Kubla Con 2011

So here's my Kubla Con report. I hope my grading system doesn't offend anyone. Please take it as the big bear hug on geeks that it truly is.

Friday
Shannon McNamara's Here be Dragons
a Call of Cthulu game set in 9th century AD Briton
A+ GM Preparation
A- GM Presentation
C Player Dynamics
B Payoff
B+ Overall

This was my first time playing in one of Shannon's games. I knew what to expect in many ways and I was really looking forward to some great roleplaying in a historical setting. I got it. The amount of information was pretty hefty, but not unbearable. Shannon took the time to meet with each of us to discuss our characters. Generally when that happens, there's potential for intrigue. I wasn't watching the clock, but it seemed like I had the right amount of time to understand where my character was coming from by the time the game got underway.

Shannon demonstrated solid knowledge of the setting and rules, enough to teach us neophytes and fend off the inevitable macho history buff at the table.

The big problem was a lack of chemistry between the players at the table. I am sure Shannon will lay down the full details, but basically we had one person who was mostly asleep or not really participating, and another who was a strong knowledgeable gamer playing a bully a bit too well. At least he was sharing and interacting with the group. Then both these cats leave 2 hours before the scheduled end of the game due to tiredness and diabetes. No judgement on that, but as a GM, I have a hard time with people who won't stay for a whole game well within it's allotted time. It's also a good idea to talk about that at the beginning of a session, to make sure your whole group is on board for the full ride.

However, the story and the creepiness and the grime of the age were excellent. Our old priest, Godwine, was hysterical with all his old-man-isms and the revelation of his ultimate goal. June was awesome as Gwyneth the Hag. She really kept the game entertaining. I got totally creeped out by her and some of the dark discoveries we made. The change in group dynamic after the two guys left was remarkable, with a lot more energy. But it also really deflated some of the drama we were in for. While I understand Matt's reservations about long games, I totally would have stayed longer if the group energy had been kickin.

Even so, the twists and revelations at the end were pretty mind blowing. I got to play a complete narrative arc with a character, and have him face supernatural and existential fears that led to a satisfying conclusion. That's what I play for.

Saturday
Dovi Anderson's Have Ship, Will Smuggle
a FATE game set in the Star Wars rebellion era
A+ GM Preparation
A GM Presentation
A Player Dynamics
A Payoff
A Overall
Dovi Anderson knows Star Wars. But his game Have Ship, Will Smuggle is an awesome story, rather than a boring lecture. We had six characters to choose from, the crew of a ship, which we named The Long Shot. The character portraits were excellent, featuring Eric Bana as the pilot/captain and Willem Dafoe as a dark, horned alien. From there, we had some room to customize our aspects, our gear, and our history through a small number of pertinent questions Dovi posed to us. He suggested we develop some strife with the people opposite us at the table, as well as the usual connections to the people next to you at a Fate table. This helped foster a greater level of communication and roleplaying, I think.
The visual goodness continued, with an introductory video recreating the awesome intros of the Star Wars films, customized for our game. Further, every major NPC, ship captain, ship, and even some of the crew, had pictures, which he taped up for all to see. They had plastic covers, so we could write their aspects right next to the pictures. Soon we had a cast of several ships and their crews, making the scenario feel really big, without a ton of back story.
I don't want to give any spoilers, but the opening scene really had a great Star Wars feel, and the narration of both GM and players was very evocative. Basically we were one of many ships competing in a grand smuggling race, which challenged our piloting, combat and social skills in really satisfying ways. My big warrior guy, Kayn K'sarr, never got to smash anyone, but I never lacked for entertainment. Sometimes, it was challenging for me to make him relevant, but I opted to make him instigate plans, even if he wasn't the best suited to carry them out.
Our engineer was a jawa and the love story in the scenario was a jawa romance. Need I say more? It was excellent, humorous and perfect for the setting.
Dovi ran a great game, with memorable locations and NPCs, and it was a fine bunch of players, ready to give and take and work with each other to help create a cool story. It succeeded.

My game, Fallout: Road Warriors of the Wasteland
a mash-up of Fallout and The Road Warrior
This is the 4th time I've run this scenario and also the best. I had an eager, committed group of players who stayed the extra hour needed to end it right. They all embraced their characters, even though a couple are obvious stars. The story is basically an homage to the movie The Road Warrior, but with a magnificent six, instead of just one hero.

I had a great time playing Humungus and the Legions for this group of Road Warriors.


