Echoes of a Forgotten Age . . .

Across the Wine-Dark Seas

2011-08-09T09:58:00.001-05:00

The time has come for me to bid Blogger adieu. It has served me well in the past, and I've trod its hallowed halls since late 2004. But, all things must come to an end. Echoes of a Forgotten Age has grown silent for me; the echoes have stilled, and the voices no longer speak to me. But I know they're out there. Thus have I commissioned a ship to take us on a journey, Gentle Readers, across the wine-dark seas . . . an Argosy through history and myth to see lands far afield. Some of our destinations will have long-since vanished beneath the waves; others will belong to the periplus of Lands that Never Were.

Come, if you will, and join me on A Journey Through Imagination . . . join me on The Wine-Dark Seas.

PS: The link leads to my new blog ;)

On the State of Orcish Affairs

2011-06-12T14:08:00.000-05:00

To most members of civilized society (and to a goodly number of adventurers along its edges) an Orc is an Orc is an Orc. They are all nasty, brutal creatures who bear no love for the civilization upon which they prey. The sole distinction is whether or not Orcs are the slayers or the slain. But, to an elite cadre of scholars, the study of Orcish affairs and taxonomy is a worthy addition to the corpus of Human knowledge.

Like Man, the Orc comes in a variety of shapes and sizes -- from the monstrous Greenskins of Azeroth to the spindly-legged Goblins of the Misty Mountains. But regardless of their relative size or locale, it is an unassailable fact that all Orcs belong to the genos Orco and can trace their evolution back to a common ancestral species, Orco archaeos. This species was first discovered and described by scholar and author JRR Tolkien. He postulated that Orco archaeos was a slave-race, beholden to higher powers for their will and focus; indeed, through his work on the translation and dissemination of the Red Book of Westmarch, Tolkien discovered copious anecdotal evidence to support his thesis.

But in the intervening years since Tolkien's discovery, other scholars and adventurers have added to the state of Orcish affairs by finding evidence of the existence of a myriad sub-species of O. archeaos. In 1976, renowned artists the Hildebrant brothers unveiled the first of many such sub-species, Orco archeaos varanidae (known in scholarly circles as Hildebrandts' Orcs). Based on sketches on indeterminate origin, the paintings showed creatures that were obviously O. archaeos in shape, but with heads that resembled a nightmarish marriage between a pig and a monitor lizard. Questions were raised, and much doubt was cast as to the validity of the Hildebrandts' discovery until the following year, when insurance salesman-turned-amateur taxonomist, EG Gygax, revealed that he, too, had come across a deviant branch of O. archeaos.

Dubbed Orco sus gygaxia, the Pig-faced Orc, Gygax's discovery spread like wildfire. It caused quite a stir in the salons and parlors of the world -- but that very same world benefited from Gygax's popularity; his influence, and that of Tolkien, spawned a whole generation of scholars. Interest in Orcish affairs soared, and soon new discoveries were being made.

In the early 1980s, in England, a discovery was made that set the scholarly world on its ear. In the cellars of a workshop in central London, workers unearthed a near complete skeleton of an entirely new species of Orc -- larger and hardier than O. archaeos and without any of the porcine features evidenced in O. sus gygaxia. After months of reconstruction and postulation, an unnamed member of the workshop declared the specimen to be Orco necans, the "killer Orc", of the variety known as chlorodermus, or "greenskin". Perhaps Greenskins were invaders from a distant land or world, who interbred with the local strain of O. archaeos; perhaps they were a parallel evolutionary species. Whatever their origins, the spread of O. necans chlorodermus was well-documented via findings brought to light in the latter part of the 20th century.

One of the defining features of O. necans over O. archaeos was not the propensity for hulking builds or green skin, but rather a shift in the mindset of researchers. Tolkien's treatise on O. archeaos emphasized their slave nature: they were servants to powers greater than themselves, footsoldiers as well as fodder; O. necans, however, often acted under their own agency. They were conquerors, tribal or clannish raiders prone to violence and only marginally intelligent -- though some scholars have proposed that strains of Orco necans who fit the classic definition of le bon sauvage must surely have existed (see C. Golden's work on the history of Azeroth). Between the two polarities, the slavish Orco archaeos and the headstrong Orco necans, dozens of authors and historians have staked their claim, from M. Howell's radical thesis that O. necans was a defeated and exploited race similar to the American natives of the 19th century, to S. Nicholls' translated journals of a freedom-loving band of O. archaeos. But, dim-witted or stoic, slave or free, the Orcish character remains intact and visible through their many permutations.

Over the next few years, we're poised to witness a new renaissance in Orcish affairs, with M. Forbeck's unified treatise on the history of Orcs hopefully seeing the light of day, along with S. Lauderdale's voluminous bibliography of all things Orcish nearing completion. And a forthcoming volume by S. Oden, based on the research of C. Walsingham, posits the existence of a new branch of O. archaeos: Orco archaeos nordica, the Norse Orc, which is well-attested to in the fragmentary Lesser Gylfaggining . . .

In all, it's an exciting time to be a scholar of Orcish affairs!

Tharduin: an Open-Source World Project

2011-06-05T07:50:00.001-05:00

Imagine a world built by many minds -- from professional game designers and bestselling novelists to weekend dabblers and hopeful-but-unpublished writers; imagine that world taking shape through prose tales, poetry, multimedia, and gaming products. Now imagine if a shared world like that, in all its myriad complexity, was freely available for you to make use of, in your own tales and games . . . and what you created would then becomes a part of the fabric of the world! That's the idea behind THARDUIN: a shared world created under an open source (or creative commons) license. It would then be free to use, distribute, publish, emend, and embroider upon -- under the stipulation that whatever users create becomes fair game for others to use, as well.

Now, this is not to say you may plagiarize another users tale or game product, slap your name on it, and put it forth as an e-book. Far from it. But, what you can do is lift elements of setting, alter it to fit your needs or use as-is, and write your own tale . . . and other readers may do the same with elements you create. Imagine Sanctuary from Thieves' World or Robert E. Howard's Hyborian Age being open and free to use!

The project is still in its infancy, and it remains to be seen if others will embrace the notion of a wide-open fantasy world. But, I already have a couple of projects slated for Tharduin: a cycle of tales featuring a pair of Orcish witch hunters, during a time when Tharduin was under the dominion of the Orcs, and another tale that catapults my heroes a few thousand years in the future to see the final degradation of their race . . .

Let me know what you think, Gentle Readers. If you're a writer or game designer, would you take part in Tharduin?

EDITED TO ADD: An important point -- in NO WAY may previously published, licensed, copyrighted, or trademarked material be used without the express written consent of the owner. Thus, no adding elements from your favorite TV shows, books, or films UNLESS YOU'RE THE COPYRIGHT/TRADEMARK HOLDER AND CAN PROVE IT.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

A Paean to the Fallen

2011-05-30T08:07:00.001-05:00

(Reposted from 2005)

A Letter from Callisthenes to his Father:

". . . Dawn is not far off. With the rising of the sun, the army will shake itself and come to life, a beast woken from slumber. Across the field, amid the Persians, I have no doubt that there is a man like me, a man roused early by the need to send one last greeting to his family.

"I ask a favor, Father. Do not weep for me, for this is the path I have chosen for myself, regardless of whether it leads to glory or ruin. Remember the talks we used to have, in the Hellenium at Naucratis? The talks of duty and honor? The memory of those has sustained me through many a dark night. How I use to scoff at you for deriding glory! Now, though, I understand.

"Glory, like Justice, is blind. In the past year I have seen scoundrels rise to great office while those of far more noble bearing have expired. You said once that Glory has no master. It's true, I've found. But beyond that, Glory seems to bestow herself like a whore on those least worthy.

"The sun’s rising, Father. Already I hear the polemarchs stirring. Soon the fight will be joined, and I will be in the thick of it. I pray I will be the one who delivers this letter to you. If I'm not, if I fall, then understand that freedom is oft-times purchased with blood. If my blood is the coin of your freedom, then so be it. The gods have given no man the right to live forever."

-- Men of Bronze, Chapter 19: "Into the Storm"

I could think of nothing more fitting for this day than the words of Callisthenes, my alter-ego from Men of Bronze. Though I would never be so brave as he, I salute him and all the men and women who have given their lives to defend the things they hold dear, from the dawn of time to the present day. Let each generation remember the names of the dead so they might live forever . . .

Welcome to Hell!

2011-04-25T11:51:00.000-05:00

Lawyers in Hell: Janet Morris's iconic series, Heroes in Hell, returns with twenty-two new stories from veteran Hellions CJ Cherry, Nancy Asire, Michael Armstrong, Janet Morris, and Chris Morris -- plus a host of newly damned writers, including Scott Oden, Michael Z. Williamson, Deborah Koren -- and introducing Leo Champion, Sarah Hulcy, and Larry Atchley, Jr. May God have mercy on their souls. This July, Heaven lays down the law and hell gets more hellish!

From "Theos Kthonios" by Scott Oden:

The Spartan camp stood atop the crest of a low hill. The battle squires who were with them at Thermopylae directed the efforts of a new crop of helots, men from wildly different lands who had wept at the sight of the lambda scrawled on Spartan shields – the inverted ‘V’ of Lakedaemon. “I have searched for you, good king!” one had said, clutching Leonidas’ knees in shameful ecstasy. “For three hundred years I’ve scoured Tartaros for some sign of you!”

Strange, Leonidas thought. By his reckoning they had been under the earth for a little more than a fortnight….

He and Dienekes passed these same helots struggling to erect defensive walls under the tutelage of a cadre of perioikoi from Greater Greece, engineers who hailed from a place called Genoa. They worked with stone grubbed from the hard ground and timbers cut under the watchful eyes of the Blue Men. The wall would follow the natural slope of the hill, the engineers said, to create a glacis that would stymie potential attackers. Not that Leonidas planned to afford his enemies time to mount such an assault – once enough arms were scavenged from nearby battlefields, the omens taken and libations made, he would lead his Spartans out against the Argives, slaughter them, then move on to the Turks.

The salpinx bleated once more, and as Leonidas neared the gates of the encampment – little more than a barricaded ox cart – he heard a man calling his name: “Leonidas, son of Anaxandridas, come forth!”

Nimbly, the king of Sparta leapt atop the gate, Dienekes in his wake. Two men waited outside the encampment, a herald and his salpinx-bearing slave.

“I am here,” Leonidas said without preamble. “Who are you, and what do you want?”

The herald was clad in the manner of an Athenian aristocrat; he was a spindly-legged fellow, small and goatish with a dark face and a bristly-black beard. He stared at Leonidas as though taken aback. “Y-you– You are King Leonidas?”

“Did I not just say as much?”

The herald cleared his throat. “I am Simonides of Keos, Lord, and I … I have come to bring you before the ephors!”

“We have ephors?” Dienekes muttered.

“Apparently so. Who are these ephors, Simonides of Keos, and what do they want with me?”

“As above, so below, Lord. The ephors are peers of Sparta, and what they want is your obedience. Will you answer their summons?”

Leonidas’ brow furrowed. In the sunlit world of the living, the Spartan ephors, a council of five Spartiates elected annually to counter the power of the city’s two kings, rarely summoned him – or any citizen of Lakedaemon, for that matter – in order to sing his praises to the heavens. They were quarrelsome, motivated by base politics and personal gain, and they had been a thorn in his living side since the death of his brother, Kleomenes paved the way for his accession to the throne. As above, so below? Leonidas guessed as much.

“Will you answer their summons, Lord?”

“We will,” Leonidas replied. He turned to Dienekes. “Assemble the Three Hundred."

Lawyers in Hell: Coming this July!

Serpent of Hellas: An Excerpt

2011-04-17T09:16:00.000-05:00

The ninth day of Pyanopsion waning, in the first year of the 75th Olympiad, during the archonship of Kalliades [23 September, 480BC].

That night, the sky above Athens glowed like molten copper.

Beneath the smoke and the stench of burning, a thousand fires illuminated the ravages of an implacable enemy—the hordes of Asia, whose spiteful hands broke open tombs in the Kerameikos, whose reddened axes hacked at works of great renown, and whose avarice drove them to shatter the foundations of the city in search of silver. Their master, Xerxes son of Darius, watched in grim silence as Athens burned. This was his moment of triumph, the culmination of an eighteen-year-old score. As the Athenians had brought fire and ruin to Sardis in his father’s day, in a bid to free their brother Greeks of Ionia from the yoke of Persian servitude, so now did the Great King give his minions a free hand to repay the Athenians in kind.

But even in triumph the Great King brooded, for unlike Sardis his Persians had found Athens nearly deserted . . .

From the smoke-wreathed heights of the Acropolis, the city’s few remaining defenders, those too sickly, too poor, or too hidebound to heed the wisdom of Themistokles and seek safety abroad, shuddered at the eerie silence rising from the quarters of the city. For two days the narrow winding streets had reverberated with howls of rapine and the harsh ring of laughter; now, on the eve of the third day, a solitary voice lilted out of the night, a sing-song chant that echoed from the direction of the Persian camp on the Hill of Ares.

“Listen!” An old woman, her eyes white and near-sightless, sat among the defenders of the Acropolis, inside the precincts of the unfinished temple to Athena the Protectress. Rough columns hewn from the pristine marble of Mount Pentelikon rose to varying heights, a fragmented colonnade hung with awnings of linen that sheltered the wounded and the dying. A brazier of age-worn bronze stood at the old woman’s elbow; she let loose of her threadbare shawl and with palsied fingers drew a handful of incense from a bag at her side, casting it on the bed of smoldering coals. The crumbs struck and hissed, boiling up as a pungent yellow smoke. The crone leaned closer to the brazier and took a wracking breath of the fumes before they could dissipate. “Listen . . . do you hear it? It is the voice of Nemesis. Our end will come soon.”

“Be silent, woman,” muttered one of the two men kneeling nearby. The speaker, hollow-eyed and sleek with fat, wore the tunic and himation of a treasurer of Athena’s temple, the fine fabrics and embroidery now filthy, smirched with soot and blood. His companion was a spindly-legged beggar clad in cast-off rags, a blood-spotted bandage covering his left eye. A third man lay stretched out between them. The treasurer wiped sweat from his brow and stared at ragged gash in the injured man’s abdomen. “Zeus!” he muttered. “I can’t see.”

The beggar tugged the brazier closer and stirred the coals; by its feeble glow, the treasurer worked for several more minutes to seal the wound. Finally, he rocked back on his haunches. “I just can’t do it, Habron,” he said to the beggar. “I can’t stop the bleeding. The spear that did this . . . it bit too deep.”

“Perhaps heat an iron and cauterize it, Apollodorus?” the beggar replied. “I’ve seen it done.”

Apollodorus raised a skeptical eyebrow. “We could try it, but I can’t see well enough to locate the source of the bleeding. We might only make it worse. Still, I have no better idea, my friend.”

“I’ll fetch more light.” Habron made to heave himself upright on legs too exhausted to bear his weight when the wounded man stirred; with a blood-grimed hand, he motioned for the beggar to keep his place.

“No,” the fellow croaked. “No. Just pack it and have done.”

“But the bleeding—”

“Pack it, Apollodorus.” Though easily the youngest Greek on the Acropolis, the injured man had the air of a veteran about him, a hoplite who had fought in the phalanx or on the quarterdeck of a trireme. His muscular limbs and sun-browned chest were scored by a tracery of wounds—some fresh, others stitched and scabbed. “You’ve held your own these past few days. You should be proud . . .”

Apollodorus sighed. “War is a young man’s work, Nikomachos. And you should have gotten away when you had the chance. It is not right that an orphan of Marathon should die here. Not like this! You were destined for greater things!”

The younger man, Nikomachos, swabbed black, sweat-heavy hair off his brow and raised himself up on one elbow. Red-rimmed eyes glittered like chips of ice. “What is greater than this? You knew my father—would he have abandoned any of you to the fury of the Mede? No, it is as I told Themistokles: I am where my father would have been, doing no more than what he would have expected of himself.”

Apollodorus finished packing the wound with wads of linen, tied it off, and sat back. He matched Nikomachos’ icy stare with one of his own. “And Themistokles told you what he would have told your father: your death here is a waste!”

“I pray blessed Athena will see it otherwise.”

“More the fool you!” screeched the old woman nearby. “The Goddess has forsaken us!”

“No, grandmother. She is there.” Nikomachos nodded off to the west where a beacon blazed in the distance; even on a hazy day one could see the island of Salamis there, rising like a fortress from the sea. And there, on the heights, Themistokles had ordered the altar of Athena Poliachos erected anew, facing the city that bore her name. “She watches over us from Divine Salamis.”

“I have served the Goddess longer than you have been alive, Nikomachos son of Lysanias. Athena has withdrawn her favor.”

“Then we need simply to win it back!” the young man replied, unfazed.

Serpent of Hellas: A Tale of Artemisium coming in August of 2012 from Medallion Press!

ATTIKA: On Characters

2011-04-13T18:31:00.001-05:00

Since my last post, I've been giving ATTIKA: THE RPG some serious thought. Having such a tight focus for a rpg -- Athenian citizens who lived and died in the Classical Age (508-322 BC) -- creates a host of design problems from the word go (not that I fancy myself some kind of game designer . . . I'm a mere hobbyist compared to some of my friends). Character creation, for example, must also serve as a platform to introduce players who might be unfamiliar with it to the rigorously historical world of ancient Athens.

In order for the game to work as envisioned, it must presuppose two things: 1) that the characters are all male, and 2) that the characters are all sons of citizens in good standing with the Athenian polis. This seems narrow when judged by the standards of the hobby, where ancient gender bias is often overlooked, but ATTIKA seeks to recreate accurate history -- with all its warts and flaws. There were some quite influential women in the Classical Age, such as Pericles' mistress, Aspasia, but they were the exception rather than the rule; in game terms, women like Aspasia would be quite effective as non-player characters, catalysts and patrons who stand outside the male-dominated society of Athens.

So, what should come first? Should a game like this launch directly into character creation, or should it begin with an overview of the city and the times? Is there a way to combine the two by weaving the history in with the mechanics? A life path system would probably work quite well . . . begin by determining name, father's name, deme and tribe, then allocate stats (which are derived from Aristotle; more on that later), traits and skills. What gifts might the gods have graced characters with? A silver-tongue, a sculptor's eye, a lion's courage? And, how will these gifts be used? How can delivering a rousing speech before the Assembly become a desirable in-game goal?

This whole project reminds me of Pete Nash's BRP ROME meets the old GDW classic EN GARDE; it needs to be an immersive simulation, but to what end? Should an unstated goal of ATTIKA be the teaching of Classical history? I recall Samuel Goldwyn's advice to writers: "If you want to send a message, call Western Union!" Should the same hold true for games? I go back and forth on this one; my friends and I don't play games to learn the intricacies of Medieval society. We play to have a good time. The trick, then, would be to wrap the learning up in the guise of entertainment . . .

Anyone have a differing opinion (especially any game designers who might wander by)?

ATTIKA: The RPG

2011-04-11T13:13:00.001-05:00

While I'm waiting for my equilibrium to return, I've been thinking about an old idea I had for a generational roleplaying game set in ancient Greece, specifically Athens and its environs. Spanning the years between the close of the Persian Wars and the rise of Macedon, the game would be a close historical simulation of life and death in the Athenian social and political arena. Like the wonderful Pendragon, ATTIKA would follow a citizen of Athens from their first years as an adult; players would be part of a circle of friends, part of the same age group, and they would aid one another in their triumphs and their tragedies. War, commerce, politics, back-stabbing, prosecution, ostracism, exile, redemption . . . it would cover the spectrum of ancient Athenian aristocratic life. Would you risk exile to avenge yourself against an enemy? Would you seek wealth and court disfavor by dealing with foreign powers? Would you go to war against the Thebans, the Aegintans, the fearsome Spartans? Attend the great religious festivals and broker for power in the shadows . . .

The possibilities, in my mind, are endless. The problem would be in making such deeds exciting to the rank-and-file of gamers. What say you, Gentle Readers: if you're a gamer, would you like to play a non-mythological, rigorously historical simulation of ancient Athenian life? Would you play ATTIKA?

Thank You

2011-04-10T08:02:00.000-05:00

I'd like to take a moment to extend my most sincere thanks to everyone who offered their condolences, prayers, and well-wishes to me and my family during this most difficult time. Dad was laid to rest yesterday afternoon to the echo of a 21-gun salute, surrounded by family -- the living as well as the dead. His grave sits a few feet from that of his mother and father; his brothers, cousins, and nephews ring him . . .

The flag draping his coffin was folded by his brothers-in-arms, old soldiers of the VFW, and presented to my nephew, Trent, who is on active duty in Afghanistan; Trent then knelt and presented the flag to my mother. My Mom looked as frail as I've ever seen her, thin shoulders bowed with grief. Come May, her and Dad would have celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary.

But, even amid the grief and the tears there were moments of humor. As we got into the van to make the drive into town to the funeral parlor, my Mom complained that her shoes were too big; my wife Shannon complained that her nylons were too hot; I complained that my shirt was too tight. Mom laughed suddenly. I caught her eye in the rear-view mirror. "Your Dad would be proud of us."

"I know," I replied. "We're not even out of the driveway and we're already bitching." To truly get the joke, you must understand how vehemently Dad hated travel of any kind. He'd start complaining long before the key ever touched the ignition, and his counter-argument to any line of reasoning was: "I did all my traveling during the War!"

As usual, I digress. Thank you all once again for your many kindnesses. Shannon and I, and the rest of my family, truly appreciate it.

Requiem

2011-04-07T09:05:00.001-05:00

I was at my father's side when he passed. My Mom and Shannon were on his other side. Monday night, Dad had been restless, Mom said -- talking to himself, kicking the blankets off, trying to get up. At 6 AM Tuesday morning, she called up the stairwell to me and Shannon; we woke and came downstairs. Dad was sitting beside the bed, on a step he'd built years ago to make it easier for him and Mom to get up on their high mattresses. For many weeks Dad had been bedridden, unable to walk without assistance, and prone to seizures* when he'd try.

Dad wasn't coherent; he knew me, I think, but he kept muttering under his breath. I helped him up and back into bed, and tried to get him comfortable. But, he wanted to get up, again. He said he had to go -- whether he meant it in the mundane sense or in the spiritual sense I cannot say. I helped him stand and maneuvered him into a bedside chair.

Dad was sitting there, leaning forward as though he wanted to rise. He said, "I can't do this" and sat up. That's when the tremors started. It was another seizure -- his eyes dilated and closed, his left side grew rigid and his right grew slack, and he slumped back like he'd fallen asleep (which invariably happened when these spells were upon him . . . he'd sleep for hours afterwards). Mom and I waited a moment, then tried to wake him, to get him back in bed so he'd be more comfortable. He wouldn't respond. No touch or stimulus would rouse him -- I snapped my fingers, whistled, patted his cheek, raised an eyelid, shook his arm. Nothing.

That's when we called Hospice. Dad had been under their care for going on two months; they dispatched his nurse, Rachel. In the meantime, we watched him like a hawk. Dad's breathing grew ragged and quick, Shannon noticed, as though he were hyperventilating. I noticed his legs were darkening from the knees down. As Mom talked to him and tried to wake him up, I grabbed our old stethoscope and listened for a heartbeat. I heard nothing. Shannon tried and found a very thready pulse. We leaned Dad back in a more comfortable position, put a pillow under his head, and called 911.

Dad began to breathe in a fashion I later learned was called Cheyne-Stokes respiration: shallow breaths some 20-30 seconds apart. This went on for what felt like an eternity; in reality, it must have been only a minute or two. I could hear the ambulance in the distance. At 6:45 or so, as the paramedics swung up our long driveway, my Dad took his last breath. There was a soft rattle, like a sigh. One bedroom window faces east, allowing warm sunlight to spill over his shoulders and into the room -- a room my Dad had built, along with the rest of the house.

He was gone. He and my mother have explicit DNR forms that prohibit resuscitation or life-extending procedures. Nurse Rachel of Hospice arrived right behind the paramedics, and she took charge of the medical aspects. I went to begin the arduous task of calling family; Shannon stayed with Mom.

The past two days have been a heart-wrenching blur, decision-making punctuated by long moments of silence and tears. Even a long-expected death is traumatic; though I knew my Dad would not last out the year, much less see spring blossom into summer, it is nevertheless a shock. Grief is the purview of the living, and though I know he's in a much better place, I am wracked by guilt and uselessness -- guilt in that I feel a sense of relief; uselessness in that my task, for now, has come to an abrupt end.

We will go on. The grief will ease with time and memories of the bad times will fade. In time, we will all meet again in the green fields of Elysium, the halls of Valhalla, or in the glory of Heaven. We will see you again, soon, Dad.

Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine:

et lux perpetua luceat eis.
In memoria æterna erit iustus,
ab auditione mala non timebit.

Postscript:

This morning, a fond memory struck me. I recall one winter when I was a teenager where we were iced in. It was a milennial event, to be sure; though we lost power, we had wood heat and kerosene lamps. Minus television, of course. So to pass the time I read The Lord of the Rings to Dad. I don't recall if we ever finished it, but I know he enjoyed it, nontheless. My heaven is Tolkien's . . .

"And it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise." -- JRR Tolkien

*We call it a seizure, but the neurologist could find no sign of it on Dad's EEG -- even though he witnessed one while we were leaving his office and declared: "Yep, that's a seizure!" In retrospect, they may have been mini-strokes.

Arthur M. Oden (1926-2011)

2011-04-05T11:02:00.000-05:00

It saddens me beyond words to report on the passing this morning of my father, Arthur Oden. He was a WWII veteran, a retired firefighter, a stone mason, and an inveterate tinkerer. He died of complications from dementia. Dad lived a good, long life; he will be sorely missed but he has gone on to a better place, of this I'm certain.

The pic is from mine and Shannon's wedding. He had not a clue what was going on, but he was always happy to sit with people and talk.

Godspeed, Dad.

Tinkering, Part II

2011-04-03T09:54:00.000-05:00

Construction on the new Echoes of a Forgotten Age . . . continues apace. Who knew Goblins were so adept at WYSIWYG? I've added a few things to the navigation bar above: a Bio page, a page for my books and another for my other works, a page dedicated to Orcs, and a Bibliography page. I'm still adding entries to the Bibliography, especially material I used while writing THE LION OF CAIRO, and the material I'm using on the Orc book.

Something I'd love to do, time and technology permitting, is an A-Z encyclopedia of the people, places, and things found in the whole of my work. Kind of like an expanded version of the Glossary from MEN OF BRONZE. And, I might add a page for free short fiction or something longer and serialized.

Any comments or criticisms, Gentle Readers? Anything you'd like to see here at Echoes?

Hellotxt sez Hello

2011-04-02T09:44:00.002-05:00

I'm giving hellotxt a try -- seeing if there's one place I can post my thoughts/hope/dreams of world media domination and have it disseminated across the internet to all my bastions of social interaction.

Tinkering . . .

2011-04-01T12:02:00.000-05:00

I have called forth my Goblin hordes and set them to work updating the blog. It's a work in progress, so please bear with me!

So, what do you think so far?

Teaching, Orcs, and Sundry

2011-03-23T12:54:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the long silence, Gentle Readers. It's been sheer madness as Casa de Oden for the past little while. Besides writing and being a devoted husband, I'm also the primary caregiver for my ailing parents -- which is not as doom-laced as it sounds. Basically, I make sure they eat and take their meds, run errands, and try to do some general cleaning; Home Health and Hospice do the rest. They are wonderful people and I'm fairly certain they don't get paid enough for what it is they do. God bless 'em!

