P.C. Hodgell's Blog, page 4

Dublin worldcon

The Dublin schedule is out.  I'm pleased to find that I'm on four events.  Hope to see some of you at some of them!

Autographs: Friday at 11:00
16 Aug 2019, Friday 11:00 - 11:50, Level 4 Foyer (CCD)
Is epic fantasy conservative?
Format: Panel
16 Aug 2019, Friday 13:00 - 13:50, Wicklow Hall-1 (CCD)
Back in 2013, Gollancz’s Twitter account made the claim that: ‘Epic Fantasy is, by and large, crushingly conservative in its delivery, its politics and its morality’. The question sparked a discussion that is still relevant and ongoing. Is epic fantasy politically conservative and, if so, what does this tell us about the genre?
Joseph Malik (M) (author@josephmalik.com), Chris Humphreys (c.c.humphreys@me.com), Juliet E McKenna (jesouch@gmail.com), P C Hodgell (phodgell@att.net), Mary Soon Lee (marysoonlee@gmail.com)
Reading: P. C. Hodgell
17 Aug 2019, Saturday 19:30 - 19:50, Liffey Room-3 (Readings) (CCD)
Kaffeeklatsch: P. C. Hodgell
18 Aug 2019, Sunday 11:00 - 11:50, Level 3 Foyer (KK/LB) (CCD)

The Protagonist Speaks

Earlier this year I was contacted by Assaph Mehr for a website called The Protagonist Speaks.  The format is that a literary hero is interviewed and expresses her/himself in his/her own words, sometimes within the context of their world.  An interesting concept.  Anyway, I wrote a short interview with Jame, which has just been posted:  https://theprotagonistspeaks.com/2019/05/17/jame-of-the-kencyrath-chronicles-by-p-c-hodgell/#more-2243  

The Minneapolis signing went okay, given that Stephen King was also in town and it was the first day of the fishing season.  Crazy traffic.  Nearly 600 miles of driving in a day.  Still, it was nice to meet readers and to hear their stories.

By Demons Possessed is out, as you no doubt know, and made the fantasy best seller list for the week.  That was a pleasant surprise.  It also got a nice review on Booklist.

Work continues on the next (last?) novel.  I'm currently trying to develop the gods of the Central Lands, who are rather different than those of Tai-tastigon and Kothifir in that a lot of them are deified or demonized ancestors.  How to fit that in with the rest of Rathiliien?  Faith still helps shape reality, but the CLs aren't much influenced by Kencyr temples.  This seems to go back to the older, pre-Kencyr pantheons and power native to this world.  I'm not quite clear on all of this yet.  The Four should figure in somehow.

New Story

I see from Damien's post to yahoo that Baen has released my Tai-tastigon free short story. https://www.baen.com/talisman It's a lead in to the new novel, due out May 7th, basically about what happens in the city before Jame comes back to it, from Cleppetty's point of view.  I'll be at Uncle Hugo's in Minneapolis May 11 signing books.  I think you can still order them there for signing and shipping.

The Podcast Bound in Pale Leather

Here's something you might enjoy.  Kathrin and her daughter Gabe have launched a series of podcasts based on my novels.  These are partly reader's guides, partly commentary, partly sheer appreciation.  They are delightfully enthusiastic, at any rate, and a boon to me since (as you know) I don't like re-reading my own work.   You can find them at

https://castbox.fm/channel/The-Podcast-Bound-In-Pale-Leather-id1853397?utm_source=website&utm_medium=dlink&utm_campaign=web_share&utm_content=The%20Podcast%20Bound%20In%20Pale%20Leather-CastBox_FM

Or at direct URL link: https://castbox.fm/channel/The-Podcast-Bound-In-Pale-Leather-id1853397?country=us

Meanwhile, I struggle on with what may well be the last novel.   I'm up to a point where the Merikit men try to take over the women's summer solstice rites.  That should be fun, right?  But my imagination seems to have gone dead.  Argh.  Any ideas?

eARC available!

Just got this notice from Baen:

By Demons Possessed by P. C. Hodgell is now available as an eARC! Download your copy here: https://www.baen.com/by-demons-possessed-earc.html

Otherwise, the trade paperback is due out May 7

Song?

This is my first shot at it, as yet not very good.  I'm just not a poet.

We’ve faced the foe in classrooms dire
We’ve met on many a lesson field.
Who stood by you on Winter’s Day?
Contrarywise, who stood by me?

Then on we went to battles new
In southern climes or on the steppe
The Karnids came, we battled same
Contrarywise, who stood by you?

New foes, new lands, now do we seek,
Honor to claim, our lords to please.
But where does that leave you and me?
Contrarywise, who stands by us?

