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Author: Fletcher Vredenburgh

August Short Story Roundup

August Short Story Roundup

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oie_225359V0Ky2mKfWith summer’s end in sight, I’m back with another short story roundup. For those paying attention, you probably noticed I’m calling this the August roundup instead of the July one. That’s because there’s so much stuff I have to pick and choose from (and more coming soon – see this post at Howard Andrew Jones’ site), I can’t always get to it in a timely manner. From now on, each roundup will focus on whatever new short stories I’ve managed to read since the previous one. It’s a minor thing, but there it is.

Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, produced under the expert guidance of Adrian Simmons and company, continues to be the fieriest star in the S&S heavens. #33 contains not only the usual three stories and three poems, but an announcement that HFQ’s second Best of collection has been fully funded and will appear this fall. I really dug the first one and have high hopes for this one. Also, they played a fun game in this issue that I won’t describe, but it’s clever and I applaud the editors for pulling it off.

The new issue kicks off with “Between Sea and Flame” by Evan Dicken. Set in an alternate universe where Tenochtitlan fell not to Cortes, but to a strange priesthood from the sea, it’s a sequel to “Mouth of the Jaguar.” Once again, Hummingbird, refugee warrior from the fallen Mexica Empire, finds herself at the center of chaos and death. This time around she is caught between two deadly and evil forces: the Sea People who serve the terrible god Dagon, and that of the even more malevolent Destroyer. Convinced by one of the Sea People’s generals, she joins them and their allies to storm the stronghold of the Destroyer’s great follower, Pedrarias. Her decision brings her to a land already being twisted by the Destroyer’s malign aura:

If Hummingbird had any doubts about the threat posed by the Destroyer, the mountain put them to rest. Ometepe’s animals had become strange, monstrous things, twisted as if by some terrible hand. Flocks of bat-winged hummingbirds flitted around the war party, darting in to stab at the warriors with beaks barbed like fishing harpoons. If they were not crushed quickly enough, they burrowed inside the body. Many Mankeme fell shrieking down the hill, digging at their own flesh with knives and axes.

Clawed hands reached down from the tangled foliage above to pluck the heads from passing warriors. Diriangen would’ve been among them had not Hernández dragged him back at the last moment. Hummingbird joined the Mankeme in flinging javelins into the trees. What fell resembled sloths, but grown large and bloated. Their arms were thin, boneless things, little more than ropes of muscle with claws sharp as knapped flint. A warrior buried her axe in one of the things, only to have the creature burst like an overripe fruit to disgorge a swarm of fleshy mosquitos.

This is a swell story, filled with well-paced and -choreographed action. Dicken effortlessly combines elements of real history with his fictional reality, and has created a darkly wonderful world of elder terrors and bold, strong-armed adventurers.

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A Gathering of Ravens by Scott Oden

A Gathering of Ravens by Scott Oden

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To you, I am orcneas. To the Dane, I am skraelingr. The blasted Irish would name me fomorach,” Grimnir said, then smote his breast with one black-nailed fist. “But I am kaunr! Do you understand now?”

Grimnir from A Gathering of Ravens

 

oie_155021fZFaLK07You know me: I’m the guy who reads mostly old swords & sorcery novels and short stories. Aside from a few by Milton Davis and P.C. Hodgell, I haven’t read many new S&S novels. My experience with contemporary fantasy novels has been mostly… disappointing.

I’m also a guy who is on record as disliking the utilization of orcs in modern fantasy. In the works of their creator, J.R.R. Tolkien, orcs are perversions of elves created by Middle-earth’s satan figure, Melkor. In modern fantasy they’ve become little more than woefully misunderstood warriors — basically fantasy Klingons. So, when Scott Oden sent me a copy of his latest book, A Gathering of Ravens (2017),  and I learned its protagonist was an orc, my hopes weren’t high. Well, Oden’s novel knocked the heck out of any prejudices I had. New or old, this book kicks ass, and is one of the best swords & sorcery novels I’ve read in a while.

Grimnir, the last of his race, lives on the Danish island of Sjaelland, dreaming of revenge against Bjarki Half-Dane, the man who killed his brother, Hrungnir. His desire to cleave his enemy with his trusty seax (a old Germanic sword), leads him from Denmark to England, and finally to the field of Clontarf, in Ireland.

Etain is a young woman, disguised as a man, bound for Roskilde to evangelize the Danes. After a bloody run-in with Grimnir, she finds herself bound to him and forced to act as his guide across the British Isles in search of his prey. With no recourse but to stay by his side, she follows him into the mystic heart of Yggdrasil, the world tree, traveling through time and space. The mismatched pair, devout Christian woman and resoundingly pagan monster, face off against numerous supernatural and mundane foes before reaching the book’s rousing conclusion on a field outside of Dubhlinn. Their story lets up only a few times, but those calmer passages serve to allow magical creatures or armies the time to marshall their forces for the next burst of violence.

