PIRATE KING: COXINGA AND THE FALL OF THE MING DYNASTY
By Jonathan Clements

Jonathan Clements weaves a fascinating account of the rise and fall of the Zheng clan. This is several histories in one: that of a Chinese family, the rise and fall of empires, the colonization of Taiwan, the rise of Western colonialism, missionaries in China, and the economic history of the Pacific Rim.

While the title promises a biography of Coxinga, the “Pirate King”, it is just as much a biography of his father, Nicholas Iquan. Clements describes Iquan’s rise from disgraceful scamp to disgraceful scamp ruling a massive confederation of smugglers and pirates. Iquan was the sort of lad to seduce his stepmother (Chinese families wer polygamous in those days) and was exiled to be a trader in Macao. He came under the tutelage of “Captain China”, and was instrumental in running elaborate swindles on the Dutch and English traders based in Japan. Clements describes Iquan’s hustles with frank admiration and gleeful comic timing. Iquan battled his way into succeeding as Captain China’s successor and grew powerful enough that the imperial authorities bought him off with high titles in return for his political and military support.

Clements also lays out the decline of the Ming dynasty. In 1644 a horde of bandits actually captured the capital precipitating an invasion by the Manchu hordes. Compared to the bandits, the Manchu were civilized. They swept south smashing the poorly led Ming armies. A crafty old sea-dog like Iquan knew which way the wind blew and he surrendered to the Manchu.

But he hadn’t counted on his idealistic son, Coxinga (a latinization of Koksen'yua, one of his titles). Coxinga refused to surrender and fought a sixteen year rearguard battle against the Manchu, holding out on his remote coastal lairs. Though the Ming claimant was little more than a fugitive, Coxinga led a formidable rebel fleet whose smugglers were a major economic power and whose marines came within a hair’s breadth of seizing the capital.

Pirate King examines the role of the Dutch. Iquan and later Coxinga prospered as the intermediaries who smuggled goods back and forth to the Dutch. The Dutch in turn sought a trade port in China, but were blocked by the desire of both the authorities and the smugglers to maintain their respective economic strangleholds. The irony is that Coxinga made the break with the Dutch. As the Manchu grew more powerful, he needed a safe base offshore. The Dutch colony on Taiwan would be perfect. Thus Coxinga inaugurated the strategy of using Taiwan as a place of refuge for representatives of defeated Chinese regimes.

Pirate King is filled with fascinating characters such as Wu Sangui, the general who gave up his loyalty for love of a woman. There is Adam Schall, the Jesuit who became the chief astronomer of the Manchu emperor and handled a cannon to defeat the Dutch. Clements tells the story of Reverend Hambroek, who gave his life to carry a message of defiance to Coxinga. Pirate King is a gripping, fast paced, and often funny story of a real-life pirate warlord and the world he lived in.

-Dave Hardy

WHEN CHINA RULED THE SEAS
By Louise Levathes

When China Ruled the Seas is an account of a little-known chapter in history, the high era of Chinese sea-going voyages of trade and exploration. Many people are familiar with the drive to reach the ports of the Indies that drove European voyages of exploration in the late 1400s and 1500s. A similar impulse drove Chinese mariners onto the Indian Ocean decades early, leaving us with a fascinating might-have-been scenario: what if China had not left the field to the Europeans?

In the late 1300s the Mongol rulers of China were overthrown and a new dynasty came to rule the Middle Kingdom: the Ming. During the mop-up campaigns a lad from a Muslim Chinese family was captured and castrated. His name was Zheng He. The eunuch lad was a prisoner of the Ming prince Zhu Di, who found Zheng He to be an able servant. Lest anyone picture Zheng as a mincing ninny, the eunuch was a strapping six-footer with a booming voice who followed Zhu Di into battle. When Zhu Di came to power as emperor of China, he did not forget faithful Zheng He. Zhu Di wanted to expand Chinese influence overseas, his method was to send a massive Chinese fleet comprised of some of the biggest ocean-going vessels built to that date on a trans-Indian Ocean trading/diplomatic mission. Zheng He was to be in command.

Levathes gives the reader a swift background on Chinese ships and sailing techniques, just enough for a layman, but not so much that it overwhelms. She also describes the nature of building the fleet. Like any other government programs, it was plagued with cost overruns, contract padding, and some outright corruption. The treasure ships were something like the famous Spanish galleons: massive enough to carry plenty of goods and supplies on an extended voyage, but lean enough to go into battle in the distant waters where they were the only Chinese presence.

The mission was not one of war and it was not exactly trade. It was more like an armed diplomatic mission that carried out elaborate gift exchanges. Zheng He’s fleet had no problem smashing pirates when they found them or intervening militarily to back an ally. However, the Chinese weren’t interested in conquest. Zheng He focussed on establishing relations with local rulers who would pay “tribute” to the Chinese emperor. In exchange the Chinese plied the locals with valuable gifts. The relative value of the gifts may have depended more on diplomatic status than market value.

That seems to have been part of why the voyages were eventually discontinued. The Chinese bureaucracy were superb bean counters and they found the trips were not cost effective. After massive spending on the fleet, they never gathered enough tribute to make it pay. Infighting between the Confucian civil servants and the eunuchs of the emperor’s household doomed the project.

Here’s where I find a fault with When China Ruled the Seas. Where was the Chinese merchant class? How did they react to the expeditions and what did they do when they ended? Did private traders take up where Zheng He left off? Why were the Confucians so hostile to private trade? I felt that some of these areas needed to be better explored.

On the other hand, Levathes is a veteran National Geographic writer and she knows how to lay on the colorful detail. We learn a lot about court intrigues, the founding of Beijing, and Chinese beliefs about sex (Korean women were considered just right). When China Ruled the Seas is a colorful telling of a tale that has been overlooked in the West.

-Dave Hardy

ARRR, MATEY

Avast ye swabs! Today is, yes you guessed it, National Talk Like a Pirate Day. Shiver me timbers!

In honor of same, I present a bit of shameless self-promotion. You can still get a copy of Black Sails, a collection of pirate yarns from 1018 Press for a mere $11.99 (dollars, not doubloons). The stories range from the comedic to the horrific, from Davy Jones Locker to the skies, and all points in between. Your humble subscriber, Scurvy Dave Hardy, has a salty yarn of piracy, curses and cruelty on the high seas titled “Black Curse of the Noose” in said collection.

-Dave Hardy

MY ALMA MATER

I see that the school where I earned my degree, the University of Florida, has made international headlines. During a Q&A with Senator John Kerry a student rambled on at length with his question. The student’s microphone was cut off and then university police moved in. The student was arrested and tasered.

Now as I recall when I was an undergrad, it was unsafe for a young woman to be pretty much anywhere on the streets after dark. It was unsafe for a young woman to be in fraternity house during parties for that matter (except ATO, they at least kept their hands off the girls). Occasionally it was unsafe for a young woman to be in her home. Gainesville was just about a rapist’s dream.

But times move forward and UPD has at least declared war on long-winded bores. Had that been the case in my day, about 9 out of 10 classes would have ended up with the prof being tasered. As for undergrads with stupid questions, well, it would not have been pretty.

I look forward to the day when UPD can end every visiting speaker’s lecture with tear gas and a baton charge. Why stop there? I’m sure Kerry was twice as boring as the presumptuous fool who dared think that questions at UF didn’t involve electric shocks. Let’s just have the police command all “Free Speech Zones”. “Free” as in savage, “speech” as in beating.

So for all you folks palnning to send your kids to UF, look forward to your daughters being raped by thugs and your sons being tortured by the police.

Go Gators!

-Dave Hardy

HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS
Dir. by Zhang Yimou

Perhaps it is natural the Chinese filmmaking is a bit of a grab-bag. Asians were forced to adapt to deal with the inrush of Western culture. In more recent times they have been able to pick and choose, blending foreign elements with home-grown style. The wu xia genre is typically Chinese, with its emphasis on history and traditional social structure. Nonetheless, while watching House of Flying Daggers I found myself thinking how much it reminded me of a Jean Pierre Melville film. Hard-boiled cops and outlaws with a code of honor meet in a world of tarnished honor. And yet, I couldn’t help but remember that Chinese detective stories date back to a time even earlier than the one Flying Daggers inhabits!

The story is set in the 800s. The Tang dynasty is crumbling and China is in the throes of a revolution. The gendarmes are battling a subversive movement known as the House of Flying Daggers. Leo (Andy Lau) a police captain sends his lieutenant, Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro) to infiltrate the Peony Pavilion where the new showgirl is rumored to be linked to the Flying Daggers. The girl is Mei (Ziyi Zhang), not only is she supposed to be the daughter of a recently deceased Flying Dagger leader, she is also blind. Mei can also play a mean game of “echo”, which involves beans, drums on posts, a Chinese orchestra, and evidently, swords on the end of ladies’ sleeves. Leo raids the Pavilion and before you can say “Minsky’s!” Mei is in the calaboose with a front row seat at the torture chamber. Mei is clearly limber, but having your arms pulled out of their sockets is a bit much.

