Howard Andrew Jones's Blog, page 53

The Big Lord Dunsany Re-Read

I don’t actually know how big it will be, because so far I have me and anyone else who wants to join in. Which means just me.

While prepping for the lecture I gave at the Big Read I started thinking about all of the great Lord Dunsany short stories I’ve enjoyed over the years and realized that there were a couple of collections I’d still only sampled from. I decided it was time to revisit that lyrical master of the fantastic.

I hope some of you will join in. For the next three or four Fridays I’ll be reading through A Dreamer’s Tales, and for the first week I’ll be reading:

“Poltarnees, Beholder of the Ocean”
“Blagdaross”
“The Madness of Andelsprutz”
“Where the Tides Ebb and Flow”
“Bethmoora”

If you don’t have a copy and are short on cash, you can join the read-along via project Gutenberg, where you can access this book for free, via this link to A Dreamer’s Tales.

Lord Dunsany’s stories are typically quite short — those five stories take up a little over 30 pages total, so I’m sure you can fit it in over the course of a week.

I’m going to use a very simple rating system. One star if it’s pretty cool and two stars if it’s outstanding, and I’ll probably add a few comments about my reaction to each one as well. Hope to see you here, and I hope you’ll join in. Once we’re through with the book perhaps we can give an overall summation, and if we’re still curious, continue on. I’m saving his first book for last if so, because I recall it being the most challenging to get involved with.

Big Read List

I’ve returned from DeKalb Illinois, where I was treated royally by Big Read organizers Steve Roman and Edith Craig. Steve and his wife Karen showed me around the downtown and took me out for dinner, then drove me to the Ellwood House, where I addressed the audience about the importance of fantasy fiction and delved into its history.

I promised attendees that I would provide a list of highlights from among the books I mentioned over the course of the talk, and here they are.

Gilgamesh, a prose translation by Herbert Mason (available in multiple printings).

Kalila and Dimna, translated by Ramsay Woods (available in multiple printings).

(or Book of Kings) translated by Dick Davis.

The Worm Ouroboros by E.R. Eddison.

My favorite editions of the 1001 Nights are those by Hussain Haddawy and Jack Zipes.

Time and the Gods by Lord Dunsany. This collects six of his greatest short story collections (be careful, though, because there are multiple collections of the same title. If it’s under 200 pages, it is NOT the omnibus). There also are fine tales to be found in his collection The Hashish Man, and other books. He has been reprinted so many times that it’s possible to find a number of “best of” compilations if you poke around a little.

Wolf of the Steppes or Swords from the West are the best introductions to Harold Lamb, depending upon whether you’re interested in reading about Cossacks or Crusaders.

The Best of H.P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and Suspense has most of my favorite (and most of the important) Lovecraft stories.

The Best of Robert E. Howard, volumes 1 and 2 provide a wide sampling of this author’s greatest work.

In passing I mentioned both Fritz Leiber‘s stories of Lankhmar and C.L. Moore‘s Jirel of Joiry. There have been so many different editions of Leiber’s tales that it’s better to just point you towards the stories I think are most enjoyable, which I did in an earlier post on the web site. Here’s a link. You can find Jirel of Joiry either under that title or under Black God’s Kiss.

There are the wonderful Imaro stories by Charles Saunders, about a hero wandering a fantastic Africa.

I mentioned Leigh Brackett. There are the amazing complete collections from Haffner Press. If you wish to simply sample her work, then Sea-Kings of Mars has about 85% of what I’d consider her very best short fiction — but it’s out of print and very expensive. A more affordable starting place is the second of the Haffner Press books, when Brackett really hits her stride, Lorelei of the Red Mist.

Lastly I mentioned modern speculative fiction authors alive and well and working near DeKalb. These are Jim Butcher, Mary Robinette Kowal, and E.E. Knight.

Hardboiled Monday: Such Men are Dangerous

Following up on the hardboiled master list, I thought I’d talk about the book by Lawrence Block that holds the number two slot (because we’re going in alphabetical order until we we get to the anthologies). Chris Hocking was kind enough to drop by and offer a few additional thoughts. Every Monday until we reach the end of the list we’ll discuss another book from the list, working our way down in alphabetical order.

