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Recent Reads

While on the way back and forth to the Virgin Islands I spent several hours on airplanes and even more hours in layover airports. What better time to whittle down my to-be-read stack? Not owning a Nook or a Kindle, I usually don’t take big modern fantasy books, but slim paperbacks, which slide in and out of the carry-on case a lot more simply. And I have to confess that I feel like I’m making more progress if I knock through a series of shorter books. I DO have a large TBR list, after all.

On the way down I read Dan Marlowe’s The Name of the Game is Death,  a riveting noir novel about a guy who’s not quite as much of a sociopath as he seems, set in some semi-tropical places. A haunting and powerful crime drama and character study. Then I tried another Wade Miller, Dead Fall. So far the team of Wade & Miller (two guys under one pseudonym) haven’t let me down. Even their standalones, like this one, are pretty riveting. The mystery was excellent and kept me guessing. Unfortunately, this one had the most “slap you in the face with its ’50s sexism” ending I’ve yet found in their work. Wade & Miller frequently featured strong women, so this was actually a departure for them. I’ll write up a longer article about their work some time soon, because they wrote some overlooked gems.

Genre Prejudice

It’s a lot easier for me to be generous about other genres than it used to be. I’m trying to decide if that has something to do with me mellowing with age, or if it’s because there’s a whole lot more sword-and-sorcery available than there was ten years ago … or if it’s simply that I don’t feel shut out anymore now that I’m writing sword-and-sorcery stories for a living.

Fantasy seems a lot more popular even among the mainstream readers than it used to be, although the dividing line between fantasy and sword-and-sorcery still seems pretty blurry. I’ve spent a lot of time over the years trying to define the difference, but I often feel like I’m shouting in the wind. The common conception remains that if it’s got swords and magic, it must be sword-and-sorcery, regardless of pacing or the focus of the plot. But let’s set another discussion of sword-and-sorcery aside for the nonce and focus instead on genre prejudice.

I think a lot of science fiction and fantasy writers and readers feel like low faces on the totem pole because their favorite fiction is sneered at by people in the know. A while ago, I started to realize that MOST writers felt like their genre was being kicked to the curb. Horror writers have been going through a hard time now for a good long while. YA writers, well, they “only write YA,” and God help the urban fantasy people, whom are in fashion to be hated. As writers and readers, we all turn up our noses at all the things we find wrong with some one else’s genre. Really, that’s all that’s happening with the literary criticism of genre work. It’s easy for us genre people to detail the things we find annoying about literary fiction, but it turns out lit fic writers feel harried themselves.

Stalking the Links

I’m back today, but mostly with links because there is much to be done.

First, I wanted to point everyone to a wonderful review of Stalking the Beast that popped up at Black Gate. I haven’t been much involved with the magazine site for quite a while, so I had no idea that this review was coming up, or that it had even been planned. Writer Nick Ozment seemed to love the book, which pleases me mightily.

Sometimes people don’t like things you write for understandable reasons, and sometimes they don’t like things you write because they apply their own assumptions to it (not being familiar with an unreliable narrator, say, or not knowing the difference between an info dump and an Arabian Nights story-within-a-story ).

But sometimes a reviewer finds exactly what you were hoping a reader would take away from your work and then explains it cogently, and that’s what Nick Ozment did.

Day of Discovery

As most of my regular visitors probably know, I released an e-book that collected many of my Dabir and Asim stories a couple of years ago. E-books don’t generally receive the same level of interest, promotion, or reviews as printed books (unless lightning strikes) so I was surprised and pleased when I discovered a new review of The Waters of Eternity had gone up over at Dear Author.

I’ve been hard at work on other books and other tales, but Dabir and Asim are near and dear to my heart, as you could probably guess. It’s been a real pleasure to see a new story about them become available in Kaiju Rising, and between that and this new review (and the fact that I’m often thinking about their further adventures even while in the midst of some other writing), I was inspired to dig through my Dabir and Asim folder this morning and look at a few odds and ends.

Fafhrd in the Mail

It’s been a busy, productive week, with some nice surprises.

First, I wanted to point everyone to the new contest on my site to win a free copy of one of my books, and, potentially, a free copy of books by many other authors. Go take a look!

Next, I wanted to share a surprise that appeared in my mail the other day. I think I mentioned that I have been greedily reading through a long list of hardboiled fiction recommended by my friend John Chris Hocking. I sold off a parcel of comics and books via e-bay and my friend Wayne of Wayne’s Books to fund my hard boiled exploration. (A lot of this stuff can’t be found in libraries, and has been out of print since the ’40s or ’50s. It’s hard to come by except through used book sites like AddAll).

