Howard Andrew Jones's Blog, page 79

Manly Movie Week

With my mother now in a rehab facility following her heart attack, I was less than comfortable with the idea of taking off on the scheduled family vacation. I encouraged my wife to go ahead and leave (she REALLY needed some time off from her stressful job) and take my daughter. Our tickets were non-refundable. My son had become increasingly reluctant to go because of the heavy homework load at his high school, so we two remained behind. Thus, early Saturday morning, my wife, my daughter, and my mother-in-law (who took my ticket) flew off to Orlando.

Ever since, my son and I have been watching manly movies. My wife, you see, has almost no patience for westerns (apart from The Magnificent Seven and Silverado). She is even less interested in WWII movies than westerns, and doesn’t much care for Clint Eastwood as well. As a result, on movie nights over the years there are a lot of manly movies my children haven’t seen.

I know my way around westerns fairly well, and I’ve shown both of my kids some of the greats over the years, including Sergio Leone’s/Eastwood’s “The Man with No Name” trilogy (you know, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, etc.) but neither of them have seen any of the great WWII movies.

I have fond memories of watching some WWII movies with my father, but it’s been 30 or so years since then, so my actual memory of them is a little dim. I consulted with my friends Eric Knight and John Chris Hocking, both WWII history and movie buffs. I combined their suggestions with my memories of movies I’d seen with my own dad, what was available via the public library or Netflix instant streaming, and wasn’t in common circulation on television any more, and put a list together, leaning a little toward movies with Clint Eastwood. And here’s what we’ve seen so far.

The Bridge on the River Kwai

I hadn’t remembered much about this one apart from the ending, and the famous song, but I thought it was brilliantly scripted, acted, and filmed. It had quite an impact on my son, who was very impressed. Today you just don’t see bleak endings like that as often. It’s interesting to me how many of these older war movies actually have repercussions for their characters. Yes, they shows people doing brave things, but they also show a lot of people you like DYING. Perhaps that’s because many of the people acting, writing, and filming these stories were actual veterans.

Curiously, the fellow who wrote the book this movie was based on is Pierre Boulle, who wrote something spec fic fans should know a lot better, The Planet of the Apes. He also took huge liberties with the actual events in the camp. For instance, the character of Saito was actually a decent man who was not abusive to the prisoners, enough that the real British POW commander vouched for him at his war crimes trial. And the real British officer wasn’t a martinet and quietly worked to sabotage things. Also, conditions at the prison camp were actually WORSE than those shown on film.

Schindler’s List

This is something I wanted my son to see, even though it’s an outlier to my list conditions: A.) My wife thought this movie was brilliant, she just wasn’t sure that she could ever see it again. B.) I never saw this one with my father, and I’m not sure we ever discussed it. C.) It’s not a manly action movie… except that it’s full of real heroism. So far this is my son’s favorite film from the whole batch, although we’ve agreed to keep this one in a class by itself.

What can I say in praise of this movie that hasn’t already been said? It showed my son the horrors of WWII, the depths of humanity at its worst… and that one man CAN make a difference. I researched the actual events so we could talk about the movie afterward, and was surprised to learn that the character of Stern (Ben Kingsley) was actually an amalgam of two real men. Apart from the bit where Schindler breaks down at the end, most of the rest is horribly, horribly true.

I will probably watch this a final time with my daughter when she is old enough to see it.

Kelly’s Heroes

After Schindler’s List, my son kind of wanted to see some Nazis getting what was coming to them, although we did discuss that there were lot of Germans who weren’t Nazis. On watching Kelly’s Heroes, I saw nothing familiar, and am pretty certain I would have remembered it. That means there was a whole lot for me to enjoy, including the various plot developments and twists and action sequences, and even some comic bits. I thought the beginning was a bit rocky, and the rock song that they dropped into the movie three times was… well, rather than saying something unkind, I’ll just say it hasn’t aged well, and that it pulled me out of the movie the same way “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” always makes me wince in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

In this one I was expecting the characters would finally arrive and not get the treasure… but I was pleasantly surprised. And the twist at the end with the evil-looking SS tank commander was really nice.

The Great Escape

I remember watching snatches of this one with my father, although I had not recalled enough for the tension of the movie to be spoiled. Almost all of the names and many of the nationalities of the characters were changed from real life, but much of the rest of the movie is apparently dead-on, from the elaborate escape preparations to the brilliance, bravery, and ingenuity of the prisoners, to the general decency of the camp guards and officers. Once the prisoners of war got out of the camp, none of them escaped on a plane, and none of them escaped on a motor cycle, but the rest was just about right, including the way that the three men who made it all the way home accomplished it in real life.