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Purity of Blood by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

Purity of Blood by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

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oie_822641406YLopEI closed out my review of Captain Alatriste last summer by stating I would be reading more of Arturo Pérez-Reverte’s series in “short order.” That did not happen. Only now, over a year later, have I plunged back into the grimy, deadly underside of Golden Age Madrid. Even more than its predecessor, Purity of Blood (1997) explores the darkest heart of imperial Spain as she, only 130 years after her emergence as the world’s leading power, is collapsing in on herself; collapsing due to endless war, unsustainable debt, corruption at all levels, and unyielding religious fanaticism. Still, Spain remains a mighty empire; if not feared, still respected in all corners, and her subjects proud:

But at the time of this tale, our monarch was still a young man, and Spain, although already corrupt, and with mortal ulcers eating her heart, maintained her appearance, all her dazzle and politesse. We were still a force to be reckoned with, and would continue to be for some time, until we bled the last soldier and last maravedi dry. Holland despised us; England feared us; the Turk was ever hovering ’round; the France of Richelieu was gritting its teeth; the Holy Father received our grave, black-clad ambassadors with caution; and all Europe trembled at the sight of our tercios — still the best infantry in the world — as if the rat-a-tat-tat of the drums came from the Devil’s own drumsticks. And I, who lived through those years, and those that came later, I swear to Your Mercies that in that century we were still what no country had ever been before.

Purity of Blood picks up shortly after Captain Alatriste, in the year 1623. Like that book, this one is narrated by Íñigo Balboa, the son of one of Alatriste’s slain comrades. Íñigo tells the story from late in life, but during its events he is thirteen.

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Dune by Frank Herbert

Dune by Frank Herbert

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oie_3171159srWv2GrQIt’s been called the greatest science fiction novel of all time. Maybe, maybe not, but it’s one of the best I’ve ever read. Published all the way back in 1965, it’s the best-selling science fiction novel of all time. The first half of Dune made its debut as “Dune World,” starting in the December 1963 Analog. The second half, “The Prophet of Dune,” began in the January 1965 issue.

I read Dune for the first time in 1981, at the age of 14. From the very first pages I was hooked.  I was house sitting for my grandfather, and the only things I had to do were let the dog out and feed her and myself, and that meant I barely put the book down all day. Like Dune’s hero, Paul Atreides, I was wondering what the heck is a gom jabbar? Who are the Bene Gesserit? What is melange? My dad’s paperback, at 544 pages, is one of the longest books I’ve read in a single day (beat only by Terry Brooks’ The Sword of Shannara).

I’m not sure what triggered it, but something called out from the depths telling me it was time to reread Dune again. The last time (which was the fourth time) I read it was nearly 20 years ago. A friend wanted to get into science fiction, so a few of us started rereading the classics and tossing them his way. Among the books I revisited were Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy and The Gods Themselves, Clarke’s Rendezvous With Rama, Heinlein’s Orphans of the Sky, and Herbert’s Dune.

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July Short Story Roundup

July Short Story Roundup

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CaptureAs the dog days begin, my mind has been prodded back to swords & sorcery by a few things. The most important one was the the return to the fray of Charles R. Saunders, creator of the heroes Imaro and Doussouye. Just the other day, he announced the start of a new blog, Different Drumming. If you are not familiar with Saunders and his superb body of work, go at once and check out his site.

The next thing, while not exactly S&S, was that I learned the final volume of R. Scott Bakker’s Aspect Emperor series, The Unholy Consult, is about to be published. For all my issues with it, it is one of the few contemporary series that has held my interest past the first book or two.

There have also been some fun discussions among various wags over on Facebook about what a list of good introductory books to the genre would look like. I suspect it won’t be long before I’m lifted entirely from my S&S doldrums and return to reading and reviewing the stuff on a regular basis. Until then, there will still be short story roundups. Like this one.

Swords and Sorcery Magazine #65 provides the publication’s usual two new stories. I like both well enough, but neither qualifies as actual S&S. The definition of “what is swords & sorcery?” has been done to death by divers hands and on numerous stages, but suffice to say there should be action and at least a touch of the dark and macabre. This issue’s two stories contain neither of those things.

“Then Will Die Your Pain,” by Tom Crowley, consists of the reflections of Konsler, an aged soldier now serving as the attendant to a knight of unclear pedigree.