Before Mei can get a Rolfing session from the Chinese fuzz, Jin busts her out of the can and they head for the hills. In true noir style, the viewer finds himself asking who is for real in this situation. Is Jin just an undercover cop doing his job? What are his feelings for Mei and what are her feelings for him? Before it is all over the view finds the veil of deception covers just about everything and everybody.

There’s a curious side note to all this. Zhan Yimou doesn’t exactly romanticize either the cops or the insurgents. Both view their agents as expendable. They are soldiers in war where personal happiness is irrelevant, they are just eggs to make an omelet. That’s a significant subtext in these times.

Flying Dagger is set in a land of lush landscapes, not as stark as the Central Asian wilds served up by Ang Lee in Crouching Tiger, but suffused with color that can be gentle or harsh. There is of course, action galore. The wire-fu is offset by some intense ground battles and Ziyi Zhang has a real dancer’s grace. Zhang Yimou doesn’t neglect the more extravagant traditions of wu xia. There are battles fought in the tops of bamboo stalks and arrows that bank and ricochet like billiard balls. It makes for some spectacular eye candy. If I have one complaint, it is that at two hours the film might have benefited from a bit of trimming. After the midpoint of the story (plot-wise not time-wise), a little less in the way of beautifully composed reaction shots might have been more.

Still it’s hard to deny that House of Flying Daggers is a marvelous blend of action and romance.

-Dave Hardy

THE BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR
Dir. by Ronnie Yu

Sword & Sorcery may seem like it is mired in endless pastiches of Conan coated in a rancid syrup of Tolkein, a fur-clad barbarian finds the magic bowling trophy and slays the evil wizard, thus fulfilling his destiny, at least until the advance is spent. Well, I’m here to tell you that Sword & Sorcery thrives on Chinese movie screens only over there they disguise it by calling it historical. But when you hear a movie called wu xia it’s really a fantasy set in a historical frame.

The Bride with White Hair is set in the last days of the Ming Dynasty in China. Cho Yi Hang (Leslie Cheung) is an orphan adopted by the Chief of the Wu Tang Clan (the Chinese martial arts society, not the NY rappers, though some Dirty Ol’ Bastards are in the mix). Cho is the handsomest guy, the best swordsman, and the most popular fellow, so naturally he’s going to be the next leader. His girlfriend is the beautiful and ambitious Lu (Kit Yang Lam). For Cho the future is bright.

Alas, he lives in interesting times. The foreign tribes are on the move. The Ming are tottering, and worst of all the Evil Clan has awoken. The Evil’s are lead by the Chis (Francis Ng and Elaine Lui, in a hysterically over-the-top performance)a brother and sister pair of twins who do everything (I mean everything) together. Then Cho meets the Wolf Girl, a feral child raised to be a kung-fu killing machine. She might chop a guy into nine parts, but she’s nowhere near the ball-busting shrew Lu is. Though Cho is poised for greatness, he finds it comes at a cost. The people around him start showing a brutal and bloodthirsty streak. Cho just wants peace, but of course he’s not gonna get it.

Bride has a lot going for it. Delirious musical scenes with dancing devil worshippers follow brutal mediations on the nature of power. The sets tend to the minimal, and practically all action takes place at night, as if to emphasize the night that is descending on Chinese culture. Black humor pervades this Chinese Gothic tale of love and betrayal. While some people are put off by the camera tricks and “wire-fu” choreography, this is a movie about people. Sure they can run straight up trees or stop 1,000 falling flower petals with a sword, but they are people. While Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon set the gold standard for wu xia film, The Bride With White Hair deserves a very honorable mention.

-Dave Hardy

SOUTHERN COMFORT
Dir. by Walter Hill

Southern Comfort is one of the best works from Walter Hill, a director with a distinguished resume (48 Hours, The Warriors, Trespass, etc.). It is also the best Not-Vietnam film.

In 1981 the Vietnam War was still relatively raw for Americans. One can only imagine what studios said when approached with the idea of filming battle scenes in the jungle. It would be expensive and controversial, two things that are pretty much anathema in Hollywood. Not being Francis Ford Coppola, Hill took a different tack. He made a movie about a group of Louisiana National Guardsmen on weekend maneuvers.

Hardin (Powers Boothe) is a Texan who has just moved to Baton Rouge and transferred to the Louisiana Guard. He finds his new comrades to mostly be ignorant, gun-toting rednecks (“Just the ones I been around all my life,” he says). In this passel of misfits, he gravitates to the only other misfit whose IQ is more than room temperature, Spencer (Keith Carradine).

While the squad is on maneuvers, they steal some pirogues from the swamp-Cajuns. They also indulge in firing blanks at anything that moves. Unfortunately the Cajuns aren’t in on the joke and reply with real guns. Lost and under fire, the Guardsmens’ jaunt across the swamp turns into a bloody nightmare.

By now you may have guessed that this story has bugger-all to do with Cajuns. They are hill-billy stand-ins for the VC. Much of what transpires to Bravo squad is the stuff of Vietnam movie-cliché, except of course it wasn’t cliché at all in 1981. The enemy is mostly invisible, they attack with unpredictable and highly effective means that demoralize the troops. The Guardsmen are book soldiers, they are prey to ferocious conflicts among themselves, and use drugs in the field. The civilians (yes, there are civilians) speak an incomprehensible patois and the troops must either brutally treat them as or enemies trust them with their lives.

The most compelling element of Southern Comfort is the cast and characters. The relationship between Hardin and Spencer is at the core of the film. It’s classic Walter Hill fare: two men bond under the stress of a survival situation. The supporting cast is no less compelling. They are a scruffy, unmilitary lot, alternately oafish and vulnerable. Fred Ward plays Reese, a man who thinks of himself as a hardened killer. Alan Autry (credited as Carlos Brown) plays Bowden, an emotionally unstable high school football coach. The underrated standout is Les Lanom as Sgt. Casper, who plays a desperately unimaginative and naïve squad leader whose doomed efforts to lead the squad are almost painful watch in their folly. Fine performances by Peter Coyote, Lewis Smith, Franklyn Seales, and T.K. Carter, and Brion James (as a Cajun trapper) round out the cast.

The film builds a tour de force of intercut music, image, and action that makes an ending that is of exceptional emotional impact. As in real war, men may survive, but Hill makes it clear that his protagonists will be marked by the struggle. Do the survivors run toward rescue or away from it?

-Dave Hardy

THREE HUNDRED SPARTANS
Dir. by Rudolph Maté

Thermopylae is the Greek Alamo. A small group of Greek soldiers held a strategic pass against overwhelming odds because it was their duty.

Before it became a controversial hit, the battle of Thermopylae was the subject of a film way back in 1962. Staring Richard Egan as Leonidas, the Spartan king, Three Hundred Spartans takes a slightly less extreme look at that critical battle.

Xerxes, the king of Persia, has determined to conquer Greece and avenge an earlier defeat of his father at the hands of the Greeks. Xerxes has two voices competing for his ear: Artemisia, the queen of Lycia, and Demaratus, an exiled Spartan king (the Spartans had two kings). While Artemisia flatters Xerxes and tells him how the Greeks are a pushover, Demaratus warns Xerxes that he’s in for a fight.

Meanwhile back in Sparta King Leonidas is working with Themistocles, an Athenian politician, to get a united Greek force to confront the Persian hordes. Unfortuntely, the Spartan elders won’t go for it and Leonidas is on his own.

Phelan, a young warrior, has an even bigger problem. Queen Gorgo herself has given him his shield, with the classic Spartan injunction: come home with your shield or on it. Phelan’s got a beautiful girl and he’s going to war, that’s heaven for a Spartan. Alas, his father was spotted in the company of Demaratus at the Persian court. Phelan is stripped of his rank. Under these trying circumstances this disparate group meets in one of Antiquity’s bloodiest battles.

Three Hundred Spartans is not exactly Spartacus. The acting is more dinner theater than Hollywood. I half expected Xerxes to twirl his mustache and say, “A curse upon these Spartans! They have foiled me again!” Well, actually that would have been cool, but you can’t get everything.

The battle scenes are actually pretty well done, considering that they did not seem to have enough extras. The troops look like guys who’ve been in a week-long hand-to-hand fight. The big problem with the lack of extras is that the Spartan phalanx is reduced to single lines with large spaces between them. The claustrophobic confines of clashing shield walls gets on screen, but rather late in the game.

Overall, the film holds rather well to history. The real virtue is not so much the rather limited storyline as the sense of drama inherent in the clash of cultures diametrically opposed in their politics and way of life. While I might not pay hard cash to add it to my collection, you can always ask your library to get it for you.

-Dave Hardy

SPARTACUS
Dir. by Stanley Kubrick

This is still the greatest of Sword & Sandal films and for my money still the best gladiator film (though Gladiator was pretty damn good). It is also one of many film triumphs by Stanley Kubrick.

