It’s official, I’ve given up trying to find a second hand copy of ‘The Emperor of Dreams’ (Fantasy Masterworks edition). I don’t mind forking out a little extra money for a book that I really want but thirty pounds is a little too much, even for me (especially with Christmas coming). Luckily ‘The Return of the Sorcerer’ is not only a fraction of the price but on its way to me as we speak. All I have to do is get the baby to go to sleep on me and I’ll be able to settle down for a nice read without being interrupted :o)
In the meantime, there’s plenty of Clark Ashton Smith stories to be had online if you know where to look. I found a free download of all his works and ‘Necromancy in Naat’ can also be found Here if you fancy wading your way through a massive, seemingly never ending, wall of text. It’s your call but I went for the free download myself. Whatever one you choose, ‘Necromancy in Naat’ is another wonderfully atmospheric read that needs to be explored by anyone with even the slightest taste for fantasy that is on the dark and gloomy side. It can be a bit stodgy to get through at times (a slight over emphasis on setting the scene) but ‘Necromancy in Naat’ pays real dividends if you keep at it.
‘Yadar, prince of a nomad people in the half desert region known as Zyra, had followed throughout many kingdoms a clue that was often more elusive than broken gossamer. For thirteen moons he had sought Dalili, his betrothed, whom the slave traders of Sha-Rag, swift and cunning as desert falcons, had reft from the tribal encampment with nine other maidens while Yadar and his men were hunting the black gazelles of Zyra… He had sworn then a great oath to find Dalili. Whether in a slave-mart or brothel or harem, whether dead or living, whether tomorrow or after the lapse of grey years.’
What is it about the men of Zothique that they seem to keep losing their women? This is possibly the second or third story I’ve read where this has happened and I’m starting to wonder if anything actually gets done other than the resulting quests. Oh well, it’s always a good way to kick things off and make sure that the stakes are appropriately high. If that wasn’t enough, things promptly get worse with our hero being stuck on a ship floating inexorably towards the edge of the world. And if that wasn’t bad enough… The ship is wrecked on the shore of a necromancer’s isle where our hero waits to be sacrificed to a demon familiar. Clark Ashton Smith sure knew how to ‘do bleak’ didn’t he? For me, the end result was that I really wanted to stick with this story just to see if Yadar’s fate was really that clear cut. There’s a real crescendo being built up here and I wasn’t sure if Ashton Smith was doing that deliberately in order to hit the reader with something completely unexpected (I wouldn’t have put that past him). Without giving too much away, the ending is that clear cut but, at the same time, not at all what I expected (there are a couple of twists along the way). And I think that only Ashton Smith could go for the ‘happy ending’, in a situation like this, and get away with it.
I’m not going to lie, I really didn’t need quite so much detail about the island of Naat; although it contributed appropriately to the atmosphere it also stifled the progress of the story itself. Don’t let that put you off though, ‘Necromancy in Naat’ is not only free to read but has it all; intrigue, a quest, foul magic and an unsettling ‘happy ending’. Give it a go.
Showing posts with label short stories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label short stories. Show all posts
Tuesday, 17 December 2013
Friday, 6 December 2013
'The Gods of Bal-Sagoth' - Robert E. Howard
This story is taken from the collection of the same name. I'm pretty sure these tales can be found in more recent collections but this book is going for pennies on Amazon at the moment, just a thought... ;o)
As a rule, I normally stay away from reading too many Robert E. Howard stories in one sitting. As good a storyteller as Howard was (and he was) he was writing for very specific markets so there’s the danger of essentially reading the same story more than once if you know what I mean. That’s a very easy way to get turned off an author and that would be real shame in this case as Robert E. Howard is a very good storyteller.
So the plan was to read and post about something very different then but one of my ‘go to’ favourites let me down and left me with a gap in the early morning commute to work. Sorry ‘They Thirst’, you just weren’t the book for me this time round. Where to go for my reading fix then? I’d noticed ‘The Gods of Bal-Sagoth’ while I was reading ‘Casonetto’s Last Song’ and ‘The Curse of the Golden Skull’ (scroll down the page for my thoughts on those) and figured it was just the right length for a quick read on the train.
As it turned out, ‘The Gods of Bal-Sagoth’ wasn’t just quick filler for the train; it swiftly became a story where I didn’t notice the train stations flash by. I was lucky I got off at my stop and not another one down the line…
Turlogh O’Brien, a mighty Gaelic warrior serving no master but gold, is shipwrecked on a strange island with only his axe and an old Saxon comrade for company. There’s no such thing as a deserted island for Robert E. Howard though and soon, Turlogh is caught in a fight between old gods and the new and a struggle for ultimate control of the ancient city of Bal-Sagoth.
Do you ever get the feeling, reading a book, that the author wrote it just for you? Like they knew exactly what you were after and just gave it to you, all wrapped up in plot and characterisation? That’s the feeling I got with ‘The Gods of Bal-Sagoth’, reading it at just the time I did. Howard tells a story here that took me out of a rather grimy train carriage (I was sat next to the toilet…) and away from everything that’s going on for me in the real world. For half an hour, it was all about high adventure on the seas, facing down a twelve foot tall devil bird and exploring an ancient city. All of this was accompanied by stern heroes and gripping swordfights. Thanks for that Mr Howard.
It’s not just about the swordfights though (well, it mostly was with me but I was having one of those mornings…) It’s also interesting to see Howard play on the title and cast new light on the ‘gods’ who want to control Bal-Sagoth. One is pretending to be a god, one has aspirations to godhood and the final one could well be a god indeed (with definite food for thought regarding its ‘actions’) I also liked the way that the ‘damsel in distress’ is a lot more cunning and Turlogh himself isn’t bound by morals either; this approach adds a bit of a fresh twist to the well-established way that Howard has of telling his tales.
I also really enjoyed the ending where Turlogh ends up with something he was never looking for and no way at all of making it work for him. Everyone loses and just being alive is the best you can hope for here; I like endings like that and will have to dig around and see if I have any more ‘Turlogh O’Brien’ tales lurking on my shelves.
As a rule, I normally stay away from reading too many Robert E. Howard stories in one sitting. As good a storyteller as Howard was (and he was) he was writing for very specific markets so there’s the danger of essentially reading the same story more than once if you know what I mean. That’s a very easy way to get turned off an author and that would be real shame in this case as Robert E. Howard is a very good storyteller.
