Tad Williams's Blog, page 34

The Dirty Streets of Heaven

Coming September 2012

Bobby Dollar would like to know what he was like when he was alive, but too much of his time is spent working as an extremely minor functionary in the heavenly host judging recently departed souls.

Until the day a soul goes missing, presumed stolen by 'the other side'.

A new chapter in the war between heaven and hell is about to open. And Bobby is right in the middle of it, with only a desirable but deadly demon to aid him.

The Dirty Streets of Heaven is the first book in Tad's new urban noir fantasy series about an afterlife investigator — the angel Doloriel (Bobby Dollar) — who searches for a missing soul and finds himself caught up in a battle much larger than he imagined.

Three books are planned for the series: The Dirty Streets of Heaven, Happy Hour in Hell, and Sleeping Late on Judgment Day. Each will be somewhat shorter than Tad's usual epic science fiction and fantasy fare, and although part of a series, each may be read as a stand-alone novel.

The Dirty Streets of Heaven will be published in September by DAW Books in the US and by Hodder Stoughton in the UK.

The joy of editing and seeing first. Just finished Tad William's Dirty Streets of Heaven. Mind blowing @hodderscape @tadwilliams @MrsTad

— Oliver Johnson (@oliverrjohnson) February 28, 2012

@oliverrjohnson @hodderscape #TheDirtyStreetsOfHeaven – mindblowing indeed – & laugh-out-loud bloody funny – & sssssSSSEXY

— Deborah Beale (@MrsTad) February 28, 2012

Preorder your copy today from:

amazon(US)

amazon (UK)

Otherland MMOG: Official Gameplay Trailer

The brand new official gameplay trailer for gamigo and RealU's upcoming Otherland MMOG debuted at the next-g event today. The new trailer teases us with more screenshots of the action and gameplay we look forward to in Otherland.

Where everything you can imagine… is possible.

Official Otherland MMOG website

Otherland is based on the famous virtual reality series of novels of the same name by the best-selling author Tad Williams. The state-of-the-art technology of the Unreal Engine 3 allows the action-packed MMORPG to have visually dazzling landscapes, highly-detailed character models and top-notch effects. The developers had a wealth of material to draw upon when creating the highly-varied multiverses.

Stay up with new developments and follow the official Otherland MMOG twitter account: @OtherlandMMOG

The Universe Next Door: Otherland MMO

Few science fiction sagas have achieved the level of critical acclaim — and best-selling popularity — as Tad Williams's Otherland novels. A brilliant blend of science fiction, fantasy, and technothriller, Otherland is a rich, multilayered epic of future possibilities.

After several years in development, game studio RealU, dtp Entertainment, and gamigo are pleased to announce Otherland, the Massive Multiplayer Online Game based on Tad's epic series. The game is scheduled to be released in North America and Europe in 2012. Gamigo will handle online publishing, while dtp Entertainment will publish the retail version of this free-to-play MMORPG.

In a recent interview, gamigo's Patrick Streppel described Otherland's design: "While Otherland has many innovative features and twists to the traditional MMORPG-gameplay, it very much is a role playing GAME and by no means a social space similar to Second Life… Hanging out at bars and playing minigames is a cool addition, but at its core, players will find a solid MMORPG complete with interesting quests, XP-based character development, party and guild formation, individualized skills, upgradable or crafted items and most importantly, fun and engaging combat… once we debut gameplay scenes, players will see why the action-based combat system is yet another step ahead of traditional MMOGs."

See Otherland: the Game for more information

Watch the latest trailer:

Otherland — Making Of Part 2: Lambda Mall

Click here to watch earlier trailers and for more information about Otherland: the Game

Otherland MMO Banner Art, Concept Art and Screenshots courtesy RealU, gamigo, and dtp entertainment

Warner Brothers Option OTHERLAND Feature Rights

Studio lands feature rights to Tad Williams' sci-fi tomes. Continue reading →

The 2nd Annual, Post-Xmas, Blue Light Special Shopping Guide

Well into the first month of a New Year, Your Reporter finds himself cold-sick and sniffling, having sacrificed yet another six dollar brolly to the rainswept side streets of Lower Pacific Heights; a being of relative penury and lack of luck.

On the occasional and welcome upbeat-minded day, feeling snazzy in a rainbow scarf presented at Yuletide by the object of my affection, I still draw Harry Potter heckles from downtown City dwellers. In response, I wish upon them unspeakable violations of their person with a Quiddich stick…as one does.

But what the hey: as Uncle Lou once remarked, you're not interested in my problems and neither am I. For despite it all, I am still compelled to enlighten you dear readers — especially you with a few bucks left on Crimble gift cards and certificates — to the latest and coolest of culture beans for caffeinating listless imaginations. So then, like they did in the NYC buffet flats and rent parties of the Twenties and Thirties, we the cat shall endeavor to hep yez. (Pig feet and bottles of beer optional.)

Speaking of the Big Monkey: when it comes to NYC's own premier music paparazzo, Bob Gruen, it might be best to inquire, rather than who he has winningly photographed over the last four (!) decades, who he hasn't. The answer being: not a whole heckuva lot. Indeed, the great, near-great and about-to-be-great in the music world have all been captured by Gruen's lens at one time or other since the turn of the Seventies.

At long last, Gruen has achieved Coffee Table status with his new career retrospective Rock Seen (published by Abrams). And rightfully so: whether in performance or offstage letting down hair and (sometimes) egos in the pages of CREEM, ROCK SCENE and many other mags, few photo-journos have caught the high exuberance and energy of Rock in the way Bob Gruen has, and continues to do.

And not just in stills either, as evidenced by a dynamic duo of DVD's featuring the New York Dolls, All Dolled Up and the just-released Looking Fine on Television (both from MVD Video). Both were compiled from Gruen's archive of Dolls live gigs and interviews that he (with then-wife Nadya Beck) documented, using the super-primitive B&W video technology available at the time.

All Dolled Up is a relatively straightforward doc., focusing on Johansen, Thunders and the gang's performance debuts in L.A. and San Francisco in 1973; Looking Fine ingeniously edits together numerous career-spanning live clips, forming a collection of individual videos for Dolls classics like 'Looking For A Kiss' and 'Personality Crisis'. There's also some endearing and amusing interview segments, particularly those involving an L.A. pool-lounging Johansen being grilled by NYC rock gossip maven Lisa Robinson.

