Swords & Sorority

"When I was younger, as well as liking Conan, I was a fan of Red Sonja," says Scott. "so I do firmly believe that if you're writing a fantasy book, if you can't have an axe-wielding barbarian woman in a chainmail bikini - and the chainmail bikini is very important - then there's no point in writing it, really."
 - Christopher Wright, and while I suspect he's being a little facetious, he's being far too subtle about it

I like “pulp” and “Sword and Sorcery” in all its gory, sexist, glory. Big, awesome barbarians, though an occasional wizard or rouge can slip in. Women are to be barmaids, princesses, slave girls, dancers, victims to be rescued, etc. Blacks and MezoAmerican like peoples are either rare “Noble Savages” or hideous cannibals with filed teeth. Orientals are sinister characters, though their women look hot but unless they are “Rescued sacrifice victim” also very sinister. Of course, awesome “Noble Savages” think Kubotai from “Conan the Barbarian”! Mix in lovecraft, westerns, maybe some not too queer Burroughs like stuff…
Really, do women, blacks, orientals, Mexicans, etc. buy “Heroic Fantasy/Sci-Fi” enough that the damage of not sucking sucking sucking up to them will be less than the damage of alienating your base customer market?
 - Green Gestalt on John O'Neill's post on Realms of Fantasy

I don't see posts like this very often, but when I do, they leave a bad taste in my mouth. I'm reminded of the Cross Assault sexual harassment scandal over which the Internet had once again exploded (one wonders how the series of tubes could survive all these conflagrations):

Those are jokes and if you were really a member of the fighting game community, you would know that. This is a community that's, you know, 15 or 20 years old, and the sexual harassment is part of a culture, and if you remove that from the fighting game community, it's not the fighting game community — it's StarCraft."
 - Bakhtanians "justifying" the concerted verbal abuse which caused a fellow player to drop out

Sword-and-Sorcery has often been accused of being one of those genres that belongs to the past, a different time when "all men are strong, all women beautiful, all life adventurous, and all problems simple." Sword-and-Sorcery, some might say, is outdated, an embarrassment, relevant in our more enlightened times only to show how far we've come since the bad old days of 1950s advertisements.

Then again...

Is sexism inherent to Sword-and-Sorcery? It's the sort of thing many have wrestled with in print and on the 'Net. Well, I figure the best way to address that is talk about my favourite female Sword-and-Sorcery characters, hopefully showing that not only is Sword-and-Sorcery not the exclusive domain of manly men, but that it never was. And since it's International Women's Day, it seems appropriate to post some of my favourites.

World Book Day 2013

World Book Day 2013 falls on my 29th birthday, which makes me almost as happy as this little chap:



So I'm going to try out something different - tiny capsule reviews of short stories I've read or reread recently.

"The Jewel of Arwen" by Marion Zimmer Bradley
(From The Year's Best Fantasy Stories (1975) edited by Lin Carter )
The best Lord of the Rings fan fiction I've ever read - or, rather, the only good Lord of the Rings fan fiction I've ever read. It was written before The Silmarillion came out, so it relies only on the LotR appendices, and yet it still manages to be more in-tune with Tolkien than any number of Middle-earth pastiches I've experienced.

"The Sword Dyrnwyn" by Lloyd Alexander
(From The Year's Best Fantasy Stories (1975) edited by Lin Carter)
There should be a rule in fantasy fiction: if you encounter a black sword, do not look at it, do not touch it, do not pick it up, just walk away and leave the blasted thing alone. But then, if that was a rule, then we wouldn't have stories like this.

"The Double Shadow" by Clark Ashton Smith
(From The Year's Best Fantasy Stories (1975) edited by Lin Carter )
This is one of those Smith stories like "Empire of the Necromancers" that is told almost like a parable, and manages to achieve a sort of timelessness. It's also a perfect example of Smith's use of the exact perfect word for the situation, no matter how esoteric: it isn't purple prose, this is Tyrian loquaciousness. It also has a sapient snake as the protagonist, which is brilliant.

"The City of Madness" by Charles R. Saunders
(From The Year's Best Fantasy Stories (1975) edited by Lin Carter)

Who's the black Ngombe's pal
That's a sex machine to all the gals?
(Imaro!)
You're damn right!

Who's the barbarian
That would risk his neck for his brother man?
(Imaro!)
Can ya dig it?

Who's the chui that won't cop out
When there's mchawi all about?
(Imaro!)
Right on!

You see this chui Imaro is a bad mother -
(Shut your mouth!)
But I'm talkin' about Imaro!
(Then we can dig it!)

He's a complicated man
But no one understands him but his pompous pygmy priest friend...
(Imaro!)

