Rogue Blades announced its 2011 Challenge Writing competition this morning. This year’s theme is Stealth. Judges are author Mary Rosenblum, Black Gate editor John O’Neill, and cover artist Storn Cook. That’s the cover over on the right.
There’s a $10 entry fee, which is more than reasonable. Rouge Blades will begin accepting submissions in 15 days, so that should give all of us time to get something ready. I’m intending to submit. There’s a minimum of 30 entries needed for this project to go forward. The stories can be any genre, so long as there’s a heroic element.
Here’s our chance to make sure there’s good heroic, adventure oriented stories to read. Let’s inundate the judges and make their job hard by having to agonize over choosing form an avalanche of great stories.
…because I don’t have Bud’s email address.
Dear Bud,
I wanted to let you know how much I appreciated your profiling Tom Reamy in your inaugural installment of “Who?!” in the new issue of Black Gate. I’ve enjoyed your “Past Masters” columns for years. You have a tendency to profile most of my favorite writers from my teenage years. I assume you know which ones to pick because you have exemplary taste.
I was especially pleased that you chose Tom Reamy. He is an author who is sadly neglected, and I wish someone would bring him back into print in an archival edition. His work could easily fit into a single volume, and given the size of some of the retrospectives being published these days, it shouldn’t be that hard.
The reason I’m glad you chose him is because, although it’s rather tenuous, I have a personal connection to Tom Reamy.
You mentioned in your article that Tom was born in Woodson, Texas. We lived in Woodson in the 1970s, from about 1972-1976. I was only in 3rd grade when we left, so I hadn’t yet discovered science fiction and fantasy, nor would I have known who Tom was. If I had been a little older, I probably would have made an obnoxious fanboy of myself.
I realize by this time that Tom had moved on, but he still came back from time to time and briefly lived in Woodson circa 1972-1973. Howard Waldrop writes about visiting Tom in Woodson in 1973. (Although I’ve met Howard numerous times, my mind boggles that we were that close geographically back then.) My parents knew the Reamys, but I don’t think they ever met Tom.
When Blind Voices was published, I had started reading science fiction, although I hadn’t gotten into fantasy very much yet and so didn’t read it until a number of years later. It wasn’t until the mid-1980s, after someone had dropped off almost a decade’s worth of F&SF at the local used bookstore in Breckenridge that I read some of Tom’s work.
I was impressed. Somewhere, and I don’t recall where, I found a hardcover of San Diego Lightfoot Sue. At the time I was (and still am) an aspiring writer with a fondness for short fiction. Knowing Tom had written some of his stories in a half horse town not far from where I was attending high school (Woodson wasn’t and isn’t big enough to have a whole horse), as well as the stories themselves, served as an inspiration to me. There’s one story (that will never see the light of day) that I can trace back to Tom’s work as its inspiration.
In his Afterward, Howard Waldrop writes about the gas station the Reamys operated on the highway between Breckenridge and Woodson. As soon as I read about it, I knew exactly the gas station Howard was talking about. It sat in a curve in the road just inside the county line.
The gas station is gone now, but the house is still standing. That’s it in the photo on the right. I’d read on the Black Gate blog that you were going to write about Tom and I took the picture when I was visiting my parents in Breckenridge last Christmas. I think the gas station was where the two pine trees are now, but I’m not sure.
Your article made me do some looking on the internet, Bud, and I learned that Tom is buried in the family plot in Woodson. I’ll try to pay my respects the next time I’m in the area.
Anyway, I wanted to thank you for your article. It brought back memories. Of all the ones you’ve written, this one is the one I can relate to the most.
Best regards,
Keith
A couple of months ago I wrote a post entitled “In Defense of Traditional Gender Roles in Fantasy” which I expected to generate some heat. Instead it sank like a stone. Although in the last month it’s gotten 20 hits, 10 of them in the last week. It may resurrect itself, zombie-like. It seems like someone is taking an interest.
Then this morning, over at the Home of Heroics blog, Jonathan Moeller wrote about anachronisms in heroic fiction. Since he only has 1000 words, he limited himself to women warriors rather than making an exhaustive list. Can you say “firestorm”? (He did hint in one of his replies that athiesm in fantasy societies was a possible future post.)
Of course, the new issue of Black Gate, which should be in the mail to me even as I write, is a themed issue. What is the theme? Warrior women, of course. I was planning on reviewing each story individually, although not necessarily giving each story its individual post. Have to wait and see about that, depending on story length.
