Ken Lizzi's Blog, page 55

Aragorn Drops Back to Pass

Cultures, whether writ large or sifted down to the level of subculture, link us together. Like it or not, my fellow misanthropes. (Is that an oxymoron, fellow misanthropes? And, I’m really not. People are — fine.) One of linkage a culture offers is a shared day of celebration. A holiday, for example, like Christmas, or a national day of remembrance. Or, the Superbowl, a purely organic artifact of American culture, utterly secular and without government origin or sanction.

Now many of you reading this are already rolling your eyes. There are some who take active pleasure in disliking sports, employing such dismissive phrases as “sports ball” and deliberately mixing baseball and basketball jargon in a proud display of ignorance. This attitude projects two impressions. One: I am too smart to care about the outcome of some athletic contest; and two: only semi-literate knuckle draggers do care.

That’s all right. We all tend to dismiss that which doesn’t interest us personally as somehow unworthy. Afterall, if it was worthy of attention we’d, naturally, be interested. Basic self-esteem. I’m sure I’m as guilty of this as everyone else. The point is, you like what you like, and, conversely, don’t like other things. I’m not about to cast the first stone.

But, at the risk of being labeled as a low-brow, proletarian, lumpen brute incapable of appreciating the finer things in life, I enjoy many spectator sports. I’m not going to construct an argument proposing some objective value inherent in them. By profession I’m a lawyer, I get paid for that sort of writing. I’m not giving it away for free here. However, I think it a reasonable statement that gathering to watch sports does create a cultural link.

Consider the Superbowl, and how it will draw so many Americans to observe the same bit of entertainment collectively. Most won’t care about who wins. Those with an interest in football subdivide tribally when it comes to rooting for teams and thus the majority of football fans won’t be fans of either of the two teams that remain to vie for the Lombardy Trophy. And football fans probably won’t account for the majority of the viewers. The bulk of the viewership are watching solely because it is a cultural event, a spectacle we share, with the game itself only a piece of the larger event.

And so, drilling down from the larger cultural context to the subcultural, what fantasy characters should make up the ideal football team? Tough question, and I’m not sure how well we can answer it. I mean, how do you define the characteristics of the ideal punter?

I’m limiting this to human characters. It’s already complicated enough.

I propose Aragorn as quarterback. Tall, rangy, with great eyesight and exceptional leadership qualities.

Conan is a middle linebacker. Fast, strong, and aggressive, yet still intelligent enough to make the right calls for the defense.

I’d suggest Temper, from Malazan books, as left guard. He’s got that protective mindset that will help protect the quarterback.

Fafhrd is big enough to play tackle, but I see him as a tight end, blocking or breaking through the defense to catch a pass.

I’m considering Druss the Axe for nose tackle. Is he big enough, do you think?

Solomon Kane for wide receiver, slotback probably. Line him up with John Carter and maybe Faramir on the wings.

Brule Spearslayer for free safety.

Eric John Stark for running back.

The Gray Mouser returning kicks?

Help me out, people. We need the big boys in the trenches. Hard choices when we’re limited to human characters.

Anyway, for those of you uninterested in the big game it’s something for you to think about in between commercials.

The Beat Goes On

I grew up in the Northwest. Rain is the norm. Wet weather can limit activities, hinder weekend recreation. I recall one of the go-to choices for a rainy Saturday was a trip to Bonneville Dam. Tour the museum, count the fish, visit the hatchery. Not a lot of pizzazz, perhaps, but it can occupy a kid for a few hours.

So, I decided to pass the tradition along to the Heir Apparent. I drove MBW and the HA along the Columbia Gorge to look at some fish and watch a dam generating electricity. Neither one seems to hate me for it.

The HA found the gift shop more engaging than the enormous sturgeon, but still seemed to like what she saw.

