This review originally appeared on Goodreads on July 4, 2012.

Delta Green: Denied to the Enemy

By Dennis Detwiller – Armitage House – March 1, 2004

Review by Robin Marx

This was an interesting book, but it has some issues. As a game tie-in it's not very friendly to newcomers, the main plot isn't as exciting as an early subplot, and it over-promises for such a slender volume. That being said, I enjoyed what Detwiller tried to accomplish, and both the beginning and ending were quite strong.

This book is for established fans only. This book is billed as “A Cthulhu Mythos Novel of World War II,” and familiarity with the work of H.P. Lovecraft (particularly his Mythos stories “Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family” and “The Shadow Out of Time”) are effectively required to comprehend this story. Some knowledge of the Delta Green campaign setting for the Lovecraft-inspired Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game is also advisable if you want to get the most enjoyment out of the story.

After a cryptic prologue about an aged military officer contemplating suicide, the story gets very interesting, very quick. We're introduced to a member of the Ahnenerbe, a (historical) Nazi organization dedicated to occult study. It soon becomes clear that he's been left disaffected and not a little mentally unstable by his studies, and that he's just biding his time until he can defect to the Allies and throw a monkey wrench in the Axis's literal scorched earth strategy. The narrative takes him to a coastal town in occupied France, where he becomes an unwilling bystander to the Ahnenerbe's efforts to broker an alliance with the Deep Ones, mutant fish-men introduced in Lovecraft's “The Shadow Over Innsmouth.” The close encounters with the Deep Ones are very creepy and obliquely written, Detwiller does an excellent job portraying the characters' sanity leach away through close proximity with the unknowable. Here we had unhinged (yet sympathetic) people committing atrocities to curry favor with disturbing allies; this was the peak of the book for me, it's a shame it came so early.

Unfortunately, the Deep Ones section of the book comes to an abrupt end as the books' true protagonists arrive on the scene: Delta Green, a subdivision of the OSS tasked to deal with supernatural threats. The story to follow is still fun—particularly if you enjoy Delta Green—but after such an atmospheric build-up it felt like a vaguely disappointing bait-and-switch. The story's true antagonists are somewhat undefined, and the primary plot twist towards the end seemed poorly foreshadowed, with baffling motivations.

In the end, the story ends up being a Call of Cthulhu story set during World War II, rather than a “Cthulhu Mythos novel of World War II”. There are two slight distinctions here. One is that readers hoping for an grand reveal of the occult side of World War II will be disappointed; this book is nowhere near that epic in scope. The second distinction is that—perhaps unsurprisingly, given the origins of the Delta Green property—Denied to the Enemy leans more towards the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game's interpretation of the Cthulhu Mythos than Lovecraft. I counted about five different creature types appearing over the course of the story, while most literary Mythos authors tend to limit themselves to one or two. While monster-spotting is sort of fun for RPG fans, some of the cameos were a little gratuitous, like attempts at fan service. (Don't have the Tcho-Tchos show up if you're not going to do anything with them!)

If you're already a Delta Green fan, by all means give this book a shot. But if you're not, this book won't turn you into one.

★★★☆☆

#CapsuleReviewArchive #BookReview #Horror #CosmicHorror #CthulhuMythos #HPLovecraft #DeltaGreen #DeniedToTheEnemy #DennisDetwiller

This review originally appeared on Goodreads on September 21, 2012.

Wizzywig: Portrait of a Serial Hacker

By Ed Piskor – Top Shelf Productions – July 4, 2012

Review by Robin Marx

This comic is like a hacker version of Forrest Gump, with fictional character Kevin “Boingthump” Phenicle taking readers on an abbreviated tour of hacker history.

The story starts with the early blue-boxing and phone phreaking days, up through the rise of BBSes and the Internet, finally touching upon Wikileaks and Adrian Lamo. Real historical events are woven into the narrative (from Kevin Mitnick's exploits and the Morris Worm to comparatively obscure topics like the Secret Service's raid on Steve Jackson Games over the GURPS Cyberpunk RPG supplement), and like Forrest Gump, Boingthump often finds himself directly involved or tangentially associated with the events of the time.

While the history lesson is fun, the original parts of the story are compelling as well. While flawed and lacking impulse control, Kevin is an appealing character and his exploits were likewise engaging.

The artwork is excellent throughout. There's an artful ugliness to a lot of Piskor's portrait work that seems influenced by Mad Magazine and underground comix.

