did your concept for this series come about? What were your major inspirations?
TM: I've always been a fan of the larger fantasies, but I'd kind of strayed away from them as I found the darker stories of horror and urban fantasy. My big inspiration for the Blood War books was really to find a way to mix the genres a little more. I wanted to bring the excitement and action of a sword and sorcery type book yet the world-building and scope of the more epic stories.
As for the specific ideas that led to the book, I'm not really sure. I have all these ideas waging war inside my head, and which ever scrambles to the top is the one I focus on. I'm pretty diverse in my concept of genre, all my books linked by darkness rather than specific tropes or expectations. Once the idea pops into my head, and is fully realized, that's what I work on.
EME: At its core, Dawn of War has a love story, that of the outcast Arrin and the Princess of Lathah. Will this continue to be a driving force for the rest of the series?
TM: Love is definitely the motivation for this story. While we'll see Arrin's love evolve as the trilogy goes along, it is what bring this story into being. His love of family is the impetus that makes this story come alive, though the books are far from a romance.
Throughout the books, it will be the relationships between the characters, the love they have for one another that continues to drive the story. The choices they make, the reasons behind what they do, are all inspired by their feelings for each other.
EME: One of the biggest draws to writing a fantasy series for me is the world building – creating new cultures from scratch or mashing up the tropes of real life civilizations into something new. The depth of Middle Earth or the cultures that show up in Star Trek and Star Wars, etc. In creating the world of The Blood War Trilogy, what's the thing you're most proud of dreaming up?
TM: I tend toward the terse side when it comes to world-building. But for the Blood War books, I really made an effort to let the reins loose a little bit. I really wanted a visual world that was a part of the story, and not just there for background.
Nothing in particular stands out, to me, about the world I built, but I think the whole of it is what makes it interesting for me. I tied a number of the world's geographic anomalies into the plot and that made it fun. Getting to create the story based on the concepts of the world was exciting, seeing how my normal approach is based in characterization first.
EME: What makes Dawn of War and its sequels stand out from other fantasy works?
TM: I think the biggest difference is its pacing and the mixture of styles. While I envision the trilogy as more traditional fantasy, the horror aspects and action spread throughout give it a different feel. There is a measure of introspection and angst, but in the end, the scenes fly past because it becomes obvious there is an end in sight. The trilogy doesn't drag the concept out over a dozen volumes or more, digging into every spare thought or descriptive passage of the food on a character's plate.
The idea was to tell a story of a world on the edge of ruin with an immediacy that many epics lack.
EME: Where can readers get a hold of Dawn of War?
TM: Right now, I've released Dawn of War on Amazon only (link below). The hope is that it will do well enough, numbers-wise, that I can secure a more traditional deal where I can release it in paperback.
After an indeterminate amount of time, I plan to have it for sale on my web site as well, and we'll see where it goes after that.
EME: Sounds great! Thanks for stopping by.
TM: Thanks for having me, Ed, and for giving me the opportunity to talk about Dawn of War. I can't wait for the newest installment in the Merkabah Rider series.
EME: Thanks, Tim. Looking forward to see how the trilogy unfolds.
Pick up Dawn of War (Book 1 of The Blood War Trilogy) on Amazon right here – -
http://www.amazon.com/Dawn-War-Blood-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B0059HAUW2/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_7
June 28, 2011
My Avenir Eclectia Story Extraction Up On Digital Dragon Magazine
Along with fellow authors (and friends) Greg Mitchell and Jeff Carter, I've been taking my first steps into writing sci-fi with a fascinating multi-writer shared world project called Avenir Eclectia.
This week Digital Dragon Magazine's showcasing Avenir Eclectia fiction, including my debut story, Extraction.
Read about the project here -
http://www.avenireclectia.com/p/setup.html
And check out Extraction free of charge right here -
http://www.digitaldragonmagazine.net/avenir-extraction.php
June 27, 2011
Extraction is up at Avenir Eclectica and Digital Dragon Magazine
Along with fellow authors (and friends) Greg Mitchell and Jeff Carter, I've been taking my first steps into writing sci-fi with a fascinating multi-writer shared world project called Avenir Eclectia.
This week Digital Dragon Magazine's showcasing Avenir Eclectia fiction, including my debut story, Extraction.
Read about the project here -
http://www.avenireclectia.com/p/setup.html
And check out Extraction free of charge right here -
http://www.digitaldragonmagazine.net/avenir-extraction.php
June 10, 2011
Buff Tea: An Excerpt
As promised, here's an excerpt from my forthcoming historical novel, Buff Tea. 
