Platypus of Truth

The repentant sadist chastens rude Caucasia with the blade of too Euclidean love In that place where Simon Magus sits playing with his cards Queens Kings Knaves Placing her under the unmerited obedience of the hazel rod Which is A ruler fit for bookstore clerks and men that play at being kings Simon Magus Simon Magus Simon Magus in the mirror The unicorn has lost her mate which found her when the wild hazel was young But now it has all been turned to rods that are his horn To rub between a maiden’s bosom And she grieves for the wild hazel which was young in spring Who knows the proper use of horns Seeking him ever in the heaving breast of Gaul not knowing that he is gone to Logres Simon Magus Simon Magus Simon Magus in the mirror There at Pentecost saw Taliessin the young king Arthur crowned And Bedivere rejoiced And Balin swore As rays of vert and rose and azure smote down upon the window and danced about the king But Taliesin there in...

We're finishing out the summer here with a trek back through the films of Hayao Miyazaki and with that a little look at some of his source material.  In this case, that means a read through Diana Wynne Jones' "Howl's Moving Castle."  The film adaptation of this book is one of my favorite Studio Ghibli films and I've watched it numerous times over the past several years.  This is the first time, however, that I've turned to pick up the novel. Stepping into Diana Wynne Jones's world of whiny wizards has been a treat.  There's a quirky fractured-fairy tale feel to the whole book that's actually subtle enough not to overwhelm the story with irony; what Tolkien calls "the author's wink at the other adults in the room."  The characters and settings function well both as archetypes and as individuals so that the fairy tale feel is preserved right along with all the trappings of a modern psychological novel.  For those who were introd...

After the herculean task of blogging through "The Mammoth Book of Fantasy," it's been good to take a bit of a breather.  I'll have to ponder a bit more before I can definitely say what I learned from the experience. Meanwhile, I have not been idle.  My wife and I have been working through some of the Tolkien Professor's lectures with all the accompanying reading that entails.  We've also started re-reading the Harry Potter books.  In addition to that, we've been making use of our Netflix account.  With that, we come to the real purpose of today's post.  This week, we've had the fun of watching two recent visually rich films; real treats for the eye.  The are studio Ghibli's "Tales From Earthsea" and Christopher Nolan's "Inception." "Tales From Earthsea" is actually the directorial debut of Hayao Miyazaki's son Goro.  In that respect, the film is just a fun chance to see the next generation of studio Ghi...

The Edge of the World by Michael Swanwick Well, it's been a long hall.  Shifting constantly from author to author, from genre to genre, can take a lot out more out of you, page for page, than just sticking to one.  Maybe that's why I've never liked fiction anthologies.  I usually just skip over that section in the bookstore.  Still, reading through this particular anthology was worth it.  It's expanded my knowledge of the genre and put new and interesting authors on my radar.  With that preface, let's turn to Michael Swanwick. "The Edge of the World" is a fitting name for the last short story in this collection.  In a sense, we've come to the boarders of the genre.  Like Swanwick's protagonists, we've shifted from great and mighty heroes, to cynical adventurers, and withered into broken, whiny teenagers frantically hoping someone will notice them.  There no longer seems to be any purpose or meaning to existence, so why not cease to exist...

The Phantasma of Q--- by Lisa Goldstein This piece has a bit of a steam-punk flair mixed with the "lost world" fantasy that we saw with A. Merritt's "The Moon Pool."  It also has a touch of the "turn-about" mystery we see in Tanith Lee's "A Hero at the Gates."  All of this is in keeping with the trend of the last few stories in the collection toward an increase mixing of genres and techniques. It makes sense that fantasy writing becomes more complex the closer you get to the present.  Think about it.  When Dunsany created his unique voice, or when Robert E. Howard got Sword and Sorcery up and running, the novelty of their creation was enough to hold the audience's attention.  Once they had done their thing, however, there was only so much of a spin subsequent writers could put on it before everything in that genre or mode came to sound like a pastiche.  As genres and modes proliferated, so did the number of authors writing in t...

