Archiving the King’s Blade Champion: An Interview with John C. Hocking

 Archiving the King’s Blade Champion: An Interview withJohn C. Hocking

Originally posted Feb 4, 2022 on Goodman-Games website

Written by S.E. Lindberg

Archiving the King’s Blade Champion: An Interview withJohn C. Hocking  by Seth Lindberg

John C. Hocking is a nigh-obsessed reader and writer oflurid pulp fiction, the author of Conan and the Emerald Lotus,“Black Starlight” serial, and their time-lost companion, Conan and theLiving Plague, as well as an obedient thrall of Tales From theMagician’s Skull. Recently Black Gate reviewed John C. Hocking’s Conan Pastiche; then they cornered him to learn more abouthis pastiche and weird fiction muses in an interview. That post is a companionwith this interview and we hope you’ll brave the Black Gate and check it out.

Here we focus on Hocking’s original Archivist and King’sBlade series — now to the interview!

You’ve had six [now seven! — ed.] Benhus tales (TheKing’s Blade series) that appeared in each of the Tales From the Magician Skullmagazines. The first one appeared in 2019, and is called “The Crystal Sickle’sHarvest: From the World of the Archivist.”. Tell us more about the Archivistseries and how it informs the King’s Blade.

John C. Hocking: The Archivist stories takeplace in the same world, the same city, as those about Benhus. They just occur12 or 15 years later. The Archivist sprang from my desire to keep writing swordand sorcery but step away from using a mythic warrior character like Conan.

Hocking’s King’s Blade Series in Tales From theMagician’s Skull by issue number:

I. “The Crystal Sickle’s Harvest”

II. “Trial by Scarab”

III. Tyrant’s Bane”

IV. “Guardian of the Broken Gem”

V. “In the Corridors of the Crow” *read the preview*

VI. “Calicask’s Woman”

VII. “The Gift of a Poison Necklace” *read the preview*

The Archivist series these seem difficult to trackdown. Any comment about readers with OCD/completionism that desire to readthese?

JCH: Right now, there are 8 stories about theArchivist and his friend Lucella:

‘A Night in the Archives’ appeared in the Flashing Swords ezine Vol1-#2. available online

‘Web of Pale Venom’ appeared in Flashing Swords #3 and was recently reprinted in Goodman Games ‘Cubicles of the Skull’. available online

‘The Lost Path Between the Worlds’ appeared in the Flashing Swords ezine #4 . available online

‘A River Through Darkness & Light’ appeared in Black Gate #15 (last print issue of BG).

‘Vestments of Pestilence’ was featured, and available for reading on Black Gate.

‘Pawns in a House of Ghosts’ appeared in Skelos #3.

‘With a Poet’s Eyes’ appeared in Weirdbook #38.

“From a Prison of Blackened Bone’ is awaiting publication by Weirdbook.

I imagine I’ll eventually try to assemble a collection ofall the Archivist yarns. I’d like to add a few more entries before then,though. I outlined a novel about the character but can’t say if I’ll ever writeit.

Can you compare/contrast the Archivist with Lucella& Benhus?

JCH: The Archivist is an unlikely hero, a morecerebral and self-absorbed character than most you’d see in Sword &Sorcery. His ability to fill a heroic role in the dangerous environment of aS&S tale is boosted by his connection to the lady soldier, Lucella.Although the Archivist is unselfconsciously brave when the occasion calls forit and can throw a mean dagger, Lucella is the real fighter of the two. Odd asit may sound, Lucella’s attitude toward violence, and how fighting affects her,are as realistic as anything in my work, as I patterned it after the onlypeople I’ve known who really, truly loved a serious fight. The Archivist is wryand often pre-occupied, but a thoroughly decent fellow with a strong sense ofjustice. Lucella is more pragmatic but tends to follow his lead. I find therelationship between the Archivist and Lucella more satisfying than much of mywork. The two basically combine to form one functional hero.

The Benhus character is an attempt to create a Sword &Sorcery character in the mold of hardboiled crime fiction. He lacks theexperience, knowledge, skill set and sense of justice that the Archivist andLucella bring to the table. Benhus is very young, but tough, determined andpossessed of few scruples, especially when it comes to self-preservation. Hisoccasionally callous behavior can be alienating to readers not expecting it.The fact that the guy is in so far over his head, is so isolated from any substantialassistance or understanding, that he is surrounded by people vastly morepowerful and better informed than he is, that he must watch his every step toavoid losing his position or his life—I hope all this leads readers to identifywith the guy, even if they might find him a less than delightful dinnercompanion.

