‘The Beast of Averoigne’ - Clark Ashton Smith

It’s been a little while since I’ve posted my thoughts on any Clark Ashton Smith tales so I figured that today was as good a day as any to put that right. Before we kick off though, have a look at what was waiting for me when I got home last night…

The search is well and truly over, thanks to my Mum who is a lot better at finding books online than I am (and at a fraction of the price that I could find on Amazon) Proof then, I think, that Mum’s do know best. As you can probably tell, I’m pretty happy; I was prepared for it to take a lot longer to find a copy and now I can just settle down and enjoy the read instead (not having to squint at my phone). As before, I’ll be picking out the odd story here and there rather than reading/reviewing the whole book all at once. Some things are worth savouring I’m sure you will agree.

I’ve had a little look at Ashton Smith’s continent of Zothique so figured that this time I’d stay a little closer to home, albeit hundreds of years in the past and a fictional counterpart to a French region (but you know what I mean…). Averoigne it is then and the tale a baleful red comet and the terror that it brings…

‘The skies are haunted by that which it were madness to know; and strange abominations pass evermore between earth and moon and athwart the galaxies. Unnamable things have come to us in alien horror and will come again. And the evil of the stars is not as the evil of earth.’

While I wouldn’t say I’m that widely read in speculative fiction (I keep trying though!) I have read a fair bit of the stuff and I’ve never come across a ‘medieval horror sci-fi’ story until now. While the ‘twist’ in the tale is signposted a little too clearly to be an actual twist, Ashton Smith does everything else right and gives his readers a pretty damn chilling tale of a monster from beyond the stars prowling the medieval countryside and dark woods of Averoigne. It’s almost like the payoff is so well signposted (written as a magazine story, maybe it had to be?) that Ashton Smith decided to ramp up the atmosphere instead; it’s an approach that works as I could do nothing but watch with growing fear as the monster preys upon the unwitting. The death of Brother Gerome in particular is terrifying as it illustrates the stealthy evil of the creature (dropping some pretty big clues at the same time) along with just what it takes from its prey.

Luc le Chaudronnier, sometime astrologer and sorcerer, is the only man who can defeat this menace and it’s a measure of the grim and dark nature of Ashton Smith’s setting that he can only do by loosing a potentially greater evil on the world. Sometimes you can only fight evil with evil it would seem and the perils of a demon bound only by its promise are made clear here.

This is a world then where good men can be easily corrupted, a world where cosmic evil can cause havoc without really even realising. An uncaring world then, just the right setting for a tale like this. I’ll be spending a lot more time in Averoigne I think, just very glad that I don’t live there.

'The Lost Canal' - Michael Moorcock

My reading being the way it is right now, it's very unlikely that you'll see an anthology reviewed here in its entirety. I'm more likely to dip in and out of collections, reviewing a short story here and a short story there; at least until I get a spare couple of hours to sit down for some serious reading time.

I used to love watching the old Flash Gordon shows on a Saturday morning (they were repeats on TV, I'm not that old...) so I was instantly interested in Martin and Dozois' latest anthology. Those guys are prolific aren't they?
Where was I? Yes, 'Old Mars'... We're not talking about the Mars of someone like Kim Stanley Robinson, all sterile and waiting to be terra-formed, this is the Mars that we all wished for as kids; majestic and brimming with the possibility of adventure. In case you're still not sure, there's a picture of an old school ray gun on the back. Yep, we are all about the pulp here.

So where to start then? A quick look at the contents and there was really only one option. I (still) have Michael Moorcock's 'Mars' books waiting to be read so 'The Lost Canal' looked like a great way to get accquainted with what Moorcock can do in this setting. As it turned out, 'The Lost Canal' is actually set thousands of years later (and possibly in a slightly different strand of the Multiverse) but it was still a lot of fun to read, albeit with a small reservation...

Mac Stone is a man on the run across the deserts of Mars, for reasons that he is unaware of. The answer lies under his feet, amidst a secret kept for thousands of years. The clock is ticking though and if Stone cannot evade capture then the future of Mars itself is at stake...

If you follow this blog then the odds are that you followed the last blog and know that I am a big fan of Michael Moorcock; a man who has the happy knack of writing pulp sci-fi and fantasy that makes you think at the same time. There’s a real sense of adventure in Moorcock’s writing that, coupled with engaging characters, will always keep me reading. That’s very much the case here with a high stakes scenario being played out by a character that you can’t help but feel sympathetic towards as he has no idea why he is in so much trouble. The answer is another clever hook, to engage the reader, that really opens up the history of Moorcock’s Mars (tying it into earlier works I think) while at the same time making it clear what the threat is in the ‘here and now’. A bomb, from a million years in the past, set to blow up the planet in seven hours time. I wasn’t too sure about that by the way; if the scientists of the past knew where the bomb was and how to deactivate it, why are they calling someone from the future to do the job? I’ll need to go back and re-read those passages I think. While I wasn’t sure about that, there’s still a real sense of urgency here that powers the plot forward in just the right way. Moorcock rounds things off in style with a chase through ancient catacombs followed by a tense and (literally) explosive finale. There’s even a little time for Mars to fall back into the hands of the people who really love it, giving the reader some hope for the planet’s future. It felt like a fitting way for the story to end.