Death and Life

Torisen (the Ragdoll cat) died sometime last night.    I found him on the floor this morning, cold and stiff, tangled up in his bedding.  I may even have heard him fall, but Domino and Theodora were pinning me down at the time and I didn't go to check.  Now i feel guilty about that.  Yes, he was 18 years old but he'd been my support and inspiration through some rough times -- the death of my father, the dementia of my mother.  He was such a sweet boy.



So now I'm trying to get back to the first chapter of the new novel and could use some poetic help.  On graduation, the randon cadets learn that they may soon meet each other in battle as mercenaries.  They sing of their past friendship and hope that they will meet again under better circumstances.  If Auld Lang Syne hadn't already been written, it would be perfect here.  Any ideas?

Oh, and this is the cover for "By Demons Possessed."  This time, I like it.

Post worldcon

Post worldcon, I'm still getting my breath back.  It was a mixed experience, and always a strain to be in such a crowd after so much time alone.  Still, I'm glad I went.  Next year, Dublin!

Now I'm back to starting the next (last?) novel.  The randon gather at Gothregor for Jame's third-year graduation and (in this version) Randiroc the weapon's master shows up.  I'm trying to think of ways in which he could be attacked, from the serious to the ludicrous.  So far, scythe-arms, ropes, belts, and pepper come to mind.  I'm open to other suggestions.

Worldcon and Snippet 3

Still here in San Jose although the convention ended an hour ago.  Tomorrow I fly home.

On the whole, it went  well.  Oh, there were little glitches, but there always are.  I think some 7,000 people showed up.  The panels I attended were good and the one with Peter S. Beagle ("Why Do Writers Kill Characters?")  was superb -- very thoughful and moving.  In general I got very positive vibes from other writers, a reminder that writing is supposed to be fun.  (So why do I find it so hard?)  My autographing and reading were both well attended.  The series panel drew a massive audience, much too big for the room.  Did it go well?  I was too stressed out to tell.  I did manage to say a few things, despite an incipient row between an older white male writer and a younger female writer sitting next to me.  Some of the questions I would have asked if I had still been moderator were brought up, but nothing about the costs of living with a long series for years.  My impression was that the others hadn't shared my experiences, not all of which have been good.  Perhaps I can do the panel again at another con with a different, more balanced slant.

Anyway, here is the third part of my reading:

Jame felt, at last, a rising twinge of anger. Her fists clenched, nails pricking into palms.
“Those who know me best do not say such things.”
He sneered, although one corner of his mouth twitched.  More dancers broke stride, looking confused.
“The Master sought immortality,” he said, his voice rising in a harangue to reclaim his followers.  “Perhaps he did not get exactly what he wanted, but why should we not? Souls are cheap.  Everybody has one.  Most will sell them for the right price.  Look at the people who first volunteered theirs for this great experiment. City lords, hill chieftains, even some from our own temple.”
“What?” said Titmouse.
“Oh yes.  Your so-called missing priests, from among those who came with me from the Riverland.  I told them the truth.  They trusted me.  Who are you to say that they did not get what they wanted?  Part of them will live forever, or at least until they run out of inferior souls on which to feed.  What are mere bodies compared to that?  The strongest survive.  Gerridon taught us that.  Do you think yourself wiser than he?”
“I think that he is a selfish moron,” said Jame, “trying to bend forces beyond his control who in turn seek to make him their creature, their one voice.”
“Blasphemy!”
He raised his hands again and brought them sharply down.  The dancing priests converged on the center, except for those who had hesitated.
Jame pushed Loogan to the wall, out of the way.
“But Gorgo…!”
“Trust me.”
The dancers circled Jame, trying to draw her into their pattern.  Turn, cup the air with a hand to gain command of it, slide forward and back with a foot to draw in power, turn again, release…. 
A blast of wind made Jame stagger.  It stank of singed power.  Oh, where was the Tishooo when she needed him?  Not in this enclosed space.
The priests were in motion again, circling, circling, and the room seemed to spin with them.
“Dance, puppet, dance!” cried Ishtier, clapping his hands.
He might have signaled the change in the Sene, from Senetha to Senethar, from dance to fight.  An acolyte sprang at Jame – she recognized him as the one who had shoved her when last she had been here.  She channeled aside his fire-leaping kick, scooped up his leg and dropped him backward on his head.
“Next?”
The high priest hastily clapped again.
The Great Dance once more gripped the room, commanding body and soul.  Jame felt it tug at her senses, but brushed it off with a wind-blowing shrug of the mind. Trinity, but she was tempted to use this game against them as she had once before (oh, so irresponsibly) to enthrall guests at the Res aB’tyrr. 
Turn, sway, reap their souls, as the Dream-weaver would have done, as she had been taught to do by golden-eyed wraiths under shadows’ eaves….
No.  That was the role for which the Master had bred her.  She was not nor would she ever be his puppet.
The swirl of dancers brought her back face to face with Titmouse.
“I don’t understand,” he said.  They mirrored each other in the Senetha that in itself mirrors the Great Dance, but on a less potent level.  “Why would the Master want you, a thief, a tavern wench?”
“Torisen Highlord is my twin brother and I am his heir.” Speak truth to this man, her instincts told her, even while caution whispered, Shanir! “Gerridon is my uncle.  Own mother was Jamethiel Dream-weaver.”
Two priests, fighting, parted them. Ishtier’s control was breaking down. Jame used water-flowing to pass between the combatants.  The high priest was screaming.  The room seemed to tilt.
Here, back, was Titmouse.
“Also, I think that I’m one of the Tyr-ridan,” she shouted at him over the uproar.
Some of the dissident priests had formed a line, arms linked, and were dancing together.  Stomp, stomp, stomp, kick; stomp, stomp, stomp, kick.
“Which one?”
“Regonereth.  That-Which-Destroys.”
“Oh.  Who are the other two?”
“Torisen and our first cousin Kindrie, whose father was Gerridon, but I don’t hold that against him.  We three are the last pure blooded Knorth.”
Titmouse stopped.  Priests bounced off his sudden wall of stillness.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“Would you say such things to just anyone?”
She spoke in a startled lull, louder than she had intended.  Priests stared at her.
“What?”
Titmouse grabbed Gorgo out of his steaming bowl and stuffed him, all flailing limbs, into his pocket.  “Come on,” he said, catching Jame and Loogan each by an arm and hustling them out of the hall.
A shadowy figure leaned against the wall opposite, greeting them with a raised eyebrow.
“Oh, go away,” Titmouse snarled at it, and swatted a clot of cobwebs out of his path.

