Robert E. Howard and Meditations on Manliness

I write about bears with primitive faults and failings and even if I am nothing but a cub writer, still the faulty characters I make are more real than most of the young intellectual fools with their egoist hooey. I mean my characters are more like bears than these real bears are, see. They’re rough and rude, they got paws and they got tummies. They grumble and they hug; break the fur of teddies and you find the bear, roaring and red-pawed. That’s the way teddies are.
- Robeart E. Howard, letter to Teddy Clyde Smith, week of February 20, 1928.

I was planning on doing a post on Robert E. Howard for his birthday, but couldn't think of anything to write. What is there left to say that hasn't been said over the past 107 years? There are some very interesting ones from Jim Cornelius, Todd Vick, SFGateway, Read at Joe's, Kaijuville, Temple of the Sun, and naturally the Robert E. Howard Forums, but I couldn't think of a "hook." Luckily fate intervened and provided an excellent opportunity via a Rob Bricken article on Io9.com: 11 Preposterously Manly Fantasy Series:

What makes a book series manly? Is it the action? The violence? The lack of female characters? Is it male wish-fulfillment? Misogyny? Or a combination of all these things?

What makes a book series manly? Well, I have an idea of that...

Abraham Merritt, Metal Master

She stood before us, shielding us. One golden call she sent.

I looked back into the darkness. Something like an enormous, dimly shimmering rod was raising itself. Higher it rose and higher. Now it stood, upright, a slender towering pillar, a gigantic slim figure whose tip pointed a full hundred feet in the air.

Then slowly it inclined itself toward us; drew closer, closer to the ground; touched and lay there for an instant inert. Abruptly it vanished.

But well I knew what I had seen. The span over which we had passed had raised itself even as had the baby bridge of the fortress; had lifted itself across the chasm and dropping itself upon the hither verge had disintegrated into its units; was following us.

A bridge of metal that could build itself - and break itself. A thinking, conscious metal bridge! A metal bridge with volition - with mind - that was following us.

There sighed from behind a soft, sustained wailing; rapidly it neared us. A wanly glimmering shape drew by; halted. It was like a rigid serpent cut from a gigantic square bar of cold blue steel.

Its head was a pyramid, a tetrahedron; its length vanished in the further darkness. The head raised itself, the blocks that formed its neck separating into open wedges like a Brobdignagian replica of those jointed, fantastic, little painted reptiles the Japanese toy-makers cut from wood.

It seemed to regard us - mockingly. The pointed head dropped - past us streamed the body. Upon it other pyramids clustered - like the spikes that guarded the back of the nightmare Brontosaurus. Its end came swiftly into sight - its tail another pyramid twin to its head. 

 - A. Merritt, "The Metal Monster" (Illustration by the incomparable Jim Cawthorn)

Today is Abraham Merritt's 128th birthday. Every time someone's anniversary comes along, I feel rather inadequate for rarely coming up with a good tribute. Usually the heavyweights, the Lovecrafts, Tolkiens, Poes, Conan Doyles et al are well represented on the blogosphere: even the criminally neglected Smith had some great tributes. But the vastly under-represented A. Merritt could do with more love, beyond some glib quips about how "The Metal Monster" would make for the most Metal concept album ever. So, I've made a roundup of some of my favourite Merritt tributes and discussions around the web, and have a short look at one of the greats of 20th Century speculative fiction.

Clark Ashton Smith's "The Hashish Eater"

I'm always a bit haphazard observing my favourite writers' birthdays and other days of observation, but luckily I was reminded of Clark Ashton Smith's. I don't have much to say, but I'll link back to John R. Fultz' article on "The Hashish Eater, Or, The Apocalypse of Evil," which was my introduction to Smith's work.

And why not, let's read the entire poem. I've added some illustrations that I think have a little of that Smithian psychedelia. Now let's go on that journey through spaceward-flown horizons infinite...

The Lord of the Rings: An Alternate Timeline

It's J.R.R. Tolkien's twelvety-first birthday, and it's amazing to think how the Middle-earth franchise has changed in a scant decade. Sure, there were multiple video games, board games and the like before the films, but nothing like the volume of other franchises. For most of its years, Middle-earth has enjoyed a sort of sanctity, with Tolkien afforded his deserved place as Sub-Creator, any derivative efforts considered exactly that. Middle-earth Role-Playing introduced several characters, names, places and ideas, but nobody tried to say it was "canon." And Tolkien's been lucky: nobody's been trying to horn in on his status, claiming to be "co-creators" of Middle-earth, or that their fan-fiction is just as good as his, if not better. Though there is someone who is unfairly saddled with that label.

Locus Online's 2012 All Centuries Poll is Very Confusing

Courtesy of Black Gate, I came across Lotus' latest write-in poll for The Best Fantasy/Science Fiction works of the 20th and 21st centuries. I say works, because although they say it's "a poll for the best novels and short fiction of the 20th and 21st centuries, with five categories in each century: SF novel, fantasy novel, novella, novelette, and short story," I can't find much distinction between novel, novella, novelette or short story - not to mention a few other confusing elements.

Read on for the results.

Out of Shadowed Hills

I will tell you of the birth of my son.