Ed Piskor's more recent work has been popping up on BoingBoing, with both sporadic, stand-alone Brain Rot strips and the consistently excellent Hip Hop Family Tree series.

WIZZYWIG is a quick, fun read and recommended to people with an interest in computers.

★★★★☆

#CapsuleReviewArchive #ComicReview #Technology #History #EdPiskor #WizzywigPortraitOfASerialHacker

This review originally appeared on Goodreads on January 4, 2018.

The Collected Fiction, Vol. 3: The Ghost Pirates and Other Revenants of the Sea

By William Hope Hodgson – Night Shade Books – August 1, 2005

Review by Robin Marx

The third entry in Night Shade Books' series of superb William Hope Hodgson collections, this installment collects his novel The Ghost Pirates and 28 other sea-based stories. The stories are a mix of weird tales, mysteries, slice of life tales, and pulpy adventures.

The Ghost Pirates

As with his other ship-bound novel The Boats of the 'Glen Carrig', Hodgson makes excellent use of his experience as a sailor, serving up an atmospheric ghost story. Apart from the nautical theme, however, The Ghost Pirates is a very different novel from The Boats of the 'Glen Carrig', and in some ways an inferior one.

The highlights of this book are without a doubt the dialogue and the atmosphere. The Boats of the 'Glen Carrig' lacked any spoken dialogue, so its inclusion here is a nice change. The jargon-sprinkled sea salt conversations are at times hard to follow, but they feel authentic and flavorful. Some reviewers bemoan the lack of a glossary of nautical terms—Hodgson doesn't go to any effort to explain capstans and binnacles to the reader—but I didn't feel as if missing out on a word here or there impacted my enjoyment of the overall story.

While the plot itself is quite sleight (a characteristic shared by all of the Hodgson novels I've read to date), its execution is well done. Hodgson was a master of atmosphere, setting up a number of strange occurrences that gradually build into a tense, unnerving scenario.

I enjoyed The Ghost Pirates, but I think I would've liked it better had I read it before The Boats of the 'Glen Carrig', rather than afterward. 'Glen Carrig' is filled with such bizarre fever dream imagery that the spirits of the dead, however spooky, seem rather conventional by comparison. That being said, The Ghost Pirates is an interesting traditional ghost story, and well told.

... and Other Revenants of the Sea

Making up the bulk of the book, the short stories that follow The Ghost Pirates are, inevitably, a mixed bag in terms of quality, but as a Hodgson enthusiast I appreciated the inclusion of even the lesser works (the posthumously published “Old Golly,” or “We murdered a black sailor because he was black and maybe he's haunting us now?”). The best of the stories are quite good, and the vast majority of them are at least interesting.

Fans of Hodgson's supernatural fiction will find a lot to like here. There are sea serpents, a were-shark, derelict ships overrun with carnivorous fungi and other bizarre horrors, fish men, even a ship made of stone.

The more conventional stories were also fascinating, however. “The Sharks of the St. Elmo” is a particularly tense story about a becalmed ship surrounded by thousands of thrashing sharks as far as the eye can see. The narrator finds himself pushed into a leadership role as the captain and First Mate drink themselves senseless and the crew begin searching about for a “Jonah,” a cursed shipmate who must be disposed of lest he damn the rest of the men. Jonahs are a recurring topic in many of the included stories.

Shipboard bullying is another recurring theme in this collection of stories. I suspect it's telling that, despite his prior career as a sailor, Hodgson refused a position in the Royal Navy when he enlisted in the first World War. Some of the brawlers featured here are presented in a favorable light (e.g., the eponymous “Jack Grey, Second Mate” is a badass who would be at home in a Robert E. Howard yarn), but most of the time they're vicious, drunk foes to be bested by the protagonists. “We Two and Bully Dunkan” is a clever shipboard heist in which two sailors get their revenge against their tormentors. Like a Boys' Life Magazine story gone horribly wrong, “The 'Prentices' Mutiny” is a harrowing tale of a ship's youngest crew members under siege by bullying shipmates turned murderous.

While I consider The Ghost Pirates to be the weakest of Hodgson's novels, it's still a worthwhile read, and the more than two dozen nautical stories that accompany it make this volume a particularly appealing package.

★★★★☆

#CapsuleReviewArchive #BookReview #Horror #NauticalFiction #TheGhostPirates #WilliamHopeHodgson

This review originally appeared on Goodreads on July 14, 2017.

