I'm spreading a bit of piratical erudition over at Last Free Voice. Avast ye scurvy dogs. -Dave Hardy
PS: Part Two: The Medieval Era is now online. -dh
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Saturday, April 25, 2009
THE GARMENTS OF CAEAN
By Barrington Bayley
Every time I read a Barrington Bayley novel I am more astounded. While serving up the most thrilling of Space Opera, Bayley never swerves from exploring the world of ideas with rigor and honesty.
In this case Bayley begins with the old saw that clothes make the man and develops it into an exploration of the role of external image in creating one’s internal identity.
A tailor named Peder Forbarth joins a group of gangsters in salvaging a wrecked spaceship. Part of the loot is a suit of Prossim, a special fabric that creates a unique psychic bond with its wearer. The question is open as to whether the man wears the suit of the suit the man. Forbarth’s new togs involve him in the galactic rivalry of Ziode—a culture indifferent to sartorial elegance—and Caean where fashion is the drug of choice.
Meanwhile a scientific expedition has discovered two rival cultures. Both live in the airless space between planets. A group of Soviets have encapsulated themselves in robot “bodies” while their Japanese rivals are deep-space yakuza pirates flying naked between the stars.
The novel takes a wild ride through the world of spies, conspirators, prison breaks, and galactic intrigue to get to the secret of Caean and Prossim. It’s a wild ride indeed.
Every time I read a Barrington Bayley novel I am more astounded. While serving up the most thrilling of Space Opera, Bayley never swerves from exploring the world of ideas with rigor and honesty.
In this case Bayley begins with the old saw that clothes make the man and develops it into an exploration of the role of external image in creating one’s internal identity.
A tailor named Peder Forbarth joins a group of gangsters in salvaging a wrecked spaceship. Part of the loot is a suit of Prossim, a special fabric that creates a unique psychic bond with its wearer. The question is open as to whether the man wears the suit of the suit the man. Forbarth’s new togs involve him in the galactic rivalry of Ziode—a culture indifferent to sartorial elegance—and Caean where fashion is the drug of choice.
Meanwhile a scientific expedition has discovered two rival cultures. Both live in the airless space between planets. A group of Soviets have encapsulated themselves in robot “bodies” while their Japanese rivals are deep-space yakuza pirates flying naked between the stars.
The novel takes a wild ride through the world of spies, conspirators, prison breaks, and galactic intrigue to get to the secret of Caean and Prossim. It’s a wild ride indeed.
-Dave Hardy
Thursday, April 23, 2009
SWORDS OF THE STEPPES
By Harold Lamb
The final volume of Harold Lamb’s Cossack adventures takes Lamb’s work from his heyday in the pages of Adventure during the late 1920s to work done for Colliers to the last Cossack-themed tales that appeared in Argosy and even The Saturday Evening Post. One senses that Lamb was aware that his era had in some manner passed. There is an increased interest in lost cities and folkloric beliefs in witches and vampires, though never to the point of out-an-out fantasy. By the latter days of Lamb’s career he was no longer writing head-long adventure for the pulps, but had fitted himself a new role as biographer of famous conquerors and an interpreter of Eastern civilization in the nervous early days of the Cold War.
The final volume of Harold Lamb’s Cossack adventures takes Lamb’s work from his heyday in the pages of Adventure during the late 1920s to work done for Colliers to the last Cossack-themed tales that appeared in Argosy and even The Saturday Evening Post. One senses that Lamb was aware that his era had in some manner passed. There is an increased interest in lost cities and folkloric beliefs in witches and vampires, though never to the point of out-an-out fantasy. By the latter days of Lamb’s career he was no longer writing head-long adventure for the pulps, but had fitted himself a new role as biographer of famous conquerors and an interpreter of Eastern civilization in the nervous early days of the Cold War.
-Dave Hardy
Saturday, April 18, 2009
DARKNESS WEAVES
By Karl Edward Wagner
Kane is the most unlikely of fantasy heroes, or indeed of any kind of hero. He is an educated gentleman with the appearance of a hulking, homicidal maniac. In fact, he IS a homicidal maniac, the first and greatest. What makes him so appealing is not that Kane is less of a SOB than the others he interacts with but that he is such a superb survivor, always staying a half-step ahead of the grisly end that invariably lurks.
Darkness Weaves was Kane's first outing. Avoid the first edition at all costs as it was very badly edited. In fact it was mauled. Subsequent editions show KEW's brilliance to full effect. Kane is recruited by a mad sorceress to overthrow an island empire. Kane, the sorceress, and a sub-aquatic horde of super-science using aliens form a trio of bad pennies , returning to wreak havoc.
Wagner was a master of pace, plotting, characterization and mood. The reader hangs on the edge of his seat, awaiting the next twist, the next betrayal in this slam-bang Sword & Sorcery novel. The macho-stylistics of revenge and ambition suffuse Darkness Weaves. One might say that KEW was the Quentin Tarantino of Sword & Sorcery. Or perhaps, Tarantino is the Karl Edward Wagner of crime movies.
