Ken Lizzi's Blog, page 14

Howard Days 2023. Plus Savage Journal Entry 41.

I made the Hajj, the Pilgrimage, to Cross Plains, Texas this weekend to visit the Robert E. Howard museum. Not coincidentally, it was also the weekend of the 2023 edition of Howard Days. I am, to be blunt, tired. It is only a five hour drive from Casa Lizzi, which is why I had no excuse to put off the visit. Still, on top of non-stop activity and limited sleep, that drive back proved less pleasant than the lovely drive out: putting a Gulf Coast thunder storm behind me Thursday morning as I wended my way north and west deep into the heart of Texas, into cattle and old oil boom country to the AirBnB I shared with Bryan Murphy and Deuce Richardson.

The clouds pursued me the first couple of hours.

Air BnB neighborHome.

We met up with a number of Howardian fandom luminaries at a brewpub in Cisco, including J. Bullard, Esq. who provided the flyers for the unofficial Sword-and-Sorcery Revival panel held on Saturday, featuring the aforementioned notables Bryan Murphy and Deuce Richardson, as well as Jason Waltz of Rogue Blades fame. Oh, and yours truly. Bryan must be in danger of developing carpal tunnel syndrome from the number of autographs he placed in copies of Flame and Crimson over the course of the weekend and following the panel.��Deuce performed yeoman work moderating and marketing DMR publications. And Jason dropped an Announcement (that I will leave to others to reveal.) I talked shamelessly about my books like the huckster I am. Happily I returned home with the car somewhat lighter, having discovered a number of intelligent sophisticates interested in my work. (You too could demonstrate your superior taste, intellect, and physical charms by picking up a book or two.)

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Friday I took a bus tour, guided by Rusty Burke, around the stomping grounds of Robert E. Howard. The scenery, backdropped by mesquite and post oak, well-illustrated the word “hardscrabble.” The bus drove along dirt lanes populated with houses that appear to have encountered the Great Depression and never managed to escape. The tour underscored the fact that one of America’s greatest writers emerged not from one of her great cities and elite universities, but from what had been recently the frontier.

The house of Dr. Isaac Howard further emphasizes the wonder of REH’s achievement. As the town doctor, Isaac Howard was relatively well-off. But by modern standards, the house is…modest. From a narrow enclosure that makes a college dorm room appear spacious, a former screened porch walled in to make it a bedroom, Howard created entire worlds. Astonishing. Yet the library in the sitting room goes some way toward offering some insight into his inspirations.

The docents in each room are friendly and helpful, showing no signs of impatience at answering what must be the same questions over and over. My hat is off to them, as well as the volunteers at the Cross Plains library with its unique collection of Howard manuscripts and publications.

The Howard grave is about a twenty mile drive south, in the Greenleaf cemetery in Brownwood.

DeuceBryan and DeuceYours Truly, Bryan, and Deuce

The theme of Howard Days this year was 100 Years of Weird Tales. The speakers at the panels were uniformly well-informed and engaging. The Glen Lord Symposium featured Howard scholars delivering academic papers, said scholars including Bryan Murphy offering some thoughts on Jack London’s influence on Howard.

The weekend included banquets, vendors, poetry readings, hobnobbing and socializing with Howardian aficionados and dedicated researchers. If you have a collection of well-thumbed volumes of Conan, Solomon Kane, etc., etc., you owe it to yourself to make the trek. And if you attended this year, drop me a note and let’s keep in touch.

Now, for those of you following along with Magnus Stoneslayer’s diary, here is the next entry.

SAVAGE JOURNAL

ENTRY 41.

Islands, dear diary, are unique boxed surprises, no two alike. Open the lid and you never know what you’ll find. Isolated from each other and the mainland by the intervening waters of the inland sea, the Zajsan islands have had untold years to develop in radically different ways. Any one might harbor the fantastic: the dying remnants of a pre-human culture; ruins of an ancient city that was old before the land changed and the Zajsan Sea was still a broad valley interrupted by high plateaus (or so learned men have asserted in my hearing); beasts long extinct outside the confines of the isle’s shoreline; a secret pirate shanty town, equal parts buccaneer bazaar and corsair retirement resort; or nothing at all worth note to anyone other than an ornithologist or other assorted naturalists.

So imagine my surprise when on one such nameless rock I found Yaslina. Remember Yaslina, dear diary? Last I saw of her, that ungrateful Zantian noblewoman and her retainer, the wizard Vetrius, were throwing off my protective aegis without so much as a thank you for my pains.

What was she doing here? I know what I was doing ��� I hove to offshore and led a crew ashore in the jolly boat to water the ship, perhaps re-victual with fresh meat or fruit, whatever this point of land in the trackless sea could provide.

Now she is sharing my fire again. My sword once again provides protection. Not necessarily to ward her against the unwanted attentions of my piratical shore party. I did mention that Vetrius is a wizard, didn’t I? Ultimately I’m protecting my crew. I need them to sail my ship, not hunt each other to the last man under the magically induced delusion that each is an aboriginal island cannibal out for blood, or suffer whatever other sorcerous mischief Vetrius would cook up in defense of Yaslina.

