Canavan’s Comments (group member since May 15, 2018)

Canavan’s comments from the Spells, Space & Screams: Collections & Anthologies in Fantasy, Science Fiction, & Horror group.

“Gimmile’s Songs”, Charles R. Saunders

I was perhaps a quarter of the way through this story before I realized that I had read it before (or at least a version of it). It was part of a 2008 “novel”, Dossouye , that was a fix-up of the author’s previously published tales featuring the title character. This entry gets a marginal thumbs up from me. (view spoiler)[It features a number of common sword & sorcery tropes, but in some respects (e.g., the “talisman” or whatever you want to call it coming to life) it feels more like a fairy tale than s & s. Lena, in her review, mentions the consent issue; I agree that it’s disturbing, and I found myself wondering whether Saunders is using the plot point involving Gimmile’s curse to excuse what is essentially rape. (hide spoiler)]

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“Soldier of an Empire Unacquainted with Defeat”, Glen Cook

(view spoiler)[A sword & sorcery version of the classic western, Shane. (hide spoiler)]

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“The Barrow Troll”, David Drake

This is one of the author’s better-known stories. (view spoiler)[It’s a pretty straightforward account of the corrupting influence of greed. (hide spoiler)]

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Stuff I’ve recently watched:

A Rhapsody in Black and Blue, Aubrey Scotto (1932) ✭✭
Doctor Bull, John Ford (1933) ✭✭✭½
Judge Priest, John Ford (1934) ✭✭✭
Hoagy Carmichael, Leslie M. Roush (1939) ✭½
The Sun Shines Bright, John Ford (1953) ✭✭✭
It’s Always Fair Weather, Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly (1955) ✭✭½
Stir of Echoes 2: The Homecoming, Ernie Barbarash (2007) ✭½
Loose Change 9/11: An American Coup, Dylan Avery (2009) ½
Moon Knight, Season 1 (2022) ✭✭✭½
Star Trek: Picard, Season 2 (2022) ✭✭✭½

“The Adventuress”, Joanna Russ

“The Adventuress” is an early Alyx tale. The only one I’ve previously been exposed to is Picnic on Paradise , a short novel that has more of a science fiction feel to it. “The Adventuress” is firmly rooted in the S&S subgenre — there’s even an off-handed reference to Fritz Leiber’s fantasy character, Fafhrd.

I enjoyed this story quite a bit, but I admit I’m a big Russ fan. (view spoiler)[The action stuff is rather cursory, but what stands out for me is the evolving relationship between Alyx and Edaara. It embodies a kind of Captains Courageous vibe that works well and that appeals to me. (hide spoiler)]

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Lena said: It’s finally here! Avatar 2

Are people really going to be excited by this? I’ll be curious to see the box office numbers. I ask in part because the original is over a decade old. In addition, I was never a huge fan of the first one, but that’s just me.

“Undertow”, Karl Edward Wagner

Wagner’s Kane might be my favorite of all of the sword & sorcery figures that I’ve been exposed to over the years. Kane appeared in three novels and around 20 stories, and Wagner was working on another Kane novel when he tragically succumbed to the effects of alchoholism. “Undertow” was the first Kane story I read and one of the best.

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Some stuff I’ve watched lately:

Sherlock Jr., Buster Keaton (1924) ✭✭✭✭½
The Sound of Music, Robert Wise (1965) ✭✭✭½
Everything Everywhere All at Once, Dan Kwan & Daniel Scheinert (2022) ✭✭✭✭
Slow Horses, Season 1 (2022) ✭✭✭✭

“The Tale of Hauk”, Poul Anderson

This is one of the author’s stories that draws on his Scandinavian heritage. (view spoiler)[It’s basically a multi-generational family drama in which a son is forced to provide his father with the kind of death the latter desires. I couldn’t help but think that by providing his father with a suitably violent ending (i.e., not “straw death”), the story is somehow validating Geirolf’s actions, both in life and in death. But, no matter how you look at it, the guy is basically a bastard — neither his lengthy illness nor the fact that he died in bed should cut him any moral slack. (hide spoiler)]

Otherwise, a decent story. Anderson clearly researched the culture of this place and time, although I found myself occasionally wishing that he hadn’t felt the need to display his erudition by overusing archaic words.

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“The Unholy Grail”, Fritz Leiber

Beginning in the late 30s, Leiber wrote a number of sword and sorcery tales featuring Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser that were to some extent inspired by Robert E. Howard’s Conan tales. Leiber’s stories of the duo were not written in any sort of chronological order. “The Unholy Grail”, published in 1962, is a prequel of sorts, providing the reader with background on how Mouse morphed into the Gray Mouser. (view spoiler)[As Lena points out, this is a variant on that theme in which the desire for vengeance pushes someone (Mouse, in this case) to engage in morally dubious actions.

I thought this story was okay, if not great. Leiber is a better writer than Howard. His characters are a tad more nuanced and we get to do without Howard’s cringe-worthy racial theories. On the other hand, for all of his flaws, Howard often did a better job of conveying the excitement and energy that S&S stories strove to produce.

My only other quibble about this story is that Ivrian is a far more interesting character than Mouse. It’s therefore irksome that Leiber chose to kill her off so quickly (“Ill Met in Lankhmar”). (hide spoiler)]

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Randy said: I'd never have guessed Hawke could be that unnerving in a villain role.