Set in 1874, it follows the adventures of a naive young man from Chicago as he comes into manhood in the company of a group of buffalo hunters plying their trade on the Texas Plains…
Here's a brief rundown of the characters mentioned in this passage, for the sake of context -
Monday Loman – a religious minded mule driver from Kansas.
Fuke LaTouche – a brash young hunter from Baton Rogue.
Fat Jack McDade – a superstitious Missouri Ozark man and buffalo skinner. He keeps a three-legged cat named Whisper.
Frenchy – a somewhat sadistic French skinner and ex-sailor.
Roam Welty – an African American ex-Army scout.
War Bag Tyler – the grizzled old boss of the outfit.
The Weather Turned quite suddenly one morning.
It was fine climate for drying hides, but not for men. The summer heat panted on our backs like a tired dog. Fuke was of a sour disposition for a few days after losing Napoleon. He repeatedly offered to buy our horses from us, but nobody wanted to ride shotgun in the bull wagon with Jack anymore than he did.
Boredom overtook us, and there was little to do after we had finished our work but sit under the wagons and watch hides tan and meat cure. 
Insects flitted through the dry grass and dropped dead when they got too close to the arsenic. This was an endless source of amusement for Frenchy, but did not prove very engaging for the rest of us. It seemed that the time to pack up camp and move on could not come fast enough.
A week passed and we saw no more buffalo, nor any sign that they had been south of the Wichita Forks. There had been talk of turning back north, or west. War Bag's argument was that there was little sense in going over the same ground. Roam was for going back, but I think it had more to do with his chronic unease aboutTexasthan anything else.
We awoke one morning to find Jack unpacking his rain gear, though the sky was unclouded and bright.
"Whisper licked his fur agin the grain," he explained. "So I 'spect a gullywasher."
"Redneck hocus-pocus," Fuke told Jack sleepily. He rose and kicked at the three-legged cat out of spite.
But by noon clouds were drifting in from the northwest, and a cool wind ruffled the grass. It would be the first real rain we had seen all summer. There had been overcast days, but the heavy clouds had always passed over and dropped their burden elsewhere. This time it would be dead on.
It turned out to be a real frog-choker. The land and the sky went gray and old with it, and we were soaked to the toes of our boots before we could scurry for our rain gear. Roam found his tunic, Fuke his capote, and the rest of us donned buffalo coats (all save Fat Jack, who smiled and said nothing, the water running off his oil coat). It was a hard rain, and the sound of every drop striking the earth rolled over the land like an ovation. The ground turned to mud, and the going got slow and hard.
By three o'clock the tempest died down to a light sprinkle that would have been pleasing had we not already been drenched. There was a peaceful stillness over all the faded landscape. The animals shook the water from their bristling flanks. On days like these back home I would walk along the lake shore with the collar of my topcoat turned up, and watch the thousands of tiny drops erupt on the surface of the water.
"It's proof of God," Monday told us. His face was very white against the drab sky.
"What?" Roam asked.
"The Lord, renewin' the land. If you've ever leaned in the doorway of a farmhouse and watched the rain turn the earth to chili….seen the leaves of the green beans dance, and smelled that….I don't know…fertile smell in the air. It's proof that He's there, and that He cares."
"For being such a pulpiteer, how'd you end up with that pagan name -Monday?" Fuke asked.
The muleskinner shrugged.
"My paw wasn't very religious," he said. "My maw told me she fought him tooth and nail. I was supposed to be named Michael, but paw said he knew too many Michaels of ill temperament."
"Were you born on a Monday?" I asked.
Monday shook his head.
"It was a Sunday," he answered.
"No doubt you were dropped in a pew and reached for the hymnal before the nip," Fuke said, chuckling.
Monday blushed.
"My paw, he used to drop my maw and me off at church and then wait for us outside. I would always see him through the window, smoking and watching the road. He was a strange man. I used to think he was bad, or he had done something so bad he couldn't go into church anymore. Like…maybe God had cursed him for something, and if he went in, he'd burn up. I remember asking him once when I was very small how come he didn't come to church with maw and me."
"What'd he say?"
Monday sighed.
"I don't recall the answer. Just the asking."
"Well what was your father's name?"
"Zachary."
I pulled a blanket from my saddlebags and wrapped myself in it. My nose was red and cold, and I shivered in the saddle. I found Stillman Cruther's red wool muffler and tied it over my face. That helped some, but then my nose began to run.
Winter had given Fall a jump and our knuckles trembled as they gripped the wet reins. The wind picked up and whipped about our legs.