Both DVD's are jaw-dropping, compulsively watchable time-capsules of a group with style, humor and an innate sense of what makes for a rocking good time in 3-minute installments. Thus, the legend grows, and endures: amazing, life-altering, mind-defining stuff (like all Rock should be, really).

More NYCentric print matter that matters, then: Will Hermes' Love Goes To Buildings on Fire (published by Faber & Faber) is a splendidly successful attempt at tracking the diverse musical developments hatched among the Five Boroughs between 1972 and 1977.

Yes, of course NY's Punk/Wave and Disco scenes have been parsed ad-inf., but Hermes manages to pull out a few new strands from that thread, in addition to the birth of Hip-Hop, manifest in the Bronx parties hosted and DJ'ed by Kool Herc and Afrika Bambaataa. Another subplot covered by Hermes is that of a young, moonlighting taxi hack and aspiring classical composer's creation of what would be a game-changer of the form, namely Philip Glass and his marathon opera Einstein On The Beach.

Hermes also gives equal time to NY's Latin and Jazz community's presences being felt and heard; in the case of the latter, everywhere from downtown lofts — and the Free/Third Stream sounds birthed there — to uptown concert halls, via the briefly re-situated Newport Jazz Festival. From the opening tableau of (them again) The Dolls rocking the Mercer Arts Center on New Year's '72/'73, to an almost cinematically expansive account of the '77 blackout and its effects, Love Goes… is cultural history writ large, lively and anything but dry.

Going even further back is the new memoir of Sixties life and art by another NY resident, Ed Sanders's Fug You (Da Capo). Writer, poet, DIY publisher, scholar and practically the godfather of Anti-Folk with his reprobate Lower East Side mob The Fugs (hence the title), Sanders has certainly earned the right to be considered a counter-cultural elder. And, like elders do, this book gives Sanders the occasion to pass on his experience, wisdom and, most importantly, cultural artifacts.

In the latter case, these take the form of a fascinating array of photographs, pages from Sanders's infamous mimeozine F*** You: A Magazine Of The Arts, posters and flyers of lit. readings and Fugs appearances alike; no surprise that they shared bills with Allen Ginsberg, but who knew they also once opened for Little Anthony and the Imperials?! Even more cheering is Sanders' cloudless and spirited recall of events, giving the lie to that played-out saw about those who lived it not remembering the Sixties.

What about silver or vinyl platters, you ask? Slap these on for starters: Van Dyke Parks' Arrangements Volume 1 — a playful, wistful and gorgeous anthol of work by one of the great unrecognized genii of musical Americana. And not only did Brian Wilson fortuitously notice, but on the evidence of this CD, so did everyone from Little Feat, Ry Cooder and Bonnie Raitt, to pre-Hashbury San Francisco musical lights like Sal (Beau Brummels) Valentino and The Mojo Men. (On Parks' own Bananastan label, one should also look into his recent series of ltd.-ed. 45's, with covers illustrated by the none-too-shabby likes of Art Spiegelman, Ed Ruscha and Klaus Voorman.)

Speaking of San Fran tuneful treats, a thoroughly ace salvage job (courtesy Australia's Grown Up Wrong! label) has been done on the music of mid-Seventies locals the Hot Knives. With only two independent 45's pressed in their lifetime, Hot Knives' stock in trade was your classic male/femme-duetting (in this case, brother and sis) folk-rock, given a invigorating kick by none other than two original members of the fabulous Flamin' Groovies. Altogether very much of their time, but fun all the same, mixing in their own capably swank originals with animated takes on Moby Grape's 'Hey Grandma' and the Knickerbockers' classic Fabs-readymade 'Lies' .

Yet another welcome batch of uncovered gems can be found on Free Again by the late, great Alex Chilton (on Omnivore Records). A culling of demos LX did in Memphis during 1969, trying out his creative wings once extricating himself from the unsatisfying role of fronting the Box Tops, this is a near-perfect snapshot of Chilton's transition between that band's Top 40 prefab pop and the melodic, sanguine, stunning output of Big Star. It rocks ('Come On Honey'), it dreams ('The EMI Song'), it pays dutiful if jokey tribute to Elvis. Plus, after hearing Chilton's high-larious deconstruct included herein, you'll never think of 'Sugar Sugar' the same way again.

Much more on the way, natch. In the meanwhile, stay hep, watch your step and don't take any wooden Mayan calendars.

MLH

1-29-12

A Stark and Wormy Knight

A Stark and Wormy Knight, a new collection of Tad's short stories — including new material original to this book — is now available in e-book format for the Kindle for just $4.99, or its equivalent world-wide, until the end of January 2012. Get A Stark and Wormy Knight for the Kindle here.

For an exclusive sneak-peek, the story "And Ministers of Grace", is available at Pat's Fantasy Hotlist, and is perhaps the most powerful science fiction short story (in Deb's not very humble opinion) that Tad has written. It is in fact the sketch for a larger science fiction series of thriller-length novels, and if you read the tale you will see how well it combines suspense and the distant future. It was originally published in Warriors, edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois.

Table of Contents:

Introduction
And Ministers of Grace
A Stark And Wormy Knight
The Storm Door
The Stranger's Hands
Bad Guy Factory
The Thursday Men
The Tenth Muse
The Lamentably Comical Tragedy (or the Laughably Tragic Comedy) of Lixal Laqavee
The Terrible Conflagration at The Quiller's Mint
Black Sunshine
Ants

For those who would also like to have a hardcover edition, Subterranean Press will be publishing A Stark and Wormy Knight in June 2012, in both a Limited Edition of 250 signed and numbered copies bound in leather and a fully cloth-bound trade edition (440 pages each). Pre-order your copy here.

From Subterranean Press:

Tad Williams is an acknowledged master of the multi-volume epic. Through such popular series as Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn and Otherland, he has acquired a huge and devoted body of readers who eagerly await each new publication. A Stark and Wormy Knight offers those readers something both special and surprising: a virtuoso demonstration of Williams's mastery of a variety of shorter forms.

