Bizarre Books by Ashe & Lake

This is not some lost list of role playing tomes. Rather, it is a compilation of of awkward titles of published books. Most of the titles listed are publications from Great Britain, the edition which I have just read, the first U.S. publication, is from 2006. Bizarre, comical, intriguing or just plan wrong, Ashe and Lake have included book titles that will capture the interest of anyone brave enough to investigate their compendium.

How does this fit into a blog which is usually about Weird Fantasy Role Playing Games? Let me start with The Planet of the Knob Heads by Stanton Coblentz which appears to have been printed in the old pulp Science Fiction in 1939. The internet has a hand full of references to what was potentially Mr. Coblentz's masterpiece, but there is no archival existence of this piece that I could find. I did, however, find six results for Coblentz on the Internet Archive. Three of these documents are publications of Amazing Stories, there we are sure to find some fodder for any Weird Science RpG we're working on.

Some of the book titles listed could easily be fictional titles from Weird Science lit;

• The Skeleton Edition of the Book of Comprehension No. 1, The Preparation X.13: The Rose Color Reference for Technical, Kindergarten and Nature Teachers
• To Lake Tanganyika in a Bath Chair by  Annie Boyle Hore
• In Dwarf Land and Cannibal Country by Albert Bushnell Lloyd
• Was Oderic of Pordenone Ever in Tibet? by Berthold Laufer
• The Trapping and Destruction of Executive Armoured Cars by John A. Minnery 

There is 215 pages of this stuff. As the following examples from the first two letters of the alphabet will illustrate, possibly the most useful info for an rpg is the list of authors' names.

• Istvan Apathy
• Gaspar Griswold Bacon
• Ludwig Von Baldass
• Jean Baptiste Banal
• Otto Banga
• Rudyard Kipling Bent
• Juana Bignozzi
• Rene Palapart de Bigot
• Bishop Boguphalus II
• Nancy Hess Omaha Boy
• Melt Brink

I'll consider that the names of the city council members for my latest Encounter Critical  burg, Nuevo Brussels. I also consider this further proof that wacky ideas and inspiration can come from anywhere. Inspiration doesn't have to be limited to High Lit. or the latest episode of Teen Titans Go!

Lastly, enjoy this phasic tune which I'm sure Hank and Jim listened to during the composition and play testing of Encounter Critical.

Upon Reading Chapman's Homer

Or, rather, some things I have learned from George R. R. Martin's A Storm of Swords.

1. How to name nonplayer charters or, names for the average Joes of medieval fantasy:

Alyn of Winterfell, Josh Quick-Bow, Little Matt, Anvil Ryn, Ser Ormomd, Ser Dudley, Pate of Mory, Pate of Lancewood, Old Pate, Pate of Shermer's Grove, Blind Wyl the Whittler, Goodwife Maerie, Maerie the Whore, Becca the Backer, Ser Raymond Darry, Lord Darry, Young Lord Darry, the Bastard of Bracken, Fletcher Will, Harsley, Goodwife Nolla....

This list is from page 465. Those who have read he book may recall it as a list of folks murdered by Sador Clegane, "The Dog."

2. How many plot seeds can one location contain?

"The Nightfort had figured in some of Old Nan's scariest stories. It was here that Night's King had reigned, before his name was wiped from the memory of man. This was where the Rat King had served the Andal king his prince-and-bacon pie, where brave young Danny Flint had been raped and murdered. This was the castle where King Sherrit had called down his curse on the Andals of old, where the 'prentice boys had faced the thing that came in the night, where Blind Symeon Star-Eyes had seen  the hellhounds fighting.  Mad Axe had once walked these yards and climbed these towers, butchering his brothers in the dark." (p. 756)

3. No surprise, G. R. R. Martin fashions a very authentic medieval folk song.

"My featherbed is deep and soft,

and there I'll lay you down.

I'll dress you in yellow silk,

and on your head a crown.

For you shall be my lady love, 

and I shall be your lord.

I'll always keep you warm and safe,

and guard you with my sword."

"And she smiled and how she laughed,

the maiden of the tree.

She spun away and said to him,

no featherbed for me.

I'll wear a gown of golden leaves,

and bind my hear with grass.

But you can be my forest love,

and I your forest lass." (p. 309)

I read this book over a year ago and it has been lying around while I've intended to post these comments. Now  off to Paperback Swap with you.

What passes for quality reading around here...