So the plan was to read and post about something very different then but one of my ‘go to’ favourites let me down and left me with a gap in the early morning commute to work. Sorry ‘They Thirst’, you just weren’t the book for me this time round. Where to go for my reading fix then? I’d noticed ‘The Gods of Bal-Sagoth’ while I was reading ‘Casonetto’s Last Song’ and ‘The Curse of the Golden Skull’ (scroll down the page for my thoughts on those) and figured it was just the right length for a quick read on the train.
As it turned out, ‘The Gods of Bal-Sagoth’ wasn’t just quick filler for the train; it swiftly became a story where I didn’t notice the train stations flash by. I was lucky I got off at my stop and not another one down the line…
Turlogh O’Brien, a mighty Gaelic warrior serving no master but gold, is shipwrecked on a strange island with only his axe and an old Saxon comrade for company. There’s no such thing as a deserted island for Robert E. Howard though and soon, Turlogh is caught in a fight between old gods and the new and a struggle for ultimate control of the ancient city of Bal-Sagoth.
Do you ever get the feeling, reading a book, that the author wrote it just for you? Like they knew exactly what you were after and just gave it to you, all wrapped up in plot and characterisation? That’s the feeling I got with ‘The Gods of Bal-Sagoth’, reading it at just the time I did. Howard tells a story here that took me out of a rather grimy train carriage (I was sat next to the toilet…) and away from everything that’s going on for me in the real world. For half an hour, it was all about high adventure on the seas, facing down a twelve foot tall devil bird and exploring an ancient city. All of this was accompanied by stern heroes and gripping swordfights. Thanks for that Mr Howard.
It’s not just about the swordfights though (well, it mostly was with me but I was having one of those mornings…) It’s also interesting to see Howard play on the title and cast new light on the ‘gods’ who want to control Bal-Sagoth. One is pretending to be a god, one has aspirations to godhood and the final one could well be a god indeed (with definite food for thought regarding its ‘actions’) I also liked the way that the ‘damsel in distress’ is a lot more cunning and Turlogh himself isn’t bound by morals either; this approach adds a bit of a fresh twist to the well-established way that Howard has of telling his tales.
I also really enjoyed the ending where Turlogh ends up with something he was never looking for and no way at all of making it work for him. Everyone loses and just being alive is the best you can hope for here; I like endings like that and will have to dig around and see if I have any more ‘Turlogh O’Brien’ tales lurking on my shelves.
Tuesday, 3 December 2013
A Couple of Robert E. Howard Short Stories.
After reading ‘Conan the Buccaneer’ the other day, and being pretty disappointed to say the least, I knew that the only way forward was to go ‘back to the source’ and read some Conan that had been written by the man himself. I’m doing just that and it has quickly become very clear that there’s no substitute for the real thing in terms of high adventure and storytelling. If I could make it happen I’d get everyone to take an hour out of today and read a Robert E. Howard ‘Conan’ story, especially now it’s December and the sky has suddenly gone a seemingly permanent shade of grey.
Having said all that, this isn’t actually a ‘Conan’ post at all (that one is a little way off right now, give me a couple of weeks). I was mooching through my bookshelves and realised that I hadn’t got round to reading anything from ‘The Gods of Bal-Sagoth’ (one of the books that I picked up at Nine Worlds). Howard’s writing output always astounds me (not just quantity but the range of genres he covered as well) so I thought I’d pick a couple of short stories for the commute and see where they took me. I deliberately picked two of the shortest tales, ‘Casonetto’s Last Song’ and ‘The Curse of the Golden Skull’, to read as I’m never really a hundred percent awake for the morning commute (despite the Lucozade) and needed a short, sharp burst of storytelling to get me going. And that’s what I got…
‘I eyed the package curiously. It was thin and flat and the address was written clearly in the curving hand I had learned to hate – the hand I knew to now be cold in death’
‘Casonetto’s Last Song’ starts in that deliberately innocuous way that always suggests something really bad is going to happen over the next page or two. Having set things up in such a way, Howard doesn’t disappoint with a satanic recording that takes our narrator back to a moment of sheer terror… and then refuses to let him leave. I think the danger with opening a story like this is that the reader knows what is coming and things lose a little punch as a result. Howard sidesteps this pitfall by ramping up the effects of the recording to new and unprecedented levels. The end result is that while you may have known what was coming, there was no way you could ever know that it would be this bad. ‘Casonetto’s Last Song’ looks like it might just be another ‘by the numbers’ horror story and then swiftly becomes anything but. The ending is also abrupt enough to throw you back into yourself just when you least expect it, the reading equivalent of having a glass of ice cold water thrown in your face when you’re asleep. A fitting way to end quite a shocking tale.
‘Rotath of Lemuria lay dying. Blood had ceased to flow from the deep sword gash under his heart, but the pulse in his temple hammered like kettledrums.’
When I first started reading ‘The Curse of the Golden Skull’ I’ll admit that I wasn’t sure if even Robert E. Howard could make something interesting out of the drawn out death of a pre-historic sorcerer. I mean… Sorcerer takes a mortal wound, Sorcerer dies. Job done, surely?
There’s a little more to it than that though with a link to Kull proving to be intriguing (I really need to read some more ‘Kull’, does this story lead on from a ‘Kull’ tale?) while the sheer anger of Rotath, at his impending demise, powers the story along nicely to the point where Rotath basically turns his body into gold so his cursed skeleton will survive the passage of ages. And that’s where ‘The Curse of the Golden Skull’ really delivered for me. Is the skeleton really cursed or was what happened to the jungle explorer just sheer ill luck? Howard phrases it so it could be either and the ending becomes one that will really make you think about what just happened. It is still making me think (although I’m now veering towards the ‘proper curse’ ending).
A couple of really good stories here then and further confirmation of the fact that I can always rely on Robert E. Howard to deliver short stories (as well as slightly longer ones) that I will always enjoy. I’ll be coming back to ‘The Gods of Bal-Sagoth’ sooner rather than later I think.
