Joshua Reynolds's Blog, page 90
November 8, 2012
‘The Night Has Teeth…’
Today is Bram Stoker’s birthday, which is probably as good a time as any to draw another corpse from its grave. This is a brief essay about Dracula I wrote a year or two back for the wonderful Smiling, Damned blog, which has since gone on hiatus. I was considering writing something on The Jewel of the Seven Stars or The Lair of the White Worm, but I figured–eh, this one’s already done and I have a novel pitch to write (coincidentally, that pitch deals with vampires). So, if that sounds interesting, read on…
Dracula.
If there were just one word to sum up the concept of ‘evil’, it would likely be Dracula.
In the pantheon of western literature’s best and brightest villains, Dracula sits high on some dark Olympus, if not at the apex, then comfortably close. Barely on screen in Bram Stoker’s eponymous novel for more than a few chapters, nonetheless it is Dracula who drives the book. It is Dracula who drives the films which bear his name, who drives the action in every appearance.
He’s the sort of antagonist that brings out the best in a hero, which may account some for his popularity. He’s all of humanity’s fears and hates and loathing rolled up into one handy package. He embodies themes as varied as cannibalism, rampant sexuality, the ‘other’ and the fear of death and the dead, as well as more esoteric concepts (the Faustian bargain, necromancy, plague, taboo animals, etc.).
But is that all there is to it? Just some smelly themes and subconscious symbolism?
No. Dracula is the outsider, always scratching at our door, looking for a way in. The thing at the back of the cave, or waiting in the forest. The omnipresent Night, with teeth. The themes and symbols which trail after him like a cloak are but manifestations of his ultimate identity-that of the Thing That Scares Us.
It’s why we go back to him, again and again, much as his victims did. We invite him in, even knowing what he is, foul breath and all. We invite him in with books and films and plays and all variety of entertainments, pitting him against ourselves and our archetypes (Dracula Vs. Sherlock Holmes, Dracula Vs. Billy the Kid, Dracula Vs. Superman, etc.), destroying him again and again, but like the Night, he always returns. We mock him in cartoons and commercials, we make him into comic books and video-games, but the savagery never diminishes, the fear never entirely goes away.
It’s the fear that we can’t do without. The terror of being hunted. We can’t forget it, even with all of evolution at our back, with our science and religion and civilization. Some part of us always remembers the cave, and thing that we saw there, waiting to pounce out of the darkness.
We can’t get rid of him, just like we can’t rid ourselves of the atavistic fears handed down by our primordial ancestors. No matter how much we try to dislodge him, to remake him or remould him, Dracula clings to us, he is in the back of our head. In our blood.
November 7, 2012
Myrmidia’s Sons (or ‘The Book That Was’)
Way back in the mists of last year, I wrote a wee book called Knight of the Blazing Sun for Black Library. You might have heard of it. You might have read it, and even enjoyed it (or not, which is okay too). It’s been out for almost a full year now, so I figured I’d write a bit about it, just in case anyone is interested in that sort of thing.
From the pull text:
The Knights of the Blazing Sun are a noble and venerable order of templars dedicated to the warrior-goddess Myrmidia. The young knight Hector Goetz is sent to the distant island of Svunum to investigate the disappearance of a group of knights. Reunited with his comrades, he battles vicious pirates and bloodthirsty raiders, but from his increasingly disturbing nightmares Goetz realises that there is more to the place than meets the eye. As northern savages lay siege to the island, a deadly secret is revealed that threatens to damn his order for all eternity…
It’s an odd book, for a lot of reasons. Not just because it was my first experience with a major publisher, but also because the book isn’t so much about a young knight and his heroic order as it is a murder mystery/political thriller with a PTSD-suffering protagonist armed with a magic sword (yes, it’s magic–why else would it be able to do half of what it does?), who happens to be a knight. Or at least that’s what I was going for.
I have a list of reasons for this as long as my arm, but they all boil down to ‘that’s the story I wanted to tell’.
Well, actually, the story I wanted to tell was set on the opposite side of the Old World, involved Arabyan corsairs rather than Norscan raiders and Estalia rather than Marienburg. It also had a rather psychopathic Estalian diestros (professional duellist, for those not drowning in game-lore) playing sidekick to the hero. For obvious reasons (RE: IP issues), this was swiftly changed.