The range of tone, theme, style, and content reflected in this generous volume is nothing short of amazing. The title story is a tale within a tale of dragons and knights and is notable for its wit and verbal inventiveness. "The Storm Door" uses The Tibetan Book of the Dead to forge a singular new approach to the traditional zombie story. "The Terrible Conflagration at the Quiller's Mint" offers a brief, independent glimpse into the background of Williams's Shadowmarch series. "Ants" provides an ironic account of what can happen when a marriage goes irrevocably wrong.

Two of the longer entries show Williams working, with great facility, within the fictional creations of other writers. "The Thursday Men" is a hugely entertaining foray into the world of Mike Mignola's Hellboy comics. The wonderfully titled "The Lamentably Comical Tragedy (or the Laughably Tragic Comedy) of Lixal Laqavee" is both a first-rate fantasy and a deeply felt homage to Jack Vance's immortal Dying Earth. Two other pieces offer rare and hard-to-find glimpses into other facets of Williams's talent. "Bad Guy Factory" is the script for a proposed series of DC Comics that never came to fruition. "Black Sunshine" is the immensely readable screenplay for a movie that remains, at least for the moment, unproduced. One can only hope.

These and other stories and novellas comprise a stellar collection that really does contain something for everyone. For longtime Williams readers, and for anyone with a taste for literate imaginative fiction, A Stark and Wormy Knight is a welcome—and indispensable—volume.

The Sugarplum Favor (A Christmas Story)

Danny Mendoza counted his change three times in while the teacher talked about what they were all supposed to bring for the class winter holiday party tomorrow. It was really a Christmas party, at least in Danny's class, because that's what all the kids' families' celebrated. Danny had his party contribution covered. He had volunteered to bring napkins and paper plates and cups because his family had some left over from his little brother's birthday party with characters from Gabba Gabba Hey on them. He'd get teased about that, he knew, but he didn't want to ask his mother to make something because she was so busy with his little brothers and the baby, and now that Danny's stepfather Luis had lost his job they had a Money Situation. Danny could live with a little teasing.

Danny was going to buy a candy bar for his mother, one of those big ones. That was going to be his Christmas present to her and Danny knew how much she'd like it — he hadn't just inherited his small size and nimble fingers from her, he'd got her sweet tooth, too. And she had just been talking about the Christmas a few years ago when Luis had a good job with the Sanitation Department and he'd brought her a whole box of See's chocolates. Danny knew he couldn't match that, but the last of the money he'd saved up from raking leaves in the neighborhood and walking old Mrs. Rosales' wheezy little dog should be enough to buy a big old Hershey bar that would make Mama smile. No, what to get wasn't a problem. The thing that had him thinking so hard as he went down the street at a hurried walk, hands shoved deep into his jacket pockets, was whether he dared to get it now or should wait another day.

In Danny's San Jose neighborhood the Mercado Estrella was like an African water hole, not only a crucial source of nurture but also the haunt of the most fearsome predator in his 3rd grade world. Any stop at the little market meant he risked running into Hector Villaba, the big, mean fifth-grade kid who haunted Danny's days and often his nights as well. Danny couldn't even begin to guess how much candy and other goodies Hector had stolen from him and the other kids over the years, but it was a lot — Hector was the elementary school's Public Enemy Number One. About half the time his victims got shoved around, too, or even hit, and none of the grown-ups ever did anything about it except to tell their humiliated sons they should learn how to fight back. That was probably because Hector Villaba's father was a violent, drunken brute who didn't care what Hector did and everyone in the neighborhood was as scared of him as the kids at school were scared of his son. The last time someone in the neighborhood had called the police on Hector's dad, all their windows had been broken while they were at church and their car scratched from one end to another.

Danny was still trying to make up his mind whether to risk stopping at the market today or wait for better odds tomorrow (when class ended early because of the holiday) when he saw Mrs. Rosales walking Pinto, her little spotted dog. He almost crossed the street because he knew she'd want to talk to him and he'd spent a lot of time doing that already last week when went to her house to get Pinto nearly every day. He was too close, though, she'd seen him, and Jesus hated being rude to old people almost as much as he hated it when kids lied, or at least that was what his mama always told him. Danny wasn't expecting much from Santa anyway, but if Jesus got upset things would probably be even worse. He sighed and continued toward her.

"Look who's here!" Mrs. Rosales said when she saw him. "Look, Pinto mi querida, it's your friend Danny!" But when he waved and would have passed by she told him, "Hold on a moment, young man, I want to talk to you."

He stopped, but he was really worried that Hector and his friends might catch up if he stood around too long. "Yes, Mrs. Rosales?"

"I short-changed you the other day." She took out a little coin purse. It took her a long time to get it open with her knobby old fingers. "I owe you a dollar."

"Really?" Danny was astonished.

She pulled out a piece of paper that looked like it had been folded and unfolded a hundred times and handed it to him. "I know boys need money this time of year!"

He thanked her, petted Pinto (who growled despite all their time together, because Pinto was a spoiled brat) and hurried toward the market. Another dollar! It was like one of those Christmas miracles on a television show – like the Grinch's heart growing so much it made the x-ray machine go sproing! This changed everything. He could not only buy his mom's present, he could buy something for himself, too. He briefly considered blowing the whole dollar on a Butterfinger, his very favorite, but he knew hard candies would be a better investment — he could share them with his younger brothers, and it was Christmas-time, after all. But whatever he got, he didn't want to wait for tomorrow, not now that he had something to spend on himself. Danny Mendoza had been candy-starved for days. Nothing sweeter than the baby's butterscotch pudding had passed his lips that week, and the pudding hadn't been by his own choice. (His baby sister had discovered that if she waved her spoon things flew and splattered, and she liked that new trick a lot.) If he hurried to the market he should still get there long before Hector and his friends, who had many children to harass and humiliate on their way home. It was a risk, of course, but with an unexpected dollar in his pocket Danny felt strangely confident. There had to be such a thing as Christmas luck, didn't there? After all, it was a whole holiday about Jesus getting born, and Jesus was kind to everybody. Although it sure hadn't seemed like a lucky Christmas when Luis, Danny's stepfather, had lost his job in the first week of December. But maybe things were going to get better now — maybe, as his mama sometimes said, the Mendoza family's luck was going to change.

