Howard Andrew Jones's Blog, page 12

Horse Adventures

I’ve mentioned before that one of my horses likes to lean against the top fence rail to get the grass on the other side. Unfortunately, it’s the largest horse that does this, and his weight frequently breaks the rail, which ends up in a lot of fence repair every spring. It’s among my least favorite things to do. Fixing each rail takes about 45 minutes. So far this year he’d already busted about five of them. But wait…

This Saturday my wife and I were walking around the barn to get to some yardwork only to discover that one of our horses was calmly standing outside the fence, doing what horses are usually doing, eating grass. A little further downslope was the big horse, also munching grass. Nearby we saw how they’d gotten out — Trigger, the large horse, must have leaned against the top rail to get to some juicy grass on the other side, and then leaned against the middle rail, and then stepped over the bottom rail once both were destroyed. The other horse had followed.

Now Trigger’s a pretty docile animal and comes when called, but the mare, well, she’s kind of bossy and not very interested in people, and as soon as she saw us coming to retrieve them she galloped off and chased Trigger before her. Fortunately they ran into the neighbor’s big empty yard. My son, recently back from college, and my wife and I spent the next 45 minutes rounding the animals up. Then we spent 45 minutes searching for my wife’s Iphone, which she thought she’d dropped in the pasture (it turned out she’d left it upstairs).

Following on all THAT, my wife and I began our much delayed yardwork, with her climbing onto the riding mower and me heading off for the trimmer, only to discover that the riding mower wouldn’t turn over. The battery was in fine shape, so it’s something else beyond my paltry mechanical skill. My wife declared that she thought the universe was trying to tell us something, but we still managed a little planting.

As I write this, it’s Sunday morning. I see some fence repair in my future, and some lawn mower repair, and all the other yardwork I’d planned to do yesterday to start with…

 

Chainsaw and Corris

So this weekend I fired up a chainsaw and wielded it for the first time. I have the power! Also, I had protective chaps and gloves and helmet and face shield.

I have been binge reading the Australian mystery writer Peter Corris. He and Lawrence Block are among  the closest modern writers I know to hardboiled. I’ve loved Block’s Matthew Scudder’s detective novels, and I’ve discovered I love the different landscape and atmosphere of the Corris novels, which are all set in Australia.

There are about 40 books, and some of them are short story collections, and I’ve probably read 10 of them now, although not all in the last few days. The mysteries are strong and he’s great with characters. So far I’ve just been reading the ones he wrote in the ‘80s rather than the ones he’s written most recently, so maybe they drop in quality. Or maybe they get even better.

The other morning I finished The Marvelous Boy and I saved this bit of prose for you as our hero Cliff Hardy is walking into a weight lifting club to seek information:

A girl was sitting at a desk reading a magazine, smoking, and drinking coffee from a polystyrene cup. Her yellow hair fell down from a centre part that ran like a white scar along her skull. She looked up and gave me a fifty carat smile with capped teeth, red lips and eyes like jeweled spiders.

“Good Afternoon, Sir,” she breathed. “Are you interested in building a new body?”

“Not really. I need a new one.”

The other night I tried mixing things up by reading another detective series and after two chapters I just went online and checked out another e-library book starring Cliff Hardy. I think it says something for him that I just keep wanting to read more.

Flamehair

For years now I’ve been hearing about the adventure fiction of H. Bedford-Jones, a pulp historical writer famed as being one of those guys who wrote an astonishing amount of prose. Some people love him. Until now, though, everything I’ve read by the guy has been… competent, and I figured maybe that’s what you’d get out of a guy who mass produced his fiction — high competence but maybe not a great deal of characterization or sophisticated plotting, maybe a guy who recycles plots, or who doesn’t really revise much.

But after talking with Tom Roberts of Black Dog Books at Windy City, he reminded me again of that H. Bedford Jones book he’d given me a few years back, and I pulled it off the shelf — and man, does it start with a bang. It’s far and away the best thing by the writer I’ve ever read. Will it hold up as I get deeper into the book? I dunno. Are there other good stories by H. Bedford Jones? Maybe so. I wonder who’s done the digging through his immense catalog to discover which by him are the very best?

Any of you out there Bedford-Jones fans? I’d love to hear if there are other fine tales out there by him.

And here’s a link if you want to pick up a copy and read along with me.

Link Day

On link days I usually point my visitors towards a whole slew of sites, but today I’m only sharing one, Paperback Warrior. I’ve just started poking around there and already I found it necessary to comment in two of the most recent posts, most recently, Fargo, and the post before THAT on a Harry Whittington title I haven’t tried but now want to. It looks like a site just chock full of info on cool old titles.

