Kip Manley's Blog, page 54

The state of the City

It is done; it has been done. It is, more to the point, available for preorder over at Smashwords, and of course direct from the source. (I’d offer up the Amazon link for Kindle and paperback editions, but it seems Amazon doesn’t bother to offer preorder capabilities to self-publishers.)

On (or after) February 25th, then, you’ll finally get to learn what happens next, for a value of “next” limited to those events which are depicted in nos. 21 and 22 of City of Roses. (Unless, of course, you’ve ordered paper copies of those chapbooks, in which case, check the mail.) —Don’t ask about the stock market, lottery tickets, or sportsball scores; prophesy’s a delicate business at best.

While you’re waiting, you can add Vol. 2 over on Goodreads, or talk it up hither, or yon. Beginning in April, let’s say Monday, April 21st, “Gallowglas” and then “Maiestie” will begin their serialization here, to round out the web-based, freely available collection. —Meanwhile, I’ll be over on the couch with a pile of books and madly scribbled scraps of paper, trying to figure out what happens in the next next.

(Oh, also? I’ll be at Readercon this year, for pretty much sure and certain. Further on which when more is known.)

Things to keep in mind (Further secrets of the epic)

Often we grow impatient with epic poems. Too long, we feel—all those irrelevant interruptions, those additions, conventions, invocations, interpolations, those stories and speeches, catalog and dull history. But these are all part of the journey, the reader’s journey on his long way around. For just as there are epic poets, involved in the task of creating, and just as there are epic heroes, who labor to create, so also are there epic readers. And all of those digressions and history and stretches of catalog, all those elements of the poem which image the vastness and variety of the real world, allow the epic poet to involve the epic reader in the meaning of the poem, which is the immense difficulty of getting there and the driving necessity to go.

—A. Bartlett Giamatti

Things to keep in mind (The secret of how, and why)

The passage goes on into another paragraph, crescendoing with a sunrise, the whole revealing the city with the shock of the familiar made new.

And that is ultimately the answer. Fantasy tropes may fade, become familiar and tired, lose their power. Perhaps someday fantasy, itself, will do the same. But the classic cycle of myth and religion, which fantasy has taken on over and over again, isn’t one of life and then death, but of life, death, and rebirth. Familiarity is a question of context: what is your world made of? As our world shifts, what is new becomes old and what is old becomes new. The elements may be the same, but the magic is in the combination.

—Sessily Watt

No. 22: Maiestie

This insubstantial pageant fades; there will be a brief intermission. “That maiestie, to keep decorum.” 36 pages with color cover. $3.00 plus shipping and handling.

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When the Phone sings – up, and Always up – Water, crashing – Wednesday morning – Jo, unexpected – The stuff in the Bucket – a Surprise – the Men about the City – how Things are Done – “I will,” says Ysabel – the Last he has – How, and Why – Jo, crumpled – God buy you – Kissing, and Kissing again – no Promise broken – Blood; Sweat; Tears – “My people!”

Here the cup, and there the lip, and somewhere in betwixt, the slip

Supersticery Press is proud to announce a delay in the impending publication of The Dazzle of Day, volume 2 of City of Roses, the acclaimed web serial by Kip Manley.

Things to keep in mind (The secret of the epic)

One can say the epic is a profoundly political kind of poem, if we take political as it is derived from the Greek polis, city, and thus is concerned with the way men live in community. But we mistake this political preoccupation if we regard epic only as celebrating creation and hymning the order and goodly government of things. Epic does sing of order, but out of necessity as much as delight; for epic is profoundly aware of the forces that destroy, of the disease and savage loneliness within man that renders so much of his human effort futile. The Iliad, after all, ends with the imminent destruction of a city; the festive Odyssey culminates with a vast feast hall littered with dead bodies. And the Aeneid begins with Troy in flames and ends with another city conquered, as, in the name of fatherhood and civilization, Aeneas becomes another Achilles, and brutal Turnus another Hector, killed before a conquered town. Paradise Lost, for all the hopes and promises of redemption, ends with the solitary pair wandering past flaming swords, exiled from the garden that was a perfect earthly image of God’s city. The great civilizing passage of the son to fatherhood, of the individual to an institution, cannot be accomplished without pain and loss. “For nothing can be sole or whole,” says Yeats, “that has not been rent.”

—A. Bartlett Giamatti, Play of Double Senses:

Spenser’s F‐‐rie Queene

P to the R

Supersticery Press is pleased to announce the impending publication of The Dazzle of Day, volume 2 of City of Roses, the acclaimed webserial by Kip Manley.

No. 21: Gallowglas

Ysabel is gone, gone from this world; what’s a mortal to do? “Neither good against horsemen, nor able to endure an encounter of pikes.” 36 pages with color cover. $3.00 plus shipping and handling.

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a Screaming – Easing her Coat – stupid stupid stupid stupid – Prophecy – Salt for a Jaded palate – the Grey Man – Bad dreams – so Much, left out; so Much takes Shape – her Certainty – wrenched – “Do you see?” – Falling will fall, Fell – up and up and up – Stepping into Jockey shorts – the Wedding garment – not the Gun – this time, Maybe this time – falling – if Even this

No. 20: Sun (Closing)

Laughter, a Whoop of delight – Sunday morning

No. 20: Sun (Act IV)

Sky Bridge, Theatre, Accessible Route – the Second sign, & the Third – “Look, behold” – Exit –