He was even more willing to believe in miracles when he saw no sign of Hector and his friends at the market. As he walked in Christmas music was playing loudly on the radio, that "Joy to the World" song sung by some smooth television star. Tia Marisol, the little old lady who ran the place on her own since her husband died, was trying to hang some lights above the cigarettes behind the cash register. She wasn't his real aunt, of course. Everybody in the neighbohood just called her "Tia."

"Oye, little man," she called when she turned around and saw him. "How's your mama?"

"Fine, Tia Marisol. I'm getting her a present." He made his way past the postres to the long candy rack. So many colors, so many kinds! It almost seemed to glow, like in one of those cartoons where children found a treasure-cave. When Danny was little, it was what he had imagined when the minister at the church talked about Heaven. The only better thing he had ever seen in his whole life was the huge piñata at one of his school friends' birthday party, years and years ago. When the birthday boy knocked the piñata open and candy came showering out and all the kids could jump in and take what they want – that had been amazing. Like winning a game show on television. Danny still dreamed about it sometimes.

Danny realized that he was staring like a dummy at the rack of candy when every second the danger that Hector and his friends would arrive kept growing. He quickly examined the big Hershey bars until he found one with a perfect wrapper, a massive candy bar that looked as if it had been made special for a commercial. He would have loved to spend more time browsing — how often did he have a whole dollar to spend just on candy? — but he knew time was short, so he grabbed a good-sized handful of hard, sour candies for sucking, took several different colors of candy ropes; then, as worry grew inside him, as uncomfortable as needing to pee, he finally snatched up a handful of bubble gum and ran to the front counter.

"What's your hurry, m'hijo?" Tia Marisol asked.

"Mom needs me," he said, which he hoped was not enough of a lie to ruin Jesus' upcoming celebration. After all, Mom did always need his help, especially by this time in the day when she'd been on her own with the baby and the littlest brother since morning, and had just walked the other brother home from preschool. He pulled the three dollars worth of much-counted change out of one pocket and mounded it in front of Tia Marisol, then put the Hershey bar and his own handful of candy down beside it before digging out the crumpled dollar Mrs. Rosales had given him. She slid her glasses a little way down her nose while she looked at it all.

"Where'd you get so much money, Danny?"

"Raking lawns. Taking Mrs. Rosales dog for walks."

Tia Marisol smiled, handed him back twenty-three cents, and put everything into a paper bag. "You're a good boy. You and your family have a happy Christmas. Tell your mama I said hello, would you?"

"Sure." He was already halfway through the door, heart beating.

The Christmas miracle continued outside: other than a couple of young mothers with strollers and bundled-up babies, and the old men who sat on the bus bench across the street drinking from bottles in paper bags, the area around the store was still clear. Danny began to walk toward home as fast as he could without running, because he had the bag under his coat now and he didn't want to melt Mama's candy bar. Still, he was almost skipping, he was so happy. Joy to the world, the Lord is come…!

"Hey, Mendoza," someone shouted in a hoarse voice. "What's in the bag, maricon?"

Danny stopped, frozen for a moment like a cornered animal, but then he began to walk again, faster and faster until he was running. There was no question whose voice that was. Pretty much every kid in his school knew it and feared it.

"Hold up, Mendoza, or I'll kick your ass good!" The voice was getting closer. He could hear the whir of bike tires on the sidewalk coming up behind him fast. He looked back and saw that Hector Villaba and his big, stupid friends Rojo and Chuy were bearing down on him on their bikes, and in another second or two would ride him down. He lunged to the side just as Hector stuck out his foot and shoved him, sending Danny crashing into the low wire fence of the house he was passing. He bounced off and tumbled painfully to the sidewalk as Hector and his gang stopped just a few yards ahead, now blocking the sidewalk that led Danny home. The hard candies had fallen out of his bag and were scattered across the sidewalk. He got down on his knees, hurrying to pick them up, doing everything he could to avoid eye contact with Hector and the others, but when he reached for the last one Hector's big, stupid basketball-shoe was on top of it. The older boy leaned over and picked it up. "Jolly Rancher, huh? Not bad. Not great, but not bad." He waved it in Danny's face, making him look up from all fours like a dog at its master. "I asked you what's in the bag, Mendoza?"

"Nothing! It's for my mama."

"For your mama? Oh, iddn't dat sweet?" Hector's fingers hooked under Danny's chin and lifted. Danny didn't fight — he knew it wasn't going to help — but he still flinched when he saw Hector's round, sweaty face so close, the angry, pale yellow-brown eyes. Hector Villaba even had the beginnings of a real mustache, a hairy smudge on his upper lip. It was one of the things that made him so scary, one of the reasons why even bigger twelve year olds like Chuy and Rojo let him lead them — a fifth-grader with a mustache!

"C'mon, open it up," Hector told him. "Let's see what you got for your mama." When Danny still didn't offer up the bag, Hector's friend Chuy put a foot on Danny's back and pushed down so hard that Danny had to brace himself to keep from being shoved against the sidewalk. "I said show me, maricon," said Hector. "Chuy gonna break your spine. He knows karate."

Danny handed Hector the bag, biting his lip, determined not to cry. Hector pulled out the big Hershey Bar. "Hijole!" he said. "Look at that! Something for your mama, shit — you were going to eat that all by yourself. Not even share none with us. That's cold, man."

"It is for my mother! It is!" Danny pushed up against Chuy's heavy hiking boot trying to reach the candy bar, which didn't look anywhere near so huge clamped in Hector Villaba's plump, dirty fingers. Chuy took his weight off for a moment, then kicked Danny in the ribs hard enough to make him drop to the concrete and hug himself in pain.

"If you try any more shit, we'll hurt you good," said Hector, laughing as he unwrapped the candy bar. He tossed a piece to Chuy, then another to Rojo, who grabbed it out of the air and shoved it in his mouth like a starving dog, then licked his fingers. Hector leaned down and gave Danny another shove, hard enough to crash him against the fence again. "Don't you ever try to hide anything from me. I know where you live, dude. I'll come over and slap the bitch out of you and your mama both." He pointed to the hard candies still clutched in Danny's hands. "Get that other shit, too, yo," Hector told Rojo, and the big, freckled kid bent Danny's fingers back until he surrendered it all.