"Still think this is the good Lord's work, Monday?" Fuke muttered. He had taken to riding with the muleskinner, saying Scripture talk was a sight better than listening to Jack go on about his queer superstitions.
Monday did not answer. His mules out front were troubled, braying and shaking their heads in the harness. They had not made a sound at the approach of the storm, yet now in this chill wind they seemed tense. He spoke to them, too low for anyone with short ears to hear.
I craned my neck up, feeling the rain on my face. A flock of geese were cutting madly across the murky sky, buffeted by the wind. Then I saw something odd that I never will forget. The entire sky lit up with a crazy, twisting chain of lightning. It flashed out like a bullwhip and in an instant struck in the midst of the flock. They were burned on my cornea, little white 'ems' silhouetted against a purple flash, as of a photographer's powder. There was a weird honking cry and a tremendous crash of thunder. Then twelve or fifteen of them dropped lifeless and blackened from the sky into the wet grass all around us like great, feathered hailstones.
My mouth fell wide open.
"Great God! Did you see that?"
Fuke was the first to laugh.
He fairly leapt from the wagon seat and stumbled into the swampy grass where two dead geese lay smoking. The smell was an acrid mixture of rain, static, and burnt meat. Fuke gingerly reached out and grabbed them by the necks, withdrawing his hand quickly, unsure. Then he snatched them up with aplomb. He lifted one in each fist and stood smiling.
"There's proof of God for you, Sin Buster! Manna from heaven!"
We all laughed, exhilarated by the unnatural occurrence and warm with the knowledge of a couple of cooked goose dinners for the coming week.
Jack did not seem so happy, though, and shook his head.
"Y'all ought t'leave them geese be."
Fuke rolled his eyes as he returned to the mule wagon with the two dead geese.
"Oh come on, Fats! Don't tell me your three tittied backwoods witches got anything to say about this?"
Jack scratched his head gravely.
"No, only…"
Fuke cut him off.
"Well I'll be damned rather than look this gift hoss in the mouth." He plopped the two fat birds up into the wagon bed.
We paused and gathered up what geese were worth it into the camp wagon. Monday agreed to sit in the back and pluck them if Fuke would take the reins for awhile.
Fuke assented, but his command of Monday's mules proved less than masterful, and they soon fell behind. We could hear him cursing the animals through the rain. Gradually he grew hoarse or tired. I fell back to keep an eye on them, and rode in their tracks. A little trail of blackened feathers began to flit from the back of the wagon and float between the ruts, as Monday went to work. I frowned at the sight of them, for I was reminded of the turkey feathers we'd seen outside the pumpkin rollers' camp.
The chill wind died out. The rain continued on for another hour, and we dozed in our saddles. Jack sang a low song as he drove the bulls on, and the creaking of the wheels and the rocking motion of Othello grew hypnotic. I tried to make out Jack's words, but the melody was inseparable from the lyrics. My eyes were as heavy and I flinched awake several times before giving up the battle and slouching in as comfortable a manner as I could muster. I slept. Jack's wordless singing was the last thing I heard.
It was one of those naps that seem to take place in an instant. When I snapped awake, Jack's singing had stopped. The rain was gone. Further, Othello had stopped to crop the wet grass. Shaking myself awake, I saw that there was no one in sight.
The gray prairie stretched out empty all around me.
I had heard the phrase lost 'without a trace,' but never truly understood the meaning of the words. I thought it was reserved for the snowblind and those unfortunates who fell overboard at sea. Yet here I was, as lost without a trace as a man could be. I had fallen behind and no doubt my comrades had continued on unawares. I thought to resume my traveling with a nudge to Othello, but who knew if the horse had strayed from his course as I slept? There were no tracks to follow (not that I could follow them anyway), no easily spotted wagon ruts. All around me was the empty gray stillness of the rain-soaked prairie, a boundless, gate-less Purgatory.
I remembered Roam's advice not to go looking, but I saw no evidence of the wagons. That terrified me. I turned in my saddle.
There in the grass were the almost imperceptible tracks of Othello. Would Roam be able to find them? Perhaps my absence had not even been noticed yet! How long had I been asleep? I could see mosquitos flitting up from their grassy shelters. The hair on the back of my neck prickled. I couldn't very well just sit here until night came.
I thought of Roam's advice about firing a rifle into the air. I had my Volcanic pistol. In the storm I would have had no chance to be heard, but in this stillness, I found a hope and grabbed it. I fished under my coat and prayed that the powder wasn't wet. I pulled back the hammer, pointed the pistol skyward, and squeezed the trigger.
