Industrial Revolution, Poul William Anderson

"Industrial Revolution" is a novella by the acclaimed science fiction author, Poul Anderson (1926-2001). It is available for free at www.feedbooks.com.

This novella is the story of how a corporate fledgling enterprise invested in an asteroid mining outfit. The group are referred to as 'asterites' without the capital A. Not sure why that is if they are a distinct people. The group was a part, or even the root of, the revolution. I suppose this is a nod to the Red Scare that America was undergoing in its efforts to undermine communist movements within the US.

On earth, America is going through a socialist revolution where the party in power is demanding that the government or the people ought to own everything. That includes an outfit that invested in a mining operation within Jupiter's orbit.

A naval vessel is sent out to deceive the group into thinking that a nuclear warhead was accidentally released and put the entire operation at risk. However, Blade (the protagonist) sees through the deception and jury rigs some devices to fight back. He succeeds, and the spirit of capitalism is saved.

A few things that short circuit a few points: first, when Blade threatens the captain of the vessel with his defenses, he claims that the hull of the navy vessel cannot withstand the explosion of Jupiter gas (which is supposed to be combustible. Though, of course, I don't see how that is possible) and that it doesn't have sufficient defenses against the improvised weapons. What kind of navy vessel is this that cannot defend itself against the equivalent of a bunch of rowboats? In any case, the ruse works. The mining operators are able to maintain their hold on the outfit.

This novella isn't as good as the last pieces of Anderson's that I read. I don't recommend it. But it is short.

The Escape, Poul William Anderson

Poul Anderson is another legendary science fiction writer who wrote during the Golden Age of science fiction. I don't recall having read any of his books before, so The Escape will be the first for me. It is freely available at Feedbooks.com.

At this point, I'm almost 3/4 the way through the novel. I think it's brilliant. It's a real work of genius. It's quickly shaping up to be the best science fiction story I've read this year. 

The book has some resemblance to George Orwell's Animal Farm. Animal Farm is the story of how some animals grow intelligence to rival their human owners, and rise up against them. However, this story takes it a step further. It's not just the animals: it's the humans, too.

There are essentially two narrative paths that Anderson writes from: a farming laborer, and a physics theorist. The farming laborer was of below average intelligence. He required some help to function, but was strong physically, honest, and important to the farm.

The amount of intelligence that everyone and everything gains is 'quadruple' of what it was.

While the premise is great, some of the assumptions seem mistaken. There is a general growing panic. The growth of intelligence has created a great deal of fear. For Brock, the laborer, the effect hasn't taken place. While the farm manager has decided to quit his job and undertake a new experience, and Joe the other laborer decides to take off, he remains on the farm. This, in spite of the fact that animals are approaching human levels of intelligence. They are able to overcome obstacles like latches. They know how to use their power to win freedom. It creates danger for him, including a near death experience with a bull. Many others, from the narration of Lewis, the physicist, are also quitting their dreary jobs that are important for survival: garbage men, for instance, no longer find their jobs interesting enough to continue their work. While this may be true, it does not mean that people would automatically cut themselves off from employment which gives them a source of income.

Another assumption that Anderson makes is that communication becomes stunted. He writes,

The conversation here was rapidly becoming a new language. The old way of speech was too slow and cumbersome, loaded with redundancies, ignrant of a thousand subtle possibilities. When your mind was of quadrupled capability, a single word, a gesture of hand, a flicker of expression, could convey whole paragraphs of grammatical English.

I believe, contrary to what Anderson is suggesting, that intelligence creates more language and more communication, not less.

However, these assumptions that greater intelligence creates such problems is not unheard of in fiction. Many Americans believe that intelligence causes problems. In fact, people graduating from universities with degrees are finding themselves without the jobs they thought they could have. There simply doesn't seem to be the jobs requiring the type of intelligence that is required to thrive in the work place. Is this a problem with intelligence and education, or is it a problem with our economy? That is a question I have been asking myself for a little while this year.

I have now finished this ebook.

At the end of this ebook there is a mob which nearly kills the physics scientist. They have gone mad and seem to have lost their wits.