Any questions about the contents of the list can probably be answered on the preamble on the post about the list itself, which was created by Hocking to lure me into reading hardboiled and noir, based on his reading in both genres for more than three decades. It worked. Being good doesn’t get you on the list; a work has to be great, keeping in mind certain idiosyncrasies that I discussed in the original post.

You know how Sturgeon famously said that “Ninety percent of everything is crud?” These books are drawn from the ten percent of hardboiled and noir that isn’t.

Just a brief aside before we get to the discussion — this evening I’ll be at the DeKalb Illionois Public Library addressing the importance of fantasy fiction as part of this year’s Big Read. Details are here.

I found Such Men are Dangerous to be a page-turner of a book with a chilling, fascinating narrator. It’s a heist novel that’s just this side of outrageous, but Block pulls it off. I’m curious now to try other books by him, including some of his series novels.

Chris Hocking added: “One of the best reasons for reading noir is the strange sense of disorientation the better examples can provide.  A story may have the drive, power and feel of a well executed genre thriller, yet take you in directions that stun or even alarm.  The events of this novel and the shocking, yet ultimately consistent, behavior of the narrator combine to shake the reader.”

Return to Form

After more than a half dozen years away, I’ve finally returned to East-West Karate, where I earned my Black Belt. I didn’t start from zero, though. I began regular calisthenics in June and noticed how good that made me feel each morning. It increased my energy levels overall. After a few months I decided to re-up my membership and start work towards my second degree black belt. (Both of my children have now earned their first degrees, which pleases me mightily.)

Now I’ve been working out at the karate dojo for a month and I’m starting to re-learn the mid-level katas, or forms. I look pretty sloppy still, but it’s nice to be moving through a kata and suddenly have some of the old knowledge snap into place. I’m looking forward to getting crisp with them, relearning the higher level forms, and eventually getting to the final ones required for the second degree black belt test. It’s a year or two off, assuming I can get up to speed fairly quickly, but I don’t care. Just the thought of having the chance to try for a second degree is pretty swell. I thought, after my knee issues, that I’d never be able to do this stuff again.

 

Reflections on the 7th Novel

Me with just a little less gray than I have these days.

I turned over my fourth Pathfinder novel this week. It’s a little strange thinking that it won’t see the light of day until two years from now. By then my daughter will be a junior in high school and my son will be a sophomore in college. Sometimes I think time would feel less like it proceeds at such a breakneck pace if I didn’t constantly have my children changing to show me. My wife and I don’t feel particularly different than we felt two years ago (although I do have more gray) and with luck we won’t feel too different in two more years.

But as to my main point, I turned over my fourth Pathfinder novel, and I’m going to take a moment and talk about the writing of it. Never have I written so fast and so well at the same time, and I’m going to chalk it up to my new outlining process (and here’s a follow-up post showing it in action). I’ve gotten more and more comfortable using that process and know better and better how to write, thank the muses. From first draft to third took almost precisely three months, even with a one week hiatus for GenCon and another week’s hiatus after I finished the second draft to work on the outline for novel 8.

It may sound as though I’m bragging, but I’m in competition with no one but myself. Short of being on the bestseller list — something I’m still hoping all of you will assist me with — the only way to make a living in this business is to find a way to write more quickly, and through a lot of effort and experimentation I seem to have done it. Back in August of 2013 I mentioned that I’ve never been one of those writers who could get the book mostly right on the first draft and then used the next draft or two to get it polished, but I hoped that I might become one with this method. And so I have. I’ve been striving to improve my time and my skill, sort of like a marathon runner. The fact that the writing itself seems to be growing more nuanced pleases me, although I can’t shake that secret fear so many of us writers have, that the work’s not really very good at all. Someone’s always ready to tell you that, of course, so I try not to be one of them too often. I suppose if I ever shook that fear completely I’d just be another arrogant, self-entitled artiste, but then maybe a little sliver of that is in most of us as well.