I was almost startled by the ensuing shots. I had not truly believed until then that the gun would work. I lowered the pistol new with respect. It was a thing now alive in my hands, its acrid breath dissolving in the cool air. I waited.
I was ecstatic to hear in the distance (from which direction I could not readily ascertain), the reports of a rifle in answer. I had not slept so long nor strayed so far as I had feared! It seemed to me the shots had come from nearby.
I raised my Volcanic again and fired, unable to contain the smile on my face. In a few moments there was another answering shot, closer, and off to my left.
I turned Othello to face that direction and stood in the saddle to see. There was a low dip in the land about a hundred yards out. Then there was another shot, and I saw the smoke flitting in the air.
I put my gun away and pulled my muffler down around my neck. Cupping my wrinkled hands out over my mouth, I shouted;
"Hey! Over here!"
Roam came up over the rise. Though it was hard to make him out, I recognized his dark skin, his spotted piebald, and his union blue coat. As he appeared, he fired another shot.
I waved my arms happily at him, grateful to have been found. I was still advertising myself like a fool when a bullet creased my right cheek. It had sounded like a fly in my ear, and I had mistook the sharp pain for a mosquito bite. I slapped my hand to the cut, and when it came away, the palm was red with my own blood. As I pondered the significance of this, another bullet struck the earth beside Othello with a wet plop.
With a revelatory tremor, I realized that the black man on the piebald was not Roam Welty.
Buff Tea is up for preorder now from Texas Review Press and on Amazon. There will be a Kindle edition somewhere down the road.
You can pick it up here -
May 31, 2011
Buff Tea Up For Preorder
Hey all,
So June 28 marks the debut of my 'new' Western historical novel Buff Tea from Texas Review Press.
This one's a straight up no-ghoulies coming of age tale set in 1874, telling the story of an unnamed young man who leaves an upper class home in Chicago to travel west, in the hopes of finding adventure and new experiences enough to fill the Great American Novel.
He attempts to work his way westward on the fledgeling Atchison-Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad as a track layer, but quickly finds the work ill-suited to his demeanor and leaves his fellow laborers to sign on with a buffalo hunting outfit that's just lost a skinner out on the plains to an attack of Cheyenne Dog Soldiers.
The outfit is led by a grizzled, near legendary old ex-Indian fighter named Ephron 'War Bag' Tyler, and includes Roam Welty, a Negro ex-cavalry scout, chief skinner Fat Jack McDade, lanky braggart and expert rifle shot Fuke Latouche, and unusually pious muleskinner Monday Loman.
As the season progresses, these disparate characters change the narrator from a naive young dreamer to a reliable man, and he cuts his teeth among the blood and sweat of the Texas killing fields. Then an enemy from War Bag's past reappears, pursuing a very old vendetta, and draws blood. War Bag rallies the men to a new cause, and a new hunt, one born of a blind and terrible vengeance that threatens to consume the whole outfit. In the end, the narrator must choose between pursuing a course of sanity by way of murder, or surrender himself to the old man's madness and death.
The title, 'Buff Tea' refers to a term from the buffalo hunter's lingo, 'buffalo tea' – the stagnant, hair-strewn water that's left over in a shallow buffalo wallow, here a metaphor for that one strong and bitter sip of reality all boys must one day taste before they become men.
It's been a long road getting Buff Tea out there, going on eleven years. I'm very pleased to see it finally in print and hope you'll take a look, and enjoy it if you do. I realize it definitely seems like a departure from my usual fare, though in reality this is the sort of book I first set out to write. There's a lot of me in this one.
Look for an excerpt here sometime soon.
In the meantime, it's up for preorder on Amazon.com. Here's a link -
Hasta luego.
May 16, 2011
To Hell And Back: Yuma, AZ And Beyond The Infinite
Well True Believers, I've returned from my research excursion into sunny Yuma, AZ and the old Territorial Prison.
Yuma Territorial Prison. A nice place to visit....
Getting a jump on the perennial LA traffic my intrepid partners and I sallied forth in the early hours, talking shop most of the ride. Somewhere at the edge of the San Diego County Line I watched one of those birds that divebombs in front of cars speeding down highway smack into the windshield of the SUV in front, blooming from a dingy brown into a puff of white down feathers, as if it had been some kind of ethereal creme-filled confection blown apart by a gust of wind.
Ploughing through the feathers and ignoring the bad omen, we continued on to Yuma, AZ, called 'The It Town' by the Arizona Star, according to a billboard.
