073020

Mars garnered only

one of the lesser cthulhians

nothing but microbes to enslave

nice ocean, but it didn't last long

072219d

Spectral Realms 11 is here, with 3 dark blank-verse sonnets by me, and tons of work by a myriad of other folks (such as Ann K. Schwader, Geoffrey Landis, Darrell Schweitzer, G.  Sutton Breiding, and Christina Sng). Order from Hippocampus Press.

Review of The Anubis Gates

                                THE ANUBIS GATES
        
        

        Brendan Doyle, a poet and historian, joins a jaunt back to the 

        eighteenth century that turns deadly...and permanent

        

        Author:  Tim Powers (1952-    )

        

        Subgenre:  Fantasy--historical

        

        Type of work:  Novel

        

        Time of plot:  1802, 1983, 1810-1846, and 1684

        

        Location:  Primarily London, also Cairo

        

        First published:  1983

        

        

        The Plot:  Professor Brendan Doyle is offered a remarkable sum to 

        give a lecture on Samuel Taylor Coleridge...and then to attend an 1810 

        lecture Coleridge gave in London!  The title refers to a set of holes 

        in spacetime, created in 1802 (though Doyle and his employer, J. 

        Cochran Darrow, don't know it) by some worshippers of Anubis; Doyle 

        and his party use one of these holes in 1983 to travel back to 1810.  

             Things start to go wrong as soon as they get to the Crown and 

        Anchor Tavern where Coleridge is supposed to speak:  they have the 

        wrong week!  Fortunately, Coleridge also had the wrong week, and so 

        he gives the lecture anyway.  As they are about to leave, Doyle is 






        kidnapped by a sinister figure.  This is Dr. Romany, head of a band of 

        gypsies, and one of two sorcerors who inadvertently created the 

        Gates in a failed attempt to return the Gods of ancient Egypt, and 

        magic itself, to their former glory.  Romany wants to know why Doyle 

        and his associates are using the Gates, and he takes Doyle to his 

        gypsy camp for torture.  Doyle escapes into the river, and ends up 

        back in London the next morning, having been rescued by onion sellers.  

             Broke and hungry, Doyle is still confident that he'll find work as 

        a writer, but he quickly finds that begging is the only employment he's 

        fit for.  Doyle doesn't know that Romany has enlisted the unsavory 

        beggar and thief guilds let by Horrabin the Clown to look for him.  

        Fortunately, the beggars he's fallen in with don't trust Romany, and 

        help Doyle hide.  Unfortunately, Romany finds him and Doyle is forced 

        to flee, barely escaping with the assistance of a young beggar named 

        Jacky and a gypsy named Damnable Richard.  Doyle is hoping to meet 

        William Ashbless, an American poet Doyle studied back in the 20th 

        century, and get some assistance, financial and otherwise.  Ashbless 

        never shows up where his biography claimed he wrote one of his 

        poems, so Doyle angrily writes the poem from memory.  On his way back 

        to his job of shoveling horse manure he hears someone whistling 

        "Yesterday," by Lennon and McCartney.  Someone else from the 20th 

        century is here in 1810!  

             Romany and Horrabin have discovered that Jacky helped Doyle 

        escape, and Horrabin catches Jacky.  They lock Jacky in an oubliette 

        in the fourth sub-basement, and eerie place that frightens even 

        Horrabin.  Jacky soon discovers why:  it is occupied by horrible 

        creatures, some of which may once have been human.  Horrabin's 

        dwarfed servant Dungy frees Jacky in exchange for a promise to help 






        him kill Horrabin, but she is attacked by some of the denizens of that 

        dark place.  She flees into a magical cave, part of the underground 

        river channel that carries Ra's Boat through the twelve hours of the 

        night.  

             Doyle finds a way, he thinks, to get back to 1983, which he is 

        still determined to do.  He meets an acquaintance from the 20th 

        century, who shoots what appears to be an ape right in front of 

        Doyle.  Actually, the creature is a cast-off body that had been 

        inhabited by Dog-Faced Joe, who is none other than Romany's former 

        partner, possessed by the demented ghost of Anubis and cursed by 

        Anubis with ever-growing fur.  Joe uses magic to trade bodies when 

        the fur gets ahead of the razor, and poisons the bodies he leaves 

        behind so they can't tell tales.  Joe tries the trick on Doyle, but the 

        latter is more sophisticated than Joe's usual victims, and he eats 

        charcoal, which is the antidote for the strychnine Joe ate before 

        trading bodies.  