So, what is she doing here? I hesitate to ask for fear she would tell me. A woman’s secret is like these islands, dear diary: open the lid and there’s no telling what you’ll get.

Magnus Stoneslayer

 

 

Day Trip to Galveston. Plus Savage Journal Entry 40.

I have relatives in from out of town. Had, rather, as I dropped them off at Hobby Airport prior to finishing this post. What with a tropical thunder storm and a beautiful sunny day on the Gulf Coast, I think they experienced the full range of Houston-area weather.

Yesterday we drove down to Galveston. I visited briefly once, before we moved to Texas. I was able to explore a bit more this trip. Slowly I’m visiting more and ��more of my new State. Galveston is strongly associated with the pirate Jean Lafitte. This is of particular interest to me as he received a passing mention in my most recent novel, Silver and Bone. And — following the pirate train of thought — the first Cesar the Bravo story was published in Pirates and Swashbucklers Volume One. The tourist shops push pirate-themed t-shirts and souvenirs. So that was interesting.

Most of the trip, however, involved looking at old houses, enjoying a leisurely lunch, and sitting around while the HA burned a metric ton of energy at the Children’s Museum.

More Texas travel is in the offing, as I’m off to Cross Plains later this week for Howard Days. I suppose you can guess the topic for next week’s post. Until then, I’ll leave you with the next entry in Magnus Stoneslayer’s diary.

 

SAVAGE JOURNAL

ENTRY 40.

An inland sea is a world unto itself, dear diary. It is a world in miniature; it is the inverse of the greater world with its mighty land masses surrounded by all encircling ocean, it is instead a world encompassed by all encircling land, its land masses small islands or even smaller sea craft.

But that description is too limiting, dear diary. An inland sea is defined less by its waters and islands than it is by the peoples and character of the circumvallating countries. This sea ��� my sea ��� the Great Zajsan Sea, to give it is full name, to the north is capped by the easternmost extent of the Zantian Empire. Running southward down the western shores are petty city states, wild tracts, and marshlands harboring tribes of secretive fishermen. The south and east coastline provide sea access to a half dozen exotic, squabbling states. They trade, bicker, and war in a colorful confusion of languages, their seaports rich and riotous.

The Zajsan sea is, thus, a lively world, boisterous, eventful. Its trade lanes are bustling, its islands wreathed in mystery, its quiet stretches either fraught with unknown hazard or simply what they seem, its transiting inhabitants fearsome and adventurous. I consider myself fortunate, dear diary, to have this opportunity: a peripatetic savage from the far north and west afforded the chance to encounter so many new, fascinating people and rob them.

Magnus Stoneslayer

 

The Play is the Thing. Plus Savage Journal Entry 39.

The theater has been on my mind lately for a number of reasons. Most immediately is that the HA appeared in her school’s production of Willy Wonka. I attended the show yesterday, the final show of the three day run. Quite a lot of ferrying too and from from school and late nights. I think it fair to say that the HA’s reaction to the experience removes any concern I might have had that she’d pursue a career treading the boards. Later today we’re off to another form of theater, an iceskating show. Sigh. The things I endure for her.

The day prior I finished listening to the audio book of Christopher Moore’s Shakespeare’s Squirrels. Funny stuff: a spoof on A Midsummer Night’s Dream, replete with lines from many of the Bard’s other plays. It brought to mind Bernard Cornwell’s Fools and Mortals, a novel featuring Shakespeare and his company and the production of a play. That play is also A Midsummer Night’s Dream. That seems to be a popular choice for authors riffing on Shakespeare, for references, and adaptations.

What makes Dream such a crowd pleaser? I think that, set as it is an what is essentially a secondary fantasy world — despite the nominal setting near Athens and the employment of a Duke Theseus and Queen Hippolyta — Shakespeare was not beholden to history or following a known narrative borrowed from some other source. He could let rip. It is pure fantasy.

So, fantasy on stage. Why not? It got me to thinking about what stories might best be adapted to the stage. Fantasy writ large lends itself to spectacle, grand set-pieces and flights of imagination on a grand scale. This contraindicates the stage, with its limited space. So fantasy on a smaller, grittier scale suggests itself. Sword-and-Sorcery fits the bill. Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser spring immediately to mind. And why not? Fritz Leiber was, after all, a thespian. That must have had some impact, conscious or not, on his writing. All the elements are there: unique characters, sparkling dialogue, romance, duplicity, swordplay. What do you think, which story of the twain is best suited for adaptation as a play?

If you want to consider which of my works is best suited for adaptation to another medium (other than the one that already has been) why not pick up a few? Seriously: those ice show tickets were expensive. And not tax deductible.

Okay, enough of that pathetic display of mendicancy. On to the latest from Magnus Stoneslayer.