The last chapter has Archie Brock, the farmer's laborer, returning home to find the pigs and bulls having taken over the farm. His dog, Joe, has nearly died. To his rescue came an elephant and some apes which understand English (isn't it funny that the increase in intelligence gives them the ability to understand English, but not the man the language of any of the animals).

I don't think that intelligence leads people into madness. I see madness as a defect of the mind, not a defect of superior intelligence. 

Warning! This book 'is to be continued.' After looking around for awhile, I have discovered that this book is only a part of the longer work, Brain Wave. I had a hard time finding it. I did not find it for free anywhere as a Kindle book. But there is a PDF available at librelib.com.

I really hate reading PDFs on the Kindle. One is forced to choose: a reasonably sized font and having to navigate through the document left to right, and then down, or put it on horizontal, which is still a bit small for my bad eyes and deal with it. I did this with Stephen King's book on writing. I will do it again for this book. But I really, really don't like it. However, I have discovered that one can convert pdf to mobi at pdftomobi.com.

The Daughter of Erlik Khan, Robert E. Howard

Robert E. Howard (1906-1936) is a legendary writer and pioneer of the sword and sorcery sub-genre of fantasy. "The Daughter of Erlik Khan" (1934) is available freely at feedbooks.com.

The main character is an American named El Borak. He has lived in and around the Afghan mountains for a number of years, establishing a reputation for being a dangerous fighter.

He is hired to escort and guide two Englishmen to rescue a friend. However, the mission was a fraud, as they were really after a young woman, Yasmeena, who serves a demonic cult as a goddess. Their intent is to capture her and return her to the man who 'loved' or felt insulted by her desertion.

He has similar characteristics to Conan. He is very strong and capable of withstanding physical trauma that would break anyone else. He manages to take over a group of men by killing their leader and promising great monetary rewards.

He manages to foil the kidnapping, and discovers the mining operation that had veins of gold so large that he could work chunks of gold out with a knife.

I didn't find this story quite as entertaining as "The Feud Buster," which I read last night. However, it's entertaining enough.

One comment, though, is that Howard has a way of touting the superiority of the white man. A white man living in the harsh reality of the Afghan is stronger and smarter than the others. The survival instinct, once mastered, gives him an edge over the natives around him who are in turn stronger than civilized men. This is a pattern that can be identified in other stories such as Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan stories where Lord Greystoke is raised as an ape, but has natural superiority of intelligence that gives him an edge over both his adopted ape brothers and the Africans whom he fights with.

There are moments of brilliant description that I admire that add a kind of poetic edge to his style.

The Great God Pan, Arthur Machen

The Great God Pan (1894) is a novella by Arthur Machen (1863-1947). There are several sources for the text: Gutenberg.org and Manybooks.com, to name but two. There is also a Youtube.com movie available, presumably because the movie is in the public domain.

I think I found this novella when searching for famous older horror stories or weird fiction a few months back. This was one of the novellas mentioned. The reception for this novella is a bit inexplicable for me. I found the text to be dull. Yet, Stephen King is on record for saying, "Maybe the best [horror story] in the English language." I would love to inquire from him why he thinks so. What have I missed?

The article on Wikipedia.org states, "On publication it was widely denounced by the press as degenerate and horrific because of its decadent style and sexual content, although it has since garnered a reputation as a classic of horror." I didn't find it degenerate, but nor did I find it particularly decadent in style or particularly sexual. I feel like everyone has read a different story than I have. John Lane wrote, "Why should he be allowed, for the sake of a few miserable pounds, to cast into our midst these monstrous creations of his diseased brain?" Yet, how monstrous can these evil characters be? H. P. Lovecraft writes, "No one could begin to describe the cumulative suspense and ultimate horror with which every paragraph abounds." Perhaps I'm not sensitive?

It all begins with a ruthless scientist who cuts a portion of the brain that blinds people to the horrors of some underworld, so that they might see Pan. The girl upon whom this surgery is conducted becomes essentially brain dead. To take care of her, she's sent to a farmer. Though it isn't explicitly pointed out that the farmer raped her, at the end of the story it becomes evident that the accused for instigating suicides is her daughter, and there was no one else to have gotten her pregnant I imagine. Pan himself is hinted to be the impregnator, however. Both Pan and the farmer were in her life at roughly a close enough interval that either could have been the father. Further, if she had been pregnant, why was this not discovered at an earlier point? Surely it must have been intentionally hidden.