The tale is about Spartacus (Kirk Douglas, in all his cleft-chin glory), a Thracian slave bought to be a gladiator. Spartacus is an odd mixture of under-class humility and iron-willed rebelliousness. On other words, he takes a lot of guff, then he snaps really violently. Spartacus takes a liking to Varinia (Jean Simmons), a beautiful slave girl. When Crassus (Lawrence Olivier) an ambitious Roman politician of the ultra-right wing variety, buys her Spartacus leads a revolt in the gladiator school and starts raising hell.

The crux of the film is the idealistic hopes aroused by Spartacus’ revolt in the downtrodden slaves of Rome. When the revolting masses start whipping the Roman troops sent against them, something like a revolution begins to rear its head. While Spartacus and his comrades are advancing the materialist dialectic in the countryside, Crassus is engaged in political battles with Gracchus (Charles Laughton) and the populist faction in the Senate.

This film has always been a favorite of mine. Though over the years I have come to a few criticisms of it. The film is an adaptation of Howard Fast’s novel. Fast was a Marxist who wanted to write about the legendary hero of revolution, in effect a Trotskyite Beowulf. His Spartacus is a slave born of slaves, a man of great humility, except when faced with class oppression. He is an instinctive Marxist. Indeed at the risk of a spoiler, he ends up nearly Christlike.

From studying the records we learn that Spartacus was actually a mercenary and a highway robber before he was a gladiator. That background helps make his phenomenal success against seasoned Roman troops more believable. Crassus was nowhere near the brilliant manipulator of politics that he appears as in the film. Although he beat Spartacus in the final battle, his triumph was stolen by the far more charismatic Pompey. Spartacus was a bit more like Conan than Che Guevara, and Crassus bore more of a resemblance to George W. Bush than Napoleon. But neither version would quite suit left-wing politics.

That’s not to say that I don’t still love this movie. The spectacle of Rome is splendid. The cast is marvelous (did I mention the amazing performances by Tony Curtis and Peter Ustinov?). In fact, Spartacus is part of what helped me develop a fascination with ancient history. It is so good, I think it may even be time for a remake of this classic tale of defiance, hope, and tragedy.

-Dave Hardy

RECEIVED

Here are some belated notes on recent appearances by myself. I got my copy of Black Sails, the anthology of pirate-fantasy stories from 1018 Press. Some favorites are “The Death of Captain Eugene Bloodcake and Fall of the Horrid Whore” by Joel A. Sutherland (it’s about as weird as it sounds, and that’s a good thing). “The Siren’s Lure” by Jordan Lapp is a sparkling swashbuckler. There’s a lot of good stuff in here with all kinds of pirates from sheer fantasy to sharply defined history to Zeppelin pirates, in stories that cover comedy, horror, and action. It’s more than I can list right now, when I have a little more time I hope to comment on some of my fellow contributors’ tales in more detail.

From a while back The Cimmerian V4, N3 with my article “Worms of the Frontier” is available. There’s a fine article on Howard’s Sword & Sorcery influence on Heavy Metal by Scott Hall. Gary Romeo looks at the origins of the phrase “Sword & Sorcery”. Paul Shovlin takes a long hard look at Solomon Kane. I consider “Worms of the Earth” as a classic of American writing that imports the American frontier into Iron Age Britain.

Finally, my good friend GW Thomas has gotten Talbot Mundy’s classic TROS OF SAMOTHRACE out in one volume. This is some of the best historical fiction I’ve read. If you like Harold Lamb’s Cossack stories or Robert E. Howard’s Crusader tales, check out Tros. He’s a one man navy with a band of Freedom Fighters out to stop Julius Caesar from turning Britain into a Roman colony. It is way cool. Gary deserves a big hand for keeping this out where the public can get it: www.lulu.com/ragemachinebooks.

-Dave Hardy

THE VALLEY OF GWANGI
Dir. by Jim O’Connolly

This is one straight from the good old days of the Saturday afternoon monster movie. It stars the animated creations of Ray Harryhausen, a menagerie of carnivorous dinosaurs, belligerent pachyderms, and a mighty cute lil’ prehistoric pony. Oh yeah, there are some actors too.

A down-on-its-luck Wild West show hits a small Mexican town, the lady boss, T.J. (Gila Golan) is looking for the Next Big Thing. She’s pretty sure it’s not her ex, Tuck (James Franciscus) who has also hit town. Rather it’s a prehistoric horse the size of a housecat. An English paleontologist (Laurence Naismith) recognizes this as the find of the century. The business is complicated because Carlos (Gustavo Rojo), the chap who found the itty-bitty horsy, is from a Gypsy band ruled by his crazy old one-eyed mom (Freda Jackson). She is determined that mini-Dobbin must go back. Pretty soon the cowboys and the paleontologist track down the mysterious valley where the beastie came from. In a thrilling sequence the buckaroos rope, throw, and brand them a meat-eating Allosaurus known as Gwangi.

Pretty soon Gwangi is slated to be star of the show. But one should never cross an eye-patch wearing Gypsy granny lightly, especially when she has a midget sidekick! Gwangi escapes and after dining on an elephant and a dozen or so ticket holders (from the cheap seats, thank God!) he’s gunning for Tuck and T.J. The fastest hand will survive!

Now a cynic might say this is just King Kong in Mexico (if we took care of the dinosaur problem, immigration reform would be a snap). But this has COWBOYS and DINOSAURS, for crying out loud! Who could not love it? Gwangi is rousing good fun and classic special effects from the master of stop-motion.

-Dave Hardy

ALDAIR IN ALBION
By Neal Barrett Jr.

While Neal Barrett is well known for works that verge on the surreal (e.g. Interstate Dreams) or the grimmest of grim futures (Through Darkest America), he can put together a rousing tale of swashbuckling adventure.

Aldair is a student at the University in Silium. Like many a youth, he runs afoul of the Pigs. But Aldair is something of a boar himself. In this version of Europe, different species of animals form the rival kingdoms. Aldair is a boar from the Venici, a tough border tribe used to acting independently. Rhemia is an empire of pigs, who face the wolfish Stygianns to the north and the sophisticated and snaky Nicieans to the south.

Unfortunately for Aldair, his comfortable life is disrupted when he is accused of heresy. In an off-kilter version of The Defiant Ones (or is it The Three Little Pigs?) Aldair joins up with Rhief, who is literally the big, bad wolf. They are looking for Albion, a mystic land of wonder and terror. But first they travel through a good bit of the known world on picaresque adventures that see them as pirates, slaves, mercenaries, scholars, and child-care specialists.

Aldair in Albion is real rousing fun, but not at the expense of well-drawn characters and a humanistic (or is animalistic appropriate here?) belief in the value of truth. It forms part of a larger body of quality writing given to us by Mr. Barrett, and one that has surely earned him some kind of recognition for a lifetime of achievement as a writer.

-Dave Hardy

DAWN’S UNCERTAIN LIGHT
By Neal Barrett, Jr.

****NOTE: If you haven't read Through Darkest America yet, you may want ot skip this review as it does neccessarily reveal a plot point or two.****

The sequel to Through Darkest America completes the saga of Howie Ryder and his search for his lost sister. He is a bitter young man, savagely mutilated by an enemy. In the last novel Howie escaped the chaos of the war in the west between Lathan and the American government. However he discovered the truth about the soulless “stock”, the creatures that look and walk upright like humans, but do not talk and are considered to be meat.

Yes, I said meat. Howie lives in a future America devastated by nuclear war. Life goes on, farmers raise crops and families, warlords make war, and people eat stock. Only Howie has learned a thing or two about stock and he is determined to rescue his sister from a fate that is worse than death, but probably includes death anyway.

Barrett’s vision of the future is bleak. There isn’t even the comfort of total destruction, rather mankind has been stripped down to his essentials: hypocrisy, bloodlust, and murder for food. The reader may not find Dawn’s Uncertain Light to be as nightmarish as its predecessor. It is hard to top the repeated shocks Barrett administers in that particular work. Rather Dawn toys with the notion of Howie as a mythic figure who is unaware of his status. Just as Darkest America was a cannibalistic trail-drive western, Dawn is the vengeance trail of a legendary gunfighter, told in Barrett’s own unique style.

-Dave Hardy

THROUGH DARKEST AMERICA
By Neal Barrett, Jr.

It’s not very often that a fiction writer can make me cringe. Very little of what makes its way into print is even a tithe of the awfulness that is splashed across headlines and that is usually watered down to meet the demands of a public that has no tolerance for news that might be upsetting.

But Neal Barrett, Jr. pulled it off here. There are lots of apocalypse tales that make the Apocalypse seem like not such a bad place. Sure, all that radiation killed off the weaklings, but a new race of übermenschen will arise and liquidate those pesky mutants. What’s to worry about? Mr. Barrett has a few suggestions of what you should worry about.