Kane is the most unlikely of fantasy heroes, or indeed of any kind of hero. He is an educated gentleman with the appearance of a hulking, homicidal maniac. In fact, he IS a homicidal maniac, the first and greatest. What makes him so appealing is not that Kane is less of a SOB than the others he interacts with but that he is such a superb survivor, always staying a half-step ahead of the grisly end that invariably lurks.
Darkness Weaves was Kane's first outing. Avoid the first edition at all costs as it was very badly edited. In fact it was mauled. Subsequent editions show KEW's brilliance to full effect. Kane is recruited by a mad sorceress to overthrow an island empire. Kane, the sorceress, and a sub-aquatic horde of super-science using aliens form a trio of bad pennies , returning to wreak havoc.
Wagner was a master of pace, plotting, characterization and mood. The reader hangs on the edge of his seat, awaiting the next twist, the next betrayal in this slam-bang Sword & Sorcery novel. The macho-stylistics of revenge and ambition suffuse Darkness Weaves. One might say that KEW was the Quentin Tarantino of Sword & Sorcery. Or perhaps, Tarantino is the Karl Edward Wagner of crime movies.
-Dave Hardy
Sunday, April 12, 2009
XAIRE
It has been just over a week since I learned of the deaths of Jon McCowan and Steve Tompkins. It is bitter news and still hard to understand. I offer my depest condolences to their families.
Joan McCowan was one of the great ladies of Cross Plains. Her kindly smile was one of the special pleasures of a visit to that town. She gave so much in kindness and support to the fans who traveled to Cross Plains on their pilgrimages to the hometown of Robert E. Howard. Journeys that were about a writer, who is long-gone though his writing is with us still, became about the town, a living place filled with the resilient people of rural Texas.
Joan's passing was not unexpected. The gathering in her honor in December last year was something in the nature of a farewell. I only hope that Joan knew how much she meant to us.
The loss of Steve Tompkins was an unexpected shock. We only met once at World Fantasy Con 2006. How I wish we had more chances to talk. Steve was well-known as a critic of great talent and breadth of learning in the field of REH fandom (dare I say studies, for if anyone gave that high-sounding epithet to the readers of old-time pulp fantasy, it was Steve with his scholarly grasp of literature). He introductions to Kull: Exile of Atlantis and The Black Stranger honor the author and his creations with lively, insightful commentary. Steve's essays were a delight, something I eagerly scanned The Cimmerian blog for. They were lively excursions into the hidden connections of pop-culture, history, myth, books, film, and anything else. They made me run eagerly to the library to study up on Steve's latest topic. That is what Steve did for me, he gave a sense of adventure and excitement in scholarship. Sgteve's own words will show that far better than I can. A small sample follows below.
Joan McCowan was one of the great ladies of Cross Plains. Her kindly smile was one of the special pleasures of a visit to that town. She gave so much in kindness and support to the fans who traveled to Cross Plains on their pilgrimages to the hometown of Robert E. Howard. Journeys that were about a writer, who is long-gone though his writing is with us still, became about the town, a living place filled with the resilient people of rural Texas.
Joan's passing was not unexpected. The gathering in her honor in December last year was something in the nature of a farewell. I only hope that Joan knew how much she meant to us.
The loss of Steve Tompkins was an unexpected shock. We only met once at World Fantasy Con 2006. How I wish we had more chances to talk. Steve was well-known as a critic of great talent and breadth of learning in the field of REH fandom (dare I say studies, for if anyone gave that high-sounding epithet to the readers of old-time pulp fantasy, it was Steve with his scholarly grasp of literature). He introductions to Kull: Exile of Atlantis and The Black Stranger honor the author and his creations with lively, insightful commentary. Steve's essays were a delight, something I eagerly scanned The Cimmerian blog for. They were lively excursions into the hidden connections of pop-culture, history, myth, books, film, and anything else. They made me run eagerly to the library to study up on Steve's latest topic. That is what Steve did for me, he gave a sense of adventure and excitement in scholarship. Sgteve's own words will show that far better than I can. A small sample follows below.
Bicentennial Bash at the Dank Tarn of Auber!