The style is clumsy, as is noted by Stephen King who wrote, "surmounts its rather clumsy prose and works its way relentlessly into the reader's terror-zone. How many sleepless nights has it caused? God knows, but a few of them were mine. I think 'Pan' is as close as the horror genre comes to a great white whale." I promise I shall not lose a night's sleep over it. I will just shake my head in wonderment over the sensation that it caused in its day and the reception it continues to receive from a writer of King's caliber.

Hellhounds of the Cosmos, Clifford Donald Simak

This is the third story of Clifford Donald Simak's (1904-1988) I've read. "Hellhounds of the Cosmos" (1932) wasn't nearly as good as the other two I have already read of his. There is not much to say about it. It's available freely at Gutenberg.org. It was a bit painful to read. I don't know why I read until the end. I guess I was hoping for something interesting at the end, and it really didn't take long to finish it.

Essentially, the fourth dimension is attacking the third dimension. A scientist figures out how to send people to the fourth dimension to attack the attacker. All the people who are sent fill the creature that champions for them against the other. Eventually, it wins, but the scientist is unable to bring them back. I could dig around for the names to make a better blog entry, but the story sucks. I feel like I've already wasted my time. And, I think I've read enough science fiction for a little while at least.

There's the end of the world motif; us vs. them. Maybe there's a relationship between hell and the fourth dimension. But there's little to go by to verify the statement.

The other stories were quite good. So, I will definitely have to read a few more of his stories.

The World That Couldn't Be, Clifford Donald Simak

This is the second piece, though this time a solo, of Clifford Donald Simak's (1904-1988) that I have read. I am growing impressed with his stories. "The World That Couldn't Be" (© 1958) is available freely on Gutenberg.org.

This is an action-science fiction tale, well told and an easy read. It is worth reading.

Here is the motif of the colonizer on another planet. Like many other science-fiction tales I have read, the protagonist, Gavin Duncan, is trying to grow a valuable plant called vua, which is also a medicine. A kind of animal called the Cytha has eaten it, and it's his intention to hunt it down so it doesn't eat the crop again.

The native population begs him not to hunt the animal, but he ignores their advice. They are an inferior people whom he has basically enslaved to make him rich. The natives also have a unique attribute: they are sexless. There are neither males nor females. They do not have sex to procreate.

While with Andre Norton, I got a sense of how the non-white characters are inherently inferior, with Simak that sense is that the protagonist may think this, but Simak does not. Thus, "the good and faithful hound" (ch. 3) seems the character's thoughts, and not the author's. Eventually the native tracker that he enlists to hunt the Cytha kills himself by slashing his own throat, probably in an effort to strand him at the mercy of the Cytha he tracks.

The Cytha that Gavin sets out to hunt is not like most creatures, or even monsters in fiction. It's not until the finale that Gavin understands that the creature known as Cytha is not really a single organism, but rather an assembly of lesser organisms: young Native children, predators, etc. Thus, when he shoots it in the neck, it is not dead as a whole, but rather just some parts. The composition of the creature comes out when he has gotten his ankle stuck in a tree after a storm has blown through, while Cytha has fallen into a pit. Gavin helps the Cytha out of the pit, and the Cytha helps save him from predators and rescues him from the tree which trapped him. The Cytha is described as it tries to escape its own trap--a pit dug into the ground,

It was coming all apart... the Cytha broke down into a thousand lumps of motion that scurried in the pit and tried to scramble up its side, only to fall back in tiny showers of sand... There were tiny screamers (a predator reminding me of hyena) and some donovans (an elephant sized bear/tiger) and sawmill birds and a bevy of wild-devils and something else as well. (chapter 5)

Later it is indicated that the native population that he had enlisted to help with the work on the farm are also born of this creature. Thus, the tracker killing himself rather than helping to kill the Cytha would be like a human refusing to kill a baby (albeit a baby of superhuman abilities).

