Yule Review: The Dark is Rising series By Susan Cooper

  A version of this article appeared in Knights of the Dinner Table #158 (December, 2009).

When the Dark comes rising, six shall turn it back;
Three from the circle, three from the track;
Wood, bronze, iron; water, fire, stone;
Five will return, and one go alone.

I’ve always found Christmas to be a magical time, and not simply for the presents. In the northern hemisphere, when the days grow shorter and short, the nights longer and darkness holds great sway over the world so that even the days are often dim and grey it is easy to imagine elves slipping between snow covered trees. On cold nights, looking up at bright stars while “the moon on the breast of the new fallen snow gave a luster of midday to objects below” I have felt that magic sink into my soul. Halloween may seem the more natural holiday for fantasy fans with its witches, vampires, and demons, but it is Christmas when the magic seems to come to life.

There are, ironically, very few fantasy novels that really capture that Christmas or Yuletide magic. It is an elusive, fairy air captured by true masters such as Dickens in the classic A Christmas Carol yet tasting oddly flat when addressed by numerous journeyman writers. Yet in The Dark is Rising British author Susan Cooper captures the mystery of the season and melds it with the equally deep and ancient Matter of Britain. The result is an incredible work of fantasy and children’s literature.

Susan Cooper was born in 1935 in Buckinghamshire, England. Her childhood in Britain during World War II had a great influence on her later work, as did her days living in Wales and her degree in English from Oxford. Though she never personally met J.R.R. Tolkien or C.S. Lewis, she attended lectures by both of them, as explained in this excellent bio on her webpage. She worked as a reporter before moving to the Massachusetts, where she became a full time author, primarily of children's stories. She is best known for The Dark is Rising series, for which she won several awards, and her grasp of the underpinnings and function of Fantasy was made most obvious when she presented 'A Catch of the Breath',  the fifth annual J.R.R Tolkien Lecture on Fantasy Literature at Pembroke College, Oxford on 27th April 2017. You can, and should, watch this outstanding talk on YouTube here, it truly is a masterpiece of public speaking. 

The Dark is Rising series comprises five novels: Over Sea, Under Stone, The Dark is Rising, Greenwitch, The Grey King, and Silver on the Tree. All five are set in England, Cornwall, or Wales and depict episodes in the ongoing cosmic struggle between the Dark and the Light, which is represented by the immortal Old Ones.

Only one character, Merriman Lyon, appears in all five novels. Merriman is strongly implied to be Merlin, and certainly fills the role of mentor and mystical advisor to the five children who are the novels’ main protagonists. Simon, Jane, and Barney Drew are three quite normal children drawn into these quests by their ‘great-uncle’ Merriman. They are in all of the novels save The Dark is Rising and The Grey King. Will Stanton, seventh son of a seventh son, is the protagonist of The Dark is Rising novel itself and appears in all of the novels except Over Sea, Under Stone. Bran Davies is the last of the children, a mysterious albino Welsh boy who appears in only the last two novels, The Grey King and Silver on the Tree.

The novels are complex and handle their rather deep subject matter well. The action is fierce but restrained; the struggles involved rarely extend to mere physical altercations. Over Sea, Under Stone recounts the search for the Grail during the Drew children’s holiday in Cornwall, and the greater matters are only hinted at. The Dark is Rising takes place throughout the Christmas season in the Thames valley of England; Cooper is particularly skilled in using the traditional calendar of Yuletide, Midwinter Day, and the Twelve Days of Christmas to frame her tale. Greenwitch introduces the Drews to Will during a spring holiday in Cornwall during the Greenwitch festival; Jane Drew’s place in the story is more firmly established. The Grey King is perhaps the darkest of the series. Will recuperates in Wales from a sickness and befriends Bran, a shy boy with a tragic family history. And Silver on the Tree brings the series back to Midsummer, as the tale travels across England and Wales and through time, with all five children together for the final quest.

For gamers, the series is full of inspiration. Those who thrilled at the drawing of Herne the Hunter in Deities and Demigods will find his depiction in this series masterful, moreover it provides the game master with a wonderful example of how to use the Wild Hunt in a campaign. The seamless manner in which Cooper weaves history and mythology into the modern world is equally inspiring, and her concept of the Light and the Dark, as well as their eternal struggle, works well for most modern fantasy games. The series inspired me to write and run two different, long-running campaigns. Ars Magica and World of Darkness gamers in particular will find much of value here.

Cooper never stoops to using sex or violence to tell her tale, and so the series remains appropriate for children even while addressing themes of importance. Her writing is sparse yet evocative and her plots are meticulous, nothing feels forced or out of place. She has a great deal to say about the nature of good and evil, yet she never lectures or berates the reader.

If you want poetry, magic, and Arthurian glory set within the modern world, then read this series. It is a true classic.

All views in this blog are my own and represent the views of no other person, organization, or institution.

A Halloween Review: The Werewolf of Paris by Guy Endore

  A version of this article appeared in Knights of the Dinner Table #156 (October, 2009).