Sunday
Lord Mohr's The Giggler Strikes Again
a dark fantasy crime investigation using heavily homebrewed Savage Worlds
B GM Preparation
D GM Presentation
C Player Dynamics
D Payoff
C- Overall

This game had some cool players, but we never got the chance to develop the characters we spent 1.5 hours making because the GM was too wrapped up with the lurid details of his world. At one point, the GM spent 20 minutes at the table with one player working out an S&M scene with one of the establishment's prostitutes. The scene got very, very dark. One player left the table but came back. Unfortunately none of us felt comfortable objecting out loud, though I learned later that I was not the only one repulsed.

Lord Mohr had a detailed culture and could impart knowledge without lecturing. But he suffered a very common GM problem, in addition to his public obsession with kinky sex, a difficulty with pacing. It happened to me this time as well. Basically, many games begin at a stately pace and end up being rushed at the end. The villain is cool, if very (very) adult in nature, but the pacing and the porn factor were a deal breaking combination.

In any case, on both a meta and story level, it was not very fun.

Morgan Hua's Trick or Treat
a Grimm game with a Halloween theme
B GM Preparation
A GM Presentation
A+ Player Dynamics
A+ Payoff
A Overall
I was feeling really ill by the end of the earlier game (psychic vampirism? >.> ), and didn't get into any afternoon games. By the good fortune of being part of this GMing group, I learned of Morgan's game and stumbled over to it in my bear feet. The room was cool and the company awesome. I felt better the moment I walked in.
In Grimm, you play kids. In this case, we were 3rd graders (about 9 years old). We chose characters from a set of archetypes and then got to customize their personal details, specialties and stats, to a satisfying degree. Morgan stumbled a little with the mechanics, but he more than made up for that with his vast enthusiasm and subtle roleplaying. While there were very few visual aids, this was truly a game about the characters and their lives, in our imaginations and the faces of the other players.
Initially, the game was set in modern day, on Halloween Night. Our somewhat mismatched group was out trick-or-treating together. But I remember going out on Halloween with neighborhood kids that weren't necessarily my usual social group. Besides these kids are 9 and they all go to school together.
Our troupe of players was hysterical, devolving into childish antics and attitudes with magical ease. Once again, June rocked, playing the juvie kid as a bully with a compelling emotional wound. Shannon killed it with the popular kid, dressed as Justin Beiber, and crooning out his taunts. Wilson was the outcast, a country kid who could never get the attention she craved. I was playing the dreamer (go figure), as a little girl with her head in the clouds and a broken home, loosely based on Ari from The Name of the Wind.
A couple of fellows, Wade and Lance, showed up that no one else seemed to know. I had some self consciousness, as a fat, scraggly, middle-aged man, about roleplaying a 9-year old girl in front of them, even though I'd never met Morgan and hardly knew anyone else, either. To our great enjoyment, they rocked as the Normal kid and the Jock.
A lot happened in this game. Like most story games I've played, the action moved really quick and almost everything that happens is dramatically important to the characters and the story. It was a hilarious and often moving game, full of wonders from Morgan and the story, and from the totally unreserved group of players.
We negotiated with a seriously cracked, but powerful, Humpty Dumpty. Scratch that, our Jock character negotiated with the big bad egg. How cool is that? Morgan was very sly and calculating. Quite entertaining. All the characters were important and played as real and present personalities. And I really adore a game that lets you create things with your Imagination trait.
This was a wonderful gaming experience that made the whole con worthwhile.