Sticking to the Poe-Boy DietThe Conscience, and the Kisses, of a King
What a Mummer Wild, What an Insane ChildSomething to Do With Deathlessness, Part One: Violence Reigns
Something to Do with Deathlessness, Part Two: Eyes We Dare Not Meet in DreamsSomething to Do with Deathlessness, Part Three: Splintered Shards of Time’s Reflection
Grinning, Unappeased Aboriginal DemonsThe Chants of Old Heroes, Singing in Our Ears
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
LAST FREE VOICE
I've got a new post up at Last Free Voice. It's a little piece on censorship, travel and free speech. And Spaghetti Westerns (mmm... spaghetti...) titled Too Dangerous for Canada! Yes, the title has an exclamation point. You got a problem with that? -Dave
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
SWORDS OF THE STEPPES
By Harold Lamb
The final volume of Harold Lamb’s Cossack adventures takes Lamb’s work from his heyday in the pages of Adventure during the late 1920s to work done for Colliers to the last Cossack-themed tales that appeared in Argosy and The Saturday Evening Post. One senses that Lamb was aware that his era had in some manner passed. There is an increased interest on lost cities and folkloric beliefs in witches and vampires, though never to the point of out-an-out fantasy. By the latter days of Lamb’s career he was no longer writing head-long adventure for the pulps, but had fitted himself a new role as biographer of famous conquerors and an interpreter of Eastern civilization in the nervous early days of the Cold War.
The final volume of Harold Lamb’s Cossack adventures takes Lamb’s work from his heyday in the pages of Adventure during the late 1920s to work done for Colliers to the last Cossack-themed tales that appeared in Argosy and The Saturday Evening Post. One senses that Lamb was aware that his era had in some manner passed. There is an increased interest on lost cities and folkloric beliefs in witches and vampires, though never to the point of out-an-out fantasy. By the latter days of Lamb’s career he was no longer writing head-long adventure for the pulps, but had fitted himself a new role as biographer of famous conquerors and an interpreter of Eastern civilization in the nervous early days of the Cold War.
-Dave Hardy
Saturday, March 28, 2009
BLOODSTONE
By Karl Edward Wagner
Kane, the original killer, undertakes his most audacious exploit as he manipulates tow warlike kingdoms while dallying with an alien force of awesome power. The stakes are no less than world domination. Yet Karl Edward Wagner never loses sight of the human dimension, balancing Kane with Teres, and outrageous lesbian Amazon-warrior princess who grows in a way few cliché Sword & Sorcery characters are ever allowed to. This classic fantasy adventure novel deserves to be back in print along with KEW’s other Kane stories.
Kane, the original killer, undertakes his most audacious exploit as he manipulates tow warlike kingdoms while dallying with an alien force of awesome power. The stakes are no less than world domination. Yet Karl Edward Wagner never loses sight of the human dimension, balancing Kane with Teres, and outrageous lesbian Amazon-warrior princess who grows in a way few cliché Sword & Sorcery characters are ever allowed to. This classic fantasy adventure novel deserves to be back in print along with KEW’s other Kane stories.
-Dave Hardy
Saturday, March 21, 2009
RIDERS OF THE STEPPES
By Harold Lamb
Volume Three of Harold Lamb’s Cossack adventures shows Lamb at the height of his powers. His stories are more taught than ever. This collection brings back Khlit the old Cossack ataman along with his grandson Kirdy, uniting them with Ayub and Demid, heroes from an earlier series of Cossack tales. Lamb’s plotting is at its most feverish, with action coming faster than in his pervious works.
Lamb should be a perennial favorite of all fans of high-quality historical adventure tales.
Volume Three of Harold Lamb’s Cossack adventures shows Lamb at the height of his powers. His stories are more taught than ever. This collection brings back Khlit the old Cossack ataman along with his grandson Kirdy, uniting them with Ayub and Demid, heroes from an earlier series of Cossack tales. Lamb’s plotting is at its most feverish, with action coming faster than in his pervious works.
Lamb should be a perennial favorite of all fans of high-quality historical adventure tales.
-Dave Hardy
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
DOSSOUYE
By Charles R. Saunders
Charles Saunders has a knack for creating unusual Sword & Sorcery heroes. How many African Amazons who are simultaneously sword-swinging brawlers and spiritual warriors are there?
Collected for the first time Dossouye brings together all the adventures of this unlikely heroine. We first meet her in an epic battle to save both her nation and her soul from demonic forces. It’s a classic good v. evil tale with lots of action. But from there Dossouye’s style takes a sharp turn.
Most of the Dossouye stories are set in an African-Gothic jungle. Dossouye battles not so much demons, but the part of the human heart that craves them. She does not engage in the wild-and-wooly intrigues of mercenaries and wizards among the mighty. Saunders even alludes to his unusual choice of setting and its effect on the hero he has created:
Dossouye might easily be read as feminist-fantasy, throwing off the shackles of oppressive tradition. What gives these stories a depth that sets them apart from simplistic PC moralizing. Tradition exists for a reason Saunders reminds us and do-gooders must be sure they are truly doing good. If you like Sword & Sorcery, you may want to try out Saunders’ unique Sword & Soul.
Charles Saunders has a knack for creating unusual Sword & Sorcery heroes. How many African Amazons who are simultaneously sword-swinging brawlers and spiritual warriors are there?
Collected for the first time Dossouye brings together all the adventures of this unlikely heroine. We first meet her in an epic battle to save both her nation and her soul from demonic forces. It’s a classic good v. evil tale with lots of action. But from there Dossouye’s style takes a sharp turn.