Here are two of the latest acquisitions for my library. I discovered 100 Fantasy Short Short Stories through Paperback Swap. Yeah, these are some short, short stories and I question if, at least one of them, qualifies as a story at all. Barry N. Malzberg's The Second Shortest Short Fantasy Ever Ever Published is less than a page long and the last paragraph is:

"The bullet bullet lodged deep deep in his brain he pulled pulled the trigger the bullet lodged lodged deep in his brain brain he he pulled pulled the trigger trigger the bullet"

So this story ends, with no punctuation. That's not what passes as quality reading around here but it was a challenge to type. However, I'm sure I will get lots of enjoyment when I settle down with the rest of the short, short stories.

At the suggestion of James Maliszewski I purchased Patrick Wetmore's Anomalous Subsurface Environment or ASE-1. I looked through the first twenty pages and I love this book! I shared it with the Adventure Capitalist last night and the all seemed to appreciate it too. I told the A.C. guys, "This guy wrote it just like I would and I'm sure I missed some of his inside jokes." If  you like swords & laser guns or mutants & magic you should definitely get a copy of Anomalous Subsurface Environment Vol. 1. 

Time Echo by Lionel Fanthorpe

The "splash" or "tag line" for Time Echo reads, "Out of the gray mist vague shapes were forming." Here's some gray mist for ya, I've devised my own category for these old paperbacks, which are not old enough to fit in the Pulp Fiction category, I call them Post-Pulp. The whole lot of them, the second generation Fantasy and  Sci-Fi writers, Fanthorpe, Carter, Stableford, they're all Post-Pulp.

Fanthorpe's the pulpiest of them all, his work borders on the Action-Adventure genre which isn't, normally, on my reading list. Time Echo has a simple enough plot; set in the year 2309, protagonist, Mike Grafton, flees the forces of dictator Rajak the Magnificent and stumbles into a time-machine during his escape. That stumble into the time machine is where Fanthorpe begins to work his pulpy magic, or the art of the vague gray mist. Grafton goes back in time to 1809 and Fanthorpe's backdrop is now, conveniently, the Napoleonic campaign. Fanthorpe doesn't pass up the opportunity to give us a four page biography of Napoleon's rise to military power. 

This book is only 144 pages long and, by page 88, I could not see Fanthorpe resolving his plot at the finish line. This tale reads like a writing experiment in character development. Each character introduced to the story gets many pages dedicated to their physical, psychological and emotional investment in the plot. This technique doesn't progress, enrich or support the plot line but, does add to Fanthorpe's word count and leaves the book wide open for plot flaws.

The most outstanding flaw in Time Echo is this line, "This was more that the art of any Houdini." Vague gray mist and all, this phrase is used by an Englishman, a native to the 19th Century,  seventy years before Houdini was born.

Fanthorpe spends about twenty-five pages each introducing the four central characters of the tale. Then, he ties up the plot with his trademark psychedelic scene. In a chapter titled "Realm of Insanity" two of the main characters enter a dimensional travel device, or vehicle, too, again, escape the security forces of Rajak the Magnificent. The dimensional travel device is, of course, untested but should take the passengers to an alternate Earth. Instead, it takes them on a seemly unending ride in the Tardis where a kaleidoscope of colors serves as a backdrop for multiple alien images and scenery. Due to a short circuit, the passengers eventually return  to their own dimension and time, Earth, 2903.

There is a lovable quality to Fanthorpe's work, a child like simplicity in the stories which don't require a basis in logic. Lists of random items seem to compose his tales; time travel, the Napoleonic Era and George Orwell's Eurasia all stew into a "time echo." The setting, 2309: Eurasia, could be the far future of Orwell's 1984 which Fanthorpe pays homage to in the following lines, "What, the cigarettes? ... These are only cheap ones; the good ones, now, that's what I call a smoke, but you can't get them unless you’re a member of the inner party." 

Inner Party member or no, Fanthorpe's many books are fun, relaxing reads emphasizing the occasional simple joy of a twisted, chaotic plot line.

Brak the Barbarian by John Jakes

I recently read the pistachio joy that is Brak the Barbarian. I didn’t know John Jakes had written these novels of adventure until I read The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories vol. 2 as edited by Lin Carter. I was familiar with Mr. Jakes for his novel North & South which appeared as television mini-series when I was an adolescent. I have probably mentioned, a time or two, I love the old Swords and Sorcery tales because they are just plain, fun reading. So, I found a copy of Brak the Barbarian through Paperback Swap to study this earlier work of Mr. Jakes.