Monday
Patrick Riley's Justice Squad: Old Flames
an Icons game of super heroic melodrama
A GM Preparation
A GM Presentation
A Player Dynamics
B Payoff
A- Overall
Patrick runs great super hero games. He is a really energetic and clever GM. All the characters and major NPCs have illustrations. His pre-generated characters have depth and connection to the world. In this particular game, they are all members of a hero team that was based at a Xavier-esque school on the west coast, and have romances and strong ties of friendship and history with one another. I had played in the previous chapter, and dodged another game to crash this one, perhaps to the detriment of the game. Due to techno-failure on my part, I woke up late and was not the bright eyed, eager gamer this story needed, and that I wanted to be. I think I came off badly at the start of the game, and I'm not sure I ever fully recovered credibility at the table.
I'm a big Icons fan, even though I've never played. I have a character, Frostwitch, in the first tome of NPCs for the game. So, it was a bummer not to be more helpful.
On the other hand, one of the most entertaining players from the previous chapter had returned, and even though I was playing a different, and less interesting character (having arrived last), it was still a blast to see the progression of the characters and take part in their further development. The rest of the group was very involved and on top of it. It was an all male table and group was basically three couples, but the guys did a great job of roleplaying without any self consciousness.
It was a pretty tough adventure in comparison to the others at the con. Patrick is not a "Yes" GM, as is the current trend. He makes you work for it. Icons as a system relies on your heroes failures to create dramatic combat, and the battles were intense. The villains were a serious threat. There was some pretty intense investigation and roleplaying and just enough explosive super combat to rock the house. In the end, we faced an enemy that was pretty much invulnerable, and we had spent our last point of Group Determination without fully containing him. So there was a bit of a deus ex machina, though the way it was handled made it very significant for a couple of the characters. The story ended on kind of a sad note, which was not as rewarding as the triumphant end of the previous chapter. While this was an entertaining game, the previous chapter was a bit richer, in spite of using the Mutants and Masterminds system. Some of that may be due to my own low energy this time around.

The bottom line however, is that anyone who enjoys super heroes has scored big time to get into Patrick's games.

Eulogy

Dear friends,

This week, and for all my weeks to come, I will mourn the death and cherish the life of my grandpa, Francis Coomes.

He grew up during the Great Depression, reminding me often how bad things could be. He taught me to appreciate the finest things in life: a spouse, a home, a family.

In World War II, he served in the Navy, and then, feeling he had not done enough to help the United States defeat the Axis, he joined the marines. He taught me the meaning of duty.

With my grandmother, he raised 6 kids, and a few of his dozen grandkids. I mowed his lawn every weekend for ten years and used the money to pay for guitar lessons.

After 25 years with the post office, he had taken one (1) day off. And that was to have surgery. He taught me what it means to take responsibility.

Last year, his beloved Giants finally won the World Series.

My grandpa died on Sunday, January 23, sitting in his big, comfy chair, watching football on his giant TV, in his own house at the age of 90.

A wonderful life, and a peaceful death. What more could one ask for?

His parenting, though sometimes harsh, helped prepare me for the world as it really is. The one thing he could never prepare me for is life without him.

Thanks for all of your kind words and thoughts.

Yours,

Bryan

I even FEEL like a Winner

At the beginning of the night, around 6pm, I had 41,311 words of my nanowrimo novel done. I contemplated cheating. There's a word counter, but it doesn't take much to cheat, so it's really a word of honor type thing. You don't win anything other than a banner to put on your blog or web site, and of course bragging rights.

But I didn't cheat. I also didn't really want to give up my Tuesday night game again. I wanted to finish. I wanted to get the damn thing done.

So I did. My fingers ache. There are tears of joy streaming down my face. I can't really believe it.

8,739 words, and a great deal of sex, death gigantic battles, bloody vengeance and a zombie apocalypse later... I have completed my third National Novel Writing Month. I am a Wei-nar!

The very very very rough draft of The Necromancer's Apprentice has been born. Some day, it might even be ready for someone else to read. lol

Half Way...

Great day for writing. Reached the halfway point, after being a couple of days behind for a while. I was home sick today and spent a lot of time sleeping/dreaming about the characters and events to come. That sort of thing is essential to my process, as I write mainly to set up and create the scenes I've imagined in my head.

The big romantic plot is now established. The last piece I wrote was the main character's proposal to his lover, the prostitute Celestina. I'm pretty pleased with it. Celestina is a bit two-dimensional, a hooker with a heart of gold. But there's time to fix that. Severo, the main character, is more interesting than I first thought he'd be and that is a good thing. He's kind of an ass at first, but he's a kid with a huge religious and military responsibility. It's only after his powers are gone and he's faced with spending the rest of his life as a monk that he gets more interesting.

All good. Now the hammer falls and I start breaking down everything I've built, and Severo goes to the dark side. Muhahahahahaha.

A Big Nanowrimo Night

It's been a good damned day. Got to play Savage Worlds with some of my favorite gamers during the day at the Sacramento Area Gaming Enthusiasts meetup.

Then tonight I had a 4000 word writing session, lasting just over 3 hours. Blammo! Now I am only a day behind in my average word count, with a total of a hair over 20,000 words. Almost half way there. Now, this isn't deathless prose by any means. I am a big proponent of getting the ideas on the page, so I just dump a bunch of roughly formed clay onto empty pages of Scrivener. I wouldn't show this crap to my worst enemy, but at least its there.