Most of the Dossouye stories are set in an African-Gothic jungle. Dossouye battles not so much demons, but the part of the human heart that craves them. She does not engage in the wild-and-wooly intrigues of mercenaries and wizards among the mighty. Saunders even alludes to his unusual choice of setting and its effect on the hero he has created:
Her initial intention to sell the services of her sword in the other kingdoms that ringed the Gulf of Ubengi after she had departed Abomey had proved short-lived; it was as though the forest had entangled her like a spider’s web refusing to let her go.
Dossouye might easily be read as feminist-fantasy, throwing off the shackles of oppressive tradition. What gives these stories a depth that sets them apart from simplistic PC moralizing. Tradition exists for a reason Saunders reminds us and do-gooders must be sure they are truly doing good. If you like Sword & Sorcery, you may want to try out Saunders’ unique Sword & Soul.
-Dave Hardy
Monday, March 16, 2009
THE TIME IT NEVER RAINED
By Elmer Kelton
To my eye, Elemer Kelton never seemed fully comfortable with the traditional Western. His work is always deeply enmeshed in the complex and contradictory history of Texas. Kelton never tries to deconstruct the Western in the post-modern sense, but he never lets go of an often-deflating realism.
So, perhaps it should be no surprise that one of Kelton’s best Westerns ever is set in the 1950s. Charlie Flagg is an old-style cattleman who finds times changing too fast for him. Government regulations are encroaching, not only on illegal immigrants from Mexico and their employers, but more insidiously in the form of handouts and price supports. Relations between Anglos and Latinos are changing, for the better in some ways, but often painfully for all. Most painful for Flagg, his son is more interested in rodeo (and rodeo-bunnies), an ersatz dime-store version of the West, to take much interest in the work-a-day world of actual livestock raising. Above all an unending drought is killing land and livestock and driving the inhabitants to the wall.
Charlie Flagg stands through it all, perhaps the most heroic of Kelton’s characters, unyielding in his belief in right and wrong. This is no shoot-‘em-up, black-hat/white-hat Western. Rather it is the portrait of the closing of one era of the West and opening of another by a writer who knows the people, their times and their land intimately.
To my eye, Elemer Kelton never seemed fully comfortable with the traditional Western. His work is always deeply enmeshed in the complex and contradictory history of Texas. Kelton never tries to deconstruct the Western in the post-modern sense, but he never lets go of an often-deflating realism.
So, perhaps it should be no surprise that one of Kelton’s best Westerns ever is set in the 1950s. Charlie Flagg is an old-style cattleman who finds times changing too fast for him. Government regulations are encroaching, not only on illegal immigrants from Mexico and their employers, but more insidiously in the form of handouts and price supports. Relations between Anglos and Latinos are changing, for the better in some ways, but often painfully for all. Most painful for Flagg, his son is more interested in rodeo (and rodeo-bunnies), an ersatz dime-store version of the West, to take much interest in the work-a-day world of actual livestock raising. Above all an unending drought is killing land and livestock and driving the inhabitants to the wall.
Charlie Flagg stands through it all, perhaps the most heroic of Kelton’s characters, unyielding in his belief in right and wrong. This is no shoot-‘em-up, black-hat/white-hat Western. Rather it is the portrait of the closing of one era of the West and opening of another by a writer who knows the people, their times and their land intimately.
-Dave Hardy
Saturday, March 14, 2009
THE SHE DEVIL
By Robert E. Howard
This is the one and only true collection of Robert E. Howard’s “spicy” tales. Spices were risqué stories of the pulp era. They would generally fall into some recognizable genre, adventure, detective, zeppelin, etc. but with some semi-explicit sex.
The stories in this set oscillate between jolly ribaldry and sadistic cruelty. I’d recommend against reading too much into the latter. There was a strong tendency in the pulps to demand more sexually-oriented cruelty. After WWII the men’s adventure pulps became more-or-less entirely devoted to tales of torture practiced on helpless females by Nazis, Commies, hoodlums and horny rhinoceroses (Weasels Ripped my Flesh!). REH simply diagnosed the trend early. Though not averse to making a buck off of it (bucks not being easy to come by in the Great Depression) REH did write his spicies pseudonymously.
Once you can take a step back from the political incorrectness of the whole, one can read these tales for what they are: ludicrously over-the-top stories written in a not-so-innocent era before celebrity sex tapes and internet porn.
This is the one and only true collection of Robert E. Howard’s “spicy” tales. Spices were risqué stories of the pulp era. They would generally fall into some recognizable genre, adventure, detective, zeppelin, etc. but with some semi-explicit sex.
