Captain Blood
Speaking of Sabatini, Fletcher Vredenburgh and I take a long look at the three Captain Blood books and discuss their fine merits… and a few jarring problems, over at Black Gate today.
Big Read List
I’ve returned from DeKalb Illinois, where I was treated royally by Big Read organizers Steve Roman and Edith Craig. Steve and his wife Karen showed me around the downtown and took me out for dinner, then drove me to the Ellwood House, where I addressed the audience about the importance of fantasy fiction and delved into its history.
I promised attendees that I would provide a list of highlights from among the books I mentioned over the course of the talk, and here they are.
Hardboiled and Noir List
A few posts ago I mentioned my friend Chris Hocking had provided me with an amazing list of hardboiled and noir fiction. Hocking gave me the titles of the books he thought I’d most enjoy, the crème de la crème of the hardboiled and noir books he’s read over the last three and a half decades. It’s an extremely generous gift. Think of it this way: I’d have had to read for more than thirty years in the genre to find these on my own! With his permission, I’m now sharing it with you.
Before you dig in, understand that this list is idiosyncratic: it’s like a mix tape made for me by someone who not only understood my own preferences in literature but happened to have extremely similar tastes.
Hardboiled, or Noir?
It turns out that I’ve been using two related genre terms interchangeably in a whole series of related posts over the last year and now I have to cringe and confess I didn’t know what I was talking about.
Chris Hocking has introduced me to some noir, it’s true, but mostly what he’s opened me to is hardboiled fiction. While I’ve enjoyed the noir, it’s the hardboiled stuff that’s delighted me the most. I’m actually going to excerpt the Wikipedia definition of the term to define it, although I take issue with its concluding phrase, where it goes dreadfully wrong:
Magical List of Noir
Last year Chris Hocking gave me a list of noir “must-reads” and it’s one of the best gifts I’ve ever received.
Hocking, editor of Detroit Noir, writer of my favorite Conan pastiche, and all-around talented guy and great human being happens to be widely read on sword-and-sorcery but is perhaps even better read in noir.
The list he gave me is a distillation of at least thirty years of his reading in the mystery and harboiled genres — Hocking’s thoughts on the very, very best. You could use it to teach a course on what makes noir great.
Noir Masters
Over the last few months I’ve said that the books of the talented writer Wade Miller are must reads, and I thought I’d finally tell you why.
Bob Wade and Bill Miller wrote in tandem as a combination of their last two names, or as Dale Wilmer, or as Whit Masterson, up until Bill Miller’s untimely death at age 41 in 1961.The two created wonderful, twisting, unpredictable, satisfying noir. And they pulled the neat trick of delivering consistently excellent work story after story.
I Leveled Up
…Or maybe I beamed up. In any case, I finished the rough draft of my seventh book yesterday. (In D&D terms does that make me a seventh level writer?)
So what did I do afterwards? I treated myself to a big ‘ol cheeseburger, owing to the fact that a far more delicious vietnamese dish is, alas, a 30 minute drive away. After that I sat down to start outlining book number eight. That’s what you do when you’re trying to make a living at this business. I did allow myself a little sense of satisfaction, however, because I stayed on target. I began the 90k manuscript on June 30, and I finished it in just under two months. That’s my fastest rough draft yet, undertaken with a solid outline, a firm knowledge of my characters, and steady effort.
I’ll leave the current manuscript to cool on the window sill for a few days before I start revising. It’s nice to completely switch gears and work on something else.
Sailing with Sabatini
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I returned from GenCon with a whole host of goodies I’ll slowly be working through, and I still mean to dedicate an entire post to the work of the talented Kevin Crawford. Briefly, though, I want to talk Sabatini.
You may know Sabatini from Captain Blood, or Scaramouche, or, possibly, The Sea Hawk. The odds are fair that you know those titles more through Errol Flynn movies than through prose.
I’ve had mixed luck with Rafael Sabatini. Knowing that he was a giant in the historical fiction field which, naturally, has a huge influence upon fantasy adventure stories, I first tried out his work some twenty years ago. I remember enjoying Captain Blood but bouncing off of Scaramouche because the opening didn’t grip me.
Alchemical Storytelling
I chanced upon a show a few years ago that began with potential and then delivered on it episode after episode. I found fabulous world building and strong character arcs. I watched half hour after half hour the way I devour chapter after chapter in a great fantasy novel, poised on the edge of my seat wondering how things would resolve.
The show that so enthralled me is Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. The series is set in an alternate world in the 1900s, one very similar to our own, except that alchemy is real. Those talented and diligent enough can transform matter from one state to another — fix a broken radio into one that works, or convert a metal bar into a sword. The story’s protagonists are a pair of young brothers of tremendous talent who used their powers to commit the ultimate alchemical taboo: they tried to bring their dead mother back to life. They paid a terrible price when the transmutation went horribly wrong, and spend much of the series trying to put things right.
As the young men search for solutions they uncover hidden layers to the way alchemy, their country, and their world, truly work. As the mysteries deepen, so do the characters and the world. I really don’t want to say much more for fear of ruining the many unfolding surprises.
Princess Azula
A few weeks back I mentioned that Azula was not only one of the finest villains in animated history, but that she was one of the finest villains ever scripted.
Part of the reason she succeeds so beautifully, of course, comes from the amazing voice work of Grey Delisle, whose delivery is always bone-chillingly perfect. According to some sources, at least one of her speeches was intended simply as a screen test, but was so well-done that the show creators worked it into an episode anyway.