Cured: The Tale of Two Imaginary Boys

By Lol Tolhurst – Da Capo – September 22, 2016

Review by Robin Marx

The first half of the book, describing how three friends came together to form a band in a dead-end English suburb, is the strongest. During the years covered in the second half Tolhurst's alcoholism led to blackouts and memory loss, with the result that he seemed to have few anecdotes to relate for some of The Cure's most vibrant years.

The passages involving Robert Smith seemed mostly tentative, as if Tolhurst was worried about damaging his recent reconciliation with Smith by writing anything less than glowing. This was a nice story, gently told, but fans hoping for detailed insight into the inner workings of The Cure are likely to be disappointed.

★★★☆☆

#CapsuleReviewArchive #BookReview #Nonfiction #Memoir #Music #TheCure #CuredTheTaleOfTwoImaginaryBoys #LolTolhurst

This review originally appeared on Goodreads on October 26, 2015.

The End of the Story

By Clark Ashton Smith – Night Shade Books – September 1, 2006

Review by Robin Marx

[Introduction] The introduction is nice and appropriately respectful of Clark Ashton Smith's legacy, but it won't mean much to new readers not yet familiar with his work. The introduction was written by British horror writer Ramsay Campbell, who along with Robert M. Price and Brian Lumley, is one of the major living figures in modern Lovecraftian horror fiction. Campbell's Lovecraftian creatures have been statted up in Call of Cthulhu, most notably Glaaki (from The Inhabitant of the Lake), the Insects from Shaggai, and Y'Golonac. I agree that CAS has fantastic, evocative titles. Campbell also touches on the fact that CAS created and revisited a number of distinct fantasy worlds in his fiction, including the Hyperborea (a pre-Ice Age setting), Poseidonis (remnants of Atlantis), Averoigne (based on medieval France), and Zothique (far, far future, as the Earth gradually dies).

[To the Daemon] This is more of a prose poem than a story, but I like how packed it is with strange imagery (“eyeless titans,” “beings that wander in the green light of the twin suns of azure and orange”). In the Introduction Campbell suggests that it might be Smith talking to his writerly muse, asking this “daemon” to tell him stories, but to me it feels more like a bored sorcerer or aristocrat demanding entertainment from a literal summoned demon. It also reminds me of this famous bit from the very first Conan story by Robert E. Howard, “The Phoenix on the Sword” (also paraphrased at the beginning of the Conan the Barbarian movie):

“KNOW, oh prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars—Nemedia, Ophir, Brythunia, Hyperborea, Zamora with its dark-haired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery, Zingara with its chivalry, Koth that bordered on the pastoral lands of Shem, Stygia with its shadow-guarded tombs, Hyrkania whose riders wore steel and silk and gold. But the proudest kingdom of the world was Aquilonia, reigning supreme in the dreaming west. Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet.”

Both passages manage to pack a lot of exciting and mysterious imagery into just a wee bit of text.

[The Abominations of Yondo] While one of CAS's early stories, this one in particular stuck with me for the decades since I first read it. The plot is a bit sleight, and it's more of a string of events that happen to the narrator than a plot with a beginning, middle, and end, but I like it.

So much of modern fantasy places an undue emphasis on world-building, where the author conceives and documents everything about his setting in advance and details everything down to the lineage of the last rural goat farmer. Tolkien and the Star Wars Expanded Universe are two major examples of this. While that's a perfectly valid approach and one beloved by geek fans (in my experience especially “right-brain” engineer types who value internal consistency above all else) who want to immerse themselves in ultra-detailed fantasy worlds, it's not the One True Way to go about things in fantasy & SF. In this story CAS hints about so much, without really revealing anything. The result is a lot of appealing mysterious imagery. Remember in Star Wars how cool and intriguing the “Clone Wars” and Jedi sounded? Until you found out how dull the Clone Wars really were, and that Jedi powers are powered by Midichlorians? CAS doesn't mess around with all that. He MIGHT have planned the background out in great detail (I kinda doubt it, though), but he doesn't tip his hand to the readers. He reveals enough to make you intrigued, but continues on with the story. Who are the Inquisitors of Ong and why did they torture the narrator? Why is the world so devastated? Who knows. The reader is left to fill in the blanks by himself. You see this a lot in old school sword & sorcery fiction (“Remember that time we were almost killed by the Winged Men of Xarn?”) and I dig it. I prefer evocative and tantalizing hints over info-dump exposition.