The stories in this set oscillate between jolly ribaldry and sadistic cruelty. I’d recommend against reading too much into the latter. There was a strong tendency in the pulps to demand more sexually-oriented cruelty. After WWII the men’s adventure pulps became more-or-less entirely devoted to tales of torture practiced on helpless females by Nazis, Commies, hoodlums and horny rhinoceroses (Weasels Ripped my Flesh!). REH simply diagnosed the trend early. Though not averse to making a buck off of it (bucks not being easy to come by in the Great Depression) REH did write his spicies pseudonymously.
Once you can take a step back from the political incorrectness of the whole, one can read these tales for what they are: ludicrously over-the-top stories written in a not-so-innocent era before celebrity sex tapes and internet porn.
-Dave Hardy
Monday, March 09, 2009
ZOMBIES, SOME PRACTICAL GUIDES
THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW
PASSAGE OF DARKNESS
By Wade Davis
Zombies are all the rage these days. Heck, there are even warnings about them on the trafic signs. If you need a fix of zombie but a re getting a bit tired of the cliches, here are two classics that look at zombies in the context of West Indian legend. Wade Davis got interested in zombies via the case of Clairvius Narcisse, a Haitian man pronounced dead, buried, yet who rose again as a true survivor of zombiesm. Davis’s explorations found startling evidence about how poisons could manipulate the appearance of life and death to create the “living dead” as part of an elaborate means of social control.
The Serpent and the Rainbow is Davis’s account of his adventures among dark wizards, secret societies, voodoo priests, and other folk in the latter days of the Duvalier regime in Haiti. Critics may note that Davis doesn’t much downplay the fedora & bullwhip aspects of his exploits. Not have scholars ever forgiven Davis for lending his book’s title to a horror movie. For myself, Serpent raises more questions than it answers about the relation between Haitian secret societies, the Duvalier dictatorship, and the role of zombies.
Passage of Darkness is a more scholarly book, but no less fascinating. It is also where Davis actually provides the recipe to turn a foe into a mindless living-dead slave. Good times.
PASSAGE OF DARKNESS
By Wade Davis
Zombies are all the rage these days. Heck, there are even warnings about them on the trafic signs. If you need a fix of zombie but a re getting a bit tired of the cliches, here are two classics that look at zombies in the context of West Indian legend. Wade Davis got interested in zombies via the case of Clairvius Narcisse, a Haitian man pronounced dead, buried, yet who rose again as a true survivor of zombiesm. Davis’s explorations found startling evidence about how poisons could manipulate the appearance of life and death to create the “living dead” as part of an elaborate means of social control.
The Serpent and the Rainbow is Davis’s account of his adventures among dark wizards, secret societies, voodoo priests, and other folk in the latter days of the Duvalier regime in Haiti. Critics may note that Davis doesn’t much downplay the fedora & bullwhip aspects of his exploits. Not have scholars ever forgiven Davis for lending his book’s title to a horror movie. For myself, Serpent raises more questions than it answers about the relation between Haitian secret societies, the Duvalier dictatorship, and the role of zombies.
Passage of Darkness is a more scholarly book, but no less fascinating. It is also where Davis actually provides the recipe to turn a foe into a mindless living-dead slave. Good times.
-Dave Hardy
Thursday, February 26, 2009
THE BANDIT KING, LAMPIÃO OF BRAZIL
By Billy Jaynes Chandler
The Old West of gunslingers, outlaws, scheming politicos, and ruthless land barons was not confined to the 19th century, nor was it confined to the West or even the USA. One of the most fearsome backwoods outlaws of the Western Hemisphere flourished in 20th century Brazil.
Chandler recounts the life and times of Virgulino Ferreira (1897-1938), better known as Lampião. Ferreira was an ordinary young man, a cowboy on his father’s ranch in Alagoas, Brazil. This was the sertão, the arid backlands of Northeast Brazil. If you didn’t want to join the impoverished masses you guarded your rights zealously. Moreover society was formed into webs of alliance and hostility between political rivals and their clients. The Ferreiras got mixed up in a feud with a neighboring clan. While the elder Ferreira tried to make peace, his sons were more mettlesome. They joined the cangaçeiros, freebooting outlaw gangs that acted as enforcers for politicians who weren’t successful enough to get their gunmen appointed to the police. Virgulino, now known as Lampião, “the lamp”, became the most feared of these outlaws. His father was unceremoniously gunned down by the police.
For over a decade Lampião rampaged across the backlands. He became powerful enough to make the politicians dance to his tune. At one point Lampião’s men were deputized to battle marauding communist rebels. At other times he held cites and even whole states to ransom. Eventually a new regime seized power in Brazil. The dictator Getulio Vargas gave special impetus to the hunt for the outlaw. Lampião came to a grisly end in an ambush at Angicos, an end not only for Lampião, but for the free-wheeling days of the cangaçeiro lifestyle.
Bandit King is an absolutely fascinating account of a savage frontier in its last days and the outlaw of epic proportions who dominated it.
The Old West of gunslingers, outlaws, scheming politicos, and ruthless land barons was not confined to the 19th century, nor was it confined to the West or even the USA. One of the most fearsome backwoods outlaws of the Western Hemisphere flourished in 20th century Brazil.