I’m a huge fan of Ben Haas, the guy behind the Fargo books, and have written about him at length previously. Here you can find how to get to the books, and here you can get my own ringing endorsement of the writer himself.

As long as I’m discussing ringing endorsements, let me AGAIN mention how fine that Howard Browne Paul Pine collection was from Haffner Press. Dang, but those were good mysteries in the Chandler style, and DANG, but that final complete novel in the collection is one fine book. They’re all really good, but the fourth one is a masterpiece. Highly, highly recommended not just for anyone who likes a good mystery, but for anyone who likes great storytelling. Get your copy, pronto!

Windy City Recap

I arrived in Chicago on Thursday, on the way visiting my cousin Lisa from my mom’s side and my Aunt Carol on my dad’s. It had been more than a quarter century since I’d seen Lisa, and three or four years since I’d seen Aunt Carol, so it was an immense pleasure to reconnect.

The drive to Windy City was a long one, but I amused myself by listening to what had been an impulse choice from the library, the audio book Rogue Heroes by Ben Macintyre. The history of Britain’s secret special forces outfit in WWII  ended up being so gripping that once I arrived at the hotel I sat in the car for a few more minutes letting the chapter finish before I headed inside.

I met up with John O’Neill for supper. It was the first time in four or five years that we’d been in the same place, and it was a real pleasure to see him. We treated ourselves to a great sushi meal, then carried in a few dozen boxes to John’s booth in the dealer room. I looked around for my contact on the Dungeon Crawl Classics team, Deiter Zimmerman, and realized then it would have been clever of me to have gotten his phone number beforehand. Then I visited with John and I crashed in his room. I slept poorly and got up early for a little writing, a habit that continued throughout the convention. The sleeping poorly, I mean. Eventually I slept so badly I wasn’t up for much writing.

John’s giveaway books

I met Deiter Friday morning after he’d already set up the booth. He’s a cool guy with an interesting background that includes archeology, extensive training in swordplay, and gaming, and loves some of the same old writers I do. We’d never met before but we got on well, which was a good thing, given that we were sitting at a booth together all the time for two and a half days. From our own booth we had a great view of the convention.

There were five aisles full of amazing old stuff. Some dealers were publishing reprint anthologies containing stories from the pulps. Some were reprinting pulp facsimiles like Planet Stories or Jungle Stories or G8 and his Battle Aces or what have you. One or two were selling vids of old serials or tapes of old radio shows. But the rest were old books, old magazines, and old art FROM the magazines. A lot of the ORIGINAL art. The guy across from our booth was dedicated mostly to Burroughs, old hardbacks, old paperbacks, and various collectibles and art pieces. (We were graced with a clear view of a lovely sketch of a topless Dejah Thoris for most of the convention.)

I spent the most time wandering around picking out treasures on Friday, thinking that Saturday would be busier and there’d be no chance then. That didn’t turn out to be the case, which was good, because Dieter spotted some great deals on old books Saturday that he hadn’t seen the day before.

John Chris Hocking turned up around 2 or 3. He and I talk and text regularly but I hadn’t seen him for years. When Chris and Deiter and and I weren’t hanging out at the booth catching up or discussing our various interests we spelled each other so that the others could wander around and take in the con.

Over the course of the day a number of cool people dropped by the booth to chat, like Bill Cavalier and my friend and fellow Lamb scholar Kevin Cook, Rich Warren, Walker Martin (whose own Con report with many more photos is here) and many others, among them the owner of the excellent Pulp Flakes web site, Sai S. (I actually know his full name, but he doesn’t mention it on his site.) It was my first time meeting Sai, who was extremely kind, thanking me for my work getting Harold Lamb into print, and telling me how much he enjoyed my Dabir and Asim stories. 

Dieter and Chris and I met up with Black Gate blogger Bob Byrne, bookseller and all around great guy David Willoughby, and John O’Neill, and went to a fantastic Indian place for dinner. Some of the crowd was a little cautious about the Indian fare, but I think we won them over. I’ve corresponded with Bob off and on for the last couple of years about Sherlock Holmes and Solar Pons, sword-and-sorcery, and gaming, but it was the first time I’d met him in person.

After, we broke into smaller groups, and Deiter retreated to his hotel room to read some of his newly acquired treasures. Hocking and I drove over to the nearby Half Price Books (because apparently you can never have too many old books) and he got me a copy of the excellent graphic novel Coward by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. Man, was that a great blast of hard boiled storytelling. That night the two of us ended up in a long conversation with Sai up in the con suite and it was one of the highlights of the con, owing to overlapping interests and mutual appreciation of the same writers — and suggestions for writers drafting in a similar vein to others we discussed.