(also read The Wasp's review)

"The Small Assassin" by Ray Bradbury
(A Chamber of Horrors unlocked by John Hadfield)
This is one of Bradbury's most evil stories when you think about it: what's most unsettling is the outcome is horrific whether the protagonist is right or wrong. It's one of those amazing stories where even the possibility of the protagonist imagining everything is just as monstrous as if the supernatural/uncanny aspect was actual - perhaps more so. Gave me the shivers, so it did.

"More Spinned Against" by John Wyndham
(A Chamber of Horrors unlocked by John Hadfield)
People love calling Wyndham's work "cosy catastrophe," as if comfortable surroundings or circumstances mitigate or even remove horror and terror, but as with Bradbury and others, I find that it can multiply that sense of unease and threat. "More Spinned Against" is a delightfully grim tale that has Wyndham's typically pointed critique of social mores and hypocrisies, while throwing you a lovely (if, in retrospect, clearly signposted) final twist.

"The Abyss" by Leonid Andreyev
(A Chamber of Horrors unlocked by John Hadfield)
A deeply unpleasant and malevolent story that doesn't have any overt supernatural elements, but is pregnant with supernatural subtext, if you will. It's not a happy story at all.

"The Monk" by M. G. Lewis
(A Chamber of Horrors unlocked by John Hadfield)
Another very horrible story in the sense that it left me feeling nauseous, but in this case it has a certain spiritual power and resonance by virtue of the protagonist's occupation and the setting.

"The Yellow Wall-Paper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
(A Chamber of Horrors unlocked by John Hadfield)
Required reading for psychological horror aficionados. One of the most beautifully conceived, poignant and eloquent meditations on frustration, anxiety and perception degradation I've read.

"The Things" by Peter Watts
(Online)
If you've ever seen John Carpenter's adaptation of John W. Campbell's "Who Goes There?" (or the short story for that matter), then this is a simply magnificent perspective switch.

 "... All You Zombies..." by Robert A. Heinlein
(Online)
Heinlein is fascinating as much due to his choice of subject as to his approach, and "... All You Zombies..." may well take the biscuit in terms of "What in Jove's Name Were You Thinking!?!" This approached Vonnegut levels - even Palahniuk levels - of Why Science Fiction Is Frightening As All Get Out. For the man who brought the word "grok" into popular usage, I don't think it's possible for any human being to grok Heinlein. He's... ungrokkable.

So, hope you all had as happy a World Book Day as I had a good birthday!

Arthur Machen's 150th

 Image by the inestimable Andrea Bonazzi

The fault I find with so many so-called horror-tales (particularly including my own) is that the object of horror too swiftly becomes too solid and concrete. It takes a master of the pen, such as Machen and yourself, to create a proper SUGGESTION of unseen and unknown horror. The illusive shadows lurking at the back of the brain are so much more monstrous and blood-chilling than the children of the actual mind. I’m not saying this like I’d like to say it. But the rustle of leaves when there is no wind, the sudden falling of a shadow across a door, the furtive trying of a window-catch, the sensation of unseen Eyes upon one, these give rise to speculations more monstrous and terrors more cosmically icy, than any chain-clanking apparition, or conventional ghost, that appears in full glory. When a writer specifically describes the object of his horror, gives it worldly dimensions and solid shape, he robs it of half its terrors. Somewhere, somehow, there must lurk in the dim gulfs of our racial memories, titanic and abysmal horrors beyond the ken of the material mind. For how else are we able to half conceive and fear entities we are not able to describe? Seek to draw their images for the conscious mind and they fade away. We cannot shape them in concrete words. Well, I seem to be repeating myself without saying yet what I’m trying to say. But I’ll say this: humanity fears floods and starvation, foes and serpents and wild beasts, but there are fears outside these concrete things. Whence come these fears from the OUTSIDE? Surely in its infancy mankind faced beings that live today only in dim ancestral memories, forgotten entirely by the material mind. Otherwise, why is it we half-visualize in that other, subconscious mind, perhaps, shapes beyond the power of man to describe?
 - Robert E. Howard, Letter to H.P. Lovecraft, ca. September 1930

A big anniversary for Arthur Machen, one of the finest practitioners of the uncanny weird tale, an influence on countless authors, and one of the great under appreciated progenitors of modern horror. For my part, I haven't written much on him: for whatever reason I never "got" The Novel of the Black Seal or The White People, so I guessed he wasn't for me.  But then I read "The Great God Pan," and man did I get it. He truly masters the technique of horrific suggestion in a way I've only seen equalled by Blackwood. I reread it recently, and it remains one of my top twenty horror stories. When I get back on 80 Years of Conan, I'll be discussing "The Great God Pan" and its possible influences on "The Frost-Giant's Daughter."

I don't have much else to say, so here's a great post on the man's work from Stewart Lee.