For the rest of the week I’ll probably be working on the keynote address I’m giving near Chicago for the Dekalb Public Library’s Big Read. When I return from that I’ll make a quick pass on the first Paizo novel of the summer (novel number 6) to change some things necessitated by novel 7 and then start another pass on novel number 5, the so-called Hearthstones novel, while I continue to whip its sequel’s outline into shape.

As I’ve mentioned from time to time, it feels as though I’m learning some tricks about pacing and trusting my judgment and most-of-all character motivation that I’m not sure I personally could have picked up without a whole lot of practice. If I COULD tell younger me some of what I now do, I’d say what I tell younger writers — know what every character wants before you start writing the scene. Know who your villain is and what they want. Know your characters.

Here again are my writing mistakes posts (the first one, and the follow-up that explains some of the mistakes in more detail).

These are MY mistakes. I offer them in the hope that my explaining them might help you. But it’s possible you have your own different mistakes in which case this won’t aid you at all. Sorry about that.

Now I will sign off and get to finishing that speech. Hope to see some of you west of Chicago in a few days.

Hardboiled Monday: Queenpin

Following up on last week’s hardboiled master list, I thought I’d talk about the first writer whose work appears on it, Megan Abbott. Chris Hocking was kind enough to drop by and offer a few additional thoughts.

Every Monday until we reach the end of the list we’ll discuss another book from the list, working our way down in alphabetical order. Any questions about the contents of the list can probably be answered on the preamble on the post about the list itself. The list was created by Hocking to lure me into reading hardboiled and noir, based on his reading in both genres for more than three decades. It worked. Being good doesn’t get you on the list; a work has to be great, keeping in mind certain idiosyncrasies that I discussed in the original post.

You know how Sturgeon famously said that “Ninety percent of everything is crud?” These books are drawn from the ten percent of hardboiled and noir that isn’t.

First up is Abbott’s Queenpin, and I see from my notes that I put a star by it. Generally I liked everything on the list, but some books got a gold star, which meant that I REALLY enjoyed them.

One of a handful of modern hardboiled and noir books on the list, Abbott’s Queenpin was so good I’m set on reading more from her. As you might be able to guess from the title, Queenpin’s about a woman who rises to become a powerful figure in a crime cartel. It’s the only novel on this list with a female protagonist, but that’s not why it’s here – it’s a thrilling read. I’m not at all surprised it won an Edgar Award.

I’ll leave a more informed discussion to Chris Hocking, who wrote the following: “I included Abbott’s short story “Our Eyes Couldn’t Stop Opening” in the Akashic Books collection Detroit Noir.  It’s one of the strongest looks into an adolescent mind I’ve read, and a guarantee that I’d follow the author’s work thereafter.  Although an editor isn’t supposed to mention favorites, that story still stands out for me, and not just me alone– it was selected for the publisher’s ‘best of noir’ anthology, USA Noir.  Queenpin is an excellent, character-driven crime story that freshens classic noir tropes so sharply and sweetly that you don’t recognize them until they’ve sucker-punched you.”

 

 

Hardboiled Monday

Following up on last week’s hardboiled master list, I thought I’d talk about the first writer whose work appears on it, Megan Abbott. Chris Hocking was kind enough to drop by and offer a few additional thoughts.

Every Monday until we reach the end of the list we’ll discuss another book from the list, working our way down in alphabetical order. Any questions about the contents of the list can probably be answered on the preamble on the post about the list itself. The list was created by Hocking to lure me into reading hardboiled and noir, based on his reading in both genres for more than three decades. It worked. Being good doesn’t get you on the list; a work has to be great, keeping in mind certain idiosyncrasies that I discussed in the original post.

You know how Sturgeon famously said that “Ninety percent of everything is crud?” These books are drawn from the ten percent of hardboiled and noir that isn’t.

First up is Abbott’s Queenpin, and I see from my notes that I put a star by it. Generally I liked everything on the list, but some books got a gold star, which meant that I REALLY enjoyed them.

One of a handful of modern hardboiled and noir books on the list, Abbott’s Queenpin was so good I’m set on reading more from her. As you might be able to guess from the title, Queenpin’s about a woman who rises to become a powerful figure in a crime cartel. It’s the only novel on this list with a female protagonist, but that’s not why it’s here – it’s a thrilling read. I’m not at all surprised it won an Edgar Award.