The duellist managed to make it half-way through the first draft, but by the end of the book, I realized that he didn’t quite fit the story I was telling, and he was summarily excised in a frenzied evening of pre-edit edits set to the comforting background hum of the finals of The Great British Menu. I gave most of his dialogue to Goetz; the rest got sprinkled throughout the book.
I liked the character, but his removal helped to make Goetz more proactive in a narrative sense, albeit not smarter–dude’s fairly unobservant, but then, see how aware of your surroundings you are after undergoing a horrific experience and subsequent sleep-deprivation due to unceasing nightmares which may (or may not) be the work of a daemonic intelligence attempting to shuck your soul from your body like a corn husk. He had things on his mind, is what I’m saying.
Other characters just sort of sprang in to fill that duellist-less gap, however. Probably the best of these was Erkhart Dubnitz, Knight of the Most Holy (and Violent) Order of Manann, who got to help Goetz fight a keep full of death-traps and book passage on a boat. Dubnitz, perhaps unsurprisingly given that he’s based on Brian Blessed, is turning out to be the most popular character from the book, and has had a number of adventures of his own in the wake of its release.
I’d like to get back to Goetz at some point, though I think it’s fairly unlikely. The book doesn’t require a sequel to be enjoyed, after all. Though if you want one, feel free to mention it loudly and at length next time you’re at a Black Library event.
If you haven’t read it yet (but sort of want to, now) here’s an excerpt. And some music to go with it. Enjoy!
November 6, 2012
The Nightmare Men: “The Spirit-Breaker”
, this month I’ve taken a look at a less-established character–namely, Jim Beard’s ‘Sgt. Janus, Spirit-Breaker’.
“I am Roman Janus. It is a pleasure to meet you.”
–Sgt. Roman Janus, “The Portobello Cetacean” (2012)
‘His eyes were icy verdigris, but warm also, and piercing — in a kind way. He was dressed smartly in a long coat of an almost military cut and dark pants with gold piping.’ So writes the narrator of the 2012 story, “The Portobello Cetacean” as she first lays eyes on her host, Sgt. Roman Janus, late of Mount Airy, the man known as the ‘spirit-breaker’.
Created in 2012 by Jim Beard, Janus is equal parts Carnacki,Aylmer Vance, and John Silence, and was intentionally crafted as equal parts homage and successor to those earlier Edwardian occultists.
Like Silence, Janus is less a two-fisted hero than an agent of a higher spiritual power, doling out harsh justice and due kindness with equal determination. And like Aylmer Vance, Janus’s kind-hearted nature is both a boon and a weakness, helping him at times and hindering him at others.
To read more, visit BLACK GATE MAGAZINE…
November 5, 2012
The Monday After The Sunday Of The Event That Started On Saturday
Or, ‘What Happened at the Black Library Weekender’…
Simply put, things. Various and sundry occurrences of dubious nature and high entertainment. I did not do any of these things, because I had a raging migraine that made every light in the ceiling a serrated dagger aimed at my cerebral cortex, but I watched them, and enjoyed them vicariously.
It was fun. I got to see many people, I got to speak to many folks who seemed intent on flinging handfuls of lucre at me, when they weren’t getting me to sign things–books, mostly; only Dan and Aaron get to sign people’s bits–or take pictures with them. I apologize for those, by the way, as I’m pretty sure I look like an albino orangutan with mange in each of them. I am physiologically incapable of taking a good photo. Which, as acting Prime Minister of Billdonia, is unfortunate.
On that latter note, let me say, for the record, there are prettier and more interesting people to get your photo with, BL fans. Not that I don’t appreciate it, but really…did you see Jon Sullivan? Have you ever looked–I mean really looked–into Dan Abnett’s eyes? They’re like magical whirlpools…
*Cough*
Regardless, it was fun. And I can say that I was there, eating dinner, when the idea for what is surely to be the greatest epic in the history of fantasy fiction was conceived:
A particular highlight for me was a joint-proposal put forward alongside the esteemed Bill King during the Pitch Factor event. To say that we were disappointed that the judges weren’t keen on ‘Karaz’ would be an understatement. Even with the musical conclusion. For those who would like to know more about a twenty-volume saga written by two Giants in the Field of Dwarfs concerning the machinations of Jorri, the most black-hearted dwarf who ever lived, and his noble and handsome brother Borri, as they wrangle over possession of the Ewingsson family brewery and their trademark brew ‘Black Gold’ following the mysterious disappearance of their father, Ewing Ewingsson, who may have been walled up in his own tomb by the dastardly Jorri, the most black-hearted dwarf who ever lived, and in turns features goblins, skaven, voluptuous priestesses of Valaya, skullduggery from many cousins and the Ewingsson family rune axe, involving Beards, Betrayal and Beer, then please feel free to drop one of us a line. All offers considered.