After helping the Cytha out of the pit, Cytha brings Gavin back to his home. They agree to not infringe on each other: Cytha not to eat of the vua, and Gavin not to hunt Cytha. Does this Cytha speak for all the other Cytha I wonder. If this is a small one, what would the hunter do when going after a big one? This question is neither asked nor answered.

The great thing about stories like this is that they are still relevant today.

Voodoo Planet, Andre Norton

Andre Norton (1912-2005) is a legendary science fiction writer from the Golden Age of science fiction. She wrote many short stories and novels. This novella is the best of hers that I have read thus far. It can be found freely at Gutenberg.org.

There are two major problems that I have with this novella. I will get into the worst first. I have seen a few accusations (after having read this book) about some of her works being suggestive of racism. I read this book first, and got that impression, before I checked online to see if others felt the same way I do. I did find some. James Nicoll Reviews wrote, "I really think Norton meant well when she decided to write this story (bless her heart!). You can see that she is trying to push back against the racist conventions of the era. Khatka is an advanced world!"

However, there's one key sentence that makes her racism beyond reasonable doubt:

...the white technicians they had kidnapped to run the ships didn't (thrive).  (ch. 1)

In other words, black people are too dumb to run the technical parts of a spaceship to make it to another planet. They have to kidnap others.

On the other hand, she does seem to see it as an injustice, the way Africans are treated, "... herded most of the natives into a giant concentration camp and practiced genocide on a grand scale." (ch. 1)

Most science fiction is a retelling of stories we tell about earth. That's what this is, but with blasters instead of revolvers, spaceships instead of oceanships, and drugs instead of herbs. Basically this is a battle between poachers and a sanctioned/licensed hunting group. In the mix, there are hallucinations that look like real lions, apes, and elephant-like creatures.

This story is a fast paced action story, and it has a lot of merit for it.

The other demerit I find in her writing thus far is the absence of women. There are no women at all in this story. Why didn't she write women or girls into her stories in a way that wasn't just a carrot to the ass (the protagonist)?

The motif of earth's basic destruction through war is reiterated in this book as has been done with the other two stories of hers that I have thus far read.

I recommend reading it, but keep the above in mind (or try to forget about it... up to you).

The People of the Crater, Andre Norton

Andre Norton (1912-2005) is one of the most celebrated science fiction writers of the 20th century. She is one of the great science fiction and fantasy writers. "The People of the Crater" is available for free at a number of locations: gutenberg.org, manybooks.com, and www.loyalbooks.com.

She wrote most of her stories under the pseudonym, Andre Norton, but also under Andrew North and Allen Weston. She was the first woman to be Gandalf Grand Master of Fantasy, first to be SFWA Grand Master, and first inducted by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. I don't think it was on the basis of this book. This is the first book of hers that I have read.

"The People of the Crater" is a novella set in a fantasy world. This is more of a fantasy novella than it is science fiction. Captain Garin Featherstone is an out of work pilot who loses his job as a war ends. He is approached to pilot a plane. However, this is essentially a trap.

Some aspects have science fiction aspects: the plane crashes. He is almost dead. He is restored to life due to some very advanced healing device. There is a stick that is a powerful killing and wrecking device. 

The culture is that of a kind of goblin. However, they are not cruel or anything. They are involved in a war. The black goblins, referred to as the Black Ones, are very sick and serve an evil master, Kepta. I do find this to be a bit of a racist setup. I'm not a fan of making black characters evil or associating the color black with evil or bad, considering all the problems with racism.  

He goes to an alien world where he is used to rescue a young woman referred to as 'the Daughter.' They determine him to be a good mate for her, he just has to rescue her first. He succeeds, but is nearly executed over a misunderstanding. Had he failed to love 'the Daughter,' they would have killed him. He had thought Dandtand had loved her, but he was in fact her brother. 

Another interesting element of this story is the idea of reincarnation. As Garin kills Kepta, Kepta says,

"No, I am not dead, Outlander—nor shall you kill me, as you think to do. I go now, but I shall return. We have met and hated, fought and died before—you and I. You were a certain Garan, Marshall of the air fleet of Yu-Lac on a vanished world, and I was Lord of Koom. That was in the days before the Ancient Ones pioneered space. You and I and Thrala, we are bound together and even fate can not break those bonds. Farewell, Garin. And do you, Thrala, remember the ending of that other Garan. It was not an easy one."