Sir Garner isn’t a proper knight, just as I’m not a proper squire. There are no knights where Garner comes from, but everyone in the company calls him Sir. And of course I’m too old to be a squire. The other mercenaries say to me, “You’re gonna die out here, grandpa.” They’re probably right. I just need to finish my job first, and I’m writing this in case I don’t.

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The Best of Cordwainer Smith, edited by J. J. Pierce

The Best of Cordwainer Smith, edited by J. J. Pierce

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Do not read this story; turn the page quickly. The story may upset you. Anyhow, you probably know it already. It is a very disturbing story. Everyone knows it. 

from “The Crime and the Glory of Commander Suzdal”

oie_18116595RsWNL8gWhere to begin with Paul Linebarger, aka Cordwainer Smith? Son of a lawyer with ties to the Chinese Revolution of 1911, and godson of Sun Yat-sen, Linebarger, before World War II, was a professor of Eastern Studies at Duke. During the war, he served in the US Army and helped set up the first psychological warfare unit, and became an advisor to Chinese president Chiang Kai-shek. After the war, he was recalled to service to advise the British during the Malayan Emergency, and American forces during the Korean War. Later, he would serve in various intelligence capacities, calling himself “visitor to small wars,” though he avoided Vietnam, thinking it was a bad situation all around. Somehow, between the year 1950 and his death in 1966, he found the time and energy to create one of the most original, complex, and strange science fiction universes.

As part of their “Best of” series, Ballantine published The Best of Cordwainer Smith in 1975, edited by J. J. Pierce. I picked it up in around 1984 at the Forbidden Planet in Manhattan, based on something I’d read recommending the story “Scanners Live in Vain.” Strange as I found it, “Scanners” was nothing compared to the mad, almost hallucinogenic stories that followed it. It contains twelve of of his most important stories, all set in the future history which he called the Instrumentality of Mankind. The Instrumentality is the group of supremely powerful humans who rule over humanity.

Cordwainer Smith (as I’ll call him from now on) first appeared in 1950 with the publication of the story “Scanners Live in Vain” (1950). Its frenetic start warns readers they are in for something strange.

Martel was angry. He did not even adjust his blood away from anger. He stamped across the room by judgment, not by sight. When he saw the table hit the floor, and could tell by the expression on Luci’s face that the table must have made a loud crash, he looked down to see if his leg was broken. It was not. Scanner to the core, he had to scan himself. The action was reflex and automatic. The inventory included his legs, abdomen, chestbox of instruments, hands, arms, face and back with the mirror. Only then did Martel go back to being angry. He talked with his voice, even though he knew that his wife hated its blare and preferred to have him write.

“I tell you, I must cranch. I have to cranch It’s my worry, isn’t it?”

Foremost from this opening is the word cranch. What can it possibly mean and why must Martel do it?

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Disasterville U.S.A. :The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner

Disasterville U.S.A. :The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner

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If there is such a phenomenon as absolute evil, it consists in treating another human being as a thing.

Nick Halflinger in The Shockwave Rider

 

oie_1023133dHcFYNm5Cyberpunk appeared as a description of a sub-genre in the early eighties. The word first appeared in print in 1983 as the title of a story by Bruce Bethke and it was quickly adopted to cover the works of near-future science fiction by William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Pat Cadigan, and others. The general connection between books like Gibson’s Neuromancer (1984) and Neal Stephenson’s Snowcrash (1992) was the depiction of high technology mixed into a crumbling, corrupt society.

Cyberpunk as a named thing might date to only 1983 or so, but as a movement in science fiction its roots are deeper. For years prior to the appearance of Neuromancer, usually thought of as the first cyberpunk novel, sci-fi authors had been writing about the dangerous effects — on society and individuals — of computers, communications, cybernetics, and related fields. In the UK, J.G.Ballard, and in the US, Philip K. Dick, laid a lot of the groundwork for the genre in books featuring rebels, man-machine interfaces, often lots of psychoactive drugs, and a general dystopian atmosphere. It’s little wonder that Dick’s 1968 novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, should become the basis for the film Blade Runner, easily one of the first cyberpunk movies.

English author John Brunner (discussed at great length here at Black Gate) started his writing career creating fairly standard space opera. In the mid-sixties he began writing stories in more contemporary settings, such as the 1965 novel, The Squares of the City. In it, a traffic engineer is hired to work in the newly-built capital of a South American nation (echoes of Brasilia). While there he becomes a piece, quite literally, in game of chess being played between two of the country’s power brokers.