I wasn't really enthusiastic about the next chapter when I began the night, so I skipped ahead to the first big battle, put on Seven Kingdoms and let it rip. I just love their newest album, and it was perfect for the epic battle of knights vs. zombies that I wanted to created. Now I'm psyching up to write the big romance scene tomorrow. Mmm boobies.

Not sure how it will all work out, but I have no patience with forcing myself to write transition scenes or really anything. I figure, if its a chore to me, a reader surely won't find it interesting. If there is boring shit that needs to be communicated, I either need to liven it up, or slip it in to some cooler scene. Anyway, it was a great night, even if the image is still lumpy and misshapen.

Back in to the Fire

Well it's been a long time. I lost my job. I was unemployed for nearly a year and now I've been employed for over a year. Too long.

In any case. I'm writing again. This year's Nanowrimo novel is The Necromancer's Apprentice. It's going pretty well so far. Building up a lot of tension and expectation. Soon the zombies will really start hitting the fan. The story concerns the rise and fall of a religious prodigy, the chosen one of a deity, who finds himself at odds with everything he has believed in, and throws away everything for love... with a dead woman. Well, he wants to bring her back from the dead, and ends up allying himself with his mortal enemy to make it happen.

We'll see how it goes.

Grandpa and Daily Kos

I don't want to blog about politics here, but I thought I'd at least post a link to a diary I wrote on Daily Kos about my grandpa and the values I learned from him.

On Basilisk Station by David Weber

Recently, a friend passed a bunch of books to me. (Thanks, Sean!) Among them were some military science fiction novels by David Weber which feature his popular character Honor Harrington. Knowing I was going to write a science fiction novel, and generally liking books with female protags, I set these aside. Not long ago, I finished the first in the series, On Basilisk Station, which introduces Honor and her milieu.

It was great. I was a bit put off at first by the jumps from one point of view to another without breaks, but I got over it. This helped me realize that the modern emphasis on single points of view is not the only way to tell a story. The setting was well done and believable, with consistent scifi science and a believable political world. The best thing about this novel is the heroine and the way her relationship with her new crew develops. Some of the politics reflected contemporary struggles and ideologies that almost got annoying, but never got quite there. Weber manages to present the situation from the characters' points of view without making you feel dissed whether you are a conservative or a progressive. Politics is definitely a background issue.

The plot manages to be big and bold without shattering the setting entirely. Honor Harrington is the new captain of an old battle-ax of a warship. Somehow she and her crew manage a strong showing during a wargame at the beginning of the novel. However, in doing this they manage to piss off the wrong people and get themselves sent to Basilisk Station, the watchtower of a backwater world. Meanwhile, an enemy government based in a different part of the galaxy has its sights set on Basilisk Station for strategic reasons. Unfortunately for them, the most dedicated, brilliant officer in the Royal Navy is on a collision course with the planned invasion. =) The last part of this novel features an edge-of-the-seat, omg, wtf, kick-ass space battle that stands up easily to the classics of the genre in film or print.

Honor Harrington is a great character, way more real and interesting than Voyager's Janeway. In fact I hesitate to even make that comparison, but if you think Star Trek had untapped potential and would like to check out some science fiction that kicks ass and lives up to the hype, check out On Basilisk Station.

Bottom line: An inspiring protagonist, interesting supporting cast, hair-raising battles, intrigue and scifi goodness.

National Novel Writing Month 2008

Yes, that's right, Demons of the Neverwoods is on hiatus for the time being while I devote myself to National Novel Writing Month 2008. My intention is to show this blog some love as well. I want to broaden the scope a bit to talk about the music that inspires me.

The year for nanowrimo, I'm writing a science fiction novel called Birthright. It is inspired by the song of the same name by the band Celldweller. It will have elements of cyberpunk and space opera, I think. In preparation I've been reading a couple of science fiction novels by Tanya Huff, David Weber, and Frank Herbert. I recently got the audiobook of Hardwired by Walter Jon Williams, and I'd like to check that out again. Currently I'm listening to the Deathstalker
by Simon R Green. 

Again, this one deals with some dark stuff. The protagonist lives on the streets, a hardcore addict and more. But the action begins when people start to take an interest in him for no reason he can understand, kidnapping him and hurling into a deadly intergalactic power struggle. Lucky for him, he's the bastard son of a technology guru and has a super computer buried in his brain. =) I know there's going to be a surly captain of a spaceliner called Black Rose who has an interesting relationship with the ship's AI.