Now, some bits and bobs:

The title of my story in the upcoming Heroes in Hell anthology -- the volume is called Lawyers in Hell -- has changed. It was "Sacrifice"; now it's "Theos Khthonios". It clocked in at a bit over 8000 words, and it's just a small slice of awesome, if you ask me.

Speaking of anthologies, I've taken up the mantle of editor in my own right and I'm shopping around what I hope will be the definitive anthology of short fiction concerning . . . Orcs! It is untitled as of now, and I can't speak too much about the authors I've approached to contribute except to say it's shaping up to be an Orcish fanboy's wet dream! More on this as the situation warrants . . .

I've been teaching a class this month at my local Library on how to get published. It has been very well-attended, and I'm glad to have so many patient souls who are interested in the eldritch secrets of publishing! I'm most likely going to make my class material available via Google Docs once the class concludes at the end of the month.

Lastly, I'm toying with throwing my hat into the digital publishing ring . . . I've dusted off an old novella about Hasdrabal Barca's (the protagonist of Men of Bronze) early years among the Medjay. If I can finish it to my satisfaction, I believe I'm going to give it the e-book treatment and offer it for sale via Amazon or some other e-book retailer. It's current title is Nitocris: A Tale of the Medjay, and it involves the young Phoenician's attempt to thwart an assassination in the Egyptian border town of Sile . . .

So, that's a bit of what's going on with me. Anything new to report among ye, Gentle Readers?

Feast or Famine

2011-02-19T10:22:00.000-06:00

I think I've been writing long enough, now, to recognize a few tropes in the arc of my career. I've given them names such as Connections Matter and It's Not Enough to be Good; the most pervasive trend, however, is the one I call Feast or Famine. Invariably, my career has gravitated from one extreme to the other with hardly a pause or care for the middle. For example: I received a starred review and various accolades for Men of Bronze, but Memnon slipped into the aether with barely a mention; I canceled what would have been my third historical fiction book (Medjay) and prepared myself for a self-imposed exile to learn the ropes of fantasy when I got the call from St. Martin's saying they'd like to buy my Orc book and three others on proposal. Even news that The Lion of Cairo hadn't performed as well as I'd hoped came couched in the same email giving me the go-ahead to embark upon some rampant Orkery. That's how this game has worked for me.

When I announced my plan to read through Men of Bronze and post my thoughts, notes, and comments, my only other pressing concerns were finishing up Serpent of Hellas and working on Lion's sequel, The Damascene Blade. I thought I'd have all the time in the world. Then, one evening not too long ago, I received an invitation from Janet Morris to take part in the resurrection of her much-loved anthology, Heroes in Hell. I'd read these as a younger man, along with her and her husband, Chris's work in the glorious Thieves' World anthologies and stand-alone novels; despite not having any measure of success with short fiction, I found myself accepting her invite before the echo had died away. I would be making my short fiction debut under the auspices of Janet Morris!

As sometimes happens, we got to bouncing ideas off one another and very soon an overall meta-story took shape. And my one contribution to an anthology down the road became an epic that would span several volumes and entwine such luminaries as Alexander the Great, Memnon of Rhodes, TE Lawrence, Hasan-i-Sabbah, and the near-legendary King Leonidas of Sparta!

So, as I finish work on Serpent and plot the Orc book, I'm also furiously working on "Sacrifice" for the anthology Lawyers in Hell, coming this summer in hardback and electronic formats. It's feast or famine, Gentle Readers. Which, in my round about way, is an explanation and an apology for the dearth of posts concerning Men of Bronze.

The Rise of the Orcs

2011-02-08T09:40:00.000-06:00

Creepy Moria Orc, by Devon Cady-Lee

News came last week of the most welcome sort. Due to certain vagaries of the publishing market, including The Lion of Cairo's performance stateside, the next book of mine to be published by St. Martin's/Thomas Dunne Books will be Orc: A Tale of the Forsaken*!

What does this mean for the balance of the Emir of the Knife trilogy, for Assad and his devil-haunted blade? Not to worry. I will be coming back to them after I wrap up the manuscript for Orc; I wouldn't want to leave a character like Assad just hanging. But, for the time being, my attention is fixed on completing Serpent of Hellas as I plot and create the world and story of Orc.

What sort of world will it be? Will it be a pure fantasy world peopled with Elves and Dwarves or a historically-derived world where Orcs are the foot-soldiers of a world-conquering empire based on the Ottoman Turks? An interesting question. In 2009, after cross-posting an essay here and at Black Gate called Shagrat the Barbarian, I began talking to a wonderfully knowledgeable Brit named Christopher Walsingham (and yes, he is distantly related to the famous Walsingham); he's given me some interesting fodder to use. I've invited him to guest post here, and he's in the process of setting up his own blog; once I've digested some of the info, I'm going to join him in posting and commenting on what could be some very exciting news for Orc-o-philes everywhere!

*This is a tentative title; I'm batting a few others around.

A New Age

2011-02-03T21:27:00.000-06:00

As of today, I join my companions as a full member of the Digital Age! Yes, the Oden household is now replete and brimming with high-speed internet-y goodness! I've updated browsers, downloaded apps, bookmarked things of note, and watched a few cute kitten videos. What's more, I can now update this blog with more frequency, Gentle Readers . . . without the constant fear of a technology overload due to my previous blazing-hot 50K dial-up connection.

It's a new era, friends! A new Age!

Happy 105th, REH!

2011-01-22T10:16:00.000-06:00

Today marks the 105th anniversary of Robert E. Howard's birth, and as I go about my daily routine I can't help but wonder where I would be without him. His words were my constant companions throughout the fairly non-descript and dull years of school; his example -- a small-town guy who dreamed of far-off places and times, and who found an outlet to the bucholic drudgery of life through poetry and prose -- inspired me to try my hand at the spinning of yarns. His imagination informed my own, even as his style of writing acted as a roadmap to a kid desperately searching for his own voice. It is not rank hyperbole to state that without REH I would not be the writer, nor the man, I am right now.

So, join with me, my friends. Raise your glasses, tilt your mead horns, and offer your libations to the shade of Robert Ervin Howard! Happy birthday!

Reading Men of Bronze, Episode 1

2011-01-15T14:21:00.002-06:00

Chapter One—The City of Lions

And so we begin: with hot cocoa at my elbow and a pad for notes, my original manuscript pulled up on my computer and a somewhat battered copy of Men of Bronze open in my lap, I start to read . . .

It’s not bad, actually. I tend to wince when, after some time has passed, I read my own words. I can see a marked difference in the quality of my prose between then and now, but it also has an underlying power that I’m not sure I’ve ever achieved since. I’ve read where Robert McCammon mentioned something similar in regards to his first novel, Baal. And now, some notes:

“In the blue predawn twilight, a mist rose from the Nile’s surface, flowing up the reed-choked banks and into the ruined streets of Leontopolis.” I don’t know how it is for other writers, but my mind doesn’t think in terms of words. It visualizes, cobbling imagery from different sources into a collage that I then attempt to describe. Inspiration for Leontopolis at dawn, for example, came from two pictures: one of the pyramids floating above an evening mist (pages 12-13, Egypt of the Pharaohs. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Books, 2000), and another of the temple of Amun at Karnak (page 126, Ancient Egypt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).

Leontopolis itself was a real site, though sparse of ruins. Actually, there were a couple of places known to the Greeks as Leontopolis; but the one I chose as the stage upon which to introduce Barca is known today as Tell el-Yahudiya, about 12.5 miles northeast of Cairo. The Ancient Egyptians knew it as Nay-ta-hut. I’m not sure if I ever learned why the Greeks called it the City of Lions, but I took a cue from its name and made it a cult center of Sekhmet, destroyed by the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal in 667 BC and never repopulated.

In my original draft I had a brief preface to this, two paragraphs of atmospheric text written while under the influence of Karl Edward Wagner’s “Lynortis Reprise”:

On the Nile’s banks ruined Leontopolis simmered in silent majesty. The City of Lions, age-old and ageless, its crumbling colonnades and weathered plazas haunted by the phantom tread of long-dead pharaohs. Leontopolis. Built by the slaves of great Rameses; destroyed by the soldiers of mighty Assyria, its sphinx-lined avenues have known both cries of adulation and screams of terror.

Leontopolis . . . your streets are silent now, and the bones of your people are scattered to the winds. No more do lions prowl the temple precincts seeking sacrifices; even the jackals have moved on to fresh tombs, fresh corpses. Silent, alone under the waning moon, you have become a necropolis, a monument to a forgotten time . . .

“The Medjay had come to Leontopolis.” The Medjay were an artifact of history which I repurposed. Originally, they were a tribe of Nubian mercenaries who rose to prominence during the 18^th dynasty. They became Egypt’s internal police force; one of their tasks was to guard the various necropoleis and “government towns” like Kahun. In time, “medjay” became less an ethnic designator and more a by-word for a cadre of Pharaoh’s soldiers responsible for homeland security. By the 20^th dynasty, even the name had vanished from Egyptian records.

I resurrected them for my own purposes after reading an article at Tour Egypt on how the Saite kings liked to recycle themes and institutions from Egypt’s past, especially the 18th dynasty. So I made the Medjay a company of mercenaries from various extra-Nilotic locales, using the French Foreign Legion as a template, and stuck them out patrolling the Eastern Desert, fighting the Bedouin and cursing the Greeks—who had posh military posts in Egypt’s heart. There’s a great deal of color I added later while trying to make the sequel “Medjay” into something workable.

From my original manuscript:

Medjay. It was a name that aroused fear among Egypt’s enemies: a legion drawn from the most savage and feral of Pharaoh’s mercenaries. They were a throwback to another era, to the dawn of the New Kingdom, resurrected a century earlier by Wehemibre Necho to serve as elite guards of Egypt’s eastern frontier. Heavily armored, mobile, the Medjay were trained to crush an invader before they could plunder the temples and granaries of the Nile valley. In that, their effect was beyond measure.

“Phoenician by birth, Hasdrabal Barca ruled the Medjay with the tigerish strength of a born killer.” I got the name “Barca” from Harold Lamb’s biography of Hannibal—who had a brother named Hasdrubal (I had hoped changing the “u” in “Hasdrubal” to an “a” might be enough to forestall confusion); Oded Fehr inspired his physical appearance, and his personality I distilled from equal parts REH’s Conan and Homer’s Achilles with one deviation: Barca’s been suicidal for some twenty years.

I don’t think I ever mention the oath Barca swore after the murder of his wife and her lover. He embraced his guilt and swore to Ba’al Hammon that he would not take his own life. Rather, he would go into the desert—the least hospitable place I could think to send a sea-loving Phoenician—and let the gods do with him as they will. He’s been trying to get himself killed ever since. Early on, it was his berserk rage that carried him through; by the book’s opening, it’s a combination of that and cold skill with a blade.

Here’s my original description of Barca:

Even among the Egyptians he was accounted as tall, and the iron muscles of his arms, chest and back were forged on the anvil of war. The skin beneath his armor bore the dark bronze hue of his Levantine ancestors, with the scars of torch and sword, spear and knife, telling the tale of a life spent in pursuit of violence. Unlike his men, the Phoenician disdained a helmet; he went into battle with his long black hair unbound. There was a savage recklessness in his features, in the jut of his jaw, the snarl twisting his lips. Only in his eyes did this show of bravado not reach. Hasdrabal Barca had the cold, patient eyes of a predator.

“Such was the fate of Habu, south of the vale of Tumilat, on the shores of the Great Bitter Lake.” The original name of the village destroyed by the Bedouin was Tuat. A fine and good name . . . until I read Chapter One aloud to my friends Shannon (now my wife) and Kris, both of whom noted, around gales of laughter, that “Tuat” sounded suspiciously like a slang word for female genitalia. Thus, Habu was born.

“You were right,” the scout, Tjemu, whispered, “they are the Beni Harith.” I mentioned in the introduction to this series that an iteration of Men of Bronze had Barca adventuring in pre-Islamic South Arabia. The Beni Harith and their chief, Ghazi ibn Ghazi, are holdovers from that draft. I first encountered the name “Beni Harith” in David Lean’s “Lawrence of Arabia”, which prompted me to look for Lawrence’s own book, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom. I took some harsh criticism over my portrayal of the Bedouin in Men of Bronze, with one reviewer calling it an offensive caricature; in my defense, much of my characters’ disdain over the desert dwellers I lifted whole-cloth from Egyptian sources, which showed marked contempt for those who lived beyond Egypt’s borders.

“The Persian, Arsamenes, leaned forward, helping himself to the dates. His eyes, small and dark, flickered up to the Bedouin’s face.” This whole episode of the Persian messenger traveling with Bedouin raiders into Egypt was a late addition to the manuscript, and in my opinion now it’s one of the silliest plot hooks I’ve seen in a long time. The original version wasn’t much better: rather than having Arsamenes in their entourage, the Harith had in their possession a map showing a hidden path through the desert, one that followed a series of man-made wells. Ghazi and his Bedouin were traveling to Memphis to take part in Phanes’ uprising. In both versions, the whole episode is so contrived that it embarrasses me to claim it as my own.

If I were writing it today, I’m not sure what catalyst I’d use to get Barca and the Medjay out of the Eastern Desert and into Memphis in time to scuttle Phanes’ plans, but I hope it would be a little less ham-handed than this.

“Sounds like locusts,” Tajik said. The young Bedouin craned his neck . . .

. . . and died as a bronze-tipped arrow split his skull.” To this day, I love how the ellipses and paragraph break here work to create an image of a split-second passage of time. I think an editor tried to change this, but I argued against it. I wanted to keep this structure intact just as I’d written it. My love for it spread to other parts of the book, and eventually to other books. Jokingly, I call it my “literary signature”.

“The Bedouin called the captain of the Medjay al-Saffah, the Blood-letter; with each killing stroke, Barca demonstrated the truth of that sobriquet.” Barca’s nom de guerre, al-Saffah, is an homage to Robert E. Howard’s desert hero Francis Xavier Gordon, called El Borak, the Swift. I swiped it from Philip K. Hitti’s excellent The Arabs: A Short History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1943); it was the self-given nickname of the first Abbasid caliph of Baghdad, Abu’l-Abbas. I wanted the Bedouin to know him as something other than Barca or the Phoenician, something that would hint of a long and bloody association with the People of the Desert.

“With a chilling cry, Hasdrabal Barca unleashed the Beast.” I do not now recall what possessed me to make Barca a berserker, or to characterize his rage as “the Beast”. I think I wanted a touch of the supernatural about him, the idea that at his most murderous he essentially becomes a vessel for something more powerful than himself. He surrenders to rage and guilt; he relives that moment when he gave in to his baser side and allows it to fill him with a rich red wrath—he becomes a creature of reflex and instinct that the gods use as they see fit.

As I type this, there’s something else about Barca that I’ve noticed . . . he’s fairly agnostic. He is no zealot, nor does he deny the existence of the gods. He rarely invokes them, actually. I believe deep in his soul he retains a fear of them, and of the unknown, but he has tempered this with a total willingness to die. It is interesting that his recklessness is not a desirable trait among Greeks, despite the fact that it carries him through to victory and glory. Unconsciously, I seem to have made him the anti-Greek.

“Pain blossomed in Ghazi’s left shoulder. A fist-sized chunk of masonry, hurled with all the strength of Barca’s arm, splintered the bone.” In my original manuscript, what Barca hurled was his shield—he carried a Greek-style aspis, inlaid with a lapis lazuli uadjet:

Something struck him low, in the upper thighs, knocking his legs out from under him. Ghazi hit the ground hard, breath exploding from his lungs. Barca had hurled his shield like a discus. Ghazi scrabbled at the dusty ground, crawling, pulling his body toward the safety of the Nile.

But that was a bit too . . . Captain America-y, right? Instead, I envisioned him plucking up a fist-sized rock and taking the fleeing Arab down like a hunter dropping a bird . . .

“Ithobaal, who could claim kinship with King Achish of conquered Gath, shaded his eyes with a spade-like hand.” Ithobaal was a relic of the Babylonian version of Men of Bronze, a henchman of the villain—a sinister Egyptian, of all things, cast in the mold of REH’s Thoth-Amon. Here, I can’t help but feel that he, along with some of the other Medjay, was an underused resource. He was tall and skeletal, a distant kinsman of that great Gittite (“from Gath”) from the Bible, Goliath.

Ithobaal’s secret pain is the fact that for many years he’s remained the number two man among the Medjay. He was lieutenant to Barca’s predecessors, Potasimto and Mâthu, passed over again when Pharaoh elevated Barca to the captaincy of Sile. It was a measure of his quality that he bore the Phoenician no grudge.

“Frowning, Barca drew out a heavy sheet of vellum. Tjemu grunted. The Libyan could not read, but his eyes marveled at the delicate Aramaic script filling the page. “What does it say?” This whole thing about an unencrypted letter offering sedition carried over a perennially disputed border by a man of obvious Persian descent, escorted by an undisciplined rabble of Bedouin . . . it makes me shake my head and wish for a do-over. As I mentioned before, the original draft made mention of Ghazi being in possession of a map, which Barca finds on his corpse. Here’s how that scene played out:

Barca sat on the stump of a column and handed Ithobaal the papyrus roll. “What do you make of that?”

Tjemu glanced over the Canaanite’s shoulder as he unrolled the blood-stained papyrus. The Libyan could not read, but his eyes were drawn to the delicate hieratic script ringing the map. “What does it say?”

Ithobaal looked up sharply. “It marks the Way of the Wells!”

“You think it’s genuine?” Barca said.

The Canaanite pursed his lips. “I cannot say for certain. It looks to be correct, from what I remember of the map Potasimto once had. See, back when Lydia fell to the Persians, Pharaoh ordered all copies of the map destroyed save one. A sole copy was to be kept in the archives of Ptah’s temple in Memphis. He feared just this sort of thing—”

“Wait,” said Tjemu, frowning. “What is this Way of the Wells?”

“Until now one of our greatest secrets, little brother,” Ithobaal replied. “A series of man-made wells, huge stone cisterns, buried in the Eastern Desert at its harshest points to emulate the great oases of the Western Desert.”

“Why is that a vital secret?”

“Because,” Barca said. “From these wells an army could vanish into the desert and strike where they pleased along the Nile’s east bank, between Thebes and the Delta. Imagine the chaos of trying to ensnare a well-watered invader in that inferno.”

Tjemu shivered. “I see what you mean.”

“Before he died Ghazi said the Greeks were behind this,” Barca said, indicating the carnage around them.

“The Greeks? Why? They live like merchant-princes.”

“The only reason I can think of is they plan an uprising,” Barca said.

I am dumbfounded over how I could have made the leap between “the Bedouin have a map!” and “the Greeks are revolting!” It makes zero since to me now, a decade and more since first writing it. If any of my beta readers have an answer . . . please chime in!

In retrospect, it should have been a band of Greeks disguised as Bedouin, returning in secret from a diplomatic mission along the border. That would have made sense—and provided the perfect catalyst for Barca and his Medjay to descend on Memphis . . .

“All around the square, his Medjay cared for their dead. They stripped them of their armor, laid them out with reverence; their shields and personal effects would be taken back to Sile and enshrined in the temple of Horus Sopdu.” The identification of Horus Sopdu, “Sharp Horus”, as the patron god of the Medjay came late in the editing process; so, too, the imagery of their temple—the arms and armor of fallen Medjay displayed beside trophies of their victories, all of it wreathed in a haze of incense. Once that detail fell into place, the Medjay became to my mind less a band of mercenaries and more a great warrior-fraternity, like a precursor to the Knights Templar, turning men who would otherwise be the dregs of society into proud and ferocious brothers.

One failing of mine was I never took the time to sketch out more about the organization and practices of the Medjay. How many companies were there? Who and how many were their officers? Was Barca A captain or THE captain; and if the latter, how did he avoid the administrative duties of his rank? How did they recruit? Was the prohibition against Greeks serving in their ranks just Barca’s prejudice? What were some of their more memorable exploits? This is something I may just revisit under the auspices of writing a short story.

“The Phoenician turned away and held the diplomatic pouch aloft, using it to gesture at the scattered Medjay. “Gather round, brothers! We’re not going back to Sile, not yet!” And thus, Chapter One comes to a close. As I mentioned at the outset, it’s not a bad bit of work. It has some outstanding moments alongside some I find, in retrospect, to be quite wretched. The tone and tenor of the whole book owe a great deal to the influence of Robert E. Howard, but I can see glimpses of others, too. Threads from writers as diverse as Karl Edward Wagner, Mary Renault, and Homer add weight to the tapestry of Men of Bronze.

In Episode Two, we’ll meet Barca’s nemesis: Phanes of Halicarnassus. And we’ll ponder whether or not I gave a good man the short end of the stick . . .

Reading Men of Bronze, Episode 0

2011-01-05T13:54:00.003-06:00

Introductory Matters—or, How We Came To Be Here

This past holiday season marked ten years since I first sat down to write the book that would become Men of Bronze. I didn’t know, back then, if it would ever see the light of publication; I didn’t even know if I had the wherewithal, the determination, to finish the manuscript. All I really knew is I would write it or I would die trying.

In many ways, the end of ’00 and the beginning of 2001 marked the end of my life: in a short span of time I’d lost my job, my car; my wife divorced me and I was forced to move back in with my parents. I had been trying for years (eleven, actually) to make something of myself as a writer; I’d published an amateur roleplaying game as a teen and later sold a couple of short stories to small magazines that didn’t pay a thing beyond contributor copies. But what I wanted to write was a Conan novel for Tor—never mind the fact that I had nothing substantial in the way of publishing credits to convince them to trust me with their licensed property. I wanted to do it, and that’s what I did. Or rather, that’s what I started.

Started. Stopped. Restarted. Threw away. Rewrote. Deleted. Plotted again. Rewrote. Stopped. Wrung hands over. Started again. Repeat all this for eleven years. My friends Wayne Miller, Kris Reisz, and Josh Olive probably still remember the exact number of drafts I went through on just the first three chapters of Conan: Shadow of Vengeance. To my recollection it was somewhere in the double digits.

In ’97 or early ’98, I received a stern bit of advice from a friend who was also a published author, James Byron Huggins. He’d read my three Conan chapters, liked them, but wondered what I planned to do should Tor reject them. I couldn’t turn around and sell it elsewhere, so he suggested I start over with my own characters. From that conversation Hasdrabal Barca was born. My indomitable Phoenician, whose name I pilfered from Harold Lamb’s biography of Hannibal and whose personality I lifted from Robert E. Howard’s Conan and Homer’s Achilles. In those early years, however, he was a character without a setting. For a time he was a hired killer caught up in the politics of pre-Islamic South Arabia (Al-Saffah: a Fable of Ancient Arabia), then an agent of Babylon’s last king, Nabonidus, fighting Lovecraftian horrors (Of Dead Gods and Kings: a Novel of the Ancient World). Finally, in ’99, after watching Victor Mature in the film version of Mika Waltari’s The Egyptian, Hasdrabal Barca immigrated to the Land of the Pharaohs. He’d found his setting; now, all he needed was a story . . .

For most of ’99, as my marriage dissolved around me, I puttered with research, rediscovered my old love for ancient Egypt, and made a few key decisions about the plot. Eschewing the trend of setting Egyptian fiction in the New Kingdom (the era of Akhenaton, Tut, Seti, and the Great Rameses), I plopped Barca down in the Late Period, specifically the 26th Dynasty. I discovered the heart of my story—and my villain—in the pages of Herodotus, who told a tale about a fellow countryman, a mercenary soldier of Halicarnassus, whose perfidy helped the Persians conquer Egypt (Book III, sections 1-15). He told the Greek side; I would tell the Egyptian side. Herodotus also gave me my title: Men of Bronze, which was what the Egyptians called their heavily-armored Greek and Carian mercenaries. I was set.

Then came the year 2000, and the perfect storm of events that ripped my life apart. Over the holiday season, deep in a fit of depression at the course my career had taken up till then, I swore my oath. If writing was in truth my calling, then I would write this book or I would surrender what little life I had left. Perhaps a tad overly dramatic, but it worked. On December 24, 2000, I wrote the opening paragraphs to Men of Bronze . . .

It’s been ten years and two weeks since. I’ve recounted elsewhere the trials faced in my quest to find an agent and publisher, the rejection slips and exhortations of “love it, but it will never sell!” I’ve delved into the joys and sorrows of a dream realized. I’ve gone on to write new books. I’ve remarried. For the next few weeks, though, I’m going to do something I’ve not done in a very long while: I’m going to read Men of Bronze again. I’ll post my thoughts and impressions, extracts from early drafts and notes, one chapter at a time. Read it along with me, if you like, and don’t hesitate to ask questions. For that, according to Herodotus, is how you display your inquiry . . .

Next Episode: Chapter One—The City of Lions.

Fare Thee Well, 2010!

2010-12-31T19:23:00.003-06:00

With only hours to go before the calendar rolls over, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on 2010 and announce some plans for 2011. The two greatest moments of 2010 must surely be my wedding and the publication of The Lion of Cairo. The former was the culmination of a long-held dream; the latter is a continuation of another dream altogether. My wife, Shannon, remains my staunchest partisan. She's ever on the forefront of promotion, corralling total strangers with the sole purpose of telling them her husband is a writer and they should read my books. Lord only knows how many sales she's accounted for.

One of my resolutions for the coming year is to blog more frequently. To that end, I've got a few things in mind: an ongoing blog-series wherein I read a chapter of Men of Bronze and offer my thoughts, notes, and opinions on the text. Kind of like an annotated version of the book. I'm also thinking of extending it to cover Memnon and eventually The Lion of Cairo. I've got a couple of short stories I might finish and post in installments -- one covering Assad's return to Alamut after the prologue of Lion, and another that would serve as an introduction to Orc: A Tale of the Forsaken. These are both in various stages of completion, however.

My main tasks for 2011 will be finishing Serpent of Hellas and The Damascene Blade, plotting the third book of the Emir of the Knife trilogy, called The Old Man of the Mountain, and getting together what I'm going to need to bring the mythological world of Orc to life.

What, if anything, would you like to see on the blog, Gentle Readers? Let me know in the comments and I'll see what I can do . . .

Christmas Goblins, Arise!

2010-12-24T21:40:00.003-06:00

I knew if I searched long enough I’d discover -- dare I say it? -- a mythological Orc! And a Greek mythological Orc at that! Well, it's actually classified as a goblin, but are you really going to deny me my moment of glory this Christmas Eve, Gentle Readers? I thought not. Anyway, they are called the Kallikantzaroi and they seem to me to be the unholy love-children of REH's Worms of the Earth and Tolkien's blighted Elves.

Read on . . .

The Kallikantzaroi are tiny little creatures that look like elves. They live in the depths of the earth where their mission is to chop at a huge tree trunk that is the earth's foundation. They work all year round to accomplish this. Right when they are about to finish the job, Christmas day arrives and they surface on earth for twelve days (from December 25 through January 6). During their visit they create havoc and play tricks on people. As a matter of fact, if anything unexplainable happens during those twelve days, the Greeks blame these creatures. Many leave their fireplace on for the duration of the twelve days to prevent the creatures from entering their house (they usually come in through the chimney). The Kallikantzaroi are afraid of fire, light, the cross, and holy water. For this reason, they disappear on the day of Epiphany when all the waters are blessed. However, when they return to the depths of the earth, they find the earth's tree trunk completely restored, due to the miracle of Christ's Birth, so they have to start their mission to destroy the earth all over again.