In my youth, I was impetuous, wild, full of rage and passion and hate - much like other women of my tribe at that age. But our people did not show it often. Something about our homeland, our dark, sullen, cold realm of mists and shadows, prevents us from it. Our moods are black and melancholic, given to monstrous dreams. Darkness and the night pervaded even our waking thoughts... but not in battle. In those mad exhultations, when our blades flame crimson and agony shoots through our sinews, our spirit finds release. No longer are we moody and dour, but burning with red fury and joy - not at the killing and feasting of swords, but at being alive. It is only when one is at the closest to having their life taken that one truly experiences what life is - distilled, tangible, seething, screaming life. And when that experience comes, we have the strength and will to fight tooth and nail so that we remain alive - such is the one gift breathed into our souls by our grim chief god.

The Expedition: Epilogue

(The following constitutes the legible sections of a moleskin journal recovered at Site R-4 by HMLGEM.  The first page is erratic and scribbled, apparently written following the rest of the journal, and likely the final document written by the deceased, whose remains have been sent to Greenwich for aether-analysis)

Why write a diary that no-one would ever read? The thought occurred to me as I shiver in this bloody, guts-strewn hole in the ice, the heat given off by the discarded entrails of fresh kills providing little respite. I expect I shall have no more than a few hours. I hope they don't find me until then. I can only hope that should His Majesty's League for the Governance of Extraordinary Matters order a second mission, or deign us valuable enough for a rescue. Crozier's gone, our League retinue are gone. I pray that they discover this journal, and discover that this is the Joulutonttu's land. I only pray that they do not remember that their realm once spread farther...

I can hear them now. Must stop.  Must.... sleigh bells... laughing... bells... bells...

(The rest of the page is unreadable. Beside the remains was a map of King William Island, with the following written in blood over the landmass)

Good Scot, Bad Scot: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Trilogy

I wouldn't give it much thought except that so many of its reviewers have praised it as faithful to the book, or even superior to it, all of which adds insult to injury and is demonstrably wrong.
 - Wayne Hammond, Tolkien Scholar

... I watch the Jackson films with my facial muscles rushing back and forth between Comedy Mask and Tragedy Mask on almost a line-by-line basis...
 - Steve Tompkins, Howard & Tolkien Scholar

It surely hasn't escaped your notice that The Hobbit will be out this month across the world. Most of geekdom is ecstatic, and rightly so, since this is an adaptation of one of the most celebrated fantasy novels in the last hundred years. I had mixed expectations.

Well, I saw it. If you want to know what I thought, click on. Be warned: lots of details about the film, just so you know. Might spoil this adaptation of a 75-year-old book.

Are you sure you want to know what I thought?

You might be surprised.

Darkside #1 Finally Available

So, anyone want to buy my comic, written by Ross Leonard, published by Black Hearted Press?  Well, now you can, if you're lucky enough to live in one of the countries which BHP ships to!

Darkside is an anthology horror comic collecting tales of the macabre, the unexpected, the transmundane, and other such descriptive terms, ranging from stories set in the writers' native Scotland, to faraway lands of ill-defined locality, from modern times to the untold past, and so on and so forth. My story, "Kalina and the Baba Yaga," is a fairytale with a somewhat modern twist on it, as the classic Slavic folk legend has a bit of a Scottish makeover. Of sorts. Kind of. It's difficult to describe exactly what it is, but I loved Ross's idea and couldn't help but throw myself into it.

My experience with Ross has been incredibly gratifying and assuring. Not once did I have reservations or any sort of significant disagreement with the direction, composition or execution of the comic or story, and he seems very satisfied with the results. I'm very lucky to have worked with such a clever, intelligent and erudite individual who gave me the boost I needed simply because he thought I could do it. Since then I've taken on two very cool - and very different - projects that aren't comics, I will definitely work with Ross again in the future, I'm seriously considering a fourth proposition, and I have others in the pipeline. Better not spread my butter over too much bread, though!

You can find some previews of my work on "Kalina and the Baba Yaga" here and here. I'll eventually get round to that report on the comic launch: I'd been holding off because I was afraid of stealing someone else's thunder, but I figure they won't mind. In the meantime, have another Barbearian.

"I am king, state, and law!" he roared, and seizing the wand-like sceptre which lay near, he broke it in two and flung it from him. "This shall be my sceptre!" The toy axe was brandished aloft, splashing the pallid toys with drops of jam. Kub gripped the plastic crown with his left hand and placed has back against the wall. Only that support kept him from falling but in his arms was still the strength of cuddly lions.

"I am either king or cuddler!" he roared, his corded stuffing bulging, his button eyes blazing. "If you like not my kingship - come and take this crown!"

The fluffy left arm held out the crown, the right gripping the menacing axe above it.

"By this axe I rule! This is my scepter! I have struggled and sweated to be the puppet king you wished me to be - to king it your way. Now I use mine own way! If you will not play, you shall obey! Laws that are just shall stand; laws that have outlived their times I shall shatter as I shattered that one! I am king!"

Slowly the pale faced noblebears and frightened teddies knelt, bowing in fear and reverence to the jam-stained giant who tottered above them with his eyes ablaze.

"I am king!"

Stewart Lee's Redemption... Sort of

You may remember I gave Stewart Lee a tough time of it a while back, which amounted to a hill of beans. Well, I have good (Scot) news and bad (Scot) news.

Good news: Stewart Lee's published an article on Robert E. Howard.

Bad news: Stewart Lee's published an article on Robert E. Howard.