Had a great lunch at the historic Yuma Landing Bar and Grill, named not after the steamship landing as I'd thought, but actually the first airplane landing in all of Arizona, around 1911 or so. Pictures of antique aircraft decorated the walls, along with some very interesting photographs of old Yuma itself, even a few sketches of the old, old days (1880′s). The house speakers were cycling through some classic country – Merle Haggard, Tammy Wynette, Charley Pride, Kitty Wells, Dolly Parton. Plus they made a great burger. It was a pleasant dining experience made all the more pleasant by its affordability.
Yuma prison in its heyday.
Afterwards we headed over to the prison itself. Situated on one of two rocky hills which flank the Colorado River, the prison was erected in 1876 as the brainchild of a pair of local entrepreneurs seeking to draw revenue to the area. The place was planned out not by an architect, but a local contest winner, who got a $150.00 prize for his efforts. The laborers weren't contractors, but the inaugural seven inmates, who were put to work building a plank wall on the north and east sides of the site to contain them, and some adobe cells. The iron doors were shipped in later via steamboat and unloaded by the growing prison population, who also hauled the sternwheelers into drydock, built the stone water reservoir and guard towers, and dug the stone and clay building materials out of Prison Hill itself. Initial temporary buildings notwithstanding, security was never a problem for Yuma (dubbed the Hell-Hole by its inhabitants) Prison. If one managed to escape the guards and scale the walls, there just wasn't anywhere to go. The closest town was miles across the surrounding desert, much of it trackless Sahara-style dunes, and a group of local Quechan Indian line riders were kept on retainer to chase down escapees.
In its 35 years of operation only 26 prisoners ever escaped, most of them during the supervised work details. 111 died of various causes, from tuberculosis (the most common way out of Yuma) to gunshots. While there were no executions, punishments (other than daily sharing a cell in 110 degree heat with five other prisoners who only washed one day a week) occured, both confirmed and legendary. Would-be escapees were fitted with ball and chain, 'incorrigibles' were chained to an iron link in the floor of their cell, or flung into the Dark Cell, a black-as-the-pit stone room with a single narrow pipe in the ceiling for ventilation and light and an iron cage in the center.
Looking up the pipe and possible snake entry of the Dark Cell
Rumored punitive measures include tales of guards dropping rattlesnakes down that pipe, or filling the cemetary of stone pile unmarked graves outside the east wall.
I brave the Dark Cell.
The inmates of the prison varied in their criminal activity, from the man convicted of 'seduction under the pretense of marriage (which moral grounds aside, also translated to a concrete theft of property if you think about the dowries young women brought with them into matrimony in those days), to gunman Buckskin Frank Leslie, who rode with Wyatt Earp. In later years, female prisoners were incarcerated at Yuma, like would-be stagecoach robber Pearl Hart, and Elena Estrada, who, spurned by her lover, cut out his heart and flung the bloody thing in his face.
Prisoner's eye view out the Dark Cell
The prison population represented an interesting cross-section of America. Though the majority of inmates were white (and Catholic), the prison housed Mexican, Apache (including at one point Haskay-bay-nay-ntayl, the infamous Apache Kid – who coincidentally enough also spent time at Alcatraz, and was one of the aforementioned succesful 26 escapees, overpowering three guards and disappearing into a snowstorm with two other prisoners), Chinese, European, African American, and even African individuals. A placard at the prison breaking down the demographics of its some 3,000 inmates even claims to have included a single Buddhist.
The Sallyport: Main entrance to the old prison.
As stated, only a fraction of the original structures remain. The adobe wall is mostly gone, though the imposing Sallyport which served as the main entrance remains. Pieces of the wall are devoid of plaster and have been melted down by years of weather, though its a bit of thrill to see the bits of straw and stone in the old mud bricks which must have been packed by the prisoners' own hands. You can walk in one of the cells, though the roof of the main cell block (atop which a hospital sat at one point) is now open air. The original guard tower over the stone water tower remains, and you can still walk into the Dark Cell and see the banded iron in the floor. Spiders are the only inhabitants now, and birds nest in the crumbling padlocked cells, the walls of which are scrawled with grafitti dating back to 1929.
Looking west at the prison from amid the unmarked prisoners' graves.
A very interesting excursion, which should prove fruitful in the Yuma-centered segment of the forthcoming Merkabah Rider installment, 'Have Glyphs Will Travel.'