             

        

        Analysis:  This is, in my opinion, Powers' finest novel to date.  Its 

        fast pacing, one of Powers' hallmarks, never lets up from beginning to 

        end, and marvel is piled on plot twist right up to the last page.  

        Some highlights are further insights into the nature of magic that 

        was first outlined in The Drawing of the Dark, a truly enchanting form 

        of limited time travel, and one of the most bizarre underworlds ever 

        penned.  Powers' theory of magic includes some very engaging twists 

        on old myths.  For instance, the power of a mage's real name 

        presumably derives from its reflection of his inner being.  Thus, when 

        a sorceror undergoes a major personality change, his true name 






        changes as well.  A common theme in Powers' fantasies, as in many 

        fantasies (e.g., Niven's The Magic Goes Away) is the gradual fading of 

        magic.  In Powers' schema, magic fades before the bright light of 

        Christianity.  As the last strongholds of magic-working religions are 

        overwhelmed during the 19th century, magic gradually vanishes.  As 

        part of this process, the universe is actually transformed from a 

        magical world to a scientific one.  For instance, up until 1810, the 

        sun was actually carried by Ra underground in a fabulous boat.  

        However, by the end of the story, the underground channel has 

        hardened into rock, and the sun has become the giant ball of burning 

        gas that it is today.  This is a delightful way to work the paradigm 

        shift, and it is most clearly expressed in this book, although the 

        same basic magical explanation is used in The Drawing of the Dark and 

        On Stranger Tides.  A similar theory underlies the magic in The Stress 

        of her Regard, but in Powers' sixth novel, Last Call, he uses a 

        different paradigm involving the tarot and non-fading magic.  

        

             Interestingly, the name assumed by Doyle, William Ashbless, is 

        that of a poet invented by Powers some years before he wrote The 

        Anubis Gates.  Because the book is about Powers' imaginary poet, it is 

        tempting to suppose that more effort went into writing this one.  

        Certainly Powers brought the grotesque simile, another of his 

        trademarks, to fantastic heights in this book.  "...his blank smile 

        returning to his face like something dead floating to the surface of a 

        pond."  

        

             The plot formula of The Anubis Gates is very similar to that of 

        nearly all of his other novels.  The protagonist encounters a problem, 






        struggles against it, gives himself up to drugs and denial when the 

        going gets tough, but pulls himself together for one last try in the 

        nick of time.  As in all of Powers' novels the protagonist has a lost 

        love; in this book, as in Last Call, the lost love is a dead wife.  

        

             One of the interesting facets of this book is the treatment of 

        immortality.  The Master of Romanelli and Fikee is more than 4,300 

        years old -- and senile.  His two servants, millennia old themselves, 

        continue trudging through the same ruts they seemed to have occupied 

        since they reached adulthood.  Extended life does not bring enhanced 

        wisdom, and one is compelled to pity the doomed sorcerors even while 

        loathing them.  J. Cochran Darrow, the wealthy sponsor of the time 

        trip, has personal immortality as his ultimate goal.  This obsession 

        destroys him in the end, and we are able to pity him too.  

        

             A sinking-ship metaphor appears several times early in the book; 

        in connection with the Egyptian sorcerors and with Darrow; a 

        foreshadowing of their eventual failure to achieve their aims.  This 

        is linked to William Ashbless by a "quote" from his poetry at the 

        beginning of the book, and to the higher workings of magic by Ra's 

        Boat of Millions of Years.  

        

   

Children's literature and weird fiction: a marriage made in…

The Call of Cthulhu for beginning readers

By H.P. Lovecraft, translated (if that's the word)and illustrated by R. J. Ivankovic

What Dread Zeppelin does for Led Zeppelin, Elvis, and reggae, this book does for H.P. Lovecraft and Dr. Seuss. This book could not exist without H.P. Lovecraft's iconic story, but it is actually better than the original story. Ivankovic has transformed Lovecraft's tale of horror into an eerily perfect imitation of Dr. Seuss' instantly recognizable illustrations and verse. Even the size and shape of the book are perfect for a Dr. Seuss book. I said perfect before, but this book, more than a decade in the making, could not be a better marriage of these two artists. The only defects, if it is a defect, is that the book will be incredibly funny to anyone who has read the original story. I think small children will enjoy it a lot, but just imagine what they will think when they, later in life, read Lovecraft's story. Well, order this book now. If you like weird fiction and have read The Call of Cthulhu, you owe it to yourself to buy this book. And if you know a child into the weird, scary, and peculiar, you will be the world's greatest uncle/aunt/friend if you buy them this book.