I’ll leave a more informed discussion to Chris Hocking, who wrote the following: “I included Abbott’s short story “Our Eyes Couldn’t Stop Opening” in the Akashic Books collection Detroit Noir.  It’s one of the strongest looks into an adolescent mind I’ve read, and a guarantee that I’d follow the author’s work thereafter.  Although an editor isn’t supposed to mention favorites, that story still stands out for me, and not just me alone– it was selected for the publisher’s ‘best of noir’ anthology, USA Noir.  Queenpin is an excellent, character-driven crime story that freshens classic noir tropes so sharply and sweetly that you don’t recognize them until they’ve sucker-punched you.”

 

 

Hardboiled and Noir List

A few posts ago I mentioned my friend Chris Hocking had provided me with an amazing list of hardboiled and noir fiction. Hocking gave me the titles of the books he thought I’d most enjoy, the crème de la crème of the hardboiled and noir books he’s read over the last three and a half decades. It’s an extremely generous gift. Think of it this way: I’d have had to read for more than thirty years in the genre to find these on my own! With his permission, I’m now sharing it with you.

Before you dig in, understand that this list is idiosyncratic: it’s like a mix tape made for me by someone who not only understood my own preferences in literature but happened to have extremely similar tastes.

It’s not going to be ideal for every reader out there. For instance, Chris had recommended The Killer Inside Me and while I couldn’t put it down I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to read anything quite like it again, so he added a lesser-known Jim Thompson novel that’s not as unsettling to the list. It turns out I’m more a fan of hardboiled fiction than straight up noir, possibly because there are actual heroes in hardboiled fiction, even if they’re flawed and world-weary.

One last thing. I don’t want to devote a whole lot of discussion to what’s not on the list, but I do want to say a little because inevitably someone will drop by and ask why so-and-so isn’t here.

As I grew more familiar with the genre, I’d ask Hocking about authors who didn’t make the list. In the case of one writer who’s well-regarded in some quarters, he said: “I read one by him, then one by Talmage Powell. Then I tried another by him, and then three by Talmage Powell. Powell kicked his butt.” Talmage Powell is equally obscure, you see, but appealed more to Hocking. Certainly Powell’s books work for me.

If you’re already well-read in these genres you’ll notice some famous writers who didn’t make the list, possibly because they’re a little too groovy, or not as hard-edged, or possibly because Hocking himself hasn’t gotten to their best work and didn’t think their early stuff good enough to make this cut. Anyway, I hope to keep discussion to what’s ON it and why it’s good.

Over the next few weeks I’ll tell you what I thought of these books, and where to find them. Some were meant as introductions to the author’s body of work; others are their only work in the genre, and some are simply their best books.

Novels

Megan Abbot: Queenpin

Lawrence Block: Such Men Are Dangerous

Howard Browne: Halo in Blood, Halo for Satan, Halo in Brass, A Taste of Ashes, Thin Air

Paul Cain: Fast One

Raymond Chandler: Farewell, My Lovely, The Long Goodbye, etc.

Max Allan Collins: Quarry, etc.

James Crumley: The Last Good Kiss

Norbert Davis: The Mouse in the Mountain

Barry Fantoni: Mike Dime, Stick Man

Richard Hallas: You Play the Black & the Red Comes Up

Dashiell Hammett: Red Harvest, the Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man, etc.

Richard Latimer: The Lady in the Morgue, Solomon’s Vineyard

Dan J. Marlowe: The Name of the Game is Death

Thomas Maxwell: Kiss Me Once, The Saberdene Variations

Wade Miller: Devil May Care, Guilty Bystander, etc.

Frederick Nebel: The Complete Casebook of Cardigan

Talmage Powell: With a Madman Behind Me, The Girls’ Number Doesn’t Answer, The Killer is Mine

Mickey Spillane: One Lonely Night, I, the Jury

Richard Stark (Donald Westlake) : The Parker Series (The Hunter, etc.)