Having said all that, this isn’t actually a ‘Conan’ post at all (that one is a little way off right now, give me a couple of weeks). I was mooching through my bookshelves and realised that I hadn’t got round to reading anything from ‘The Gods of Bal-Sagoth’ (one of the books that I picked up at Nine Worlds). Howard’s writing output always astounds me (not just quantity but the range of genres he covered as well) so I thought I’d pick a couple of short stories for the commute and see where they took me. I deliberately picked two of the shortest tales, ‘Casonetto’s Last Song’ and ‘The Curse of the Golden Skull’, to read as I’m never really a hundred percent awake for the morning commute (despite the Lucozade) and needed a short, sharp burst of storytelling to get me going. And that’s what I got…
‘I eyed the package curiously. It was thin and flat and the address was written clearly in the curving hand I had learned to hate – the hand I knew to now be cold in death’
‘Casonetto’s Last Song’ starts in that deliberately innocuous way that always suggests something really bad is going to happen over the next page or two. Having set things up in such a way, Howard doesn’t disappoint with a satanic recording that takes our narrator back to a moment of sheer terror… and then refuses to let him leave. I think the danger with opening a story like this is that the reader knows what is coming and things lose a little punch as a result. Howard sidesteps this pitfall by ramping up the effects of the recording to new and unprecedented levels. The end result is that while you may have known what was coming, there was no way you could ever know that it would be this bad. ‘Casonetto’s Last Song’ looks like it might just be another ‘by the numbers’ horror story and then swiftly becomes anything but. The ending is also abrupt enough to throw you back into yourself just when you least expect it, the reading equivalent of having a glass of ice cold water thrown in your face when you’re asleep. A fitting way to end quite a shocking tale.
‘Rotath of Lemuria lay dying. Blood had ceased to flow from the deep sword gash under his heart, but the pulse in his temple hammered like kettledrums.’
When I first started reading ‘The Curse of the Golden Skull’ I’ll admit that I wasn’t sure if even Robert E. Howard could make something interesting out of the drawn out death of a pre-historic sorcerer. I mean… Sorcerer takes a mortal wound, Sorcerer dies. Job done, surely?
There’s a little more to it than that though with a link to Kull proving to be intriguing (I really need to read some more ‘Kull’, does this story lead on from a ‘Kull’ tale?) while the sheer anger of Rotath, at his impending demise, powers the story along nicely to the point where Rotath basically turns his body into gold so his cursed skeleton will survive the passage of ages. And that’s where ‘The Curse of the Golden Skull’ really delivered for me. Is the skeleton really cursed or was what happened to the jungle explorer just sheer ill luck? Howard phrases it so it could be either and the ending becomes one that will really make you think about what just happened. It is still making me think (although I’m now veering towards the ‘proper curse’ ending).
A couple of really good stories here then and further confirmation of the fact that I can always rely on Robert E. Howard to deliver short stories (as well as slightly longer ones) that I will always enjoy. I’ll be coming back to ‘The Gods of Bal-Sagoth’ sooner rather than later I think.
Saturday, 23 November 2013
‘Death Ship’ – Richard Matheson (From ‘The Time Traveller’s Almanac’, Edited by Ann & Jeff Vandermeer, Head of Zeus)
Have you seen the size of 'The Time Traveller's Almanac' though? It's massive, a book that could easily cause some damage if it fell from a great height (I say this because it fell off the bunkbed this morning and caused some damage...) I'm not going to be able to cover all the stories inside, in one post, so I'll be focussing on some in a bit more depth and offering a few thoughts on the book, as a whole, a little closer to Christmas.
Which brings me neatly back to Richard Matheson and 'Death Ship'.
‘Mason stood up as the captain gestured towards the door. Mickey started to move, then hesitated. He looked at the bodies.
“Shouldn’t we…?” he started to inquire.
“What, what?” Ross asked, impatient to leave.
Mickey stared at the bodies. He felt caught up in a great, bewildering, insanity.
“Shouldn’t we…bury ourselves?” he said.’
Whilst exploring a planet, for potential colonisation, the crew of a spaceship discover another ship has already crash-landed. It's not just any old ship though, the bodies inside the wreckage are theirs... Having seen their fate, the crew must decide whether to depart the planet or cheat death by staying. They can't stay though...
When I realised what the ending actually meant for the crew (I read it three times and suddenly went, “wow…”) I had to ask myself how much of a time travel tale ‘Death Ship’ actually is. There’s a definite element of horror there that, for me, overshadowed the whole time travel thing (and I can’t say more without giving the game away, Matheson does his trick of setting expectations then blowing you away with something out of left field). Time travel is definitely a feature though so it counts. Magnanimous of me, I know :o) I liked the Matheson introduces the theme as it asks a lot of questions of characters already on the edge. It asks a lot of questions of the reader as well. Can the crew cheat fate? On that score ‘Death Ship’ is a tale that gets you thinking.
It’s a Richard Matheson tale and, for me, that means very intelligent use of language that sets the reader in the middle of things right away. You never find out much about the planet itself, you don’t need to. This is all about the crew and their reactions to one hell of a conundrum. I really felt the sense of panic in the crew as things became much clearer, Matheson takes the reader along at exactly the same speed (never giving anything away until the right moment) and it’s like you’re right there with the characters.
And that ending… If the rest of the tales in ‘The Time Traveller’s Almanac’ are of the same standard then I’m looking forward to dipping in and out of this book over the next few weeks.
Tuesday, 19 November 2013
'The Year of the Three Monarchs' - Michael Swanwick
I love reading Sword & Sorcery books right now.Apart from a few books here and there, most Sword & Sorcery books are fairly lightweight reads and thats just what I'm after at the moment (what with all the other stuff going on). It's not just that though, Sword & Sorcery is all about hooking the reader quickly and then making it worth their while with derring do, a bit of swashbuckling and some dark magic. Like I said, just what I'm after these days and the main reason why I keep going back to Tachyon Press' 'The Sword & Sorcery Anthology' when I have a spare half an hour to kill and want to read something that's fun...
Friday night saw me absolutely shattered from work and after something short and snappy for my reading. It doesn't get a lot shorter and snappier than Michael Swanwick's 'The Year of the Three Monarchs', a tale that weighs in at a painfully slender four and a half pages long; a tale that you just want to take home and bulk up with some nourishing chicken soup :o)
Don't be fooled though, there is so much more going on here than you think although it's over so quickly that themes and approaches are highlighted rather than explored. The rather odd outcome of this then is that for a story with so much going on, there isn't actually an awful lot to say. Funny that...