It was a sad day for the world when that was turned down. A sad, terrible day.
But all in all, it was fun. If you were there, I hope you had fun too. I also hope you bought copies of Neferata and Road of Skulls.
Many, many copies.
November 1, 2012
Obligatory Final Black Library Weekender 2012 Post
So, if you’re one of the lucky, lucky few heading to Nottingham this weekend for the Black Library Weekender, and you’re wondering what to do and where to go to receive the benefits of my inhuman and shadowy wisdom, read on…
My schedule (and a handy map) for Saturday and Sunday is as follows. If you see me outside of it, feel free to say hello. I’m fairly approachable, or so I’ve been told:
SATURDAY
11:45-12:45 My one and only signing, in the VICTORY ROOM. I’ve been told that copies of both Neferata: Blood of Nagash AND Gotrek & Felix: Road of Skulls will be on sale over the weekend. Too, I’ve got a story in one of the Weekender chapbooks. Just saying.
16:15-17:15 TIME OF LEGENDS Panel, in the HARDY ROOM. Ask me whatever, but be aware that I’m quite happy to shovel copious amounts of bovine excrement for my own amusement, should those questions prove (a) boring or (b) nonsensical.
SUNDAY
12: 30-13:30 NEW AUTHORS Panel, in the HARDY ROOM. Given that this one is competing with a pretty top-heavy signing AND the preview seminar, I expect it to be fairly sparsely attended, so I’ll be napping.
MAP
Run for the Border
The Executioner # 408: BORDER OFFENSIVE, that is. I’ve mentioned it before, and it’s now available for the spending of monies thereof. Unlike a lot of what I’ve written, it’s a fairly straight-forward action-adventure–no bolters, rune-axes, were-beasts or Webleys in sight. It’s basically an 80′s action film crammed into 180-odd pages.
The book is packed to the brim with poetry-quoting terrorists, desperate wannabe-gunslinger criminals, one very crazy serial killer, and a singular incident of jaguar-wrestling. Also inter-agency squabbling! Guns! Ladies! Explosions!
It’s exciting, basically. I got heart palpitations just writing it. Though that might have been the caffeine I was mainlining at the time. Regardless, it’s out. And in Kindle format, for all you pixel-stained techno-peasants.
October 31, 2012
Halloween, Contests and Various and Sundries…
It’s Halloween, which means it’s Monster Movie Day. Not that every day isn’t Monster Movie Day, but the thirty-first of October is traditionally the day I break out the classics.
Tonight’s viewing schedule consists of:
Five of my favourites and most of the bases covered–you’ve got your Invisible Man, your Werewolf, your Vampire, your Frankenstein and your Mummy. It’s not quite your ‘Five-a-day’, but it’s close.
Speaking of Halloween, have you read issue 18 of the Lovecraft eZine yet? It’s a special Halloween issue, dedicated to Roger Zelazny’s novel, A Night in the Lonesome October, which, incidentally, ranks as one of my favourite novels.
And, just to add to the celebration, I’m holding an impromptu contest! Head over to royaloccultist.wordpress.com for all the gory details.
But Halloween isn’t the only thing going on this week. There’s also the first annual Black Library Weekender on Saturday and Sunday, if you’re one of the lucky few who managed to snag tickets. I happen to have a story in one of the exclusive, event-only chapbooks–”Berthold’s Beard”–which sees Gotrek and Felix going up against a shaggy horror quite unlike anything the irascible Slayer has yet encountered.