And if you have not listened to Dread Zeppelin, it is not too late. Do it now!

Publisher: Chaosium, hardback, $20

http://www.chaosium.com/hpls-call-of-cthulhu-for-beginning-readers/ 

Addendum: you know how sometimes you buy something and when you get it you think "oh. I thought it would be cooler."? Well, rest assured, The Call of Cthulhu for beginning readers is not going to do that to you. What I thought when I opened it was "oh my God, it looks even more exactly like a real Dr. Seuss book than I thought it would!" And I started thinking of who I know needs a copy.

My favorite new author

New to me, anyway. Ben Aaronovitch, "Rivers of London," first in a series. The Thames has a queen; tributaries have princesses. London has ghosts, vampires, monsters. Two cops are all the Met can spare to deal with everything supernatural. They have a lot of trouble coming. Reminds me of Tim Powers, of Neil Gaiman, & a bit of Kim Harrison. There are apparently already 6 sequels, so if this strikes you as it does me, you are in luck. If you like dark fantasy, you owe it to yourself to read this book.

121114

a ghoul's teeth are just the thing
to crack these monster nuts
find a sleeping ghoul
to win this kingdom

Classic SF About A Dog, and Various Monsters

Zelazny, Roger, 1993, A Night in the Lonesome October, illustrations by Gahan Wilson, Chicago Review Press, www.chicagoreviewpress.com. $15.95. ISBN 978-1-55652-560-5. Perfect bound paperback. 280 pages. Unabridged edition, 2014. You can still get the book for as little as $8 in older editions, but perhaps not for long now that people will be talking about it again.

This was Roger Zelazny's last book, published in 1993, two years before his untimely death. Now it has been reissued by Chicago Review Press, and serves as a poignant reminder of what science fiction loses when any great writer dies. A Night in the Lonesome October is a tour de force, bringing together many of the classic monsters of literature for an event that happens, or can happen, every time a full moon falls at the end of the month of October. Classic villains, some of whom may really be heroes, depending on your point of view, come together with a variety of supernaturally endowed newcomers to prevent or facilitate a metaphysical event of earth-shattering importance. The characters include Jack the Ripper, Sherlock Holmes (not really a monster, but he is there), Frankenstein and his monster, and many others. Each has a familiar. This book is just downright charming. Charming is not easy to do with this kind of subject matter, but Zelazny had a gift. Did I mention the book is narrated in the first person by a dog?

October has 31 days and the book has 31 chapters. I understand (okay, from advertising copy) that some aficionados read a chapter a day all through the month of October. I don't have the patience to read a book this good over a period of 31 days. It usually takes me either one or two days to read it. Yes, I bought a copy back in 1993 and have read it a few times over the years. It is great to see A Night in the Lonesome October back in print.

A Night in the Lonesome October is narrated by a serious-minded watchdog who can speak to humans and has a great deal of experience going up against creatures most of us would never want to meet. But Snuff is, after all, a dog. His perspective adds an element of humor to this tale full of murder and intrigue, culminating with a metaphysical event of truly biblical proportions.

Snuff has basically three jobs. First, he is a watchdog and he has to watch. The house needs to be protected from external threats and from the possibility that several imprisoned monsters might get loose. Second, sometimes his human partner needs support on a particularly dangerous expedition. Finally, Snuff can learn things that a human can't. Animals talk to each other and they trade information; that is part of the Game. Early in the book Snuff makes friends with the familiar of the witch in the next valley. He might learn a lot from her, but can you ever really trust a cat? Even if the cat turns out to be working for the other side? There is another dog involved in the Game, a big one, as well as a bat, an owl, a rat, a snake, and more. The humans are getting murdered one by one, and Snuff's master may be next.