From 2006 through 2012 I was the "Off the Shelf" columnist for Knights of the Dinner Table, a magazine and comic book devoted to tabletop fantasy role paying games. I reviewed classic and
modern fantasy, horror, and science fiction novels. Every October I tried to review a work of classic horror in honor of Halloween. I am trying to continue that tradition with my blog. You can find previous Halloween Reviews here. 

When Halloween again rises from its grave to stalk the cool fall nights, one’s thoughts turn to the classic move monster of yore, that unholy triad of Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, and the Wolfman. The first two first appeared in classic gothic novels of the nineteenth century, widely read and beloved thrillers that often feature in high school reading lists. The werewolf’s historical and mythological roots are deeper than the other two; nearly every culture has some sort of lycanthropic legend. Werewolf tales are particularly widespread in Europe, where true stories of horrific wolf attacks were mythologized into fables such as Red Riding Hood. Despite this rich history, the literary antecedent of the Wolfman is less well known than his two companion classic horrors, in part because that 1933 novel, The Werewolf of Paris, remains under copyright.  

The Werewolf of Paris was written by Guy Endore, born Samuel Goldstein. Endore is best known today as a novelist and screen writer who was black-listed as a communist during the Red Scare. Endore was a communist (at least for a time), and was thoroughly immersed in the avant-garde intellectual movements of the 1930s. He was also educated in Europe.

Endore’s political leanings add a great deal to The Werewolf of Paris, a truly remarkable horror novel. Set in nineteenth century France, the novel tells the story of Bertrand Caillet as told primarily by his step-uncle, Aymar. Unlike later versions of the werewolf myth, Bertrand is not cursed by the bite of another werewolf but suffers rather from a family curse.  The novel tells the origin of this curse, and then details Bertrand’s sad life from birth to death.  The novel climaxes during the Franco-Prussian War, Bertrand is in Paris during the German siege, the Paris Commune, and the eventual retaking of Paris by the Versaillais troops. 

The descriptions of the Commune are vivid, and throughout the novel Endore’s Leftist sympathies leak through the text, yet this enhances rather than detracts from the experience, allowing the reader to immerse him or herself in the languid yet fevered atmosphere of France in the nineteenth century. The contrast between Bertrand’s bucolic home village and the beleaguered Paris, were Bertrand’s depredations are truly the least of horrors is particularly acute.

In addition to the politics, Endore’s novel reeks of sex, and the sex is both more blatant and more depraved than the bubbling under-currents of Victorian erotic repression found in Dracula. The werewolf tale has always had a direct connection to sex, again Red Riding Hood is the most obvious example. The Caillet family curse is born and perpetuated through sexual transgression down the ages. Bertrand’s own bestial urges expresses itself sexually as well as violently, and the only cure for his affliction appears to be a demented sort of true love. Though certainly not pornographic or particularly explicit, the sexuality is disturbing enough that I recommend parents read he book before their teenagers. I would only allow older, mature teens to read it myself. 

For gamemasters the novel is most fruitful as a background template, demonstrating how to design a memorable non-player character.  Bertrand makes an excellent tragic villain, and presenting the players with this sort of challenge, a monster that perhaps should not be killed yet must be stopped, is an excellent change of pace. Players may find less of immediate use, although Aymar’s investigations once he is in Paris itself may be instructive for Call of Cthulhu or other games involving supernatural investigations.

Despite its popularity, Endore’s novel was not filmed itself until 1962 when the famous British horror studio, Hammer Films, made Curse of the Werewolf. The novel’s psychological depth and overt sexuality was a deterrent to earlier dramatization. The filmed version moved the action to 18th century Spain, and was Oliver Reed's first starring role.

Bertrand’s rich, evocative prose makes the novel an engaging read despite the heavy subject matter.  Readers looking for a classic horror story with depth and resonance will be well rewarded his work. Read it late on a windy night with a window open and dogs howling in the distance… and don’t be surprised if you crave red meat and more the next day…

All views in this blog are my own and represent the views of no other person, organization, or institution.

The Express Diaries by Nick Marsh

A version of this article appeared in Knights of the Dinner Table #196 (February, 2013)

Role-playing has always been intimately linked to literature, it grew from wargaming, certainly, but its
soul has also been a deep desire to live within the fantastical worlds we immerse ourselves in while reading.  Indeed, styles of role-play can often be divined from one’s reading preferences (Conan fans usually love hack and slash, for example). Many books have inspired role-playing games, and as the role-playing hobby has developed, it has inspired books in its own turn. 

Usually these works are best when a writer simply sets a work within a specific role-playing setting, though many have attempted to turn their characters exploit into novels, those attempts usually fall very flat. But not always, some writers have succeeded in turning roleplaying campaign inspiration into fictional gold. 

The Express Diaries by Nick Marsh was inspired by a series of role-playing sessions played and recorded by an RPG group, the Bradford Players (at one time these were available for sale online, as shown here, but they seem to be no longer available, sadly). The Bradford Players were running through a classic Call of Cthulhu adventure, Horror on the Orient Express (Chaosium, 1991). The adventure was inspired by the literary works of H.P. Lovecraft and Thomas Ligotti, Marsh’s novelization of the game sessions brings the cycle full circle. 