This story is OK. I have a number of her other books and novellas. I hope that they are better.

The Vampyre; a Tale, John William Polidori

This book, available freely for download at Gutenberg.org. The authorship is quite confusing: on the one hand, I had thought that the novella was written by Polidori. Then, having read the letters at the front and back of the story, I thought that Lord Byron had written it. Having now read the Wikipedia article about it, I no longer feel confusion and understand why I was confused in the first place. Polidori, in an attempt (I assume) to promote his book, put Byron's name on the cover to help move sales.

The introduction, titled, “Extract of a Letter from Geneva” includes a rather negative comment about women writers. Or, rather, a compliment of one particular female writer, Madame de Stael, followed by comments disparaging other female writers:

...that astonishing woman Madame de Stael: perhaps the first of her sex, who has really proved its often claimed equality with, the nobler man. We have before had women who have written interesting novels and poems... but never since the days of Heloise have those faculties which are peculiar to man, been developed as the possible inheritance of woman.

I almost dropped the book on that paragraph. However, being a short novel, I decided to push through. I don't suppose the author of that letter (I don't know for certain if that is Polidori himself or someone else) thought it possible that writing and education were discouraged of women. Often, women would hide their true gender behind male names in order for their writings to be taken as seriously as their male counterparts.

Aubrey is born to wealth, but not to parents who are deceased. As a result, his head is full of the romanticism of poetry, and entirely neglectful of the harder realities of life.

He makes a friend, Lord Ruthven, who is a character described as gladly giving to charity only when those to receive the alms are wanting to 'wallow in his lust, or to sink him still deeper in his iniquity, he was sent away with rich charity.' He loses in gambling those who ruin the desperate, the very money that he has won from the desperate.

He receives a letter from friends warning him away from Lord Ruthven, but he ignores their advice.

Lord Ruthven's hobby seems to be to ruin the good. As a result, Aubrey becomes a target of Lord Ruthven, who sets up a scenario where he is wounded. He pretends to be on death's door and asks Aubrey to grant him a dying wish. He does so, and Ruthven requests that for one year Aubrey would not speak of him no matter what would happen or be said. He agrees. He does not know that he has made a pact with a devil.

Ruthven targets Aubrey's sister. Aubrey wants to warn her, to stop her from marrying him, but he is chained to his word to Ruthven. I guess he never thought that Ruthven had deceived him by pretending to die, and therefore it would annul his own bond. In any case, the day before he is to be released from his pact, Ruthven marries his sister, presumably lies with her (thereby taking her virginity/innocence), and is then able to do what vampires do.

The story is a good short fiction. It's also a first for the genre. There's something especially sweet about reading books or novellas which are literary firsts.

There is another bit at the end about Lord Byron and how great Lord Byron is for caring little about literary profit (easy to say when one inherits wealth, though I recall reading he managed to waste it all).

Apparently this was the first instance of turning the shallower vampire myth into the romanticized version we know today. I wonder, knowing more about it now, if the first letter was written in an attempt at voicing another opinion rather than his own. There is mention of Mary Shelly. So, I'm not sure about his true opinion on that matter (and opinions change).

The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka

image from metamorphosisonfilm.com

I haven't read a lot of Kafka's work. But what I have read has been quite impressive. I am rereading "The Metamorphosis." I think this is my third or fourth reading of it. It is my first reading of it on my Kindle. It can be found freely at Gutenberg.

If Kafka had written "The Metamorphosis" and published a decade later, and perhaps better in English than in German (due to his Jewishness in an antisemitic country), he would have developed a following and been better encouraged in his art. But, perhaps it might be said that it is because of stories such as "The Metamorphosis" that there came Weird Tales magazine. It is a shame that his works should have remained in Germany, considering how much was lost, courtesy of the Gestapo, the 20th century's most famous and vicious intolerance.