Chandler recounts the life and times of Virgulino Ferreira (1897-1938), better known as Lampião. Ferreira was an ordinary young man, a cowboy on his father’s ranch in Alagoas, Brazil. This was the sertão, the arid backlands of Northeast Brazil. If you didn’t want to join the impoverished masses you guarded your rights zealously. Moreover society was formed into webs of alliance and hostility between political rivals and their clients. The Ferreiras got mixed up in a feud with a neighboring clan. While the elder Ferreira tried to make peace, his sons were more mettlesome. They joined the cangaçeiros, freebooting outlaw gangs that acted as enforcers for politicians who weren’t successful enough to get their gunmen appointed to the police. Virgulino, now known as Lampião, “the lamp”, became the most feared of these outlaws. His father was unceremoniously gunned down by the police.
For over a decade Lampião rampaged across the backlands. He became powerful enough to make the politicians dance to his tune. At one point Lampião’s men were deputized to battle marauding communist rebels. At other times he held cites and even whole states to ransom. Eventually a new regime seized power in Brazil. The dictator Getulio Vargas gave special impetus to the hunt for the outlaw. Lampião came to a grisly end in an ambush at Angicos, an end not only for Lampião, but for the free-wheeling days of the cangaçeiro lifestyle.
Bandit King is an absolutely fascinating account of a savage frontier in its last days and the outlaw of epic proportions who dominated it.
-Dave Hardy
Sunday, February 15, 2009
FAREWELL CIMMERIAN
I have recently learned that Leo Grin’s The Cimmerian, the premier journal of Robert E. Howard fandom, is ceasing publication. While The Cimmerian blog is still going strong under the direction of Steve Tompkins, the print journal’s last issue was December 2008, volume 5 number 6. The sad news was so low-key that I missed it until last week (though rumor had reached me a while back).
That’s maybe my biggest regret. Had I taken more time to engage in TC I would have known sooner. The past year has seen me put my efforts elsewhere, all to often saying to myself that the moment’s indulgence in sloth would not prejudice future good intentions. Well, the future, as they say, is now.
Editor Leo Grin published my first efforts at writing commentary and criticism on REH’s works. Leo is great to work with, he is the kind of editor who shows an author how to be his best, and demands it too. He demanded it of himself too. Leo pulled off a stunning achievement in producing a full twelve issues during the REH centenary of 2006.
The Cimmerian was always a pleasure. From its Gothic covers to the parchment pages it had a unique style that set it apart from other fanzines. I make the comparison to fanzines a bit deliberately. Leo was the driving will, the fantastic visionary of The Cimmerian. He had a vision of how good a home-made magazine could be and he lived up to that vision and beyond. The Cimmerian is not a slick, mass-produced article, but a remarkable series of little books that have a hand-made feel as if the monks of some Irish Abbey had become Conan fans. They are truly one-of-a-kind artifacts.
Farewell Cimmerian!
That’s maybe my biggest regret. Had I taken more time to engage in TC I would have known sooner. The past year has seen me put my efforts elsewhere, all to often saying to myself that the moment’s indulgence in sloth would not prejudice future good intentions. Well, the future, as they say, is now.
Editor Leo Grin published my first efforts at writing commentary and criticism on REH’s works. Leo is great to work with, he is the kind of editor who shows an author how to be his best, and demands it too. He demanded it of himself too. Leo pulled off a stunning achievement in producing a full twelve issues during the REH centenary of 2006.
The Cimmerian was always a pleasure. From its Gothic covers to the parchment pages it had a unique style that set it apart from other fanzines. I make the comparison to fanzines a bit deliberately. Leo was the driving will, the fantastic visionary of The Cimmerian. He had a vision of how good a home-made magazine could be and he lived up to that vision and beyond. The Cimmerian is not a slick, mass-produced article, but a remarkable series of little books that have a hand-made feel as if the monks of some Irish Abbey had become Conan fans. They are truly one-of-a-kind artifacts.
Farewell Cimmerian!
-Dave Hardy
Friday, February 13, 2009
A NEW ISSUE OF DARK WORLDS
From over at Dark Worlds HQ, word comes of issue number 3 of the acclaimed anything-goes-fantasy-sci-fi-mystery-adventure mag.
The third issue of the Pulp-Descended magazine of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Mystery and other genres. This issue features the Fantasy "The Tomb of the Amazon Queen" by Michael Ehart. Also included are "Roadblock", a space opera adventure by Jack Mackenzie, "The Storming of Big Spree" an historical adventure by David A. Hardy, "Bayou Mirage" a Dark Fantasy by E. P. Berglund, "Let Sleeping Dogs Lie", a detective Mystery by Nick Andreychuk, "Laocoon" a Weird Western by G. W. Thomas, "Communications Delay, SF by Lee Beavington, and a Pirate Fantasy "Immortals of the Cannibal Coast" by Joel Jenkins and Martin Edward Stephenson. Our review/Interview is for BURY ME DEEP by Joshua Reynolds. Also includes a Dark Worlds Club section. Cover by Aaron Siddall. Illustrations by M. D. Jackson, Aaron Siddall, Sam deGraff and G. W. Thomas.