Since I’ve only got one or two things to do on the day(s), I’ll mostly be where all writers go when they’re not (a) writing or (b) talking about writing, which is the bar. If you’d like to come chat, feel free. I’m full of wisdom, but I must warn you–like all hermits, I will only share it if properly bribed. Cadbury Screme Eggs for preference, but I’ll happily accept cheques and/or first-born children as well.
October 29, 2012
‘We Didn’t Come Here to Fight Monsters, We’re Not Equipped For It!’
There’s two days ’til Halloween, and I figured since the reaction to my last post was so positive, I might have a go at one of my other favourites.
The jungle goes quiet. Even the chugging of the engine is muted by the oppressive nature of the place. Dark waters lap at the sides of the boat and the passengers–scientists and crew alike–stare down into the obsidian waters, waiting…but, for what?
Then, a splash…
Universal’s 1954 film, Creature from the Black Lagoon, is considered by many to be the swan-song of the Universal Monsters. Debuting almost a decade after the final outings of Dracula, the Wolfman and the Frankenstein’s Monster, as well as perennial second-stringers the Mummy and the Invisible Man, the creature is both a final attempt to recapture the glory days of Universal Horror, as well as a change in direction–gone are the superstitious villagers, the Visaria-by-way-of-California sound stages and the almost fairy-tale like supernatural elements; in their place, scientists-as-men-of-action, unexplored regions of the Earth and a gritty cosmicism that is almost Lovecraftian in its implications.
While the eponymous creature isn’t a supernatural menace to be dispatched by sword, stake or fire, it is no less horrifying for that. It exists in spite of established dogma, testing the sanity and certainty of its scientific quarry even as it seeks to maul, drown or throttle them. It is a thing which cannot be, to quote the aforementioned Lovecraft.
There is a sense of age to the beast, a miasma of centuries that even Dracula cannot match. The creature–the ‘gill-man’–is the (seeming) end-point of an ancient species, the last atavistic nightmare, trapped in its watery Pandora’s Box until it is disturbed by the men and one woman who quickly become its prey. A fossil brings the latter on the hunt for the answer to an impossible riddle, and the discovery of a living example of said fossil only adds to the mystery. Thus, the gill-man is at once rooted in scientific solidity and cosmic horror.
Heretofore, monsters were aberrations–something from Outside slipping In. Sour blips in reality that, once banished, could be forgotten (until they returned, natch). But what the gill-man represented cannot be forgotten by those who encountered it. It exposed the lie of an orderly cosmos, and revealed nature for the atavistic Echidna that it truly was. The gill-man and its cinematic descendants were not shamblers from the Outside, but rather Insiders and aggressive competitors for Man’s mastery of his domain.
Like many of Universal’s later films, including 1956′s The Mole People and 1957′s The Deadly Mantis, it’s that unspoken implication–that the creature’s existence lends credence to there being some place ‘off the map’, that those regions labelled ’Here Be Monsters’ are not simply a mapmaker’s fancy but an actual warning–that generates much of the horror.
In the end, the audience is left to wonder whether the creature is merely a degenerate survivor (which is bad enough) or a herald of greater horrors–after all, who’s to say what lurks beneath the dark surface of the Black Lagoon?
October 24, 2012
‘A New and Terrible Juggernaut of Destruction…’
Since it’s the season, I figured I’d dig up an old body or two; specifically, a little essay I did on Universal’s 1939 picture, Son of Frankenstein for the Frankensteinia-headed Boris Karloff Blogathon several years back, on my old site. If you enjoy it, let me know in the comments and I’ll see about doing a few more horror film essays before Halloween.
I chose Son of… for the simple fact that when most folks talk about Karloff’s turn at the bolts, they focus (and rightly) on James Whale’s initial two contributions–Frankenstein (1931) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935). But, I’m of the opinion that this does a great disservice to both Karloff and the work into creating the creature we came to know and love.
The black shadows of the past bred this half-man . . . half-demon! . . . Creating a new and terrible juggernaut of destruction!
-Tagline, Son of Frankenstein (1939)
With Son of Frankenstein, you have something approaching a reboot of sorts. The previous two films took place ostensibly in the late 1880s, early 1890s, while this, the third, takes place in an analogous period to Dracula, The Wolfman, and The Mummy, i.e. the Twenties-Thirties, bringing the Monster in-house, as it were.