"The Metamorphosis" is a masterpiece. It's true that I have an English literature background, and many of us are like stinky cheese eaters: we only make sense to one another. However, I detest James Joyce as a drunken buffoon who would have saved students countless wasted hours trying to comprehend that monstrous pile of steaming kak, Shakespeare was a cheating hack (though, such plagiarism was no crime in his day), and Hemingway brought about the death of good journalism. So, I do not subscribe to the general consensus of belongs on the list of greats and what does not. I suppose this should already be clear considering that most of what I read is not academic literature.

So the basic story is that one day, this salesman who has an otherwise very uninteresting life, wakes up and discovers he's at the end stage of being transformed, or metamorphosed into a caterpillar or other many legged creature.

There is some debate I ran into about whether or not Kafka was gay. If he was, then I can see the parallel here. In those days, gays were the scourge of the world. Germany in particular was intolerant towards those it saw as inferior or degenerate. Gays were definitely on their list of degenerates.As such, if the case can be made that Kafka was gay, I can see how this story is really about waking up and realizing that you're gay.

Both the character of Gregor Samsa and Kafka are of the same age. Samsa was 31 in the story, which was published when Kafka was 32 (so let's assume it was written the year earlier.) Samsa also sounds very similar to the name Kafka with obvious rhymes between the two names. Kafka also had a stint as a salesman which he quit out of hate for the work. Finally, while Samsa dies at 31, Kafka moves out of his family's home to live on his own at 31 (see Wikipedia's article). The story on where his family lived after he left the apartment, however, is not in the article and I doubt if I can find any information to answer that question. Suffice it to say that there are too many parallels between the story of Samsa and the story of Kafka to walk away from the assertion that Samsa is in fact Kafka, and that it is a kind of Twilight-Zonesque cross between a parable and a fable. Whether or not the physical change of being turned into a many legged monster is a result of his sexuality is a guess. The following will be my interpretation of how turning into a bug was actually a metaphor into his becoming a homosexual. Yes, I am aware of the theory that homosexuality is something people are born into, not constructed (there are good arguments for both theories). However, this could very well be the defining moment, these months of transfiguration in his room, between when he realizes he is homosexual and when he accepts that he is homosexual. The death of the bug itself might in fact be when he himself has accepted it and has moved on.

Gregor Samsa must have felt great pressure to provide for his family despite the fact that he detested his work.

Image from greatbookstudy.blogspot.com.

...he felt a great pride that he was able to provide a (quiet) life... But what now, if all this peace and wealth and comfort should come to a horrible and frightening end?

A metaphor for his increasing alienation from the family and his anxiety about the change:

He spent the whole night (under the couch). Some of the time he passed in a light sleep, although he frequently woke from it in alarm because of his hunger.

Optimism, or a positive way to interpret his sister's fear of him,

Then, out of consideration for Gregor's feelings, as she knew that he would not eat in front of her, she hurried out again and even turned the key in the lock so that Gregor would know he could make things as comfortable for himself as he liked.

Obviously, she locked the door so that he could not get out of the room and terrorize the family, not out of consideration for himself. For, she is free to lock or unlock it, as is anyone else who chooses to enter. But he cannot.

The only family who cares enough about him to feed or otherwise take care of him, is disgusted enough that she cannot touch any of the food that he could not eat. She sweeps it all into the trash.

Nobody wanted to be left home by themselves and it was out of the question to leave the flat entirely empty.

They hold onto the hope that one day Gregor will return to them the way he was before. He rarely mentions, however, wishing that he could return back to his 'human' form. Is this because he knows he cannot? His family wants him to change back.

Towards the end, the sister has reached the limit of her tolerance for her brother's change. She seems either ready to turn him out or kill him.

I don't want to call this monster my brother, all I can say is: we have to try and get rid of it.

As Samsa is dead, and we never do discover what is done with the body: perhaps the maid has something important to say, but she is cut off and we never learn what she had done with it. She is furthermore fired as well as everyone else that knew of their relation to the bug.