Read 'The Year of the Three Monarchs' though, definitely read it. While I'd recommend the collection to anyone, this is the story that you need to read first. It may even be my new favourite story in the collection itself. 'The Year of the Three Monarchs' has it all, up to and including hiding its punch line in plain sight just as the story starts to move forwards. I love it when an author does that. You have three strong characters interacting in the most unexpected of ways and only one of them will be the ruler at the end of the story. If that wasn’t enough, Swanwick paints an enthralling picture (in hardly any time at all) of just the kind of dark and dangerous world that the best ‘Sword & Sorcery’ tales sit in. ‘The Year of the Three Monarchs’ is certainly one of those as far as I’m concerned.
Like I said, I think you should all be reading ‘The Sword & Sorcery Anthology' anyway but ‘The Year of the Three Monarchs’ has been a real unexpected highlight for me. I’m really keen to read ‘The Iron Dragon’s Daughter’ now if this is any indication of what Swanwick is like as a writer. Brilliant stuff, the ideal way to spend the last little bit of Friday night.
Friday night saw me absolutely shattered from work and after something short and snappy for my reading. It doesn't get a lot shorter and snappier than Michael Swanwick's 'The Year of the Three Monarchs', a tale that weighs in at a painfully slender four and a half pages long; a tale that you just want to take home and bulk up with some nourishing chicken soup :o)
Don't be fooled though, there is so much more going on here than you think although it's over so quickly that themes and approaches are highlighted rather than explored. The rather odd outcome of this then is that for a story with so much going on, there isn't actually an awful lot to say. Funny that...
Read 'The Year of the Three Monarchs' though, definitely read it. While I'd recommend the collection to anyone, this is the story that you need to read first. It may even be my new favourite story in the collection itself. 'The Year of the Three Monarchs' has it all, up to and including hiding its punch line in plain sight just as the story starts to move forwards. I love it when an author does that. You have three strong characters interacting in the most unexpected of ways and only one of them will be the ruler at the end of the story. If that wasn’t enough, Swanwick paints an enthralling picture (in hardly any time at all) of just the kind of dark and dangerous world that the best ‘Sword & Sorcery’ tales sit in. ‘The Year of the Three Monarchs’ is certainly one of those as far as I’m concerned.
Like I said, I think you should all be reading ‘The Sword & Sorcery Anthology' anyway but ‘The Year of the Three Monarchs’ has been a real unexpected highlight for me. I’m really keen to read ‘The Iron Dragon’s Daughter’ now if this is any indication of what Swanwick is like as a writer. Brilliant stuff, the ideal way to spend the last little bit of Friday night.
Thursday, 31 October 2013
'The Abominations of Yondo' - Clark Ashton-Smith
I've pretty much given up on finding a decent copy of 'The Emperor of Dreams' at a price I can actually afford. Who knows what will happen in the future but 2013 (and probably 2014 as well) will not be the year that I spent over a hundred pounds on a book. That record currently stands at £50 by the way; going off topic here but what is the most that you have ever spent on one book?
Anyway...
Thanks to the awesome power of free stuff on the internet though, I can indulge in a little 'Clark Ashton Smith Weirdness' whenever I want. I totally recommend you do the same by the way. There are a lot of tales to get lost in and they are all gorgeously drawn.
Tales like 'The Abominations of Yondo' for example; the recounting of a heretic's misadventures in Yondo after being banished by the Inquisitors of Ong. I love those names by the way. They sound completely made up, whatever the first syllable was that came to Ashton-Smith's mind, but they all seem to work and sound just right. I'm digressing yet again though (sorry)... What lies on the plains of Yondo that is so terrifying it will drive our hero back to the less than tender ministrations of the Inquisitors? The simple answer is... Everything.
This blog post is coming from my phone and that's a real shame as I'm not able to give all the quotes that I want to. It's almost criminal, in fact, as Ashton-Smith's lyrical prose has to be read to get the full affect. Like I said earlier, have a look online and read the story for yourself. For now though, think of a land so close to the edge of the world that you can see ‘fallen asteroids half buried in that abysmal sand’ and ‘the hoary genii of stars abolished and decrepit demons left homeless by the destruction of antiquated hells.’ That doesn’t sound too bad when you first read it. I mean, what’s to be scared of when you’re faced with the prospect of an elderly demon? Sounds like he would much rather settle down with the paper than be of any real threat.
There’s more to it than that though. Ashton-Smith really plays on his character’s fear of the unknown and builds this up into something that resonates with a reader discovering all of this at the same time. The land itself has been bent into terrible shapes (‘the swollen, fulvous, dying and half rotten growths’) and it’s clearly somewhere that not only do you not want to be but you don’t want to hang around to see what happens next.
Our ‘hero’ does hang around though and the creatures that greet him are cleverly arranged, by Ashton-Smith, to rack up the tension; starting with the merely unsettling (the creature by the lake) and ending up with the terrifying (the ‘titanic lich’ with something even worse riding it). The weird shadow that chases our hero deserves a special mention as well, just for that gripping stand-off where no-one knows what will happen next.
And what an image to be left with at the end. Our hero running towards certain death, at the hands of the Inquisitors, with certain death following in his footsteps. A strangely downbeat ending but one that was inevitable. No-one survives Yondo unscathed and there’s no reason why it should be any different here. I’m a bit of a fan of ‘Dying/Dead World’ stories and ‘The Abominations of Yondo’ had everything that I was looking for; namely the remnants of civilisation and the creatures that exist in the ruins, all written in such a way that Yondo will stay in my mind for a while to come. Have a read if you can, it’s glorious.
Anyway...
Thanks to the awesome power of free stuff on the internet though, I can indulge in a little 'Clark Ashton Smith Weirdness' whenever I want. I totally recommend you do the same by the way. There are a lot of tales to get lost in and they are all gorgeously drawn.
Tales like 'The Abominations of Yondo' for example; the recounting of a heretic's misadventures in Yondo after being banished by the Inquisitors of Ong. I love those names by the way. They sound completely made up, whatever the first syllable was that came to Ashton-Smith's mind, but they all seem to work and sound just right. I'm digressing yet again though (sorry)... What lies on the plains of Yondo that is so terrifying it will drive our hero back to the less than tender ministrations of the Inquisitors? The simple answer is... Everything.