Traditions about the Kallikantzaroi vary from region to region, but in general they are half-animal, half-human monsters, black, hairy, with huge heads, glaring red eyes, goats’ or asses’ ears, blood-red tongues hanging out, ferocious tusks, monkeys’ arms, and long curved nails, and commonly they have the foot of some beast. “From dawn till sunset they hide themselves in dark and dank places, but at night they issue forth and run wildly to and fro, rending and crushing those who cross their path. Destruction and waste, greed and lust mark their course.” When a house is not prepared against their coming, “by chimney and door alike they swarm in, and make havoc of the home; in sheer wanton mischief they overturn and break all the furniture, devour the Christmas pork, befoul all the water and wine and food which remains, and leave the occupants half dead with fright or violence.” Many like or far worse pranks do they play, until at the crowing of the third cock they get them away to their dens. The signal for their final departure does not come until the Epiphany, when the “Blessing of the Waters” takes place. Some of the hallowed water is put into vessels, and with these and with incense the priests sometimes make a round of the village, sprinkling the people and their houses.

--Excerpted from Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan, by Clement A. Miles, London: T. Fisher Unwin, 2nd Ed. 1913, pp. 229-247

Forget trying to spy on Santa . . . I'm off to capture me a Kallikantzaro or two! Merry Christmas, Gentle Readers!

On the Dispensing of Advice

2010-12-14T10:43:00.003-06:00

Tonight, I get to break my long-standing rule about giving writing advice to strangers. I'll be at the Huntsville-Madison County Public Library with my compadre, Kristopher Reisz, dispensing advice on how to get published. Of course, the smart-ass in me would like to say: "write a good book!" But there really is more to it than that. The thing is, though, if you put one hundred published authors in a room and ask them how they got there, you'll get one hundred different answers.

While the act of writing is fairly universal (butt-in-chair, soldier on to "the end"), the act of publishing is wildly idiosyncratic. There are no hard and fast rules, and what worked for me might not work for another. Still, there are a few things that transcend individual experiences: persistence, patience, and professionalism. I think my part of the evening will focus on these.

Hey, if you're in Huntsville or the surrounding area and have questions, come on out to the library at 6:30!

The Four-Window Method

2010-12-09T09:13:00.004-06:00

During the course of the past few days I've had the pleasure of chatting with a goodly number of writers. It's been good for my soul to talk shop with knowledgeable peers. But one question that invariably cropped up concerned my method of writing. How did I prepare my drafts? And as I explained it, curious looks would blossom over the visages of my brother-and-sister scribes.

Apparently, my method is just a little odd.

Here are the mundane bits: I write on a laptop, a very austere Dell with no bells, whistles, or Internet access, and use two four-gig USB drives to back up my files (one in a fire safe, one on my person); I use Microsoft Word exclusively -- I've never found any need for a specialized "writing program", especially when you're just going to export your work to Word for publishers, anyway. Lately, I've not been able to put in desk-time every day, but when I do I write for at least four hours, usually in the mornings. Afternoons are reserved for PR or editing, and evenings belong to my wife.

Where I go askew is with the process of composition. I write one scene at a time, but in four Word windows. One window for dialogue, one for exposition, a third for bits of description or color or notes to myself (sometimes that third window will also contain a brief synopsis of the scene I'm working on), and the last window is where I assemble the draft. So, using the prologue for THE LION OF CAIRO as an example, the contents of first window would look something like this:

*That . . . that b-blade!
Yes! You feel it, do you not? It is the Hammer of the Infidel, and none can stand before it! What is your name, dog?
*Assad.
The Hammer of the Infidel kills before ever the final blow is struck! Even the gentlest caress of the blade strips a man’s resolve from him to leave him naked and trembling at the edge of the Abyss! Assad, eh? My brothers will know the name of the fool who thought to challenge the chief of the Afridis!
*A fine trick, since your brothers are already in Hell!

In this window, I use an asterisk to identify my POV character . . . in this instance the protagonist, Assad. I read the dialogue aloud to myself, tweaking inflection and wording to make sure I'm saying exactly what the plot needs me to say -- I try to remember the dictum that every word of dialogue should advance the plot or the characters.

In the second window I start drawing the scene with words . . . and it looks really disjointed:

Baber Khan ran a thumb and forefinger along the edge of his salawar, collecting the Assassin’s blood. His grim smile widened as he licked his fingers clean.

Assad sat with his head bowed, oblivious to the blood dripping down his lacerated cheek. The knuckles of his right fist were white where he gripped the hilt-shard of his saber. My birthright. His lips writhed, nostrils flaring as he fought off the fearful paralysis induced by that devil-haunted blade by focusing on the broken steel before him. My father’s saber!

Baber Khan laughed. He stepped closer and raised his salawar, its tip poised for a killing blow.

Assad glanced up. Before the Afridi chief could react, the Assassin exploded with the unexpected desperation of a wounded lion. He launched himself at Baber Khan, drove the hilt-shard gripped in his right fist into the Afghan’s groin. Blood spurted and steamed as his ferocious bellow turned to a shriek. The jagged length of blade bit deep; Assad sawed upward, ripping Baber Khan’s belly open to the navel.

The thing that makes this work for me is this: I know what's going on, who is saying what and to whom. Action, to me, should be as choreographed as a ballet, with each participant reacting to the other in a realistic fashion, as skill, training, and personality dictate.

The third window in this instance is fairly sparse, with a few notes to myself:

Assad is younger; show him as impetuous.
Kurram, per REH, is the village of the Afridis.
Look to Frost Giant's Daughter for inspiration -- battle in the snow, hot breath in cold air, pale sunlight.

And finally, once I have the elements of a scene to my liking, I open the fourth window and splice dialogue and exposition together. I polish as I go, sometimes going back to the drawing board if an element doesn't fit like I need it to. It's almost like I'm handcrafting the pieces to a puzzle, with only a sketch to go by.

Here's the finished version:

“That . . . that b-blade!”
“Yes! You feel it, do you not?” Baber Khan replied; he ran a thumb and forefinger along the edge of his salawar, collecting the Assassin’s blood. His grim smile widened as he licked his fingers clean. “It is the Hammer of the Infidel, and none can stand before it! What is your name, dog?”
“Assad,” the young Assassin replied. He sat with his head bowed, oblivious to the blood dripping down his lacerated cheek. The knuckles of his right fist were white where he gripped the hilt-shard of his saber. My birthright. His lips writhed, nostrils flaring as he fought off the fearful paralysis induced by that devil-haunted blade by focusing on the broken steel before him. My father’s saber!
“The Hammer of the Infidel kills before ever the final blow is struck! Even the gentlest caress of the blade strips a man’s resolve from him to leave him naked and trembling at the edge of the Abyss!” Baber Khan laughed. “Assad, eh? My brothers will know the name of the fool who thought to challenge the chief of the Afridis!” He stepped closer and raised his salawar, its tip poised for a killing blow.
“A fine trick,” Assad said, glancing up, “since your brothers are already in Hell!” The Assassin exploded with the unexpected desperation of a wounded lion. He launched himself at Baber Khan, drove the hilt-shard gripped in his right fist into the Afghan’s groin. Blood spurted and steamed as his ferocious bellow turned to a shriek. The jagged length of blade bit deep; Assad sawed upward, ripping Baber Khan’s belly open to the navel.

So, there you have it. The Four-Window method is a little more involved than simply writing scenes out, but it works for me. If you're a writer, too, do me a favor and post something about your own method of composition . . . use the comments section or, if you prefer, write your own blog post and send me a link!

Publication Day!

2010-12-07T12:47:00.002-06:00

Today marks the US debut of THE LION OF CAIRO! Book stores across the country -- or at least those that ordered it -- will have it on the shelves; Amazon and BN.com will fulfill their pre-orders, and ebooks will magically appear on the devices of those who have previously paid for it. It is something of a cause for celebration, publication day is. All the proverbial blood, sweat, and tears reaches its penultimate climax: a physical book, hopefully with an eye-catching cover, that consumers can hold in their hands (or on the e-device of their choice . . . not as appealing in the tactile sense for old-school book lovers, but there you go). It will be read, and those with a reviewers bent will be planning their reviews. Some will be positive; others negative. Some will be very well-reasoned critiques, while others will be screeds against the publisher's choice not to sell the ebook for under ten bucks. Regardless, word will spread across the Internet . . . and the author will pray the word is positive.

For the author, publication day is a mixed blessing. On one hand, the story you've torn from your heart and commited to the printed page will be made available to readers. On the other hand, being available to readers means being available to critics, and the tough skin we've acquired during the submissions process will take gouges and scrapes. Some blows will slip through that carapace and the author will retreat just a little -- to brood, to dwell, and perhaps find a way to turn the negative into a positive. We will obsess over sales figures, though we will receive no hard or fast numbers until many months from now. And every author, unless they're made from sterner stuff than most, will feel a twinge of despair that book debuts aren't treated to the same fanfare as their media cousins, movies and video games. We will look longingly out our windows and wonder where the TV trucks are, why the phone isn't ringing off the hook with interview requests, and why none of the slick magazines have sent photographers to capture our moment of glory . . .

But, come tomorrow, we will be back at our desks, our neuroses and expectations managed, chipping away at the next book in hopes that its publication day will be the stuff of legend.

Historicals, Fantasy, and the Book Deal -- A Black Gate Interview

2010-12-06T11:47:00.004-06:00

With THE LION OF CAIRO hitting the streets tomorrow, Howard Andrew Jones and I sat down electronically and batted some questions back and forth. Questions about historical fiction and fantasy, about being two pasty white guys writing Muslim tales, and the glory that is Robert E. Howard and Harold Lamb. HAJ is an interesting guy, and his DESERT OF SOULS is a wonderful book. It's out in February . . . go find it!

Here's Howard:

A few months ago James Enge and I sat down for a cyber conversation about serial characters and the book deal. We both had a lot of fun, and the the exchange seemed of interest to Black Gate readers, so I asked my friend Scott Oden to join me for a similar back-and-forth interview.

If you haven’t yet heard of Scott Oden, you’re missing a rising star in historical fiction. I learned of his work when our mutual friend, Robert E. Howard scholar Morgan Holmes, handed me a copy of Scott’s first book and urged me to read it. My “to-be-read” pile is as tottering as that of most readers, but I took Morgan at his word and was launched into an action-packed thrill ride at the side of Phoenecian mercenary leader Hasdrabal Barca in Men of Bronze. Oden’s skill with character, pacing, and description — not to mention his action chops — impressed me greatly. When I learned Scott was a fan of historical fiction writer Harold Lamb, I invited him to write an introduction for one of the Lamb historical collections I was editing.

As I’ve mentioned in previous writing posts, it was Scott who introduced me to his editor, the talented Pete Wolverton of Thomas Dunne Books, and Scott who introduced me to the agent we now share, the gifted Bob Mecoy. Scott wrote on this topic some months ago, after I took news of my own book deal public last November.

Scott’s new novel, a historical fantasy set in 11th century Cairo, hits bookstore shelves this Tuesday. I had the privilege of reading the book in manuscript, so I can tell you that it’s one of the best historical novels of the year. Its impending release seemed like a fine excuse for a discussion about historical fiction, middle-eastern protagonists, and, naturally, Harold Lamb. I lead off, then Scott follows. At the end of each exchange, we trade questions, and occasionally we interject responses.

Read the rest of the Interview at Black Gate!

Early Reviews Are In!

2010-11-07T18:27:00.005-06:00

THE LION OF CAIRO has garnered a few early reviews, both here in the US and abroad. It's doing okay in the UK, and its US release is right around the corner (Dec. 7th). Here's what reviewers had to say:

From Annis at Historical Novels.info:

"Inspired by tales from the pulp-fiction era, The Lion of Cairo is a dark, fast-paced adventure set in the Middle East between the Second and Third Crusades. Bloodstained swords and sorcery abound in the exploits of Assad the Assassin, deadly master of disguise. Bonded to an ancient, demon-haunted salawar, he is a shadowy figure named only in whispers as the "Emir of the Knife". Both man and blade burn with a vengeful desire to spill the infidel blood of Outremer’s Frankish Crusaders and their accursed Templar knights." -- Read More.

From Gareth at Falcata Times:

"As a long time reader of historical fiction, I originally came across Scott’s writing set in ancient Greece. It was solid, it had great plot and above all else it had all the combat that the reader could handle. So I expected pretty much the same from Scott in this, his latest offering. What unfurls within not only brings the authors strengths to the fore but also gives the reader a touch of other magical elements, part Prince of Persia, part Assassin’s Creed and also part political intrigue, this offering really does bring everything together. It’s beautifully written, has some great lulls as well as peaks and takes the reader on an emotional journey. Great stuff." -- Read More.

From Harriet Klausner:

"In the impregnable Afghan mountaintop, Alamut the Hidden Master of the Assassins sends his top assistant Assad on deadly missions. So when Alamut gives Assad his latest task, he assumes he will assassinate an enemy. Instead his job is to keep the young caliph of Cairo safe from insidious enemies so as to arrange an alliance between Cairo and Alamut." -- Read More.

From Morgan Holmes at REHupa:

"Last week while on vacation, I received a package from Scott Oden. It turned out to be an advance proof for his upcoming novel The Lion of Cairo. Steve Tompkins originally alerted me to Scott Oden’s historical fiction a few years back. In turn, I discovered Scott’s blog and got in contact with him. He sent me a box of copies of Men of Bronze to pass around which I did at the Windy City Pulp & Paperback Show. I thought Men of Bronze to be one of the best historical novels I ever read. The blood and thunder quotient was off the charts. Scott likes Robert E. Howard and it shows." -- Read More.

From Carla Nayland:

"Lion of Cairo is set in and around twelfth-century Cairo. Some of the secondary characters are based on historical figures – I recognised Amalric, King of Jerusalem, and the Syrian general Shirkuh, among others. There may also be other historical figures that I didn’t recognise. The main character, Assad, is fictional." -- Read More.

* * *

Auspicious beginnings, I think!

A Tale of Two Coffee Shops

2010-10-14T12:04:00.004-05:00

A week before our wedding, my lovely wife was surreptitiously banned from her favorite coffee shop, The Daily Brew of Decatur. Why, you ask? What was her crime? Was she a rabble-rouser or a violent iced chai addict? Did she refuse to pay her bill? Was she disruptive, loud, and boorish? No, Gentle Readers, she was ejected because the owner claimed she could smell Shannon's perfume over the stench of brewing coffee and grilled food and it bothered her! In fact, her exact quote was: "Your cologne is too strong and it gives me a headache, so if you don't stop you will be banned. Is that clear?"

It boggles my mind that a business owner -- a person who makes their livelihood off the backs of folks like Shannon and I -- would be so rude and self-centered as to ban a customer who has spent literally hundreds of dollars in their establishment because they are uncomfortable! Is it not a rule of good business that the customer is always right, even when headache-inducing aromas are involved?

Now, lest you think Shannon likes to drench herself in perfume and flout the laws of good taste, the odor in question was an extremely light essential oil called "Egyptian Musk" from Kuumba Made (purchased at that organic mecca, Earthfare). If you're like me, you probably think the tale smacks of something else, something left unsaid . . . and you're probably right (in my opinion, it goes back to a bad break-up with her ex-boyfriend, who is also a customer and friend of the owner). But, who really knows?

The point is, Shannon was left chai-less, unable to scratch the caffeine itch in her accustomed manner just days before our wedding. Friends, you do not want to see a prospective bride bereft of caffeine. It was not pretty! But, in short order we found her a new coffee shop: The Coffee Tree Books and Brew in Huntsville. It has a good atmosphere, thousands of books (including the classics she so loves), and the best egg salad known to man. Oh, and chai. Lots of chai. Once plans are cemented, I'll be having a book signing/reading there, too -- probably in December. I'll keep you posted.

And if you're in Huntsville, drop by The Coffee Tree and pick up a book or two, some egg salad, and a cup of tea . . . or chai. Lots of chai. Tell them Shannon said hello :)

Where The Deuce Have You Been, Scott?

2010-09-30T23:07:00.002-05:00

Sorry for the long silence, Gentle Readers. I am on the cusp of my long-awaited nuptials and still have a thousand and one things to do before she and I tie the knot on Saturday (at dusk). It's been an interesting engagement, but I am ready to settle down to the business of building a life with Shannon as I write more books.

With the US release of The Lion of Cairo coming up fast, with Serpent of Hellas still needing a few touches, and with The Damascene Blade waiting in the wings for my attention, I'm going to be busy in the coming months. I'll try not to be gone so long, next time.

Wish me luck come Saturday, my friends!

Kind Words From David Anthony Durham

2010-08-26T22:50:00.004-05:00

Recently, David Anthony Durham took the time to read and comment upon The Lion of Cairo. Here's what he had to say:

"The Lion of Cairo is filled to the brim with assassins and concubines, caliphs and street thugs, the devout and the heretical. It’s partly a swashbuckling historical, partly a tale of palace intrigue, partly a fast and furious espionage yarn. A terrific trip into Cairo’s exotic past. Just pray that the Emir of the Knife is on your side…" --David Anthony Durham, award-winning author of Pride of Carthage

I've been a fan of David's since reading Pride of Carthage -- hand's down the best book on Hannibal I've read in a long while -- and my respect for his skills grew with the arrival of Acacia. His career has served as inspiration for my own. My heartfelt thanks for your kind words, David!

The Question of Eurybiades

2010-08-22T15:21:00.002-05:00

Even before the events of 480 BC, before the last stand of King Leonidas against the myriads of Persia became the stuff of legend, Spartans already enjoyed a reputation for martial prowess unmatched by their brother Greeks. They were the soldiers of Hellas—fearsome, highly-trained, and barred by the laws of Lycurgus from retreating once they’d set their line of battle. “Return with your shield, or on it,” said the Spartan woman to her son. Then, at Thermopylae, Leonidas and his Three Hundred Spartans exemplified this behavior by their stoic refusal to withdraw in the face of assured destruction. The lyric poet Simonides provided their epitaph:

Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by,
that here obedient to their laws we lie.

Such was landlocked Sparta’s renown for war that, despite providing a meager ten ships for the naval defense of Greece, the other city-states of Hellas refused to join Athens against Persia unless a Spartan was put in command of the allied navy (even as King Leonidas commanded the land forces). The man chosen for this task was Eurybiades, son of Eurycleides.

No mention exists in the ancient record as to why the Spartan ephors chose Eurybiades to administer the Hellenic fleet. Was he already an experienced sea-farer?Was he a brilliant and talented commander, trusted by Leonidas? Or was he simply the only Spartan available? Our primary sources, Herodotus and Plutarch, are silent on the matter. What they do mention, however, is Eurybiades’ very un-Spartan-like reticence to give battle to the Persians:

"As soon as the Persian armada arrived at Aphetae, Eurybiades was astonished to see such a vast number of vessels before him, and being informed that two hundred more were sailing around behind the island of Sciathus, he immediately determined to retire farther into Greece, and to sail back into some part of Peloponnesus, where their land army and their fleet might join, for he looked upon the Persian forces to be altogether unassailable by sea.” (Plutarch, Life of Themistokles)

A wise decision, perhaps, but Eurybiades choice to sail away from Artemisium would have left Leonidas’ flank at Thermopylae exposed – the fleet action at Artemisium existed to keep the Persians from sailing in behind the Greek defenses at Thermopylae. In essence, Eurybiades decided to cut and run, to abandon his king to a swift and ignominious death. History may have recorded Thermopylae as a colossal failure, then, had Themistokles not stepped in and distributed a bribe to the allied commanders:

He made over to Eurybiades five talents out of the thirty paid him by the Euboeans], which he gave as if they came from himself . . .” (Herodotus, The Histories, Book VIII).

Thus, not only did Eurybiades resolve to leave Leonidas’ flank exposed, he accepted a bribe to stay and do his duty. A far cry from the heroism displayed by his three hundred kinsmen, some forty miles away at Thermopylae. Perhaps I’m giving Eurybiades the short shrift; perhaps his reputation fell prey to biographers’ intent on glorifying others. Still, one can’t help but wonder . . .

Serpent of Hellas, the Cover

2010-08-13T18:23:00.003-05:00

Artemisium. Its name is all but lost now, dwarfed by the juggernaut of glory that is Thermopylae—that narrow pass in northern Greece where King Leonidas and his three hundred Spartans faced the invading hordes of Persia to a standstill. In the end, they gave their lives so that other Greeks might know the true meaning of courage, their stand the greatest in military history. And yet, the defenders of Thermopylae, for all their unparalleled heroism, could not have survived an hour—much less three days—had the sons of Athens and her allies not held the Persian fleet at bay in the straits forty miles to the east.

Nikomachos, son of Agamedes, a young kinsman of Themistokles, witnesses the savage seaborne fighting and the no less brutal political machinations of the Greek commanders. He encounters the Spartan Eurybiades, who shares nothing of the valor displayed by the defenders of Thermopylae, and Adeimantus of Corinth, who would sell his city as a pander sells flesh: to the highest bidder. And he contends with the most cunning politician of them all, Themistokles, whose arsenal includes bluff, bribery, and outright intimidation.

Despite the fierce opposition, Nikomachos doesn’t quail. Young and full of rage, he has come to Artemisium to dine at the table of Vengeance, to settle the score for the deaths of his father and brother ten years earlier, on the plain of Marathon.

**I love this cover! It's from Adam Mock, artist and president of Medallion Press, Inc. He's also responsible for the awesome Men of Bronze and Memnon covers. Thanks, again, Adam! You make me look good ;)

And Away We Go . . .

2010-07-22T12:35:00.003-05:00

I woke up this morning and found a congratulatory note in my inbox from my editor at Transworld UK, Simon. This is publication day for The Lion of Cairo in the UK. An odd thing, publication day . . . there's always this sense of anticipation attached to it, as if at some point during the day your life will suddenly change. There's a book on store shelves (albeit 5000 miles away) with your name on it! Immortality and Fortune's favor must surely be waiting in the wings!

In reality, nothing much changes. You eat your breakfast, brush your teeth, run your errands, work on your next book and go to sleep the same person as you were the day before. Most of the people you meet will be blissfully unaware of your new status as a published author, unless you take it upon yourself to tell them. Even then, they'll be distracted by puppies or a cute baby.

But to you, to me, it's a day of uncommon importance -- like a birthday, of sorts. Publication Day is all about self-validation. You have done this (with a great deal of help, mind you)! You have taken a formless thing of imagination and turned it (with aforementioned help) into a tangible item: a good story to be printed, bound, and distributed. You've created an avenue of escape for readers, an inspiration. You've done your best. Now, it's up to the world to decide if that best is good enough . . .

I've been asked quite a few time why The Lion of Cairo is coming out in the UK before it comes out here, in my home country. The simple answer: that's just how the schedules worked out. Though there is some overlap (mainly online) in the markets, the US and UK book trades are independent of one another, but good ink garnered in the UK can be used to help promote the US release, and vice versa.

So, Gentle Readers, I wish Assad and his companions all the best on this, the first day of their public lives. I hope they do well . . .

A New Look

2010-07-15T22:07:00.002-05:00

Blogger now has a design feature, and this is me getting freaky with it. What do you think, Gentle Readers? Also, I'm updating my blogroll; if you link to me and I've not yet reciprocated, do let me know in the comments. Or, if you'd like to swap links I'm your man!

Off to rearrange the blog-furniture . . .

Pressfield on THE LION OF CAIRO

2010-07-01T22:11:00.004-05:00

Steven Pressfield, author of the phenomenal GATES OF FIRE, recently took time out of his busy schedule to read and comment on my own THE LION OF CAIRO:

"The mark of exceptional historical fiction is its creation of an alien world so convincing (and peopled by such fascinating characters) that the reader never wants to go back to the real world. Scott Oden delivers exactly that in The Lion of Cairo, a tale of Assad the assassin that reads like a cross between the Arabian Nights and a Hollywood blockbuster. Memnon and Men of Bronze put Mr. Oden squarely on the hist/fiction map. The Lion of Cairo assures his place in the very front rank."

I am by turns humbled and grateful for his kind words and his generosity. It is all the more special to me since he is my favorite living writer, my literary idol. I can only hope LION lives up to his praise.

Thank you, Mr. Pressfield!

Prologue to THE LION OF CAIRO

2010-06-23T14:39:00.002-05:00

Kan ma kan
Fi qadim azzaman

“There was, there was not,
In the oldness of time . . .”

—Traditional Bedouin Rhyme

The rasp and slither of steel died away, the sound lost to a wind that howled over snow-clad ridges, pouring into the passes and sheltered valleys of the high Afghan Mountains. Ruptures in the leaden sky—a sky that promised little succor from the long winter at the Roof of the World—allowed mocking glimpses of blue heavens and golden light. And a mockery it was, for the sun’s rays did nothing to allay the knife-edged cold, which cut through leather and wool and thick cloth to freeze flesh and stiffen beards.

Still, the two men who faced off on the winding trail to the crag-set village of Kurram paid little heed to wind, cold, or sunlight. Snow drifts and naked rocks were one in the same as they slowly circled, breath steaming with each panted curse, each seeking an opportunity to bring this struggle to its bloody conclusion. Both fighters sported ragged Afghan turbans and trousers, girdled robes of striped silk and grimy wool, and belts bristling with knife hilts; they were alike in height—but where one was thick-waisted with broad shoulders, a bull neck, and gray flecking his beard, the other was young and lean and as graceful as the Turkish saber he held in his scarred fist.

“Baber Khan,” said he, his Arabic punctuated by an Egyptian accent. “Make peace with Allah, for your time is at an end. The blood of Kurram is poor price for the blood of my master’s servants but it is a price that must be paid.”

Muscles knotted in Baber Khan’s bull neck as he twisted his head and spat. He wielded a salawar—the sword-knife of the Afghan tribesmen—two feet of shadow-patterned Damascus steel, older than Islam, with a single-edged blade that tapered to a diamond point and a hilt braided with leather and silver wire. A leering face carved of yellowed ivory glared from the pommel. “Your master? Your master is a coward who sits atop his rock and plays at empire! Bah! Think you I do not know who you are, dog of Alamut? You may have killed a score of my Afridis, but I have killed a thousand of your brothers, a thousand of your so-called Faithful!” Baber Khan raised his salawar, eyes blazing. “Come closer, my little Assassin! Come closer, and let me make it a thousand and one!”

Continue reading the Prologue to THE LION OF CAIRO . . .

Pre-order THE LION OF CAIRO in the UK (due out July 22) or in the US (due out December 7).

The Tenth Muse

2010-05-23T19:45:00.005-05:00

Say hello to Shannon, Gentle Readers. Though she is a stranger to most of you, if you could hear her voice then fans of Men of Bronze might notice the pace and cadence of Jauharah in her manner of speech. But even by simply looking at her picture one can see the physical similarities:

“Cascades of dark hair framed her high cheekbones, and her sharp nose and pointed chin were of such perfect proportion as to instill envy in the breast of Egypt’s artisans. Deep-set eyes the color of smoke expressed more with a single look than a thousand words could convey . . .” (Men of Bronze, Chapter Four)

Shannon has inspired most of my female characters, in voice or appearance or both. She can be by turns strong, vulnerable, and sensuous, and she has a way of discussing her feelings that makes it hard not to turn her into an historical ingénue. She and I first met in 1999 when she accompanied my friends Wayne and Kris in a successful raid to kidnap me from my then-wife and force me to go to an exhibit of Romanov-era art. We met again in 2000, in the wake of my divorce, and embarked on a three-year relationship. I wrote Men of Bronze and a goodly chunk of Memnon during that time.