At first glance Through Darkest America might seem to be one of those cozy Apocalypse tales. America functions at a lower level, but not much lower than our pre-industrial past. Rape, murder, and torture inflicted by soldiers, outlaws, and warlord militias are pretty common, but that’s true of 21st century DR Congo. There are some unusually disturbing details to this new world, but Barrett’s protagonist, Howie, is such an earnest and engaging lad that one can’t help but identify with his world view.

In many ways Through Darkest America is much like a Western. Howie avenges a savage attack on his family and lights out for the Territories. He encounters outlaws, Johnny Rebs, and dance hall girls with hearts of gold in this off-kilter version of Huckleberry Finn. But Barrett only lets his readers go so far on that path before bringing them around to a very nasty elephant in the corner.

This is science fiction with guts. Barrett doesn’t mind launching brutal attacks on our deepest taboos about food and sex. Definitely not for the squeamish, if you want a cozy Apocalypse, look elsewhere.

-Dave Hardy

KINGS OF INFINITE SPACE
By James Hynes

Speaking as a six-year veteran state employee, I’d like to say that James Hynes novel, Kings of Infinite Space, is pretty much true. Not the part about overbearing co-workers, ill-paid temps, or difficult parking. I meant he part about blood sacrifices in the unexplored network of pre-human caves under our offices.

Oops, I wasn’t supposed to tell about that. Anyway, the story is about Paul Trilby, formerly a professor at a prestigious Midwestern university, now a temp-worker for the Texas Department of General Services, TxDOGS. The guy in the cube next to Paul is dying, his work is mind-numbingly pointless, and he’s haunted by the ghost of the cat he murdered. Paul lives alone and friendless at the Angry Loner Motel.

Fortunately Paul has got co-workers. There’s Olivia Haddock, former beauty queen turned soul-sucking bureaucrat, Callie the Mail girl with a budding interest in literature, and Colonel Travis Pentoon and his sinister lunch-time cabal. The people outside the office are even odder: Boy G the homeless guy with the mantra “Are we not men?” and Stanley Tulendij the dark angel of TxDOGS and sole-survivor of a fateful outing to the dread Lonesome Knob.

Kings of Infinite Space is part Office Space, part Lovecraft, part Worms of the Earth. There are hilarious sideswipes at the text-book industry, SUVs, and enough weird movie references to make Harry Knowles’ eyes bug out (see if you can find the bit from Ben Hur, it had me laughing pretty hard). The tale also plays with the rivalries between classes and sexes, in particular it gnaws on the notion that men can re-gain paradise if they just get the women back in line. I certainly don’t think that we are supposed to take Paul’s PC, holier-than-thou, gender-constructionism at face value. I did find myself laughing out loud quite frequently, which few comedic novels can make me do.

And now for the part I was warned by a former Purchaser-IV not to tell anyone about. It appears that the author in fact found the true story crammed into the pages of a GSA Employee’s Manual. As foretold in the Book of Eibon and the prophetic Agency Strategic Plan FY2002-2005, there will come a great…

What is that scratching noise from beneath the house? The floor is falling away! Dear Lord! Those pale faces and clawed hands! ARE WE NOT MEN! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

IMARO 2: THE QUEST FOR CUSH
By Charles Saunders

The second volume of Imaro’s adventures picks up where the first left off. If you aren’t familiar with Imaro, here’s his story thus far. It takes place in Nyumbani, a fantasy version of Africa. Imaro is from the Ilyassi, a fierce warrior tribe of the plains. But he is an outcast because his father was an unknown man from another tribe. Hounded by evil sorcerers who serve demonic entities, Imaro becomes an exile and a leader of bandits. The Quest for Cush begins in medias res, with Imaro in hot pursuit of the outlaw who has stolen his beloved Tanisha.

Along the way Imaro makes a friend in Pomphis the Bambuti. Pomphis is a Pygmy who has lived in the cities of Nyumbani and is more or less a walking encyclopedia of Nyumbani lore. Imaro, Tanisha, and Pomphis must make their way to Cush. There Imaro hopes to learn who his father is, what has happened to his mother, and just what his destiny is. Imaro does have a destiny, he must oppose the Mashataan. These are demons who once conquered Nyumbani but were expelled. They are plotting a comeback and know that somehow Imaro stands in their way.

The plot of a hero with a destiny is a pretty standard one. What gives the Imaro stories a special touch is Saunders’ rather unsentimental take on the whole thing. Imaro is not a knight in shining armor, he’s a hard-as-nails outlaw with a grudge against evil wizards. Pomphis and Tanisha serve to soften Imaro, but not much. Nor is Nyumbani a romanticized version of an Africa inhabited solely by wise elders and respectful children. It’s a land with cruel customs, learned scholars, sleazy traders, brutal thugs, compassionate healers, and dire magic. In short, it’s a well-rounded place, not just a two-dimensional backdrop for sword-fights.

Saunders also has a barbed wit. The opening story is a dead-on parody of traditional “lost-race” stories that will make you smile and wince at the same time. The tale of how the Mashataans used the people of Atlan, and how the people of Atlan used the Nyumbanis is razor-sharp Sword & Sorcery myth straight from the real world.

The Quest for Cush is a very worthy successor to the first volume. I’m looking forward to reading the rest.

-Dave Hardy

IMARO
By Charles Saunders

I used to think of Sword & Sorcery as the province of the Big Three: Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, and Michael Moorcock. After reading Imaro I may have to make that the Big Four.

Back in the 1970s Charles Saunders was a devoted fan of science fiction and fantasy, especially the swashbuckling adventures of Tarzan, Conan, and other larger-than-life heroes. However, he was very frustrated by the lack of black heroes. SF and Fantasy were lily white and Saunders was a black man who felt rather isolated in fandom. The pulp-era in particular abounded in casual racism. So Saunders set out to do something about it. He created his own hero: Imaro.

The Imaro stories took off and eventually DAW Books agreed to a series of Imaro paperbacks. Owing to missteps by DAW and long intervals between the books, they failed commercially but have remained a devoted following among Sword & Sorcery cognoscenti. Reviving the stories became problematic after certain events in Africa rendered some critical plot points uncomfortably close to a headline. Eventually, after encouragement by the well-known Australian fan Ben Szumskyj, Saunders replaced the troublesome tales with new works and Night Shade Books brought Imaro into the 21st century.

The result is not merely an Afrocentric Conan. Imaro has a backstory that is essential to his growth as a character. As a boy his mother is exiled and he never knows his father. He is barely tolerated by his tribe. Although he excels in his prowess as a warrior, it is never good enough. When he finally reaches manhood, he is framed as a coward and forced to flee his own people. In the end Imaro only finds acceptance among the outlaws of the borderlands.

In other hands this might be Black Caesar, but Imaro is persecuted by a mysterious cabal of evil wizards who want him destroyed for mysterious reasons. Saunders is a fantasy writer and his tales should appeal to all Sword & Sorcery fans. The Imaro tales are as firmly rooted in African legend and history as Tolkein’s work is in European myth. It makes for a distinctive setting that many readers will not have seen before. I strongly recommend Imaro and I’m looking forward to seeing the rest of the series from Night Shade.

-Dave Hardy

IMARO!!???

I just read a blog entry over at Black Gate to the effect that Night Sahde books will not be continuing the Imaro series. Look at: http://bg-editor.livejournal.com/

I don't know the source of that bit of intelligence, but it is disheartening to say the least! I read the Night Shade editions a few months back and was very impressed with Saunders' Sword & Sorcery tales that teetered between cynical despair and outright optimism. I hope that Night Shade does not cancel the series. The best way to convince them of that error is to buy the books!

Now that the good folks at PC Guru have recovered the data off my terminally crashed hard drive, you can expect to see my reviews of Imaro 1 & 2 shortly.

-Dave Hardy

STORMBRINGER
By Michael Moorcock

The final novel of the Elric saga makes manifest what the reader has known all along: Elric is just a pair of hands for Stormbringer the Runesword to work its will. The weapon controls events, the man is the tool.

Of course, Elric ain’t going without a fight. The wizards of the island realm of Pan Tang have launched a war of global conquest, acting as front men for the Lords of Chaos. It’s a direct affront to Elric, since his people did exactly the same thing from their island kingdom of Melniboné, but with much more class.

If it were only human foes, this would be no big deal for a hero like Elric. But book six brings Elric into headlong confrontation with his fate, which is inextricably linked with the Runesword, Stormbringer.

Of all the Elric saga books, Stormbringer is the hardest to like. It’s not a cheerful tale of treasure hunts. Moorcock has carefully nurtured his world and his characters until the reader cares about them. Watching them suffer makes a demand on a reader. But it is a necessary part of the saga, one that is foreseen from the beginning. The reward for a reader is a catharsis you usually don’t find in sword and sorcery. If you like heroic fantasy, meet Mr. Moorcock’s demands and earn the reward of Stormbringer.