Besides Karloff’s nuanced performance as the Monster-as-Adult, we have the Monster-as-Family-Curse…a burden to Henry Frankenstein’s descendants, the sins of the father heaped upon the sons, the cousins, the daughters, the nieces and the nephews.
It’s an interesting plot point and one which is unfortunately discarded by the time of House of Frankenstein (in which Karloff returns as a vengeance-driven scientist who could easily have been a Frankenstein but is instead a No-One.).
It’s this point I want to talk about a bit. There’s a lot of grumbling about this film and about Karloff’s performance in it. Mainly, I think, because it’s a step in a darker direction for the Monster, something that doesn’t sit well with many people. The fact is, Karloff engendered a lot of goodwill for the creature in his first two outings-he built the beast up as a sympathetic character, a child of misfortune, driven into the wilderness and savagery by a hateful world, through his performance. Equal credit is certainly due to the director of the first two films, James Whale, but since it was, at heart, Karloff’s pleading portrayal that cemented our idea of the Monster as a lonely child, that’s what I’m going with here.
But, when we get to this film, Karloff burns through his karma points from the first two in short order. And it’s jarring. It’s like watching a beloved pet suddenly turn vicious. Which, I like to think, was the point.
The Monster has learned, you see. Once poor, misguided Wolf Frankenstein juices him back up to full strength, healing his ravaged flesh and rendering him capable once more of movement, the Monster goes into action. And it is action. For the first time, Karloff’s creature is not simply reacting. He’s acting out, ostensibly following the directives of the loathsome Ygor, but, in reality it’s obvious that he’s no small-brained brute and that he’s deriving an immense satisfaction from wringing the necks of his victims.
What’s striking is that the Monster has no particular victims in mind. He kills the ones Ygor points out because, to the creature, it’s quite obvious that the only good human is a dead human. He’s learned that none of them are to be trusted, especially a Frankenstein, and he acts accordingly, killing them as one would vermin. The individuals don’t matter. They are simply wet, red playthings for a creature that has, at last, transcended its former handicaps.
Karloff, with this film, gives us the Monster in full flower. A fallen angel. Something that could have been beautiful, kind, wonderful, is instead at last become ugly, hateful and terrible in its rage. It shakes the foundations of Heaven, Grendel ravaging Herot, not out of hunger, but out of hate. The Monster does not kill because it is driven to, but because it desires the death of all that is not itself.
Even the psychopathic Ygor displays some trepidation at its savagery, soothing it with his music from a safe distance. Lugosi makes it very clear in his performance that he does not control the Monster, but is, instead, merely influencing it. For him, the Monster is a tool that could very easily turn on its wielder. And it soon does, choosing its own path when Ygor meets his (temporary) fate.
The Monster at last comes for Frankenstein, stealing his child, in order to punish via proxy, an act which displays the true depth of the rot that has overtaken the creature’s once innocent soul. But like Milton’s Lucifer, Karloff’s Monster is sent spinning to Hell by his creator (or his creator’s son, rather–shades of Lucifer’s defeat by the Archangel Michael), his rage at last abated by defeat.
By the next film, the Monster, bereft of Karloff’s animating spirit, is burnt-out husk. Bled white, its fiendish intellect replaced by dull clumsiness, and eventually, blindness. It’s to Lugosi’s credit that with Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, he gives us a glimpse of that old infernal drive at the climax, but it’s not the same. Lugosi’s Monster is not Karloff’s. The brain, the soul is different.
Instead of a terrible angel of science, it is just another beast of low lusts, fodder for the arena. A sad fate for any monster.
Happy #HalloweenIn123
It’s edging up on that time of year again, and Bob Freeman over at The Occult Detective has decided to celebrate the spooky season in style and on Twitter with #HalloweenIn123.
You can head over to Bob’s site for the full low-down, but here’s the gist:
I propose we tell each other
Halloween stories in 123 characters or less.
Shall we start, officially, on Oct. 24?
Write a creepy story in 123 characters or less, and attach the hash-tag #HalloweenIn123 so everyone can join in on the fun. I’ve already written my first one:
#HalloweenIn123 Scales scraped across damp stone and the woman screamed. The high priest smiled and closed the cellar door.
— JMReynolds (@JMReynolds) October 24, 2012
So what are you waiting for? There’s only a week ’til Halloween, after all.