This blog post is coming from my phone and that's a real shame as I'm not able to give all the quotes that I want to. It's almost criminal, in fact, as Ashton-Smith's lyrical prose has to be read to get the full affect. Like I said earlier, have a look online and read the story for yourself. For now though, think of a land so close to the edge of the world that you can see ‘fallen asteroids half buried in that abysmal sand’ and ‘the hoary genii of stars abolished and decrepit demons left homeless by the destruction of antiquated hells.’ That doesn’t sound too bad when you first read it. I mean, what’s to be scared of when you’re faced with the prospect of an elderly demon? Sounds like he would much rather settle down with the paper than be of any real threat.
There’s more to it than that though. Ashton-Smith really plays on his character’s fear of the unknown and builds this up into something that resonates with a reader discovering all of this at the same time. The land itself has been bent into terrible shapes (‘the swollen, fulvous, dying and half rotten growths’) and it’s clearly somewhere that not only do you not want to be but you don’t want to hang around to see what happens next.
Our ‘hero’ does hang around though and the creatures that greet him are cleverly arranged, by Ashton-Smith, to rack up the tension; starting with the merely unsettling (the creature by the lake) and ending up with the terrifying (the ‘titanic lich’ with something even worse riding it). The weird shadow that chases our hero deserves a special mention as well, just for that gripping stand-off where no-one knows what will happen next.
And what an image to be left with at the end. Our hero running towards certain death, at the hands of the Inquisitors, with certain death following in his footsteps. A strangely downbeat ending but one that was inevitable. No-one survives Yondo unscathed and there’s no reason why it should be any different here. I’m a bit of a fan of ‘Dying/Dead World’ stories and ‘The Abominations of Yondo’ had everything that I was looking for; namely the remnants of civilisation and the creatures that exist in the ruins, all written in such a way that Yondo will stay in my mind for a while to come. Have a read if you can, it’s glorious.
Wednesday, 16 October 2013
'The Penitent Damned' - Django Wexler.
This relative brevity works against 'The Penitent Damned' if you're after a book that sheds more light on the world Wexler has created. There simply isn't enough room for that although some of the hints that Wexler drops have got me eager to be reading 'The Thousand Names' soon (and I now have a copy). No, what 'The Penitent Damned' is all about is delivering a sharp burst of 'Sword and Sorcery' (given the setting, maybe 'Pistol and Sorcery'?) that promises good things from Wexler's longer work.
Alex is a master thief who may just have bitten off more than she can chew with her latest job. Stealing from the headquarters of the Concordat was never going to be easy but it will be practically impossible given that they already know she is coming. Luckily, Alex has a few tricks up her sleeve but so do the agents of the mysterious Black Priests...
'The Penitent Damned' makes for a great way to spend half an hours reading time and has got me fired up for tackling 'The Thousand Names'. It has everything you would expect from a tale of midnight thievery (humour, action and a killer twist right at the end) and it is all delivered very neatly albeit perhaps a little too abruptly. This is where the length of the book really works against itself with Wexler showing off what he can do but not really able to really run with it. Instead, the humour is quickly packed away so the action can be wheeled out, then the action is quickly packed away so Wexler can deliver the twist. Don't get me wrong, I loved that ending; it's just that the speed of the plot felt a little artificial and not in keeping with what was actually happening.
You know what though? I can't really knock a book that shows you what Spiderman would have been like if he lived in a fantasy world and could kill people with his webbing :o) I wonder if we will see Alex again? I hope so as I want to find out what happens to this cocky young thief (it doesn't look good for her, at all). I guess I'll have to make 'The Thousand Names' a priority read. Has anyone here read it?
Sunday, 6 October 2013
'Maternal Instinct' - Robert Bloch
'And so it was Jill's dearest and most secret wish came true. She was having a baby with the president.'
The introduction to 'Maternal Instinct', as read in Otto Penzler's 'Zombies' compendium, notes that Bloch 'commonly created a short story by inventing a good pun for the last line, then writing a story to accompany it.' Having read this, I immediately jumped to the last line (of course) but didn't get the joke at all. Then I read 'Maternal Instincts' all the way through and that ending takes on a whole new meaning which left me gasping. I reckon you'd feel the same way.
'Maternal Instinct' charts a debate on how to combat a zombie epidemic but becomes a lot more when said epidemic casts light on a group hiding behind the epidemic and using it for their own ends. I'm trying my hardest not to give too much away here as you should give 'Maternal Instinct' a read and experience that final line for yourself...
To be honest, that little spin really saved the story for me as Jill's introduction and the debate itself came across as a little too dry and rather uninteresting (although Jill's introduction does set up that final line nicely). I don't know if this was done deliberately or not but there was a point where it was only the promise of zombies that kept me going.
I'm glad I did. Bloch offers a nice little spin on the zombie apocalypse and caps it all off with a killer ending that is a lot more graphic when placed in context.
Monday, 30 September 2013
‘It’s a Good Life’ – Jerome Bixby
I’m going back to the ‘Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One (1929-1964)’ one more time and then off to whatever the next book is that catches my eye. I came across ‘It’s a Good Life’ (first published in 1953) when I mislaid my bookmark and was trying to find ‘Born of Man and Woman’ for another quick re-read (I could read that one again and still not get bored). The title intrigued me, especially with that emphasis and its suggestion of an undertone, so I thought I’d give it a try and find the Matheson story later.
Not only am I really glad that I did but I’m starting to think that ‘The Science Fiction Hall of Fame’ will be worth getting into a whole lot more (if the stories I’ve read are any indicator of the overall quality).
The people of Peaksville live in fear of little Anthony with his ability to read minds and make people’s wishes come true. If everything is good then maybe, just maybe, Anthony won’t do anything else. What Anthony has already done to Peaksville is horrifying enough, what he can to people that he doesn’t like is even worse… Just don’t ever let him hear you sing.