Shannon enjoyed it when I’d ask her character-related questions, things like: “If your beloved had to go off to war, what would you tell him the night before he was to leave?” And I preserved some of her answers verbatim in the manuscripts. Unfortunately, she didn’t get to see the end result of all that hard work—we parted ways in 2003, two years before Men of Bronze’s release. And because of how our relationship ended, I didn’t acknowledge her contributions until it was time to dedicate Memnon. She is the “SLM: Siren, Muse . . . and Friend” to whom Memnon is inscribed.

Had it ended right there, the tale of Shannon and I—of an author and his muse—would have made for a rather interesting anecdote. But, it gets better. Not too long ago, after a long absence from my life, she contacted me out of the blue (at 1:30 in the morning, to be precise). She’d kept tabs on me via this blog, but had hesitated calling me because she thought I might still harbor ill-will due to the nature of our break-up, some eight years earlier. I assured her I’d long since put any hard feelings behind me and that I was actually glad to hear from her. We talked till dawn, catching up and laying plans to renew our friendship, if nothing else.

Let me tell you, friendships—especially those that also have a history and a substantial romantic spark—have a way of quickly becoming something else once both people recognize the things they admire in each other are the very things they desire from the one they love. In good times and in bad, Shannon has remained the image of the perfect woman (not "perfect", mind you, but perfect for me). Though we both have our flaws and our foibles, I believe now—as much as I did a decade ago when I first met her—that she is the love of my life. With that in mind, I asked Shannon to marry me.

And she said yes, Gentle Readers. She said yes.

Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth
Than those old nine which rhymers invocate;
And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth
Eternal numbers to outlive long date.

If my slight muse do please these curious days,
The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.

--Shakespeare, Sonnet 38

O Scott, Where Art Thou?

2010-05-14T13:48:00.002-05:00

And again I've been remiss in my blogging duties, Gentle Readers. It's been a very hectic last of April/first of May, with page proofs, copy edited manuscripts, secret plans, writing, and an old love returned. I plan to write more about that last item as time permits; fans of Men of Bronze might be interested in learning more about the woman who supplied much of the voice of Jauharah (and of Barsine from Memnon).

So, I've not forgotten you, good Citizens of Blogistan, and I look forward to telling you more -- especially of the secret project! Provided, of course, I'm allowed to speak of it if it comes to fruition . . .

Any news or mad props to share?

Totems

2010-04-15T22:13:00.006-05:00

I am a superstitious writer. Like an ancient Roman haruspex, I begin every writing day by reading the omens in my sacrificial toast and egg-substitute; is the pulp in my orange juice trying to tell me something? Can I divine the arc of my day by observing the movements of my folks, just as the ancients observed flights of birds? Yet, regardless of the omens, I always start work by burning a little cone of incense in front of my collection of writing totems.

Like I said: superstitious. But, I'm not alone in this. Especially in the collecting of totems. Steven Pressfield enumerates his in the opening paragraph of The War of Art; agent and author Betsy Lerner lays out hers on her blog. These totems are to writers what the tiny figurines of his family were to Maximus in Gladiator. Little household gods that channel creative energy (if you believe that sort of thing). For me, at least, these totems give me a tangible link to the worlds I write about.

Some of my totems are pictures clipped from books or magazines; some are postcards or geegaws picked up by tourists. For Men of Bronze, it was a little stone skull (representing mortality), a picture of an Eye of Horus amulet, and a Corinthian helmet. Nor do I discard these after a particular book is done. I add to them. For Memnon, I added a vial of sand from a beach on Rhodes, a postcard of Santorini at twilight, a replica coin of Alexander, and a high-res copy of an Egyptian wall fragment depicting Alexander as pharaoh. With The Lion of Cairo, I added an Afghan salawar (not a replica, but the real thing), a watercolor postcard showing a desert oasis, and a David Roberts print ("Boulak at Sunset").

But, I've added nothing for Serpent of Hellas -- which may be the reason I've been having so much trouble with it. I have no foci, no totem on which to concentrate. What should it be, I wonder? A tiny replica Greek trireme? A picture of Artemisium? Something else?

Any ideas, Gentle Readers?

Hey, Guess What . . .?

2010-04-08T21:32:00.004-05:00

You can now pre-order copies of The Lion of Cairo in both the US and the UK, via Amazon and Amazon UK! The image to the left is the US cover, and as you can see, it riffs off the UK cover. Why is this? Mostly because I expressed to my editors that the man on the UK cover is a pretty spot-on representation of Assad, the protagonist.

So, get'em while they're hot!

Pre-order at Amazon (TBR: December, 2010)

Pre-order at Amazon UK (TBR: July, 2010)

It's Quiet . . . Too Quiet!

2010-04-06T22:25:00.002-05:00

Ah, Gentle Readers . . . sorry I missed the advent of April! I know I'm remiss in not trying to pull the wool over your collective eyes for April Fool's Day, but hopefully your friends and loved ones made a good showing of it. It's been all work and no play here in the belfrey (okay, maybe a little play). Here's a sample of what's been going on:

* The final manuscript for The Lion of Cairo was delivered, accepted, and put into production. I'll next see it again once it gets back from the copy editor's. I do hope it's behaving . . .

* Lion's release date is firmly fixed for this December, though my UK contingent of readers might be able to get it a couple months earlier. Transworld UK is looking at releasing it across the pond at the end of July or August!

* I joined the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA). I fully expect the hazing to begin any day . . .

* Meghan Sullivan over at Ancient Musings posted an interview with me. Meg's awesome, and I look forward to reading her novel about Themistokles!

* I'm hard at work on The Serpent of Hellas; I'm wondering why the Spartan admiral at Artemisium, Eurybiades, was chosen for the task in the first place? And how did he feel at being overlooked for eternal glory at Thermopylae? These are the things Herodotus fails to mention . . .

* I've also been tinkering with the Orc Book. It's insane how well they fit into the fabric of Norse myth . . . almost like Tolkien found them there in the first place ;)

So, that's what I've been up to. How about you, Gentle Readers? Anything new to report?

Steve Tompkins: A Tribute

2010-03-23T12:27:00.002-05:00

It's been a year, today, since essayist and scholar Steve Tompkins left us. I've joined in with the crewe of The Cimmerian to post a rememberance:

The Ideal Reader: A Tribute to Steve Tompkins

It has become something of a cliché to say that authors write for an audience of one. Clichéd, but nonetheless true. Most often, this singular audience is the author himself, but some also write for the enjoyment of another, for an individual they hold in esteem: a spouse or loved one, a friend, an old teacher. Sitting metaphorically at the author’s shoulder, this individual becomes their Ideal Reader—a person who, to quote Stephen King’s excellent On Writing, “at various points during the composition of a story, the writer is thinking, 'I wonder what he/she will think when he/she reads this part?'”

Steve Tompkins was my Ideal Reader.

I never got the chance to actually meet Steve, nor were we correspondents. I knew him solely through his dense and erudite essays at The Cimmerian; essays filled with insights and deliciously turned phrases that often forced me to reach for my dictionary. From each one, I gleaned a little something about the kind of man Steve was: passionate, eloquent, and generous in both praise and criticism. The highest laurel I can lay upon his brow is to say that he was a world-class scholar of literature; as a writer in his notice, especially one newly published, that forged in me a desire to bring my best work forward.

I have two moments as a published author that I will never forget. One was hearing that my first novel, Men of Bronze, had earned a starred review from Publishers Weekly; the second was casually clicking the link from my blog to The Cimmerian blog and reading an essay wherein Steve Tompkins recommended my work. It was a heady moment, and I doubt he knew how much his approbation bolstered my self-confidence. I was a writer! And I knew it, by God, because Steve Tompkins said so!

In the end, the Fates decided to cut Steve’s life far too short. It is to my eternal regret that I didn’t take time to send Steve more than a cursory thank-you note; I regret I didn’t express how much I appreciated his kind words, and that his essays were like peripatetic sojourns into the dark heart of the fantastic. I regret I did not write faster, so he could have read The Lion of Cairo.

Most of all, I regret not letting Steve know he was my Ideal Reader.

Alea Iacta Est*

2010-03-13T23:03:00.002-06:00

I am obsessed with historical role-playing games, relentless in my hunt to find the perfect specimen of the genre. A few have come close – Paul Elliott’s Zenobia, Mark Pettigrew’s Flashing Blades (though, to be fair, the latter is less about the history and more about the literary conventions of the 16th century, as put forth by Dumas, but it makes a wicked historical experience), and Jeremy Keller’s Chronica Feudalis spring to mind. I thought, perhaps, my quest had become a romantic exercise in windmill tilting . . . until I happened across Pete Nash’s Rome: The Life and Death of the Republic.

For use with Chaosium’s Basic Role Playing (BRP) – the core system of rules that powers such classics as Call of Cthulhu, Stormbringer, and Pendragon – Rome is a supplement for creating characters and situations during the Republican era (most recently popularized by HBO’s Rome). Forget dry textbooks and academic journals; though it masquerades as a game, what Pete Nash has really done is to pen the single most useful guide to Republican Rome I’ve ever seen.

The book (my version is a pdf) is 224 pages long and is arranged into fourteen chapters: Chapter 1: Introduction; Chapter 2: Roman Society; Chapter 3: Roman Culture; Chapter 4: The City of Rome; Chapter 5: The Games; Chapter 6: The Army; Chapter 7: Religion and Philosophy; Chapter 8: Characters; Chapter 9: Magic and Superstition; Chapter 10: Creatures; Chapter 11: Roman Campaigns; Chapter 12: Famous Personages; Chapter 13: Historic Timeline; Chapter 14: Appendices. It is well-organized and well-written, and the game jargon is kept to a minimum . . . though unrepentant historical gaming buffs like me will cackle with glee when they discover that Nash has provided all the related skills and stats with their Latin equivalents. Indeed, the Latin term is given for every social, cultural, political, and military convention.

To quote Nash from the Introduction: “Since this is a historic setting, most of the information has been carefully researched to be as accurate as possible, drawing on the archaeological and historical theories current at the time of publication. Many of the cultural conventions described may seem odd or even wrong, but where space permits their accuracy has been illustrated using quotes from Roman and Greek authors contemporary to the time, or within a few generations of the period. Due to the dearth of written material surviving from earlier times, most of the information is skewed towards the lifestyle and culture at end of the Republic, and at best are only generalisations.”

The bolding is mine. There are a profusion of quotes from ancient literary sources in this book, and each one perfectly compliments the accompanying text. Along with quotes, there are informative sidebars, illustrations both classic and modern, a bibliography . . . everything you’d expect to find in a scholarly work. Yet, it pulls double duty since there are also game-related charts and tables, authentic Roman professions expressed in game terms, and fully one hundred different scenario ideas. In short, it is everything I could ever want from a RPG supplement.

Even if you’re not a gamer, Rome: The Life and Death of the Republic remains a valuable sourcebook. Writers looking to craft stories in the Republican era would do well to pick this little gem up and add it to their research library. And who knows . . . perhaps by reading it you non-gamers might be inspired to get some friends together and cast the dice yourself.

*”The die is cast”: attributed to Caesar as he crossed the Rubicon, an act that almost definitely called for a saving throw versus Will . . .

A Lion of Cairo Update

2010-03-03T22:23:00.003-06:00

The "post-production" work continues on The Lion of Cairo. The first round of edits are done and I'm into round two -- the tweaking stage; I've seen three mock-ups for the cover and gave an enthusiastic thumbs up on the last one. Once it's approved, I'll see about posting it.

Following the lead of the UK edition of Lion, the US hardcover will also make use of the phrase "from the bestselling author of Men of Bronze", a fact that tickles me to no end. I sometimes find myself looking in the mirror, pointing, and saying: "you, sir, are a bestseller . . . not THE bestseller, but a bestseller, nonetheless!" I try to see how often I can work the term "bestseller" into a sentence. Yeah, I'm that guy . . .

I've submitted my rough and ugly maps to my editor in hopes he can make them into beautiful swans (I learned my lesson with Memnon: books must have maps). I've also submitted a list of authors I'd like them to approach in hopes of getting cover quotes (also called 'blurbs') from. The list is a mix between fantasy, adventure, and historical authors -- some quite approachable and others of a "fingers crossed" variety. I have incense and sacrificial animals at the ready . . .

And, finally, it's looking as though October is going to be release month. It's been four years since I've had a new book on the shelves, so yeah . . . I'm frickin' nervous. Right after I pump myself up by telling my mirror what a hot bestseller I am, I deflate my own ego by telling myself the reading public will hate me. It's a love-hate thing, me and that mirror.

I'll be posting excerpts and making plans for a few public appearances in the run up to October -- most notably, perhaps, I might attend Dragon*Con in Atlanta during the month of September, hopefully armed with some advance copies. And some advance reviews. And some advance author quotes. And lots of tranquilizers and antacids . . .

From My Emo-Poet Days . . .

2010-03-01T22:36:00.004-06:00

This afternoon, while scavenging through an old floppy disk, I came across an old file I’d thought long deleted – a file containing my half-assed attempts at poetry. Reading back over it, over little nuggets of poetical inspiration bearing names like “The Outsider” and “Siren’s Eyes”, I was struck by an overwhelming desire to grab a lead pipe, hop a time machine back to 2001-2002, and beat the living snot out of myself.

In retrospect, I guess the Scott of ’01-’02 had cause to be a whiny emo bitch. During that time, I had no job, was living in my parent’s attic, and was working on what would become Men of Bronze. Worst of all, I was panting after the textbook Unattainable Woman – unattainable by circumstance as well as psychology. For those of you into bits of trivia, this woman provided me with the voice of Jauharah in Men of Bronze; after things went bad, she also provided me with the voice of the courtesan, Thalia, from the opening chapters of Memnon.

Well, she liked poetry; being in the throes of some serious co-dependence that was masquerading as love, I turned my hand to poems. Poems like this:

Outsider

I sit outside of all things,
A voyeur at the window of life.
On dark nights I look in on the lives of others,
coveting all I see.
O, to have the warmth of riches,
The glow of success.
Most of all, I envy those with another to turn to,
those wrapped in love's comforting embrace.

Not every window opens on Nirvana,
with its mocking golden glow.
Some are black, frosted like Persephone's soul;
others reveal eyes as lonely as my own.
I can only nod, acknowledging a kindred spirit
as I wander the edges of a thousand lives,

ephemeral and forgotten.

Can you feel the breadth and depth of my emo frustration? Yeah, I thought you could. Though rather . . . lame, it impressed my lady-friend (and her lit professor, when she showed it to him; the poor man was overjoyed that someone born after the 1950’s had a “mythological vocabulary”).

I’ve never been one to write poems to someone (who am I kidding . . . I've never been one to write poems, period), but when she asked me to write something about her, I found myself unable to resist. The result was this, my only published (in an online webzine) bit of verse:

Siren's Eyes

I am drawn to her eyes like a moth to open flame,
The changing colors a mosaic of her soul.
Beauty and compassion, gentleness and love,
Hidden behind cold stone walls, armored,
Protected from the ripping currents of life.

Her eyes sing like the Sirens of old,
Drawing the unwary close.
But the skulls at her feet, pale and gleaming,
speak of the folly of intimacy.

In time my skull will be but one of many.

Beyond, well, her, you can tell quite easily that my inspiration lay with the verse of Robert E. Howard. With the exception of what’s taught in school, REH’s poetry is the only poetry I’ve ever actively sought out. His has a power to it, both a bleakness and roaring zest for life, that I can only ape. I have no grounding otherwise to judge if a poem is good or bad: I don’t do rhyme schemes or understand the alchemy of meter. But, if it sounds like something that should be chanted around a roaring fire, then it must be good, right?

Still, out of my slender corpus of poems there’s only one that I’m genuinely proud of. It was written during the same period (actually, I dated this one – 22 April 2001), but it was written for me, for my own edification. I don’t recall if I ever showed it to my lady-friend, though I probably did as I was entirely too keen on earning her favor. Here, for the first time, is my magnum opus of poetry:

Flights of Fancy

I sat at the water's edge
as gulls wheeled overhead,
dreaming of far-off places
and distant times.
The pleasure boats and jet-skis vanished,
and in their stead
I beheld
fat caravels under sail,
and galleys rowed by slaves.
I saw again the towering walls
of impenetrable Tyre,
and heard again the muezzin
calling the faithful to prayer.
My mind's eye built,
from dust and dream and shadow,
the relics of another age
that I had only seen on paper.
From the sun-dappled streets of Thebes,
beneath the Pharaoh's eyes,
to the meeting place at Veii,
where once Etruscans dwelt.
Imagination worked it's spell,
transporting me into the past
to stand beside Caesar on that fateful day
before the daggers fell.
But, as with all things, the day must end
and the sun must fade away.
The boats are tarped, the jet-skis dried,
and the gulls retreat to their nests.
I am weary as I leave my perch
beside the placid waters,
and though I never stirred I am content

at the distance I have traveled.

In time, I came to terms with my friend and even dedicated Memnon to her. But whatever poetic spell she put me under faded with her presence. For good or ill, I've not penned so much as a dirty limerick since . . .

Introducing Nikomachos

2010-02-18T22:34:00.002-06:00

In what's becoming a tradition here on the ol' blog, I'd like to introduce you to the hero of Serpent of Hellas: Nikomachos. He's a young Athenian, a kinsman of Themistokles', whose father is among the honored dead of Marathon. Here, Nikomachos amuses himself by sparring with a friend from Corinth . . .

The ninth day of Boedromion rising, in the first year of the 75th Olympiad, during the archonship of Kalliades [12 August, 480BC]

A hoarse rush of breath, the explosive crack of wood on bronze; a muffled curse. In the fading summer light the two men who faced off in the sandy palaistra of Cenchreae, Corinth’s eastern harbor, were indistinguishable to those who looked on, like twin images of the war god, Ares. Both wore the linen corselet and the blank, expressionless bronze helmet of a Hellenic marine; only their shields, bowl-shaped aspides, were unique, painted over with differing devices—Medusa’s snarling visage on one, winged Pegasus on the other. Greaves flashed as they shifted positions, circling, their leather-tipped spears held ready.

The pair dueled within a loose ring of fellow soldiers, marines for the most part, men of Athens and Corinth whose panoplies were not dissimilar from those of the two fighters; leavening their ranks were a handful of dour Spartans, long-haired figures in crimson cloaks who watched with obvious disdain. Absent any rancor, the remaining onlookers called out to the fighters and to each other, wagering coins and bits of jewelry on the outcome even as they exhorted their favorite to action.

“Watch him, Deion! He’s a crafty one!”

“Keep him outside your guard!”

“Your feet! Move your feet!”

Up close, small differences marked the duelists. Deion, the crowds’ darling, was shorter than his opponent, broad shouldered with the heavily muscled arms and thighs of a seasoned pankratiast. Of a lighter build, Deion’s adversary moved with a predatory grace, his lean sinews twisted into cords of iron as he dropped his spear to a low underhand grip. Eyes glittered deep in the Hades-black sockets of his helmet; teeth flashed, the defiant twist of his lips no less terrifying than that of the Medusa-head adorning his shield.

Suddenly, Deion lunged. Three quick thrusts stitched the ground at his opponent’s feet even as he lashed out with the edge of his shield in hopes of catching him off balance. The tall fighter, though, anticipated his movements. Catlike, he evaded the thrusts and stepped inside Deion’s guard; their shields met with the concussive impact of bronze-sheathed oak, metal grinding against metal.

And then it was over.

Faster than any eye in the crowd could follow, the tall fighter hooked his leg around Deion’s, planted his own spear—its blunt head padded and leather-wrapped—squarely into his opponent’s ribs, and shoved. Deion went down hard, his spine crashing into the churned sand.

Shouts went up from the onlookers, groans of defeat. Coins chinked from hand to hand. For several heartbeats the victor stood over his fallen adversary, both men gulping superheated air.

“Well played, Niko!” Deion said, panting as he wrenched off his helmet. Sweat plastered his short brown hair to his skull, dripped from his beard. “I almost had you that time!”

Nikomachos pushed his own helmet up, the natural flex of the bronze cheek pieces holding it snug against his damp forehead. “A complicated word, almost. If a man flaps his arms,” he said, resting his spear in the crook of his shield-arm and extending a hand to help Deion to his feet, “can he not almost fly?”

The Others

2010-02-08T22:13:00.002-06:00

I have voices in my head. 24/7, these voices talk to me. Some are the voices of my characters, past and present. I still hear Barca atop a rain-soaked hill near Pelusium, trading taunts with Phanes of Halicarnassus; Memnon still speaks to me of his childhood on Rhodes, of the beauty of his wife, Barsine, and of Alexander’s hubris. Assad takes center stage, sounding for all the world like Oded Fehr. Assad talks to me about the fearsome siege of Ascalon, about the blade that earned him his nom de guerre, the Emir of the Knife. I hear the sibilant hiss of Ibn Sharr, the earnest speech of Caliph Rashid al-Hasan, and the roaring laughter of Shirkuh.

There are other voices, too: Orcs whisper in the hidden places, a weary d’Artagnan tells his tale over a crackling fire, and even a master-thief of Zamora dares raise his voice above a ruthless murmur. And, then, there are the Others. The Others are not characters . . . at least, not characters I'd ever dare to give life on a page. They are harsher than Orcs, these voices. They berate and belittle and try to make themselves heard over the clamor of plot and prose. Some days, they still the other voices so that all I hear in that theatre of bone which is my skull are the criticisms and the half-truths.

The Others use every fear and neurosis they can get their twisted claws on; by day, they tell me how bad my prose is, how idiotic my plots are, and how THIS BOOK will be the book that reveals me as an untalented fraud. By night, they whisper to me how I’m going to die – alone and wracked by poverty and disease. The Others are relentless, remorseless, and cruel.

It is an eternal fight against these voices. What I try to build, they try to tear down. I can only hope there’s a Ragnarok in their future, a Twilight of the Others that will end their attempts at dominion for all time. Until then, every word on paper is a fight – a tiny victory in an internal war against my self. But, the Others have prosecuted a vicious campaign of late, I’ll give them that. They’ve derailed me time and again in the past few weeks, making each sentence a blood-soaked duel lasting hours. They laugh openly, now. They tease and they taunt . . .

Perhaps the Others grow overconfident . . .

Help Me, Bloggerverse . . . You're My Only Hope

2010-01-28T18:07:00.003-06:00

While I exaggerate the "my only hope" part, I could use your input, Gentle Readers. It's a new year, I've got a new book forthcoming, and I'm of a mind to do some work on this ol' blog. Freshen it up a bit; maybe make it more of a reflection of what it is I write. And, make sure it's optimized for things like search engines and what-not. Here's a few ideas:

1. A new name. My editor pointed this one out to me. Perhaps I need something a bit less cumbersome than "Echoes of a Forgotten Age . . .". While I tend to agree with him, I'd also like something a bit less vanilla than "Scott Oden: Writer". Any ideas?

2. Fresh content. I'm thinking about adding new modules to the sidebars. What would make this the one-stop Scott Oden experience (and yes, as I typed that I DID recognize how shallow that sounded)? Maybe links grouped by subject? More links? What?

3. New layout. I love this template, but it might be time to update it. I'd like to find something that screams Antiquity/historical swords-and-sorcery/Orc-love, but that's a tall order and my XML-fu isn't up to the task of making one from scratch.

What do you think, Gentle Readers? Any bolts from the blue?

Happy 104th!

2010-01-22T23:12:00.002-06:00

Today is a most important day, and it almost got away from me. Amid the hustle and bustle, the comings and goings, join with me as I pause to wish Robert E. Howard happy birthday! It's not an exaggeration to say I owe the entire arc of my life -- from my interests to my chosen profession -- to the Gent from Cross Plains. He blazed the path I try to follow, a path of memorable characters and headlong storytelling, of historical veracity and raw flights of fancy. I cannot thank him enough.

Raise your glasses, my friends, and help me wish REH a happy 104th!

Orc Stain, Issue #1

2010-01-07T22:25:00.002-06:00

"'Orc Stain' is a fantasy story set on a constantly war-ridden planet almost entirely overrun by orcs. It starts off following a spiritually broken orc who has the ability to find the weak point in any object, which he can then crack open with his trusty hammer. He has been making a living looting graves and rolling bodies, but soon gets chased by the massive armies of the Orc Tsar who needs his special gift to unlock the organ of a long-dead god." -- James Stokoe, Writer/Artist of "Orc Stain" from Image Comics.

A couple of people brought this to my attention today: Orc Stain -- a new comic featuring Orcs, and with an Orc as its protagonist. I'm not blown away by the title (makes me flash back to Dune's "worm-sign"), but the depiction of an Orc whose NOT some muscle-bound, green-skinned moron who speaks pidgin English with a Cockney accent perked me right up. So much so that I sent missives forth to my Friendly Neighborhood Comic Shop, requesting they hold a copy for me.

Here's an interview with writer/artist James Stokoe that also features a couple of sample pages of art. Pretty good stuff, if you ask me. By this point in the interview, I was hooked:

"['Orc Stain'] started three or four years ago in Seattle as a joke argument between my former roommates and I about the unfair representation of orcs in 'Lord of the Rings,'" he explained. "So I did a ten page short where two orcs have an existential debate in the middle of a battlefield about their way of life and what happened to make them the way they are. One is really into salads and wants to replace scary rusted weapons with boomerangs, while the other takes the stance of a classic bloodthirsty orc."

Now, is it just me or does it seem that we're in the midst of a full-blown Orc renaissance?

The Publishing Lottery Myth

2009-12-27T22:08:00.003-06:00

Sorry for the long delay between posts, Gentle Readers. After my screed on the Harlequin Debacle, in which I promised a follow-up, I lost my belly full of fire and indignation. I blame Christmas cheer. But, the pause has given me time to think things over, and after reading the year-end post at agent Kristen Nelson's blog I think I've hit on one of the core reasons why so many aspiring authors get taken in by vanity schemes:

Securing a commercial publishing deal, they surmise, is like winning the lottery.

Let's look at the figures Ms. Nelson provided. In 2009, her agency (a small but well-connected, two-agent operation) received 38,000 queries; from that pool of 38K prospective manuscripts, she requested fifty-five. From that, her agency signed six new clients. Six out of thirty-eight thousand. I'm no math whiz, but I think that translates into a fraction of one percent. In the associated comment-trail, talk quickly turned to the idea of publishing as a lottery, which in turn invalidates the hard work, learned skills, and raw talent displayed in those six writers (indeed, even in the fifty-five who piqued Ms. Nelson's interest) by making the whole process hinge on the luck of the draw. Problem is, for publishing to work as a lottery it must be predicated upon the idea that all queries are equal and that the playing field for aspiring writers is a level one. They are not, and it is not.

I can tell you from prior experience (nine months reading the slush for a literary agent), and without even seeing one of Ms. Nelson's 38K queries, that 90% of what was submitted -- and I'm being charitable with that figure -- was sheer and utter crap, ill-conceived and poorly written. I'm not talking degrees of subjectivity here, either. The bulk of what you'll find in a slush pile is an affront to the English language, to good taste, and to the storyteller's art. As much as one might hate The DaVinci Code or Twilight, both stand as shining paragons of fine literature compared to what shared the slush pile with them.