It's interesting to note that the chuckling bat-faced nine-legged monster that emerges from the cave in this story has been statted up in Call of Cthulhu. It's not given a name by Clark Ashton Smith, but the CoC writers call it a Wamp and say it lives in Lovecraft's Dreamlands. There have been a number of other cases where I've read about a cool monster in Call of Cthulhu, only to read the original Mythos story and find out that the monster in question only shows up for a paragraph, or is just mentioned in passing in a “I heard from a guy who heard from a guy that this monster exists” way. It's kind of funny. I love Call of Cthulhu, but it has kind of a funny Pokémon-style “Gotta catch 'em all!” Pokédex take on quantifying and categorizing Mythos creatures.

It's a little thing, but the big image from this story that has always stuck with me is the screaming half-buried statue of the naked woman. I don't have anything particularly profound to say about this passage, but it creeped me out when I first read it, and it still stands out to me today. It reminds me a bit of the Elric stories, where the Sorcerers of Pan-Tang turn enemies into living, wailing statues.

I also like the last line of the story, where the narrator flees back past all the horrors he's seen, into the waiting arms of the Inquisitors of Ong. Did they release him in Yondo as a death sentence? Were they hoping he'd see something in particular? Was this exile to Yondo just another form of torture (perhaps the likeliest explanation to me)? We can only speculate.

[Sadastor] This is a story told by a demon to cheer up a lamia, which is a premise I find delightful.

To me, the main theme of this story is loss, which is something that shows up frequently in CAS's work a lot. Beautiful things are always rotting, temples and empires are falling to pieces, continents sink, and even whole planets die. This focus is probably only natural, though, as Smith was a fan of Romantic poetry and even categorized with his collages as a “West Coast Romantic.” (It might not be a coincidence that a lamia shows up in this story, too, as Romantic poet John Keats famously wrote a poem called “Lamia.”)

As an aside, I like the fact that the demon Charnadis physically flies through space, including into the atmospheres of Neptune and Jupiter. I like how it brazenly defies the laws of physics, with no attempt at providing a pseudo-scientific explanation. I think I first encountered this with the unnamed flying creatures from HPL's “The Festival” (they came to become known as Byakhee), and it's always appealed to me. Unless I'm mistaken, even in CAS's time they knew it was impossible for muscle-powered flight to work in a vacuum, but it's both a cool mental image and a quick way to show that normal human rules about How Things Are do not apply.

[The Ninth Skeleton] Despite mention of a girl named Guenevere, this story takes place in contemporary California, near Auburn (the town in which the real CAS lived). After the past few stories it was a little jarring to see the author turn his same extremely descriptive gaze to California forests rather than alien landscapes.

While there are some nice creepy bits, overall this story fell flat with me. Why are skeletons wandering through the forest carrying infants? Mystery a la “Abominations of Yondo” is one thing, but here it felt too cryptic and obscure. And while It might not have been so played out when the story was written in the 1930s, the ending felt like the “It was all a dream, or was it?” trope.

[The Last Incantation] While “The Ninth Skeleton” was a bit bland, “The Last Incantation” is another one of CAS's best, and a story that has stuck with me for decades. The beginning creates an extremely vivid scene of a wizard's sanctuary, and “Malygris” is a particularly delicious name for a magician. I believe this might also be the first story explicitly set in Hyperborea. Anyway, the ending is classic; Malygris discovers that with all his power, he can't bring back the magic of young love. Again we see the recurring theme of loss in Smith's work. I also suspect it's not a coincidence that Malygris' demon familiar takes the form of a snake; like the serpent in Eden he harbors more knowledge than the protagonist.

[The End of the Story] I think this is the first Averoigne story. While the fairly conventional setting of Averoigne doesn't capture my imagination as much as Zothique or Hyperborea, it still has an interesting atmosphere. The story itself is pretty straightforward, without any major surprises, but the lush, sensual presentation of Nycea appeals. Unlike Lovecraft, Smith was fond of including sexual temptation as an element in his work, and I never get tired of femmes fatale.

[The Phantoms of the Fire] This is kind of a clunky, banal story. It's frequently embarrassing when authors attempt to emulate regional dialects; it was clunky in Lovecraft (e.g., “The Shadow Over Innsmouth”), and it's awkward here, too. The foreshadowing is heavy-handed and the protagonist lacking in sympathetic qualities. About the only redeeming quality is some elegant description of the scenery.

[A Night in Malneant] While the ending is a bit predictable bit light on plot, this story is heavy on atmosphere. It reminds me a bit of Silent Hill 2, with the narrator trapped in a hell that reflects his mental state.

[The Resurrection of the Rattlesnake] One of CAS's lesser works. I found the ending more confusing than mysterious.