I should re-read some  Gibson maybe. Definitely want to go for the glitz of mega-interactive-advertizing over the festering ooze of Blade Runner.

b.out

Seventy-thousand words

This may get boring, but right now I am focusing on some real basic goals. My weight is one. That's going good. As of this week, the other goal, writing, is going well, too. Tonight I made it to 70k. There are two sections for a total of just over 30 scenes left to write.  The good news is all that is plotted out. I always leave room to riff and embellish, but I've known where the story was headed for a long time.

If the writing gods smile upon me, the "prologue" to the novel will be in the November issue of Flashing Swords magazine. Since Lords of Justice is "delayed", the Neverwoods story will be my first published tale. Keep your fingers crossed.

More to come. I'm just getting warmed up again.

It's life, Jim, but not as we know it...

Ok, so if nothing else, I am nearing the 70k mark. That should happen tomorrow night. I will celebrate a little then. For now, it's just another night's work.

Today I finished On Basilisk Station by David Weber. It was a fun and interesting book. The tone was similar to the Temeraire novels of Naomi Novik, in as much as they both draw inspiration from the Horatio Hornblower novels. The Honor Harrington novels, of which Basilisk Station is the first, are military science fiction, with a female protagonist. She's great, stronger and more interesting to me than Janeway on Star Trek. The plot and setting were well detailed.

The most interesting thing about Basilisk Station from a writing standpoint was the POV. It skipped from paragraph to paragraph sometimes, even between people in different places. But it all flowed quite nicely and gave the impression of an action film cutting between all the different pieces of the story mosaic. I'll be reading some Herbert soon, and I am interested to see if this omniscient POV is something that is more accepted in scifi writing, as it is very much poopooed in my usual writing hangouts.

More words...

Two days and three thousand words or so more on the Neverwoods novel. 

So what distracts your humble wannabe writer? I mean, besides working for a living.

Well, recently I had an extreme bout of video game addiction as I played through Mass Effect. Its an amazing game, like playing through a great season of Star Trek, with a bit of Rainbow Six for the action.

Lots of excuses, not a lot of words.

But here is the new goal: Finish the Neverwoods in September. Read some science fiction in October and spend November writing a scifi book for NaNoWriMo. That makes 2009 the year of the edits! It sucks to miss my original goals for the year, but it's time to just move on and keep writing.

More to come.

Where the Hell have you been?

Good question. I fell of the reading/writing wagon there for a while. I have quirky interests and basically between being a political junkie and a video game freak, I kinda got into those interests hard core for a while. Now I need to take a break from politics and the games. My wife is a she-geek and so it is really easy to get into the teamwork and fun of playing vids together, as opposed to the solitary life of the writer.

Anyway, I have managed to put a couple more thousand words on Demons of the Neverwoods. That's good. Now I want to keep working on that, finish up my reviews of Return of the Sword, and get back into reading.

Oh, and I worked on a little website for Flashing Swords Press. =)

"The Hand that Holds the Crown" by Nathan Meyer from Return of the Sword

This is the story of a battle to the death between two armored warriors for the right to rule their land. More than just a duel or some sort noble spectacle out of Ivanhoe, the setup is clever and the point of view twists with the story, until the brutal clash of arms.

Meyer has written an awesome fight scene, pulling off the neat literary feat of giving us the fight from both men's perspectives in a battle that crackles with visceral force. HIs ease with the details of armor and sensory descriptions really bring the scene to life.

There's not a great deal of characterization or backstory here, but there were some tantalizing details that spelled out interesting motivations and history between the two combatants. "The Hand that Holds the Crown" is a rocking tale with much more to it than I can give away here. Check it out.

There were a couple of printing errors. One part seemed like it needed a section break, but it may be I was just catching on to the way the PoV would shift. It was hardly a distraction at all from the action, though. This is a story I will read again, and one of the best in an excellent volume of action stories. I hesitate to call this one fantasy, because it could very easily be historical fiction. The only magic is at the end, but it is of an entirely human nature. ;)


Buy the book! The Return of the Sword: An Anthology of Heroic Adventure
EE Knight's Announcement
A Review

"Guardian of Rage" by Thomas M. MacKay from Return of the Sword

The next story in Return of the Sword is the prologue to a novel, though it tells a complete tale. It's a good action piece that brings us back to the Elder Darkness themes of swords and sorcery fiction. Jack, the hero of this tale is well drawn, a fighter as well as mystic, though I was so caught up in the chase and vivid setting (a dark ancient sewer) that I never quite got what exactly Jack was doing, the bigger picture. I'm sure the novel will help flesh that out.