From the prison we attempted to find a series of old petroglyphs to the east of town, using only my buddy's internet phone (I am in no way a technophile -I'm sure there's a proper term and I'm probably mucking it up) as a guide. That proved fruitless, so we headed back to Yuma and took in the site of historic Main Street while we waited for the six 'o clock showing of Thor.
I've walked through a lot of offbeat towns, but even the weirdness of Quartzsite did not compare to the strange feeling one gets walking a mostly deserted business district at four in the afternoon. Shop after shop was boarded up or closed early, with some signs proclaiming 'Be Back Next Week,' and one memorable and somehow slightly disquieting bit of signage declaring 'Gone Fishing For Souls.'
Gone Fishing....
Walking Main Street, Yuma I felt like I was passing through a Lovecraft story. Three quarters of the closed shops were hawking dusty, strange antiques. We saw a moldy quilt patterened with Egyptian hieroglyphs. There was a turnstyle display with little plastic/rubber demon headed puppets hanging limply on the pegs. Peering through one dusty glass door at a Zoltar fortune telling machine (yeah, like the one in 'Big' with Tom Hanks), we saw a seven foot tall chicken statue. Faces peered back at us from behind cracked and dusty glass frames, antique photos of people I didn't recognize, except for one of Annie Oakley. We passed an art gallery which had a cheery 'Grand Opening' sign in the empty window, the curling purple and pink balloon ribbons still hanging from the corners, and I smoothed back the eviction notice taped outside. Very depressing.
The most impressive structure on the street was a high brownstone and pillared affair. It too was closed. The faded United State Post Office letters across the top could still be seen. They'd been replaced by a set of austere stone letters which gave the name of some company I'd never heard of. Inside everything was taken care of, but again, they were all long gone by four. Looking up the company name on my buddy's phone, we read a vague, impressive sounding list of the company's purpose. Whoever there were, they were big enough to buy out the Post Office. The high iron spiked fence protected a well-kept lawn (which as anyone who's been through that part of Arizona knows is no light endeavor) and two plain sandstone dais (es?), on which I imagined some Innsmouth-like employees of this shadowy corporation enacting God knows what in the dead of night during the vernal equinox or some such (worshiping the giant chicken from the antique store maybe?). Chuckling about it all away (but I think, dreading to see what this area was like when the sun went down), we scooted off to a showing of Thor at the amazingly reasonable price of $6.50, my companions whispering that the price was probably so good so as to entice people in. Then the screen would start flashing a dancing silver pumpkin head or something.
Something wierd about the theater too….in a case in the lobby, dozens of coffee mugs and tea cups, all of them different colors, shapes and styles, each and every one personalized 'to Cassandra' by Hollywood celebrities, ranging from Jerry O'Connel and the gal with the eye makeup on the Drew Carey show to A-listers like Clint Eastwood, George Clooney, Julia Roberts, and a big old green teapot inscribed by John Travolta.
Odd.
Well, Thor was alright. A great big beautiful FX show with some amazing art design, charismatic actors, and neat-o little asides to us Marvel-lites, but not much in the way of a coherent or engaging story (surprising considering J. Michael Straszynski's name was on it). Oh and spolier, to those who haven't sat past the end credits (and you ought to know better by now), looks like The Avengers will be puzzling over The Cosmic Cube in their much-anticipated team-up movie.
We purchased a ticket for the last showing of Priest (because at 6.50 a ticket how could you not?) and headed over first to the Coolest Bar Downtown (that was the name I think) for beers, and then an impromptu excursion to a local Italian eatery (and more beers).
Night on Main Street and there were no dark tendrils reaching at us out of the sidestreets, nor fish-eyed pale skinned residents rising out of the broken old shops to snatch us off to be giant chicken feed at the big corporate bash. Not entirely complete turnaround, but it was lively. The clubs and bars opened up, spewing out endless monotonous loops of Hispanic dance music, and a crowd of teenagers dressed to the nines for the local promp diddy-bopped up and down the ave.
Once we were full of beer and calzones we'd seen all there was to see and returned in time for the start of Priest. I was engaged even in my stupor for the first ten or fifteen minutes. As soon as the hordes of vampires attacked the homestead, killing off ma and pa and spriting off the daughter, inducing the enmity of the girl's uncle, Paul Bettany, I recognized the plot as being 'The Searchers,' which I thought would be interesting. Also the opening info-dump set protrayed in kinetic Gennedy Tarktakovsky (the man responsible for the REAL Clone Wars cartoon) animation had me going. But pretty soon the needlessly digitial vampires started showing up (a la the needlessly digital plague victims in I Am Legend) and it turned into a literal snore-fest for me. The last movie I fell asleep in the theater to was Patriot Games.