[Thirteen Phantasms] I noticed that the name of the protagonist, Alvington, is a bit similar to “Avilton” from the previous story. The plot itself reminds me a bit of “The Ninth Skeleton,” as it basically relates a brief encounter with the supernatural. It feels like Smith is emulating Poe with this story.

[The Venus of Azombeii] I found this story to be pretty exciting. It has sort of a “Lost World” pulp adventure feel, and despite being published circa 1931 the African characters are presented more fairly than in much of the fiction of the time. Despite being idealized to a certain extent, Mybaloe is a strong and appealing character who is given more to do than just be a passive object of admiration. The final paragraph is pretty brutal.

[The Tale of Satampra Zeiros] Like “The Last Incantation,” this Hyperborea story is another example of Smith at his best (Lovecraft especially liked this story as well). In terms of the Mythos, this story introduces Tsathoggua and the monster named the “Formless Spawn of Tsathoggua” in the Call of Cthulhu RPG. As usual, Smith's invented names (Satampra Zeiros, Tirouv Ompallios, Cunambria) are flavorful and charming. While it takes a turn towards the horrific, the first half of the story has a great picaresque feel, with charming dialogue (e.g., the two thieves deciding whether or not to buy food or alcohol with their remaining coin) and a droll voice. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Fritz Leiber and Jack Vance were influenced by this tale in particular.

The relentless stalking of the amorphous creature from the temple was exciting. In a lot of Mythos tales, the story would end—in insanity or death—abruptly after its first appearance, but Smith doesn't let his characters off that easily. The “every man for himself” finale and jaunty farewells make me smile.

[The Monster of the Prophecy] One of the lengthier stories in this volume, it involves an unsuccessful poet being taken to a planet orbiting Antares, where he lives a brief life of pampered luxury before the dominating regime collapses and he finds himself fleeing for his life. The spacecraft, setting, and the aliens described are all extremely imaginative. (Science fiction was more fun before it was codified by realism-fetishists like John W. Campbell.) This story feels a bit like Edgar Rice Burrough's planetary romances, minus the protagonists super-competence. I also liked that the poet continues to make the best of his life in space, rather than slink back to Earth in defeat.

[The Metamorphosis of the World] Scientists investigate strange and sudden changes in the environment, with the Sahara and other locales undergoing bizarre, life-threatening metamorphoses. As the story progresses they learn that Venusians are “terraforming” the planet, transforming it to suit their habitational needs ahead of their impending invasion. Maybe I haven't read enough classic SF, but the premise felt extremely novel to me; I've read plenty of stories where aliens invade, but this was the first I can recall where they take steps to make the planet more like their own home. I was also a bit taken aback by the grimness of the tone. Nearly all of the characters featured in the story die horrible, agonizing deaths. The story ends 20 years after the start of the invasion, and while mankind has put up a valiant fight and gained some powerful weapons, their victory is still far from assured. Pretty bleak stuff.

[The Epiphany of Death] Short and fairly insubstantial, but atmospherically written.

[A Murder in the Fourth Dimension] This story reads like a minor episode of the Twilight Zone, complete with ironic comeuppance. The romantic conflict at the beginning could have been developed further; as it stands, the narrator just seems petty. The story has an interesting premise, though, and a spooky conclusion.

[The Devotee of Evil] This is another story that relies more on atmosphere and prose than plotting. Much like “loss,” genius characters done in by their own hubris is a frequently recurring theme in CAS's work.

[The Satyr] The appendix of the book has an alternate ending for this story, but the one included with the story itself is far superior. The forest in Averoigne is beautifully described, and the supernatural elements are surprisingly subtle and incidental to the story itself.

[The Planet of the Dead] An interesting portrayal of romance on a dying planet. This story feels like one of those crushing dreams where you experience a perfect love, only to be wrenched back to reality. The way the protagonist is drawn into space through his telescope again reminds me of Edgar Rice Burrough's Barsoom, where John Carter basically teleports to Mars.

[The Uncharted Isle] Brief but creepy. Not only does the narrator find himself on a bizarre isle seemingly removed from time, the fact that the other inhabitants can't perceive him makes his plight feel so much more desperate. This story reminds me of William Hope Hodgson's spooky nautical tales.

[Marooned in Andromeda] SF tales of characters being stranded on dangerous planets are common, but this is the first I've seen that has mutineers intentionally marooned in space. The story that follows is a bit formulaic for CAS (“characters journey through strange terrain” is a theme that pops up again and again), and the “all is forgiven” ending seemed a bit pat, but this was still an engrossing adventure tale.