The way the family treats Samsa is in fact a big clue as to how Samsa is in fact still a human being. That is to say, they know it's their son/brother even though there was never a reason to see the similarity between the bug and Samsa. What it is in fact, I suspect, is that they know about Samsa/Kafka's homosexuality, and are no longer treating him like a human being. He doesn't feel like a human being. As such, he wastes away and they all try to avoid him as best as they can. When the father throws the apple at him and hits him, the injury never heals and in fact the apple is stuck on him until Samsa's death. In fact, this is not a physical thing so much as it is an emotional thing. The fact that things are thrown at him, at Kafka, even long after the apple is thrown away or eaten, the emotional injury never leaves.

This book is excellent and really addresses the feelings of anxiety associated with being different. It's not just homosexuals who are different. However, they of course have had some very rough treatment at the hands of the intolerant as a result. What I mean is that being a homosexual, especially in Kafka's when and where, would have been a mountain, whereas most of us have to deal in hills.

I wish more of Kafka's work was available freely online. However, since they are translations, one must exercise patience. Kafka's short stories are among my favorite and he is among my most admired writers.

The People of the Black Circle, Robert E. Howard

Image from Howardworks.com

As mentioned in my previous blog post, Robert E. Howard is one of my favorite fantasy writers. Perhaps had he lived another 30 years, he might have written something as grand as Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. This is a novella which can be read in a single sitting. It is one of the better ones available at Gutenberg.org. If you are wanting to start somewhere, this is pretty much as good as it gets. One of the great things about Howard's fiction is that, despite the stories having the same heroic character, Conan, they are all perfectly independent and can be read in any order. In fact, he wrote them in no specific order. Also, this one can be read in a single sitting as it is a novella.

This is not the first time I've read this story. I have read it many times over a period of 30 years. I have read it in the well illustrated Conan Saga series, in paper with the very cover I reposted here, once on my cell phone and once on my Kindle. I don't know if there's any other writer I've reread so many times (aside from Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" and a few other poems).

A group of wizards, the most powerful of their kind, referred to as the people of the black circle, get involved in the political workings of their neighbor. They destroy and slowly kill a king, and his sister wants revenge. Meanwhile, Conan's got some of his tribesmen in the prisons and are being used as hostages. As Conan goes to negotiate for their freedom, he runs into the Devi, who is this kingdom's heir to the throne.

There are many puppets and puppet masters in this story who work above and below board in this tale. It is complex and dynamic, which is quite amazing for a novella. But Howard is not one to waste words. We don't get to find out what he ate for breakfast or spend a lot of time checking on his feelings. He's a brute of a man who is loyal to his code of honor. As such, he becomes a good companion to Devi and takes her all the way to the black circle where he is able to dispense of all of the worst Stygia has to offer.

This is one of the stories that will make you really appreciate fantasy fiction and give you a good taste of Howard's magical style. Fritz Leiber wrote, "It has stirring language, strong motives, awesome sorcerers, brilliant magical devices, sympathetic hero-villains, and a Conan subdued enough to make the outcome interesting."

Gods of the North, Robert E. Howard

Image from The Crom Cast.

For a very long time I have been a fan of Robert E. Howard. How unfortunate it is for me and many
of his readers that he cut his life so short. At the age of 30, due to depression on account of his mother's death, he killed himself. Literary success, had he hung on a few more years, surely would have come his way. But in the end, happiness and success are not bound to each other, right Robin Williams? I did some serious reading of most of his books when I was in my teens, and have recently reread them.

"Gods of the North," a short novella, is available freely on Gutenberg.org.
 
In a great battle, there are but two survivors. They clash together and thanks to Conan's trusty helmet, and a killing blow, Conan survives the ordeal. Even as he barely clings onto consciousness, a nearly naked girl comes into the scene:

Image from fictionbook-lib.org

Her body was like ivory, and save for a veil of gossamer, she was naked as the day. Her slender bare feet were whiter than the snow they spurned. She laughed, and her laughter was sweeter than the rippling of silvery fountains, and poisonous with cruel mockery.

Beautiful, Conan is taken over by lust. She leads him on, always just out of his reach. But this vixen has no love for our hero. She is bringing him as the main course for her brothers' dinner. They, being giants, do not expect a mortal half dead from battle to offer much combat. Not only can he still fight, but he kills them as well.