The Christmas chocolate bar, looking sad and naked with half its foil peeled away, was still clutched in Hector's hand as he and his friends rode away laughing, sharing the hard candy out of the bag.

For a while Danny just sat on the cold sidewalk and wished he had a knife or even a gun and he could kill Hector Villaba, even if it made Jesus unhappy for weeks. At that moment Danny almost felt like he could do it. The rotten, mean bastard had taken his mom's present!

At last Danny wiped his eyes and continued home. It was starting to get dark and the wind was suddenly cold, which made his scratched-up hands ache. When he reached the apartment he let himself in, dropped his book bag by the door, then called a greeting to his mama feeding Danny's baby sister in the kitchen as he hurried on to the bathroom so he could clean up his scratches and tear-stained face and do his best to hide the damage to the knees of his pants before she saw him up close. It wouldn't do any good to tell her what had happened – she couldn't do anything and it would make her very sad. Danny was used to keeping quiet about what went on between home and school, school and home.

After a while he went out and sat at the table and watched as his mother fed green goop to the baby. Even her smile for Danny looked tired. Mama worked so hard to keep them all fed and dressed, hardly ever yelled, and even sang old songs from Mexico for Danny and his brothers when she wasn't too tired…

And now that cabron Hector had stolen her present, and he didn't have any money left to get her something else.

*

Later that night, when the house was quiet and everyone was asleep, Danny found himself crying again. It was so unfair! What had happened to the Christmas luck? Or did that kind of thing only happen to other kids, other families?

"Please, Jesus," he prayed quietly. "I just have to get Mama something for Christmas – something Hector can't take. If that's a miracle, okay – I mean, I know you can't do them all the time, but if you got one…an extra one…"

*

Something woke him up – a strange noise in the living room. For a moment he lay in bed wondering if Santa Claus might have come, but then he remembered it was still three days until Christmas. Still, he could definitely hear something moving, a kind of quiet fluttery sound. His brothers were both sprawled in boneless, little-boy sleep across the mattress they shared, so he climbed carefully over them and made his way out to the living room. At first he saw nothing more unusual than the small Christmas tree on top of the coffee table, but as he stared, his eyes trying to get used to the dark, he saw the tree was…moving? Yes, moving, the top of the pine wagging like a dog's tail.

Danny had never heard of a Christmas tree coming to life, not even in a TV movie, and it scared him. He picked up the tennis racket with the missing strings Luis kept promising to fix, then crawled toward the scraggly tree with its ornaments of foil and cut paper.

As he got closer he could see that something small was caught in the tree's topmost branch, trying to fly away but not succeeding. He could hear its wings beating so fast they almost buzzed. A bird, trapped in the apartment? A really big moth?

Danny looked for one of the baby's bowls to trap it, then had a better idea and crept to the kitchen cabinet where his mom kept the washed jars. He picked a big one that had held sandwich spread and slithered commando-style back to the living room. Whatever the thing was, it was really stuck, tugging and thrashing as it tried to free itself from the pine needles. He dropped the jar over it and pulled carefully on the branch until the thing could finally get free, then Danny clapped the lid on the jar to keep it from escaping.

The thing inside the jar went crazy now, flying against the glass, the wings going so fast that it made it hard for him to see for certain what it was. The strange thing was, it actually looked like a person — a tiny, tiny little person no bigger than a sparrow. That was crazy. Danny knew it was crazy. He knew he had to be dreaming.

"What are you doing?" the thing said in a tiny, rasping voice. It didn't sound happy at all. "Let me go!"

Danny was so startled to hear it talk that he nearly dropped the jar. He held it up to the light coming in from the street lamp to get a better look. The prisoner in the jar was a little lady — a lady with wings! A real, honest-to-goodness Christmas miracle! "Are you…an angel?" he asked.

"Let me out, young man, and we'll talk about it." She didn't sound much like an angel. Actually, she sounded a lot like that scratchy-voiced nanny on that TV show his mama watched sometimes. Her hair was yellow and kind of wild and sticky-uppy, and she wore a funny little dancing dress. She was also carrying a bag over her shoulder like Santa did, except that hers wasn't much bigger than Danny's thumb .

"P-Promise you won't fly away?" he asked this strange small person. "If I let you out?"

She had her tiny hands pressed up against the inside of the jar. She shook her head so hard her little sparkly crown almost fell off. "Promise. But hurry up — I don't like enclosed places. Honest, it makes me want to scream. Let me out, please."

"Okay. But no cheating." He unscrewed the lid on the jar and slowly turned it over. The tiny lady rose up, fluttering into the light that streamed through the living room window.

"Oh, that's so much better," she said. "I got stuck in a panoramic Easter egg once, wedged between a frosting bunny and a cardboard flower pot. Thought I was going to lose my mind."

"Wow," he said. "Who are you? What are you?"

She carefully landed on the floor near his knee. "I'm a sugarplum fairy," she said. "Like in that ballet."

"Huh?"

"Never mind. Look, thanks for getting me loose from that tree." She turned herself around trying to look down at herself. "Rats! Ripped my skirt. I hate conifers." She turned back to Danny. "I didn't mean to scare you, I was just passing through the neighborhood when I felt somebody thinking candy thoughts — real serious candy thoughts. I mean, it was like someone shouting. Anyway, that's what we do, us sugarplum fairies — we handle the candy action, especially at Christmas time. So I thought I should come and check it out. Was it you? Because if it was, you've got the fever bad, kid." She reached into her bag and produced a lollypop bigger than she was, something that couldn't possibly have fit in there. "Here, have one on me. You look like you need it."

"Wow. Wow!" He suddenly realized he was talking out loud and dropped his voice, worried that he would wake up his mama and Luis. He reached out for the lollypop. "You're really a fairy. Do you know Jesus?"

She shrugged. "I think he's in another department. What's your name? It's Danny, isn't it?"

He nodded. "Yeah." It suddenly struck him. "You know my name…?"