The novel follows a band of investigators as they chase down the mystery of the “Sedefkar Simulacrum” from London to Constantinople and back again, travelling generally on the infamous Orient Express. The tales is told, as the title implies, through various diary and journal entries, and further expanded through newspaper articles, advertisements. This is reminiscent of Stoker’s technique in Dracula and it is equally effective in this work. 

Perhaps because Marsh wasn’t one of the original players, but rather an outsider inspired by the sessions, this novel suffers from none of the self-indulgent flaws one usually finds in fiction inspired by game sessions. The characters view points are each unique, and this is apparent as the view shifts with each entry.  The earlier chapters have quite a bit of humor, some of it can get a bit predictable for anyone familiar with gaming in the 19th century. That doesn’t prevent it from being funny, however, and the early humor allows the reader to bond with the characters, and lulls the reader, so that when the horror truly begins, it is a bit shocking. 

For gamers, the value of this work is obvious, it serves as a wonderful example of a Call of Cthulhu campaign, or really, it works for nearly any horror adventure. The Bradford players seem to have been very role-playing oriented, none of the characters could be described as combat heavy hitters so the campaign is an excellent example of games in which direct combat and firefights play little if any role (appropriate, for the setting). 

Marsh’ sense of humor and ability to portray character is excellent, his prose is very sure-footed. Perhaps he doesn’t quite handle the horrific portions of the tale quite as well as the humorous sections, but they are still a great read. The reader heavily identifies with the characters and subsequently feels their defeats quite keenly. 

Of course, critical for any tale of this sort are the scenes on the train proper, as well as the sense of travel as the story progresses across Europe. This is one of Marsh’ strengths, the train comes alive through his prose, the reader feels as if they too have taken the long journey, and despite the horror, like they might want to take another such trip. I appreciate when he points out anachronisms such as dining cars that appear in the original adventure.

The novel is well suited for both prequels and sequels, and one can hope that Marsh finds good reason to continue novelizing the adventures of the Bradford Players. Certainly this work is a worthy addition to the Cthulhu mythos, even if Lovecraft himself may not have approved of the tale (he seems to have preferred a single protagonist, and never a female lead).In fact, I found this comment from a reader on the book's Amazon page extremely insightful: "...not so much something H.P. Lovecraft himself might have written as what you might have gotten if Clark Ashton Smith had written a Bram Stoker pastiche." I wish I written that myself!

If you enjoy horror, the writings of H.P. Lovecraft, or if you enjoy role-playing then give The Express Diaries a read. Or if you just are in between campaigns and need a Call of Cthulhu fix. Regardless, you’ll have a good read.

All views in this blog are my own and represent the views of no other person, organization, or institution.

A Halloween Review: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

 A version of this article appeared in Knights of the Dinner Table #168 (October, 2010).

From 2006 through 2012 I was the "Off the Shelf" columnist for Knights of the Dinner Table, a magazine and comic book devoted to tabletop fantasy role paying games. I reviewed classic and modern fantasy, horror, and science fiction novels. Every October I tried to review a work of classic horror in honor of Halloween. I am trying to continue that tradition with my blog. You can find previous Halloween Reviews here. 

The witch is on the broomstick and a chill is in the air as haunted old Halloween arrives. This year I review Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

Mary Shelley was a remarkable woman from a remarkable family; her father was a famous philosopher, her mother a famous feminist, her husband the renowned poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her early life was remarkable for the early 19th century, ‘radical’ even by today’s standards and colored by a remarkable amount of grief.  Aside from the creation of his monster, she in fact led a far more fascinating and interesting life than her novel’s protagonist. But a full accounting of her life would require a thick biography.

The story of the genesis of Frankenstein is well known. In 1816 she and Percy visited Lord Byron at a villa near Lake Geneva, Switzerland.  To pass the rainy days, Byron suggested they write ghost stories themselves, and from that summer came the story that she later worked into the novel: Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus.

The plot of the novel is well know: Frankenstein, a Byronic figure, becomes infatuated with creating life through electricity and his obsessive studies and experiments allow him to eventually give life to a creature he has constructed from cadavers.  His reaction is not what he expects:

It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs. 

How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.

Frankenstein violently rejects his creature and abandons it, returning to his home and trying to resume his life as though his demented escapade had never occurred. But of course one’s mistakes cannot be so easily buried or forgotten and tragedy stalks Frankenstein’s loved ones until finally he and the creature race to a final confrontation in the far north. The novel is narrated by the device of a framing tale to the captain of an arctic exploration vessel as Frankenstein recovers from exposure.