Jim Thompson: After Dark, My Sweet

Charles Williams: Man on the Run

Harry Whittington: Forgive Me, Killer (aka Brute in Brass)

 

Anthologies and Non-Fiction

Geoffrey O’Brien: Hardboiled America (non-fiction)

Bill Pronzini (ed): The Mammoth Book of Private Eye Stories, 1001 Midnights (non-fiction), Hard-Boiled

Herbert Ruhm (ed): The Hard-Boiled Detective

Robert Weinberg, Stefan Dziemianowicz, Martin Greenberg (ed): Hard-Boiled Detectives, Tough Guys, & Dangerous Dames

 

 

Hardboiled, or Noir?

It turns out that I’ve been using two related genre terms interchangeably in a whole series of related posts over the last year and now I have to cringe and confess I didn’t know what I was talking about.

Chris Hocking has introduced me to some noir, it’s true, but mostly what he’s opened me to is hardboiled fiction. While I’ve enjoyed the noir, it’s the hardboiled stuff that’s delighted me the most. I’m actually going to excerpt the Wikipedia definition of the term to define it, although I take issue with its concluding phrase, where it goes dreadfully wrong:

Hardboiled (or hard-boiled) fiction is a literary genre that shares to some degree its characters and settings with crime fiction (especially detective stories). Although deriving from romantic tradition which emphasized the emotions of apprehension, horror and terror, and awe, the hardboiled fiction deviates from the tradition in the detective’s cynical attitude towards those emotions. The attitude is conveyed through the detective’s self-talk describing to the reader (or—in film—to the viewer) what he is doing and feeling. The genre’s typical protagonist was a detective, who daily witnesses the violence of organized crime that flourished during Prohibition, while dealing with a legal system that had become as corrupt as the organized crime itself.[1] Rendered cynical by this cycle of violence, the detectives of hardboiled fiction are classic antiheroes.

This is pretty much spot-on except for the all important point that detectives of hardboiled fiction aren’t classic “antiheroes,” who, according to the wikipedia definition of antihero, lack courage, idealism, and morality. The detectives of hardboiled fiction usually have all of these qualities, they’re just hidden under a layer of toughness and cynicism. Hardboiled detectives are white knights cloaked in their trench coats and fedoras, willing to lend a hand even though they’re world weary and are fairly sure it probably won’t matter in the long run.

The first of them seems to have been Caroll John Daly’s Race Williams, but it was Dashiell Hammet who really codified the character type and then Raymond Chandler who elevated him. Style-wise Hammet and Chandler are a little like Hemmingway versus Fitzgerald, respectively, although that analogy can’t be taken too far, because Hammet certainly used more descriptive phrasing than Hemmingway and Chandler and Fitzgerald read fairly differently, although you can certainly see how the latter influenced the former to some extent.

Later this week I’ll finally take a list live of the favorite books in the genre that I’ve been reading, but first I’ll tell you why. Keeping in mind Sturgeon’s Revelation that “ninety percent of everything is crap,” the ten percent of hardboiled (and noir) fiction that isn’t crap is so finely wrought it practically makes me weep. Tired of modern fantasy bloat? You want to see understated prose, rich characters who don’t constantly emote what they’re feeling? You want complex characters clashing as they’re pulled in different directions by their own motivations? You want swift-moving events that resolve so well you sometimes feel like you’ve been gut-punched (because “well” in hard-boiled and noir often doesn’t translate to “happily”)?

Then you should read this stuff.

I’ve been reading a steady diet of the very best of it, and it’s pretty hard to come back and read in my usual genres because I have been on a diet of some of the most masterful prose I’ve ever had under my eyeballs.

Does this mean that I’m going to stop writing fantasy and historicals? Hardly. But I do think it means my newest work is already colored by what I’ve lately been reading.

 

The Big Read

Next month I’ll be the keynote speaker at The DeKalb public library’s Big Read.

I’ll be speaking at 7:30 pm, October 6th at the Ellwood House – Visitor Center (Behind Ellwood House Museum), 509 N. 1st St., DeKalb, IL 60115.

I hope to see some of you there!

Further details can be found at this link.