He is ready to rape her. But just as he gets to her, feet bleeding from running, she disappears even as he grasps her gossamer gown. He then learns the story from an old man:

"It was Atali, the daughter of Ymir, the frost-giant! To fields of the dead she comes, and shows herself to the dying!"

Found at The Crom Cast,  "...Atali is Siren-like. Not because it absolves Conan from being a rapist, but because it fits the evidence we're given in the story better." It seems to me that perhaps the criticism is trying to avoid labeling Conan as a rapist. Quite frankly, throughout all the books of Howard's that I have read, I have never seen a character of his rape a girl. This is as close as it gets. But this brings up an interesting topic which is common in rape culture theory: a girl can say no at any time. Well, this is the ultimate test of such a theory. What if in this fantastical world a girl is siren-like. She can compel a man to follow her by using her charms, but does so at her own peril. Eventually she is defenseless and has to be rescued by her father (or destroyed?) If her father hadn't saved/destroyed her at the last moment, Conan would certainly have raped her. Would his reputation therefore suffer? Would he no longer be the heroic figure who would champion beautiful women against impossible odds, but rather a man who gives into his passion despite the vixens protestations? I think I would have forgiven Conan for it. But Howard loved his mother far too much to let Conan so soil even the tantalizing 'siren.'


I really love Robert E. Howard's stories. He writes very well. If you've thought about trying some classical fantasy hack-and-slash literature, it gets no better than Howard. While many compare him to Lovecraft, Lovecraft simply isn't on the same battlefield.

R. H. Barlow once wrote a poem in memoriam for Robert E. Howard shortly after his death. He laments Howard and Conan, as being one and the same. Little did he know that Conan would rise from such an ignoble end, and continue hacking and slashing. However, while the likes of Robert Jordan lent a pen to such a resurrection, the truth of the matter is that they were in no way able to match Howard's brilliant narrative style. However, I think Barlow very nearly captured Howard's poetic narrative in "R. E. H."

R. E. H. 

Conan, the warrior king, lies stricken dead 

Beneath a sky of cryptic stars; the lute 

That was his laughter stilled, and sadly mute  

Upon the chilling earth his youthful head. 

 There sounds for him no more the clamorous fray,

 But dirges now, where once the trumpet loud:  

About him press old memories for shroud, 

And ended is the conflict of the day.  

Death spilled the blood of him who loved the fight  

As men love mistresses, and fought it well—  

His fair young flesh is marble where he fell 

With broken sword that vanquished all but Night;  

And as of mythic kings our words must speak 

Of Conan now, who roves where dreamers seek.

 R. H. Barlow 1936

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Washington Irving

I am sure I have seen the movie, though I cannot recall anything of it. This story is famous, I think, and prominent amongst American horror literature. I am certainly familiar with the figure of the Headless Horseman, which has always been a favorite of mine.

Being short fiction, no time is wasted in setting the tone. The image of a peaceful valley is interwoven with that of a headless horseman allegedly in search of his lost head.

The narration is in first person but the narrator has no place within the story.

The first character described in any depth is that of the school teacher, Ichabod Crane. The school teacher is also the headmaster: his school being run by himself alone. His life described is quite a contrast to what teachers see today. "...his worldly effects (are) tied up in a cotton handkerchief," while he lives on a different farmstead each week. He is not just a teacher, but helps the farms with the menial labour which is never ending. He is a gossip. Despite all the good words describing him, it is then written that,

he was a perfect master of Cotton Mather's "History of New England Witchcraft," in which, by the way, he most firmly and potently believed.

which is one wicked piece of writing.

Another character, Katrina Van Tassel, described as a coquette (flirt) for wearing a

 provokingly short petticoat, to display the prettiest foot and ankle in the country round.

But, all his efforts are for nothing: the more masculine Brom Bones was perhaps the only real contender while she may have used him as a means of motivating Brom to propose.

As Ichabod returns home, he is intercepted by Brom who pretends to be the Headless Horseman. He terrifies him so badly that he leaves and never returns.

The story has some really gorgeous descriptions of the settings in which the scenes are played out. But, I was a bit disappointed by the fact that the story wasn't really scary at all. The climax left me wanting.