Frankentsein is a major influence for gamers, directly inspiring villains in various horror settings like TSR’s Ravenloft. Frankenstein himself serves as an excellent model for either PC protagonist or NPC antagonist, indeed stripped of his scientific trappings he makes an excellent wizard.  The Creature is equally fascinating, and gamemasters who study how he plots his actions and justifies his actions can model truly tragic and emotionally painful foes for their players on him. Of course, for those gaming in a ‘Steam-punk’ setting the novel is practically required reading.  

Frankenstein is a classic novel that fully deserves the attention it receives, but it has perhaps been over-exposed.  High school English teachers reach for it easily, since it grabs the attention of students and the author’s life touches on so many important themes: Romanticism, Feminism, Liberalism, and so forth. But few of us truly enjoy works we are forced to read as homework, and when our memories are tainted by dozens of movies which pay only a passing nod to the novel while employing its themes and characters with casual abandon, it is only natural the one begins to think of it as an anemic, unoriginal motif.

But Shelley’s novel is more than that, it is a rich, full-bodied gothic experience that induces in the willing reader a deep despair. Her prose is as carefully crafted as any other from that most literary period, and just as passionate as anything written by Byron or Shelley themselves. 

When the moon is full and you wish to delve into the soul of horror and despair, leave the urban vampire tales alone and revisit Frankenstein.  It will be time well spent. 

All views in this blog are my own and represent the views of no other person, organization, or institution.

Review: Sanctuary by Lynn Abbey

 A version of this article appeared in Knights of the Dinner Table #198 (April, 2013).

All the good things of the earth flow into our city because of its greatness…

(Pericles' Funeral Oration, Thucydides 2.38)

Pericles was speaking of Athens, one of the marvels of the ancient world, a city whose institutions have
come to us through the centuries and whose reputation may be tarnished but has never descended from greatness. It was literally a ‘city on a hill;’ the original great cosmopolis or ‘world city.’ Cities have long captured our imaginations, and usually there are two types. One is the great, shining city that was Athens, or if one looks at fictional cities, Superman’s Metropolis. But it is the other sort of city, the city into which all vile things flow that this novel explores, a city ironically named Sanctuary.

Lynn Abbey’s Sanctuary is a unique novel for many reasons. It is intended as a bridge between the original incarnation of Thieves’ World and its second life. Thieves’ World was the first ‘shared world’ setting, and it was primarily a fantasy short story anthology series edited by Robert Asprin and Lynn Abbey, though novels, board games, comics, and a truly excellent multi-system city RPG boxed set were also produced. Its influence on shared worlds, the fantasy genre, and roleplaying was significant, but it reached creative and sales exhaustion by the 1990s.  However, fans of the series never completely disappeared and Abbey was persuaded to resurrect it in 2002. 

Sanctuary is not your normal hero’s quest tale, though it a coming of age tale. It merges the tragic history of Sanctuary with the equally tragic back story of its protagonist, Cauvin. Cauvin is the adopted son of a mason, adopted following the flaming, bloody demise of the Hand of Dyareela cult. This cult, devoted to a hermaphroditic deity of chaos, disease, madness, and death (first introduced in the second anthology of the series, Tales from the Vulgar Unicorn in 1980), had gained control of the city in the years following the last anthology. The Hand prefers children as followers; it gathered orphans and raised them to be corrupt, mad, and cannibalistic. Cauvin was one of the very few sane survivors, saved by those who destroyed the cult because he displayed a spark of humanity. Still a child, he is adopted by a stone mason and becomes his servant/apprentice, and he settles into the humdrum life of a Sanctuary working man. Then he discovers on his daily business a decrepit, aged, and wounded Molin Torchholder. 

Torchholder appeared or was mentioned in more stories than any other character in the original series, often just a cameo or an off-screen threat, but always there, always involved. His choice as the bridge character was inspired, as was the idea that he would chose an heir to whom to pass his knowledge of the secrets and lore of the city. Cauvin, Molin, and Cauvin’s younger adopted brother, Bec, are forced to confront the demons and angels of the past while facing a new, yet familiar threat to the city.  

And the city is the real hero of the story. Cauvin is endearing and the reader will certainly root for him, but the soul of Thieves’ World has always been the city of Sanctuary itself, and Abbey manages to show its shifts and changes over time, its many physical alterations, while holding true to the Sanctuary's soul. The city is alive and real, it attracts pain, suffering, corruption, and despair yet the city itself is neither corrupt nor wicked but rather a tough survivor battered and bruised by tragic life and yet unbroken.  

In the past, when I've read this novel I've been very focused on the easter eggs and hints to the past, this time around I am trying very hard to focus instead on this novel as its own thing, with its own story to tell. For example, the Dyareelans make INCREDIBLE fantasy world villains, Sanctuary has never had a scarcity of evil and cruelty but the Dyareelans surpassed everything previously seen. - they make Roxanne look like a mildly difficult hedge witch of quite banal "evil" in comparison. Their focus on children as both victims and tools in their atrocities makes them feel very real and very abhorrent.