The only other real issue I had here was with the amount of background history Moorcock gives us for Mac Stone and Mars itself. While I love getting into a character’s head (and here, Mars is as much a character as Mac is) it did feel, at times, as all that background took precedence over the plot. This imbalance was unfair on the plot as it ended up feeling a little more lightweight than it actually was. ‘The Lost Canal’ was still fun to read though, a nice little way to spend the commute to work.

'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.

Short Story Sunday, ‘Nyarlathotep’ - H.P. Lovecraft.

So, guess which word I will mostly be copying and pasting over the course of this post...?  I tried to read 'The Call of Cthulhu and other Weird Stories' all in one chunk, when I was doing the other blog, but swiftly got bogged down in a set of stories that all felt the same. A man sees something that destroys his sanity and the story ends with him either about to kill himself or ruminating on matters beyond mortal understanding. I love Lovecraft's fiction but there is only so much of it that I can read in one sitting. A bite sized chunk for a bite sized post though? I can do that and ‘Nyarlathotep’ barely registers as a bite sized chunk in any case, weighing in at a painfully slender three pages.

‘Nyarlathotep’ is an odd one to call, being an introduction to one of Lovecraft’s pantheon as well as being the tale of a man caught in Nyarlathotep’s spell. You look at the length of this tale and wonder if there is enough room for either objective, let alone both, but it soon becomes clear that Lovecraft knows what he is up to.

‘… everyone felt that the world and perhaps the universe had passed from the control of known gods or forces to that of gods or forces which were unknown.
And it was then that Nyarlathotep came out of Egypt.’

Starting things off on such a grim note, and then introducing this entity, really sets the tone of the piece; both in terms of background and an ominous promise of something that we can’t quite place, until it is far too late. Nyarlathotep is a messenger (or a harbinger of something…), arriving at the very point that humanity needs to hear what he has to say. And that’s the thing, mankind (as encapsulated by our narrator, who talks of ‘static electricity’ and ‘imposture’) clearly cannot understand the message and must pay the consequence.

And what a consequence… It is here that the story (for me) dissolves into a mass of apocalyptic imagery that suggested time travel but is also perhaps the narrator having his eyes opened to what lies beyond the narrow frame of human vision. It gets really weird here with the ‘revolting graveyard of the universe’ laid bare for the reader. This is powerful stuff with talk of ‘corpses of dead worlds’ and ‘charnel winds that brush the pallid stars’. If that wasn’t bad enough, this crescendo of imagery builds up to a point where Lovecraft feels that we are finally ready to learn just what Nyarlathotep actually is; a revelation that didn’t surprise me but was none the less powerful for it.

I’ve read several of Lovecraft’s stories but ‘Nyarlathotep’ is the one, for me, that really lets us know what his mythos is all about. Life is ultimately fruitless and governed over by gods that are indifferent to our presence at best, if they even know we are there at all (‘blind, voiceless, mindless gargoyles’). Not a Sunday morning read then if you’ve had a heavy Saturday night but one I would recommend you read if you want a strange slice of weird horror…

Short Story Sunday, ‘Carniepunk: Parlor Tricks’ – Jennifer Estep

Ever since I downloaded the Kindle app onto my phone I’ve become a bit of sucker for anything on Amazon that’s a free download (and a lot of stuff that isn’t although not so much these days). A couple of hours ago, in fact, I downloaded Jonathan Green’s ‘Dark Heart’ (free download for the rest of today) and I’m actually downloading ‘Pandemonium: 1853’ as we speak. I told you I was a bit of a sucker for anything with ‘£0.00’ next to it :o)

I’d heard about the ‘Carniepunk’ anthology, via Twitter, and it does sound like a more refreshing take on the old Urban Fantasy tropes (don’t get me started again…). When I heard that ‘Parlor Tricks’ was a free download (thanks again Twitter!) it seemed like a great way to score some free reading and get a little taste for the anthology as well (‘Parlor Tricks’ comes with samples of all the other stories). Can’t lose, right? Well, kind of…

Readers who are familiar with Jennifer Estep’s ‘Elemental Assassin’ series will already know all about the exploits of Gin Blanco and her sister Bria. For those who don’t, Gin Blanco kicks all sorts of ass as ‘The Spider’; an elemental assassin in the city of Ashland. That’s all you need to know really as that’s all Gin does here. Another layer of story for long term fans then and a short sharp dose of action for newcomers like me. That’s about all it was though for me. If Estep is looking for new readers then I won’t be one of them.