And that means that the way that 50 escaped prisoners of the war were murdered by the SS after recapture is also absolutely true. Apparently Hitler was so incensed that he ordered all to be killed, and then was talked down to just having 50 shot. So they were. He also decreed that all captured commandos were to be shot from hence forth, and so they were.

The reason that the camp commander was portrayed so decently is that the fellow he was based upon was apparently a decent man in real life, who treated his prisoners with respect, and who was viewed with respect by them in turn. The German camp was run by the Luftwaffe (German air force) not the SS. In real life, when the word of the 50 escaped prisoners having been “shot while escaping” was conveyed to the lead British POW officer in the camp (Murray), it was apparent to all concerned that they’d been murdered by the Gestapo, and the German commander’s adjutant sounded aghast as he spoke to Murray: ” You must not think the Luftwaffe had anything to do with this… we do not wish to be associated… it is terrible.”

The Desert Fox

This was a mis-fire. I had only remembered that it was the first movie that ever started directly, before the credits rolled, and that there was a daring commando raid to try to kill Rommel at the beginning… And that’s about all we really get, except for one scene of Rommel being strictly scrupulous about the Geneva Convention’s treatment of prisoners, and the fact that he was admired and respected even by his enemies. Most of the rest of the movie is a rather slow stage play about how Rommel decides to throw in with the assassination attempt on Hitler. Rommel viewed himself as a soldier, not a politician. But the movie, apart from James Mason’s compelling portrayal of Rommel and Luther Adler’s inspired version of Hitler, didn’t give either my son or me what we’d wanted to see, and we stopped before the very end.

What we’d REALLY wanted to see was Rommel’s actual tactical brilliance (probably too expensive to film on a small budget) and more dramatization of the reasons he was viewed by the Allies with respect and even admiration. It had been a long time since I did any research about Rommel, so I dug in. I discovered what seemed a bevy of articles contradicting his portrayal as a noble and chivalrous soldier, then, doubtful of the information, dug further and realized that they could be tracked to a single slanted source and a documentary based upon it. Like the Nazis themselves used to say, if you lie big enough and make enough insinuations, people will believe you. In Rommel’s case it’s so hard to believe in a German commander who wasn’t a douchebag that it’s easy for people to assume him as evil as most famous (infamous) German high ranking officials from WWII.

But the facts seem still to be in place. No member of Rommel’s Arika Korps was ever brought up on war crimes. Rommel completely ignored any orders he found distasteful — for instance, the order to shoot all Jewish prisoners of war, and all commandos. As a matter of fact, he ordered that a British commando, Geoffrey Keyes, killed while trying to assassinate him, be buried with full military honors, then had the ceremony and grave site photographed so that the officer’s widow would know that the body had been properly interred.

In the desert it was challenging to know where the enemy lines began and ended, and once his column came upon a field hospital for New Zealand troops. Rather than arresting them, or something even more atrocious, Rommel inspected the camp, asked if they required any medical supplies, arranged for some to be sent to them, and drove the column away. He didn’t understand why Jewish soldiers had been removed from the rolls and wrote a letter of protest. He thought the best way to stop the anti-Semitic charges being raised against the Reich was to elevate some Jewish men to high positions of civil authority (this was obviously ignored). He completely ignored Hitler’s orders to deport Jews from France while he was building up Normandy’s defenses, and likewise refused orders to shoot captured Jewish civilians. His repeated letters protesting the treatment of Jews were all ignored. When building the Atlantic defenses of Normandy for the pending Allied invasion, contrary to standard “slave labor” practice of the Germans, he ordered the French civilians paid for their labor.

So, an honorable man who served his country, which, unfortunately for humanity, was run by evil and despicable men. Oh, and he was also a brilliant tactician, but I’ve gone on long enough already about him, so you can go read a book about that. Ye God, I now see I’ve talked more about Rommel than I have about any other entry on the list so far, and my son and I didn’t even finish the movie! Gifted military commanders fascinate me, so you’ll have to excuse my blathering. Moving along…

The Outlaw Josey Wales

I had stronger memories of this one, which I’m sure I saw several times in reruns with my father. My son and I enjoyed it very much. The script was very strong. I had recalled Josey’s meeting with Ten Bears being really nicely done, and as an adult I liked it even more. So much so that after I sent my son to bed last night I watched the entire scene between Ten Bears and Josey Wales (Will Sampson and Clint Eastwood) two more times. What great dialogue.