The Molin/Cauvin relationship with reminds me a little of Merlin and Nimue in Mary Stewart's The Last Enchantment (obviously without the romantic element). And Molin and Cauvin's relationship with Arizak and Raith remind of Merlin's relationship with Uther and Arthur. The idea of a younger heir taking over for a lamed great king is a common Arthurian motif, but stripping it from its Faerie and British environment and instead applying it to the succession crisis for a barbarian tribe ruling a conquered desert city is inspired. Or... I've just read far too much of Thieves' World and the matter of Britain both and I'm seeing things that aren't there. 😀

Gamemasters will find in Sanctuary a wonderful example for rebuilding or advancing old, stale campaigns. It is also an excellent example of city design, and the importance of forming a cohesive history for your settings. The Hand of Dyareela is a wonderful example for structuring an evil cult to oppose your players. For players, Cauvin, Bec, and Soldt all provide excellent character templates that can be altered and emulated to provide depth. Players running priests who wish to be something other than clerical healing dispensers will find Molin Torchholder inspirational as well.

Sanctuary was followed by two new short story anthologies, Turning Points (2002) and Enemies of Fortune (2004), each structured like the original Thieves’ World anthologies with a stable of writers from the old series as well as new comers.

I said earlier that Sanctuary is ironically named, yet it is aptly named as well. The city draws all that is vile to it, but also acts as a protector to it citizens, and for readers the city is a sanctuary as well, you will truly enjoy your time in Thieves’ World. So check your purse, loosen your sword, and give the city another chance. 

All views in this blog are my own and represent the views of no other person, organization, or institution.

Review: My Father, the Pornographer: A Memoir by Chris Offutt.

 

This is an odd one. I just finished this audiobook during my commute last week: My Father, the Pornographer: A Memoir by Chris Offutt.

I put off reading this one for years because the father in question, Andrew Offutt, is the creator of one of my favorite fantasy characters, Hanse Shadowspawn, in the superlative Thieves' World shared world setting. I'd already discovered the troubling background of another of my favorite writers from my teen years (David Eddings) and Marion Zimmer Bradley's issues are also well known (thankfully, she was never a favorite of mine). 

So I was apprehensive about what this would reveal about Offutt. It wasn't shocking that he had made a living writing pornography, that was common amongst many different sorts of writers in the 1960s and 1970s. It was a way to pay the bills, and many were "true believers" in the sexual revolution. But previews of the work hinted at darker revelations and Chris Offutt seemed to have a chip on his shoulder regarding his father. 

It was not as bad as I had feared. First, the work really is a memoir, but its Chris Offutt's memoir. His relationship with his father was obviously troubled - emotionally abusive would seem to be the best description from the son's point of view. and that's the only point of view we really get. This father and son never seem to have quite reached a meeting of the minds. 

My father was not a talker, but he was extremely supportive even when his son was following obsessions he didn't really understand. I was blessed when it came to parents, and I realize that. So I am very reluctant to judge other's views of their parents. They lived that experience, not I. I felt this was a one-sided account, but that doesn't make it wrong or inaccurate. Other readers have spoken of the empathy they felt Chris display here towards his father. I didn't really get that, but I certainly didn't get hate either. 

A specific passage, about Chris being sexually abused by an older man while a teenager, abuse his parents were never aware of, illustrated how crazy people of my generation are when they extol "free range kids" as a parenting style. Chris Offutt definitely grew up "free range" and he suffered a horrific assault because of that. It certainly filled me with guilt and doubt about my own child rearing. 

In general, this work made me question myself as a father. I know I have never belittled or berated my children, but passages describing how Andrew Offutt would "destroy" people in debates hit far too close to home for me.  

This work also left me frustrated. Andrew Offutt wrote in the genres of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Pornography (crossed with the other two, quite often). His son covers his porn career exhaustively, and he describes his early science fiction career, which he seems to have felt showed great promise that his father "betrayed" by turning to porn. but he doesn't discuss his fantasy writing at all. Andrew Offutt was the editor of an important Sword & Sorcery anthology series, Swords Against Darkness. The series was curated, not simply slapped together, and included Offutt's comments and analysis of why the tales mattered. It made the argument that S&S was not only fun, but that it could matter, and his son barely mentions this seminal work (which earned Offutt a spot on the famous Appendix N list). And in the '80s, as the porn market was drying up, Offutt was the creator of Thieves' World's most popular character and one of its most consistent authors. 

Offutt never even mentions Hanse in his work, and that is frustrating because the corpus of short stories about Hanse is a bildungsroman of uncommon clarity and insight. He may have been a poor father, but as a writer, Andrew Offutt showed in the Hanse short stories (and two novels) remarkable insight into the adolescent male, as well as a realistic view of young love. Did Chris never read any of these? Given the nature of his memoir this part of his father's writing should have been given at least a little attention. 

Further, for both Andrew Offutt and his wife, in the 1970s and 1980s the fan convention culture seems to have been a big part of their lives. And their children were apparently dragged to it without being made a part of it. I understand why that would make one angry and resentful - I imagine it would provide a similar feeling in later years as those children who were forced to attend church services and bible school. But Chris Offutt's contempt for the fans at those conventions was more than a little off-putting. Of course, it was also a rather stinging indictment of "free range" parenting. 