This move to contemporary and near-future sci-fi culminated in the appearance of Stand on Zanzibar in 1968. Its portrayal of a wildly over-populated Earth, conveyed in the snapshot style of Dos Passos’ USA Trilogy, won Brunner the Hugo award for best novel. It also marks the start of what’s been called his Catastrophe Quartet.

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May Short Story Roundup

May Short Story Roundup

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oie_2764037nEltoy1EJust a short post this month. It’s that story-dry period between magazine issues that comes along a couple of times a year. Since I missed last month’s roundup, I thought I’d have two issues of Swords and Sorcery Magazine to review, but the June issue hasn’t come along as of June 25th. I do have a cool extra, though, that I’ll leave to the end.

Swords and Sorcery Issue 64 is a typical issue of the publication. That means two straight up swords & sorcery stories, just like in almost every other issue.

In “A Woman of Means” by James Edward O’Brien, an aging and mostly-retired thief named Shanley is approached by the titular character. She wishes to hire him, the only reliable independent thief in town, for a special job (isn’t that always the way?). Instead of the heavily guarded and magically warded sorcerers’ library, she wishes him to snatch some grimoires secretly produced in its bindery.

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Half Past Human by T.J. Bass

Half Past Human by T.J. Bass

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‘Civilization is too high a price to pay for survival’

Moon from Half Past Human

I don’t know what made me buy Half Past Human (1971) by T.J. Bass fifteen years ago. It was one of those books I had always seen on the used book store shelves, but nothing about the cover (the basis on which I tended to buy unknown books back then) made me go “Gotta buy it.” Something on the back cover, though, must have caught my attention that day, because I plunked my money down on the counter of Red Bank, NJ’s (sadly, long gone) Book Pit. I started reading it on the ride home, and before I knew it I was a third of the way done. A week later I made a circuit of used book stores to get my hands on the sequel, The Godwhale (1974).

Initially published by Ballantine, Gollancz released the duology in 2014 as part of its Masterworks collection. If you’re a sci-fi reader of a certain age, or a student of the genre, you’ll recognize most of the books in the collection, definitely most of the authors. But with only two books published nearly fifty years ago, I wonder how many know Bass’s name today. Which is a shame.

The fear of overpopulation was immense in the late sixties. Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 The Population Bomb promised that if population growth was not brought under control, humanity faced oblivion. Regular famines, overcrowded cities, a polluted environment, and dwindling natural resources seemed to be our future. Science fiction was examining the problem with books like Harry Harrison’s Make Room! Make Room! (1966) (the basis for the Charlton Heston sci-fi noir Soylent Green) and John Brunner’s Stand On Zanzibar (1968). This fear set the stage for Bass’s vision of Earth crushed by the weight of three trillion people.

In this, the third millennium, Earth was avocado and peaceful. Avocado, because all land photosynthesized; and peaceful, because mankind was evolving into the four-toed Nebish — the complacent hive citizen.

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It’s Large: Ringworld by Larry Niven

It’s Large: Ringworld by Larry Niven

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oie_1341223VTU50tGHBack in around 1980, when I read Larry Niven’s multi-award winning Ringworld (1970) for the first time, it totally blew my mind. I had never read anything that conveyed the feeling of BIGNESS so powerfully and so well. Rereading it yesterday, I was thrilled to discover it still does. It’s got its flaws, some pretty big ones in fact, but for much of its length it remains a terrific read. Despite having won numerous awards and a career that’s spanned over five decades, it remains the book he’s best known for.

Beginning with 1964’s “The Coldest Place,” Larry Niven began laying out the history of humanity’s expansion and exploits across a 30-light year bubble of of the Milky Way he dubbed Known Space. Over the next six years, he wrote about another twenty novels and stories that span from the late 21st century to the 32nd. Along the way he introduced some of the most iconic sci-fi aliens, including the cowardly Pierson’s Puppeteers and the ferocious Kzin (who now feature in their own unending series of shared-world anthologies).

Louis Wu is bored. Bored with an Earth where everywhere and everyone has blended into a bland homogeneity. In the past, he has taken what he calls “sabbaticals,” and gone on months-long solo deep space jaunts. The 1968 story, “There Is A Tide,” describes one of his voyages in great detail.

In 2850, while celebrating his 200th birthday, wandering the globe to avoid his own guests, stepping from one teleportation booth to another, Louis suddenly appears in an unexpected location with an even more unexpected host — a Pierson’s Puppeteer. Once, the three-legged, two-headed aliens maintained a vast commercial empire, trading in highly advanced technologies. Then, two hundred years ago, they pulled up stakes and left Known Space. Having learned the galactic core had exploded and the resultant wave front would reach Known Space in 20,000 years, they decided it was time to find safety. No human ever heard from them again or knew where they went.

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