Unfortunately the fish ladder was shut down for cleaning. So, no fish counting. That’s too bad. The windows in the observation level are usually good for at least a lamprey or two. But the HA has been watching an education show that delved into energy generation, so she showed some interest in seeing the turbines. Ultimately she was more entertained by an old manual typewriter that formed part of an exhibit, and a model energy-efficient house. But I’ll take it as a win.

Any chance to drive along the Columbia River Gorge at least provides worthwhile scenery. That’s less of a benefit for the driver, but the passengers can get an eyeful of waterfalls, a wide river, and towering rock formations.

Cheers.

The tradition holds up, I figure.

Home on the Range

Some days you just need to punish innocent steel plates and sheets of paper. And as a writer, it is good to remind yourself of the sounds, smells, and feel of firearms. You think, “I really ought to go back and revise that scene, get in at least a mention of the noise.”

The smell doesn’t get mentioned much. But the smell of lead and gunpowder lingers, especially on your hands. (Then of course there is the smell of gun oil that accompanies the necessary chore of cleaning your firearms, but somehow that never evokes the same sense of enjoyment.)

What do you think: if I buy more guns, can I write off the expense as research?

A Farrago: Updates, Reviews, and Doings.

I hope to cram in a number of items in today’s post. A mishmash of topics. A salmagundi, if you will.

I’ll start with paying off last week’s hints and portents post. What I was dancing around back then was the news that I have a new book out. You can purchase the Kindle version here. The print version will follow soon, and there is an audio version in the works. It is the first in a three-book series. I hope you enjoy it. Reviews are starting to come in and so far they are positive.

The other week MBW was out of town for a couple of days. Once I put the HA to bed it was time for movies. Meaning yet another installment of the Stepson of the Bride of the Too Late Movie Reviews.

First up, Rambo: Last Blood. Will Golan and Globus please collect your child at the refreshment stand? He’s growing and threatening customers with a plastic fork. Seriously, this is a throwback 80’s revenge flick. There’s nothing wrong with it, really. It’s a lengthy set up, followed by some visceral, bone-cracking, blood-spurting action. Chuck Norris could have starred in this thirty-five years ago. It was fine, I suppose, but not exactly a resounding last hurrah for John Rambo.

Next, Fast and Furious Present: Hobbs & Shaw. This is a labrador of a movie: a big, dumb, genial dog of a film that just wants to please you. It flies its characters all over the world (with implausibly short travel windows) and has them engage in extensive, expensive fight scenes while exchanging quips. It is utterly nonsensical, but seems earnest in its desire to bring you along for the ride, seeming to feel that if the script doesn’t care where that ride is going, neither should you. Have you ever noticed that dumber the movie, the more likely it is that the “theme” of the story will be family. You’ve got a team of a half-dozen writers assembling a haphazard assortment of action sequences into a screenplay, using paperclips and scotch tape, and when they get near the end and realize there’s no connecting thread or concept they have to go back and toss in some dialogue to convince themselves that their film conveys a message. That gives the actors on the publicity junket a talking point. “So, Max Strongjaw, what is Bullets and Bikinis IV about?” “Well, Tracey, it’s really all about family.” I mean, it’s fine. Drink enough beer and you’ll probably enjoy it.

Third was Joker. If Rambo: Last Blood is an 80’s flick, Joker is a nihilistic 70’s movie. This is a movie that wants you to know it is important. And it does convey a certain gravitas, leaving you feeling that you’ve seen something seminal. You haven’t though. It is good. I don’t want you to think I didn’t appreciate it. Everything from the performances, the scenery, the cinematography, and the music is top notch. But there really isn’t anything groundbreaking about its portrayal of mental illness and nihilistic narcissism. Easily the best of the three movies I watched.

Yesterday I took MBW and the HA to the Kennedy School for the annual J.R.R. Tolkien Birthday Bash. The HA is starting to take more of an interest. I think I’ll read The Hobbit to her later this year, once she has her seventh birthday. She’ll get more out of the Tolkien Birthday Bash next year, once she’s become familiar with Mr. Bilbo Baggins. She had a good time anyways. The costume contest was a highlight, as you can see from the winning entry of The Bridge of Khazad-dûm and what was clearly intended to be a Balrog (though it couldn’t, since Balrogs don’t have wings.)