In short, Offutt seems to be shamed by his father's porn writing, but he seems to be perhaps even more ashamed, or at least contemptuous, of his "genre" writing. As a result, this memoir give us no real insight into Offutt's fantasy writing or his place in the genre's corpus. The work simply ignores the area where Offutt very likely had his biggest impact as an author and editor. 

I finished this book feeling melancholy and sad, but also very lucky in my own familial relationships. On the other hand, I have to admit Chris Offutt is a brilliant writer, as other reviewers have noted. This isn't a fun read, but I am glad I read it.

All views in this blog are my own and represent the views of no other person, organization, or institution.

Yule Review: The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus

 A version of this article appeared in Knights of the Dinner Table #170 (December, 2010).

The circle of the world has turned and Yule is come again. In the Northern Hemisphere the light has slowly been declining until the shortest day of the year arrives, and the longest night. Bells tinkle and magic is in the air as so much of the Western World again descends into fantasy and childhood.

It's Christmas Eve! 

Despite the obvious links to fantasy inherent in so many Christmas traditions and tales, the holiday is stubbornly difficult for fantasy writers to handle successfully. Perhaps it is the broad, mass appeal of Christmas stories, its religious overtones, or its economic importance. Whatever the reason, precious few good, modern fantasy genre stories are set during the holidays, and even fewer successfully tackle its themes. The topic is generally abandoned to the authors of children’s book. In the 19^th century, however, it was a common topic for prolific writers whose longevity and popularity have elevated them to icon status today.

L. Frank Baum is a prime example. Because he wrote for children and enjoyed mass appeal, the author of The Wizard of Oz is seldom thought of as a fantasy author, a status he shares with Peter Pan’s J.M. Barrie and Alice in Wonderland’s Lewis Carroll. Of course, all three were fantasy writers who built fantastical imaginary worlds that have directly influenced much modern fantasy, and fantasy roleplaying.

In 1902 Baum wrote The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, which purported to provide Santa’s origin story, creating an elaborate and original mythology that includes traditional creatures such as nymphs, gnomes, and elves as well as original creations such as Ryls and Knooks. The story is set in the Forest of Burzee, described memorably by Baum:

Have you heard of the great Forest of Burzee? Nurse used to sing of it when I was a child. She sang of the big tree-trunks, standing close together, with their roots intertwining below the earth and their branches intertwining above it; of their rough coating of bark and queer, gnarled limbs; of the bushy foliage that roofed the entire forest, save where the sunbeams found a path through which to touch the ground in little spots and to cast weird and curious shadows over the mosses, the lichens and the drifts of dried leaves.

The Forest of Burzee is mighty and grand and awesome to those who steal beneath its shade. Coming from the sunlit meadows into its mazes it seems at first gloomy, then pleasant, and afterward filled with never-ending delights.

Baum carefully describes the ways in which all of the different aspects of the Santa tradition come into being, from reindeer to the first Christmas Tree. It’s all fanciful, and differs significantly from today’s better known traditions: for example Santa’s deer number ten rather than eight and are named Glossie,  Flossie, Racer, Pacer, Fearless, Peerless, Ready, Steady, Feckless, and Speckless, When Baum wrote Christmas traditions were less calcified, and he made full use of this creative freedom. 

Santa’s rise to greatness is not unopposed; a great battle is fought between the evil Awgwas and the immortals, Santa’s patrons. Santa himself is not involved in the battle, Baum is careful to maintain his essential purity and goodness, established firmly when the young Claus, finally exposed to the evils that so many children suffer after his own happy childhood in the Forest of Burzee, embarks upon his great quest to bring children happiness.

The Forest of Burzee, and Santa himself, are connected to Baum’s Oz legendarium in the 1909 novel The Road to Oz (the fifth Oz book), when Santa and his entourage come to Princess Ozma’s birthday party. The Forest, and Santa, appear in some of Baum’s short stories, especially “A Kidnapped Santa Claus” from 1904, a slightly darker tale which featured the Daemons of Selfishness, Envy, Hatred, Malice, and Repentance.

The fairy tale style of Life and Adventures of Santa Claus might put off players and game-masters from seeking inspiration in the tale, but in fact the mythology is a rich vein to mine for gaming nuggets. One limitation of the Christmas mythology, from a gaming perspective, has always been its close ties to the Christian religion. Baum’s tale presents a well reason Santa Claus figure in a mythology divorced from Christianity (though not hostile to it).  A game-master can thus introduce Santa and his accompanying mythology to a pagan campaign world without violating either logic or insulting a real world religion. Indeed, the Immortals make an excellent pantheon that a game-master could drop ready-made into any campaign with a strong element of faerie in its makeup.

Baum wrote the tale for children, but his prose is skillful if minimalist. It is filled with evocative images and memorable if quickly drawn characters. Discerning, open-minded adults should enjoy the pleasant tale and younger truly may truly love it. The novel has been adapted to the screen in two cartoons, and handles the transition well, Baum laved the theater and his writing retained a theatrical sense that encouraged such adaption.