SAVAGE JOURNAL

ENTRY 39.

What is a pirate but a bandit with a ship, dear diary? I’ve been a thief, I’ve been a brigand, and now, I am a pirate. But, dear diary, I think there is a difference. Follow me here. Purse slitters, second story men, road agents, and bands of outlaws are all, to one extent or another, localized phenomena. They are problems of a specific city, district, or country. Each government, whether a town council, a tribal chief, or an emperor, must deal with the internal threat and look to its own devices to do so.

Not so with pirates. The corsair knows no boundaries. Every land touching upon his sea is subject to his predation. Every polity engaged in commerce by water is threatened. Every man is his enemy, every hand is turned against him. A captured pirate faces no tribunal, he will see no court or magistrate. A rope flung over the nearest yard arm will see him speedily to what even the corsair will admit in an objective moment is his condign punishment.

In short, from the point of view of a barbarian warrior, piracy is even more exciting than raiding caravans or scaling to second floor windows. The stakes are higher and the existence more free, so long as the barbarian in question (i.e, me) is captaining the swift raider flying the black flag and not taking orders; it would be less free were I pirate crew, what with following orders and confinement within the minuscule wooden wall of a pirate galley. But as captain, the ship isn’t confinement but conveyance, a capacious aquatic steed.

I feel quite at ease. It might seem odd that a savage from a landlocked, mountainous homeland would take so readily to the sea. I’ve not studied navigation. I’ve no experience with wind and tide. But other people do possess these skills. And I possess the skill of convincing other people that doing what I tell them is in their best interest. So navigation and wind and tide sort themselves out, as long as my sword arm remains as strong as my will to use it.

It is a glorious thing, dear diary, to be a pirate chief. As I let the gentle, creaking motion of my ship rock me to sleep, I bid you a fond good night.

Magnus Stoneslayer

 

Extended D&D Hiatus. Plus Savage Journal Entry 38.

It has been some years since I’ve played a game of Dungeons and Dragons. The Wuhan Whammy is probably the primary culprit. For some reason, no one other than the DM was willing to meet for a game. The move last summer halfway across the country likely extended the interruption.

In the grand scheme this lack of gaming is little more than a minor inconvenience. I seldom enjoyed extended periods of play, especially after high school. A few games during college. (Fraternity D&D games can be wildly amusing, if scatalogical.) A few games during Advance Individual Training at Fort Bragg. A few lengthier campaigns after law school with old high school and college friends. A few more truncated campaigns years later, hampered by the usual logistical difficulties that come with middle aged, married men attempting to synchronize schedules.

It’s fine. I have plenty of other things to occupy my time. And the corporate gate keepers have performed prodigies in diminishing my interest. With one boneheaded decision after another leading to my wry amusement, eye-rolling, or despairing head shakes, these banner bearers of the Everything is Offensive Age continue to cast shade on the hobby. (At this rate the entire human species will die off in a generation, integument become too attenuated to protect against anything.) Of course I wouldn’t buy products from the inheritors of TSR anyway; I play first edition AD&D, using the same three books acquired decades ago. I don’t need anything else. So my annoyance at whatever nuttery they might perpetuate next is utterly irrelevant. My boycotting them would be akin to a vegetarian boycotting the local steakhouse. Pointless.

However, there is a gleam on the horizon. I will have a chance to play in a mere few months. I’ll be attending the North Texas RPG Convention in June. Time to dust off the books and refresh my memory of the rules. I’m not really familiar with gaming conventions. But it ought to be a fun weekend. Perhaps I will see some of you there.

Now, in the interests of defraying my travel expenses: Do you like to read? Do you enjoy fantastic tales of action and adventure? Why not pick up one of mine? Might I suggest the first book of the Semi-Autos and Sorcery series?

Right, that’s out of the way. For those of you following the exploits of Magnus Stoneslayer, here is Entry 38.

SAVAGE JOURNAL

ENTRY 38.

A man can be told a fact, know that fact, but not truly understand it, dear diary.�� Understanding seems to come as a flash of insight; in its involuntary, non-deliberative nature it is more akin to emotion than cognition.�� The fact that one has known for years becomes suddenly imbued with meaning.�� It is now understood.

Continuing my descent from the hills to the verdant plain upon which laps the vast inland sea I took note of the curious configuration of the stony exposed surfaces of hillocks and massive boulders projecting from the sloping ground, the relationships of which struck me as queerly geometric.�� As I walked I gradually reached the conclusion that what I was seeing were the remains of worked building material: cyclopean blocks of stone once erected as walls or foundations by human ��� or even pre-human ��� hands.

���������������������������� Looking at the vista in this light, seeing it as the weathered remains of a city, I began to ponder how long it actually required the depredation of wind and rain to so erode a mighty metropolis that it becomes nigh indistinguishable from a boulder strewn moraine.�� And then, like a revelation, like an epiphany, I attained an understanding of the antiquity of the place, of the yawning chasm of years separating this stone here as it appears to me now from how it appeared when it comprised a single component of a structure once serving some unguessable function.