But this whole brouhaha over at HoH is making me itch to read the stories. You can bet I’m going to read and review them very carefully now.
In the meantime, I’m going to be reading history, looking are references to female warriors.
There are multiple sources of online fiction. In fact the online landscape can change suddenly. New websites arrive and disappear quickly. If you’re not paying attention, you could miss something. I thought this would be a good time to survey some of the sources of short fiction on the web.
There are several reasons behind the timing on this. One, I’m not going to start any novels for a couple of weeks. I’ve got some anthologies I need to read (not to mention the new issue of Black Gate, which arrived yesterday), and since I’ll be reading short fiction, it won’t be a huge deal to mix up the sources of my reading. I haven’t kept up with the online fiction markets the way I should over the last year. Since it will be to my benefit to broaden my online reading, I thought I’d share with you what I found in the hopes that you might find it useful as well.
So, what exactly are the ground rules going to be?
First, I’m going to look at one source of online fiction a day for the next seven days. Or rather I’m going to post one look a day. I’ll probably need to get a little ahead since I may be on the road before the end of the seven days. The first post will go up later today, and if all goes according to plan, the next will go up tomorrow, the third on Monday, and so on. We’ll see if I can pull this off.
Second, since this blog emphasizes fantasy and historical adventure more than science fiction, there won’t be much science fiction, if any.
Third, I’ll choose which sites I visit by a complex system of analysis involving mood, time available, fatigue level, and the phase of the Moon. In other words, it will be pretty random. While I’ve got some in mind, and have already looked at the first one, which I’ll post later today, I’m not aware of all the sites out there. If there’s a site you want me to look at, please feel free to let me know.
Fourth, because my time is somewhat limited, I’ll restrict myself to the current “issue” of the sites I visit, and not consider anything in the archives. This will remove the temptation to go read the award nominees I’ve haven’t gotten to yet. Furthermore, I don’t promise to blog about more than a single story per site. Time is a factor here, after all. While I might, if time allows or the stories are short enough, examine more than one per site, I only promise to look at one. I may go back later and blog about the other stories. Also, I will try to avoid discussing any stories that are parts of series simply for the reason I don’t have time to go back and read the preceding stories.
Fifth, I will restrict myself to sites that are free. That way everyone who reads these posts can access the stories if they wish.
This should be a lot of fun. Of course I thought that a few months ago when I got on my son’s ripstick and ended up pulling a groin muscle. But I really don’t think this will be that bad. If it’s not a total disaster, I’ll try the same thing with the print magazines in a month or two (assuming I can find seven print magazines that publish fantasy).
I want to take a moment to thank everyone who’s visited Adventures Fantastic, especially in the last couple of weeks. Traffic seems to be picking up, and I appreciate your interest, support, and comments. I’ve got some cool things planned for the next couple of months, including a two-part interview with Robert E. Howard scholar Mark Finn, some Long Looks at Short Fiction, a review of Jasper Kent’s Thirteen Years Later, a look at Henry Kuttner’s Prince Raynor stories, and some more Kull. So stick around. It’s only gonna get better.
Destroyer
by James Enge
Black Gate 14, 384 pp., $15.95
If you’re a fan of heroic fantasy, adventure fantasy, or just plain good ol’ fashioned storytelling, and you haven’t checked out Black Gate, then you owe it to yourself to do so. Some of the best writing being done in the fantasy field right now is published here. While the publication schedule is frustratingly slow, currently at two issues a year, this magazine is still worth waiting for. John O’Neill brings the highest production and editorial values to his magazine, which is clearly a labor of love. Since I haven’t seen it on the newsstand in quite a while, your best bet of scoring a copy is directly from the publisher. All back issues are available in both print and PDF format. If you’re thinking of subscribing, be sure and check out the special with Rogue Blades Entertainment. A subscription to a great magazine plus an outstanding anthology is a hard deal to beat. I’ll be talking about Rogue Blades in a future installment.
Now, lest anyone thinks I’m on the payroll for either Black Gate or Rogue Blades, let’s look at the story in question. I envision these Long Looks at Short Fiction columns to be just what the name implies, a more detailed look at one or two pieces of short fiction in current publications, both print and electronic. My definition of short fiction is anything from short story to novella length.
In fact, that’s one of the things I think sets Black Gate apart from the major short fiction periodicals. They’re willling to publish novellas. Now I can hear some of you saying, “Wait a minute, West. Asimov’s, Analog, and F&SF all regularly publish novellas”, and indeed they do. What separates Black Gate from the pro markets is that the Big Three (as well as Alfred Hitchcock and Ellery Queen) aren’t willing to publish novellas from writers who aren’t household names (yet).