Jack's situation has two major complications. First he's being hunted by a group of wicked cultists with freaky monsters at their command, who want the relic he possesses. Second, he has a six year old girl in tow, who's family were killed by the cult. The girl could have been more fleshed out, she was more of a complication than another human being, but that is an afterthought. As I said, the adventure and the gruesome details really held my attention. The story built effective tension with the chase through the dark sewers and the... creature .... thing. heh

The magic was well done, exotic, yet clearly presented. And it was essential to the story, which is in large part about Jack's meditative resolve being eaten away by his frustration and rage. Could be a very interesting character to follow.

Another fine story.



Buy the book! The Return of the Sword: An Anthology of Heroic Adventure
Thomas M. MacKay
EE Knight's Announcement
A Review

"To Destroy All Flesh" by Michael Ehart from Return of the Sword

This story has a lot of humanity in it. That's the best word for it. From the agonizing deaths to the moral question at its core, this story looks at the human costs of the magic, mayhem and pure human malice that make up heroic fiction. The hero, Ninshi, is Ehart's titular hero from the novel Servant of the Manthycore. In this tale, a group of mountain bandits stand between her and the herb she must have to free herself from the Manthycore's arcane shackles.

As complicated as that would suggest, Ehart handles it all skillfully. His choice for the point-of-view character works perfectly. We get the back story with just enough detail to set the stage, without burdening us with boring memories. And instead of two dimensional bandits, we get real human beings with circumstances that make this more than just a hack-em-up tale. I love those, but when a story delivers with theme, a textured world, and characters that seem alive, well that's a kick-ass story. This is one of them.

Ehart goes for the throat with a gripping, desperate fight right at the opening. From the stark clarity of that scene, the situation gets murkier and more complex, in all the right ways. I recently read Ken Follet's masterpiece Pillars of the Earth and though "To Destroy All Flesh" is orders of magnitude shorter, it manages to hit on some of the same historical and emotional revelations I felt during that novel.

The previous Servant story, "Stand, Stand, Shall they Cry" was good, but did not move me the way this one did. From his posts on the SFReader forum, I get the impression Ehart takes historical research very seriously. That's a strong selling point for me. Now that I have seen more of the sense of humanity in this character, I'm sold. I've ordered his novel Servant of the Manthycore.


Buy the book! The Return of the Sword: An Anthology of Heroic Adventure
Michael Ehart's blog
EE Knight's Announcement
A Review

"The Red Worm's Way" by James Enge from Return of the Sword

I'm already a fan of James Enge's stories about Morlock Ambrosius, a gnarled sorcerer whose magic seems largely to be the art of giving the semblance of life to golems... and their parts, though his knowledge of the world and its mysteries is also vast. In this tale, Morlock is down on his luck, and winds up sitting watch over a corpse to protect it from flesh eating creatures, some of whom might be the very townspeople who hired him to sit watch.

It's impossible to be impartial here, as a new Morlock tale was one of my chief points of interest in the book. See, I'm partial to the sorcerers. Even given the dark fates most sword and sorcery mages meet, I'd still go with the sorcerers if I were ever sucked down the magic vortex. Even as a skeptic, I've always quested for a sign of the supernatural. Maybe that's why fantasy has so much appeal. Enge's Morlock stories provide an excellent foil to the warrior tales so far in this volume. Where it's refreshing to have a hero who thinks his way out of trouble, like Sigurd from Jeff Stewart's "Mountain Scarab, with Morlock, all he has is his mind.

Any time magic is involved, the rules become an issue. James does a great job of establishing the kinds of things Morlock can do, just a twist of magic, without making Morlock a demigod. The world also benefits from the deft writing, plumbing historical periods and myths a bit off the beaten path. This particular story has a bit of italian flavor, and I get the sense in general that Morlock's world is roughly European, after the fall of the roman empire. It's a fantasy world, but this story has a rustic, old-world feel. The magic provides an extra layer of surprise, and as with other Morlock stories there are some pleasant switchbacks at the end of this one, particularly the crow coin. ;)

One great thing James does in this story, is deliver elements of Morlock's history, without telling us all the details. This let's us see into Morlock's motivations, while still giving him an aura of mystery, keeping the reader wondering about the "rest" of the story. I'm really hoping to see a Morlock collection or novel someday. I already see that knowing more of Morlock's past won't spoil these stories, it will enhance them.