Snippet 2

“We meet again,” said Ishtier, smiling.
He raised his claw of a hand.  It only had four fingers.  Jame remembered when the priest had chewed off the fifth, in this very room, after he had been so ill advised as to touch the Book Bound in Pale Leather.  As he brought his maimed hand down now, the circle of dancers parted into eddies but never stopped moving.
“I thought you were dead,” said Jame.
“You hoped it, certainly.  Before I left to reclaim my rightful place here, I heard much about you, little to your credit.  The Women’s’ Halls cast you out, did they not?  Then you went to Tentir, of all places.  Truly, Randon standards have become lax in this degenerate age. Have they found you out yet?  If not, rest assured:  they soon will.  But before all such misadventures, there was Tai-tastigon.  Have you told your brother about your sojourn here?”
Jame had shared much with Torisen in these latter days, but not everything.  “He knows what he needs to know.”
“Ha.  Then you have lied by omission.”
“And you, about me, on purpose.”
His sunken eyes glittered.  With anger?  With amusement?  “Priests trust priests.”  He spread both hands.  His mouth lifted in a sneer.  “Behold my faithful followers.”
Titmouse twitched.
“Now that we are here,” said Jame, to distract the high priest, “what do you want with us?”
“Not with him.” Ishtier indicated Loogan with a contemptuous jerk of his pointed chin.  “With you.  Why, as a gift for Master Gerridon, of course.”
Sweet Trinity.
“He’s here?”
“Not yet, but he will come, soon, when he sees what I have to offer him.”
Through a haze of panic, Jame began to work this out. Here, perhaps, at last were the reasons for the city’s plight that had so far eluded her.
“You changed the flow of the temple’s power inward, rather than out.  Why?”
“This is how it always should have been, how it was on all previous worlds.  An old song told me that and an old singer, when he had been induced to perform.  The Priests’ College at Wilden is set up properly. Our temples here, for some reason, are not.  Think about it:  why should we feed power to such jokes as this amphibious godling and his pathetic priest?”
Here he paused to strike a spark in the fire-pit. Loogan squeaked as flames rose to lick the rounded bottom of the glass.  Gorgo goggled.
“The Chain of Creation was meant to serve us, not the other way around,” said Ishtier, ignoring the growing conflagration at his elbow even though it threatened his sleeve.  “We in turn were meant to do what we thought best with it. But that was before our god failed us, oh, so long ago.  To whom should we turn now if not to the shadows?”
Titmouse moved sideways, stumbling a bit over his big boots.  He tapped the shoulder of a fellow priest as if to wake him from a trance.  “Listen.”
“The Arrin-ken, those filthy cats, betrayed us in disowning Gerridon and naming his kinsman Glendar as our leader when we first arrived on this world.  I realized that when his descendent, Ganth Graylord, was driven into exile some thirty years ago.  Surely that could not have happened to a true High Lord; therefore, he was not one.”
“You only say that to justify abandoning him in the Haunted Lands.”
“He was not my lord!” 
It came out almost in a shriek.  More dancers faltered, as did the current in the room.   Ishtier caught himself with a gasp and resumed with a sickly smile meant to show how reasonable this all was, how dim-witted – nay, insane – anyone who questioned it.
He’s mad, thought Jame.
“That honor belongs to Gerridon, who saw the truth about our so-called god and led the way to freedom, to immortality.  Our ancestors were fools not to follow him.”
The water in the bowl began to stream.  Gorgo paddled in it anxiously.  Enough of the past.
“What are you trying to do here?”
Ishtier snorted.  A drop of snot gathered on the tip of his long nose and fell, unnoticed.
“Trying?  What can I do but succeed?  Why do you think all of the other worlds fell?”
Jame felt suddenly sick.  “Oh god.  We drained them.  They had native powers, native gods.  Like Mother Ragga.  Like the Falling Man and the rest of the Four, not to mention the Old Pantheon and the Ancient Ones.  We bled them until they couldn’t protect themselves or their worlds, just as you’re trying to do here in Tai-tastigon, now.  Wait.  All of that was long before Master Gerridon betrayed us.”