-Dave Hardy

THE VANISHING TOWER
By Michael Moorcock

There are certain places in fiction that seems to have a life of their own, that seem to exist outside of ink and paper, Rick’s Café, Yoknapatawpha County, Lankhmar, The House of the Last Lamp, or Tanelorn where weary heroes go to find peace.

Elric of Melniboné is not the average sword & sorcery hero. He springs from an ancient pre-human race, steeped in black sorcery and evil. Elric is an albino, preternaturally weak except for two things. He is allied with the foulest of all the foul deities his people once worshipped, Arioch the Lord of Chaos. Elric also wields Stormbringer the Black Runesword. It has the power to steal the very soul of its victims and pass them on to Elric. Yet Elric is a man who seeks a more balanced life, he has a conscience (unlike many action heroes). But his origins and associations always bring chaos back to his life.

This part of the saga recounts Elric’s great feud with Theleb K’aarna, the sorcerer of Pan Tang and the feud’s bearing on Kaneloon the tower at the edge of Chaos and Tanelorn, where adventurers find peace. Along the way Elric battles extra-dimensional hordes, visits Nadsokor the City of Beggars, where they will not abide any who are not broken in mind or body, and meets other incarnations of himself, the Eternal Champion.

Some of the best sword & sorcery ever written. The Vanishing Tower is a worthy installment in this saga, the action is full of surprises, yet always drives towards the ultimate goal Moorcock is aiming for. The Elric saga unites the “anything goes” freewheeling surprise of picaresque adventures (such as the Conan series or Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser) and the sense of destiny embodied in The Worm Ouroboros or Lord of the Rings (even if Moorcock wouldn’t like the latter comparison). I can honestly say that the Elric saga does not flag at any point.

-Dave Hardy

THE WEIRD OF THE WHITE WOLF
By Michael Moorcock

The White Wolf in question is Elric of Meniboné, the doomed and magnificent emperor of the Dragon Isle (not the White Wolf worshipped by Lt. Othman in “Son of the White Wolf” by Robert E. Howard, though Elric does have a rapport with mythic animals). Elric is the albino sorcerer who wields Stormbringer, the sword of great power and awful doom.

This is the part of the Elric sage where things begin to turn. Elric has his final, fateful confrontation with Yrkoon, in a hellishly dramatic battle that wrenches the story loose from all your comfortable assumptions.

It’s also the part where Elric is free to be a picaresque hero, albeit a doomed and tormented one, His sidekick, Moonglum, appears. Moonglum plays a knowing Sancho Panza to Elric’s Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance, perhaps deliberately, for Moorcock’s heroes are echoes of all the other heroes that have lived. Free (as in having nothing left to lose), Elric journeys on a quest for a mystic tome of great power and skirmishes with an arrogant sorcerer and a renegade deity on behalf of a lovely human princess (never forget, Elric is not human).

The third book of the Elric saga carries this fantastic epic into the middle reaches where anything is possible. What emerges is the flowering of one of the all-time greats of sword and sorcery.

-Dave Hardy

THE SAILOR ON THE SEAS OF FATE
By Michael Moorcock

When I was a kid my high school buddies and I would swap our favorite sword and sorcery books around. I loaned my pals precious copies of Robert E. Howard’s Conan books and in return I borrowed a book called The Sailor on the Seas of Fate. The cover showed a white-faced fellow doing something desperate with a sword. The words inside blew me away.

This is book two in the saga of Elric of Melniboné. While sword and sorcery thrives on sympathetic anti-heroes, Elric pushed the envelope. He is the offspring of the Melnibonéans, a pre-human race of tremendous magical skill, superior refinement, and absolutely depraved decadence. He seeks to revitalize the kingdom he rules, and so has ventured forth to visit the human kingdoms who have freed themselves from the hated despotism of Melniboné. The books opens with Elric alone and hunted on the shore of a human kingdom whither he has gone to learn new things, but has found only hatred and violence.

A few things one must know about Elric: he is an albino with little physical strength, he is best friends with the worst demon from the pits of Chaos, and he has a sword that doesn’t just kill you, it drinks your soul. On that cheery note our hero is off, plunged head-first into the seas of fate. First he is recruited into an all-star cast of Michael Moorcock heroes sailing on a ship of the damned to save the many universes from a terrible doom. Next he’s on an island of the damned, presided over by an insane black sorcerer who might just be kin. Finally he’s a hired sword for a band of merchant adventurers on a trek that may reveal the origins of Elric’s people.

It’s not just the nostalgia talking. This stuff is fantastic. Moorcock mates slam-bang action with a brooding sense of doom and wraps it in crisp prose that leaves a reader begging for more. There is no sword and sorcery that is better, Robert E. Howard and Fritz Leiber are Moorcock’s peers. Elric stands beside Conan, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser at the pinnacle of sword and sorcery.

-Dave Hardy

ELRIC OF MELNIBONÉ
By Michael Moorcock

This is volume one of the epic saga of Elric, the albino emperor of the Dragon Isle. Elric rules the island empire of Melniboné, the homeland of his strange semi-human race, from the Ruby Throne in dreaming Imrryr. The Melniboneans ruled the world with massive battle fleets, fighting dragons, and sorcery from the pits of hell. Now they are confined to their island, living in decayed splendor.

Into this comes the young emperor Elric, seeking to revitalize Melniboné, evan as his frail body fails him. But he has the love of a good woman, Cymoril. He also has the hate and jealousy of Cymoril’s brother, Yrkoon. He regards Elric’s abhorrence of needless sociopathic violence as a most un-Melnibonéan deviation. Thus the stage is set.

As Elric grapples with foreign invaders and Yrkoon’s hostility he finds support in the most unlikely places. He forges an alliance with Arioch, the most bloodthirsty of the Chaos gods (or are they demons?) and the ancient patron of Elric’s race. The Albino emperor also finds the black Runesword, Stormbringer. A weapon of awesome potential, it literally steals the soul of its victims and feeds them to its wielder.

This is sword & sorcery on a grand scale. There is magic, swordplay, dragons, dungeons, gods, demons, love, hate, ancient curses, and the fall of mighty kingdoms. And all this is just the opener. Moorcock ran the series to six volumes and not a bit of it is excess. If you are a sword & sorcery fan this is essential reading.

-Dave Hardy

STAR WINDS
By Barrington Bayley

So you’re an SF fan. You want all the crazy, swashbuckling action of Dan Dare and the Intergalactic Squid Invasion but the intellectual challenge of A Canticle for St. Squidbert. Oh yeah, and the outlandish fantasy of The Unicorn Chronicles Part XLIV. Whatcha gonna do, read The Economist? How about you try Barrington Bayley, the best-kept secret of SF.

Bayley writes thinking man’s Space Opera. Instead of dryly extrapolating quantum physics, Bayley boldly posits a futuristic world where the archaic art of alchemy rules and faster-than-light travel depends on the ether wind.

Star Winds begins on a decayed Earth where the technology to travel the “Star Winds”, the solar wind that blows through space, is being lost. Rachad, a young apprentice alchemist, makes an alliance with a washed up space-captain Zhorga. Together they will travel the old trade route to Mars before it’s too late to leave the Earth. It’s a desperate gamble to re-open Earth’s trade with the stars.

They find the space lanes strewn with forgotten weapons and strange dangers. Their destination is even more peculiar. Humanity exists in scattered feudal realms under attack from an invading alien race that absorbs people into their collective mind. Rachad is tasked with infiltrating a bizarre stronghold in order to wrest away its secret alchemy for the benefit of mankind.

Alchemy? Feudal kingdoms? Sailing ships? Is this an SF story or High Fantasy? I daresay Bayley realized that SF has its roots, not in the technical reports of engineers, but the fantastic dreams of a society where magic is found in the future. But his stories aren’t simply wish-fulfillment or power-fantasies. Bayley’s characters are well-rounded and his world is vivid with amazing wonders and terrible dangers. Bayley lets us stop every so often to wonder what its all about too. He’s not content to let the scurrying lives of merchant-adventurers, ambitious princes, and mercenary captains to be their own justification. He has the ability to show us the folly of our mad scramble to our demise. Like a good alchemist, Bayley knows that the thing to be transmuted is the metal of the soul.

-Dave Hardy

COLLISION COURSE
By Barrington Bayley

Imagine an Earth ruled by a Fascist regime whose primary goal is racial purity. Now it finds itself being invaded from the other side of the time-stream. That’s the premise of Barrington Bayley’s novel Collision Course.

Rond Heshke is an archaeologist summoned by the Bureau of Politics to investigate mysterious ancient ruins that seem to be getting less ancient. This is a crisis because the Titans, the totalitarian party that rules the world, is based on exclusive supremacy for the whitest of whites and genocide for all “devs”. Devs are defined as sub-species of mankind that “deviate” from the Nordic ideal of “True Man”. The ruins are associated with something worse than devs, aliens from the future.