Finally, like most of Baum’s work the tale is in the public domain. It can be found readily enough in various new editions, and is also available as a free download at Project Gutenberg.

The work was adapted into an interesting stop-motion animation holiday special by Rankin-Bass in 1985. It never attained the popularity of the other Rankin-Bass shows, but it has some remarkable images, the Great Ak especially is really dignified and impressive. And Universal produced a cartoon version as well in 2000, but I've never had an opportunity to watch it. 

Any figure as pervasive and influential as Santa Claus can carry the weight of multiple origin tales. Baum’s is a worthy contribution to the legend, and an excellent way to add a hint of mistletoe and holly to your fantasy gaming.

All views in this blog are my own and represent the views of no other person, organization, or institution.

A Halloween Review: Dracula by Bram Stoker

 A version of this article appeared in Knights of the Dinner Table #144 (October, 2008).

From 2006 through 2012 I was the "Off the Shelf" columnist for Knights of the Dinner Table, a magazine and comic book devoted to tabletop fantasy role paying games. I reviewed classic and modern fantasy, horror, and science fiction novels. Every October I tried to review a work of classic horror in honor of Halloween. I am trying to restart that tradition with my blog.

Cover of Dracula, 13th Edition, 1919
Held by the British Library.

The air is cool and pumpkins again litter the countryside.  As the leaves turn and fall, a young man’s thoughts naturally turn to witches, ghosts, and vampires. And, of course, one considers the grand-daddy of all vampire tales, Dracula. The Count is one of the most pervasive characters in popular culture, appearing again and again in books, movies, music, even poetry. What remains to be said about a fictional figure over whom so much ink has already been spilled?

Little, perhaps, but one can always find value in the original sources of cultural icons. Though many folks know the broad outlines of Stoker’s novel, the many movie and stage versions have been far from faithful adaptations. The classic’s original impact may be rediscovered and understood more deeply against the backdrop of so many variations on its themes.

Bram Stoker was an Irish novelist and playwright of modest success.  His primary occupation was business manager of actor Henry Irving’s Lyceum Theater, but he produced many novels both before the 1897 publication of Dracula and after.  Perhaps the best known of these later works are the horror tales: The Jewel of Seven Stars (1903), The Lair of the White Worm (1911), The Lady of the Shroud (1909), and the posthumous short story collection, Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Stories (1914).  Sadly, none of these later attempts match the power or style of his masterpiece.

Dracula may be examined as a work of three parts, though Stoker does not clearly organize it so. Each part is defined by Dracula’s victim, or prey. In the first, he preys on Jonathon Harker, determined to drain him of his knowledge of London, and more. The next phase shifts, so suddenly that Harker’s final fate remains unknown, to Lucy, Dracula’s most tragic victim.  Within this long section all of the principle characters are fully introduced as Lucy’s friends and suitors struggle to save her from the diabolical count. In the final part of the novel, the victim is now Mina, and action revolves around the struggle to free her, and destroy the Count.  

The novel is written in an unusual style, as it purports to be merely a collection of letters, newspaper clippings, and journal entries written or collected by the participants in order to record the terrible, fateful events they observed. It is an extremely effective literary device, which allows the authorial point of view to shift smoothly from character to character while increasing the sense of tension and the importance of time. And Stoker is quite aware of time, carefully knitting his plot together so that dates match up exactly. 

Yet the device does not lessen the power of Stoker’s prose.  Consider the following passage:

On the bed beside the window lay Jonathan Harker, his face flushed and breathing heavily as though in a stupor. Kneeling on the near edge of the bed facing outwards was the white-clad figure of his wife. By her side stood a tall, thin man, clad in black. His face was turned from us, but the instant we saw we all recognized the Count, in every way, even to the scar on his forehead. With his left hand he held both Mrs. Harker’s hands, keeping them away with her arms at full tension. His right hand gripped her by the back of the neck, forcing her face down on his bosom. Her white nightdress was smeared with blood, and a thin stream trickled down the man’s bare chest which was shown by his torn-open dress. The attitude of the two had a terrible resemblance to a child forcing a kitten’s nose into a saucer of milk to compel it to drink. 

The impact of Dracula’s appearance is heightened by the first person account, yet it is clear that unlike later writers, Stoker sees the vampire as a dangerous predator, a rapist. The love story between Mina and Dracula found in so many adaptations is completely missing from Stoker’s original tale, yet the novel is filled with love stories. First those between Lucy and her three suitors: Lord Godalming, Dr. Seward, and Quincy Morris, then later the love between Jonathon and Mina Harker. But these loves are the talisman against Dracula’s evil, not a means for his seductions.

Dracula’s mysteries, and subsequently his aura of fear and horror, are heightened by the literary device as well. Dracula leaves no journal entries, no record of his thoughts or feelings. We see him as the protagonists see him: a malevolent force of unfathomable evil. He appears rarely, aside from his initial introduction when Jonathon Harker spends considerable time in conversation with the Count. Then, when the introductory meetings have concluded, he becomes a shadowy figure of unknown whereabouts and means. The reader never knows more than the protagonists, and the tension increases accordingly. 