Saturday was much the same: we were stationed at the booth and friends and acquaintances and friendly strangers showed up at the booth to visit and look over the merchandise. The illustrious Steven Silver dropped by for a while and we caught up a little. At one point a little girl came by and looked at the booth and fell in love with the Goodman Games dice. She came back with about half of what was required to buy a package, said it was all she had and asked if it was enough. She SO wanted those dice. So Deiter and I tossed the difference into the “kitty” and Deiter handed it over.

Neither Deiter nor I wanted to make the mistake of missing lunch again, after skipping breakfast for the second day. Steven Silver took Chris and Bob and me out to a tasty hamburger place and we caught each other up on our adventures in more detail. I brought Deiter back a burger. 

Late in the day Paizo’s Erik Mona dropped by the booth and we had the longest visit we’ve had in years. He’s a fellow pulp lover, as you may know, but the last few years he’s been so busy with Paizo that we haven’t managed more than a casual hello at GenCon. He’d been in town for another convention Friday and as soon as he heard Windy City was taking place he hightailed it over. He asked me to help him judge which Roy Krenkel drawings were the best in a certain price range, and we looked over a slew of sketches at one of the art booths together.

An hour or so before closing  my childhood pal Aaron Brooks drove in. It had probably been at least eight years since I’d seen him, but despite later claims that age was taking a toll, he didn’t seem to have changed. He’s a tall, lean, good-looking guy with a ready smile, and unlike me he still has all of his hair and none of it’s graying. I showed him around a little, and he was so taken with one of the art pieces that he purchased it on the spot. He joined Chris and me and a whole host of people for dinner at a great Persian place (among them Steve Silver, Bob Byrne, Erik Mona, Deiter, and Dave Ritzlin, whose excellently produced books I mentioned on the blog the other day).

Aaron kindly offered to drive Erik back to his hotel in downtown Chicago and Chris and I tagged along so we could all visit a while longer. Then Aaron and Chris and I relaxed in the hotel bar for a few hours and traded stories and reminisced.

John, Eric, Howard, and Chris.

Sunday morning Chris and I went out for breakfast at a neat little local pancake place named Blueberry Hill, then ventured into the con. Some of the dealers were already packing up their wares — we guessed we weren’t the only ones feeling a little homesick. E.E. Knight, writer of the Vampire Earth and Dragon Age series, dropped by. He’s another old friend and pulp lover.

At noon I sat in on a sword-and-sorcery panel. Beside me was David C. Smith, fellow REH fan and REH scholar and a writer probably best known for his Oron stories and his Red Sonja novels. Our fellow panelists were writers Andy Fix and Gordon Dymoski. As you might expect, when it comes to discussing sword-and-sorcery of the pulps, Robert E. Howard was one of the main topics. We had a good panel and received some interesting questions. I was a little dismayed when the topic of Robert E. Howard’s suicide came up. Honestly, I hate talking about that and would rather discuss his writing. But it was one of the most sensitive and thoughtful discussions about depression I’ve heard in connection with REH, and I walked away impressed with the way the moderator, Gordon Dymoski, had managed the discussion.

After the panel, I said goodbye to Deiter, to Chris, and to John, and got on the road. It was a long drive back to the Sea of Monsters, and I hit a traffic snarl and had to deal briefly with a confused Siri’s road directions. But I made it, enjoying my audio book the whole way.

It’s always a little bittersweet leaving a convention, especially when you’re visiting with people you really like whom you haven’t seen in years. But I was really missing my wife. I’ve been so busy since my return that I haven’t really had a chance to look over my treasures yet!

Friday Update

I’ve finished the prose part of my Windy City recap now and just have to transfer the photos in from various electronic devices. I’ve received the preliminary pass of Tales From the Magician’s Skull issue 2 and am reviewing that, and I’m addressing some final changes in my novel. I’m also getting ready to paint the ceiling of our basement.

In other words, it’s a busy week!

I wanted to point all my visitors over to some nifty things I think they’ll find of interest…

As you probably know, as well as being one of my favorite people, John C. Hocking is one of my very favorite writers. And for the first time in, well, ever, three of his stories are in print in the same month. One can be found in Tales From the Magician’s Skull issue 1. The others can be found in Skelos 3, and Weirdbook 38. These last two are new stories of The Archivist, whom you may remember from his Black Gate appearances. Get thee hence, because both are fabulous sword-and-sorcery. Hocking himself thinks the short story in Skelos 3 may be the very best he’s ever written. At least so far. All I know is that I loved ’em both, and I think you will too.