Heshke is a somewhat reluctant defender of racial purity. He has connections with folks who traffic with devs. The survivors have been penned on reservations, but their existence is more than precarious.

Meanwhile the Titans have made contact with Retort City, one of Bayley’s deliciously imagined city-states. This one is a space station, or perhaps a time station, formed in the shape of two pods joined at the center. The people of Retort have solved the problems of class warfare by separating their folk into work and management classes in the two pods. To ensure that feelings of rivalry don’t develop alternate generations of families are split and sent to the opposite pod. The folk are sympathetic to the Titans’ problems. Unfortunately they are devs from the sub-class the Titans call Chinks.

Collision Course is satire of the blackest sort. The “ideal” societies built by Titans and Retort City dwellers are coming apart form their inherent contradictions. The politics of liberals come in for a thumping as well. The radical underground is composed more of talkers than actors, and though professing love for devs, they don’t actually want to have any around. In a grimly hilarious scene a True Man and his mixed-race lover bemoan the fate of the devs, except for a group called the Lorenes. Apparently they were such bastards they pretty much deserved genocide.

Collision Course is a gem of New Wave SF, one that engages with the social possibilities of futuristic technology without turning into turgid propaganda. It also has that most old-fashioned requirement of SF, a sense of wonder.

-Dave Hardy

THE ZEN GUN

By Barrington Bayley

Barrington Bayley’s SF is the kind of writing that would appeal to both a taste for old-fashioned action-oriented Space Opera and New Wave mind-trips that border on the surreal. The Zen Gun is a tale of galactic rebellion with Luke, Leia, and Darth Vader replaced by eccentric hippies and talking animals. They are living in a universe where there are lots of Forces, not all of them benign.

The galactic empire ruled by planet Diadem has grown decadent. Admiral Archier of the elite Ten-Fleet is a mere youth because of the declining birth-rate, children age fast because adults are scarce. The robots have been on strike for a few centuries, so genetically modified animals and human-animal hybrids have stepped in to fill the gap. The colonies are taxed of scientists and artists to help prop up imperial culture. Both the animals and the colonies have their own agendas, which makes for interesting times.

If that isn’t complex enough, a mentally defective hybrid called Pout has escaped from a secret lab and stolen an ancient weapon of mysterious, but immense power. He crosses paths with a futuristic samurai and Hesper, a shipwrecked rebel. And the universe is coming apart at the seams.

Bayley’s novels, the Zen Gun in particular are difficult to describe, thanks to the complex multi-sided struggles, the swiftly moving and varied crises, and the large cast of characters. What is wonderful to see is how colorfully the characters stand out, how deftly Bayley keeps his plot moving, and how vivid are the settings. Even more astonishing is that the whole thing runs about 160 pages. There is not an ounce of fat in the novel, nor does Bayley pull punches when it comes to looking at the underside of a decadent culture.

The Zen Gun is a mind-boggling little tour de force. If we could still get SF this well written in the 21^st century, the future of the genre would be assured.

-Dave Hardy

THE PILLARS OF ETERNITY
By Barrington J. Bayley

I was trolling about the internet one day when I should have been working and I came across the Cheap Truth summary of Barrington J. Bayley’s science fiction. I thought anything described as the “literary equivalent of psilocybin” by the “Zen master of space opera” can’t be all bad.

Actually it’s a lot better! Comparisons with William S. Burroughs aside, this is space opera of a high order. The Pillars of Eternity is grand, fast paced, full of high adventure, and high ideas. Try to imagine Seneca the Stoic starring in a cross between The Maltese Falcon and The DaVinci Code crafted by Doc Smith and you might get the idea.

The hero, Joachim Boaz, starts life as a crippled street-urchin. He encounters a sect of philosophers who rebuild him into a cybernetic superman. But when Boaz is crippled in an alchemy lab accident, he is rebuilt again as a symbiote with his spaceship, literally a cybernetic organism (κυβερνητης means shipmaster). He is also emotionally crippled. There’s a little matter of a lost planet with the galaxy’s most powerful treasure, government assassins who leave calling cards, a computerized version of the Kray twins, and a fad for getting killed as a kinky thrill. All that in 160 pages.

Pillars of Eternity is what they meant when they coined the phrase “new baroque space opera”. I just call it exciting, thought-provoking, and adventurous.

-Dave Hardy

I'M BACK!

My long overdue re-appearance on the F&S blog has finally come. At present I am reduced to a single laptop and use of an ISP that I think actually uses camels to deliver e-mail. It’s not a pretty picture, but I have to return to the fray.

First up: BLACK SAILS!

Straight from Sam & Josie Hawken of 1018 press comes a tome of tales of piracy and fantasy on the high seas. There are a whopping 16 yarns of sea-dogs, curses, salt, swords, and sorcery.

• "The Ghost Ship," by Charles Edward
• "The Death of Captain Eugene Bloodcake and the Fall of the Horrid Whore," by Joel A. Sutherland
• "Black Curse of the Noose," by David Hardy
• "The Breaking of Hell's Bones," by Christopher Heath
• "The Curse of the Dull Knife," by L. Roger Quilter
• "Sea of Cards," by Scott Almes
• "In the Lesser Southern Isles," by Cat Rambo
• "The Curse of Isla Cura," by George Mann
• "On the Old Dabreau," by Jens Rushing
• "The Siren's Lure," by Jordan Lapp
• "The Call of Kuazataml," by Jonathan Moeller
• "The Wandering Star," by Donna Taylor Burgess
• "His Mother's Son," by Michelle Klein
• "Black Mary's Curse," by Kim Despins
• "The Squall," by Steven Winkelstein
• "La Malédiction de Mort," by Juleigh Howard-Hobson

My own contribution “Black Curse of the Noose” is my first proper horror story. Not that it is without bloodshed and battle, however the focus is on the anti-hero’s peculiar sense of what is and is not a fitting way to die. It’s definitely the most savage tale I’ve written to date. I haven’t yet got my contributor’s copy (I am pretty much holding my breath, I’m so excited!). I’m looking forward to some classy entries by Christopher Heath, Jordan Lapp, and Joel A. Sutherland (he wins for coolest title).

You can order it today by going to http://www.lulu.com/content/883546.

REH DAYS 2007

The annual pilgrimage to Cross Plains for Robert E. Howard Days passed off well. There was much merriment, much blowhardery, and much eating of catfish. And, despite being a gathering of REH fans, no one had a fist-fight, nor died of heart-attack, heat-stroke, nor alcohol poisoning.

We set out on Thursday with the intent of meeting the crew at Enchanted Rock. This is a great dome of rock thrusting up from the Texas Hill country. It has served as the inspiration for Cimmeria, the home of Robert E. Howard’s Conan, as well as Lost Knob, the site of a tragic staff picnic in James Hynes Kings of Infinite Space. I made a point to wear my “Hello, my name is: BOY G” nametag.

Anyway the plan was guys in Cross Plains would drive south to Ft. McKavett and then to Enchanted Rock State Park. We stopped in Frederickburg for a visit to Dooley’s 5& Dime store. It’s part fly-in-amber, part tourist kitsch. The place is way cool and missus finds crazy bargains on hairnets, white gloves, and handkerchiefs. I like the straw hats and the young ‘un likes the toys.

We rolled from there to Enchanted Rock, arriving at 2:45. Given the late time and the uncertainty that we’d actually meet up with the Howardheads (I am the last man in N. America w/out a cell phone), we paused in the parking lot, took a good look and headed north. I’d already made reservations for my room twice (don’t ask) and was frankly a bit antsy. More so since this was a new route for me.

As it turned out, we made good time. Route 16 and 190 skirt Loyal Valley, the epicenter of the Mason County feud that raged in the 1870s. It was a battle between mostly German-Texan ranchers and Anglo-Texans. Bitterness from the Civil War era lynchings, rustling, and some plain, old-fashioned gangsterism contributed to a violent conflict. Passing down 190 I saw places that still bore the family names of prominent feudists. The past often stays close in small towns. We made Cross Plains safely and got our room, which I may add did not seem to have mice.

Friday began my days of panel-going and presentations. At the high school library, fans were treated to a talk by Greg Manchess on his artwork for the third Wandering Star/Del Rey volume of Conan tales. Like Gianni, he’s influenced by the Brandywine artists. I quite like his work, though I’ve a pet peeve about curved swords. Manchess’s vision of Conan manages to have the savagery of Frazetta, with the lushness of Wyeth. A nice combo. He also showed us work from a forthcoming children’s book on Magellan. Manchess’s historical art is truly stellar.

Next I sat in on Duece Richardson’s talk on the geography and history of Kull’s Valusia. Suffice to say it’s a complex subject, but Howard left us some rather good clues as to who lived next to what, and feuded with whom else. Duece had some interesting ideas about how the often conflicting visions of Atlantis, Mu, and Lemuria could have fit together in Howard’s work.