For gamers, Stoker’s novel is a must read. The characters are well formed and provide potent archetypes for players in horror campaigns. Dracula himself is the icon of the ‘big bad’ or main villain in a campaign and Stoker’s masterful handling of his villain provides a GM with both inspiration and specific ideas. And the lessons do not only apply to running vampire villains. Finally, the literary device of journals and letters can be gainfully borrowed by role playing campaigns regardless of genre.  Having your players write letters or journal entries between sessions is a certain way to increase roleplaying and atmosphere.

Stoker's novel has long been in the public domain and can be found in many places. Several versions are available on Project Gutenberg and on LibriVox.

Stoker’s original novel is a lush cornucopia of fear, lust, courage, and love. A rainy October day spent reading Dracula is time horrifically well spent.    

All views in this blog are my own and represent the views of no other person, organization, or institution.

A Halloween Review: The Lancashire Witches

A version of this article appeared in Knights of the Dinner Table #195 (September, 2013).

One of my greatest joys as a reader is discovering a good book that I have not read before. When it is an old book, an antique book, which I have not only not read but not even heard of, this joy is much greater. Back in 2013,  I found that joy while searching for books about witches when I discovered The Lancashire Witches: A Romance of Pendle Forest (1848), a novel written by William Harrison Ainsworth.

Ainsworth was trained as a lawyer in London, but never pursued the profession, instead entering into publishing with his first novel, Rookwood, in 1839.  His work was popular, and he was extremely prolific; taking English history as his source he went on to write forty or so historical novels covering centuries of English history. He was a friend and contemporary of Charles Dickens, as well as popular writer whose works sold very well, but his novels have generally not stood the test of time well and he is often forgotten by all but literary historians these days.

The Lancashire Witches, first published in serial form in 1848, is Ainsworth’s best known novel and the

"The Incantation." Illustration by John Gilbert.

one which has remained in print the longest. It is a fascinating work which tells a fantastical version of the historical trial of the Pendle Witches. Ainsworth begins the tale with a Catholic uprising against Henry the VIII a couple generations before the Pendle Witch trials, using a conflicted bishop and a fallen priest as a fascinating back drop to the tale, encompassing a quite long introduction.  The plot of the novel proper is then contained in three books.  Ainsworth builds his plot around a historical account of the trials, The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster by Thomas Potts, and makes Thomas Potts himself a wonderfully slimy character in the work.  Many of the characters names come from the historical event, but their relationships, roles, characters, and actions are not remotely historical; magic is distinctly real, devils and ghosts make regular appearances.

The novel’s protagonists are the tragic lovers, Richard Asheton and Alizon Device. The witches are quite real, and quite devoted to the devil, yet the witch hunters (save the king, James I) are depicted as venal money-grubbers, anxious to accuse others in order to gain benefits. Alizon’s purity is never in doubt, but her unfortunate relationships to witches make her a target of the witch hunters, even as the witches themselves try to sacrifice her to the devil for her purity. 

The novel’s presentations of Lancashire country life in the 1600s may not be perfectly historically accurate, but it is quite enjoyable, and anyone who has attended a Renaissance Fair will quickly recognize it as the source of so many tropes of Elizabethan games, it is self-consciously a depiction of “Merry Olde England.”

"The Ride Through the Murky Air."
Illustration by John Gilbert.

For gamers, this book is chock full of excellent examples and characters to steal. All of the various witches can be lifted whole-cloth for use as village healers, villains, or hedge witches in most roleplaying campaigns. Wonderful examples of spells and material components abound, as well as a great example of the internal politics of a witches' coven. Gamemasters can also see the workings of local versus national political leadership when the king visits in the last book of the novel, as well as some excellent plot ideas and concepts for properly using ghosts to push characters along. But the best steal from the novel is Nicholas Asheton, Richard’s cousin and a splendid character that gamemasters can lift whole-cloth and place in their campaigns as a local squire or other minor nobleman. Most of the funniest scenes in the novel center on his exploits.

Ainsworth was a friend of Dickens, but I found myself constantly comparing his work to a French contemporary, Alexandre Dumas. The Three Musketeers depicts the life of impoverished minor gentry in 16th century Paris, The Lancashire Witches does the same for 17th century rural England: both romanticize the time and place, but do so charmingly.   

The Lancashire Witches is still in print, you can find several reasonably priced paper editions easily, and it is also available for free from Project Gutenberg and as an audiobook from Librivox. If you ind a printed version, be sure to get one that includes the original illustrations by John Gilbert, they add immensely to the tale and are just plain fun. 

If you enjoy a touch of comedy in your melodrama, and some historical spice in your tragedy, or if you just love witches, give this old book a read. It is rather remarkable. 

All views in this blog are my own and represent the views of no other person, organization, or institution.