Juxtaposing the Archivist and Lucella with Benhus was greatfun. For anyone who might care to know, the Archivist encounters an older andmore seasoned Benhus in ‘Pawns in a House of Ghosts’.

Let’s focus on Benhus now. In the TFTMS 2021Kickstarter updates & interviews, you revealed that his name was a tributeto Ben Haas. He was a writer who wrote westerns under severalpseudonyms [(1926 – 1977) aka John Benteen, Thorne Douglas, RichardMeade)]. Please expand on Ben Haas, and how Benhus may embody some aspect ofhis writing/characters?

JCH: I admire the work of Benjamin Leopold Haasas one of the most polished and seemingly effortless pulp writers of the1970’s. He spun formula men’s adventure fiction into gold over and over andover again. If I’ve tried to adopt anything from his writing style it would bea ceaseless forward movement and a steady, zero-padding approach tostorytelling. But one of the things I admire most about his work is the one Iwill never even be able to approach—his remarkable coupling of prolificity andsolid, satisfying storytelling.

Each of the TFTMS issues come with illustrations. Canyou comment on these depictions?

I. Jennel Jaquays: I wrote a whole essay for the first Tales from the Magician’s Skull Kickstarter about how happy I was to have Jaquays illustrate one of my stories. That is one elegant image.

II. Russ Nicholson: This one explodes off the page. One of the most spectacular single page monster images I’ve seen, and I was delighted to have it attached to my story.

III. Matthew Ray: I loved the tight depiction of the three main characters (four if you include their undead foe). That’s a particularly good King Numar Flavius right there.

IV. Samuel Dillon: Lushly detailed, almost pointillist, illustration captures a good likeness of Benhus.

V. Doug Kovacs: This one startled me because it’s such a serious attempt to illustrate a specific scene from the story and do so with as much accurate detail as possible. The artist even gets Zehra’s tattered hand restraints.

VI. Jennel Jaquays: Lucky me—a second Jaquays illustration. I worked hard to make the creatures in the Wall of Demons as nasty as I could. The artist made them nastier than I imagined. That white eel/serpent horror is ingeniously disgusting.

And each story, true to TFTMS form, comes with DCCstats (thanks to Terry Olson). What are your thoughts on gamifying your world?Have you had the pleasure of reenacting a story?

I. Crystal Sickle Wraith (creature) & Nobleman’s Comfort (wand)

II. Great mud scarab…knockout powder, message vial= (magic item)

III. Blind sight (spell), nobleman’s comfort (more wand abilities), Silver risen (a spell?), Tyrantsbane dagger (weapon)

IV. Nobleman’s Comfort (wand, even more abilities) and Scimitar Nemesis (creature weapon)

V. Carapaced Mauler (creature)

VI. Gray Umbra Guardian (creature)

JCH: I haven’t been in a real RPG in 20 years,so I’m not really qualified to comment intelligently on the stats. But I’mdelighted with the idea that fragments of the stories appearing in TheSkull might find their way into gamers’ adventures. I wish the Skullhad a space where anyone who saw any of our statted creations showing up in agame could tell us how it went.

Generally, S&S spawned in the short story form,and characters did not necessarily develop (i.e., as much as they may in anovel). The Benhus short stories are stand-alone episodes, but there isdefinite progression of character (especially with the titular “king” of theKing’s Blade branding, issues #3 and #5 ramped up the relationship). Do youhave a long-term vision for a collection/novel?

JCH: Yes and no. I want to keep telling anunspooling, chronological series of stories about Benhus. I have plenty ofideas for what happens to the character and how it affects him and those aroundhim. In his near future I’ve plotted a story that could probably be presentedas a novel but will more likely be broken into shorter narratives that I’llsubmit piecemeal to Tales From the Magician’s Skull. Writing anovel is such a difficult, sustained and uncertain effort that I’m morecomfortable wrestling with short fiction these days.

Be sure to check out the companion interview on Black Gate to learn more aboutHocking’s Conan pastiche and weird fiction influences. And for the the lateststory in the King’s Blade series, be sure to pre-order a copy of (the soon to be released) TalesFrom the Magician’s Skull Issue 7!