Well, we spent the night at a Travel Lodge and departed in the morning. The boys returned to Yuma Landing and I tried out a Mexican lunch counter serving Chivo Birria (Goat Stew). A little bit too boney.
We headed west and decided to pull over and take a look at the amazing dunes that comprise the north edge of the Sonoran desert.
Waiting for Shai-Hulud
We scaled a couple big ones, cracking wise about Arrakis and Lawrence of Arabia. I took a brief call from the wife atop a sandpile and that short exposure to the blowing grit filled my phone with so much Mexico it still grinds everytime I open it. The blow is pretty harsh, and literally gets into everything. I don't know how the Bedou do it without goggles, but I could barely see when I got back in the driver's seat, and had to flush out my eyes with Evian (which is all I'd use Evian for anyhow).
We drove on, and passing through the rockpile mountains outside of Jacumba on I-8, I spotted a stone tower high up overlooking the winding pass, so we decided to make another impromptu stop.
Resting on the road to Alpha Centauri.
Stopping only once more on the road up to see a Gray slumped over the wheel of his flying saucer, we stepped out of the car in front of the Desert View Tower into a bracing cold we hadn't expected after all our time in Yuma.
The three story turret is actually a reconstruction of a similar building erected in the 1870′s to assist in ox-hauling freight. The current one was apparently constructed in the 1920′s.
Vaughn's Desert Tower
The caretaker got me with the rattlesnake eggs in an envelope gag, which was apparently an old one (but obviously not to me, because it scared the crap outta me). He then proceded to do the same to one of my companions and a boy who came in after us with his father.
Barbed wire skull on the wall
We scaled the winding staircase, observing various displays of folk art and taxidermy, cultural history, and gay love (yeah, it was some weird ascendancy thing. We went from mole skeletons and roaring boar heads, to celebrations of African and Indian Women In The West, to a pair of contruction workers suspended high over a concrete canyon deep mouth kissing), finally emerging to poke our heads out of the roof and be buffeted by hurricane force winds that swept over the rocky tops and down into the pass. It was like sticking your head out of a Southwest airlines flight.
After the tower, we explored the adjoining Boulder Park, with footpaths winding to heights higher than the tower and creeping underneath massive boulders, a good many of them handcarved and painted as if from sugar into whimsical animal shapes by artist W.T. Ratcliffe in the Depression.
Whimsy swiftly turned to horror.
We made our way up the switchback until we were overlooking the old tower, and spent a good forty minutes clowning in the buffeting wind, which you could literally lean against during the big blows.
"Be ye dumb rock or demon-born, I'll not be thy repast!"
It was a visceral, amazing sensation standing at those heights 'surfing' on a boulder, the wind flattening your clothes against your chest and legs, ballooning your jacket and trying to push you to your death.
Jeff lost his hat. A big surprise gust came and took the thing off and sent it turning into the wind, sailing down the mountainside. It was like one of those scenes in adventure movies, where they want you to get a sense of the danger by whipping a hat away and letting the camera follow it as it dwindled into the abyss.
Before The Hat Incident. We were innocent then.
We descended in a search pattern, building up the lost cap (a beige one at that) in each of our minds, thinking maybe if one of us actually found the thing we would be granted some unquantifiable boon for the remainder of the adventure, as if we'd pulled the sword from the stone or plucked up the Holy Grail or something.
But nada.
Lunch in Cardiff By The Sea at a beach cafe. I had fish tacos.
Then home.
Hasta pronto.
These guys were set up around the mouth of this drainage tunnel, but we dared not ascertain why.
Portrait of the artist as a hood.
May 9, 2011
Full Steam Ahead: Post Gaslight Gathering
Another short post this time out.
Just wanted to say thanks to everybody who stopped by my panel and reading on Saturday. I had a great time at Gaslight Gathering, hanging out with master crafter Nick Baumann (AKA Crackitus Potts of the incredible League of S.T.E.A.M. -http://leagueofsteam.com/ ) and talking history and concepts with Leanna Renee Reiber (http://www.leannareneehieber.com/) and Professor Dru Pagliasotti (http://www.drupagliassotti.com/). It was a great venue. Glass double doors, crystal chandelier – felt like Oscar Wilde during my reading. Actually I was reminded a little of pulp writer Holly Martin's speech to the Viennese literary society in The Third Man. Haha.