I thought of my few years and how few likely remained.�� And I thought of the generation that lived and died before me, and the one before that, and the one before that, and so on, stretching back and back into the dim, unfathomable mists of the past.

And each man of each generation ��� reaching back in unbroken succession to the years when this city stood tall, proud, and seemingly eternal ��� deemed himself important.�� Would he still so hold if he could glimpse this ruin and calculate the insignificant sliver of his time in the world relative to the eon that encompassed the creation and unthinkably slow diminution of this place?

Damn right he would, if like me, dear diary, he understood the immeasurable importance of the now.

��I understand it, and I bid you a fond good night, secure in the significance of my time. And of me.

Magnus Stoneslayer

 

Happy Easter, readers.

 

 

Nostromo: Joseph Conrad and Ridley Scott. Plus Savage Journal Entry 37.

I recently finished reading Joseph Conrad’s novel Nostromo. Why? Well, first of all I’ve like what I’ve read of Joseph Conrad. Second, there’s this little film you may have heard of, by the name of Alien, directed by one Ridley Scott. The name of the spaceship upon which the action takes place is Nostromo. Naturally I felt some curiosity as to why the ship bore that name. What is it about the Joseph Conrad book that lends itself to naming a cargo ship in a sci-fi horror flick?

“My answer?” you may ask. Well, I still don’t really know.

Nostromo takes place in a fictional South American country. Nostromo is the name of one of the characters, an Italian seaman by the name of Giovanni Batista Fidanza. He is employed as Capataz de Cargadores, or head of the longshoremen for the local English-run steamship company. I looked it up: in Italian, the word “Nostromo” means “shipmate” or “boatswain.” And, even with my year of Italian in college a distant, fading memory, I could get that “Nostromo” could be considered a contraction of “nostro uomo” — Our Man. If you read the novel you will recognize that makes internally consistent narrative sense, as Giovanni Batista is considered an ultra-competent incorruptible man, relied upon unquestioningly by all the local authority figures. He is called upon to carry an important cargo on a dark night through dangerous circumstances.

Okay, I can see some superficial grounds for the ship’s name. A working seaman, relied upon by corporate powers, carrying a cargo bearing some fraught, menacing subtext. But is there more to it? Jospeh Conrad doesn’t offer the knee-jerk, anti-corporate, anti-capitalist message of 1970s (and 80s and 90s…and you get the picture) Hollywood films. He presents a balanced picture of European and American business and religious interests in South America, offering sympathetic portraits of most people, classes, and competing interests. Nostromo does come, irrationally, to believe he’d been betrayed by the powers that be, that he’d alway been used to further the interests of the rich. There might be some something there, considering Weyland-Yutani, the commoditization of xenomorphs, and the…rather cavalier treatment of employees.

I just don’t really know. Ridley Scott, apparently, is a Conrad aficionado. I knew that the Duelists (Scott’s first film?) is based on a Conrad story. Doubtless the name of Ripley’s vessel is deliberate and meant something to Scott. (By the way, the town where much of the action of Nostromo occurs is called Sulaco. Fans of James Cameron’s follow up to Alien might recognize that name. My guess is that is merely Cameron tipping his hat to Scott, nothing deeper.)

Thoughts? Insights?

Okay, now for the self-promotion portion of today’s post. I noted the other day a large influx of ratings for my novel Under Strange Suns. It is gratifying that people seem to like it. You might also. Please pick up a copy. And — assuming you like it — leave a review.

With that distasteful business out of the way, here is the next Savage Journal entry.

SAVAGE JOURNAL

ENTRY 37.

Any action, dear diary, is fraught with the potential of unexpected peril.�� It matters not how insignificant the act is, the law of unanticipated consequences remains immutable.�� One could sit and meditate on possible outcomes, following the branching tree of likely reactions, responses, and results stretching into the murky future. ��Such an exercise would obviate any action, the interminable calculation would result in effective paralysis.�� But even if some mental giant ran the grist of probability through the his godlike mill and reached an unassailable conclusion, an unintended side effect would nonetheless occur.�� It just can’t be escaped.

For example, before I left my temporary shelter in the outlaws’ cave I harvested the brigands’ heads.���� I calculated as follows: these fellows must live somewhere near potential victims; they must have robbed, murdered, or in some way inconvenienced one or more of these potential victims; anyone bringing evidence to these potential victims that these brigands had�� been rendered incapable of any further victimizing would be gratefully received and rewarded.

And so it proved. After the initial wariness wore off ��� a wariness inevitably resulting from a fearsomely ragged barbarian striding into town with a bulging sack of heads dangling at his hip ��� I was fed and housed, given a certain cautious acclaim, and even a handful of the local copper and silver currency taken as a collection from grateful villagers.