For my money, Morlock the Maker is one of the truly iconic characters to emerge from the current struggling renaissance of swords and sorcery fiction. This story is another strong reason to pick up Return of the Sword.

Buy the book! The Return of the Sword: An Anthology of Heroic Adventure
James Enge's site, full of Morlockian goodnessEE Knight's Announcement
A Review

"Storytelling" by E.E. Knight from Return of the Sword

I was a bit skeptical of an essay on storytelling in the middle of this anthology of swords and sorcery stories that is just cooking along. But as usual with Return of the Sword, I was in for a surprise. Knight strikes a mentor's tone, but leavens it with a ton of humor. My wife was giving me annoyed looks I was chuckling so much during the reading.

The best thing is that the humor highlights an excellent perspective on writing fiction, and the writer's life. I read an embarrassing amount of process books. Knight echoes and distills a great deal of advice I've read in other sources, while laying out the basic building blocks of storytelling in a clear, concise manner. It's an excellent essay, and I can't wait to discuss it and use the ideas there for our discussions at SFReader.

"Dump truck of despair..." what a hoot!



Buy the book! The Return of the Sword: An Anthology of Heroic Adventure
EE Knight's Announcement
A Review

"To Be A Man" by Robert Rhodes from Return of the Sword

Wow. Return of the Sword hits another high point with this tale of a red-maned warrior woman. As summaries go, I can't do better than this one from E.E. Knight's blog.

“To Be A Man” - The thief Vasili has enjoyed a rich and ribald life with his partner, the notorious Titania Brashnova. But when Titania finally goes too far, Vasili must attempt his greatest con yet: ending their partnership ... without ending himself.

So, I've been keeping up with Red Sonja through Dynamite's comics line and frankly I'm pretty disappointed with the stories, mainly because Sonja is so two dimensional. In this story we are treated to a lusty tale that recalls the passion and intensity of Howard's Swordswoman. Titania is way larger than life, but it's such a refreshing take. You see, instead of being a chaste ice-princess, Titania is an insatiable love-tiger.

This is the first story in the collection to use first person narration. I haven't been so keen on this style for a while now, but it works so well here. I just glanced at the first few sentences and I was caught up. Vasili's personality is so vivid, the narration confident and playful. In fact the humor in the story camouflages a strong theme and dramatic development of character as Vasili wrestles with his conscience. This story has a moral core that caught me off guard and lifts it from the realm of pure entertainment. It's sexy and mature, and that is part of the artfulness of the tale. What could possibly go wrong with being the partner to a beautiful, ass-kicking, sexually insatiable amazon? The answer may surprise you.

Fantastic!


Buy the book! The Return of the Sword: An Anthology of Heroic Adventure
Robert Rhodes
EE Knight's Announcement
A Review

"Lair of the Cherufe" by Angeline Hawkes from Return of the Sword

If I didn't know better, I would say this is a story from the classic age of pulps. It has a fun style that reminded me of Fritz Leiber. Our hero, in this case, is Kabar of el Hazzar and the setting is a mythic middle east. The tale really cooks along, establishing character and setting while Kabar is being summoned by the local king, an old fighting buddy of Kabar's, whose daughter has been kidnapped. She is to be sacrificed to some gigantic monster in a volcano, unless Kabar can save her.

If there is one thing that puzzles me, its the presence of two other characters, Kabar's brother and a friend. They don't accomplish much and I think the story would be shorter and sweeter without them. However, looking at Ms. Hawkes website, it seems this is one of many stories featuring these characters, and in this case, her fans would probably like to know what's going on with these two. That's understandable, especially from an established author. It's an interesting group, and I could certainly read more of their stories.

There's another magic blade in this tale, the Singing Sword. That's pretty familiar territory, and in fact there are few surprises here. The hero is very confident and it comes as no shock when things go his way... mostly. =) But overall it is an entertaining yarn that stands out for its unique and fully-formed voice and its classic pulp feel.


Buy the book! The Return of the Sword: An Anthology of Heroic Adventure
Angeline Hawkes
EE Knight's Announcement
A Review