Thus, if you have a reasonably good command of English grammar, can turn a phrase, and know how to tell a story* (and understand how to relate all the above in a single page query letter), you'll have already moved ahead of the pack. Your tale won't be competing against the white noise of 37,945 wannabes, but rather against the fifty-five aspirants who have proven themselves to be your peers. NOW is when subjectivity and luck enter the process -- being in the right place, at the right time, with exactly what the agent is looking for is how those six got their contracts. And, chances are, the forty-nine books Ms. Nelson didn't sign will go on to find representation elsewhere.

How, then, does a writer tell if she's one of the fifty-five? The answer is surprisingly simple: through hard work. Write everyday. Join an online critique group, preferably one that is hardcore and pulls no punches; join a writer's group out in meatspace; cultivate beta readers who have no vested interest in telling you what you want to hear or in stroking your ego. Network with published writers you admire, with editors and agents (pay close attention to their credentials, too). Study the business side of things through PW or Publisher's Marketplace. Read the genre you hope to publish in, and also everything you can outside that genre. Learn to write an effective query. Practice patience and understand that it might be your third or fourth or tenth book that catches an agent's eye. And finally, don't give in to the myth that you can find a shortcut to any of this.

*It's quite rare to find all three traits together. Provided their query got me interested enough to request the whole manuscript, most of the writers I rejected had either the ability to write but couldn't tell a story, or they had the storyteller's gift but couldn't write. It's easier to fix the latter than the former.

The Harlequin Debacle

2009-12-10T22:10:00.003-06:00

Since Thanksgiving, a disturbing tremor has caused the tectonic plates of publishing to shift. In perhaps the most ass-headed move in the history of business, romance juggernaut Harlequin Enterprises has teamed with Author Solutions, Inc (parent of POD self-publishing service AuthorHouse and others) to open a "self-publishing" imprint of Harlequin called DellArte Press. By itself, this news would raise the most Botox-frozen eyebrow, but what makes it even worse is Harlequin's other imprints plan to steer rejected manuscripts toward DellArte -- in effect, turning their slush piles into money-making opportunities (and not for the authors, mind you).

In response, the Mystery Writers of America and the Science Fiction Writers of America have removed Harlequin from their lists of approved publishers . . . and it's likely that the Romance Writers of America will follow suit, thus removing the largest publisher of the largest genre from the ranks of one of the most active writer's guilds in existence. Cue the Greek chorus . . .

If you're not in publishing or interested in the business side of books, you'll probably wonder what the big deal is. A good book is a good book, right? What difference does it make how that book arrives in the readers hands, whether it's self-published by Joe Entrepreneur or released by one of the giant NYC publishing houses? Good questions. One thing to keep in mind is this isn't true self-publishing, despite the bill of goods Harlequin and ASI are trying to sell. It's vanity publishing, and vanity publishing is a whole different beast. What's the difference? Well, let me borrow definitions from SFWA's Writer Beware:

Self-publishing: the author handles or contracts out all aspects of production and marketing him/herself, from editing, to design, to printing/binding, to warehousing, to selling. In true self-publishing, the author owns the book's ISBN number, and keep all sales proceeds. With true self-publishing, authors do not grant or encumber their publishing rights in any way.

Vanity publishing: any kind of publishing or publishing service that requires the author to pay an upfront or setup fee. This would include print-on-demand publishing services like the Author Solutions brands, former offset vanities like Dorrance Publishing that now use a digital model, and book manufacturers like Brown Books that offer a more elaborate (and more expensive) service, but also the option of short-run printing. Such companies handle the entire publishing process for the author, and may or may not exercise some degree of selectivity. In return, the author grants publishing rights (usually nonexclusive and terminable at will), accepts the company's ISBN and pricing structure, and are paid a pre-set "royalty." While not attempting to conceal the fact that they charge fees, or pretending to match your resources with their own, these companies can be quite misleading in their presentation of the benefits of fee-based publishing.

I do think it's important to differentiate between what Harlequin/DellArte is doing, vanity publishing, and true self-publishing. All the success stories you've ever heard about (Eragon, The Christmas Box, Vince Flynn's first novel) are the result of true self-publishing as defined above. Vanity publishing has had zero success stories because it's not geared toward selling books to the marketplace. It's designed to sell books to those who wrote them and their families. The oft-quoted figure of "the average self-published book sells 75 copies" is due mainly to vanity publishing. True self-publishing is an honorable endeavor, so long as the writer knows what they're in for; vanity publishing, however, deserves its pejorative.

I'm going to try, in my next post, to get a handle on why Harlequin's descent into stupidity is a bad thing for the whole industry. I'm going to look at why monetizing a slush pile is a horrible idea, and try to get to the bottom of the whole "democratization of publishing" movement. I warn you in advance: much of what I'm going to say will sound elitist, like I'm a mouthpiece for the literati. Suffice it to say, I don't believe that every book should be published . . .

More to come!

The Lion of Cairo -- UK Cover

2009-11-29T14:03:00.004-06:00

I love seeing my covers for the first time. There's a "kid-at-Christmas" sense of wonder attached to it, especially if the cover is well done -- as mine most fortunately have been. As you can see, the UK cover for The Lion of Cairo is no exception. I'm normally not too keen on character-driven images; I prefer symbolic covers, like the Corinthian helmet of Men of Bronze. But this one quite captures the sinister edge that Assad has.

My only quibble, aside from the missing 'The' in the title (easily rectified), is with the artist's depiction of Assad's knife. The one here is a dirk, while Assad wields an Afghan salawar (also called a Khyber Knife, see an image of one here). But, all in all I like it!

I like better the appellation below my name: Bestselling Author. I'm not sure if this is but a hollow marketing title or if there's something to it, but when I find out I'll let you know. Or, I'll just embrace it and wallow in my new-found bestseller-hood . . .

Edited to Add: Several people asked when The Lion of Cairo is due out, both in the States and overseas. As of right now it's scheduled for release in the last quarter of 2010 . . . essentially, it should be on shelves around this time next year. It will initially be in hardcover both here and in the UK, and if sales warrant it will be reissued as a trade paperback or a mass market paperback. As for translations into Polish, etc . . . we're working on that ;)

Let Me Ask You . . .

2009-11-13T13:14:00.002-06:00

A question, Gentle Readers: do you think it's possible to create a convincing tale of Orcs worked into the fabric of Nordic/Germanic/Anglo-Saxon myth, in essence back-engineering them from Tolkien to his northern sources? I've been polling my friends about this today and they're seemingly divided into two camps. Those who are against it think it would ultimately be cartoony and unbelievable -- "Orcs," they say, "need a world similar to ours but with the flexibility of secondary creation"; those who are for it say it hinges most of all on execution, tone, and how the writer can integrate Orcs into existing myth.

How about you . . . what do you say?

A Tale of Two Writers

2009-11-04T22:35:00.004-06:00

Writing with an eye toward publication is a strange alchemy of ego and self-loathing, mixed with healthy dollops of perseverance, synchronicity, luck, and talent. It is a journey, and like every journey its beginnings can be traced back to a single step . . . or, in this case, a single email sent to me in 2007. An email about the use of scimitars in Men of Bronze . . .

The email's author was one Morgan Holmes, noted REH scholar, and after much conversation I ended up sending him a batch of paperback MoB's to hand out to interested readers at the Windy City Pulp and Paperback Show in Chicago that May. Here's where synchronicity enters the fray: one of the people he gave a copy to was Howard Andrew Jones, editor of Black Gate magazine and of the Bison Books' edition of Harold Lamb's Cossack tales (and himself a writer). Howard sent me a note in October of '07, telling me he'd enjoyed Men of Bronze. I knew who he was, of course, and I gladly corresponded with him about all things adventure, fantasy, and Harold Lamb. Along the way, we became friends. He read Lion of Cairo in its early stages and made some fine suggestions that improved the book; I, in turn, read his Dabir and Asim novel (characters he introduced in a short story in Black Gate).

It was and is an excellent book. An Arabian Nights-inspired swashbuckler, tightly-written, poetic, full of the blood and thunder that echoes in the works of REH and Lamb. So impressed with it was I that, after making sure he didn't mind, I passed the manuscript along to my editor at Thomas Dunne. Like any writer worth his salt Howard fretted and steeled himself for "the inevitable rejection". That rejection never came, though. Quite the opposite. Proving he is ever a man of discerning taste, Pete Wolverton at TDB snapped up Howard's manuscript in what has become a nice, two-book hardcover deal!

So join with me, Gentle Readers, in offering a round of applause for Howard Andrew Jones . . . author of The Desert of Souls, coming soon from Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press! Long live the Arabian swashbuckler!

The Rape of Conan

2009-10-27T22:27:00.004-05:00

The new Conan movie begins filming in Bulgaria, in mid-February of next year. As a die-hard fan of all things REH and Conan, you'd think this news would fill my fanboy heart with glee. Unfortunately, the casting descriptions that have been making the rounds to the different casting agencies have made their inevitable way onto the Internet. Gentle Readers, let me tell you: the producers, director, and writers of this farce would not know Conan if REH himself walked up to them and pointed him out. What's worse, I don't think they'd care . . .

Let's look at an example of what I'm talking about:

CONAN: He’s in his 20s to early 30s, Caucasian, powerfully built, broad-shouldered, sun browned skin lined with scars. Piercing blue eyes and square-cut black mane, tall. He is a savage killer that has matured into the refinement his father tried to teach him when he was young. Conan is very smart, almost inhumanly strong, and very cunning. His entire life, from the moment of his birth, has been shaped by violence. Being the last of his tribe and having to watch his father die a cruel death, he is determined avenge his peoples’ slaughter by killing all those who led the attack on the Cimmerians, including the all-powerful Khalar Singh. He is prepared to die in order to accomplish his goal. What Conan did not expect, was to find a reason to live… LEAD

Based on the physical aspects, someone on the "creative" team has at least paid attention to REH's description of Conan. From there, however, they spiral off into cliche (the only thing Howardian in this whole clusterfuck is the physical description). Indeed, replace "Khalar Singh" with "Thulsa Doom" and you have the plot of Milius' Conan the Barbarian. This from Paradox Entertainment, who swore on more than one occasion that the new movie would go back to REH's original concept of the character.

Ah, but it gets worse:

YOUNG CONAN: Caucasian, tough and wiry, scary violent. At ten, he insists on joining the teenage boys entering their rites into becoming warriors. When four Picts cross his path and kill one of the boys, Conan unleashes a savagery that goes too far for a warrior. His father takes him aside and personally trains him. His father teaches him what makes a good sword but he has still much to learn what makes a good swordsman. When the Cimmerians are attacked by Khalar Singh and his mercenaries, Conan is the only survivor, the last of the Cimmerians. SUPPORTING

Really, Paradox? Why don't you just drive down to Brownwood and piss on REH's grave? It was apparently too difficult for whomever wrote this swill to READ THE FREAKING LETTER wherein REH discusses Conan's origins! "Last of the Cimmerians"? Hardly! "Savagery that goes too far for a warrior"? Impossible! Howard's Conan was allowed to sit at the council fires when he was fifteen, broke the neck of a wild bull before he had reached full growth, and joined his Cimmerian brothers in the wild sack of Venarium before ever setting forth to see the world. He wasn't driven by revenge, but rather by a wanderlust that had its birth in the tales his grandfather used to tell him of the soft Southern Lands, their wine, gold, and women. The character they're trying to portray on-screen has nothing of the gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirths of REH's Conan; rather, they dilute and rely on pastiche to construct this bastard creation that's bereft of everything Howard poured into Conan -- the freedom-loving barbarian who lived by his own rough chivalry . . .

This whole brewing fiasco is all the more confusing when you take into account that Paradox Entertainment, via Del Rey and the hard work of Rusty Burke, Patrice Louinet, and Krewe, is the reason we have three volumes of REH's original Conan stories, restored and presented as written. Did they not think to give copies to the screenwriters, or did the screenwriters* just not bother to read them?

Don't even get me started about the blind archers, the dumbass names, and the way the plot looks like the unholy love child of Red Sonja, Kevin Sorbo's Kull, and Conan the Destroyer . . . already I feel my blood pressure spiking . . .

THIS JUST IN . . .

Someone over at the Conan.com messageboards has posted a purported synopsis to the movie ganked from the NU IMAGE production company. I don't know how accurate it is, but elements of it correspond with the casting details. It also solidifies that no one attached to this production has even the slightest clue who Robert E. Howard or Conan of Cimmeria are, beyond names on a piece of paper . . .

Amidst a raging sword battle on the icy fields of Cimmeria, a child is born, cut out of his mother’s womb by his father. CORIN. With her last breath, she names him CONAN. The young boy quickly proves himself an innate if impulsive warrior. The young warrior is inquisitive about the outside world, and while his father tries to shield him, in time the world comes to their doorstep. KHALAR SINGH. a powerful warlord, arrives with his band of mercenaries, demanding not gold or steel, but one woman from each bloodline. The Cimmerians refuse and a massive battle ensues, Khalar Singh winning the day through the use of black magic. Corin, knowing the battle is lost, hides Conan, at the cost of his own life. Conan. wracked by the guilt of a survivor, vows his revenge on Khalar and his warriors. When we meet Conan again, many years later, he’s grown into a powerful and experienced warrior. His revenge is nearly complete as he traps one of the few of Khalar’s former warriors still left alive. LUCIUS. Before killing him, Conan discovers Khalar’s location in the distant Khauran. In a hidden oasis in the desert, Khalar finds TAMARA. the last of an ancient line, the one person he’s been searching for the past twenty years. Tamara, unknowing of her true identity, is told to flee by her mentor, FASSIR, even as Khalar’s forces enslave or massacre the oasis’ people. Tamara escapes, and a furious Khalar sends his men scouring the countryside for her. But her path crosses Conan’s first, and instead of setting her free he decides to use her as bait to draw Khalar out from behind his protective shield of warriors. But the plan fails and Conan and Tamara must work together to escape, an escape which first reveals a great power building inside the frightened girl.

Conan ends up on a pirate ship that Tamara’s people have commissioned to take her far from Khalar’s grasp. Conan learns Khalar’s plan; to revive the ancient and evil empire of Acheron by sacrificing the only living heir to its throne, Tamara. Simura explains that Khalar desires the power, which now grows inside Tamara, a power, if unleashed, would once again bring all mankind under Acheron’s bloody and brutal reign. The truth of her destiny has been hidden from Tamara, for her own good, but when the treacherous pirates try to turn her over to Khalar’s forces, even Conan’s brute force is little compared to the explosion of energy unwittingly released by Tamara. In the smoldering aftermath, only Conan and Tamara are left alive. Conan tries parting ways with Tamara, intent on his own revenge but she asks him for help getting into Khalar’s fortress to rescue her people. Like Conan, Tamara can bear no more blood on her hands. Conan finally relents and they make love, not knowing that Khalar is performing a ritual, sacrificing part of his soul to create a demon to help him kill Conan. Once inside the fortress, Conan kills the massive JAILER, and Tamara finds many of her people, including Fassir, still alive. Fassir reveals he’s a traitor, turning Tamara over to her enemy. Conan falls into Khalar’s trap, forced to battle the demon he summoned, THE SHADOW OF NERGAL. Conan survives, then forces Fassir’s acolyte, BAEL, to lead him to Acheron, where Tamara is to be sacrificed. The ghosts of the ancient ruins of Acheron come alive as the last of the royal line, Tamara, is led up to the sacrificial altar. Conan arrives and starts cutting a swath through the soldiers that block his path to her, including his main revenge target, UKAFA. Conan finds Khalar to be a tough opponent. As Tamara is about to be killed, her eyes turn black and she fully assumes the form of Queen of Acheron, and unleashes her power. After Conan kills Khalar, Tamara begs him to kill her too, so the power within her won’t rise to shed more blood. Conan reluctantly agrees and plunges a spear into her chest. They share one last kiss as she dies in his arms.

My eyes, they bleed . . .

*These are the same guys who brought us that stunning bucket of drivel, Sahara. Do they really think they're better writers than REH? They must, if they're so willing to screw with his creation . . .

Orcs: The Movie

2009-10-24T00:18:00.003-05:00

Being a hardcore geek, I have a Google alert set up to let me know of any new Orc-related news on the Internet. Imagine my surprise, then, when it alerted me to the presence of an Orc movie. At first, I thought it was some kind of joke in advance of Halloween. But it seems to be true. Someone is making an Orc movie in Utah . . . and they're playing it for laughs.

According to the premise, a horde of Orcs have survived in the more remote crags of the Rocky Mountains; for whatever reason, they come pouring out of the mountains to destroy mankind. Apparently, our survival rests in the hands of "a couple of bumbling but well-meaning park rangers and Katie, a hot and feisty, over-the-top environmentalist." Yeah, lucky us.

The movie has a sparse blog (seemingly designed solely to trigger alerts like mine, rather than to give any substantive information -- like why the hell they can't do a serious movie about Orcs) and a Facebook page. On a positive note, the producers do seem to be eschewing the WoW/Warhammer greenskins in favor of Tolkien-style Orcs. I guess we should be thankful that they're trying, right?

What's next, Gentle Readers? Conan: the Musical?

A Mad God's Curse

2009-10-13T14:20:00.002-05:00

Fifteen years ago, the literary world lost one of its greatest modern practitioners, one of its finest editorial voices. Karl Edward Wagner (1945-1994) succumbed to heart failure after midnight on October 13th—a complication wrought by illness and alcoholism. Besides a host of loyal friends, KEW left in his wake a literary oeuvre unrivalled by its power and imagery and intelligence. He wrote fantasy and horror, including the award-winning short story “Sticks”, edited collections in both genres, and started his own publishing imprint (Carcosa) in order to resurrect the stories of his mentor, Manly Wade Wellman, and other pulp-era greats. What’s more, Wagner had an MD in psychiatry and possessed “an unprecedented command of the history of supernatural and fantasy literature.[1]”

I grew enamored of KEW’s work by way of what has become his greatest creation: the immortal anti-hero, Kane. Only a writer of Wagner’s diverse talents could have given life to one such as he, and those readers whose only taste of immortality has come through the insipid posing of vampires will be in for a shock—what Wagner displays through Kane is the true face of immortality: a mind so ancient as to be barely recognizable as human, trapped in a body that hasn’t aged a second since a mad god’s anger was leveled against him, after he slew his brother in a fit of rage.

And for this crime, “Kane was cursed with immortality—doomed to roam this world under the shadow of violence and death. His blighted wandering will cease only when Kane himself can be destroyed by the violence to which he first gave expression . . . For centuries he has wandered from place to place, and wherever he lingers, he brings death and destruction with him. He is a harbinger of death—a lord of chaos. To tear down, to kill and destroy is his very nature. For was it not Kane who first introduced murder to a newborn race?[2]” And so all men might recognize him, the mad god turned Kane’s eyes a hellish blue, unnerving and insane.

I’d be hard-pressed to recognize a single favorite Kane tale. They are all of the highest quality—well-written, balancing philosophical questions on the nature of immortality with pure action, and brimming with imagery that is by turns beautiful and horrific. Kane himself is the definition of a Byronic anti-hero, willing and more than able to employ a villain’s tactics if it means furthering his own ends; beyond good or evil, he goes where necessary and does what needs doing to ensure his own survival . . . and perhaps to afford himself a moment’s respite from the crushing sense of ennui that is forever his most potent adversary.

In all, Wagner wrote three Kane novels: Darkness Weaves (1970), Bloodstone (1975), and Dark Crusade (1976); two short story collections: Death Angel’s Shadow (1973) and Night Winds (1978), and a limited-edition book of poetry called Songs of the Damned (1981). A handful of other short stories exist outside of these collections, gathered in different anthologies. Too few, if you ask me; in a perfect world—or at least a fair one—the events of October 13th, 1994 would have been chalked up to indigestion, his health would have improved, and Karl Edward Wagner would have written a great many more stories of his immortal wanderer, and of the darkest horrors, before finally passing into the night. And most of all, his friends would have had many more years to enjoy his company . . .

A Postscript: One of the great shames of publishing is that the powers-that-be have allowed most of Wagner’s work to go out of print. He deserves recognition as a master of the weird fiction genre, and that Kane stands shoulder to shoulder with REH’s Conan, Moorcock’s Elric, and Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser as exemplars of sword-and-sorcery tale-spinning. If ever I earn any sort of cachet in publishing, I hope I can use it to bring the spotlight back to Karl Wagner’s work.

[1] Straub, Peter. “Various Encounters with Karl”. Exorcisms and Ecstasies. Minneapolis: Fedogan & Bremer, 1997.
[2] Wagner, Karl Edward. Darkness Weaves. New York: Warner Books, 1978.

Steven Pressfield Answers . . .

2009-10-08T14:51:00.003-05:00

First off, I have to say: you guys rocked hard with your questions! I got a little note from Mr. Pressfield after I sent them off commending you for the quality of your queries. He receives a lot of questions, and he tries to answer them in order, but yours intrigued him so that they got shuffled to the head of the line. So, pat yourselves on the backs . . . you've earned it!

And now, the answers:

1.) To Brian Murphy: Brian, as you know, the Spartans were super-secretive, particularly about their training methods. In fact we have nothing, except a few scraps of poetry and a fragment of their constitution that is written by an actual Spartan. In other words, I made a lot up! Lots of what's in "Gates" is based on my own experience in the Marine Corps. In fact, critics have taken "Gates" to task sometimes, saying stuff like "Pressfield's Spartans sound more like contemporary Marines than etc." Certainly the scene where Polynikes breaks Alexandros' nose (not to mention the "tree-fucking" stuff) is straight out of the USMC. For "Gates," I didn't do much reading on other military societies, but for "Virtues of War," I really dug in. I read Caesar, Vegetius, Rommel, Heinz Guderian, all kinds of French cavalry stuff including the great "Memoirs of Baron Marbot" (not the abridged version but the full one, which I had to get from the UCLA Library in the form of bound xeroxes.)

The Spartans were different from today's armed forces in many ways, but the primary one is that their entire society was structured around producing superb warriors. Mothers and wives were with the program 100% and provided massive shame-based incentive. The boys' training started at seven, and they weren't out of harness till they were sixty. Even when they ate, in the common messes, everything was based around bonding for war. Have you read "Sayings of the Spartans" or "Sayings of the Spartan Women?" Fantastic short anecdotes. Part of a larger work by Plutarch, the "Moralia."

One story: two Spartan brothers are fleeing from the enemy when they come upon their mother. She lives up her skirt and says, "Where are you fleeing to, my sons? Back from whence you came?"

2.) To Jon: Excellent question, which different writers would answer completely differently. The overriding concern for me is story. So, within reason, I will bend the truth to make the story work. But never so that it distorts reality too much. One must respect, I believe, not only the integrity of the events but the memories of the real human beings who really lived them. I don't want to get to heaven and have the 300 Spartans take me out back and kick the crap out of me.

When I say "story," Jon, what I really mean is theme. When Shakespeare wrote "Julius Caesar," he hewed to the facts more or less but his real concern was to write a play that had a theme, just as if he were writing it from scratch. So he "bent" the characters and put words into their mouths to support the theme. I think that's legitimate. We in the audience understand that what we're watching (or reading) is fiction, not biography and not history. It's a fine line. No hard and fast rules.

3.) To Jonny Canning: First, the language. It's all fiction. I made it up. Not because I wanted to, but because everything about the Amazons has been lost, including the reality of did they even exist at all? As to making up a society, that is one of the fun things that a writer gets to do sometimes. Think about Tokien, who not only invented a world but an entire language! Lots of sci-fi, of course, does this too. How many alien planets have been populated from scratch, with entire cultures and societies, straight out of the novelist's or screenwriter's imagination? With "Amazons," it was less resurrecting than re-imagining. There are graves in southern Russia that are being excavated right now, in which archaeologists are digging up the remains of women, about the same size as contemporary females, with arms and armor, with horses (also about the size of modern-day riding stock), amulets, charms, etc. Also I had the legend of Theseus and Antiope, which helped give a throughline to a possible story--plus the testimony of Plutarch's "Life of Theseus," which treated as fact the Amazon assault on Athens. It was fun to try to reconstruct "what might have been."

And there you have it! Excellent answers to equally excellent questions! I snuck in a little bonus question, too. As to what's next from Steven Pressfield, he writes: The next book is another war saga, but set "fifteen minutes into the future." Most of you will agree, no matter what he does it's going to be extremely well-written, imaginative, and filled with the glory we've come to expect!

Thanks, Mr. Pressfield, and thanks to you, Gentle Readers, for whipping out the good questions!

PS: Though Gates of Fire is perhaps my favorite Pressfield novel, Tides of War runs a close second. I had it at my elbow the entire time I worked on Memnon, for inspiration when the doubts got to be too much to bear (which was often).

3 Questions with Steven Pressfield -- A Contest

2009-10-01T22:05:00.006-05:00

Do you love Gates of Fire? Have you ever wanted to ask Steven Pressfield a question about writing? Want to win some swag in the process? Well, now's your chance! Mr. Pressfield has graciously offered to answer three writing-related questions from you, Gentle Readers -- and because I'm a sucker for good promotions, I've decided to make a contest out of it. So, without further ado . . .

The Rules:

Post your writing-related questions in the comment section of this entry. You may post more than one question. If you post anonymously, make sure you sign your name to the post. The contest runs through midnight CST on Tuesday, October 6, 2009. On Wednesday, I will pick the best three questions (but only one from each entrant) from *all* that have been submitted and forward them on to Mr. Pressfield; I will post his answers when I receive them. IF YOUR QUESTION IS SELECTED AS ONE OF THE THREE, you will receive a bag o' swag including a copy of The War of Art and whatever else I, as your host, choose to throw in there (who knows, it might even be ARCs of Lion of Cairo or the opportunity to read Serpent of Hellas in manuscript format . . . and if any other writers would like to donate to the swag-bags, I'm good with that. Email me and let me know).

Now, put your thinking caps on and remember: writing-related questions, only!

Game on!

AND THE WINNERS ARE: Though I wish I could just send all six questions, I've chosen my favorite three . . . the questions asked by: Brian Murphy, Jon, and Jonny Canning! I've sent the questions on and look forward to posting the answers! If the three winners would be so kind as to email me their snail-mail addresses, I will get the swag together :)

Thanks for participating!

Uncomfortable Silences

2009-09-29T22:21:00.002-05:00

I go through these spates, it seems, where my internet footprint shrinks to just about nil. I chalk it up to either having nothing to say or to being in a "mood." It's just the way of things, I think. A couple of people did email me to make sure I was still amongst the living (and I owe a few people long overdue emails, too). So, with that in mind I'm going to answer a couple of questions:

1. How'd the convention go? Eh, it was a good con, overall, but slightly on the horrible side for me personally. My panel was sort of lackluster and nary a soul attended my reading (they scheduled it for 11 PM, so I wasn't expecting much . . . but the reality of facing an empty room harshed my zen a bit). I blew off the autographing session on Sunday afternoon and instead played "The Stars Are Right" in the game room. I think gamers are my chosen people . . .

2. What are you working on? Three things -- Serpent of Hellas; an introduction to an upcoming collection of Robert E. Howard's historical tales from Del Rey; and the synopsis to The Damascene Blade. Sharp-eyed readers will note on the sidebar that The Lion of Cairo has a release date: Fall of 2010 ("Fall" in publishing parlance being between October and December). I expect I'll go into self-promotion mode sometime around Spring . . .