What I hadn’t foreseen was that in such a sparsely populated area at least a few of the brigands would prove to be local boys gone bad.�� And a couple of them would have living relatives who begrudged my rough justice ��� ���begrudged��� being in this instance a euphemism for ���tried to kill me.���

So I was forced to leave a couple more heads behind me tonight before I hightailed it out of the village.�� One consequence of my entering a town that isn’t generally unanticipated, dear diary, is that I’m likely to leave it in a hurry.

Magnus Stoneslayer

 

The Guns of Leigh Brackett. Plus Savage Journal Entry 36.

I was watching (yet again) the John Wayne western El Dorado. It looks amazing on the 75-inch 4K screen. In fact so amazing that I noticed something that had escaped me before. Leigh Brackett wrote the screenplay. I’ve written about the gifted, prolific Leigh Brackett before. People know she worked on��Star Wars:The Empire Strikes Back. And The��Big Sleep screenplay. And wrote terrific ERB-inspired planetary romances. She’s enshrined in the Appendix N pantheon. So she had multiple-genre chops. A western, then, should come as no surprise.

It didn’t, in fact, come as a surprise, except as a pleasant one. Watching El Dorado, it is clear that Brackett has an intuitive grasp of (once and, I hope, future) American masculinity. She gets the archetypes. Her dialogue is snappy, moves the plot along, and builds nice little character portraits. It might seem strange that the same fingers typed scenes for John Wayne’s Cole Thornton as for Matt Carse in The Sword of Rhiannon. But after all, is there much difference between Cole Thornton stalking the darkened streets of El Dorado, tracking his quarry to a saloon and Carse being tracked through the Martian streets of Jekkara. The sentence “His gun hand swung loose and ready for action” could apply to either man.

So give the flick a re-watch sometime and keep the screenwriter in mind. (Also, Robert Mitchum’s performance is excellent. The whole cast is good, but keep an eye on Mitchum, even if he’s only in the background.)

I can’t claim Brackett’s skills, but if you’re in the mood for some contemporary fantasy adventure, check out the Semi-Autos and Sorcery series published by Aethon Books, beginning with Blood and Jade, moving on to Santa Anna’s Sword, then Obsidian Owl, and finally the recently released Silver and Bone. People with a sense of fun seem to like them. You might too.

With that distasteful business out of the way, on to Magnus Stoneslayer’s latest diary entry.

SAVAGE JOURNAL

ENTRY 36.

I have been around, dear diary. A bit of a genteel understatement there.�� More properly, I’ve traveled extensively, living a generally peripatetic existence.�� I’ve devoured the few maps I’ve had the opportunity to view.�� I’ve spent countless hours listening to the stories of every vagabond, caravan master, and inveterate wanderer to cross my path.

So I have a pretty good picture of the world and little strikes me as novel.�� And yet every time I set foot in a new land I feel a thrill of discovery, the same delighted anticipation I felt when, as a newly bearded youth, I first ventured from the untamed woods and patchy fields of my tribal homeland.�� It is a pleasure fundamental to my very sense of identity.�� If I were mired in ennui and no longer experienced that frisson of excitement upon exploring new territory there wouldn’t be much point in my remaining an itinerant savage warrior.�� I might as well stay put.

I have a fair notion of where I am.�� Rugged hills step down to a narrow, sparsely inhabited plain bordering on a vast inland sea.�� But that detached knowledge is no substitute for experience.�� I’m anxious to move on, garner that experience.�� For the nonce, hunger and the enervation suffered during my flight across the desert keep me pinned in place.�� I’m hunkered down in a cave now, roasting over a small fire a lean goat I’d trapped after a day of patient hunting.�� I’ll savor the strength-replenishing flesh just as I’m savoring my anticipation of the impending trek.

Tomorrow, dear diary, belly full and blood quickened, I tread new ground.

Magnus Stoneslayer

Flashing Swords! #5: Demons and Daggers. A Transitional Anthology. Resurrected Post.

January 24, 2021Flashing Swords! #5: Demons and Daggers. A Transitional Anthology. Lin Carter is back with another volume and more alliteration.�� Flashing Swords! #5: Demons and Daggers . The cover is drab and uninspiring, a tepid fantasy scene with a dull background, far from the evocative Sword-and-Sorcery covers of the previous volumes. The intro is equally unpromising. Carter writes that he is doing ���something a little different��� and is soliciting ���stories for #5 from writers who have not yet become members of [SAGA].����� The names of the contributors ��� with the notable exception of Roger Zelazny do not inspire confidence in those hoping for the raw fire of S&S. No slight is intended to the others, all fine fantasists in their own right. But, I don���t read the FS anthologies for the larger, inclusive category of Fantasy. Well, I���ll keep a more-or-less open mind. Come with me.