Hints and Portents

Today is one of those times I wish I did not attempt to maintain a weekly posting schedule on this web log. Not because I have nothing to say. On the contrary; I do have information I wish to share. But I can’t, yet. I don’t mind keeping a secret, I just really don’t want to in this instance.

Perhaps I can break my silence tomorrow. Maybe the day after. We’ll see. It’s eating at me, a little alien nugget of information trying to gnaw its way out through my breastbone.

The thing is, the year is less than a week old but it’s already proved full and productive for me, with prospects for more as the year progresses.

I’m going to stop here, lest I oversell it. I don’t want your eventual response to be “That’s it? C’mon, Ken, you got me all worked up for that?”

So, uh, Happy New Year, I guess.

2019 Retrospective

So, 2019 is pretty much a wrap. I have few complaints, it was a good year for YoursTruly, MBW, and the HA. I have another book out, and three in the can waiting to be unleashed in 2020. I traveled a bit, hit a few conventions to dispense what (if looked at cross-eyed, in a certain light) passes as wisdom, successfully achieved the half-century mark of my life (pro-tip: don’t die), completed my web log series on Appendix N, and brewed a few batches of beer.

I’d hoped to look back on what I’d read and watched for this final web log post of the year, compiling some sort of ‘best of’ list. But, after supplementing my (woeful and failing) recollection with a glance back at the web log posts of 2019, I find myself at a loss to find much, if anything, I really cared for. Now, with movies that can be explained away. I believe I got to the theater three times. That’s something of a record since the birth of the HA. There may well have been quite a passel of excellent films released in 2019, I just didn’t see any of them. What I did see was probably on my tiny laptop screen, and probably broken up into increments over days, or even weeks. So even a good film would suffer from this viewer’s failure to keep floating along with the narrative flow. I suppose I enjoyed the animated Spider-Man movie (rented from the RedBox). I’d even recommend it. But I can’t think of any film I saw that left me overwhelmed, feeling the need to sit and contemplate what I’d just watched.

Same with books this year. I believe most of what I truly appreciated reading this year was either decades (or centuries) old, re-read, or both. I’m not saying there were no recent releases that I liked, but none that I read had the impact of revisiting, say, one of the Aubrey and Maturin novels, or provided the sheer pleasure of Jack Williamson’s The Reign of Wizardry (1940) or Poul Anderson’s Operation Chaos (1956, ‘59, ‘69.) Maybe it’s just me, but it seems there’s a certain constraint to what’s being published now, as if the authors are casting glances over their shoulders as they type, concerned about writing something that might somehow offend someone. So we get something that is…fine. You might get served up some pretty cool concepts, spiced with exciting set pieces, but the dish will be drenched in a bland, apologetic sauce.

Perhaps this is a function of age, a symptom of ‘get off my lawn’ syndrome. Or perhaps I’m simply not reading the right books. I’m willing to be steered to writers more likely to cater to my idiosyncratic tastes. Whatever the case, at least I still have old favorites to re-read as we roar into the ‘20s.

Happy New Year and Bah, Humbug.

The Gifting Season

Christmas is rushing towards us like an out of control sleigh, with a fat man in a red suit slumped in the driver’s seat, reins fallen from pudgy, cookie-stained hands, his eggnog soaked beard smelling strongly of rum. Have you finished your shopping yet? You obviously can’t rely on that jolly fellow; he’s a menace.

So, what do you do if you’ve still a few gifts to buy? Allow me to help. I don’t own a fuzzy red suit and only my breath reeks of rum, but I can help you acquire the goods. Check out the link below. There may still be time for Amazon to deliver with airborne reindeer-like speed. If not, there’s digital, which is faster anyway, no matter what Blitzen says, that blowhard ruminant. And consider the price: Karl Thorson and the Jade Dagger is still on sale for a measly ninety-nine pennies.