A perfect of example of this is James Enge, who published his first Morlock Ambrosious story in BG 8, and has had stories of Morlock in almost every issue since. Morlock is a hunchbacked wizard with a somewhat bleak outlook and not inconsiderable skill with a sword. These days, Enge is hardly unknown. He had two books about Morlock published last year, Blood of Ambrose and This Crooked Way, with a third, The Wolf Age, scheduled for publication sometime this month, meaning copies should be hitting the shelves any day now. And to top it off, he has gotten a World Fantasy Award nomination for Blood of Ambrose. Good luck, James!
Anyway, on to the story. “Destroyer” finds Morlock in the company of Roble, his sister Naeli, and her children, who were introduced in “The Lawless Hours” in BG 11, but you needn’t have read that one to enjoy this one. This time the story is (mostly) told from the viewpoint of one of the older kids, Thend. I say mostly because occasionally the viewpoint seems to shift to Morlock, for example when he’s conversing with a dragon guarding him, Thend, a werewolf, and a disgraced Khroi, a race of insect-like creatures. The conversation takes place in the dragon language, which Enge tells us Thend does not speak. Aside from the minor quibble of apparent view-point shift, the story moves briskly.
Now I don’t normally care for action adventure stories told from a child’s point of view because the children tend to be passive rather than active participants. In this case, Thend (who seems to be in early adolescence, although I don’t recall his age being given) is involved from the beginning. The story opens with Morlock leading the party between two mountain ranges. He takes Thend with him to investigate something he’s seen that concerns him. It turns out to be a Khroi warrior trapped in a web built by the spider people.
A number of people have been attributed as saying some variation of “If you’re not a liberal at [insert age] you have no heart; if you’re not a conservative at [insert greater age] you have no brain”, and that sentiment applies here to both Thend and Morlock as far as their ages are concerned. Thend initially condemns Morlock for what he views as a penchant for killing everything and displays pacifist tendencies from time to time. Morlock, on the other hand, says that his law is blood for blood. But to apply that quoted adage strictly would be to oversimplify their characters. Both men display actions that lead from the heart and actions that originated in the head.
Morlock has no interest in rescuing the Khroi, who is still alive. Thend cuts him down from the web. The Khroi marks Thend by wounding him, wounds himself, then escapes. Morlock informs Thend the Khroi did this so they could identify each other later. As it turns out later on, this particular Khroi shows Thend an especially harsh form of mercy.
The pace of the story is swift, and the nonhuman characters intriguing as Morlock attempts to guide the party between Khroi and spider people without detection. You can probably guess how sucessful he is in this. Hint:: If he were successful, there would be no story. And don’t assume the ending is an entirely happy one. The title Enge chose was “Destroyer,” after all. To find out just who the destroyer turns out to be, well, I’ll never tell.
The real character development in the tale occurs with Thend. It seems he has a touch of the sight but doesn’t know how to use it when the story opens. By the conclusion, he’s gained both knowledge and experience, as well as discovering some heroic character traits and an ability to endure hardship, both of which he’s lacking in the opening. Initially Thend wants to be like his uncle Roble and not be treated like a child by his mother Naeli. By being forced to work with Morlock, and not just in the opening scene but in an attempt to rescue his family, Thend’s relationships with both his mother and his uncle undergo a transformation as he develops an independent identity as his own man. The exact nature of that tranformation, I’ll let you see for yourself when you read the story. It’s worse investing the time.
If it sounds like this is a coming of age story, it is. Thend grows up through the course of events he has no choice in living through, much like real life. It’s what we allow our experiences to make us that determine who and what we become. Without being heavy handed or preaching, Enge shows us this process in a boy who isn’t really all that likable when we first meet him, although he is sympathetic to a point.
Of course, all the usual sardonic wit and cleverness we’ve come to expect from Morlock are on display here. Morlock has been described as a thinking man’s Conan, a comparison I think short changes the Cimmerian somewhat, but I have to agree with the sentiment. Morlock uses his brain at least as much as he uses his magic or his sword. The situation here isn’t one he can simply get out of by either magic or swordsmanship (although both are necessary) because other lives are at stake, and the characters aren’t all at the same location for part of the story.
If you’re not familiar with Morlock, this is as good a place as any to make his acquaintance. If you’ve met the man, and haven’t read “Destroyer,” then what are you waiting for?