Apart from Schindler’s List, my son has judged The Outlaw Josey Wales to be his favorite of all the manly movies we’ve watched so far. I think that is probably because much of what we’ve seen are movies with big casts where you don’t get to know the characters as intimately, or where the characters are a little less fully realized. But it’s a damned fine movie.

UP NEXT

I’m going to steer away from the big cast pictures for the rest of the week, I think. The female half of the family returns Saturday morning, and the boy has lots of homework every night, so we’re running short on time. Here’s what I still hope to work in, possibly by having a late night marathon Friday:

The Dirty Dozen

Hell is for Heroes (Hocking tells me it’s his favorite WWII film — I don’t recall it)

Where Eagles Dare

Morituri (Eric recommends this and The Train highly, neither of which I’ve seen)

The Train

To Hell and Back

Sergeant York

…and of course, Zulu. Neither a western nor a WWII flick, nor a Clint Eastwood movie, I just can’t imagine a manly movie week without watching one of the greatest action movies ever filmed. Thinking back on it, I recall that the British officers hold the Zulu warriors in high regard because of their bravery and tactics, and that there’s no “white man’s burden” crap. These are just everyday soldiers, some 150 of them, fighting to survive against 3 to 4 THOUSAND Zulus. The highest ranking officer in charge was an engineer, not a field officer… how they survived makes for a gripping real-life story of heroism. Anyway, I hope I’m not stopped short by a bunch of racist claptrap.

We probably won’t have time for ALL of these. I’ve already had to cut The Longest Day, A Bridge too Far and Tora, Tora, Tora for lack of time.

Heroic Fantasy and Imagined History

I wanted to point all of my regular readers over to the site of James Enge today. He took an interesting post live about our assumptions on the proper settings for heroic fantasy, and how so many of them are a little bit wrong, jabbing particularly at our assumptions about The Dark Ages.

This week, as with last, I’ve not been around the homestead very much because I’m spending a lot of time at the hospital keeping my mom and sisters company. As my mom continues to improve I’ll have more and more posts coming up, because more reviews and blog posts will be going live about The Bones of the Old Ones.

I finally put hands on one of my favorite CDs, the one I always listen to while driving around plotting tales of ancient Arabia, and I’m looking forward to pointing some of the rest of you to the excellent music recorded on it.

 

 

I’ve Got a Star!

I woke up yesterday to discover I’d gotten a starred review at Publisher’s Weekly. Well, not me, but my next book, The Bones of the Old Ones!

Here’s a nice quote from the opening paragraph: “This rousing sequel to The Desert of Souls offers a mélange of ancient adventure myths populated by convincing, endearing characters.”

And here’s another one: “… fills the pages with gallantry and glamour to provide a thrilling spectacle. ”

So this is all quite nice. It in no way changes the fact I’m sitting in the intensive care unit of a hospital wishing there was something more I could to to help my mom recover, but it means that a smile occasionally crosses my face as I mostly worry. And she smiled when I told her about all this. Even when she’s feeling rotten, she’s happy for me.

The Bones of the Old Ones can be pre-ordered (it’s not out until December 11). But you probably knew that. Just click on the link to get to the order page on my own site, or visit Amazon, B&N, BAM,Indie book stores, Powell‘s, or many other locations.

The Real World

It’s been seven days of unpleasant surprises in the real world, which has meant the writing world has slowed to a crawl. One of my favorite professors passed away last week. I hadn’t seen Jim in person for years, but I spoke to him this spring. He was a wonderful man, talented and generous, and a real mentor to me. Still, I was surprised by the depth of my grief.

And then we discovered that the reason my mom was so weak was that she’d experienced a heart attack. The family and I have been keeping company in the hospital for most of this week. As I write this, I have just learned that she has survived the bypass surgery. There are still many more hurdles and risks.

One of my dearest friends has been slowly dying of cancer for a long time, then battling it back, though still dying. She’s afraid this newest onset may be the last.

With all of this, it has just been difficult to retreat into the fantastic for a while, even though I have a great review in from Sf Signal for The Bones of the Old Ones. And I got a nice callout from Pyr’s Lou Anders as one of the new heirs to the mantle of sword-and-sorcery, which I’ve wanted to be for a long, long while.

That’s all wonderful, and provides some bright spots in a bleak span of days.

My online presence may be a little sporadic for another week or so.