Click, shop, satisfy the adventure-hungry reader on your gift list, and avoid the hassle of wrapping. The Merry Christmas Link.

Glutton

The first baked potato went down nicely. It always did. Loaded with all the toppings, the pillowy starches glistening with melted butter, white hummocks of sour cream speckled green and brown with chives and bits of bacon. He chased it with another before switching to a plate of au gratin for a change of pace, just warming up for the main event: the steaks. He figured he’d have one of each cut, maybe experiment with different levels of doneness. A delay occurred between the New York cut — rare, dripping red with succulent juices, nearly fork-tender — and the medium-rare filet mignon. He filled it with another appetizer, shrimp cocktail, each little coral-hued morsel slurped down noisily. So good. At intervals he swilled a glass of red wine — a chateau something-or-other, he could never be bothered to remember the appellations, simply trusting the sommelier, waiter, or bar-tender to recommend the appropriate accompaniment — swishing each mouthful vigorously to dislodge any stray bits of protein or strands of vegetable matter.

The top sirloin, medium, he found a trifle tough, but gobbled it down contentedly enough with a few healthy dollops of steak sauce for lubrication. He knifed through the medium-well chateau briand which he found tolerably tasty though he suspected a certain amount of flavor had been cooked out. He waived away the well-done bone-in ribeye not out of satiety but boredom. He could still eat. He still had room. He always had room.

He called for the desert cart and indicated that each selection would be acceptable. While waiting for the server to deliver the creme brulee, vanilla cherry tart, chocolate three ways, and apple crumble ala mode, he retrieved from the briefcase beside his chair what was, despite his personal views about the status of the steaks, the actual main course of the meal. Sealed into lubricated condoms were the broken down components of what he assumed, though certainly had not ascertained or inquired about, was a handgun. He examined the dimensions of each. One or two looked a bit tricky but still within his capability. A couple bottles of brandy or port might help relax his jaw and throat muscles enough to get the parts down. Even with the three bottles of wine and the pair of aperitifs he had only the barest buzz going. Inebriation wasn’t as impossible for him as a full stomach but it still took some doing.

Assisted by fortified wine and the assortment of desserts he earned his living, the tangible evidence of some malfeasance or other disappearing permanently.

#

Marcus Unger was a glutton, a man who’d never experienced a surfeit, heartburn, indigestion, or even an uncomfortable sense of bloat. He didn’t appear out of the ordinary. If anything he was on the thin side. His childhood appetites were certainly normal but his anxious parents, with the assurance of exasperated, even disbelieving pediatricians, wrote off his prodigious consumption as a healthy appetite and a robust metabolism. Marcus himself grew up considering himself entirely normal. It wasn’t until after high school that the ribbing and half-serious queries of his friends ginned up enough curiosity within him to consider making his own inquiries. That curiosity he shelved after a visit to the family general practitioner and glimpsing an estimate of the price of consulting specialists. The unsolved mystery cost him no sleepless nights; complaisance was second nature, one might even grant it primacy. 

It wasn’t until a stint in the Navy — the armed forces seeming to Marcus the path of least resistance — that another impetus to investigate his gift arrived. He was on leave in San Francisco, wandering aimlessly through Chinatown, grazing through one buffet after another. Passing by a narrow storefront his attention was drawn by a hand-painted sign claiming that a certain Doctor Wong, practitioner of ancient and mystic Eastern healing arts could diagnose infallibly, among other things, “digestive tract ailments of whatever nature, source, or symptom, no matter how esoteric or unknown to Western medicine.”

While Marcus did not consider himself to be suffering from any ailment, he was willing to concede that his symptoms were uncommon. To a tinkle of little brass bells he entered a cramped chamber of wonders, a dim space packed with oddities and large glass jars and carboys whose contents were revealed by pasted-on calligraphed labels. Not, of course, in English. From behind a beaded curtain emerged a venerable, bespectacled figure in black silks who seemed composed primarily of white beard. Marcus submitted himself to examination by Dr. Wong (for it was the great man himself)à an examination consisting primarily of proddings by a stiffened, arthritic finger, grunts and mumblings from deep within the beard, and about a dozen cups of fragrant tea.