Nets of Silver and Gold by James P. Blaylock Blaylock gives us a piece that combines Harlon Ellison's minimalist fantasy with Theodore Sturgeon's "what if?" stories.  In so doing, it also fits in with Charles de Lint's penchant for writing fantasy in a pedestrian modern setting.  However, Blaylock adds a new twist in that he doesn't feel the need to explain the source or the meaning of the fantastic element.  It simply occurs, and we are left to guess its origin and import or else simply revel in the imaginative oddness of the tale.  I think the author would prefer that we do the latter over the former.  As del Torro reminds us when commenting on "Pan's Labyrinth," the old faerie stories never bother to explain the fantastic element; it's simply something that is.  G.K. Chesterton makes much of this in his essay The Ethics of Elfland, which serves as part of his larger autobiographical work "Orthodoxy," by saying that never reall...

The Man Who Painted the Dragon Griaule by Lucius Shepard   Yes, I am slowing down.  Reading two short stories a day, or even one, is beginning to prove existentially exhausting.  I'm not sure if that's because I'm reading other things as well or not.  Perhaps this story hasn't interested me as much as some of the others?  I don't know. "The Man Who Painted the Dragon Griaule" is about a young artist who proposes to kill an already half-dead dragon that dominates a town by painting him.  The idea is that the toxins in the paint will eventually build up in the dragons system and finish him off.  Being desperate to get rid of the beast, which still exerts a psychic influence over the town, the magistrates empower Meric Cattanay to carry out his massive plan.  The story continues, interspersing bits of biographical work about Meric and his painting with scenes from Meric's life as he labors to cover the dragon in paint.  We are allowed to see...

 I think teaching makes you late for a lot of things.  It makes me late for film.  Usually, I'm not missing much, but sometimes I am.  This is one of those times. I liked "Pan's Labyrinth."  I liked the lighting.  I liked the costumes.  I liked the story and the leisurely way in which it unfolded.  Seldom have I seen anything so richly imagined on film.  Predictably, it wasn't done by Americans.  The New Zealanders, the Japanese, and the Spanish all have us beat. Yes, there was violence in the film, but I was surprised at how little del Torro seemed to relish it.  This movie could have been packed with bloodshed if he'd wanted it to be.  What is there is in the service of fleshing out his world and helping him ask the questions about pain, fantasy, and transcendence that he wanted to ask.  Maybe he still guessed wrong on the amount needed, but I'm not skilled enough a critic to know. One thing I can speak on is ...

My annual summer video game is now complete.  I have finished my first action rgp, Titan Quest.  All in all, it was a satisfying game.  The world was richly imagined, the learning curve was fair, and if you know what you're doing it can be beaten on the first go (contra Diablo?).  Of course I didn't know what I was doing, but it was possible to get back on track without playing the game over again.  My only only critique: I would have liked more cinematics and a little more development of the plot (which was rather interesting and written by Randall Wallace of Braveheart fame), but I understand that some fans of the genre feel that these things get in the way.  If you like video games and ancient history, this one is worth checking out (especially since you can get a package deal at Amazon for 8 bucks!).

The Moon Pool by A. Merritt Evidently, A. Merritt was popular at the turn of the century and then promptly disappeared from the public mind.  However, one can see strong similarities between his work and more well known contemporaries H. Rider Haggard and H.P. Lovecraft.  There's quite a bit of similarity in tone and plot to Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness."  That said, Merritt's inclusion of women as major characters keeps him from simply being "Lovecraft before Lovecraft" and places him in with Haggard in terms of sensibilities.  All that to say that if you like either of the other two authors, it's worth giving Abraham Merritt a try. The plot of "The Moon Pool" falls into the "lost world" genre, and narrates the quest of Dr. Throckmartin and company to uncover a lost Pacific civilization in the doctor's own words.  As a clever Platonic move, Dr. Throckmartin himself is not our narrator, but his friend Mr. G...