3. Anything else? Well, get thee to Carla Nayland's blog, click the link to The People's Book Prize, and vote for Paths of Exile! Do it! Do it now! When you're done, Betsy Lerner has a blog! If you're a writer and you've not read her excellent The Forest for the Trees, then cease calling yourself a writer until you rectify your mistake. Really, admitting you've not read it is like slapping the Baby Jesus*. And finally, I picked up this month's Writer's Digest at the bookstore, leafed through it, and discovered it no longer contained wall to wall advertising for self-publishing companies; what's more, the articles were of excellent quality. It reminded me of the issues I used to buy as a kid. I snapped it up and the Novel Writing Yearbook, to boot (because we can never stop learning how to make ourselves better writers). Bravo, Jane Friedman and crewe!

*There are only three books on writing that up-and-comers truly need: Betsy Lerner's The Forest for the Trees, Steven Pressfield's The War of Art, and Strunk and White's Elements of Style. Everything else is ephemera . . .

Con*Stellation XXVIII

2009-09-17T22:52:00.003-05:00

This weekend I'll be at Con*Stellation XXVIII: Vulpecula in Huntsville, AL, doing whatever it is a guest is supposed to do. If you're in the area, drop by and say hey. I'm part of a panel on "Why You Should Buy Our Books" on Saturday, and then Saturday night (11PM) I'll be reading from "The Lion of Cairo", discussing historical sword-and-sorcery, and why REH's Bran Mak Morn and David Drake's Vettius and Dama are Assad's spiritual godfathers.

I'll also be doing my fair share of gaming. And hopefully talking shop (provided I can master my fear of other authors -- yes, I recognize the irony, thanks).

So, come on out and get your geek on!

It's Thoth Amon meets Cardinal Richelieu

2009-09-08T23:25:00.005-05:00

I stand accused, Gentle Readers, of being a gaming dilettante; of having "gaming ADD". I'm fine as a player, but when the mood strikes me to run a game for friends, I invariably run A SINGLE game and then flake out. With The Savage Worlds of Solomon Kane, for instance, the terminology and some of the mechanics used in the system spoiled my enjoyment as GM. Same thing with the Conan RPG (though I still hold that to be my "go to" game when it's time for our regular DM/GM to take a break). And my quest to find a good historical system is well-known to those of you who frequent my little blog-home, here. So, it was with no small measure of trepidation that I allowed myself to be sucked in by another system: Alderac Entertainment Group's 7th Sea.

"7th Sea," as their website says, "is a roleplaying game of swashbuckling and sorcery, piracy and adventure, diplomacy and intrigue, archeology and exploration. It's a world of musketeers, pirates and privateers, ancient sorcery and lost civilizations, horrors that hide in the shadows and horrors that hide in plain sight." A good, pulpy paragraph, to be sure . . . but what sold it for me was the game's setting: it's almost a point-for-point analogy to late 17th century Europe -- though tweaked ever so slightly to include sorcery, pre-human technology, and secret societies. On the heels of a disastrous Thirty Years' War waged in the Kingdom of Eisen (Germany) by rival religious sects, soldiers from the sorcerous nation of Montaigne (France) have invaded neighboring Castille (Spain). The intrigue-loving Vodacce (the Italian city-states) and the seafaring capitalists from Vendel (the Dutch) wait like jackals on the edges of the fray, while the Crescent Empire (the Ottomans) and Cathay slumber in the East. North, on the island kingdom of Avalon (England), the Virgin Queen schemes to keep her crown . . .

I'm telling you, this is an historical game with the serial numbers filed off and covered in a veneer of myth.

The mechanics of the game are fairly unobtrusive. To accomplish anything, traits and skills are combined to form pools of 10-sided dice. Though you might roll eight dice, you're only allowed to keep a number equal to the guiding trait for that action (usually between one and six). Compare the resulting totals to a target number and you have either success or failure. And success tastes sweeter if you did it (whatever 'it' might have been) while swinging from a chandelier!

Of the two flaws I've found so far, the first is the most easily patched: I'm ignoring the disappointing turn the over-arching meta-story took with each supplement released (unlike some fantasy games, time marched on -- deeds were done and truths uncovered that shook the foundations of the world). The second flaw, however, is more glaring: 7th Sea is a dead system . . . out of print. I apparently missed its heyday by a few years. Still, it's available in .pdf which is better than nothing.

If things work out, in a couple weeks I can assemble a band of players and put 7th Sea through its paces. Perhaps a tale of clashing swords, mistaken identities, a shipwreck, a pirate king, a bit with a dog, and love triumphant . . .

Serpent of Hellas

2009-08-27T08:44:00.004-05:00

On this date, August 27th*, nearly 2500 years ago, the straits of Artemisium came alive with the creak of oar-locks and the bellow of horns. Countless voices raised the paean, the battle-hymn of Athena, to the heavens. As the song reached its crescendo bronze-sheathed rams found their marks, splintering hulls and snapping oars. And so began the Greeks’ three-day clash against the numerically superior armada of Great King Xerxes of Persia, for control of the waters off the northern shore of Euboea—and ultimately, for control of Hellas, itself.

By any measure, the Persian fleet was monolithic: twelve-hundred triremes drawn from across eleven maritime provinces. Rival Greeks of Ionia and Caria, dusky Egyptians, and bloody-handed Phoenicians of Tyre and Sidon fought alongside marines drafted from inner Asia, native Persians, Medians, and the vicious axmen of the Sacae. Against this, the three hundred triremes mustered by the allied Hellenes must have seemed inadequate to the point of hilarity. But the wily Athenian politician and strategist, Themistokles, architect of the defenses at Artemisium and nearby Thermopylae, had chosen his position well.

“Artemisium,” writes classicist Barry Strauss, “was usually a sleepy place: a scene of blue water, a sandy beach, and dark green and silver-gray groves of pine and olive.” It takes its name from a small temple sacred to Artemis-of-the-Dawn, perched like an expectant lover on a hilltop overlooking the six-mile wide strait dividing Euboea from the monster-haunted wilderness of Magnesia. It was well-watered and provided shelter from frequent storms; what’s more, should any enemy try to sail into either the Malian Gulf on Thermopylae’s seaward flank or the Euripos Sound, that channel of calm seas dividing Euboea from the mainland, they would leave themselves exposed to attack.

“Pray to the winds,” the oracle of Apollo at Delphi told the allied Greeks. And pray they did. Nor, it seems, did the gods ignore them. Five days before the battle a savage storm arose, a “Hellespontian”; for three days the winds howled and raised the seas “like a pot on the boil” (Herodotus, VII. 188). Exposed against the rocky Magnesian coast, the Persian fleet suffered grievous losses—as many as four hundred ships ripped from their moorings and shattered against the shore. The gods leveled the field somewhat, but the Persian fleet still outnumbered the Greeks.

Two days later, on the 27th of August, even as the pass of Thermopylae echoed with the crash and slither of bronze and the screams of the dying, Themistokles led the Greeks out into the straits of Artemisium . . .

Book VIII of The Histories of Herodotus is our chief source on both Artemisium and Thermopylae. You can read the full account, and about the aftermath, here.

Since today, by one reckoning, is the anniversary of Artemisium I thought it the most fitting day to announce my newest project for Medallion Press: The Serpent of Hellas. The book lays out the tale of Artemisium through the eyes of Nikomachos son of Agamedes, a young kinsman of Themistokles' who is witness to both the savage sea-borne fighting and the no less brutal political machinations of the Greek commanders: the Spartan Eurybiades, who shares nothing of the valor displayed by the defenders of Thermopylae; Adeimantus of Corinth, who would sell his city as a pander sells flesh . . . to the highest bidder, and the most cunning politician of them all, Themistokles himself, whose arsenal includes bluff, bribery, and outright intimidation. Still, Nikomachos doesn’t quail. Young and full of rage, he has come to Artemisium to dine at the table of Vengeance, to settle the score for the deaths of his father and brother ten years earlier, on the plain of Marathon.

The Serpent of Hellas is scheduled to be released in August of 2011.

*Like any ancient date, there is some debate over whether it was the last of August or September. In this, I'm following the lead of Barry Strauss.

Lamb in the WSJ

2009-08-26T20:05:00.003-05:00

Fellow writer and friend Howard Andrew Jones makes an appearance in the Wall Street Journal as John J. Miller explores the legacy of Harold Lamb.

From the article:

"Imagine rummaging through an old stack of pulp magazines and coming across a lost story called 'The Three Musketeers' by Alexander Dumas," says Howard Jones. "If nobody had heard of it, you'd feel compelled to tell people what they were missing."

That's how Mr. Jones, a writing teacher at the University of Southern Indiana, likens his discovery of Harold Lamb's historical-adventure fiction. For years, he has tracked down dozens of obscure tales and novellas by Lamb. This literary search-and-rescue mission has led to a small boom in the author's popularity. Lamb won't ever achieve the rank of Dumas, but he may yet win some well-deserved posthumous recognition.

I really hope such a high profile piece sparks renewed interest in Lamb's work. And way to go, Howard!

A Note from Your AWOL Host

2009-08-22T22:15:00.003-05:00

Sorry for the silence of late, Gentle Readers. Since returning from the Ancient City things have been busy at the Villa d'Scott . . . things of Great Importance! I wish I could tell you all about it right now, but hopefully I can soon. Maybe Thursday, if the stars are right . . .

If you've not read it yet, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of Outlaw by Angus Donald! It is quite excellent, much in the vein of Cornwell's Grail Quest trilogy! From Donald's website:

In the bloody underworld of 12th- century England, one man reigns supreme. Robin Hood steals from the Church and gives protection to the poor – but at a price. And the price is silence. Informers are mutilated, traitors are murdered, and all must submit to Robin's justice.

As Alan Dale, a young thief on the run from the law, is thrown into this violent world, he finds that to survive he must exploit his quick reflexes, light fingers and unique musical talent.

I look forward to Donald's follow-up . . .

Back from the Ancient City

2009-08-10T22:52:00.004-05:00

Have you ever visited a place, trod its streets or browsed its markets, and known in your marrow that this place was where you were meant to be? Such a feeling occured to me, Gentle Readers, as I walked the narrow streets and alleys of St. Augustine -- that sense of knowing not only had I been there before, but I would be there again. It's hard to explain.

Luckily, the city itself is much easier to explain. For America, for our European connection, it is the most ancient of places -- the first recorded instance of a European boot touching the soil of mainland America took place in 1513. The city itself was founded in 1565, a year after the birth of the celebrated playwright, William Shakespeare. In 1586, the very streets where today shoppers browse shops filled with knick-knacks were drenched in blood by Sir Francis Drake, who sacked the town on his way north to found the ill-fated English colony at Roanoke. Other buccaneers followed in Drake's footsteps as the city passed from Spanish control to that of the English then back to Spain until, in 1821, the still-youthful United States government took it over.

St. Augustine became a destination prescribed to the ailing wealthy, a retreat from the brutal northern winters. A young Ralph Waldo Emerson visited and remarked that it was "a queer place . . . full of ruins, chimneyless houses, lazy people." However, he added, "the air and sky of this ancient, fortified, dilapidated sandbank of a town are delicious." He credited his stay in St. Augustine with restoring his health. In 1884, Henry Flagler -- co-founder of Standard Oil and one of the wealthiest men in America -- wintered in the Ancient City and promptly fell in love with it. His construction projects, mainly hotels and villas, set a Spanish Renaissance tone for St. Augustine that is followed to this day.

I know quite a few of you, Gentle Readers, hail from the European shore and probably don't see the fuss in a place with a scant 496 years of history. For America, though, that is quite a big deal. Though we've had native habitations for a hundred times that, the date of Don Juan Ponce deLeon's landing marks the arrival of what would become America onto the world's stage. That the city has retained its gravitas amid Florida's crass resort commercialism speaks to an enduring sense of history and place.

I'm still trying to process St. Augustine's effect on me. It's a bit like the French Quarter, but under a Castilian moon, full of Moorish mystery . . . all I can say for certain is I hope to return someday. It would be the perfect place to write a tale of pirates and musketeers and buckled swashes . . .

Vacation!

2009-08-04T19:31:00.004-05:00

"Leaving, on a jet plane. I don't know when I'll be back again . . ."

Well, that's not precisely true. I'll be back on Sunday. And it's a rental car, not a jet plane. I'm off, Gentle Readers, on my first honest-to-god vacation in many a-year (since me and Wayne were gone for Texas, actually). My friend Leah and I are off to the oldest European city in America: St. Augustine, Florida! There will be some beach-combing, some museum-going, and more than a little seafood-eating. And I fully intend to drink from the Fountain of Youth . . .

I shall return shortly, no doubt younger and prepared to conquer the world! And, I should have some good news to share when I get back! :)

The Cult of Potter

2009-07-22T14:46:00.002-05:00

I’ve never really considered myself a fan of the Harry Potter series. I had read the first two books at the behest of my niece and found them enjoyable enough; as each movie came out I paid my shekels and filled my seat, more from an interest in the pop culture aspects than anything else. And I found JK Rowling’s personal story to be nothing short of astonishing. But, I wasn’t a fan of the books.

Until recently. During the run up to the new movie's release, I picked up The Prisoner of Azkaban, breezed through it (Rowling’s writing style is such that I can plough through 600 pages in an afternoon), and found myself suitably impressed enough to go out and pick up the remaining four volumes. I read them at speed over the course of a week. Some nights, it was 3 or 4AM before I’d take a break and get some sleep. And, surprisingly, I found myself dreaming of Harry’s world.

Rowling’s detractors are nearly as legion as her fans. I’ve heard criticism ranging from she’s too wordy and pilfers ideas from her betters, to her characters are flat and her dialogue wooden. My friend, Wayne, used to be a vociferous enemy of all things Potter – he felt there were scores of better books that deserved the attention Harry Potter was getting. Perhaps he’s right, but one thing about the whole phenomenon is undeniable: JK Rowling got an entire generation to read. Kids who had never cracked the spine of a book stood in line to get copies . . . and they read them. Cover to cover, many times over. My niece was one of these.

But, what attraction does Harry Potter hold for a well-read 42-year old who cut his teeth on Tolkien and moved on to REH and others? Near as I can figure, Rowling’s work appeals to two facets of my personality: my inner 12-year old (who is more dominant than you’d think), and my inner Victorian gentleman. The former is easy to explain. My inner 12-year old loves adventure and magic, color and whimsy. He’s the one who’d fill up on chocolate and run around like a madman, brandishing his wooden sword as he took on an army of ferocious goblins masquerading as a field of tall yellow grass. The latter, though, is harder to explain.

Much of Potter’s world is reminiscent of an idealized Victorian upbringing, sprinkled with liberal doses of magic and hippy freedoms. A rigid caste system sits cheek-by-jowl with wild eccentricity; books are venerated, and libraries are filled with personal trophies and fantastic animals (some of which are still alive). The whole is more appealing to me than you could ever know – or that I could ever explain.

So, I am now a member in good standing of the cult of Potter. Say what you will about the quality of the writing or of the story so long as you acknowledge the triumph of Rowling’s imagination and what she has accomplished.

Things of Note . . .

2009-07-09T21:31:00.002-05:00

I am remiss for not sending great gouts of glorious gratitude to the magnificent Michelle Moran (stand back . . . I'm on an alliterative roll!), who included my humble internet abode in her Top Ten History Blogs by Authors of Historical Fiction on Blog.com! I am humbled to be among such esteemed bloggists! Thanks, Michelle!

September marks the publication of Swords from the Desert, an anthology of Harold Lamb's exotic desert tales from Bison Books/University of Nebraska Press. Edited by Howard Andrew Jones, Swords from the Desert is a companion volume to Lamb's cossack tales, a four-volume compilation, and is set to be followed up with a collection of Crusader tales called Swords from the West. I penned the introduction to Swords from the Desert, and gladly! Lamb's work has long exercised an influence over my own -- right down to providing the initial impetus for writing Memnon in the first place (I was touched by Lamb's portrayal of Memnon and Barsine in his excellent bio-novel, Alexander of Macedon).

Also in September, Gentle Readers, I shall crawl forth from my accustomed rock to attend Con*Stellation XXVIII: Vulpecula in Huntsville, Alabama. This three-day convention is one I used to attend regularly in my misspent youth; to return after so many years as a guest is -- if you'll pardon the cliche -- something of a dream come true. I have no clue what panels I might be asked to participate in, but if I'm on one with David Drake I expect I'll be tongue-tied and fanboyish (it's David Drake, for god's sake!). If you're in the area, stop by and say hi.

When the Map IS the Landscape . . .

2009-07-02T22:44:00.005-05:00

You ever wonder how my gaming group gets those wonderful landscapes like the Pillar of Anguish or Atoll-10? You ever drooled over pics of fully-painted miniatures? Well, if that's something you're interested in then you're in luck! My group's resident mad scientists, Darren and Jason, have started a blog about how to create landscapes and paint schemes for RPGs. It's called Terra Bellum: Land of War, and it's shaping up to be an awesome site.

What's more, they hope to expand it beyond the scope of "just" landscapes to include maps, world building, and even constructing scenarios around the pretty bits and bobs. Go check it out! Me, I look forward to seeing how exactly they build those wonderful toys* . . .

*Which reminds me: I need to get and post pics from our current set-piece conflict, the Last Stand of the Ash Brigade. You really have to see it to believe it . . .

Reflections on the Eve of 42

2009-06-23T22:35:00.004-05:00

“To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.” — Oscar Wilde

In a few hours, my inner chronometer will roll over once more. Forty-one will give way to forty-two, and I imagine I’ll wake up in the morning feeling exactly the same as I did this morning. Lately, though, birthdays serve only to make me a bit more introspective. How has the last year gone, I ask myself. What were its highs, its lows, its losses, its triumphs? Most of all, I ask myself what I can do to make the upcoming year better.

My sister, bless her heart, has a life plan she’s kept since she was a teenager. It serves her as a roadmap to a life best lived, full of goals and plateaus and – well – plans. She has followed it as faithfully as any such document can be followed, and is the happier for it. Me, I prefer the wind-blown leaf approach. As a teen, I’d make a game of wondering where I’d be in this year or that. Would I be famous? Rich? Happy? In jail? But I never sat down to draft a concrete plan.

I had something of a leg-up over some of my contemporaries in that I have always known what it is I wanted to be: a writer. For twenty-eight years I’ve plugged away; some years were feast, others famine. I’ve gone from writing really bad fantasy in the 80’s, to really bad cyberpunk in the early 90’s, and somehow stumbled upon a decent niche writing historical adventure. There were many years in this span where the only thing that kept me going was blind stubbornness. I would be a writer – and only a writer – or, by God, I’d be nothing at all!

So, on the cusp of forty-two, I reckon myself touched by Fortune to be doing this thing I love. This past year has been as trying as any in the early days . . . perhaps moreso because I’ve seen what I can do when not forced by circumstance to stand idle. Circumstance, however, can only take a portion of the blame for this past year’s miserable output. I recognize I could have written another book or two in the small hiatus I’ve taken – that’s what any other writer worth his or her ink would have done. I chose to brood, though. To spend an inordinate amount of time pondering the sequence of events that brought me to a standstill. Most of you, Gentle Readers, won’t have a clue what I’m talking about; I’m not sure if I’ll ever commit it to the page (despite it being a perfect object-lesson for up-and-coming writers).

As I write this, my hiatus is drawing to a close. A few weeks should find it squared away and me working furiously on a truly kick-ass project for Medallion while at the same time getting things back in motion on Lion of Cairo. And I know, for future reference, that if events conspire to forestall me in my chosen field, I am be best served by working on totally different projects for a while. To be sure, a hard lesson learned. I’m just glad I’m still here and breathing and able to learn it . . .

Edit: This is embarassing . . . I'm not forty-three at all. I'm only forty-two (2009 - 1967 = 42). Woohoo! Let the party begin!

The Other One

2009-06-16T00:08:00.003-05:00

I spend so much time here on the blog extolling the virtues of REH that I sometimes forget to credit one of my other great influences: Karl Edward Wagner (1945-1994). KEW was a writer of great versatility whose work ran the gamut – from sword-and-sorcery and dark fantasy to horror and screenplays; more than that, he was an editor of note (the Year’s Best Horror anthologies, the Berkley editions of Conan) and ran a small publishing house (Carcosa Press). And, he had an MD in psychiatry.

Wagner is, perhaps, best known as the creator of Kane, an immortal who was one of the first of the race of Man, cursed by the insane god that created him for introducing violence – and free will – to Paradise. And so all would know him, the god gave Kane a mark: the glittering blue eyes of a madman. Kane cannot die save by violence, of which he is the consummate master. He is neither hero nor villain, though sometimes the whims of Fate cast him into one role or the other; his greatest nemesis is the sense of ennui that arises from his cursed state . . . and unlike vampires, Kane cannot slumber in the earth to make the passage of time at least marginally bearable.

Anyone wishing to write of the immortal condition should read the Kane books and stories as a matter of course. Perhaps then they might understand that immortality would most certainly strip its victim of his or her very humanity. Kane is not like us. He is alien, his perspective measured through centuries rather than decades. He craves power – temporal, magical, spiritual – and if it means laying waste to whole kingdoms in order to seize that power, then so be it. Truly, I’ve yet to read of an immortal character as compelling, as frightening, and as real as Kane.

KEW was also a great fan and early partisan of Robert E. Howard’s. He wrote two excellent pastiches: Legion from the Shadows with Bran Mak Morn, and The Road of Kings featuring Conan; he had been slated to write the tale of Conan’s rise to the throne of Aquilonia, The Day of the Lion, but another writer was given that particular story (and proceeded to arse it up). KEW also wrote several drafts of what was to be the third Conan movie. Between his pastiches and his essays on REH, it is clear Wagner understood the man far better than anyone before him. KEW, not L. Sprague deCamp, should have been the custodian of Howard’s literary estate.

Unlike my other influences, I actually met Karl Wagner in 1987, at DeepSouthCon 25 in Huntsville, Alabama. He was in the Dealers’ Room, talking to noted fan Rusty Hevelin, when I finally screwed up the courage to shuffle over and ask him for his autograph (in my paperback copy of a Kane collection, Night Winds). I had a million things I wanted to say, but I barely stammered out “thanks!” and scurried off.

Now, if I had the chance, I’d shake his hand and tell him thank you for writing stories that filled my imagination with wonder . . . stories that continue to delight and inspire me to this day.

Resources:

East of Eden: A website devoted to Karl Edward Wagner and maintained by his nephews and his childhood friend, John Mayer.

The Dark Muse of Karl Edward Wagner: a memoir by John Mayer.

Wagner's bibliography page at the Internet Science Fiction Database (ISFDB).

Conan of Cimmeria vs. Conan the Barbarian

2009-06-05T23:15:00.005-05:00

First, a word of clarification: the man pictured to the left IS NOT Conan of Cimmeria. It’s an imposter who calls himself “Conan the Barbarian”. How can you tell the difference? Well, the Cimmerian, Conan, has a square-cut black mane and smoldering blue eyes. The fellow to the left does not. Also, the Cimmerian is highly intelligent (he speaks a number of languages, though with a barbaric accent), cunning, a savage fighter and as staunch a lover of freedom as you’re ever likely to meet. That guy to the left is a moron: a grunting, bumbling, barely-literate fool whose main claim to fame is that he pushed a giant wheel in a circle for much of his youth . . . as a slave, no less!

Why, then, do people keep getting them confused? That’s easy: because no one has ever made a movie about Conan of Cimmeria! Sure, two movies were made in the 1980s featuring a fellow named Conan, who had adventures similar to those of our erstwhile Cimmerian hero, but the Conan of the movies has about as much in common with his namesake as does Conan O’Brien . . .

Now, I did enjoy Conan the Barbarian and Conan the Destroyer for what they were – sword-and-sorcery flicks with higher-than-average production values and respectable budgets. But, anyone who thinks the film-makers succeeded in capturing the spirit of REH’s most famous creation has obviously mistaken their Black Lotus (“Stygian, the best!”) for Haga.

So, where did the film-makers go wrong? Quite a few areas (such as using elements of REH’s other sullen-eyed hero, Kull of Atlantis or preferring the pastiche-work of L. Sprague deCamp and Lin Carter over REH’s own work), but for now we’ll concentrate on two: Theme and Origins.

REH had a very specific theme for Conan, and that theme was best phrased by an unnamed woodsman at the end of “Beyond the Black River”:

“Barbarism is the natural state of mankind,” the borderer said, still staring somberly at the Cimmerian. “Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph.”

This triumph of barbarism – not barbarity – over civilization lurked in Conan’s every action. It was the source of his dynamism; it’s what made him superior to everything he encountered. He was the earthly harbinger of civilization’s ultimate demise. The movies did not touch upon this, the lynchpin of the character, preferring instead some sort of pale Nietzschean reflection of superman wrapped around the pseudo-intellectual “Riddle of Steel.”

I could have overlooked the problems with the theme had the movies simply gotten Conan’s origins right. In REH’s own words (from a letter to P. Schuyler Miller, dated 10 March 1936): “He was born on a battle field, during a fight between his tribe and a horde of raiding Vanir.” His people weren’t wiped out, nor did young Conan leave his village in chains, destined for the Slave Wheel in the Middle of Nowhere. He grew into a fearsome warrior under the watchful eyes of his people; as a teenager, he took part in the sack of the Aquilonian outpost of Venarium. REH again: “At Venarium he was already a formidable antagonist, though only fifteen. He stood six feet and weighed 180 pounds, though he lacked much of having his full growth.”

Conan of Cimmeria was raised on the tales of his footloose grandfather, a man who raided deep into the Hyborian nations and brought back stories of soft women and loot beyond reckoning. REH surmised it was these tales that aroused Conan’s wanderlust. Soon after Venarium, he left his village to go raiding with the Aesir. He was captured by the neighboring Hyperboreans, cut his way to freedom, and “escaped southward and came into Zamora in time to make his debut in print.*”

By changing the origins of the character, the film-makers changed the very fabric of the character – making him a victim rather than the consummate survivor. I could go on and on, but simply enjoy the movies for what they are and don’t confuse movie Conan with REH’s Conan. The original character is far more interesting.

*REH makes reference here to “The Tower of the Elephant”, though Conan first appeared in Weird Tales, in December of ‘32, as King Conan of Aquilonia in “The Phoenix on the Sword.”

Fact from Fiction: The Life of D'Artagnan

2009-06-01T22:22:00.002-05:00

The portrait Dumas paints of d’Artagnan in The Three Musketeers is iconic: a penniless young Gascon who sets off for Paris on a horse that has seen better days, armed with his father’s sword, an ointment his mother made that “miraculously heals any wound that doesn’t reach the heart”, and a letter of recommendation to M. de Trèville, captain of the King’s Musketeers. From such humble beginnings are heroes made. But, how accurate a portrait is it?

For The Three Musketeers (1843-44) and its sequels, Dumas drew upon the work – some call it scurrilous – of Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras (1644-c.1712), a pamphleteer and man of letters who may have personally known the historical d’Artagnan, Charles de Batz-Castelmore. Courtilz’s Mèmoires de Monsieur d’Artagnan first saw publication in Cologne, in about 1700; it was a bestseller in its day, running into three editions. Amid its rumor and gossip, under its skin of story-teller’s tricks, was a skeleton of fact – much of which one can easily verify through the records of the day, and by letters and dispatches archived in places such as the Bibliothèque Nationale.

Charles de Batz-Castelmore was, indeed, a Gascon – born near the village of Lupiac sometime around 1620[1] – and while not a child of wealth, he was far from penniless. He was one of eight children born to Bertrand de Batz-Castelmore and Françoise de Montesquiou d’Artagnan (she was from a markedly more noble family than her husband). Interestingly enough, the sons of Bertrand de Batz-Castelmore were not entitled to use the name d’Artagnan, which belonged to their mother’s family, though at least three of them did use it to improve their social standing after arriving in Paris.