With ‘It’s a Good Life’ Bixby initially adopts a narrow focus and concentrates our attention on Anthony; a three year old boy with a ‘bright, wet purple gaze’ who casts an ‘odd shadow’. Just enough detail to unsettle but not too much, Bixby clearly likes his readers to do the legwork and that’s the best way. After all, the readers can frighten themselves a lot more effectively if they are left to fill in the gaps. Anthony is clearly a person with great power (and maybe not entirely human) but is also a three-year-old child who is dangerously impulsive with that power. See what happens to Bill Soames, a person that Anthony actually likes. You can see then why everyone must act like everything is ok and ‘good’; no-body knows just what Anthony will do to solve things that are bad, only that it won’t end well…
‘Like the time Mrs Kent’s husband, Sam, had come walking back from the graveyard, because Anthony liked Mrs Kent and had heard her mourning.’
Bixby lets you get used to this idea and then slowly widens that narrow focus so that you get the full horror of what Anthony has done to the people of Peaksville and the town itself. Without going too much into that, it really puts everyone’s plight into perspective when you realise that there is no way out at all (we’re told in no uncertain terms) and that the townsfolk are totally at the mercy of Anthony and his whims. It’s a really abrupt way to end the story and this sense of blunt power is underlined by what Anthony has done to Dan Hollis for singing.
‘Bad man’, Anthony said, and thought Dan Hollis into something like nothing anyone would have believed possible, and then he thought the thing into a grave deep, deep in the cornfield.’
There’s a real sense of hopelessness and despair hiding behind the fake smiles of the characters and it’s this which makes ‘It’s a Good Life’ such a harrowing tale. Even the very last sentence lets you know that the people of Peaksville will still be suffering long after you finish reading,
‘Next day it snowed, and killed off half the crops – but it was a good day.’
If you haven’t read this story then I really think you should; either that or watch the ‘Twilight Zone’ episode. Definitely worth it.
Not only am I really glad that I did but I’m starting to think that ‘The Science Fiction Hall of Fame’ will be worth getting into a whole lot more (if the stories I’ve read are any indicator of the overall quality).
The people of Peaksville live in fear of little Anthony with his ability to read minds and make people’s wishes come true. If everything is good then maybe, just maybe, Anthony won’t do anything else. What Anthony has already done to Peaksville is horrifying enough, what he can to people that he doesn’t like is even worse… Just don’t ever let him hear you sing.
With ‘It’s a Good Life’ Bixby initially adopts a narrow focus and concentrates our attention on Anthony; a three year old boy with a ‘bright, wet purple gaze’ who casts an ‘odd shadow’. Just enough detail to unsettle but not too much, Bixby clearly likes his readers to do the legwork and that’s the best way. After all, the readers can frighten themselves a lot more effectively if they are left to fill in the gaps. Anthony is clearly a person with great power (and maybe not entirely human) but is also a three-year-old child who is dangerously impulsive with that power. See what happens to Bill Soames, a person that Anthony actually likes. You can see then why everyone must act like everything is ok and ‘good’; no-body knows just what Anthony will do to solve things that are bad, only that it won’t end well…
‘Like the time Mrs Kent’s husband, Sam, had come walking back from the graveyard, because Anthony liked Mrs Kent and had heard her mourning.’
Bixby lets you get used to this idea and then slowly widens that narrow focus so that you get the full horror of what Anthony has done to the people of Peaksville and the town itself. Without going too much into that, it really puts everyone’s plight into perspective when you realise that there is no way out at all (we’re told in no uncertain terms) and that the townsfolk are totally at the mercy of Anthony and his whims. It’s a really abrupt way to end the story and this sense of blunt power is underlined by what Anthony has done to Dan Hollis for singing.
‘Bad man’, Anthony said, and thought Dan Hollis into something like nothing anyone would have believed possible, and then he thought the thing into a grave deep, deep in the cornfield.’
There’s a real sense of hopelessness and despair hiding behind the fake smiles of the characters and it’s this which makes ‘It’s a Good Life’ such a harrowing tale. Even the very last sentence lets you know that the people of Peaksville will still be suffering long after you finish reading,
‘Next day it snowed, and killed off half the crops – but it was a good day.’
If you haven’t read this story then I really think you should; either that or watch the ‘Twilight Zone’ episode. Definitely worth it.
Wednesday, 25 September 2013
‘Born of Man and Woman’ – Richard Matheson
I’ve had a copy of ‘The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume One (1929 – 1964)’ on my shelf for a long time now. I never really picked it up as I’ve found that I have a bit of an aversion to being told what is good and what isn’t, I’d rather read something and make my own mind up. Here, the blurb talks about ‘twenty six of the greatest science fiction stories ever written… the considered verdict of the Science Fiction Writers of America’. I’m sure they know what they are talking about but even so, I want to find my own ‘greatest science fiction stories ever written.’
Well, that was what I was thinking until I picked up ‘The Science Fiction Hall of Fame’ the other day (really want to get back to reading books that I already have on the shelves) and saw that there was a Richard Matheson story lurking within. I say ‘lurking’, ‘Born of Man and Woman’ is only three pages long and is very easy to miss if you’re flicking through the book. Richard Matheson hasn’t let me down yet so I thought I’d have a quick read before I went to bed last night…
‘X- This day when it had light mother called me retch. You retch she said. I saw in her eyes the anger. I wonder what it is a retch…
Today mother let me off the chain a little so I could look out the little window. Thats how I saw the water falling from upstairs.’
Matheson sets things to play with our expectations very early on. A small child locked in the cellar by an abusive mother and a father who cannot bring himself to touch the child at all,
‘Look at you he said and didn’t have the nice face. I touched his arm and said it is alright father. He shook and pulled away where I couldn’t reach.’
These early moments in the story are all about identifying with the child. It loves it’s parents, despite their rejection, and has been shut away from everything. It is the father’s reaction though that suggests there is a little more to this tale then at first appears and the readers have to ask themselves, ‘just why has this child been shut away…?’
The beauty of Matheson’s writing lies in his ability to drop major revelations in a very matter of fact way. Blink and you’ll miss it, catch those moments and the whole story will suddenly be turned upside down. The child escapes the cellar, briefly, and his father finds him,
‘The anger came in his eyes. He hit me. I spilled some of the drip on the floor from one arm. It was not nice. It made ugly green on the floor.’
All of a sudden we start to realise exactly why the child (we never find out if it is male or female) has been locked away and just why its parents are so unloving towards it. It is not entirely human. At the same time though, we are looking at this story through the eyes of a child (‘Ohgod he said. And only eight’) that is trying to express uncertainty and unhappiness through very immature speech. It works, the reader ends up feeling very sorry for everyone involved but most of all for the child.