Tower of Ice. Roger Zelazny. Zelazny and Dilvish the Damned! Hell yeah. (Joke intended. Own your wordplay. Don���t weasel out of responsibility.) This opens��FS#5��with a bang. Zelazny is a master. He defies conventions, but not in a snotty, double-bird-salute to the squares sort of way. He seems more concerned with clever, novel story telling than in displaying disdain for the stylistic approaches of his predecessors. Just when you think he���s about to zig, he zags. He doesn���t hold your hand or provide a helpful info dump right up front. But the storytelling is so intriguing that you���re willing to go along, confident that you���ll learn what you need to when you need to. A fun story. And on including both demons��and��daggers.

��A Thief in Korianth. C.J. Cherryh. She is a well known and respected fantasist now. In 1981? That must have been relatively early in her career, I suppose. I admit some uncertainty as to her S&S chops. Please let me know if I���m missing out on something. The intro to��Thief, a slow, expository bit describing the city in which the action would take place, did not fill me with confidence. Starting with an urban travelogue is tough to pull off while simultaneously holding the interest of the reader. Avram Davidson can pull it off like a champ (viz.��Flashing Swords! #3.) Cherry did as well as could be expected. She maintained my interest, though it waned. Then she introduced her protagonist ��� a thief ��� and her kid sister, and I was worried. Standard fantasy fare, I feared. I was wrong. When Cherryh finally kicked the plot into gear, she did it like a boss. This is definitely S&S ��� S&S of the sort found in��Thieves World, sure, but still the genuine article. This story was more than fine. It was actually good. Plus, the main character did flash knives and razors from time-to-time, so I���d say we can score daggers. No demons, however.

Parting Gifts.��Diane Duane. My criticisms are not criticisms of the story��qua��story, but rather comments on the story in the context of a Swords-and-Sorcery anthology. Duane writes beautifully. Up front, I���ll acknowledge this is a good story. I admire it, even like it. But���This came out in 1981. Embodied in this tale are elements of the Tolkien Boom that in my middle-age I find somewhat irksome. (Doubtless it felt natural and expected in my youth, when I was picking up something new to read at one of the three or four bookstores in the mall, spending a week���s allowance on paperbacks, the arcade, and maybe a sandwich at the Arbys in the food court. Thus I supplemented my immersion in the older material I picked up at the library with the then current mainstream of speculative fiction.) Can I be more specific? I���ll try. There is the twee aspect, exemplified in��Gifts��by the talking kitten. There is the unconventional protagonist in the form of the jovial old sorceress heroin. Her joints ache and she employs her powers to cleanse the jolly innkeepers still. There���s the whole sanitized, progressive view of the middle ages, with everyone clean and prosperous, educated and happy. I don���t mind her playing with conventions, the deliberate twisting of the traditional Christian narrative. That���s old hat, barely worthy of an eye roll, it���s become so stale. (Though I imagine I would have squirmed a bit, reading this as a twelve-year old.) The point is, this isn���t S&S. It is capital F fantasy, epitomizing the genre trends evident from the Tolkien Boom up to Grimdark. So, not a criticism, merely an acknowledgment. Daggers? No. Demons? Well, there is an analogue of the Devil himself. So, I suppose it gets a pass on a technicality.

A Dealing With Demons. Craig Shaw Gardner. A certain wry wit is not unheard of or unwelcome in S&S. Think Jack VAnce, or even L. Sprague de Camp���s tongue-in-cheek drollery. But with CSG I expect broad, slapstick humor. Humor has a well-earned place in Fantasy (capital F again, such as that written by Diane Duane.) Think Robert Asprin. Or Terry Pratchett. But while I enjoy comedy, and wring every drop of entertainment from it, it isn���t S&S. (Despite Pratchett referencing Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser in the very first DiscWorld novel, if I recall it correctly, and despite Cohen the Barbarian being an epic bit of parody and characterization in his own right.) Again, this isn���t a criticism of the story or CSG. His stuff occupies space on my shelves. It is merely contextual.��Dealing��is a light-weight, fluffy bit of comedy. Okay for what it is. No daggers worth noting. But Brax, the enchanted weapons sales-demon popped up intermittently. So, that���s a yes on demons.

The Dry Season. Tanith Lee. Tanith Lee writes in no style or genre but her own. Her stuff is hit or miss with me, but even the misses are superbly written. Roger Zelazny wrote the best S&S story in this anthology, with C.J. Cherryh coming in a respectable second. But Lee wrote the best story in this volume. Period. Is it S&S? I���d have to say no. Despite my objections to the inclusion of the prior two stories, this one is just so damned good I don���t care. I thought Zelazny���s��Tower of Ice��was worth the price of the book alone, now I see I get Dilvish the Damned as Lagniappe. Not a bad deal.��Dry Season��is layered, nuanced, thoughtful, hopeful and full of despondency. It is set in a fantasy Roman Empire analogue, on the easter frontier. A newly appointed commander must deal with the local religion, duty, desire, and his own past. No daggers, I���m afraid, and no demons, unless the commander meets some in the hell he creates for himself. Brutal.