While the father of Dumas’ intrepid d’Artagnan lived long enough to give his son precious advice on the eve of his departure, Charles’ father died a few years before he set off to find his fortunes; nor would anyone have needed to draft a letter on introduction on the young man’s behalf to M. de Troisvilles (the Trèville of Dumas): two of Charles’ older brothers and his maternal uncle had already served as Musketeers under the command of de Troisvilles. Thus, in 1640, and with grand prospects, Charles de Batz-Castelmore – who quickly adopted the name “Charles d’Artagnan” – left the well-known confines of Lupiac for the glittering squalor of Paris . . .

Read More.

[1] Different dates are given: as early as 1610 and as late as 1623.

The One Year Plan

2009-05-19T23:02:00.005-05:00

Next May, I plan on traveling to Europe.

I wrote that down and tacked it to the wall above my writing desk. Next May. Europe*. In print it's a tangible thing, though still as fragile as morning mist. But, I figure if I'm going to see the Continent I really need to do it soon -- before family health concerns make long-distance travel impractical. I've got the perfect traveling companion in my friend, Leah (she's one of those people who can make a trip across town into a grand adventure, and who has the soul of a gypsy when it comes to travel). So, we chose next May. Why so long? Why a year? Well, a year's prep will give me the opportunity to get my passport, get any shots needed, and -- most importantly -- get my finances in order (I've toyed with the idea of starting a "Send Scott to Europe" fund, donations welcome).

So far, the itinerary is scanty: Spain, so we can see the Alhambra and Moorish architecture, and Madrid because Arturo Pedro-Reverte paints such a beautiful picture of it in the Captain Alatriste books. Then southern France, to the village of Lupiac and the Chateau d'Artagnan, one part research and one part pilgrimage. Beyond that, we're open to suggestions (though unless we change our minds we're going to stick to southern France and Spain, maybe a ferry ride to Morocco -- Greece and Egypt will have to wait for another trip).

Any places we should add to the list? I'm especially interested in Medieval, Carthaginian, or Roman sites . . .

*My friend Kris' head exploded when he heard this. And I quote: "You? Travel somewhere where they speak Foreign?"

What's the Frequency, Kenneth?

2009-05-11T22:34:00.003-05:00

So, Gentle Readers, I just know you want to hear your humble blog-host wax philosophically about such topics as war-rhinos in 300, my personal choice of weapons in Antiquity, and my own innate awesomeness. I just know it! To that end, I direct you to Medallion Press Radio! Actually, that's the Medallion Press homepage. Click the banner near the top and begin downloading the four-part interview with authors Scott Gamboe, Brian Ullman, and moi. I'm not sure what part contains my dulcet tones so you'll just have to listen to the whole thing. Go ahead. You know you want to.

I just hope my Southern heritage (with its attendant drawl) doesn't shine through too forcefully . . .

Chronica Feudalis

2009-05-07T22:27:00.004-05:00

This was one of those oddly serendipitous finds, like stumbling across a ten dollar bill in the laundry or finding the exact book you're looking for in a off-the-wall shop. Chronica Feudalis is an RPG, of course. It's written/designed by Jeremy Keller, and it's currently in play-testing. What makes this one stand out -- and what prompted a full-fledged "zoink!" moment from me once I read it -- is that it possesses a frame story! From the website:

After hundreds of years of obscurity, a manuscript from the 12th century has recently been discovered that details the rules for a role-playing game of historical proportions. Envisioned and enjoyed by medieval monks of some long-forgotten priory, their game will take you back in time to portray the brave knights, cunning outlaws, determined clerics, bold peasants, and brash barons of their age.

And what's more, from the game's foreword:

I found the first fragment on a trip to England in January of 2005. I was in Oxford and this thing that could only be called a scrap stood out to me amongst all the other scraps of parchment a colleague was showing to me. It was the word “maginer” that caught my eye. It was, in actuality, not a whole word; it was a fragment too, just like the parchment it was scribed on. Immediately to its left was a large space marked in light pen marks where the initial – an imposing, capital I – would go if the intended illuminator had had ever gotten his chance to draw it.

I've used frame stories in the past -- I love the things -- but I've never come across one in a RPG text! Absolutely brilliant! It doesn't hurt that it appears to be a darn good game, as well. I believe Keller is a scholar of the Medieval era, and Chronica Feudalis beautifully evokes the 12th century AD. It's light on rules and seems to take quite a few cues from the indie-game movement (especially the work of Vincent Baker). Though, I give Jeremy Keller grand props for mentioning games made by a fellow monk, Gary of Geneva :)

Though I can already hear the groans of protest from my regular group, I'm thinking I might assemble four players (to quote the game's 12th century author: "Four is the number of seasons in the year and the number of Holy Gospels in the Bible. Five or seven would probably work just as well, both being holy numbers, but we cannot recommend having six players") and see if Chronica Feudalis can handle REH's grim vision of the Crusades . . .

If you download the rules and give them a try, be sure to let Mr. Keller know how or if you enjoyed it and if you had any problems. As I said, it's in play-testing mode and he would doubtless find such feedback invaluable.

Heroes of the Space Marines

2009-04-29T22:29:00.005-05:00

You know, sometimes I like to pimp things that have absolutely nothing to do with me. Things like this book, Heroes of the Space Marines. What makes it special? Well, besides being chock-full of Warhammer: 40K goodness in the form of assorted tales about the Adeptus Astartes (Space Marines to you and me), one of the stories is from my friend Darren Cox -- the fellow behind the glory that was the Pillar of Anguish and the grim beauty of Atoll-10. In fact, it's his first professional publishing credit (and, to my knowledge, the first short story he's ever written). And, if you didn't hate him enough already, his place in the volume was the result of entering one of Black Library's short storiy contests on the spur of the moment! Yes, we tolerate that smug bastard, but only just barely :)

I read Darren's story, "And They Shall Know No Fear . . .", before he submitted it. It's a Black Templar tale, with elements of the Inquisition and bucket-loads of Chaos thrown in the mix. The scenes of unholy carnage are on par with anything you'll read from Dan Abnett or Graham McNeill, but what Darren does best is to capture the baroque high-technology of the far future and mix it with a very Howardian sense of doom. Good stuff!

If you're a fan of Warhammer: 40K (or if you need a good introduction to the grim and war-wracked universe of the 41st millenium), give this one a try.

The Ancient Historical Gaming Scene

2009-04-15T22:19:00.007-05:00

Is there one?

I've been casting my metaphorical nets far and wide in an effort to snare some of the ancient historical gaming product that's out on the market. I've found a few things -- some of them quite impressive -- but on the whole it seems players and GMs prefer worlds of imagination based on Antiquity, rather than Antiquity itself. Why, I wonder? Is there residual boredom left over from poorly-trained grade-school history teachers? Some kind of weird mental block that makes memorizing the particulars of Middle-earth, Golarion, Krynn, Faerun, and Greyhawk easier than ancient Egypt, Greece, or Rome? Is history percieved as too constricting, or too thin on magic, or too lacking in god-like character possibilities? What gives, Gentle Readers?

Here's some of what I've found so far. It's far from a comprehensive list, as I'm certain there are reams of material out there that I've missed. I'll happily take suggestions, too -- but keep in mind I'm looking for ancient historical rpgs, scenarios, and sourcebooks. Barring straight historical, then ancient historical served with a healthy dollop of mythology (NOT, however, games that are perfect simulations of ancient Rome . . . except that the authors decided to call the city something else).

1. Mazes and Minotaurs: Slender on ancient history, true, but this game is steeped in the language of Greek myth. It could easily be modified to run as a straight historical.

2. Testament -- Roleplaying in the Biblical Era (Green Ronin): Some games just talk about letting you bring the wrath of God down upon your foes. This game lets you do it. More than just the Israelites, Testament covers the folk of Canaan, Egypt, and Mesopotamia from the time of Moses up through the Romans . . . and it does it well. So far, I've found no errors in the Egyptian material. Testament requires the Dungeons and Dragons Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster Manual (3.0 or 3.5 edition).

3. The Trojan War RPG (Green Ronin): From the folks who did Testament. This, too, is a solid game that captures the flavor of the time using the same universally accessible 3.0 edition of D&D. It includes lots of good material on how to tailor a Trojan War campaign to fit the needs of a party of players -- including how to alter the storyline to keep it fresh. My only complaint is the authors listed tin and canvas as material for armor, along with linen, leather, and bronze (I'm fairly certain canvas hadn't been invented yet, and raw tin was too precious in the making of bronze to waste on armor).

4. Eternal Rome RPG (Green Ronin): Another from the Testament folks. This one is the most lack-luster of the three. It suffers from a common problem I've seen with ancient historical gaming: its scope is too ambitious. Literally, it covers Rome from rise to fall. That's too vast a tract of time to fit into a single product. Despite excellent game mechanics, a bestiary, and a very succinct history, there's nothing at all about the city itself -- its environs or neighborhoods. Not even a map.

5. Egyptian Adventures -- Hamunaptra (Green Ronin): You'd think I'd be all over this game like the proverbial fat kid at the candy store, but truth be told it left me a little cold. It's not a straightforward rendering of ancient Egypt using D&D rules, but something of an adaptation -- Egypt with Elves, Dwarves, Gnolls, Gnomes, and Halflings. Good if you like that sort of thing . . .

6. Zenobia: The ancient Near East in 260 AD; I've not played this one yet, but I've heard excellent things about it. ETA: I downloaded this one Thursday night and have been reading over it. In short, it's awesome! It's written and designed by Paul Elliott, who is also the author of Warlords of Alexander and the article that was the inspiration for Mazes and Minotaurs! Besides an in-depth overview of Palmyra and the ancient Near East, Zenobia also has extensive advice on how to build an ancient-world scenario that oozes magic and isn't slavish to the historical timeline. Well done!

7. The New Argonauts: Another very good mythic Greece product (and it's a free download!). It's low-magic with an excellent overview on Greek history and culture.

8. Agon: Another ancient Greek, age-of-heroes entry. This one encourages competitive play and "trash-talking" among the players.

9. OGL Ancients (Mongoose): RPG set in ancient Egypt and Greece; this one suffers from the same problem as Eternal Rome -- it tries to cover too broad a period of time. It supports mythical or straight historical play. The mechanics are solid if you're a fan of d20 OGL, but I did find a few annoying bits (such as the nomenclature of the two types of Egyptians: one called Theban and the other called Karnak -- but Thebes and Karnak were the same place, in Greek and Arabic parlance respectively; it probably should have been Upper and Lower Egyptian).

10. GURPS Greece, Egypt, and Imperial Rome(Steve Jackson Games): GURPS, or Generic Universal Role Playing System is a system I'm not familiar with. But, I've heard they make a really solid product . . . and their Greek sourcebook covers the Classical period as well as the Mythic, so mad props to the writers!

11. Warlords of Alexander: Now this is what I'm talking about! An epic rpg, with some magical elements, set smack in the middle of the era of Alexander's Successors! Let me quote the introduction: "In fact the Successor period is ripe for roleplaying in every way, mirroring the standards and assumptions of fantasy games: a common language (in fact the universal dialect of Greek in use at the time was called koine Greek, quite literally 'common'), numerous warring kingdoms, an accepted universal culture understood by most civilized folk, a well-known pantheon of gods, a well-known bestiary of monsters and supernatural beings and an international society that tolerates and even promotes heavily armed and armoured adventurers travelling freely in search of fortune and glory." Amen!

That's my list so far. Anyone know of any others?

Author, Pimp Thyself . . .

2009-04-02T22:18:00.005-05:00

Sorry for a bit of personal horn tootage, but this is my blog so *nyah!*:

If you'll cast your collective gazes to the right, you'll notice that both Men of Bronze and Memnon are now available in Kindle format! For those among you who find perverse joy in reading electronically ;)

And, on April 9th (I believe) Hasdrabal Barca and crew will be coming to Poland! Below is the cover for Spizowi Wojownicy -- which I can only hope means something akin to Men of Bronze in Polish. I do hope the Phoenician behaves himself, but I wouldn't hold my breath. He's proving to be quite the long-legged rabble-rouser.

I'm still on hold to see if the Project Which Shall Not Be Named is going to get the green-light or not. If it does, I will put everything else aside and throw myself headlong into the writing of it -- and wish me luck, Gentle Readers, as my deadline will be approximately six months.

Insert sounds of Scott choking.

Yeah. But the waiting, that's the worst part . . . no, really.

Orcish Antiquities II

2009-03-31T23:04:00.002-05:00

I have discovered a new ostrakon in the ongoing archaeological dig of Orcishness. Some of you will recall my revised thesis, where I discovered the porcine depiction of Orcs may have started with the 1977 Tolkien calendar by the incomparable Brothers Hildebrandt. At the same time, David C. Sutherland III drew a band of pig-snouted Orcs for the original Monster Manual, a supplement for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons which was also published in 1977. One had to have influenced the other, else the Hildebrandts' and Sutherland drew upon the same inspiration (which is generally agreed to either be the description of the orc (ogre) in Canto 17 of Ariosto's Orlando Furioso or the bestial orcnéas of Beowulf -- though others have traced the origin of the word Orc back through to the ancient Greek Phorkys).

I didn't realize it at the time, but the Hildebrandts' 1976 Tolkien calendar had among its plates a painting of Merry and Pippin captured by the Orcs! So, this definitively answers the question of who first created the porcine depiction. Further, after a conversation with Sarah Lauderdale, I contacted Greg Hildebrandt, Jr. and asked him if he knew where his father and uncle may have gotten the pig-snouted look from. Recently, I received his reply:

"My father and uncle, Greg and Tim, worked together on the calendars, even the same paintings. The immense detail and size of most of the images was truly awe inspiring. They worked long days and nights, not really knowing what it was leading to. The final image of the Orcs was a concept my dad, Greg, came up with. There was, as you may know from the original books, little exact description to come up with a detailed image. For their crude armor and clothing, he combined Roman soldiers and Viking armor. Their beastly look was something that evolved for him after several sketches."

Here, if I'm not mistaken, is an archived scan of one of the sketches mentioned above.

I would still love to know if the Brothers were influenced by Beowulf, or perhaps by Orlando Furioso, or even by the Gaelic word for 'swine'. But, I am content that the question of who came up with that particular look in modern pop culture has been unequivocally answered.

A Blog o' Fabulousness

2009-03-26T22:18:00.002-05:00

Said with a faux French accent: "This blog, it is fabulous!" Many thanks to Carla Nayland for bestowing upon my humble internet quarters the Your Blog is Fabulous! award. The recipient must name five things they are obsessed with, then nominate five other blogs they think are fabulous.

First, five things I'm obsessed with:

1. Orcs. Yeah, you didn't see that coming, did you? For those who might be new to my blog, this is a long-held obsession that borders upon mania. As a kid, I didn't want to be a policeman or a fireman -- I wanted to be an Orc. This doubtless speaks volumes about my character or my self-image or some other bit of Freudian doublespeak, but I don't really worry about that. I probably should, huh?

2. Writing. Another given, that. I love to tell stories, to entertain. You'll likely never learn anything about the human condition from a story of mine, and I'm fairly certain the folks at Pulitzer will never come a-knocking, but I'm proud of the fact that I know how to make a battle in the ancient world come alive. I can kick loads of fictional ass, and I am content.

3. Reading. Give me books and you'll never hear a peep out of me. Deny me books and I get rather surly. My friend Leah said it best: "You don't live in this world. You live everywhere else." It wasn't a question and her voice held no condemnation. She understood.

4. RPGs. Role-playing games have been the one constant in my life since age 11. Even before I knew I wanted to be a writer, I wanted to be a half-elf thief who, with his companions, made the Keep on the Borderlands safe for civilized folk. Truly, I'd play 6 or 7 days a week if circumstances allowed. Probably for the same reasons I read . . .

5. Friends. Though the FBI would probably classify me as "a loner", I'm actually anything but. When I close the books or look up from the writing, I like to have my friends around. I'll never play solitary games like World of Warcraft or Everquest because I enjoy real-time socializing too much. Granted, much of my socializing takes place over dice, food, or an Xbox controller, but the important thing is my friends are there.

And now, five blogs I think are fabulous:

1. Grognardia. James Maliszewski knows how to buckle a swash, old school.
2. Kristopher Reisz. One of my above-mentioned friends, Kris has a way with words few can match -- even when he's writing about nothing.
3. The Silver Key. Brian Murphy is one of those guys I'd love to game with.
4. The Cimmerian. Leo Grin, Steve Tompkins, and the Crewe take erudition to a whole new level. Where ever he is, I know REH can't help but be pleased to have such partisans.
5. Loud, Percolated and Confused. Because Sarah Lauderdale's Orc-fu is greater than mine (as is her Search-fu, and probably her d20-fu).

And, I have to mention the subtle change Carla made to the award graphic. Go look at the version on her blog, then look at this one :)

An Adventuring Band, Each Member a Special Snowflake . . .

2009-03-24T21:33:00.004-05:00

Last Saturday was the first of three Worldwide D&D Game Days this year, each one set to coincide with the release of a new core book for Wizards of the Coast's Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition. Being a geek of the highest calibre, I repaired to my local comic shop/gaming establishment (Haven Comics, owned by the erstwhile Josh) and partook in the festivities. A good time was had by all. Later, though, we repaired to Darren's house, to the infamous War Room, and settled in for another session in our ongoing 4E campaign. And herein is where we set our tale . . .

First, a little backstory. We're playing monsters: an Orc (yeah, guess who THAT is), a Drow, a Minotaur, one of the Dragonborn, and a Doppleganger. We first created them for a little one-shot session meant to tide us over until we could begin the next big story arc in our Witchfire Campaign. But a curious thing happened . . . the DM, Quinn, got his mitts on copies of Goodman Games' PC Pearls and Alderac's Ultimate Toolbox. Being the adventurous sort, we used these tomes to give our characters' "depth". Actually, it made us into a jolly band of special snowflakes . . .

It turns out my Orc rogue -- a tough-as-nails kneecapper and legbreaker -- lacks the ability to whisper, will wink at people as though they are in on some secret, and has a rap sheet impressive both in its length and variety.

Darren's multiclassed Drow ranger/sorcerer has a serious stuttering problem, as well as a nervous twitch that causes him to blink uncontrollably. Unfortunately, he also has lascivious intentions toward his stepmother. His warcry often takes him a few minutes: "I w-w-w-will d-d-d-d-dominate you!"

Yoshi's Doppleganger, who is part sorcerer and part rogue and who most often takes the form of a halfling, is batshit crazy. He carries around the carcass of a dead cat, which he talks to and asks tactical advice, and he is a compulsive flower-picker. His hobby is glass-blowing (ostensibly, he makes little vases for his flowers).

Kristie's Minotaur ranger is a narcissist, ever primping and polishing her horns, who has a raspy smoker's voice that makes her sound like one of Marge Simpson's sisters. She grew up on a hippy commune and believes in free love, baby. Free Minotaur love.

Finally, there's Kristen's Dragonborn paladin of evil: towering and muscular, it's black scaly hide marked with death's head tattoos, and around it's neck a host of religious symbols. Fearsome, until you notice it's totally walleyed . . . like a demonic pug we have to steer in the direction of the enemy.

Seriously, I don't think I've laughed so hard in all my life. Now, we've been hired by a nobleman to do some delicate investigative work on his family's behalf. Hmm. Delicate. Thank the gods he met us in a dimly-lit tavern . . .

Geez, Scott! Make Up Your Mind Already!

2009-03-09T21:44:00.004-05:00

Okay, Orc is off the menu again.

Remember when I said this: Things may yet change again; I might be hip-deep in Orc prose and be forced to set it aside to work on another project (a project which cannot be spoken of at this time)? Well, the Project-Of-Which-I-Cannot-Speak has indeed muscled the Orc book aside. All I can say for the moment is it surely is a pain in the cuirass . . .

I shall speak more about it when I can. For now, though, let me distract you with a box of kittens!

Torn No More . . .

2009-02-28T10:07:00.003-06:00

I've decided on the name of our erstwhile Orcish protagonist (drumroll please): KRAIBEG. It's a happy medium that encompasses the things I liked about the name "Kraibag", while removing the annoying "Cry-bag" connotation. I nearly went with "Kraighaash", but that name proved just too long for my tastes -- especially when coupled with some of the Human names in the book.

So, Kraibeg . . . it's short, it's punchy, it has the requisite Tolkien feel, and it has the ring of our own history to it (IMHO). It reminds me of the name Aibeg/Aybeg, a sultan of the Egyptian Mamelukes. Oh, and so no one's confused: it's pronounced "KRAY-beg".

You're probably wondering, Gentle Readers, why the sudden emphasis on things of an Orcish persuasion (at least, more of of emphasis than usual) and especially on this book, which was originally slated to appear after the Assassin books. Well, the short answer is: things change.

Lion of Cairo and its sequels have been shifted to the back-burner for the time being. The reason? Well, it's long, convoluted, and involves lawyers so I can't speak much about it (suffice it to say it's a contract problem with my former publisher, not some sort of tabloid plagarism case or fear of Islamic retaliation). Rather than work on something that, let's face it, may never see the light of day, my editor and I have decided to move forward on the Orc book.

Things may yet change again; I might be hip-deep in Orc prose and be forced to set it aside to work on another project (a project which cannot be spoken of at this time), but that's just the way this business works. Along with persistence, one needs flexibility*. Does it suck? Absolutely! Lion is probably the finest thing I've ever written; to sit on it and do nothing is driving me bat-shit crazy. But, c'est la vie. That's the way the business works.

Thus, for the foreseeable future, Orc is back on the menu :)

*As my friends can attest, I'm one of the least flexible people around . . . this wrinkle, you can imagine, is killing me by inches.

I'm Torn . . .

2009-02-24T13:56:00.002-06:00

I need your able guidance, O Gentle Readers. I have two names for my Orcish protagonist, and I can't figure out which one works best. Which do YOU like?

1. KOTHRIC: This is a faux-Vandal name meant to evoke shades of Gaiseric. It has a very human sound, which is both pro and con; according to my friend Josh it's a name one could easily root for. To me, it's good but lacks savagery.

Their captain, Kothric, overheard. One muscular arm laced with scars and ritual tattoos shot out and snatched a handful of Slit-nose’s hair, hauling him off-balance. Kothric bared his teeth, fangs gleaming against his swarthy hide. “Fool! We do as we’re told, or have you forgotten the collar you wear around your scrawny neck? You go where the Prophet tells you, when he tells you!” He gave Slit-nose a contemptuous shove. Like the rest of the soldiers in the trench, Kothric, too, wore the iron collar of the Gurah-fihrun, the warrior-slaves of the Zhrokari Mountains—called Orcs in the tongues of Men. The pitted band identified him by name, owner, and birth-camp, plus carried an additional admonishment to obey the Prophet in all things. Like a good slave. Kothric spat, glanced up. “Now quit your yammering and get your cursed heads down!” He raised his shield . . .

2. KRAIBAG: This is a name derived from Tolkien's Black Speech (it is the name given when I typed my buddy Lance's name into an Orcish Name Generator, and was the name of his character in my all-Orc D&D campaign). To me it immediately evokes the savage non-human, which is also both pro and con. Other concerns are likeability (could you root for an Orc named Kraibag?) and pronunciation (I say KRAY-bag, you say CRY-bag).

Their captain, Kraibag, overheard. One muscular arm laced with scars and ritual tattoos shot out and snatched a handful of Slit-nose’s hair, hauling him off-balance. Kraibag bared his teeth, fangs gleaming against his swarthy hide. “Fool! We do as we’re told, or have you forgotten the collar you wear around your scrawny neck? You go where the Prophet tells you, when he tells you!” He gave Slit-nose a contemptuous shove. Like the rest of the soldiers in the trench, Kraibag, too, wore the iron collar of the Gurah-fihrun, the warrior-slaves of the Zhrokari Mountains—called Orcs in the tongues of Men. The pitted band identified him by name, owner, and birth-camp, plus carried an additional admonishment to obey the Prophet in all things. Like a good slave. Kraibag spat, glanced up. “Now quit your yammering and get your cursed heads down!” He raised his shield . . .

So, which do you like best? Any explanation would be greatly appreciated, too.

But, Do They SOUND Like Orcs?

2009-02-16T22:26:00.003-06:00

Dragons roared from the walls of Siphäis . . .

Siphäis. A city of untold thousands, of broad plazas and ancient winding streets nestled in the green hills of the Aornus Valley; it was the capital of Pelassia, its heart and its soul. Poets sang of the strength possessed in those walls, both in the pale stone of its battlements and in the sinew of its citizens—a strength that had kept it unconquered for a thousand years and more. Recessed into a mammoth barbican hung with war banners that caught the morning breeze, Siphäis’ single gate faced east, toward the rising sun; it was a ponderous thing of iron and oak, its panels carved with leering faces that bore the scars of unimaginable strife.

This morning, dragons guarded the gate.

Like beasts of legend, these dragons spat fire and belched clouds of sulfurous smoke. These were not creatures of flesh and blood, nor were they covered in scales like some overgrown reptile. No, the dragons of Siphäis rested on wooden carriages, their bodies of blackened iron and sculpted bronze, and from flared mouths they hurled projectiles of rough-hewn marble into the sky and down upon the besieging army of the Prophet of Ash’a.

Siege trenches zigzagged toward the city walls, gouged into the rich black earth by the hands of the Prophet’s slaves, their courses dictated by the needs of his engineers. At key points wooden planks spanned the trenches; over these makeshift bridges did Cassianus, the Prophet’s general and his sister’s son, deploy soldiers against the gate: ram-and-sledge crews, mantlet bearers, archers, light infantry. Simultaneously, using the trenches as cover, a strike force of heavy infantry hustled to the front.

The dragons roared . . .

“Down!” the captain of the heavy infantry bellowed; the reverberations of the dragons drowned out his voice. His soldiers, though, knew well what to do. They crouched in the stinking muck of the trenches, tugged their battered shields over their heads, and awaited the impact of the projectiles.

“White-skin bastards!” one of them muttered. He was a villainous fellow with a slit nose and beads of yellowed bone woven into his snaky locks. “We should be upcountry! Ha! We should be looting and making ourselves fat on hoarded wine, not squatting in this shit-hole!”

“Aye,” others agreed, adding their curses to his.

Their captain, Kothric, overheard. One muscular arm laced with scars and ritual tattoos shot out and snatched a handful of Slit-nose’s hair, hauling him off-balance. Kothric bared his teeth, fangs gleaming against his swarthy hide. “Fool! We do as we’re told, or have you forgotten the collar you wear around your scrawny neck? You go where the Prophet tells you, when he tells you!” He gave Slit-nose a contemptuous shove. Like the rest of the soldiers in the trench, Kothric, too, wore the iron collar of the Gurah-fihrun, the warrior-slaves of the Zhrokari Mountains—called Orcs in the tongues of Men. The pitted band identified him by name, owner, and birth-camp, plus carried an additional admonishment to obey the Prophet in all things. Like a good slave. Kothric spat, glanced up. “Now quit your yammering and get your cursed heads down!” He raised his shield . . .

Whistling presaged impact. Clawed fingers tightened around spear shafts and sword hilts; knuckles cracked. Muttered curses turned to whispered prayers as a dozen stone projectiles slammed into the earth above the trenches. Dirt and slivers of rock rained down on the Orc soldiers. Kothric heard a wooden bridge splinter; the stench of human blood mixed with the blanket of dust and debris settling over them. The lower half of a human torso cart-wheeled into the trench, trailing entrails like obscene streamers. It struck the far wall and slid into a parody of a sitting position.