Gahan Wilson's numerous drawings are perfect for this kind of story. The cover painting by James Warhola is stunning. All of the pictures appeared in the original 1993 edition.

My recommendation? Buy this book now. 5/5 stars. One more thing: like most of Zelazny's books there is no explicit sex. Buy this book for all of your children, nieces, and nephews, especially if they are fans of monster movies!

A Night in the Lonesome October is one of Zelazny's best, and you owe it to yourself to read it. Then read Lord of Light, also by Zelazny, which in my opinion is the best science fiction novel of all time. A Night in the Lonesome October was a great end to a career that produced multiple Hugo and Nebula award-winning books.

The Halloween Haiku II kickstarter is live

Donate to the cause and submit poems and stories to the book.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lestersmith/halloween-haiku-ii-and-other-hauntings

Wade German's first poetry collection

http://www.hippocampuspress.com/mythos-and-other-authors/poetry/dreams-from-a-black-nebula-by-wade-german

You gotta read this if you like weird dark fantasy. And you do, right?

Cover of Shoggoths

Dark poetry. Out of print, but I have 1 extra.

Covers of more of my books

Dreams and Cats

What He Doesn't Say


I think my cat's been to Ulthar
he visits pretty regularly
he has that "Don't Mess With Ulthar" air
about him in the morning
when he comes in
he's not afraid of ghouls
and I can tell that night gaunts
know his name

The clincher, though:
my neighbor dreamed of a city
full of cats
most of them were black like mine
they seemed to know her
rubbed against her like my cat does
kept her safe; she's sure they chased away
several kinds of hungry things
the city's name? "Uther" she said
"or something"

071714

Some subscriber copies of DN 98 go in the mail today.

Also, having been gone two weeks, I've fallen behind on reading submissions. Saturday is catch-up day. Currently reading for 99 (nearly full) & 100 (theme="Time").

PDF copies of any issue, past or current, still $1 each (or $39 for ALL). Paypal jopnquog@gmail.com or check to David Kopaska-Merkel, 1300 Kicker, Tusc. AL 35404. By the way, Alabama has at least 3 Tusc. cities: Tuscaloosa, Tuscumbia, & Tuskegee. The zip prevents confusion.

Today's poem:

Behind the anthropophagous house
a midden grew
of bone, hair, and buckles,
till it was time to move,
and hen's feet stretched.

Clark Ashton Smith's Dark Eidolon, a review

Review of

Smith, Clark Ashton, 2014, The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies, S. T. Joshi, ed., Penguin books, ISBN 978-0-14-310738-5, paperback, perfect bound, 370 pages.

I have a particular fondness for Smith. Who else can use words no one else knows, without awkwardness? Gene Wolfe comes to mind, but that's it. Most of Smith's stories are set in the far distant future, which seems a lot like the distant past in many ways, because the technology is much less sophisticated than our own. And magic works. This setting gives Smith tremendous scope.

Dark Eidolon begins with probably the best-known Smith story: "The Tale of Satampra Zeiros." This is a good story, and I did not mind reading it again, but it has been repeatedly reprinted. This book contains a mixture of very familiar and good stories and unfamiliar and forgettable stories. So I found nothing new and meaty in here. That's because I have read almost everything by Smith that has been collected or anthologized in the past 50 years. Now, Dark Eidolon is probably the only Smith collection in print right now. For anyone who has discovered Smith within the past 30 years, finding the other collections might be rather difficult. For anyone new to Smith and his fantastic stories of far-future adventure, dripping with magic and monsters, and assembled from the broadest word palette imaginable, you need this book. But if, like me, you are familiar with Smith's fiction, this book will not satisfy your desire for more. Dark Eidolon also includes quite a few poems, about 40 of them. The editor, in the introduction, reports that Smith had a very low opinion of his own poetry. The author might be wrong about his work, but in this case I don't think he was. I am not the most eager fan of fantasy poetry, but I have read some that really blew me away. I am afraid that Smith's poems don't do that.

From "The Last Night":

I watched, until the pale and flickering sun,
In agony and fierce despair, flamed high,
And shadow-slain, went out upon the gloom.
Then Night, that war of gulf-born Titans won,
Impended for a breath on wings of doom.
And through the air fell like a falling sky.