Sunday, February 08, 2009
THE BANDIT OF HELL’S BEND
By Edgar Rice Burroughs
When he wanted to take a break from Tarzan and Barsoom, ERB would occasionally try a Western. The Bandit of Hell’s Bend is one such. The theme is the classic one of stuffed shirt Easterners vs. Robust Westerners (a theme that I daresay underlies much if not most of ERB’s fiction). The foreman of the Slash Y ranch is Bull, a laconic and steady cowpoke in the traditional mode. But the Slash Y and its heiress, Diana Henders, must endure quite a bit before Bull’s finer characteristics are fully manifest. The dashing young cowpoke Colby seems to be the kind of vigorous man to save the ranch as outlaws and Apaches besiege it. Waiting in the wings to take over the Slash Y are a bumptious Yankee industrialist and Diana’s Eastern relations.
Hell’s Bend falls into the typical ERB silent hero, sterling heroine, & big misunderstanding plot category. While nowhere near as innovative as the pair of Apache Westerns ERB wrote (Apache Devil and The War Chief), Hell’s Bend is a decent old-school horse opera.
When he wanted to take a break from Tarzan and Barsoom, ERB would occasionally try a Western. The Bandit of Hell’s Bend is one such. The theme is the classic one of stuffed shirt Easterners vs. Robust Westerners (a theme that I daresay underlies much if not most of ERB’s fiction). The foreman of the Slash Y ranch is Bull, a laconic and steady cowpoke in the traditional mode. But the Slash Y and its heiress, Diana Henders, must endure quite a bit before Bull’s finer characteristics are fully manifest. The dashing young cowpoke Colby seems to be the kind of vigorous man to save the ranch as outlaws and Apaches besiege it. Waiting in the wings to take over the Slash Y are a bumptious Yankee industrialist and Diana’s Eastern relations.
Hell’s Bend falls into the typical ERB silent hero, sterling heroine, & big misunderstanding plot category. While nowhere near as innovative as the pair of Apache Westerns ERB wrote (Apache Devil and The War Chief), Hell’s Bend is a decent old-school horse opera.
-Dave Hardy
Sunday, February 01, 2009
SEASON OF THE JEW
By Maurice Shadbolt
Novels about the Maori Wars are perhaps uncommon, but the ones I’ve read are uncommon good. Season of the Jew is part farce, part Western shoot-‘em-up, and part Journey to Hell. The Maori Wars were an odd kind of conflict. They were essentially an Indian war, but fought in the temperate rain forests of New Zealand. They involved as much trench warfare as they did guerrilla warfare, for the Maori were advanced practitioners of both.
George Fairweather is a British officer who survives enough war to claim a homestead at Poverty Bay. He befriends Coats, a Maori who served on the side of the “pakeha”, as the natives call the whites. But persecution, exile, escape, and pursuit transforms Coates from a genially atheistic rum—runner into Kooti, a prophet of war seeking to purge his Zion of the gentiles. Fairweather pays dearly for lost friendship, and pays even dearer for simple humanity. Season of the Jew builds to one of the grimmest denouements I have ever read.
Shadbolt is an unusual writer, at times he is more at home with a sort of 19th century banter that seems to some by way of a 1940s Hollywood movie. At other times he depicts waking nightmares of wanton cruelty. It never comes across as mere shock either, man’s best is never far from his worst. While not a great stylist, Shadbolt was unflinching in his indictment of baseness and created memorable work from it.
Novels about the Maori Wars are perhaps uncommon, but the ones I’ve read are uncommon good. Season of the Jew is part farce, part Western shoot-‘em-up, and part Journey to Hell. The Maori Wars were an odd kind of conflict. They were essentially an Indian war, but fought in the temperate rain forests of New Zealand. They involved as much trench warfare as they did guerrilla warfare, for the Maori were advanced practitioners of both.
George Fairweather is a British officer who survives enough war to claim a homestead at Poverty Bay. He befriends Coats, a Maori who served on the side of the “pakeha”, as the natives call the whites. But persecution, exile, escape, and pursuit transforms Coates from a genially atheistic rum—runner into Kooti, a prophet of war seeking to purge his Zion of the gentiles. Fairweather pays dearly for lost friendship, and pays even dearer for simple humanity. Season of the Jew builds to one of the grimmest denouements I have ever read.
Shadbolt is an unusual writer, at times he is more at home with a sort of 19th century banter that seems to some by way of a 1940s Hollywood movie. At other times he depicts waking nightmares of wanton cruelty. It never comes across as mere shock either, man’s best is never far from his worst. While not a great stylist, Shadbolt was unflinching in his indictment of baseness and created memorable work from it.