[The Root of Ampoi] In some ways, this story felt like the opposite of “The Venus of Azombei.” Like that story, the protagonist finds himself in a lost world and romances a tribal queen. But rather than have his idyllic days spoiled by a jealous interloper, he spoils his own paradise out of a sexist desire to “assume his rightful place as a man” and dominate his giant bride. The climax, where Knox is bodily cast out from village society, is effective, but I felt the story could have benefited from some final reflection by the main character on his actions.

[The Necromantic Tale] The ending is probably a bit predictable to modern readers, but this is still an entertaining read in the tradition of Edgar Allan Poe.

[The Immeasurable Horror] Another brutal SF tale. If you journey into Smith's version of space you're almost guaranteed a horrible fate. The narrator survives, but endures horrific injuries and mental scars. An interesting example of horrific SF, but by this point in the book it felt a little over-long.

[A Voyage of Sfanomoe] This tale is a sort of counterpoint to “The Immeasurable Horror.” Two genius scientist brothers from the dying realm of Poseidonis build a spherical spaceship and journey to Venus/Sfanomoe in an attempt to avoid perishing along with their society. This being a CAS story, the brothers die nearly immediately after their arrival, but they're extinguished in such a wonderful, painless, exhilarating way that this reader actually felt joy. The last Atlanteans dissolve into beautiful Venusian flowers, effectively being embraced and absorbed into their new home. And that's not such a bad way for two old men to go, is it?

[Concluding Thoughts] While there are some definite hits and misses in this collection, the breadth of CAS' imagination is astonishing. Even the lesser stories are eloquently written, and the better tales (“Abomination of Yondo,” “The Tale of Satampra Zeiros,” “The Last Incantation”) are among the best the fantasy genre has ever seen. Just this one volume would be a powerful retrospective of an author's career; the fact that no fewer than four volumes follow in this Collected Fantasies series is nothing short of amazing. Clark Ashton Smith is a giant, and every fantasy fan should explore his work.

★★★★★

#CapsuleReviewArchive #BookReview #SwordAndSorcery #Fantasy #ClarkAshtonSmith #TheEndOfTheStory

This review originally appeared on Goodreads on January 21, 2022.

Return of the Sword: An Anthology of Heroic Adventure

Edited by Jason M. Waltz – Rogue Blades Entertainment – January 1, 2008

Review by Robin Marx

This anthology focuses primarily on sword & sorcery tales, with a touch of historical adventure as well. As with all anthologies, some stories stood out more than others.

Neither “Mountain Scarab” by Jeff Stewart nor “Red Hands,” a 1935 Cossack tale by Harold Lamb, directly involve the supernatural, but both are vigorous adventures with exciting swordplay.

Some of the best stories in the anthology have an element of humor. “To Be a Man” by Robert Rhodes involves an exhausted fellow trying to escape his lusty and bloodthirsty amazon-like bandit paramour. “An Uneasy Truce in Ulam-Bator,” by Allen B. Lloyd & William Clunie, involves a spell gone wrong, turning a callow sorcerer and his barbarian mercenary into unlikely allies.

For me, the highlight of the book was “The Red Worm's Way,” by James Enge and starring his Morlock Ambrosius character. The story combines weird occurrences and a creepy supernatural threat with clever twists and Morlock's wry wit.

While I wouldn't call it a misstep, necessarily, the inclusion of a writing advice article by E.E. Knight is a bit mystifying. While perhaps helpful to budding writers, the advice isn't particularly tailored to sword & sorcery fiction (Star Wars and Titanic are frequently used in the examples), and as the only non-fiction entry in the anthology it feels fairly superfluous.

Overall this is an entertaining look at fairly recent sword & sorcery (with the exception of classic author Harold Lamb) and wholeheartedly recommended to fans of the sub-genre.

★★★★☆

#CapsuleReviewArchive #BookReview #SwordAndSorcery #Fantasy #JasonMWaltz #ReturnOfTheSword

This review originally appeared on Goodreads on December 29, 2020.

Griots: A Sword and Soul Anthology

Edited by Milton J. Davis & Charles R. Saunders – Mvmedia, LLC – August 7, 2011

Review by Robin Marx

Griots is an anthology of African-inspired sword & sorcery, or “Sword & Soul” as dubbed by the sub-genre’s first proponent, Charles Saunders. The anthology sets out to provide fantasy stories in a neglected milieu (nearly all the stories take place in Africa or an Africa-like fantasy setting), with Black heroes and heroines in a genre that has long had a tendency to put dark-skinned characters in the roles of supporting characters or antagonists.