Pixel Pixies by Charles de Lint I have to confess that I've been interested in reading a little Charles de Lint ever since I saw John Howe's impressive covers in "Myth and Magic."   Of course, seeing a John Howe cover can make me want to pick up just about any book.  I made that mistake a while back with David Gemmel's "Legend."  Now I remember not to judge a book by its cover.  That said, I am pleased to report that in the case of Charles de Lint the picture matched the writing.  I haven't gotten as much delight out of any of the other stories in the collection as I have out of "Pixel Pixies." Enough gushing, let me summarize.  "Pixel Pixies" tells the story of Bookstore owner Holly Rue and her resident Hobgoblin Dick.  Holly doesn't know Dick exists, but he helps keep her shop in order every night so long as he has free range of the books.  This nice little relationship is threatened when a gaggle of pixies begin ...

Paladin of the Lost Hour by Harlan Ellison A lonely Vietnam war vet saves an old man from hooligans at the cemetery and then takes him in when he finds that the old fellow has no place to go.  They're an odd couple, even being different races, but they form a powerful friendship that helps them deal with past events they could never have tackled on their own.  Sounds like it could be a great story.  And it is.  Then there's this other story about a Pope who hid an extra hour inside a watch and gave it to his most trusted servant to guard because should the watch ever open, it would mean the end of the universe.  This watch has been handed down through the generations and now it's last guardian is dying and must find a worthy successor.  Harlan Ellison's task is to somehow combine these two stories into one in "The Paladin of the Lost Hour." "The Paladin of the Lost Hour" is a sort of minimalist fantasy.  That is the world of the story is as close...

Lady of the Skulls by Patricia A. McKillip   As with Tanith Lee, Patricia A. McKillip represents a return to an emphasis on well-crafted language as opposed to break-neck pacing.  Indeed, like Lee, the pacing of the story is much more leisurely, and it also has more than a little of the detective story about it.  Unlike Lee's "A Hero at the Gates," however, "Lady of the Skulls" is not a detective story disguised as a fantasy.  It is instead a modernizing of a traditional fairy tale trope: the choice that exposes the hero's heart. To summarize the action of "Lady of the Skulls," we are presented with the classic "maiden in an enchanted tower" trope.  The tower resides in the middle of a desert and is filled with all sort of amazing riches over which the lady serves as custodian.  A hero may spend twenty-four hours in the tower, but after that he must either leave or take what he believes to be the most valuable thing in the tower and l...

The Bells of Shoredan by Roger Zelazny Zelazny follows Moorcock and trumps him in matter of pacing over elegance.  His dialog sounds even more like a pastiche and his naming faculty is even weaker (ie. the "green boots of elfland").  Nevertheless, the pacing is so well handled that once you start reading its almost impossible to put down.  Short stories, lacking time for minutely developed plots and characters, seem the ideal form for this style of writing.  If this wasn't a short story I think that I might have burned out on mere pacing or that the thinness of the world would have overcome my interest and credulity in Dilvish's daring-do. Speaking of Dilvish (sounds like devilish?), Zelazny, as with Moorcock, Vance, and Howard, continues in the sword and sorcery tradition of creating anti-heroes.  This is something we don't see very much in earlier pulp writers like Edgar Rice Burroughs (or do we?).  Howard is a bit ahead of the trend, but the other ...

Moving on from Vance and back into darker fare, we come to Darrell Schweitzer and Michael Moorcock. King Yvorian's Wager by Darrell Schweitzer When I read the first few pages of this, I swore I was back in Earthsea.  Yvorian and his people seem strangely similar to fair-haired men of Karego-At and their god kings.   It is also similar in concept and tone, though not ending, to Clark Ashton Smith's "The Last Hieroglyph."  The form that the story takes, however, is that of a parable or a morality play.  The message we've heard before: it's better to be poor and have love and meaningful work than to be rich, loveless and idle.  Schweitzer is able to couch this moral in a story that, while still conventional, is able to capture the audience's attention and carry them through to the finish.  Overall, there is nothing outstanding about the piece except in so far as it shows the author's ability to tell a compelling tale.  So far in this collection,...