A very special thanks too to those of you who took a chance on Merkabah Rider. Hope you enjoy your acquisition and will stick with the Rider through to the end. And as a sidenote, if you do enjoy what you read (and this goes for any book you picked up this weekend, not just mine), and are so inclined, share your opinion! Loan the book out, or post your thoughts on Amazon or any relevant message boards you might frequent. One of the biggest and most important differences between a major publisher and a small press is exposure, and the biggest thanks a reader can give an author (beyond the initial purchase) is to spread the word.
Next weekend I'm off to Yuma to research the next Rider novel, Have Glyphs Will Travel. Check back here. Maybe I'll post some pics.
-Hasta pronto,
-EME
April 25, 2011
Delirium Tremens By Gaslight….
Hey all, May 7th I'll be in San Diego at the inaugural Gaslight Gathering in San Diego, so if you're a local, do stop by.
Information about the convention is here-
http://www.gaslightgathering.org/index.html
Looks to be a cool lineup of activities, including some time with author Kim Newman (Anno Dracula), and a Bartitsu demonstration by Thomas Badillo.
At 10AM on Saturday I'll be in the Garden Salon II room appearing on this panel along with Leanna Renee Heiber and Dru Pagliassotti-
The Balance Between Fact and Fiction in Fiction: How much 'real' history versus invented or alternate should you have in your steampunk.
As my readers know, I like to season a good deal of real history in my fiction, so we'll see what my fellow panelists have to say about that.
From 11AM to noon I'll be signing and selling books in the Dealers Room.
At 5PM I'll be in Galleria One reading from Merkabah Rider: Tales of a High Planes Drifter, so come and watch me sweat and practice my public speaking.
April 13, 2011
A Quick One From The Hip
Just a quick post to let you all know I'm not dead or anything.
Truth tell I was hard at work on the third Merkabah Rider installment, Have Glyphs Will Travel, when my laptop locked up and crashed on me with the novel on the desktop (don't bother telling me to back up – I'm doing it now regularly, but I guarantee in a month I'll be back to the bad old habits – and yes, I know about Carbonite and the like).
I told myself I could resume the book from the point I left off, but I guess I just don't work that way. Wound up taking a two week hiatus while the files were recovered and the mo-chine was patched up. Outlined a lighthearted fantasy novel about a Chinese cook that I'll probably jump into after I wrap up the adventures of the Rider. Need to take a break from the dark stuff and whip up something my kids can read, particularly as there's going to be a new one soon.
Yep, no new stories seeing print just yet, but I'll be adding a boy to my brood in July or August, hot on the heels of my still shiny daughter Willow Anne, who just turned a year in the beginning of March. August Victoriano will likely be his moniker, after my earliest known ancestor and my wife's grandfather, though I've toyed with Atticus as a name since I read To Kill A Mockingbird in high school.
Before that, Texas Review Press will be putting out my straight-no-demons-no-ghosts western novel Buff Tea pretty soon. I'll write a bigger announcement on that when it's available.
I'll be doing a couple appearances in the next two months as well, so stay tuned for those.
In the meantime, if you just can't cross your legs long enough to read something by me, don't forget to take a look at The Crawlin' Chaos Blues, my Lovecraftian blues southern gothic story – you can pick that up for the e-reader on Amazon (see the link to it under 'Look On My Works' on the right). You can also read an excerpt right here – http://emerdelac.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/meet-me-in-the-bottom-the-crawlin-chaos-blues/
Night Shade Books is putting out a pretty similar book in a couple months, but ignore that one. I did it first. 
Red Sails, my pirate horror adventure novella, about a vampire captain sailing with a crew of werewolves and the two luckless castaways they put on an island to hunt down is also still out there from Amazon and Lyrical.
I'm not particularly happy with the tag line.
Comet Press' DEADCORE anthology can be picked up on Amazon or from their site. That one has Night of the Jikininki, my Akira Kurosawa-inspired zombie novella, with a mad child eating monk, a casteless bandit, and a sadistic samurai decapitator joining forces against a prison full of undying gutmunchers. It's a nice book (well, not nice like your grandmother would say, I mean it looks nice on the shelf).
My boy and his man-eating horse story The Blood Bay is on the cover of The Midnight Diner #3. You can get that in paper on Amazon.
My debut novella Dubaku, with its titular African shaman enacting a sorcerous revenge on the crew of a 1700′s British slaver can be gotten on Amazon or from Damnation Books. That one's in e or print.
And of course Tales of a High Planes Drifter and The Mensch With No Name are in print or e on Amazon as well.
Anyway, the links are all to the right, so don't say you don't know where to get 'em.
-Hasta pronto!