“Heh.  Did I say that this was a new thing?  The priests have always known that ours was the power to take, to use.”
“But not wisely.  World after world has fallen.”
“Was that our fault?  Our god betrayed us.  Therefore he … she … it was never meant to win.”
This was more than Jame had expected, more than she could accept.  Tai-tastigon had tried her faith before and nearly broken her.  Was it about to do so again?
“Never meant by whom?”
“Ah.” He threw up his hands dismissively, as if scattering birds of bone upon the air.  “Questions, questions.”
By now Titmouse had tapped perhaps a dozen of his colleagues and they had stumbling out of step, looking dazed.  Jame noted in passing that none of them belonged to the group who had taken her prisoner before.  Were those Ishtier’s supporters, who had followed him on his return here, and therefore not friends of Titmouse?
“No, no, no!” raged high priest.  “Dance, damn you, dance!  We are so close!”
To what?  Jame was still scrambling to make sense out of what she had already heard. “But … dead gods?  Souls?  Demons?”
Ishtier sneered.  “And some fools call you clever.  That was my doing, an extension of my earlier experiments with the Lower Town Monster and the Shadow Thief, both limited, mindless creatures. Incorporating this world’s so-called dead godlings has added the power of personality.  Of purpose.  Besides, as former Old Pantheon gods these demons have already shown their affinity to human sacrifice.  That makes them more deadly to this world than their New Pantheon predecessors, who for the most part only seek that weak thing, faith.”
“Now I’m confused.  Again.  What, then, does our own god require?”
The priest laughed, a shrill, jarring sound. “Faith, he says, but does he give us a choice?”
“Well, yes, if you want it.”
Ishtier waved this away.  “More trickery.”
“Loogan tells me that the real danger lies in taking human souls.  He says they glue together the world.”
Titmouse had circled closer, drawn by their debate. “If here,” he said, “what about down the Chain of Creation?  Is that why the previous worlds fell?”
A colleague drifted up to them, still mimicking the kantirs if not fully committed to them.  “We’ve never understood quite what Perimal Darkling is. What if it uses the souls that it overwhelms to propel it farther down the Chain?”
“To fresh food?” said Jame.  “I can see that. Perhaps when it dissolves the bonds, it creates the energy by which it lives.  It’s a predator, like the demons, who also break down barriers and feed on souls, and it’s always hungry.  Like Gerridon, for that matter.  Is he now also a demon?  What is a demon, anyway?  Dead gods needn’t be involved.  They weren’t with the Lower Town Monster.  What if feeding on souls is enough in itself to make one demonic?”
Ishtier stomped his foot.  “Questions, question, questions!  I go by what I see.  Demons please the Master.  They bring Rathillien closer to the Haunted Lands, to Perimal Darkling itself. Wherever they tread, the shadows rise. Life mixes with death, animate with inanimate.  What an army I bring to serve my lord!  What we do in Tai-tastigon’s strongest city we can surely accomplish anywhere on this world.  What more do you need to know?”
“Oh,” said several voices.  “A lot.”
“Shut up!”
This all had the sickening ring of truth, as far as Ishtier understood it.
“And these demons obey you?”
Ishtier showed the blood-shot whites of his eyes, the yellow of his teeth.  “Of course. I created them.”
“Heliot says that he means to take over this city, this world, solely to feed his appetite.  He’s come back as a demon, thanks to you.  He preys on human souls.  Then too, what about those of Heliot’s kind who are breeding freely?”
“What?  Impossible.”
“I saw it happen when a dead goddess, Kalissan, absorbed a human soul.  You didn’t sanction that, did you?”
“Of course not.  You lie.”
Jame felt, at last, a rising twinge of anger. Her fists clenched, nails pricking into palms.
“Those who know me best do not say such things.”