Heading for the Shadows

What I’m actually doing is heading for Shadowlands, a book by my writer friend Violette Malan. I got to read and blurb the book, but for some reason my blurb wasn’t incorporated on the book jacket. I describe it as “Inventive, compelling, and crammed with action.” And it is. It’s urban fantasy with engaging twists, fascinating characters, and stirring action sequences, but it seems to be flying under the radar so that reviewers are missing out on it. Thus I am spreading the word. I hope you’ll check it out.

Here’s the official cover copy:

“The war in the Land of the Faerie has finally ended. Prince Cassandra dispatches Stormwolf, formerly a Hound but cured by his prince’s magic and restored to the Rider he once was, to the Shadowlands to call home the People who remain refugees there. But Stormwolf finds the Hounds of the Wild Hunt now prey upon the souls of the humans, draining them of the magic which is the very lifeblood of the People. With the help of Valory Martin, a mortal psychic, Stormwolf must find the magic needed to defeat the Hunt before it’s too late.”

It’s the second book in the series, but I was able to catch on to what was happening pretty quickly without feeling like I’d walked into the second half of a movie.

SF Signal Podcast

While SF Signal’s Patrick Hester was at Worldcon a few weeks back, he went on a whirlwind series of adventures. Seriously, starting from his long drive from the western United States until his long return, I’m not sure he got in more than a few hours sleep every night.

Along the way he corralled Black Gate’s John O’Neill, World Fantasy Award nominated James Enge, and me, which was a little like herding cats, except that I was so tired I was pretty easy to get moving. James and I talked about our new and upcoming releases (so, plenty of info on Morlock and the writing thereof, as well as Dabir and Asim and the writing thereof). And John O’Neill talked about the past and future of Black Gate, and what lies in store for writers and readers of my favorite magazine.

Patrick kept the interview moving along with thoughtful questions and insightful follow-up, and I think the result is pretty interesting — if you’re into Black Gate, sword-and-sorcery, or historical adventure, that is. I hope you’ll drop by and give it a listen!

The interview can be found by following this link.

The Writing Life

Things have been a little more quite on the web site here as they’ve gotten busier in the real world. I’m involved in promotional efforts for The Bones of the Old Ones– far more time consuming than I would have realized a few years back — and I’m putting a polish on the first two-thirds of the third Dabir and Asim novel. I wish I was polishing all of it, but I don’t have all of it written.

As of this weekend, though, I must switch gears to begin work on my next Pathfinder Tales book for Paizo. As I’ll be busy with that for several months, I don’t want to come back to a bunch of messy first draft pages on book 3 of Dabir and Asim (with plot arcs that fizzle, character names that change, and long slow bits that don’t go anywhere) so I’ve spent several weeks shoring things up and doing some tweaking.

It may be because of my work on the upcoming Pathfinder novel, but I’ve been feeling a real itch to do some gaming. Or it may be because I’m feeling a little stressed and need to decompress. The sitcom stereotype is, of course, that when women get stressed they go shopping for clothes. Me, I open up the closet of cool strategy and tactical boardgames I never get to play because I’m always so busy, and sigh longingly.

Last night, instead of writing some more e-mails or revisiting my Pathfinder Tales outline, I was surfing online for information about all sorts of great looking strategic and tactical wargames that I don’t own, wanting to buy them. Much like the sitcom shoe shopping woman, though, I know full well that anything I buy would end up in the closet with all the other shoes… where shoes equals cool games that are being unplayed, like GMT’s SPQR or Chariots of Fire, or Victory Point Games’ Zulus on the Ramparts! or Astra Titanus, or DVG’s Field Commander: Napoleon or Thunderbolt Apache Leader.

I traded a bunch of old comic books and role playing books on Ebay to pick up the GMT and DVG stuff at about this time of year in 2010 and 2011, and I’m sad to say that I’ve played Chariots of Fire exactly once, and Astra Titanus a half dozen times (it plays much faster). Chariots is a game of bronze-age tactical combat, where you’re managing entire armies. In Astra Titanus, you’re commanding a starfleet desperately fighting off what is essentially the Doomsday Machine (or for those of you with no appreciation of Star Trek history or the BEST STAR TREK EPISODE EVER, a Borg cube). I loved them both and want to play more, and these other games look great, but being a father, husband, and writer doesn’t leave much time for fighting imaginary battles. There are too many real world goblins that need taming or slaying.

Maybe I’ll allow myself a break over winter and lead some kind of paper army into battle. For now, though, I must press on with the everyday battles.

Happy Birthday

Today is my father’s birthday. He would have been 80 years old today. I still feel a little twinge of jealousy when one of my friends tells me about heading out for a visit with their dad, or when I see someone hale and hearty on television in their mid-seventies — especially if they’re espousing something hateful — for my father died when he was 68.