I’m not totally sold on Disney’s Moon Knight, one of the most recent pieces in the Marvel jigsaw puzzle, but Hawke does a pretty good job as the villain.

Lena wrote: Scariest horror trailer I have seen in ages

I’m assuming that the script is based on the Joe Hill short story of the same name.

Fiona said: (I hadn't realised Robert E Howard died at 30 either - how sad)

The Whole Wide World is a fairly decent biopic of Howard’s later life. Released in 1996, it starred Vincent D’Onofrio as Howard and Renée Zellweger as Novalyne Price Ellis, a teacher and aspiring writer who dated Howard. The movie is based on Ellis’ memoir.

Randy wrote: Haven't read the later novels, but the early stories are entertaining.

I dimly recall not caring too much for those novels (I read two of them). Maybe it was because Wellman’s style in those Silver John tales didn’t work as well at novel length. I agree about earlier short stories, however. In spite of the fact that the underlying idea was kinda silly, I was hugely entertained by “The Desrick on Yandro”.

Lena wondered: Were demons twisting her great love into seeming like a great enemy?

(view spoiler)[No, I don’t think so. The flaws (if that’s how you choose to describe Jirel’s initial emotional reactions to Guillaume) are her own. In support of this contention, I would point to the fact that her rage pre-dated her descent into “hell” (in fact, those feelings are what motivated her quest). There is some irony in the fact that the weapon given to Jirel leads to the death of the person she loves, but then again there is a fairly rich fantasy tradition involving Satanic bargains in which the recipient gets what they asked for only to learn the bitter truth that the thing received has unforeseen and tragic side-effects. Moore tips her hand during Jirel’s conversation with the demon. It seems pretty clear that the demon understands that Jirel’s hatred masks other emotions. And in the aftermath of that encounter Jirel recalls “how fatal it is said to be to accept a gift from a demon. Buy it, or earn it, but never accept the gift.”

I think most modern readers would grimace a bit at what I am calling a rape fantasy. But it wasn’t an uncommon trope back in the day. I recall my sisters were reading bodice-rippers of this sort as recently as the 80s. (hide spoiler)]

I should probably try to dig up the sequel to this story. It might more fully explicate Jirel’s thought processes.

“Black God’s Kiss”, C. L. Moore

I thought I had read this story before, but now I’m not so sure. I may have been thinking of the sequel to this story, “Black God’s Shadow” (mentioned by Randy). In any case, Lena does a good job of describing the plot. (view spoiler)[Jirel travels to what can only be described as some kind of hell populated by tormented souls and alien, demon-like entities in search of a weapon she can use to wreak vengeance upon Guillaume, the conqueror of Joiry. The ending is, well, pretty troubling. At least that’s my reaction. It’s hard to avoid thinking of this story as a kind of rape fantasy in which the victim comes to love her abuser. (hide spoiler)]

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Stuff I’ve watched the last few days.

Ben Hur, William Wyler (1959) ✭✭✭✭½
Cat’s Eye, Lewis Teague (1985) ✭½
Bao, Domee Shi (2018) ✭✭✭✭
When We Were Bullies, Jay Rosenblatt (2021) ✭✭✭

“The Tower of the Elephant”, Robert E. Howard

I have a long and somewhat complicated relationship with Howard, dating back to my childhood introduction to his Conan stories. At that time I thought those tales were the greatest things since sliced bread. At a distance, I can see Howard’s flaws as a writer and cultural theorist, but would persist in thinking he’s still a pretty decent story teller. It’s no surprise that Howard was primarily responsible for the resurgence of sword and sorcery in the 60s.

(view spoiler)[“The Tower of the Elephant”, one of Howard’s better stories, takes place early in Conan’s career. In it Conan and a fellow thief named Taurus attempt to steal a fabled jewel from an evil wizard. For better or worse the story embodies a lot of Howard’s preoccupations, particularly his belief about the inherently corrupt nature of civilization. There are some nice touches here that make “Tower” stand above most of the pulp stories from this era — for example, Conan initially perceives Yag-kosha as a hideous demon, but after hearing the alien being’s account of his captivity, his horror is replaced by pity. (hide spoiler)]

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The anthology opens with an introduction by David Drake. He’s not really someone I think of as strongly associated with the subgenre, but he boasts personal links to a number of those who do — not just the editor, David G. Hartwell, but also Karl Edward Wagner and Manly Wade Wellman. Indeed, the intro is largely a kind of chatty description of sword and sorcery as filtered through Drake’s personal reminiscences. It’s a bit of a coincidence that Drake and I were both introduced to the subgenre by the same book. He describes reading Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Conqueror , which appeared in 1953 as half of an Ace double. I recall avidly reading a battered library copy of that novel published under its original magazine title, The Hour of the Dragon.

Just some stuff I’ve watched recently:

The Mandalorian, Season 2 (2020) ✭✭✭✭
After Yang, Kogonada (2021) ✭✭✭✭½
The Queen of Basketball, Ben Proudfoot (2021) ✭✭✭½
Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Adventure, Richard Linklater (2022) ✭✭✭½
We Need to Talk About Bill Cosby, W. Kamau Bell (2022) ✭✭✭✭