FS#5 is, I think, a transitional work. Look at the clues. The cover price, for example, moves from $.95 for each of the first two, bumps to $1.25 for the third, $1.50 for the fourth, then jumps to $2.50 for this one. Then there is the leap from the 1970s to the 1980s. The zeitgeist is shifting and that includes a change from the slim ���60s and ���70s cheap paperbacks to the fatter ones of the ���80s that seemed to accompany the Tolkien Boom. Look at the writers. By number 5, gone are de Camp, Vance, and Davidson. Already in the number 4 we get Katherine Kurtz, a precursor to the Duanes and Gardners yet to come, transitioning from sleeker, more earthy S&S to the more fulsome, almost wistfully yearning fantasy that followed.Anyways, while I think FS#5 is a somewhat disappointing swansong for the series, the stories it contains are worth the cost of purchase and the reading time involved. You know what else I consider worth the cost of purchase?��Boss: Falchion���s Company Book One,��still only $.99 cents. The other two books in the series cost more, because that���s how this works.

View more on Ken Lizzi’s website ��Like�����������0 comments�����������flag Published on��January 24, 2021 11:29

The Web Log In Mexico. Plus Savage Journal Entry 35.

I can’t truly call it a vacation. I worked the day job faithfully and made daily progress on the current novel. But MBW, the HA, and I were at a resort on the beach in Mexico. So I did soak up sea, sun, sand, and cerveza. I’ve got the evidence.

I also have the bills. Which leads me to point out that I do have books available to purchase. Including the recent (final?) volume of Semi-Autos and Sorcery.��

Next trip: Howard Days. Will I see any of you there?

Now, without further ado, here is the next entry in Magnus Stoneslayer’s journal.

SAVAGE JOURNAL

ENTRY 35.

I don’t think about death very often, dear diary. A barbarian never does. I suppose I should take a moment to explain why. A barbarian, please understand, knows that his birth is a death sentence and that life is just the slow walk to the gallows. So he might as well enjoy the journey; the ending is predestined. It is not a despondent attitude; the barbarian does not throw up his hands in despair and wait passively for his demise. Instead he fights and claws until the end because, even though the end is fated, the barbarian does not know when that fate will befall him. A bleak outlook does not equate to a certainty of doom, so the savage warrior will not cover his head and let the blade fall. It might be the fatal stroke, it might not. If the blade has his name on it he’ll die. If not he’ll feast tomorrow.

��So there’s no point in worrying about it.

I still was not thinking about death when, gaunt as a starving wolf, I staggered to the apex of the ridge, tottered for a moment, then started down the other side, my weakened legs wobbling then steadying under the direction of my iron will. And I was still not thinking about death when a ragged band of outlaws emerged from their refuge in the cave complex that riddled the eastern face of the hills like the flesh of worm-ravaged fish. They demanded I stand and deliver. If these destitute brigands had not been nearly as malnourished as I, and had there not been so few of them, I might well have died. But they were famished and desperate, eking out only the most precarious of existences on the far edge of the civilization that lay somewhere out of sight in the lands sloping away to the east.

So I did not die. They did. And now, dear diary, the meager scraps comprising their provisions and the shelter of their cave allow me to think about life. My fate still lies ahead of me, perhaps somewhere in these eastern countries. I’m curious to see what’s out there.

Magnus Stoneslayer

 

 

 

The Web Log is Traveling. Plus Savage Journal Entry 34.

Time for writing a post is limited today. MBW, the HA, and I are en route to Mexico. My ambitious goal is to sit in the sand, watching the waves, and endeavoring to absorb UV rays right up to, but not over the border of, sunburn. I assume cerveza and tequila will also factor in. And work on the current project I’m writing; that never fully comes to a stop.

As you may know, from my frequent, gauche references, I have a new book out: Silver and Bone: Semi-Autos and Sorcery Book Four. If you like contemporary fantasy action/adventure, the Semi-Autos and Sorcery series is probably in your wheelhouse. Check it out. I would be obliged.

Now, the latest from Magnus Stoneslayer.

SAVAGE JOURNAL

ENTRY 34.

Life, all existence, is cyclical, dear diary. Large scale, small scale, it all spins back around to where it started. Seriously, it doesn’t matter whether one examines a person or a people: the observer’s eventually going get dizzy from the revolutions.

Take my tribe, for example. Probably the remnant of a once great and dominant, continent spanning empire. ���Oh, how far your people have fallen,��� some might say in patronizing commiseration. Others ��� me, for example ��� would take a slightly different view: having rashly traded noble savagery for the self-built prison cell of civilization, my tribe again ascended to the true state of man after the corpulent civilization it constructed collapsed under the weight of its own unnatural structures. The point is, either way it’s a return to the beginning. Thus it is likely to continue through the eons.

It is much the same with me on a personal level. Alone and imperiled I rose to the command of a ferocious band of desert raiders only to find myself again alone and imperiled. I cannot help but think I will soon be ascending to leadership once again as the wheel of fortune continues its inexorable rotation.