I also got to meet Norris Chambers. Whenhe was a youngster his father worked with Dr. Howard, and Norris knew Bob as a boy. I can’t wait to see what all will come of Leo Grin’s interview with Mr. Chambers.

Dinner involved lots of catfish (my favorite) and more slides from Greg Manchess. I spent quite a bit of time outside playing with my young’un (she’s not much for sitting still and quiet, especially when she’s got Indy Bill Cavalier to make her giggle). The missus got to see the slide show and seconded my opinion on Manchess’s Magellanic manifestations.

On Saturday, I held forth at the library on “Desert Adventurers”, REH’s various American gunslingers who hang out in Afghanistan, the Arabian Peninsula, and other parts of the Wild East. I brought along some scans of artwork that had appeared in Top Notch when the El Borak and Kirby O’Donnell tales first appeared back in 1934/35. No one fell asleep and the audience even laughed out loud at a few points.

I spent a good of the afternoon visiting the Barbarian Days festival. I always enjoy chatting with the guy that brings his Ferret armored car every year. The young’un liked looking at the old autos. She took it in stride when I told here how they started cars with a crank instead of a key. If I’d have let her I think she’d have climbed in and tried to drive one away.

At Caddo Peak in the evening, I climbed the peak with the young’un at my side. She made it all the way under her own power. Not bad for a 5-year old. After a third straight evening of carousing at the pavilion, I crashed for some blissful sleep.

On the morrow, we rose and had a last fling at Jean’s Feedbarn (that and the Staghorn are two of the best little eateries in Texas). I chatted with Don Gosnell, the Cross Plains policeman, about Howard Days, oddball crimes, and little towns to visit. He told me that the catfish came from Cook’s Fish Barn outside of Rising Star. We drove back by way of Rising Star and stopped off in a local thrift store that is a resource center for families in crisis: Women's Christian Ministry Resource Center. We chatted with Iris Ratliff, who runs the place about her work. She’s a very nice lady working in a very good cause.

The run home was uneventful. My ninth straight REH Days was over. I’m putting together my priorities from old projects and new ones and counting the days for number ten.

-Dave Hardy

WARRIORS OF THE STEPPES
By Harold Lamb

Warriors of the Steppes is volume two of Harold Lamb’s tales of Cossacks and other adventurers in 17^th century Asia. Lamb was one of the top writers for Adventure, the premier pulp magazine for swashbuckling tales in the 1920s and ‘30s. Along with Talbot Mundy, Lamb was one of Robert E. Howard’s favorite authors and a major influence on the writer from Cross Plains.

Warriors picks up where Wolf of the Steppe leaves off. The central figure is Khlit the Cossack, a peripatetic and aging warrior possessed of a curved saber that represents the legacy of Ghengis Khan. Although he is a Christian Russian, Khlit has cast his lot among the wild tribes of Asia. He is more at home among Buddhist Mongols or Moslem Afghans than in any city, Russian, Chinese, or Turkish.

Not all of the tales are about Khlit. There is a quintet of stories that form a cycle about Sir Ralph Weyand, an Englishman seeking a trade concession from Jehangir, the Mogul ruler of India. The only problem is that Sir Ralph is aligned with Shirzad Mir, a Tajik chief who has been proclaimed an outlaw and is locked in a deadly feud with his Uzbak rivals. It’s a striking thought, and a testament to Lamb’s deep knowledge of Asian culture and history that this rivalry is a mirror of the battles between Shah Massoud, the Tajik mujahedin leader, and General Rashid Dostam, the Uzbek leader whose allies included the USSR, the Taleban, and eventually Shah Massoud.

Khlit is very well represented in this book. He crosses paths with Abdul Dost, one of Sir Ralph’s comrades-in-arms. Lamb brings the world of Mogul India to life with tales of Rajput honor, corruption at the imperial court, and bloody Afghan rebellions.

Lamb’s stories have a great deal of swashbuckling action and colorful characters as well as intricate plotting. Khlit is not an invincible killing machine, rather he is an old man who stays alive by using his wits. He’s also a man who shows his age on occasion, but has the grit to keep on going even against overwhelming odds.

Running to over 600 pages, Warriors is a collection of novellas, allowing for a level of story development that lets Lamb showcase his skill in crafting characters and setting a scene, without an ounce of fat. I highly recommend this book for those who have a taste for swashbuckling adventure and exotic settings.

-Dave Hardy

WOLF OF THE STEPPES
By Harold Lamb

When critics talk about writers who influenced Robert E. Howard, along with predictable favorites such as H.P. Lovecraft, Jack London, and Rudyard Kipling, one name always comes up: Harold Lamb.

“Lamb who?” is no doubt the reaction of many readers. Unlike J.K. Rowling or Terry Prachett, Harold Lamb’s name is not a household word. But he was once the darling of the Saturday Evening Post, contributing both fiction and analyses of Middle Eastern politics. Nowadays, he’s just about forgotten.

Fortunately, Howard Andrew Jones has set out to change that. He has teamed up with Bison Books (of the University of Nebraska) to produce a massive four-volume set of Lamb’s Cossack fiction.

“Cossack what?” Stories about the wild Russian frontiersmen of the steppe. They were the Davy Crocketts and Dan’l Boones of the Russian borderlands. Their foes were the wild nomads who had swept down from the steppes of Central Asia (under tribal names such as Huns, Magyars, Tatars, and Mongols) to smash the citified and civilized realms of Rome, Persia, China, and Russia. The Cossacks were essentially Russian Tatars, capable of riding, shooting, and fighting as well as the horse-tribes of the plains. At first the Cossacks were composed mainly of runaways from serfdom as well as footloose mercenaries, outlaws, and renegade Tatars. Later they became self-contained tribes in their own right, until the Soviets smashed them for being loyal to the old order (and for being too independent).

Lamb’s Cossack hero is Khlit. For readers who expect a Slavic Conan, you’ll be in for a surprise. Khlit is an old guy, still a deadly fighter, but a man who has learned to survive by using his wits. Most of the stories follow him on an epic wandering across much of Asia. Khlit experiences all manner of highs and lows in his wanderings. He is both a homeless nobody and a warlord of stupendous significance.

Khlit defies conventions in other ways. Lamb describes him as a confirmed bachelor who suspects women on principle. However, Lamb frequently provides him with a strong willed young lady as a foil. You could call these girls (they are almost always seventeen) damsels in distress if they weren’t so damned headstrong. Sometimes I found myself wondering just who was rescuing whom. There is plenty of action in these tales, but they aren’t simple shoot-‘em-ups. Khlit relies on his ability to look stupid and act smart to load the dice in his favor. Since he inevitably bucks long odds, he needs all the help he can get.

This makes for tales with many characters, intricate plotting, and lots of exotic color. Frankly, this can be a bit demanding, if you don’t like strange names in remote places, go back to watching TV. But if you are willing to pay attention (or are already familiar with the cultures of Asia) you will be richly rewarded with swashbuckling tales of action and intrigue set in locales as varied as the camps of Mongol khans, the court of Imperial China, and the secret fortress of the Order of Assassins.

Nowadays the Cossacks are enjoying a revival in post-Soviet Russia. They are also enjoying a revival in this collection of Harold Lamb’s thrilling tales of adventure.

-Dave Hardy

FYI

To my great dismay, it has been a while since I posted anything. Whether that is to anyone else’s dismay is an open question. Alas, my computer has gone belly-up. I am reduced to using my work computer on my lunch break. Lunch breaks were not meant to be spent at one’s desk (an open invitation to co-workers and supervisors to send work one’s way). They were made to be as far away from anything resembling as possible.

Check out the new design on the REHupa site: http://www.rehupa.com/. That’s the on-line presence of the venerable Robert E. Howard United Press Association, a swell bunch of guys, so long as you keep ‘em away from online discussion groups.

Also of note is a nifty serial running in, wait for it, the New York Times. The world’s most venerable mullet-wrapper has a ripping yarn by Michael Chabon (of Kavalier and Klay fame) called Gentlemen of the Road.

It’s set in Khazaria during the early Middle Ages. What’s a Khazaria, you may ask. It’s the homeland of the Khazars, now known as the Ukraine and Southern Russia. Which of course begs the question, what’s a Khazar? The Khazars were a horde of warlike nomads that split off from the Huns and forged their own empire of merciless, horse-riding, arrow-shooting barbarians. They were also Jewish. Genghis Kahane anyone? Since they were situated between the Christian Byzantine Empire and the Muslim caliphate both of whom were perpetually at war, the Khazars split the difference.

Chabon has done a cracking job so far. Basically you take a pair of footloose adventurers, an exiled prince with a price on his head, and a whole lot of bloodthirsty killers and there you go. There is also Chabon’s dark, ironic humor. It’s a little bit Isaac Bashevis Singer and little bit Harold Lamb. Check out the Q&A where Chabon lists his favorite authors.