Yesterday Black Gate took an interview I held with the talented Ilana C. Myer live. You should go check it out, and then go read her books. She drafts cracking  good adventure fiction with beautiful prose. She described her first book as epic fantasy, which may be true, except that it’s not infinitely padded, or padded at all. And the pacing if strong; there’s lots of great intrigue and all the details about the bards and their magic work are impressive. It’s one of the best modern fantasies I’ve read in years.

The sequel book has some of the same characters and is a continuation, but it’s not a tightly connected trilogy where nothing was resolved in book 1.

 

Halo For Hire

I’m still working on a lengthy convention post about Windy City. I don’t honestly know how interested people are in reading convention reports, but I always figure that if you’re not there it’s interesting to see what they’re like. Let me know if I’m wrong.

Of all the treasures I picked up, the one that called to me first was Halo for Hire, which I picked up from Stephen Haffner of Haffner Press. As I mentioned last time, it collects all four novels featuring Paul Pine, along with a short story and a novella. I know there was some speculation about who the cover had been modeled off of the last time I mentioned the book, but that’s NOT Bruce Willis. That is, in fact, Trond Flagstad, the husband of the author Howard Browne’s daughter. He makes a pretty cool looking private eye, doesn’t he?

I like Browne’s writing so well that rather than starting with the book in the collection I haven’t read I just began at page one.

Like all Haffner Press books, it’s a beaut. The spine is lettered and so is the front of the hardback beneath the dust jacket, and the paper quality and binding is top notch. It’s not the kind of book you sit down with to read in one hand while you munch your sandwich. You want to settle into an easy chair for this one.

And if you like a good mystery and good writing, you really owe it to yourself to check it out. The fourth novel in the collection, The Taste of Ashes may actually out-Chandler Chandler. Same writing style, elegantly polished, without any Chandler plot issues or digressions. The others I’ve read are quite strong as well, but The Taste of Ashes is a bonafide masterpiece. It’s about time it got the deluxe treatment it deserved. Thanks, mighty Haffner!

Windy City

Yesterday evening I got back from the Windy City Pulp and Paperback convention. It was pretty grand, if you happen to like old magazines, old books, art from both, and the people who love that stuff.

Here’s a pic of some of the treasures I returned with. Click to enlarge. I’ll summarize the events later this week. Note in the lower portion of the picture that there’s the Haffner hardback collecting the amazing Paul Pine detective stories of Howard Browne, Halo for Hire. Harder to see are the paperbacks from DMR publishing. They’re nifty little paperbacks printed on high quality paper. I picked up the first of DMR’s sword-and-sorcery anthologies, Swords of Steel, and their printings of the first collected editions, ever, of Weird Tales authors Clifford Ball and Nictin Dyalhis. Both are definitely worth a look, and a steal at the $10.00 price point. You can find them here.

While I was away, another review of Tales From the Magician’s Skull rolled in, from Morgan Holmes over at Castlalia House, He seemed to like issue 1!

Guilds & Glaives

Here’s the cover of Guilds & Glaives, the upcoming anthology I’m sharing with James Enge and a bunch of other cool folks. It’s not out yet, but it will be soon. Last week I was sent page proofs.

You can still order it if you missed the Kickstarter, by going right here.

Shortly I’m leaving my tower for the long drive up to Chicago and the Windy City Pulp and Paper convention. Hope to see some of you there!

Catching Up

Whew! What a crazy few weeks it’s been. Suffice to say it’s been a little busy.

When we moved into this house more than ten years ago we had planned on a basement remodel. Up until now the walkout basement has been bare cinder blocks, but in the last little bit it’s finally getting a makeover. We’ve hired out almost all of the work, but that doesn’t leave me as free to be upstairs writing as you’d think, because I need to check in or be checked with frequently about various little decisions, and then errands have to be run into town to procure various supplies.

Then, with that just under way, we took a vacation to North Carolina, where we hiked around some lovely mountain tops and saw some waterfalls and even reached the height of the largest mountain east of the Mississippi. My daughter and my niece actually hiked all the way up that mountain (Mt. Mitchell).

Now I’m back home and the home improvement project has restarted. While I’m hard at work on various writing projects again, I’m also getting ready to head to the Windy City Pulp and Paper convention, which starts Friday in Chicago. It will be my second public appearance as the editor of Tales From the Magician’s Skull, and the first after the publication of the magazine. Goodman Games will have a booth at the convention selling the mag, and I’ll be there a good chunk of the con. The rest of the time I’ll be hanging out with friends I rarely get to see, like Chris Hocking, and John O’Neill, and Eric Knight, some of my friends I know from pulp collecting and childhood, like Kevin and Aaron, and I’ll meet other friends in I’ve never met in person, like Bob Byrne.

I hope I’ll see some of you there!

Oh, and in case you missed it, the first big review of Tales From the Magician’s Skull has appeared, and good things were said.