“Just like a White-skin to cop a squat when there’s work to do!” Kothric stood. Metal flashed through the clouds of foul smoke drifting over the siege lines; atop the walls dragoneers scurried around, readying their infernal machines for another barrage. “Up you damned laggards! Move! Or do you want the White-skins to grind your bones to flour? They want your blood, you curs!”

Howling, the Orcs charged through the network of trenches . . .

Playing with voice, mostly. What say ye, Gentle Readers: do they sound like Orcs?

Mazes and Minotaurs

2009-02-06T22:17:00.003-06:00

“Beginning with you, Phoebus, I will recount the famous deeds of men of old, who, at the behest of King Pelias, down through the mouth of Pontus and between the Cyanean rocks, sped well-benched Argo in quest of the Golden Fleece.” —Apollonius of Rhodes: Argonautika, Book I.

Thus begins the epic tale of Jason and his intrepid Argonauts. I would bet most of us have never read Apollonius' version (I've not read it in its entirety), but we neverthesless know the story thanks, in no small part, to Ray Harryhausen's excellent 1963 film Jason and the Argonauts*. We know about the Fleece, and Medea, and poor Hylas, and the Clashing Rocks. The tale has become part of our cultural heritage, in a manner of speaking.

Imagine, then, what the world would be like today if back in the late 60's and early 70's Gary Gygax had allowed himself to be influenced more by ancient Greek myth and Harryhausen's celluloid epic than by Tolkien and Medieval Europe . . . rather than Dungeons and Dragons we might be playing Mazes and Minotaurs. That would be cool, huh? Well, as they say: ask and ye shall receive . . .

In 2002, in an article on RPG.net, veteran game designer and ancient historian Paul Elliott (whose RPG Zenobia might just interest a few of you, Gentle Readers) posed the same question. He hammered out an alternate history in his article, gave a few tantalizing details about this Mazes and Minotaurs game, and extrapolated some of the same triumphs and troubles as what befell D&D in its early days.

Enter French game designer Olivier Legrand, who read the article and decided to make the game Elliott referenced a reality. And -- by Zeus! -- what a game he did make! Here is Olivier in his own words about the creation of M&M. I only recently discovered it, and though I've not played it yet it is every inch an awesome homage to Gygax, original D&D, and Harryhausen's animated skeletons! But, Legrand didn't stop there. He and the game's fans have constructed an elaborate alternate publishing history that stretches back to 1972 (the game really only dates to 2006, but the 2006 edition is supposedly "a reprint of the 1972 original"); what's more, he also created a second set of rules that mimic the shift in the early days from D&D to Advanced D&D. And, as if it couldn't get any better, every stitch of it -- every word, phrase, and random encounter table -- he offers 100% free of charge. Rulebooks, supplements, gaming aides, and a mammoth 200-page adventure. Free.

And don't equate "free" with poor workmanship or playability, either. Despite it's origins as a parody of sorts, Legrand has created one of the best systems since, well, since Uncle Gary put pen to paper. It's elegant, simple, and captures the feel of ancient Greece as well as the nostalgia of 70's-era gaming. His .pdfs have a very professional layout, with art and Greek key-motif page borders. I'm looking forward to getting some players together and fighting the Trojan War all over again, or maybe seeking out the ferocious Medusa . . .

If you want to check out the "1972 Original Rules", go here.

If you'd prefer the "1987 Revised Rules", go here.

Supplements can be found here.

*Directed by Don Chaffey; Harryhausen gets the lion's share of the credit because it's his stop-motion animation we remember.

"Dear lord, there's a tribe of you!"

2009-01-17T22:01:00.005-06:00

The title of this post is in reference to something uttered by my friend, Quinn. The occasion? I had just told him there was another person out there putting together a bibliography of Orc material. He seemed a bit thunderstuck. My response was as you might expect: "That's right. We're legion, baby. Legion!"

Being a writer, I'm something of a narcissist and a tad bit self-absorbed . . . which explains the Google alert I have tagged to my name. Anything that appears online with Scott Oden in it gets sent to my inbox (it's so I can keep abreast of any reviews. Honest). That's how I first learned of my fellow Orc-o-phile, the Lauderdale. Specifically, this post. As you can see from the comment trail, Orc-o-philes are a cordial bunch -- truth be told, we're positively giddy when we come across another who shares our obsession. The Lauderdale (whose name, I hope she doesn't mind me revealing, is Sarah) graciously sent me a copy of her bibliography.

Gentle Readers, let me tell you: what she has compiled is nothing short of the holy grail of Orc scholarship! If Tom Shippey and Steve Tompkins ever decided to collaborate on a book about the nature and creation of Orcs, Sarah's bibliography must be part and parcel of the project! Whereas I limited my own bibliography to published novels, she has done no such thing. Fiction, non-fiction, magazine articles, short stories, games, music, film and animation . . . even at least one instance of Orcs appearing in Japanese animation. Forty-five pages and counting! And, it's done in exacting scholarly detail, and with annotations. I hope she doesn't mind me posting a couple of examples of her work:

"Orc Hosts, Armies and Legions: A Demographic Study." Mythlore 16.4, no. 62 (1990): 10-16.
Loback undertakes to show a developing concept of Orc military organization and, by inference, overall Orc demographics, in Tolkien’s fictional world of Arda. He does so by examining both the fiction that Tolkien published during his lifetime and the posthumously published materials edited by his son, and by focusing on certain repeated words throughout, such as “host,” “army” and “horde” as used by Tolkien to describe Orc military forces. Over the course of this study Loback presents a theoretical table of organization for different groups of Orcs and their full strength in numbers, presents overviews of Orc-warrior strength in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Ages, and postulates corresponding estimates for the larger Orc population.

And . . .

McBride, Peter. "The Sign of the Orc." London: Rainbird Software, 1987.
“The Sign of the Orc” is a novella originally published as a pamphlet accompanying
the text-based videogame Knight Orc. The novella is intended as background story for the video game and focuses on a band of orcs who find themselves repeatedly cudgeled, enchanted and otherwise aggravated by the adventurers roaming freely through their mountain hold. In addition to the leader Grok, orc characters are numerous and include the humorously named Oink, Brainz, Samantha, and Grindleguts. Grindleguts is of little significance as a character in this story but is nonetheless notable for being set up as the protagonist of Knight Orc.

It's amazing stuff*! Luckily, a great deal of it is posted on her blog. Here is the link to all of her bibliography-related posts. Bravo, Sarah!

*In fact, I am scrapping my own bibliography -- which was at best a diversion. This is the real deal, and it is far more deserving of the appellation Great.

Shagrat the Barbarian?

2009-01-08T22:11:00.005-06:00

Cross-posted at

When Tolkien created the Orcs, he unleashed upon the world a blighted race that embodied the worst aspects of ourselves; a race whose name became synonymous with cruelty and hate, with savage violence and genocidal fury. Slaves, they were. Foul servants of fallen gods and dark lords and wizards who had strayed from the light. But, an odd thing occurred: Orcs evolved beyond the scope of their creator. They grew and multiplied. Their origins and aspects changed; they infested dungeons beyond number, became the military backbone of ambitious princelings and sorcerers-who-would-be-kings, and even found their way into the Chaos-wracked depths of space. But always they remained lackeys. Single-minded minions. Sword-fodder beneath our contempt. And yet . . .

And yet, not long ago Wizards of the Coast sparked a furor when they announced that half-orcs would no longer be a core character race in the 4th edition of Dungeons and Dragons. Fans wanted them to stay; some even declared that no game could bear the D&D banner and not have half-orcs. Indeed, the past few years have seen a sort of Orcish renaissance burst upon the fiction scene: a US omnibus edition of Stan Nicholls’ Orcs, Morgan Howell’s Queen of the Orcs trilogy, RA Salvatore’s The Orc King. But, rather than the villainous beasts typified by Tolkien, these modern Orcs have been engineered into perfect exemplars of the Noble Savage.

Though I have a long-abiding love of Orcs, I find myself unable to accept them in this new heroic role. And what’s behind it? Why change their most basic nature? Is it to make them more palatable, to give them the same whitewashing that has turned vampires from bloodthirsty undead to teen sex symbols? Whatever the reason, Orcs have been stripped of their subservience and villainy, rehabilitated from their coarse and brigandish manner to become fantasy’s new barbarian archetype. Nicholls’ Orcish protagonist Stryke, leader of the Wolverines, is Gaiseric reborn, fighting the tyranny of an empire while trying to find safe haven for his people. And, if Stryke is Gaiseric, then Howell’s Kovok-mah is cut from the same cloth as Geronimo or Sitting Bull — close to the earth, plain-spoken, and ruthless in battle. Obould, Salvatore’s Orc King, wears the mantle of Temujin, an inimical Genghis Khan in the making.

While interesting characters all, in none of these do I recognize the DNA of Tolkien’s Orcs. Where is Grishnakh, with his serpentine voice and arms hanging nearly to the ground, or Shagrat, the captain of Cirith Ungol who longs for “the old times” when the big bosses did not hold sway? Where is quarrelsome Gorbag, quick-footed Snaga, or trusty Mauhur? Perhaps a sliver of proud Ugluk lurks in Obould’s heart, but not in the others. They are Orcs in name only, sadly bereft of the characteristics that made Tolkien’s timeless creation stand out. Steve Tompkins over at The Cimmerian said it best:

. . . to reconfigure them as an unlovely-but-arguably-racially-profiled warrior-race, unrestricted free agents looking for a destiny of their own is to risk losing the plot. It’s precisely the fact that they were gengineered in the hells beneath the halls of a Dark Lord – “And deep in their dark hearts the Orcs loathed the Master whom they served in fear, the maker only of their misery” – the tension between slavery and sentience that characters like Gorbag and Shagrat evince, that renders them so compelling.

Wise words, and something to think about when, in the near future, I begin my own foray into Orc fiction.

Note: For the past few weeks I've been part of the new Black Gate blogging crew. I'm still getting the hang of it. Rejoice, for Thursdays are the days of Scott . . . thus should you mark them on your calendar.

Note 2: Right, I'm not going to try to make my Orcs into noble savages. Even if I go the Greek myth route expect them to be twisted, gritty, quarrelsome, prone to violence for the sake of violence, and possibly cannibalistic . . . they will also speak in full sentences, eschew the use of "z" as a plural, and NOT have any sort of Cockney accent. They're Orcs, not idiots . . .

2009: Year of the Ox

2009-01-01T22:43:00.003-06:00

2008 has given up the ghost, its bones swept aside to make room for the New Year. While 2009 is still all flush with youth and full of promise we'd best get on with the business of making resolutions, right? Right?

Yeah, me neither. This year, I've decided against spouting out sweeping declarations of what needs must be done to make the year a success; instead, there's a few things I know I should work on -- things that fall under Life's general upkeep. I should learn to prioritize my time better, to work smarter if working faster is out of the question. I should get back into the basic rhythm of writing again (I've taken close to three months off, dithering on little side projects and the like), reconnect with the joy of words and not let the business aspects of it worry me so much. I should pay closer attention to my health; while I'm not overtly ill, I have a horrible diet and a total lack of exercise (I'll be 42 this year, and I've become aware of my mortality). Walking and eating better cannot but help. I should curb my enthusiasm for certain hobbies -- gaming, specifically -- especially when they start to eat into my work time. And a passport: I should get one now if ever I want to fulfill my dream of traveling overseas.

So, those are a few of the areas that need attention. Anyone else have anything they'd like to work on?

Merry Christmas, by Crom!

2008-12-24T22:15:00.005-06:00

"Woe to the sons of whores on my naughty list!"

*Image pilfered from the Conan.com forums by a band of Zamorian thieves . . . err, elves. Zamorian elves.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Happy Birthday, O Blog of Mine

2008-12-20T23:28:00.002-06:00

Four years ago -- December 20th, 2004 -- this blog was born. It came about in response to that age-old authorial question: what can I do to promote myself? What can I do to make that connection with readers and would-be readers? At the time, blogging was all the rage. I got the idea from Beth Ciotta, who was the first to welcome me into the blogosphere; her own blog was still all shiny and new, too. I think in the intervening years some of the luster has faded from blogging. Personally, there are times when I hate it. But it serves me now not only as a way of reaching readers, but as a cheap and generally effective form of therapy :)

None of it would be even slightly worthwhile without you, Gentle Readers. You guys and gals keep me going on those days when I doubt I have even a modicum of talent with words. You make each little milestone far sweeter with your enthusiasm, your encouragement, and your passion. You've even found a way to overlook my oft-times embarassing Orc fetish . . .

So, for four years of highs, lows, laughter, and the occasional tear . . . I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

As I grow older, my thoughts turn more often to mortality and legacy. How will I be remembered, if I am to be remembered at all? Of course, I'd like to be remembered as an author, as a scholar perhaps, and as a story-teller. Especially as a story-teller. I write historical fiction; for me, nothing compares with taking a little known episode from history, fleshing it out, making obscure names into living and breathing human beings, and presenting the whole to a modern audience. It gives me an inexplicable thrill to convert those ambivalent toward history into fans. The phrase "Why wasn't history like this in school?" is my intoxicant. Mainly, because I, too, was ambivalent in school.

The history bug didn't strike me until much later, until I began researching ancient societies in advance of attempting to create my own fantasy world, a'la Professor Tolkien. I started with an encyclopedia on ancient Rome, but quickly found my niche in ancient Egypt -- specifically the Late Period, when Egypt, Greece, and Persia vied for the world stage. Amid names that carried centuries of weight, names such as Thebes, Memphis, and Palestine, I found my calling. What I didn't realize in school is that every page of history, every sidebar and footnote, practically vibrates with the drama of human emotion: love, hate, jealousy, greed, lust, war, peace. The very foundations of good story-telling sat right in front of me for more years than I realized, even as I flailed about in search of them. I fell in love with history.

So, what will this blog be about? Writing, history, and the puzzlings of a man who spends entirely too much time sitting at a desk and thinking. Maybe, just maybe, I can convert a few readers, too. -- From my very first post.

Lion of Cairo Revisited

2008-12-12T22:58:00.003-06:00

If you recall, Gentle Readers, I finished up The Lion of Cairo at the end of September. I mailed it off to my agent, my editor, and a handful of beta readers, then closed out the file and stuck it in one corner of my computer -- out of sight and out of mind. Well, today I dug in there and pulled it out, again. I settled in with a glass of tea and a bit of chocolate to nibble and gave it a good and proper read.

I cringed in a few places; I jotted down a half a page of notes on things I need to change (mostly word choices or ways to dispose of vile, hateful passive-voice constructions). But, overall it was rather decent, if I do say so myself. My nods to REH didn't seem too out of place, Assad (the protagonist) did precious little whining and kicked appropriate levels of ass, and my sorceror (Ibn Sharr) came out believably mysterious. I think in a few places I stray closer to melodrama than I care to admit, but as a whole it fits together. LoC even continues my predilection for what Kris calls "architecture porn" . . .

Over the holidays I'm going to be gathering up the threads of plot that tie Lion of Cairo to The Damascene Blade and hammer out a synopsis. I've taken an inordinately long break from writing, as you may have noticed, and now it's time to get back into the swing of things . . .

Postscript: I don't know if we're still on track for an early 2010 release or not; things have slowed down with the recession, but I've been assured by all involved that it WILL be coming out just as soon as possible. Sometimes, Publishing can be an exercise in patience . . .

The Great Orcish Bibliography Project

2008-12-01T23:22:00.005-06:00

One of the most oft-used search terms that bring people to this ol' blog is "orc fiction" (closely followed by "spartans" and, well, my own name). Being the helpful sort, I thought I'd compile a bibliography of known Orc fiction for those seeking such things . . . and I'd like to solicit your aid, O Gentle Readers! Let us undertake the Great Orcish Bibliography Project together!

Here are the guidelines:

1) Our focus shall perforce be narrowed to published works only; no fan-fiction or the like (if we include fan-fic, it's likely the size of the thing would spiral beyond my control).

1a) And, for the time being let's limit ourselves to fiction. No RPG sourcebooks or adventures. RPG tie-in novels are fair game, as are video game tie-in novels.

2) Orcs must be prominent to the story, not just mentioned in passing. Ideally, they should be protagonists or primary villains; either way, they should have speaking roles of some kind.

3) Leave your offerings as a comment and I'll do the job of formatting and inserting them into the main body of the post (or, if you'd like to be helpful, just format your offering like the entries presented below).

So, without further ado . . .

The Great Orcish Bibliography Project

Anderson, Kevin J. The Orc's Treasure. New York: IBooks, 2005.

Argo, Sean-Michael. The Killing Spirit. Frederick, MD: PublishAmerica, 2004.

Dalmas, John. Orc Wars: The Yngling Saga, Books I & II. New York: Baen Books, 1992.

DeCandido, Keith R.A. World of Warcraft: Cycle of Hatred. New York: Pocket Books, 2006.

Farmer, Christopher J. Fallen Elves: The Second Neoluzian War. Lincoln, NB: iUniverse, 2004.

Gentle, Mary. Grunts. New York: ROC, 1992.

Golden, Christie. Warcraft: Lord of the Clans. New York: Pocket Books, 2001.
———. Warcraft: Rise of the Horde. New York: Pocket Books, 2006.

Hines, Jim C. Goblin War. New York: DAW, 2008.
(Third book in the Jig the Goblin series; only one to feature Orcs)

Howell, Morgan. Queen of the Orcs: King’s Property. New York: Del Rey, 2007.
———. Queen of the Orcs: Clan Daughter. New York: Del Rey, 2007.
———. Queen of the Orcs: Royal Destiny. New York: Del Rey, 2007.

Loeland, Kai Morgan. Battle of the Orcs. Milton Keynes: AuthorHouse UK, 2006.

Long, Nathan. Orcslayer. Nottingham: Black Library, 2006.

Lyons, Steve. Death World. Nottingham: Black Library, 2006.
(WH40K Orks)

Major, S.J. Children of the Orcs. Milton Keynes: AuthorHouse UK, 2006.

Mitchell, Sandy. Caves of Ice. Nottingham: Black Library, 2004.
———. Death or Glory. Nottingham: Black Library, 2006.
(WH40K Orks)

Nicholls, Stan. Bodyguard of Lightning*. London: Gollancz, 1999.
———. Legion of Thunder*. London: Gollancz, 1999.
———. Warriors of the Tempest*. London: Gollancz, 2000.
(*Also collected in the Orcs Omnibus)

Parker, Steve. Rebel Winter. Nottingham: Black Library, 2007.
(WH40K Orks)

Salvatore, R.A. The Thousand Orcs. Reston: Wizards of the Coast, 2003.
———. The Orc King. Reston: Wizards of the Coast, 2008.

Scanlon, Mitchell. Fifteen Hours. Nottingham: Black Library, 2005.
(WH40K Orks)

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Hobbit. New York: Ballantine Books, 1965.
———. The Lord of the Rings. New York: Ballantine Books, 1965.
———. The Silmarillion. New York: Ballantine Books, 1979.

Caveat: I'm merely compiling a bibliography; I don't vouch for the quality of any of the above works.

On the Bedside Table

2008-11-19T23:19:00.001-06:00

I’ve been on a reading binge of late – especially after a day of literary debauchery through the bookstores and cafes of Nashville last month (but that’s a whole ‘nother story). Here’s a few of the things I’ve been reading:

I’m getting my modern war fix via Ambrose’s Band of Brothers and Mark Bowden’s Black Hawk Down. Though I enjoyed the HBO series made from the former and the movie made from the latter, one cannot go wrong by going back to the cinematic inspiration (now, I want to get my hands on Col. Winters’ memoir, Winters being the CO of Easy Company).

Another movie that prompted me to find the book was David Ignatius’ Body of Lies. As good as the movie was, the book stood head and shoulders above it. I expect I’ll read it again one day soon.

In fantasy, I picked up Paul Kearney’s The Ten Thousand . . . this one, it might surprise you to learn, just isn’t doing it for me. I much prefer Michael Curtis Ford’s The Ten Thousand; above all, though, I would rather read Xenophon’s original. I think my problem with Kearney’s version is not enough was changed.

The Age of Arthur: A History of the British Isles from 350 to 650 by John Morris . . . wow. Just wow. It’s dense, crammed with info, and almost too much to process. I don’t know how accurate it is, but it’s sure a hell of a lot of fun to read. I also picked up an Arthurian encyclopedia and an encyclopedia of the Knights Templars.

This is but the tip of the book-lovin’ iceberg . . . I got a volume of Norse myth waiting in the wings, as well as a catalog of artifacts held in the National Museum in Athens, two books on the Crusades, a book on the Medieval soldier . . . almost too many to mention. Watch this space for more short reviews.

What books have you enjoyed lately, Gentle Readers?

Orcish Antiquities

2008-11-09T22:28:00.002-06:00

Before I line up my ducks to begin Damascene Blade (Lion of Cairo’s sequel), I’ve been giving some thought to my upcoming Orc book. The fairly recent revelation wherein I highlighted my difficulties at sustaining an original world has given rise to worries galore. How, for instance, am I supposed to convince readers to suspend their disbelief and buy into the verisimilitude of my creation when I can’t even convince myself? How do I bring it to life enough that I might achieve a positive to the previous question? I have two answers to the latter.

One, I could attempt to tap in to what I call the Tolkien Effect: immersive world building that includes such bits of erudition as genealogy, linguistics, crafting myths and legends, lists of war-chiefs and their deeds, and an exhaustive history of the Orcish past. In the hands of a competent world-builder, the Tolkien Effect would create a wealth of information that could then be woven into the narrative. However, I'm balking at this because I’m not entirely convinced I fit the label of “competent world-builder.”

Or, I could eschew a wholly created world altogether and attempt to insert Orcs into our own mythological past – mixing Greek and Germanic myth with REH’s Worms of the Earth (themselves a riff off Arthur Machen’s tales of the Little People). Steve Tompkins of The Cimmerian illuminates the problem of taking Orcs out of their milieu far better than I can. He writes:

“. . . to reconfigure them as an unlovely-but-arguably-racially-profiled warrior-race, unrestricted free agents looking for a destiny of their own is to risk losing the plot. It’s precisely the fact that they were gengineered in the hells beneath the halls of a Dark Lord – “And deep in their dark hearts the Orcs loathed the Master whom they served in fear, the maker only of their misery” – the tension between slavery and sentience that characters like Gorbag and Shagrat evince, that renders them so compelling.”

Though he does make a fine point, I'm nevertheless leaning toward inserting Orcs into ancient myth as the spawn of Phorcys and Ceto, a brother-and-sister duo who gave birth to some of the most fearsome denizens of the Greek mythological landscape. The use of Phorcys is especially noteworthy since, according to Robert Graves’ notes in his two-volume The Greek Myths, Phorcys/Phorkys becomes the Latin Orcus – a Roman god of the underworld whose name is at the etymological heart of the word Orc. But still, I’m faced with the very problem Steve Tompkins elucidates so well: without a Dark Creator to fuel their hate and their fear, Orcs tend to slip into clichéd roles, savages who serve either as sword-fodder or one-dimensional foils.

What might work is to have them be slaves of Hades (much like how the race of Cyclops serves Hephaestus as forge-workers), who toil never-ending on the great palaces and prisons of Tartarus. Punishment for some transgression, such as fighting on the wrong side in the Titanomachy or perhaps for stealing the secret of ironworking from the Cyclopes (Hades could have seen some worth in preserving the Sons of Phorcys from the wrath of Hephaestus). It’s still quite rough*, of course, and there’s a great deal of time between now and the moment I needs must commit something to paper. What say you, Gentle Readers? Any opinions either for or against?

*Rough, and utterly devoid of plot . . . I've got nothing even resembling a clue for how such a story would unfold.

All Hallow's Eve, Flambe . . .

2008-11-03T22:13:00.009-06:00

No, I want you to set a fire so goddamn big, the gods'll notice us again, that's what I'm sayin'. I want all of you boys to be able to look me straight in the eye one more time and say: ARE WE HAVING FUN OR WHAT? -- "Top Dollar" (Michael Wincott), The Crow

It's become almost cliche: when monsters gather, inevitably there will be peasants with torches along shortly to bust up their party. You know what I mean? No? Well, then, it seems I got some 'splaining to do . . .

This past Friday, Halloween night, marked our fourth annual murder mystery dinner party (this was last year's). Another Darren Cox production, this year's theme was "Murder at Horrorwood Studios" -- all the classic horror monster stereotypes set against the backdrop of a B-movie studio. Darren transformed his house into "McCobb Manor", the location for Horrorwood Studios long-running Necronomicon series. We, the party-goers, portrayed the cast and crew.

(From L to R: Adam Porter as the Mad Scientist; Jess Wadley as the Evil Queen; Jason Hatfield as Frankenstein's Monster; Kim Dickerson as the Seductive Devil; Alicia Mayo as the Wicked Witch; Heather Westfall as the Bride of Frankenstein; Jason Quinn as the Ghost of American Idol; Kristie Oldaker [kneeling] as the Ghost; Me as the Classic Vampire; Lance Yoshioka [kneeling] as the Shambling Zombie; Kristen Clark as the Masked Enchantress; Darren Cox as Inspector Dick Rockwell; Scott Westfall as the Wolfman; not pictured: Teresa Couch as crime scene investigator Consuela Solo Iglesias)

The Night began with an unfortunate murder: August Derleth, head of Horrorwood Studios, was most foully slain in the attic of McCobb Manor.

(The late, lamented Mr. Derleth, as portrayed by "Steve", an underpaid stunt body)

As we arrived to celebrate Halloween, however, we were met by Inspector Dick Rockwell, who accused us all of murder -- then mugged for the camera.

(Dick Rockwell hobnobbing with the well-coiffed undead, veteran actor Drake Yewlarr)

Being the enterprising sorts, we guests took it upon ourselves to ferret out the murderer in our midst. We met in the Grand Gallery to discuss motives (and to nibble noshes):

We searched the grounds of McCobb Manor, including the ominous Cemetery, for clues:

And paused to flash gang-signs at the paparazzi (because, yo, that's how we roll):

Finally, we amassed a great deal of evidence and were sitting down to put the pieces of the puzzle together when disaster struck!

(A mountain of evidence pointing to . . . oh, and yes: that's the real August Derleth)

Peasants -- or a curious little cat who shall remain nameless -- snuck into the room where the evidence (and the snacks) were being kept and set fire to the nosh table! No, I'm not kidding. Our intrepid CSI, Consuela Solo Iglesias, happened to turn around and saw a column of fire rising from the snack table. It licked the ceiling. Though we managed to extinguish the fire (who knew punch doubled as an effective flame retardant), the professionals were called in to make sure the peasants didn't come back:

And I learned an ineffable truth, Gentle Readers: chicks dig fire fighters:

(Huntsville's Finest, bogarting our wimmenfolk; you'll notice on the table in front of them that my cheese dip survived the conflagration)

By evening's end, we flushed out the killer (I'm looking at you, Scott Westfall!), ate chili, and made entirely too many fire jokes*. As you can see from the pic below, our host and his better half are happy to have a roof over their heads:

To top it, next year we're going to need to borrow a cathedral, a flame thrower, and Chuck Norris.

*I distinctly remember, as the last embers of Yoshi's Hawaiian Spam thingies were drenched in punch, Darren glancing over to me, no small look of relief on his face, and saying: "chips and road beers, and be quick about it!")