The anthology gets off to a strong start with “Mrembo Aliyenaswa,” an adventure by active sword & soul promoter Milton Davis. Much like many Robert E. Howard stories, it’s set in a historical African setting with a light touch of magic. I’d never read any of Davis’ other stories featuring his hero Changa, but this story encourages me to check them out.

“Awakening” by Valjeanne Jeffers is less testosterone-drenched than the bulk of the stories in this anthology, but it serves up an interesting blend of action and mythology.

“The Demon in the Wall” is a fun adventure involving a young warrior and his spry, alluring grandmother(!) fending off a supernatural invasion. The characters in this story are particularly fun, including one antagonist who isn’t fully committed to evil.

Other standout stories included “The General’s Daughter” (by Anthony Nana Kwamu), “The Queen, the Demon, and the Mercenary” (by Ronald T. Jones), and “Icewitch” (by Rebecca McFarland Kyle). The latter is notable for being the only story NOT taking place in an African setting, involving a Black character among a tribe of white people in the frozen north.

The best story by far is “The Three-Faced One,” an Imaro tale by Charles Saunders. I imagine it must have been intimidating for the newer writers appearing in the same anthology as the genre’s founder, and Saunders really delivers. Imaro remains an appealing hero, and the supernatural threat he faces is an intriguing one.

While it’s nice that this anthology collects and spotlights African fantasy and Black heroes, nearly any of these stories would just as easily be at home in any sword & sorcery anthology. So if you enjoy sword & sorcery but aren’t familiar with sword & soul, give it a try!

★★★★☆

#CapsuleReviewArchive #BookReview #Fantasy #SwordAndSorcery #SwordAndSoul #Fantasy #MiltonJDavis #CharlesSaunders #Griots

This review originally appeared on Goodreads on July 3, 2022.

Nothing But Blackened Teeth

By Cassandra Khaw – Tor Nightfire – October 19, 2021

Review by Robin Marx

Hilarity ensues when five deeply unlikeable characters who barely tolerate each other spend the night in a haunted Japanese mansion.

While the prose had its moments, the characters and story were deeply disappointing. I don’t require books to have an appealing viewpoint character, but everyone presented here is obnoxious and tedious, with only thinly veiled contempt for each other. Animosity within a group can work in a longer piece of fiction, where there’s more time to explore both the ties that keep people together and not just the things that irk them about each other (Adam Nevill’s The Ritual), but there’s no room for that in this brief story, and the characters are at each other’s throats even before anything supernatural occurs. Irritating characters that the audience enjoy watching get killed off is a common horror movie trope, but there’s usually at least one appealing character to root for. This story has ZERO, and the body count is also lamentably low.

The Japanese setting details also had issues. The characters stay in a neglected mansion from the Heian period (c. 794-1185), but less than two dozen buildings remain from this era, most of them temples or shrines, and certainly none of them could be described as abandoned. Japan’s climate and seismic activity is unkind to old architecture.

The characters also come across a book with a ritual to solve their problems, but rather than be in the form of a period-appropriate scroll (written in ancient text that nobody but a specialist scholar would be able to read, anyway), it’s a leather-bound vellum book. There are other apparent missteps, and that’s even after ignoring odd details that could possibly have a spooky supernatural rationale.

The author also name-drops several yōkai (spirits/monsters) without elaborating on them for the audience. I speak Japanese and am familiar with the folklore, but this felt a bit ostentatious, like the author was showing off her research. But given the various false notes in the Japan-centric details, I wasn’t much impressed.

I love horror stories and Japan, so I had high hopes for this book. Not only was I crushed by the actual story, I am mystified as to how this had the full marketing might of TOR behind it. How many novellas get a hardcover release and a $20 cover price? The acknowledgements mention support and encouragement from Ellen Datlow, who is an editor that can usually be counted on to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Avoid this one, folks.

★☆☆☆☆

#CapsuleReviewArchive #BookReview #Horror #Japan #NothingButBlackenedTeeth #CassandraKhaw

This review originally appeared on Goodreads on September 15, 2022.

Rakehell: Issue 1

Edited by Nathaniel Webb – Young Needles Press – July 1, 2022

Review by Robin Marx

This is the first issue of what is promoted as “a modern magazine of swashbuckling adventure,” mentioning Robin Hood, the Three Musketeers, and Indiana Jones as touchstones.