Writing What You Know

Back in University, I made this cover for one of the most important books in my early life. Sadly the ACD Estate never got in touch with me, but them's the breaks.

Been very quiet here on The Blog That Time Forgot. A little too quiet. But, as ever, don't mistake lack of information as dearth of activity, for I've been very busy on what amounts to a perilous journey of self-discovery, where I'm looking at myself, my place in the world, and how I can help others in my situation.

Truth is, despite wearing my heart on my sleeve and being very open about my emotional reactions to artistic stimuli, there are some things I don't want to share with the world at large. Things that are a part of me,  which are most certainly not harmful or wicked by any standard, but which are still deeply misunderstood and prone to misinterpretation. It seems preposterous to not want to "come out" about something that you shouldn't have to "come out" about, but recent events - tragedies, scandals, whatnot - have led me to be reticent about it. At the same time, I look at the people I know who share this thing: younger than me, maybe more naive, growing up in a very different environment that's better in some ways, worse than others.

I'm not ready to be fully open about just what that thing is. Truth be told, I'm sure if I told some of you, you'd say "what, that's it?" and it wouldn't change your opinion of me whatsoever. If that were your reaction, then trust me, I had no doubts. But until then, this is going to be a part of myself I only reveal to few.

What I have no difficulty sharing is my feelings on art, and specifically, where I want to go with it. Being a fan of Conan Doyle, Burroughs, Howard, Merritt, Haggard, and all manner of adventure authors, it should be no surprise that my artistic aspirations are very much in their field: tales of brave and bombastic souls seeking out new worlds and people and life, challenging the universe to unveil its secrets, trekking and voyaging and journeying through hostile terrain and uncharted territory. Certainly I've watched a lot of fellow fans of the genre go on to produce their own works. I'll have a look at some of them here.

Just in time for Valentine's Day!

CONAN THE BARBARIAN #16
Brian Wood (W), Davide Gianfelice (A), Dave Stewart (C), and Massimo Carnevale (Cover)
On sale May 15
FC, 32 pages
$3.50
Ongoing
After a series of trials that nearly tore them apart, Conan and Bêlit use a brief respite to embark on a vision quest. But with violence, pain, and death their constant companions, the vision quickly becomes a nightmare!
• New story arc from Northlanders team Brian Wood and Davide Gianfelice!
 - Solititation from Newsarama

Presented entirely without comment. Happy Valentine's!

C.L. Moore, 102

Today marks C.L. Moore's 102nd birthday. Her contributions to the Sword-and-Sorcery genre have been acknowledged at Resources for Science Fiction Writers, Adventures Fantastic, and Swords & Sorcery: a blog. For me, I'll just repost my Cimmerian tribute.

I recently reread Paizo's Black God's Kiss anthology, which is pretty excellent if you bypass Suzy McKee Charnas' dreadful introduction - instead go to Ryan Harvey's splendid piece at Black Gate, which provides most of the necessary information without throwing Moore's literary contemporaries under the bus - and I heartily recommend it.

The only other problem I have is the cover. Now, it's a gorgeously rendered cover, no doubt about that: I adore the evocative, noirish lighting and the sense of weirdness it portrays. Unfortuantely, Jirel's pose is veering slightly towards the sort of sultry pose that would make it a target for Jim C. Hines or the Hawkeye Initiative, and the armour is... well, it sure isn't what Moore described:

She smiled to herself as she slipped a fresh shirt of doeskin over her tousled red head and donned a brief tunic of link-mail. On her legs she buckled the greaves of some forgotten legionary, relic of the not long past days when Rome still ruled the world. She thrust a dagger through her belt and took her own long two-handed sword barebladed in her grip.

We already have plenty of not-safe-for-work Jirel cheesecake that has her borrowing from Red Sonja's wardrobe (even the ones with full or at least decent armour have problematic breast cups, to say nothing of the ever-dependably pulptastic Margaret Brundage's contributions): in this day and age, art of Jirel in the armour she was originally described to be wearing would actually be refreshing. Not to mention she, like Dark Agnes, is frequently given a mane of fiery red hair rather than the shorter cut described (long enough to become tousled and to be able to obscure her face, but short enough to be described as "short upon high, defiant head") Still, at least the bare thighs are in the text, right? And in any case, what's important is that even given her rather fetishy armour, Jirel looks strong and powerful: she has sufficient mass and muscularity to believably heft that (one-handed, argh) sword, and the environment is mysterious and evocative.

This piece by Michael John Morris is probably the most accurate I've seen,
though it falls prey to the long hair trap.

Even so, Paizo produced a fine collection of one of Moore's best creations, I'd encourage anyone interested in Sword-and-Sorcery to seek them out. Even if it doesn't end up your cup of tea, they deserve to be included in the annals of S&S.

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.