I had a fortunate childhood. It was idyllic in a lot of ways. I’d never let my kids ride their bikes all over the city the way I used to do. It seemed like there was more freedom then just to be a child. And while I had homework, I wasn’t slaving away for hours every night the way my children are doing. I had time to play and learn and grow on my own. I could read whatever I wanted, not just what was mandated, because there was time.

But apart from those good things, I had a loving family to come home to. My mother and father were supportive and encouraging. I got my love of science fiction and fantasy from my mom, who read me The Hobbit when I was very small. When I was older I plundered her shelves for science fiction and fantasy paperbacks, coming away with Farmer and Heinlein and LeGuin and Bradbury and scads of others.  Neither of my parents seemed to particularly enjoy Star Trek, but they didn’t mind that I watched it.

Dad was an amateur musician, and while our musical tastes were pretty different, we could talk together in the way musicians do about chord progressions, and arrangement, and melody. I miss that. With my own son 15 I’m starting to have those sorts of conversations again, and it’s a sincere pleasure to hear someone else playing the guitar my father handed down to me. Until now the only other time I ever heard someone regularly strumming that guitar was while Dad was sitting with it in the other room. Its sound, then is bittersweet.

The last talk I had with my father was about bass lines. He’d been working on improving his piano playing, and was calling me for advice. I’m not a gifted player by any stretch, but I have a good ear and can fake it pretty well. Anyway, he had made some breakthroughs on his playing independent parts with the left hand and wanted to talk to me about it. Dad was always learning something. He’d been an English prof for years, but when he retired, he took up piano repair and tuning, and spent more and more time with the music that he had always loved. I wish he could hear just how astonishing his grandson has become with his piano playing. I wish he could see just how talented and intelligent both of my kids are. I would have liked to have gotten advice from him about teaching English comp, which I didn’t take up until after his death. I should have liked to have handed him my first novel.

Most of all, though, I’d just like him to be there for my mom and the rest of us. You were a good man, Dad, and an excellent role-model. I still strive hard to live up to your example. Happy Birthday.

 

A Word From the Author

This blog was created to support my writing, which is why I steer clear of political and religious discussions. I figure that people drop by to find out more about my writing, or writing in general, or that Google mis-directed them here when they ran a search for Snookie.

Sure, I have political and religious convictions, and if I see you at a convention some time and you buy me a drink, maybe we’ll talk about them. But I’m kind of a private person and don’t think anyone visiting here is interested in hearing my views about such things anyway. I don’t claim to be a religious or political expert.

Sometimes I hear from people who assume that because of my obvious interest in the ancient Middle-East I must be an expert in the modern Middle-East, and they want to know what I think about this or that. In light of recent events, I’ve heard from people wanting me to justify an opinion they assume I have, or don’t have, about an entire religion and region.

So just this once, I’ll say something.

I am no fan of extremism in any flavor. The only violence I like is that dealt against deserving villains on the book page or in the cinema.

I am appalled by the attacks against American embassies but I do NOT blame the Middle-East as a region, or Islam as a religion. It is a sad fact of life that there are always angry people out there. Sometimes they are lone nuts, and sometimes they cluster together around a belief and use it to justify terrible actions.

In an ideal world we would be mature enough to realize that just because someone doing awful things looks similar to someone who isn’t that they are NOT the same. I would hope that we know there are many interpretations of religious teachings. When someone uses those teachings to bully, exclude, hurt, or kill, it does NOT mean that other people who read that religious literature interpret it the same way.

Unfortunately, we are often distracted by the angry loud people because they have frightened and hurt and killed. I believe it is perfectly fine to be angry at them, just as long as the THEM we’re talking about refers solely to those who did the ugly things, not everyone remotely connected to them by ethnicity and culture.

So there you have it. I now return to my regularly scheduled work writing about heroes in ancient Arabia.

The Map

Last week I announced I was busy behind the scenes with the writing of book 3 and promotion of book 2, and that remains the case. But I have emerged from my cloak of secrecy to reveal the map that will be printed within The Bones of the Old Ones.

Topography and icons were drawn by the brilliant S. Jones (my wife!) and lettering was done by the talented Omar Chapa.

The map is not meant to show all important places in the region, merely those places Asim himself would find of interest. For instance, he never once mentions Damascus over the course of his narrative, but Asim would surely think the city important because of its fame as a manufacturing center for wonderful swords.

Map follows the break. Incidentally, if it wasn’t already clear, my wife is wonderful.