The issue starts off strong, with “The Mortuary Sword” by H. R. Laurence. Featuring the heroine from the magazine's appealing cover artwork, it involves a highwayman who encounters a supernatural threat on the road. The tone of the story is pitch-perfect, and the low-key fantastic aspects add spice without overshadowing the swashbuckling swordplay.

“The Trans-Pacific Railway” by Mar Vincent follows. This is a vaguely steampunkish story with stuffy European aristocrats and academic types. The titular railway is set upon by kite-like jetpack-wearing Frenchmen, and the protagonists attempt to harness the occult to fend them off. I may have enjoyed this story more had I encountered it in a different context, but steampunk leaves me cold. The story also seemed to go out of its way to avoid thrilling sword combat and action in general. It felt out of place, given the magazine's mission statement.

“A Fool's Errand in Amberford” by Lawrence Harding involves a mercenary swordswoman escorting a reckless-seeming noncombatant client deep into a ghoul-infested city. There's a fair bit more action than the preceding piece, and I enjoyed the somewhat normalized portrayal of necromancy (the heroine ingeniously keeps paper packets of beetles in her pockets to squish, channeling their life force into magical effects) but it seemed like a straight-up fantasy story. None of the heroine's opponents are armed, making swashbuckling swordplay a non-starter.

Just as I'd begun to wonder if I'd picked up a general fantasy zine by mistake, it's “The Daisy” by T. K. Howell to the rescue! This historical adventure features Francis Drake as a teenaged deckhand trying to survive a mutiny sparked by a hidden cache of silver. This story has tense action, witty repartee, and was completely free of fantastical elements. It was exactly the kind of story I'd expected to find within the pages of the magazine.

“When Your Only Tool’s a Hammer” by J. B. Toner is a fun sword & sorcery story, in which a barbarian Cundar of Raelor goes to extreme—and otherworldly—lengths to halt a devastating war. I love sword & sorcery fiction a lot and found this to be an engaging addition to the subgenre. It wasn't much of a swashbuckler, though, and it may have felt more at home in a different venue.

The final story, “The Temple of the Ghost Tiger” by Dariel R. A. Quiogue, was the absolute highlight for me. Fantasy elements are present (the viewpoint character is a man transmogrified into a monkey through occult experimentation, for example) but restrained, with center stage yielded to hand-to-hand combat against pirates, a duel between well-matched opponents, and a desperate struggle against the titular Ghost Tiger. It's a fast-paced cinematic adventure in the tradition of The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, and the primary characters are all appealingly rendered despite their relatively brief “screen time.”

While I enjoyed nearly all of the stories in this magazine, I was leaning towards a three star rating until “The Temple of the Ghost Tiger” blew the doors off at the very end, earning an extra star by itself. My main issue with the magazine was my expectations compared to what was delivered. To me, swashbuckling adventure suggests a Renaissance setting or thereabouts, rapiers and flintlocks, snappy dialogue, and acrobatics. I love general fantasy fiction, but that wasn't what I bought this magazine hoping to read. Perhaps my definition of swashbuckling adventure is too narrow, but it may also be that—being a new publication—the editor lacked an abundance of traditional swashbuckling tales to select from. Compared to general fantasy, swashbuckling adventure fiction is a bit thin on the ground. Hopefully, with future issues, Rakehell will be able to distinguish itself from competing magazines by developing a tighter focus.

★★★★☆

#CapsuleReviewArchive #BookReview #HistoricalFiction #SwordAndSorcery #Fantasy #Rakehell #NathanielWebb

This review originally appeared on Goodreads on July 16, 2017.

The Hacienda: How Not to Run a Club

By Peter Hook – Simon & Schuster UK – October 1, 2009

Review by Robin Marx

This is the first of three books written to date by ex-Joy Division and New Order bassist Peter Hook. It chronicles how he and a motley crew of other Factory Records idealists managed to create a now legendary nightclub that played a central role in Manchester's music scene despite a comical lack of business acumen and competency.

While an entertaining read, I found this to be the weakest of Hook's three books. There was a great deal of overlap between this book and his other two, with many of the most memorable anecdotes covered in more depth in his Substance: Inside New Order book. Fans without a nostalgic connection to the Hacienda and/or Madchester music scene in particular can safely skip this book in favor of his more engrossing Joy Division and New Order memoirs.

★★★☆☆

#CapsuleReviewArchive #BookReview #Nonfiction #Memoir #Music #JoyDivision #NewOrder #TheHacienda #PeterHook