To quote Beyond the Fringe, it's not enough to keep the mind alive. So don't buy this book for the poetry unless your taste diverges quite sharply from mine. By contrast, the 35 short stories that comprise the main part of the book are easily worth the price of admission. If you thrill to tales of demons, magic-users, and warriors of all stripes, if John Carter got your heart pumping, read this book.

010914

if you consistently write
the old year on everything
checks, the lot
for 365 days (366 in leap years)
the portrait of yourself in the attic
the one made when you were young and strong
the one using pigments bought from that odd person
wearing clothes of birds
whose narrow shop the artist
could never quite find again
that portrait
acquires a thick layer of dust

nanofic for the holidays

Do you think the Cellulosi like the pyre? Their suicide fallers are every branch.

Need one more nomination!

Luminous Worlds

http://www.amazon.com/Luminous-Worlds-David-C-Kopaska-Merkel/dp/193712892X/

You can get my Stoker-eligible poetry book, Luminous Worlds, from Amazon. Or, signed, from me. HWA members can get a PDF free. It's one nomination away from getting on the preliminary ballot.

Another poem from my new book, Luminous Worlds

Laurentia Burning

A singing in the south
the growing star
its blazing eye calls to you
its friendly winks promise intimate
revelations to come
its light, demure, drops from sight
the sky is clear
and you resume the breakfast hunt
you pause again
and cock your ear
immobile, there is
a singing in the south
a quickening rumble
a great shimmy
and a new sunrise
your train is coming
your iridium, your epitaph
your last, hottest, most memorable
winter's day



Note: The poor dinosaurs never knew what hit hem. Unless the dromeosaurs really DID develop an advanced civilization before the end.


Buy Luminous Worlds through Amazon, or, signed, from me.

http://www.amazon.com/Luminous-Worlds-David-C-Kopaska-Merkel/dp/193712892X/

Or, Paypal to jopnquog [at] gmail [dot] com $13 postpaid

Another excerpt from Luminous Worlds

Ghost Lakes


Deserts sometimes dream of water.
Lost lakes gleam in the noon heat shimmer,
rippling faintly just above the ground –
the juniper sways in remnant currents,
remembers seaweed,
and impertinent fish.
You think you can feel it;
a cool breath chills your sweat,
and your cheek turns with the tide.
The lakes might have lived forever,
but drought came, water drained away,
and the fish crawled into stones to sleep.
You can find them still,
at Green River, in Wyoming,
where incandescent sand blew in on the west wind.
The corpses of lakes filled with camels,
with pronghorn antelope,
with the many wild dancers
for whom the desert was a keyhole,
through which they hastened out of the past,
water drying on their backs,
into the rejuvenated sun.
But on moonlit nights,
sky clear all the way up to the stars,
and coyotes strangely still,
the deserts sometimes dream of water,
and great fish swim, untroubled by the absent sun,
and scorn abandoned hooks,
their ancient scales shining with the moon.


Luminous Worlds on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Luminous-Worlds-David-C-Kopaska-Merkel/dp/193712892X/

Dreams & Nightmares 95 contents

Dreams & Nightmares 95

Contents

Randy Moore cover
From the Brain Stem
CEE, Elephants
Wade German, Beyond the Wall of Tsang
W. Gregory Stewart, Ellison Island, New Mars, α Centauri A
Ann K. Schwader, Apophis Apocryphal
Chris Friend, illo
John W. Sexton, Un
Edward Mycue, The Great Turtle
Adrienne J. Odasso, Watershed
Chris Friend, illo
Jenny Blackford, Engine of Strange Delights
assu, Lope-along Cassowary
assu, cryofluid
Marge Simon and Kendall Evans, Modern Times
Neal Wilgus, SOScery
Neal Wilgus, A New Frontier
Alan Catlin, Fruit Seller’s Produce is Ripe
Denny Marshall, The Orbs (illo)
Mari Ness, Walking Home
Ann K. Schwader, Night Laundry
G. O. Clark, Unreal Traffic Conditions
Robert Frazier, A Short History of the Abyss Box
Peg Duthie, Newest Amsterdam
Hanes Bach, l’yb’fybydo (illo)
Terry A. Garey, Cloud Dancers
Denny Marshall, Waiting Behind the Wall (illo)