"I've got it all written down somewhere." She started riffling through her bag again, then pulled out something that looked like a tiny phone book. She took out an equally small pair of glasses, opened the book and began reading. "For some reason you fell off the list here, Danny. No wonder you're so desperate — you haven't had a sugarplum delivery in quite a while! Well, that at least I can do something about." She frowned as she took a pen out of the apparently bottomless bag and made a correction. "Of course, they may not process the new order until early next year, and I'm not scheduled back in this area until Valentines Day." She frowned. "Doesn't seem fair…" A moment later her tiny face brightened. "Hey, since you saved me from that tree branch I think I'm allowed to give you a wish. Would you like that?"

"Really? A wish?"

"Yes. I can do that."

"You'll give me a wish? Like magic? A wish?"

She frowned again. "Come on, kid, I know you've been shorted on candy the last couple of years but is your blood sugar really that low? I just very clearly said I will give you a wish. We're allowed to when someone helps us out."

He was so excited he could barely sit still. It was a Christmas miracle after all, a real one! "Could I wish for, like, a million dollars?" Then even if Luis didn't find another job for a while, the family would be okay. More than okay.

She shook her head. "Sorry, kid, no. I only do candy-related wishes. You want one of those extra big gummy bears? I hear those are popular this year. I could bend some rules and get it to you by Christmas."

He was tempted — he'd seen an ad on television — but now it was his turn to shake his head. "Could I just get a big Hershey bar? One of those extra-big ones? For my mother?"

The little woman tilted her head up so she could see him better from where she stood down on the ground. "Truly? Is that all you want? Gee, kid, I could feel the desperation coming off this house like weird off an elf. You sure you don't want something a little more…substantial? A pile of candy, maybe? A year's supply of gumdrops or something? As long as it's candy-related, I can probably get it done for you, but you better decide quick." She pulled quite a large pocket watch on a chain out of her bag, then put on her glasses again. "After midnight, and I've still got half my rounds to go." She looked up at him. "You seem like a nice kid, Danny, and it doesn't look like you guys are exactly swimming in presents and stuff. How about a nice pile of candy, assorted types? Or if you'd rather just concentrate on — what did you say, Hershey Bars? — I could probably arrange a shopping bag of those or something…"

For a moment his head swam at the prospect of a grocery bag full of giant chocolate bars, more than Hector the Butt-head Villaba could ever dream of having now matter how much he stole…but then another idea came floating up from deep down in Danny's thoughts – a strange, dark idea.

"Can you do all kinds of wishes? Really all kinds?"

"Yeah, but just one. And it definitely has to be candy-related. I'm not a miracle worker or anything."

"Okay. Then I'll tell you what I want." Danny could suddenly see it all in his imagination, and it was very, very good.

*

The school holiday party was nice. Danny and his classmates played games and sang songs and had a snack of fruit and cheese and crackers. Nobody brought Chips Ahoy cookies, but one of the mothers did indeed bring cupcakes, delicious chocolate ones with silver, green and red sprinkles for Christmas. There were even enough left over that although Danny had finished his long ago despite making it last as long as possible, he was allowed to take home the last two for his little brothers. He suspected that the teacher knew his family didn't have much money, but for this one day it didn't embarrass him at all.

After the bell rang Danny followed the other third-graders toward the school gate, holding one cupcake carefully in each hand, his book bag draped over his shoulder. He was watching his feet so carefully that he didn't see what made the other children suddenly scatter to either side, but as soon as he heard the voice he knew the reason.

"Look at that, it's Maricon Mendoza, yo," said Hector Villaba. "What'd you bring us for Christmas, kid?" Danny looked up. The mustached monster was sitting astride his bike just a few yards down the sidewalk, flanked by Rojo and Chuy. "Oh, yeah, dude — cupcakes!" said Hector. "You remembered our Christmas presents." He scooted his bike forward until he stood directly over Danny, then reached out for the cupcakes. Danny couldn't help it — he jerked back when Hector tried to take them, even though he knew it would probably earn him another bruising.

"Punch the little chulo's face in," Rojo suggested.

Hector dropped his bike with a clatter. The other kids from school who had stopped to stare in horrified fascination jumped out of his way as he strode forward and grabbed the cupcakes out of Danny's hands. He peeled the paper off one and shoved the whole cupcake in his mouth, then tossed the other to Chuy. "You two split that," he said through a mouthful of devil's food, then turned his attention back to Danny, who was so scared and excited that he felt like electricity was running through him. "Next time, you better remember to bring one for each of us, Mendoza. You only bring two, that's going to get your ass kicked."

Danny backed away. It was hard to look into those yellow-brown eyes and not run crying, let alone keep thinking clearly, but Danny did his best. He dropped his book bag to the ground and out fell the stringless tennis racket that he had brought from home. Hector hooted with angry laughter as Danny snatched it up and held it before him as if it was a cross and Hector was a vampire.

"Que? You going to try to hit me, little boy?" Hector laughed again, but he didn't sound happy. He didn't like it when people stood up to him. "I'll take that away from you and beat your ass black and blue, Mendoza." The bully took a step nearer and held out his hand. "Give it to me or I'll break your fingers."

"No." Danny wasn't going to step back any farther. He lifted the racket, waved it around like a baseball bat. It was old and flimsy, but he had come to school determined today. "You can't have it…you fat asshole."

Behind Hector, Rojo let out a surprised chortle, but Hector Villaba didn't think it was funny at all.

"That's it," he said, curling his hands into fists. "After I kick your ass, I'm gonna rub your face in dog shit. Then I'm gonna kick your ass again. You're gonna spend Christmas in the hospital." Without warning, he charged toward Danny.

Danny stepped to the side and swung the racket as hard as he could, hitting Hector right in the stomach. With a whoop of surprise and pain Hector bent double, but when he looked up he didn't look hurt, just really, really mad, his eyes staring like a crazy dog's eyes.

"That's…it. I'm…going…to…get…you…Mendoza…" he said, then sucked in air and stood up straight, but even as he did so a funny expression crossed his face and he looked down at where he was holding his belly. Hector's hands were suddenly full of crackling, cellophane-wrapped hard candies, so many of them that they cascaded over his fingers and onto the ground. He lifted his hands in disbelief to look and dozens more of the candies slid out of the front of his open jacket — candy bars, too, fun-size and even regular ones, Snickers bars, Mounds, Tootsie Rolls, lollipops, candy canes, even spicy tamarindos. The other children from the school stared in horrified fascination, guessing that Danny had broken a bag that Hector had been carrying under his coat. They were so scared of Hector that they didn't move an inch toward any of the candy that was still slithering out of the big boy's coat and pooling on the ground at his feet.