It is that sort of comforting fatalism that smooths the way through the rougher patches of life. Like now. Mounting bare foothills demarcate the end of the sandy wasteland. They’ll have to be climbed. That level of exertion is likely to be problematic, given that I haven’t eaten in three days, my last meal being a stringy lizard too famished and weakened to evade my clutches.

I’ll overcome, dear diary. Never fret. Luck will swing around my way. And if the wheel threatens to stop spinning, I’ll just get behind and push.

Magnus Stoneslayer

 

Vettius and His Friends. Plus Savage Journal Entry 33.

I’ve encountered a few of David Drake’s Vettius and Dama stories in anthologies. But I’d not read them all. Happily, I picked up a copy of Vettius and His Friends and filled those gaps. I’m a fan of the tales. I like the dutiful, competent soldier Vettius and the learned, loyal, clever merchant Dama. They make a good team.

One of the stories I’ve read before is presented here in a different edition. The copyright indicia for Dragon’s Teeth contains this tantalizing comment: “…original version copyright 1975 by Karl Edward Wagner for MIDNIGHT SUN, v1, #2. A shorter version, copyedited by a moron, copyright 1977 by Andrew J. Offutt for SWORDS AGAINST DARKNESS. This version (based on the long version) is original to the volume.” I’ve read the SAD version. Now I’m curious about the long version.

I can, however, satisfy my curiosity about the (moron edited?) version. Opening up SAD volume I, I note in Offutt’s introduction that he rejected an earlier submission from Drake, which, judging from the description, was From the Dark Waters, eventually published in WAVES OF TERROR, though I first encountered it in ��ISAAC ASIMOV’S MAGICAL WORLDS OF FANTASY 5: GIANTS.

Moving past the introduction and comparing the two versions of Dragon’s Teeth, I can see that the SAD version is breezier, excising a couple of paragraphs near the end of the opening action sequence to create a sense of mystery (that I don’t think was really necessary.) Absent paragraphs from the next section eliminate some provincial Roman politics, historical color, character building, and some of the contributions of Dama to the story. While the cuts weren’t detrimental to the enjoyment of the story, as a writer I can sympathize with Drake. Those bits were in there because he wanted them there. That was the story he wanted to tell. The absent paragraphs diminish the tale and modify the total effect.

I hadn’t realized that the “And Friends” portion of the title referred to non-Vettius stories. So I was a bit startled to find myself reading a Nordic-style S&S story that Poul Anderson might have penned, The Barrow Troll. Though Anderson would have crafted it in rather more elegant prose. There is nothing wrong with Drake’s style; he merely employs a stripped down technique. It took me a few pages to realize that neither Vettius nor Dama would show up, that the tale was set at least a couple of centuries later. Following Barrow Troll we hop around in time (and space), visiting various portions of the Roman Empire, ancient Egypt (showing Drake’s interest in that era of history was operational long before he wrote Dagger) and joining the Tenth Cohort on another planet, the story that led to the novel Birds of Prey.

I had a good time with this collection. Of course I’ve always been a sucker for historical fantasies. I hope to announce a personal contribution to that genre, but it is woefully premature to do so at the moment. So instead, I’ll announce that book four of Semi-Autos and Sorcery will be released by Aethon Books on Tuesday. Please look for Silver and Bone on March 7th. There is no particular need to read the books in order, but if you’d like to, go ahead an order your copies of Blood and Jade, Santa Anna’s Sword, and Obsidian Owl. Remember, Crom may be indifferent whether or not you leave a review, but I will be grateful.

Now, on to Magnus Stoneslayer’s doings, following the destruction of the desert bandits he’d captained.

SAVAGE JOURNAL

ENTRY 33.

It is self-evident, dear diary, that a wandering barbarian does not get lonely. It stands to reason: if we were the sorts to require constant human contact we wouldn’t leave the bosom of the tribe in the first place.

I’ve known some savage heroes who appear to avoid lengthy solo excursions. Some travel with sidekicks. Not surprisingly, given the oft lethal nature of the barbarian swordsman’s avocation, some employ serial sidekicks, replacing the demised or maimed companion in short order. Some work with partners, equals, generally someone of opposite demeanor and background. They seem to perceive some sort of advantage in counterbalance.

None of these men adventure in tandem out of loneliness; they solo with aplomb when required. The team up for them is a choice, not a compulsion. The best of us perform just as efficiently, with the same combination of elemental savagery and cool competence, alone as we do paired.

I am quite content by myself. I am self-contained, self-sufficient. Leaving behind the defeated and scattered remnants of my desert reivers came, I now realize, as something of a relief. It was a pleasant change, trudging through the sands, to have only my own thoughts to attend to. The constant demands on my attention and the unceasing background hum of human conversation had begun to grow burdensome.

I no longer have a thousand lean and vicious warriors poised to strike at my whim and direction, dear diary. But I do have a moment to myself.

True happiness, I posit, is sustained contentment under changing circumstances. And I am content as I bid you good night, dear diary.

Magnus Stoneslayer