That’s not to say ‘Parlor Tricks’ isn’t fun to read as it is. Gin and Bria have a missing girl to find in the midst of a carnival that is drawn very well in such a relatively short space. There’s also a nice bit of action, at the end, to round things off with a bang. This one just felt a little too lightweight for me. Not only is the plot very straightforward but it also seemed to feel like there wasn’t enough plot to go round; like it was being stretched to fit with all the atmospheric ‘carnival prose’. I was left in the position where I wouldn’t have minded finding out more about Gin and Ashland but ‘Parlor Tricks’ didn’t quite sell itself well enough to make me actually want to get up and do it. Are there any fans of Jennifer Estep reading? Maybe you could let me know what you think of her books.

As it stands. ‘Parlor Tricks’ was an entertaining twenty minute read but that was about it. If the publisher was looking to stir up some interest in the anthology maybe they would have been better off picking another tale for a freebie…

Short Story Sunday - 'The Garden of Fear' (Robert E. Howard)

It really shouldn't do but it still always surprises me just how much Robert E. Howard wrote in his relatively short life. Everyone here should know by now that Howard was about far more than Conan, Solomon Kane and even Kull. I just didn't realise that there were a whole load of short stories completely unconnected to any of his main characters; at least until I was looking at the contents of 'Conan's Brethren' and got a little introduction. What made me choose 'The Garden of Fear' for todays short story post? No idea other than that the title suggested 'Sword & Sorcery' (which is a real staple of my reading diet right now) and sounded really cool all at the same time. It was also only ten pages long and that pretty much sold the deal for me. It almost felt like an afterthought but 'The Garden of Fear' was an exciting read as well...

James Allison can remember every life he has ever lived, right back into the dawn of pre-history and beyond... 'The Garden of Fear' recalls James' life as Hunwolf, a warrior of the Aesir, and his fight to recover his love from a demonic birdman and his garden of carnivorous plants...

I’m only a little way into what I suspect is an extensive back catalogue but I have yet to find a short story etc by Howard that isn’t well written and entertaining. ‘The Garden of Fear’ maintains this standard nicely although there is a little waffle here and there, not ideal for a story that is only ten pages long… Having said that, I guess this would depend on how interested you were in the migratory patterns of the Aesir tribes. I wasn’t particularly interested (reminded me of the more tedious parts of his essay about Conan’s world, didn’t get on with that particularly well either).

There’s enough of a hook to get you past these opening passages (i.e. the mystery of James Allison, was this where Michael Moorcock got his idea of the Eternal Champion?) and it gets a lot better after that. While I liked the concept of James Allison, I did question Howard’s use of his modern day knowledge to explain things that Hunwolf could not fathom. This took away some of the mystery for me although Howard more than makes up for this right at the end with questions left unanswered.

Overall though, ‘The Garden of Fear’ offers high adventure and chills in equal measure with a typical ‘Howardesque’ hero fearlessly going up against a monster beyond his comprehension. The carnivorous plants are really creepy and I had to admire Hunwolf’s nerve and ingenuity in getting rid of them as well as the ‘barbarian instinct’ that allows him and Gudrun to dispatch the winged man. All of this is set against a wide open landscape that reeks of pre-history and this helps the reader see just how old the winged man really is. It’s an atmosphere that weighs heavily on the reader and all credit to Howard for creating this atmosphere in such a short space of time.

Not a perfect read then but the good outweighs the bad to such an extent that it almost is. You can’t ask for much more than that can you?

‘The Coral Heart’ – Jeffrey Ford

I love it when I post my thoughts on a book and the author pops a comment next to the post (or emails) a few days later. It’s like another little window into the world I’ve just been reading about and a far cry from the days when it was just me and the book. No blogs, no comments, no forums; the world seemed quite a lonely place when I was growing up…

With this in mind then, I’m going to add a little extra paragraph here before I get going with the review itself…

Dear Jeffrey,

Please write more stories about Ismet Toler; write a whole novel if you have the time. I’d read them and I’d tell everyone else to do the same.