"Oh, man," one of the other third graders said in a hoarse whisper, "Mendoza's going to get beat up so bad…!"

But even more candy was pouring out of Hector's belly now, as if someone had turned on a candy-faucet, a great river of sweets running out of the place where Danny had knocked him open with his old tennis racket.

"What the…?" Then Hector Villaba looked down at himself and began to scream in terror. Candy was showering out of him faster and faster onto the sidewalk, already piled as high as the cuffs of his pants and still coming.

"Hijole, dude!" said Rojo. "You're a piñata!"

Hector looked at him, eyes rolling with fear, then he turned sprinted away down the street squealing like a kindergartner, a flood of candy still pouring from him, Crunch Bars, M&Ms, (plain and peanut) as well as boxes of gumdrops and wax-wrapped pieces of taffy, all raining onto the street around the bully's legs and feet, bouncing and rolling.

Rojo and Chuy watched Hector run for a moment, then turned to stare at Danny with a mixture of apprehension and confusion. Then turned from him to look at each other, came to some kind of agreement, and threw themselves down on their knees to start scooping up the candy that had fallen out of Hector Villaba. Within a few seconds the other school kids were all scrambling across the ground beside them, everybody shoveling candy into their pockets as fast as they could.

Danny waited until he wasn't breathing so hard, then started for home, following the clear trail of candy that had gushed from Hector Villaba as he ran. He didn't bother to pick up everything, since for once in his life he could afford to be selective. He stuffed one pocket of his jacket with candy for his brothers, then filled the other just with Butterfinger Bars, at least six or seven, but kept walking with his head down until he spotted a nice, big Hershey Bar in good condition which he zipped in his book bag so it would stay safe for his mother. The rest of the way home he picked up whatever looked interesting and threw it into the book bag too, until by the time he reached home he was staggering with its weight up the apartment building walkway. For once, Hector Villaba had been the one who had run home crying.

He didn't feel sorry for Hector, either, not at all. Scared as the fifth-grader was now, he would be all right when he reached home. Danny had made that a part of the wish and the fairy had said she thought it was a good idea. Jesus didn't want even mean kids to die from having their guts really fall out, Danny felt pretty sure, so he had done his best not to spoil the Lord's birthday. Of course Hector Villaba probably wouldn't have a very merry Christmas, but Danny had decided that Jesus could probably live with that.

 

© 2011 by Tad Williams. All rights reserved.

Special eBook Offer for the Holidays

For a Limited Time Only: eBook editions of Caliban's Hour and The Secrets of Ordinary Farm are available at the special price of $2.99 each.

This special offer is only available through December 31st, so get your copies today!

Caliban's Hour

Barnes and Noble

amazon.com

The Secrets of Ordinary Farm

Barnes and Noble

amazon.com

And a note from Deborah: "More Christmas ebooks news coming soon — including the first publication (ebook) of Tad's new collection, A Stark and Wormy Knight."

@Frankie_Wah

We live with the real @frankie_wah. The Twitter version, I told a friend, is a cartoon and he isn't the same thing.

Behind us my Best Beloved growled, But not far off.

Frankie, the Chihuahua occupying the house with us, is a vocal, forceful little personality. And he is a willful marker of territory. Which is cocky and mad and also, yeuch.

Friends judged us. The consensus view seemed to be, 'You, and your strange little dog too.' No one had a good word to say for the creature. No one saw the great truths that surfaced during Cuddling. Revenge of the internet-bought, muttered certain screen-faced teenagers within the household, sloping around the place.

Joking about Frankie began as self-defense (defence), and also because he is an animal in Tad Williams' household, where animals being altogether too cute, makes them valid targets. Therefore, here's waht @frankie_wah is; a lot of jolly bullshit. I thankyew.

Hearing A New World: The Astral Projections of Joe Meek

In the words of Sly Stone, 'heard ya missed me, well I'm back': although, thankfully, my living situation is not of the four-wheeled, camper-van variety in which the profligate Mr. Stewart now unfortunately resides.

What follows is my contribution to the mother of a fanzine that is the 300th issue of The Drink Tank. For those unfamiliar, it's the brainchild of Christopher J. Garcia; Chris is a curator at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, as well as one of the most culturally savvy and genial gents on the planet.

THE DRINK TANK (co-ruled by James Bacon of Croydon, UK via Scotland), was the about-time recipient of this year's Hugo Award for Best Fanzine, and I felt truly fortunate to be witness to the unforgettable acceptance speech seen here.

Anyway, have a look-see over at Efanzines.com and tell Chris and James that the Grottomaster sent you.

—MLH

—————–

Robert George 'Joe' Meek (1929-1967) was the first independent record producer of the Rock and Roll era, an ingenious electronics wizard, and a supremely eccentric, fatally driven lunatic/genius working at the edge of his limitations.

As a result, he has been compared to everyone from Thomas Edison and Ed Wood to Les Paul and, most infamously, Phil Spector. In the case of the latter, both had a singular vision of creating ultimate Pop hits.

Where they diverge is that, for starters, Spector maintained a stable of top-quality songwriters: Greenwich and Barry, Gene Pitney, Mann and Weil, Goffin and King. Joe Meek neither played nor wrote music, and was supposedly tone deaf. Meek instead relied on more accomplished musicians to perform the unenviable task of translating tapes of his tunelessly hummed ideas into proper songs. (Meek's demos, to hear them today, make for uneasy listening only rivaled by the latest Justin Bieber chart-topper.)

Another difference was that Spector had the cream of L.A. studio players and state-of-Pop-art recording studios at his disposal. His U.K. counterpart Meek produced the bulk of his recorded legacy at 304 Holloway Road in north London, a three-story walk-up that was both home studio and audio laboratory.

It was not uncommon, on any given Meek production, for the singer to be doing his bit inside a closet as the rhythm section occupied the main area of one floor. Strings and horn players were stationed on another. When needed, assorted folk would be on the stairs between floors, stomping their feet in time for added percussive effect. Meanwhile, Meek would oversee from behind his self-built recording desk on the top floor, filtering sounds through an arsenal of tape-delay, echo and reverb effects, also of his creation.