-Dave Hardy

PS. Check out http://joelasutherland.livejournal.com/ , the blog of fellow Black Sails contributor, Joel A. Sutherland (of "The Death of Captain Eugene Bloodcake and the Fall of The Horrid Whore") -dh

COMING SOON!

I have some announcements on exciting writing from yours truly that will be coming to a high-class publication near you soon.

First up my story “The Black Curse of the Noose” will be appearing in Black Sails, and anthology of pirate stories published by 1018 Press. Other tales lined up for the collection include "The Ghost Ship" by Charles Edward, "The Death of Captain Eugene Bloodcake and the Fall of The Horrid Whore" by Joel A. Sutherland (ultra-cool title!), and a special appearance by Washington Irving ("The Storm-Ship"). I’m pretty stoked as this will be my first appearance in an anthology rather than a periodical. “Noose” is a tale of piracy on the high seas and the difficulty of escaping justice when one has committed great crimes. Look for Black Sails in May, 2007.

Also I will have an essay appearing soon in The Cimmerian, the premier magazine of Robert E. Howard scholarship and fandom. It’s a short piece on a gift given to young REH that had a very big impact on his life. It was the Arabian Nights, one of the world’s most influential collections of fairy tales and adventure stories ever written. Robert Irwin (in The Arabian Nights, a Companion) makes the argument that its impact on modern literature is deep and significant. Certainly it influenced top-level Weird Tales writers such as H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, as well as noted pulp writers Edmond Hamilton, E. Hoffman Price, and Jack Williamson to name a few.

For news and discussion forums on 1018 Press go to http://www.1018press.com/. You can visit the excellent blog on The Cimmerian’s website at http://www.thecimmerian.com/, where you’ll find lively and informative commentary by writers such as Leo Grin, Steve Tompkins, Rob Rhoem, and Mark Finn.

-Dave Hardy

THE BEST OF HP LOVECRAFT: BLOODCURDLING TALES OF HORROR AND THE MACABRE
By H.P. Lovecraft

H.P. Lovecraft is undoubtedly the most significant writer of horror fiction to come out of the pulps, if not the most significant horror writer of his generation. Even so, the magazines he wrote for rejected many of his best stories. Although he is often imitated, few have been able to create the cosmic fear his literary theory called for.

The Best of H.P. Lovecraft brings together his most developed stories of what is often called “the Mythos”. They range from the very simple and effective “Pickman’s Model” (a story about just where a certain artist derives his inspiration) to the complex and far-reaching implications of “The Call of Cthulhu” where all of the history of life on this planet is called into question.

“The Dunwich Horror” and “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” bring the nightmare of miscegenation with non-human entities home to the tidy New England countryside with chilling effect. “The Shadow Out of Time” is in some ways less a horror story than a science fiction “secret history” that reaches deep into pre-history to relate the rise and fall of undreamed of star-travelling races. “The Colour Out of Space” is also science fiction, but in a more truly horrific vein. It relates the strange doom that overtakes an isolated farm family when a meteor strikes their farm.

The title is a bit of a misnomer, not that any of these tales are a bit less than the best, it is simly that I think a few of his best works were left out. Only “The Silver Key” represents his Dreamlands tales. I’d put my money of “The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath” as not just one of Lovecraft’s best stories, but as one of the best fantasy short stories of all-time.

If you want to see just why Lovecraft is still remembered nearly seventy years after his passing, then read The Best of H.P. Lovecraft.

-Dave Hardy

THE TOMB AND OTHER TALES
By H.P. Lovecraft

This collection provides a look at Lovecraft’s early tales. It is a grab bag of HPL’s work, and shows some of the various directions he went in.

The title tale and “The Festival” are vintage HPL, obsessed with ancestral curses and an unhealthy interest in the past on the part of the young. These themes would later bloom in the form of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. “In the Walls of Eryx” is a straight up science fiction tale, set on an old-school Venus filled with jungles and hostile natives. “Imprisoned with the Pharoahs” is an example of HPL’s ghost-writing, it is an adventure tale featuring none other than Harry Houdini in the starring role.

“He” and “The Horror at Red Hook” come from HPL’s New York phase. In the most ultra-modern of American cities HPL searched for the antique. In “He” he revealed it, giving the settling of America a very dark turn. “The Horror at Red Hook” is a good story, but so pervasive is the loathing of immigrants and Middle-Eastern types that it falls only slightly short of Ann Coulter.

The Tomb and Other Tales is a good set of stories, but probably most of interest to an HPL collector.

-Dave Hardy

THE LURKING FEAR AND OTHER STORIES
By H.P. Lovecraft

While Lovecraft is best known for his tales of Cthulhu and other beings that might have been demons, extra-terrestrials, gods or all three, he wrote many stories that defied genre limits by mixing fantasy, horror, and science fiction.

This collection pulls together quite a few of these. “The Lurking Fear” is classic HPL with a strange race of inbred hill-billies in an even stranger part of New York. “Dagon” and “The Temple” both mix allusions to classical civilization with u-boat warfare in the Great War.

HPL was a genealogist by avocation and an antiquarian at heart. His own family had had been destroyed by corruption of the blood (literally, his father contracted syphilis and later passed it to his mother). Tainted bloodlines and ancestral degeneracy figure prominently in “Arthur Jermyn”. HPL moved from looking down on the freaks of “The Lurking Fear” to finding them in the most refined company. “The Outsider” takes adolescent angst to a new level, with one of HPL’s most poignant tales and most appealing narrative voice.

The book winds up with a very strong closer: “The Shadow over Innsmouth” surely one of HPL’s all-time best tales, reprising the horror of “The Lurking Fear”, but in a far more advanced and challenging way. It just might have the reader looking at his own family tree.

While few of these stories will make the top ten list of HPL stories, they are all effective in their own ways, little windows on the creative, multi-faceted mind of H.P. Lovecraft.

-Dave Hardy

THE DREAM QUEST OF UNKNOWN KADATH
By H.P. Lovecraft

Lovecraft’s fantasy is, in my opinion, a greatly underestimated area of his work. Surely if one were listing the best American fantasy stories, Lovecraft’s novelette, The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath would surely rank high. Lovecraft’s fantasy was indebted to the work of Lord Dunsany, but Lovecraft sculpted his own vision of wonder and fear.

The tale is part of a cycle concerning Randolf Carter, a dreamy, New England gentleman of distinguished lineage and fantastic imaginings. He accesses the “Dream Lands”, a truly fantastic land that Lovecraft evokes with that overused and seldom merited epithet, dreamlike. Carter is searching for a beautiful city, glimpsed in dream, and now hidden by jealous gods. His quest takes him through the many realms, cities, and haunted ruins of the Dreamlands.

The ways of Ghouls and the nature of the cats of different planets are explored. Carter explores the mountain known as Ngranek and the Plateau of Leng. Strange battles between even stranger creatures are fought. In the process Carter discovers much about the Dreamlands, and somtething about himself.

This volume is ably rounded out by other Dreamlands short stories, “The Silver Key”, “Through the Gates of the Silver Key”, “Celephais”, “The White Ship”, and “The Strange High House in the Mist”.

Lovecraft’s output of fantasy (as opposed to his very closely related field of horror) was small compared to Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, or J.R.R. Tolkein. But Lovecraft’s fantasy was something distinct, and seldom imitated. It is all the more valuable for it.

-Dave Hardy

THE DOOM THAT CAME TO SARNATH
By H.P. Lovecraft

While H.P. Lovecraft’s name is indissolubly linked with tales of ancient, extraterrestrial races and the strange traces they left in antique New England towns, there was a bit more to his literary corpus. The Doom that Came To Sarnath collects a broad spectrum of Lovecraft tales, prose and poetry.

The title tale is a fantasy set in Lovecraft’s Dreamlands, a world that takes its existence in the dreams of Earth-bound dreamers. But here it pulses with life as Lovecraft ignores the “dream” aspect to bring a slice of Dreamlands history to eldritch life. The Dreamlands tales are well represented: “The Cats of Ulthar”, “The Other Gods”, “Polaris”, “The Quest of Iranon” are present, though some of the best Lovecraft fantasies are to be found in The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath. “Cats” is a fantasy based on Lovecraft’s feline obsession. “Polaris” travels the borders of dreams to ask what reality truly is.

Many of the others, such as “The Festival”, may be considered as minor “Mythos” stories, with its delicious imagery of wonder and terror from the deeps of time in an old New England town. “Beyond the Wall of Sleep” develops the science fiction element that marked the best-known of Lovecraft’s work.

There is also straight up sf, “In the Walls of Eryx”, a planetary adventure in the vein of early scinetifictioneers like Jack Williamson, Edmond Hamilton, and Clark Ashton Smith. Brief vignettes and poetry round out the collection.

While few of these tales are well-known, they are a broad selection of Lovecraft work, a mosaic of HPL’s moods and interests. The Doom that Came to Sarnath is a must have for any collector of Lovecraft’s work, and worthy addition to the collection of any fan of fantasy and horror.

-Dave Hardy