So I wasn’t startled Tuesday when I had packages in the mail. I opened each one, eager to see what lay lie within, and lo and behold, out of the blue Scott Lynch had sent me a stack of DC Fafhrd and  Gray Mouser comics. For those of you not in the know, DC had a brief run of these in the early ’70s. Being the huge Lankhmar fan that I am, I have been curious about them for ages, but never thought to see one, much less hold or own one. Now, thanks to Scott’s generous gift, I’ve got almost the whole series. Have I mentioned he’s just a cool cat and one of my favorite people?

Fargo Returns

Or, at least, continues to receive some of the attention he deserves courtesy of a new line of e-reprints. A new review went live the other day at The Post Modern Pulp Blog (maintained by the talented Jack Badelaire, who uses his film degree about as well as I use mine).

I’ve talked about Fargo several times on my own blog, probably most prominently in this post, if you want the lowdown on why I hold the character in such high regard. But if you don’t have time for a long essay or for link hopping, I’ll give you the summary. Ben Haas, writing as John Benteen, created a men’s adventure series in the ’70s about a globe-trotting mercenary, earning his trade in the days before the Great War. It’s high octane, lean and muscular, and packs more power than you’d think formula fiction ever capable of. And it IS formula, but as my friend Chris Hocking says re: Haas,  there’s cheeseburgers, and then there’s cheeseburgers whipped up by a master chef.

A Tip of the Fedora

I finished  more noir books the other day despite the fact I said I needed to get back to reading some  modern fantasy. All three of these books were short, which was a huge lure, seeing as how most modern fantasy weighs in decidedly on the other end of the spectrum. Also, one of them doubled as research. I suppose in a way ALL of these double as research. Hand picked as these noir books are by John Chris Hocking, who’s very well read in noir, I’m getting a real education in great writing.

First up was the poorly titled but well-written Swamp Sister, by Robert Edmond Alter, chiefly concerned with how a lost plane carrying a huge bankroll transforms the behaviour of the folk living in and around the area. Immersive descriptions, great character arcs and plenty of surprises. Also a big leg up for me as I begin contemplation of describing some swamp land myself in an upcoming Paizo Pathfinder book. Surprisingly good.

Farewell, My Fence Rail

The writing day started out quite well. I rose without aid of an alarm clock and put in  a half hour of good work before I roused everyone else. Things got interesting after I returned from taking one of my children to school.

I have a three rail horse fence. One of my horses loves to press against the top rail to get the grass on the other side. When I pulled in this morning I found he had pressed against BOTH the top and middle rails and cracked them apart so that they hung down and a vast gap was there revealed (Our fence is old, and this happens occasionally, but usually only a rail at a time.) If he had cared to do so Trigger could have stopped munching at the grass and gone running wild and free. (And naked, but that’s not such a big deal if you’re a horse.)

In any case, Trigger’s adventure necessitated  a horse fence repair job that occupied my time until 12:30 or so, because after I fixed the broken boards I discovered three others that were close to going. I figured that as long as I was out there with all the tools I might as well head off future troubles

Despite all that, I got a lot of good work in once I finally made it back inside. And I must say, if I had to work on a fence in January, the weather THIS week is a far better time for it than say, last week when the temperature was frequently below zero. Today I ended up taking my jacket and hat off while I worked.

Link Man Returns

I’ve got a lot of good news that I can’t quite share yet, and with a deadline looming I should probably keep things short this morning.

First, the illustrious Dave Gross invited me over to chat about writing and our mutual love of the works of the late, great Roger Zelazny. Drop by and see what we had to say, and then I hope you’ll poke around a little and see what some talented writers have said elsewhere on his site.

Second, a nice review of Stalking the Beast popped up on my radar the other day. Always nice to see. The tie-in work doesn’t get reviewed nearly as often.

Third, a lovely review of The Desert of Souls appeared after its UK release.

Fourth and final, I’ve updated my 2014 Appearances page. It’s about time, as I’m flying to Detroit for ConFusion this Friday! I hope I’ll see a few of you there.

More on Noir

Yesterday I mentioned how wonderful I found the Spartacus TV show. Today I’m confessing that I finally got around to reading Raymond Chandler’s first Phillip Marlowe novel, The Big Sleep. Wow. Talk about lovely, evocative writing. Sure, I’m  just as puzzled as everyone else about who really killed the chauffeur, but what fine, fine prose.

My fascination with noir continues and I’m bouncing back and forth between Hammet stories of the Continental Op, Frederick Nebel stories about MacBride and Kennedy, Marlowe novels, and the Quarry books by Max Allan Collins. Collins is impressing me more and more, sort of the way Donald Westlake/Richard Stark did, in that the more I read of his work the more I come to appreciate how finely tuned the engines are in what seem, upon first glance, pretty simple vehicles. They’re not really simple at all, no more than a still life by a master painter is simply a snapshot of a bowl of fruit.

I came upon the Quarry books at just the right time, because I see that a TV series based around the character is now in the works. Should be interesting. I can imagine, though, that like Spartacus and Justified, it probably won’t be something I can watch with the rest of the family.