Sincerely,

Graeme

Sorry about that, everyone else, but I really enjoyed reading ‘The Coral Heart’ and ‘Spirits of Salt’ (in ‘Fearsome Journeys’, review to come once I’ve finished reading the rest of the book). Hang around a little while and I’ll tell you why. Before we get started though, I read ‘The Coral Heart’ in Tachyon’s ‘The Sword and Sorcery Anthology’ but you can also find it in ‘Eclipse Three’ (edited by Jonathan Strahan). Either is good :o)

Ismet Toler is very much the 21st century of Elric, a wandering swordsman with a powerful sword (the slightest cut will turn a person into coral) and no real moral compass guiding him in its use. ‘The Coral Heart’ sees Toler stay in a palace where he will fall in love and confront the repercussions of a chance swing of his own blade…

I’ve read a few ‘Sword and Sorcery’ tales, in my time, and ‘The Coral Heart’ is one of the more thoughtful ones that I have come across; preferring to take the focus away from the ‘Tribulation and certain death’ of the left hand path and place it on the right hand path where love awaits. It's like Ford is deliberately steering us away from typical 'Sword and Sorcery Tropes' (although he doesn't ignore them entirely) and onto something a little different instead.That’s not to say that nothing happens at all, there is plenty going on here with a neat little twist coupled with a tense stand off between Toler and… that would be telling. It’s ‘Sword and Sorcery’ that we’re looking at here, no doubt about it. I really appreciated the slight change in focus though which makes ‘The Coral Heart’ stand out from the rest of the pack. Toler is a man clearly used to having whatever he wants and long past caring about the fate of the people that he has cut with his blade. The machinations of the Lady Maltomass rob Toler of all his power and it’s fascinating to see him suddenly full of indecision, wanting to leave but kept in thrall by the promise of… Well, you know what ‘Sword and Sorcery’ heroes are after once they have filled their pockets with treasure.

It wouldn’t be a ‘Sword and Sorcery’ tale without a little ‘Sword’ and ‘Sorcery’ though and Ford delivers this at just the right moment in the tale. While the result is inevitable, Ford injects the fight scene with just enough uncertainty to have us appreciating Toler’s quick thinking in the heat of battle.
Toler then takes his revenge (never kill a hero’s horse…) and heads off into lands unknowm. There is the promise of his return though and I for one hope that it is sooner rather than later.

At the beginning of ‘The Coral Heart’, Ford appeals to our sensibilities (and perhaps our vanity as well) by saying,

‘Your average citizen enjoys a tale of slaughter. You, though, if I’m not mistaken, understand as well the deadly nature of the human heart and would rather decipher the swordsman’s dreams than the magic spell engraved upon his blade.’

I’d say that Jeffrey Ford certainly delivers on his side of the bargain and ‘The Coral Heart’ is a tale that I think will see me search out more of his books (not just the ‘Sword and Sorcery’ tales either). Well worth a look if you ever come across it.

Short Story Sunday - 'Six From Atlantis' (Gene Wolfe)

Because lets face it, there's no better way to steel yourself against the horrors of the coming week than with a quick blast of epic fantasy or sword and sorcery. I don't know how often these posts will happen which is why the best way to describe is as an 'occasional series'. What I can tell you though is that (at least to start off with) the majority of these short stories will be from Tachyon's 'The Sword and Sorcery Anthology', a book that I've finally got round to picking up and am enjoying reading very much.

Gene Wolfe's 'Six from Atlantis' is up first, purely because I am balking at the amount of reading required for 'The Book of the New Sun' but still wanted to get a feel for his writing. This tale of an Atlantean slaver captain's confrontation with a monstrous ape (and its human concubines) was not only originally written for an anthology celebrating the work of Robert E. Howard but also set in the world of Conan (if not Conan’s time). These influences are clearly evident then with a 'man’s man' hero, savage female warriors and (of course) the great ape all evident. There are no real surprises in terms of the plot (although I always appreciate a hero willing to rely on brains as well as brawn) but, given the tales celebratory nature, that is perhaps to be expected. Also, to be fair, 'Six from Atlantis' is only six pages long. With the best will in the world there's only so much anyone can do with that many pages and so 'Six from Atlantis' is a short sharp tale of action and consequences; the best kind of tale that a sword and sorcery adventure can be.

What I really liked about ‘Six from Atlantis’ are the little touches that Wolfe adds to the proceedings, giving the reader some idea of just how old the setting is. Atlantis has only sunken fairly recently and one of the ladies that Thane meets has already been under the influence of soporific vines for hundreds of years. There is a real sense then of a world that is almost familiar to us but so old as to be utterly alien.
There’s also a nice touch of horror as well (just like all the best stories by Howard) with the ‘ape greater than any ape’…

‘Huge and hairy, swag-bellied and fanged like the nightmare dragons a million years dead, it leered and sneered.’

And how long had that beast been alive to grow to such a size…? The atmosphere that Wolfe suffuses ‘Six from Atlantis’ is rich to say the least and it combines with the plot to form something that is greater than the sum of its parts. Recommended reading if you come across this tale; I still don’t know when I will get to read 'The Book of the New Sun' but it just got bumped up the pile a little more.