But then that all changes. ‘This is another times…’ and the child has grown to a point where the father can no longer fully control it. If this wasn’t bad enough, the child has realised that the balance of power has shifted, ‘I have a bad anger with mother and father… If they try to beat me again Ill hurt them. I will.’
We’ve all heard children say this (and have probably said similar things ourselves as children) but Matheson adds a touch of horror to these words with the nearest thing to a description of just what is locked in the cellar. We still don’t know what it looks like but the descriptions of what it will do gives us some pretty vivid clues.
‘I will screech and laugh loud. I will run on the walls. Last I will hang head down by all my legs and laugh and drip green all over until they are sorry they didn’t be nice to me.’
I’m thinking some kind of bat-creature here (although that’s just me) but what is clear is that the fear of the parents has driven the child to fully embrace its monstrous nature and things will undoubtedly get a lot worse.
Matheson has written a pretty damn terrifying story all in all; a story made all the more terrifying through the inability of any of the characters to resolve a situation that could be resolved. Or could it? That’s the question you have to ask and that adds another level of fear to the narrative.
Either way, I’ve just read another story by Richard Matheson that stuck in my head for hours afterwards and had me wondering what happened next. You can’t ask for a lot more than that and while I’m still not sure if ‘Born of Man and Woman’ is one of the ‘greatest science fiction stories ever written’ I’m more than happy (if ‘happy’ is the right word) with what I’ve just read.
Well, that was what I was thinking until I picked up ‘The Science Fiction Hall of Fame’ the other day (really want to get back to reading books that I already have on the shelves) and saw that there was a Richard Matheson story lurking within. I say ‘lurking’, ‘Born of Man and Woman’ is only three pages long and is very easy to miss if you’re flicking through the book. Richard Matheson hasn’t let me down yet so I thought I’d have a quick read before I went to bed last night…
‘X- This day when it had light mother called me retch. You retch she said. I saw in her eyes the anger. I wonder what it is a retch…
Today mother let me off the chain a little so I could look out the little window. Thats how I saw the water falling from upstairs.’
Matheson sets things to play with our expectations very early on. A small child locked in the cellar by an abusive mother and a father who cannot bring himself to touch the child at all,
‘Look at you he said and didn’t have the nice face. I touched his arm and said it is alright father. He shook and pulled away where I couldn’t reach.’
These early moments in the story are all about identifying with the child. It loves it’s parents, despite their rejection, and has been shut away from everything. It is the father’s reaction though that suggests there is a little more to this tale then at first appears and the readers have to ask themselves, ‘just why has this child been shut away…?’
The beauty of Matheson’s writing lies in his ability to drop major revelations in a very matter of fact way. Blink and you’ll miss it, catch those moments and the whole story will suddenly be turned upside down. The child escapes the cellar, briefly, and his father finds him,
‘The anger came in his eyes. He hit me. I spilled some of the drip on the floor from one arm. It was not nice. It made ugly green on the floor.’
All of a sudden we start to realise exactly why the child (we never find out if it is male or female) has been locked away and just why its parents are so unloving towards it. It is not entirely human. At the same time though, we are looking at this story through the eyes of a child (‘Ohgod he said. And only eight’) that is trying to express uncertainty and unhappiness through very immature speech. It works, the reader ends up feeling very sorry for everyone involved but most of all for the child.
But then that all changes. ‘This is another times…’ and the child has grown to a point where the father can no longer fully control it. If this wasn’t bad enough, the child has realised that the balance of power has shifted, ‘I have a bad anger with mother and father… If they try to beat me again Ill hurt them. I will.’
We’ve all heard children say this (and have probably said similar things ourselves as children) but Matheson adds a touch of horror to these words with the nearest thing to a description of just what is locked in the cellar. We still don’t know what it looks like but the descriptions of what it will do gives us some pretty vivid clues.
‘I will screech and laugh loud. I will run on the walls. Last I will hang head down by all my legs and laugh and drip green all over until they are sorry they didn’t be nice to me.’
I’m thinking some kind of bat-creature here (although that’s just me) but what is clear is that the fear of the parents has driven the child to fully embrace its monstrous nature and things will undoubtedly get a lot worse.
Matheson has written a pretty damn terrifying story all in all; a story made all the more terrifying through the inability of any of the characters to resolve a situation that could be resolved. Or could it? That’s the question you have to ask and that adds another level of fear to the narrative.
Either way, I’ve just read another story by Richard Matheson that stuck in my head for hours afterwards and had me wondering what happened next. You can’t ask for a lot more than that and while I’m still not sure if ‘Born of Man and Woman’ is one of the ‘greatest science fiction stories ever written’ I’m more than happy (if ‘happy’ is the right word) with what I’ve just read.
Wednesday, 7 August 2013
'The Charnel God' - Clark Ashton Smith
So I was mooching around on Amazon 'New and Used' yesterday, having a look at how much I could pick up second hand Fantasy Masterworks for. Yep, I'm still on the lookout for those books (definitely a long game this one…) and Amazon is a good place to start - a little too easy perhaps but that's another story. I'd never read anything by Clark Ashton Smith so was quite pleased to see that 'Emperor of Dreams' has gone down in price from 'Wow that's extortionate!' to 'Hmmm, might just have to treat myself to that at some point…' I wanted to read something now though (dammit!) and a little more online mooching led me to this site where I managed to download a whole load of Clark Ashton Smith's short stories. Where does a guy begin when faced with a lot of short stories and no idea where to start? In my case, I will invariably go for the story with the coolest sounding name and so my 'Clark Ashton Smith Reading' began with 'The Charnel God'…
"And all who die within the walls of the city are sacred to Mordiggian. Even the kings and the optimates, at death, are delivered into the hands of his muffled priests. It is the law and the custom. A little while and the priests will come for your bride."