It was thus that Marcus learned the facts that were to set his feet on a new and utterly novel career path. “Only a small portion of your stomach opens to your intestines,” Dr. Wong informed him. “The majority of your stomach is a conduit, a portal to a place located nowhere in Heaven or Earth. Little of your meals are digested. Most goes – elsewhere.”

Marcus did not immediately formulate a plan upon absorbing this information. Initiative, drive, ambition were foreign to him. His was not the entrepreneurial spirit. It was not until after he’d completed his active service that he stumbled upon his future. He was lazing one evening at the home of his friend and purveyor of marijuana when their repose was interrupted by the peremptory demands of the police for entry. Recalling the words of Dr. Wong, Marcus volunteered to dispose of his friend’s stash. By the time the police gained entry he had gobbled down all traces of contraband. A toxicity analysis of blood, urine, and saliva samples that he acquiesced to provide were free of any taint of cannabis.

Word spread. Demand accumulated for his services from a class of clients possessed of uniquely compelling needs to dispose of items quickly and irretrievably. It was not an overnight success of course. A certain degree of distrust had to be overcome from a category of humanity that already tended toward suspicion.  But satisfied customers who appreciated Marcus’ incuriosity and nearly bovine complaisancy served as valuable word-of-mouth advertisers.

And so Marcus Unger began plying spoon and fork rather profitably. His contractual stipulations were few: cash payment and an evening at a fine – and discreet – restaurant. First time clients were often surprised at how similar the two outlays turned out to be. But they did not complain. Marcus delivered. He swallowed numerous firearms, broken down into manageable components. He downed thumb drives, hard drives, ledgers, wallets, footwear with distinctively worn tread patterns. He didn’t care what. He only noticed the makeup of the main course incidentally to the act of consuming it. Once he gulped down, wedged into the filling of cannoli, what he suspected were human fingertips. It did not even give him pause. The mascarpone was smooth and delicious, and the prosecco he washed it all down with was fruity and delightfully effervescent. Life was a banquet and the courses never ceased.

#

Marcus leaned back in his chair, conjuring up a belch of satisfaction in celebration of an excellent meal and a job well done. He beamed with his accustomed contentment, a svelte buddha. The fee should keep his feedbag full until the next contract came along.

He belched again and frowned. That belch was not artificial. Strange. When he swallowed air it simply vanished down the rabbit hole along with most everything else he consumed. Why –? His abdomen spasmed. A discomfort settled in his gut and spread. That was new and he didn’t like it one bit. A hint of pain followed, accompanied by an equally novel sense of unease. Complaisance, long unchallenged, was dethroned, usurped by accelerating dread.

So many years of dumping things through to someplace else. And now…. Something stretched within him, something thrust upwards. He gagged, then transitioned to sustained, agonizing retching, horrified as he realized that the conduit was not just a one way passage after all.

Something was coming the other way.

End

The Alamo

Some things are true serendipity, others are more deliberately linked. I’m going with the latter in the case at hand. You see, I’m nearing completion of the sequel to Karl Thorson and the Jade Dagger, and the climax occurs at The Alamo. At about the time I commenced writing that chapter I needed to download a new audio book. Searching for this and that I came across a book I’d heard of before, but hadn’t read, by one of my favorite writers: The Alamo, by John Myers Myers.

In this blog I’ve touched on Myers a time or two, the author of the masterpiece Silverlock and its conceptually related follow up The Moon’s Fire-Eating Daughter. Some readers of this web log might be interested in one of his, sadly, lesser known works, The Harp and the Blade, one of those near-swords and sorcery historical novels usually shelved in the fantasy section, in the tradition of Talbot Mundy and Harold Lamb. Good stuff.