Lastly, Spector's recording approach would become legendary as the Wall Of Sound. Joe Meek seemed more concerned with fashioning a Galaxy of Sound, one that reflected and externalized a lifelong interest in outer space, the possibilities of space travel and life on other planets.

Meek was also fascinated by the occult: on one occasion in February 1958 after attending a séance, Meek believed he had information about the imminent death of one of his American rock idols, Buddy Holly. Since he was touring the UK at the time, Meek felt compelled to warn Holly personally. As it turned out, he was wrong, but only just: Holly's fated plane ride took place a year later, to the day, of Meek's premonition.

Joe Meek is best known to the average music fan for producing two massive and classic hits of the Sixties. One remains a high point of the early British Invasion, the Honeycombs' 1964 smash 'Have I The Right' (which features the aforementioned stair stompers underlining the capable time-keeping of Honey Lantree, one of Rock's first female drummers). The other was the Tornados' deathless instrumental 'Telstar' from 1962: reportedly Margaret Thatcher's all-time favorite song, it still gloriously captures the optimism and hope in that first blush of the Space Age.

'Telstar' was not the first time, however, that Meek had given vent to his solar-system obsessions. In 1959, assisted by a local skiffle rock combo he dubbed the Blue Men, Meek created a twelve-song album entitled I Hear A New World.

Only four out of the twelve tracks Meek and the Blue Men recorded were eventually released, as an Extended Play 45, on the Triumph label in 1960. Ostensibly a device for demonstrating the new possibilities of stereophonic sound, the average record buyer might be forgiven for slotting its contents within the genre of Exotica records popular at the time: records by Martin Denny and Arthur Lyman, attempting to sonically create an atmosphere of South Pacific or Hawaiian paradise for a martini-and-tiki-besotted American upper-middle class. There was even the woozy sway of a Hawaiian guitar on the opening title track.

And yet…what were those sped-up Chipmunk voices doing inhabiting this ersatz Bali Hai?

Meek being Meek, you see, he was aiming at a soundscape to represent the Great Beyond. Specifically, the indigenous music that might be found on the Moon, one populated by such creatures from Meek's alien-fixated brainpan as the Dribcots, Globbots and Saroos.

'This is a strange record. I meant it to be', Meek wrote in the EP's liner notes.

To accomplish this, he augmented the rudimentary tunes Blue Men leader Rod Freeman aided in shaping with favored sound effects. These included such things from Joe's trick bag as (quoting one of the several Meek fan sites online) "corrugated fiberboards, metal ashtrays, a comb moved over a table edge, pebbles on a baking tray, feedback, artificially made short-circuits (and) intentionally detuned instruments." In this context, the frequent appearance of the Hawaiian guitar helps reinforce a sometimes doleful, other times giddy atmosphere; the more upbeat tracks ('Valley Of The Saroos', 'Orbit Around The Moon') even convey what might be perceived as an outer space hoedown.

Then there's Meek's own liner notes that accompany and fancifully describe each track. Here's his description of 'Globb Waterfall': "Gravity has done a strange thing, [forming] a type of overflowing well. The water rises to form a huge globule at the top of a plateau, and when it's reached its maximum size, it falls with a terrific splash to the ground below and flows away into the cracks of the moon. Then the whole cycle repeats itself again and again." And damned if that's not exactly what the track sounds like!

Meek's imaginative concept and its results are all the more remarkable when one considers the time frame in which they were formulated. Manned space travel was two years in the future. Computers were used only by the military and certain privileged corporations, and customarily the size of a medium to largish room. Music synthesizers were barely a transistorized gleam in Robert Moog's eye. Green moon cheese, green alien armies and the possibility of a flying car were as far as most average earthbound futuristas could project.

Meek's, on the other hand, was a construct of which was only otherwise proposed or fantasized about in stories found in your popular SF/F magazines of the day. (In fact, it's quite the delightful notion to think that, had they and Meek possessed the foresight and means, that a magazine like Amazing Stories could have offered I Hear A New World as a bonus to subscribers, like contemporary music mags like MOJO and Uncut include complimentary CD's with each new issue.)

In any event, the first EP sank with barely a trace; a second EP of excerpts was scheduled, but ultimately shelved. I Hear A New World (the album) was reportedly pressed in a run of only 99 copies, becoming an instant obscurity that only saw a proper release in 1991, via British label RPM.

And though hugely prolific as a producer, turning out tons of product on his RGM label, hits like 'Telstar' and 'Have I The Right' were far and few between for Joe Meek. He even had royalties for the worldwide success of 'Telstar' denied him during years in litigation, the result of a trumped-up plagiarism suit.

The case was ultimately settled in Meek's favor, though tragically not in his lifetime. After years of career frustration, compounded by mental instability due to both drug abuse and harassment by police and blackmailers for being gay (a punishable offense in the U.K. at the time), Joe Meek shot his landlady to death, then turned the gun on himself, at the Holloway Road home studio in February 1967. Eight years to the day of Buddy Holly's death.

Synthesizers are now an integral part of making music. Handheld computers inform, alert and annoy, and we still don't have that flying car. Yet I Hear A New World remains, as one man's perception — bewildering, enchanting and thrilling in its naivete — of what might very well be Out There.

SELECT DISCOGRAPHY:

I HEAR A NEW WORLD is available on the RPM Label out of the UK; look for the deluxe edition which has bonus features, including an audio interview with Joe Meek and a brief CD-Rom newsreel clip of him at 304 Holloway Road.

The best entry into Meeksville UK for the curious is the IT'S HARD TO BELIEVE IT compilation done by Razor and Tie in 1995. A nice overview with hits, representative misses, and two cuts from I HEAR A NEW WORLD.

Meek also produced his share of post-Brit Invasion rock groups: players found in their ranks included Ritchie Blackmore and Mitch Mitchell (Meek also took a pass on producing David Bowie, Rod Stewart and the Beatles).

JOE MEEK'S GROUPS: CRAWDADDY SIMONE (on the RPM label) skims the cream, with place of privilege given to the rip-roaring garage rock title track, by the Syndicats.

A 2009 British biopic of Meek, TELSTAR, is apparently decent viewing as well.