"But Elaith is not dead," protested the youth Phariom for the third or fourth time, in piteous desperation…'
The more I read, the more I find myself after a baited hook that will catch me as quickly as possible. I don't know about you but I just don't have the time these days to wait and see if a story will catch the imagination. It's not that I won't give a book a chance, some books ultimately prove that they're worth persevering with. I just want it to do its job as quickly as possible. 'The Charnel God' does an admirable job, of baiting that hook, within a paragraph. A beautiful bride is about to be offered up to a hungry god; can her husband exploit the one loophole that might save her? Tell me that you read that paragraph and didn't want to find out what happened to Elaith. I wanted to know and I didn't stop reading until I found out. I'm not sure whether the conclusion to the tale was predictable or not (more on that in a bit) but the experience as a whole was dark and richly satisfying. I don't think I would want to read more than one short story in a sitting but I will be reading more.
A matter of life and death is playing out on the dark streets of Zul-Bha-Sair but it feels like the city itself takes centre stage as a fine example of how Ashton Smith can create a setting steeped in myth and dark legend. Phariom certainly spends enough time wondering around the streets while waiting to breach the temple of Mordiggian. This did make me wonder if the story should have been balanced a little more in favour of the plot but I couldn't really complain all that much when I got to wonder 'the gloomy, serpentine streets of Zul-Bha-Sair' with Phariom.
'The sun had risen above the over jutting houses, but it seemed to him that there was no light, other than a lost and doleful glimmering such as might descend into mortuary depths. The people, it may have been, were much like other people, but he saw them under a malefic aspect, as if they were ghouls and demons that went to and fro on the ghastly errands of a necropolis.'
I like what Ashton Smith does here, basically saying that the city is a dark and gloomy place, with those over jutting houses, but a lot of this is down to Phariom's state of mind (and you can't really blame him for that). A great way to get double the insight for the price of one paragraph.
Like I said, I thought that Phariom perhaps spent a little too long wondering the streets, mention of 'furious, aimless haste' felt rather apt but the cityscape is worth it, giving the first time reader (me!) a little insight into Ashton Smith's world as well as the city itself. It's when we get to the temple itself that the plot decides to make an appearance with a nice twist that renders a seemingly straightforward tale a little more interesting. Abnon-Tha, 'sorcerer and necromancer', is looking to double cross the priesthood of Mordiggian and this leads him into direct confrontation with Phariom (thanks to his apprentice taking a keen interest in the body of Elaith). There are some very tense moments here that are geared to make the finale as exciting as possible but the arrival of Mordiggian just overshadows everything, quite literally…
'Its form was that of a worm-shapen column, huge as a dragon, its further coils still issuing from the gloom of the corridor; but it changed from moment to moment, swirling and spinning as if alive with the vortical energies of dark eons. Briefly it took the semblance of some demoniac giant with eyeless head and limbless body; and then, leaping and spreading like smoky fire, it swept forward into the chamber.'
What an amazing description of something that clearly cannot be described. Something that is clearly holding a larger part of itself outside of human comprehension. As is right and proper in a pulp tale like this, the villains of the piece meet their end but I really wasn't sure about Phariom and Elaith being allowed to leave. Was it predictable that the 'good guys' win through? Or was it a bit more of a surprise, given the dark environs that they had found themselves in? I'm going to have to give that one some more thought…
For now though, 'The Charnel God' was a lovely slice of the darkest fantasy and I can see myself going back for another helping sooner rather than later.
Monday, 24 June 2013
A Couple of Tales from 'The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities' (Edited by Ann & Jeff Vandermeer, Harper Voyager)
It's also an opportunity for me to read some short fiction by two of my favourite authors, Michael Moorcock & Tad Williams, which is something I'll never pass up. These guys have never let me down yet and, if you have yet to try them, I don’t think they’ll let you down either. They’ve certainly both delivered this time round…
“It resembles a Lazy Susan,” commented a reporter for America’s New York World, “but instead of spinning to present dishes to be served, its revolutionary motion is meant to deliver children to Scholarship.”
I’d be the first person to admit that I’m a big fan of Tad Williams’ work and should probably give you a pinch of salt to take with this short review. The fact is though, I found ‘A Short History of Dunkelblau’s Meistergarten’ to be a tale all the more chilling for his leaving the ending deliberately ominous and open. Through his descriptions of the machine in question, Tad invites his readers to marvel at Dunkelblau’s invention whilst also questioning the people who would willingly surrender their children to its embrace. Dunkelblau’s madness also comes under the spotlight albeit with an edge of sympathy for a man who was perhaps a little too close to his mother and subjected to the world of academia at a very tender age.
The stated aim of the ‘Meistergarten’ is at odds with the results in all but one of the children it ‘teaches’ but the reader is left asking whether its one ‘success’ is perhaps the most insane of them all. With that question asked, ‘A Short History’ ends very abruptly but in just the right place to have you thinking about it for a long time afterwards. Another great read from Tad Williams who proves here that he is just as adept at telling short stories as he is at telling ones much longer.
‘The bare facts of the case were as bizarre as they were brief: The small daughter of a Bermondsey tailor claimed that her half-grown cat, Mimi, had eaten a fairy.’
If you’ve read Moorcock’s genre fiction, you will know that it will inevitably tie back into his wider mythos (call it ‘The Multiverse’, ‘Second Aether’ or whatever, it’s all the same thing). I’m not sure quite how I feel about this sometimes but in ‘Shamalung (The Dimunitions)’ it feels right somehow; especially when placed in context with the voyage that our intrepid explorers make. Think of this tale as a Steampunk version of ‘Fantastic Voyage’ (albeit outside the human body) and you won’t go too far wrong; I particularly liked the idea of Christian missionaries using this device to preach the word right at the very boundaries of existence (despite the inevitable cost).
I think what I really liked about ‘Shamalung’ is how it is initially dressed up as a pulp style detective tale that is suddenly revealed to be a lot more. That ‘pulp energy’ drives things along nicely (with an intriguing hook) and then you are deposited in the middle of a revelation so vast that it is all too easy to keep turning the pages and see where you end up. Moorcock also decides to end things on a question which, although not as urgent as Williams, does leave you wondering at the sheer size of a landscape only really hinted at in the story. Another tale well worth reading if you get the chance.
It’s great to open up a short story collection (every now and then) to have a browse, and I do have a few more collections on my shelves, so I think you can expect to see more posts like these in the future. Are there any collections that you would recommend for a guy who likes fantasy (and some weird fiction in particular)? Bear in mind that I already have a copy of ‘The Weird’ and am working my way through ‘Fearsome Journeys’. Doesn’t have to be a new collection either. Leave a comment if you think of anything :o)
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