But Myers also wrote non-fiction, with a focus on the American West and South West. The Alamo is a well-researched history, carefully delving into the centuries of history laying the foundations for the climactic events at The Alamo, piecing together the political steps and missteps of the various countries, parties, adventurers and misadventurers that culminated in the famous last stand. However, being who he was, Myers couldn’t write a bland compilation of facts. He imbued The Alamo with the same verve, the same command of vernacular and wry phrasing that helps carry his fiction. There’s a brash, American positivism to the prose.

John Myers Myers seems to belong to the Great Man theory of history. He was incapable of viewing a historical subject as merely the common man, molded by events. In The Alamo, Myers writes of the primary participants as men in full, considering their historical context, yes, but also accepting that these men were legendary figures, and were so for a reason. You can almost feel his — if not precisely reverence, then at the least admiration for Bowie, Crockett, et al. Myers recognizes that any given anecdote is likely apocryphal, but you can tell he wants to believe it. And as a reader, he made me want to believe it as well.

So, I was pleased to immerse myself in The Alamo. It may not have been serendipity that I found this, that the library owned a copy, and that it was available for download. But I don’t care. It was nice to place memories of my recent visit to the Shrine of Texas Liberty into proper historical context while in the process of writing one my two-fisted, semi-autos and sorcery shoot ‘em ups.

While I’m on that subject, as of this writing, the digital edition of Karl Thorson and The Jade Dagger is still on sale from Amazon at $.99. Just saying.

An Aquilonian Thanksgiving

“By Mitra, this bird is as plump as a Zingaran concubine,” quoth Conan.

Conan slid his broadsword free of its shagreen wrapped hilt and skewered the turkey. He raised his sword one-handed, hoisting the bird from its silver platter without a tremor of strain displayed on the corded forearm projecting from the sleeve of his royal robe, despite the additional twenty pounds weighing down the three foot length of steel.

“Now, who shall carve this beast?” the king asked. “Certainly not thou, Valeria,” he said, addressing the she-pirate seated to his left. “Carving is man’s work.”

Valeria bristled. She rose, plucking a dirk from the top of her cuffed boot. “No man tells Valeria what work is fit for a woman, Conan. Be he king or no.”

Pallantides cleared his throat from Conan’s right. “That may well be, Lady Valeria. Yet perhaps a boot knife is not the ideal tool for the task. And perhaps not the most cleanly.”

“Do you question my hygiene, man?” asked Valeria.

“Thou’rt as clean as a Cimmerian autumn morn,” Conan interjected.

The she-pirate scowled, plainly turning the comment over in her mind to ascertain its meaning, whether compliment or insult.

“What we need,” Conan continued, “is carving music. Rinaldo, have you a suitable lay?”

“Yes,” asked Valeria, her expression shifting from a scowl to a raised eyebrow and quirked smile as she fixed her gaze upon Rinaldo, “have you a…fitting lay?”

The minstrel rose, immaculate in tight-fitting hose and plumed cap. He bowed to Conan and doffed his cap to Valeria. “Perhaps something saucy would befit such…an exquisite bird?”

Rinaldo produced a plectrum and began to strum upon his lute, drawing the full attention of Valeria.

Conan set the turkey back down upon its silver platter, enjoying the music and the company of a few close companions within the drafty expanse of his grand feasting hall. He considered for a moment, then sent the servants around to refill his guests goblets to the brimming point. He unsheathed the wicked length of his Zhaibar knife, its edge ground to a razor’s sharpness, and pressed its point against the body of the bird, watching the juices gather and drip.

“So, then, my king,” asked Pallantides, when Rinaldo had strummed his last chord, and all had drunk deeply to honor the music, “who shall carve? You?”

“It occurs to me,” quoth Conan, “that a man known for carving a Pict can certainly be said to have picked up carving.”

The clatter of silver goblets about the high seat of the king accompanied Conan’s roar of mirth.