-Dave Hardy
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
A PIRATE OF EXQUISITE MIND
By Diana & Michael Preston
This is a biography of William Dampier the 17th century explorer and naturalist. He also happened to be a buccaneer and pirate.
Dampier was a typical English lad, if a bit precocious and pompous in his youth. Yearning to get on in the world, he went to the West Indies in 1674. But a life playing second fiddle to a Jamaican planter did not suit Dampier. He soon drifted into the company of lumberjacks. In the West Indies, logwood men were a tough bunch. Like the boucaniers of Hispaniola, the logwood cutters were frontiersmen living on the fringes of the Spanish colonies. And like the boucan-hunters, the logwood men liked a bit of piracy.
Dampier joined in the freebooting about the time that the raiders were moving into Pacific waters. Dampier accompanied them as medic on pillaging expeditions about the Spanish Main as well as in the Pacific. He was an unusual sort of pirate, as interested in carrying off scientific observations as loot (though he did pretty well in the matter of plunder).
A Pirate of Exquisite Mind follows Dampier on his many voyages and offers a wealth of detail thanks to Dampier’s own extensive memoirs. The Prestons examine not only the world that Dampier moved through, but also the man and his reaction to it. Anyone interested in the history of pirates and pillagers as well as those interested in exploration and science will find this book quite readable and informative.
This is a biography of William Dampier the 17th century explorer and naturalist. He also happened to be a buccaneer and pirate.
Dampier was a typical English lad, if a bit precocious and pompous in his youth. Yearning to get on in the world, he went to the West Indies in 1674. But a life playing second fiddle to a Jamaican planter did not suit Dampier. He soon drifted into the company of lumberjacks. In the West Indies, logwood men were a tough bunch. Like the boucaniers of Hispaniola, the logwood cutters were frontiersmen living on the fringes of the Spanish colonies. And like the boucan-hunters, the logwood men liked a bit of piracy.
Dampier joined in the freebooting about the time that the raiders were moving into Pacific waters. Dampier accompanied them as medic on pillaging expeditions about the Spanish Main as well as in the Pacific. He was an unusual sort of pirate, as interested in carrying off scientific observations as loot (though he did pretty well in the matter of plunder).
A Pirate of Exquisite Mind follows Dampier on his many voyages and offers a wealth of detail thanks to Dampier’s own extensive memoirs. The Prestons examine not only the world that Dampier moved through, but also the man and his reaction to it. Anyone interested in the history of pirates and pillagers as well as those interested in exploration and science will find this book quite readable and informative.
-Dave Hardy
Sunday, January 25, 2009
DEATH ANGEL’S SHADOW
By Karl Edward Wagner
True confession, when the first Kane novel I read, Dark Crusade, did not impress me all that much. But I kept hearing from others just how good a writer Karl Edward Wagner was. So I gave it another try. I am glad I did!
Death Angel’s Shadow is some of the most hard-boiled Sword & Sorcery (KEW preferred to call it Epic Fantasy) that I have read. Kane is part Conan, part Elric, and I think part Charles Manson. Death Angel is a collection of three novellas where Kane tangles with cursed families, werewolves, dying cities, and the restless, hungry dead. Kane comes out on top, but only just.
The finest story here is “Cold Light”. A stalwart crusader pursues Kane into a remote wasteland. Kane’s multiple iniquities are never in doubt, but the hunter of monsters have an uncanny resemblance to their prey. KEW may not be a great stylist. I find his prose a bit too close to late-20th c. vernacular, it calls attention to itself when it should be silent and timeless. However, KEW manages a superb exploration of the razor thin line between good and evil that practically grabs the reader and slaps him across the face. I’m going to give Karl Edward Wagner’s stories more attention.
True confession, when the first Kane novel I read, Dark Crusade, did not impress me all that much. But I kept hearing from others just how good a writer Karl Edward Wagner was. So I gave it another try. I am glad I did!
Death Angel’s Shadow is some of the most hard-boiled Sword & Sorcery (KEW preferred to call it Epic Fantasy) that I have read. Kane is part Conan, part Elric, and I think part Charles Manson. Death Angel is a collection of three novellas where Kane tangles with cursed families, werewolves, dying cities, and the restless, hungry dead. Kane comes out on top, but only just.
The finest story here is “Cold Light”. A stalwart crusader pursues Kane into a remote wasteland. Kane’s multiple iniquities are never in doubt, but the hunter of monsters have an uncanny resemblance to their prey. KEW may not be a great stylist. I find his prose a bit too close to late-20th c. vernacular, it calls attention to itself when it should be silent and timeless. However, KEW manages a superb exploration of the razor thin line between good and evil that practically grabs the reader and slaps him across the face. I’m going to give Karl Edward Wagner’s stories more attention.
-Dave Hardy
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