This first volume of the adventures of Brak is dedicated to Mr. Jakes’ son;
"for my son Michael, who has yet to make the acquaintance of Conan,
The Mouser and Fafhrd, Cugel, or the rest of that splendid company
that Sprague de Camp has so aptly named The Brotherhood of the Sword."

During the entirety of this book Brak has one garment of clothing, a lion skin girded about his loins, and one weapon, a broad sword. While I find it hard to believe, I got the impression he wore the same lion skin through the entire tale. I know the broad sword had to be replaced after he threw the original sword into the eye a T’muk, a giant spider-like beast of the desert which bleeds acid.

Brak is no magician, diplomat or politician. He is just a simple barbarian who wants to journey to the southern extreme of known civilization, to Khurdisan the Golden. Brak’s knowledge of Khurdisan is limited to the rumors of the splendor and glory, beauty and treasures to be found there. As an outside observer of Brak’s world, I have to question why he’d believe the Khurdisan would be any better then the perilous lands which precede it. Perhaps I want to route for the underdog and I just can’t admit that Brak is witless as well as a barbarian.

One of the most memorable passages from the novel is, appropriately, Jakes’ description of one of many of the vile beasts which Brak is forced to face in combat;
"Arrowing towards him came a thing of great slimness but immense length. It had a flat, milky-blind eye in either side of its head. The head looked malformed because it widened out twenty times the thickness of the creature’s body and fanned, flicking tail. Gillslits as tall as Brak himself throbbed open and shut just above the water."
...
"Brak realized dimly that the monster must be some vile crossbreeding of life forms older than time. It was able to lift its long fish’s body half out of the pool by means of a series of froglike webbed appendages down either side of its shimmering scaled body. Brak counted eight, ten, twelve of those webbed half-legs on one side. They churned in a rhythm like galley oars as the Fangfish bore down."

In each chapter Brak faces a unique monster, each a new and deadly opponent from the imagination of Mr. Jakes. These creatures would be right at home in a fantasy role playing adventure If you’re looking for some new plot hooks, Brak the Barbarian could be research material for you.

The Imperial Stars by E. E. "Doc" Smith

Doc Smith is often credited as a major influence upon George Lucas and the characterization in The Imperial Stars could easily be developed into movie or television personalities. The Imperial Stars is one of Smith's later works, published in 1976, co-written with Stephen Goldin. The tone of this tale reminds me of the works of Alfred Bester. Like Bester's The Demolished Man, The Imperial Stars reads like an old pulp mystery or espionage plot set in a sci-fi or advanced technological society.

Just a plan ol’ quick and fun read and it's avaliable from Paperback Swap.

Swords against Tomorrow; edited by Robert Hoskins

This book is very fun and isn't that largely the point of fiction, to enjoy reading, to enjoy the tale. These tales, while enjoyable, light reading, are told by a Who's Who of Sword and Sorcery Fiction. I don't need to introduce these authors to anyone reading this post but only to mention their names; Poul Anderson, a multiple Hugo and Nebula Award winner, Fritz Leiber, famous for his Lankhmar series, John Jakes who is a bestselling author of Historical Fiction and Leigh Brackett who you all know.

I love these short story collection because they are very quick reads. Swords against Tomorrow is much like the old Flashing Swords series and Year's Best Fantasy series and has much the same cast of authors. I noticed that in the two final stories, by Jakes and Brackett, the heroes become altruist in the end. Jakes hero was Brak the Barbarian, of course, who surrenders the treasure of his adventure to restore the a town which had previously sold him into slavery. Brackett's hero, who could be Hans Solo with lines like; "Sister, will you for Pete's sake get that light out of my eyes," allows his own capture to insure the escape of the remnants of an alien race. Both these authors use a heroic quality rare in the Swords & Sorcery genre while Leiber's tale, Bazaar of the Bizarre, could be considered altruistic too since in involves Fafhrd rescuing Grey Mouser from his own foolishness.

Don't be fooled by my brief artistic evaluation of these tales, there is plenty of inspirational sorcery and bloodshed in these pages and I've posted the book at Paperback Swap for any who would like to read it.

Book Review: A Business of Ferrets

Like most of my book acquisitions, when I requested this book from Paperback Swap, I selected it randomly. My request for A Business of Ferrets was based on the book being listed as a graphic novel but, upon receiving the book, I discovered that it is not a graphic novel but, a traditional, text novel. This caused me to question; why was this book listed as a graphic novel? Having just read A Business of Ferrets, I now have a good idea about the answer to this question.

A Business of Ferrets by Beth Hilgartner is aptly titled as it is the story of the young thief Ferret and her friends, Owl, Mouse, Squirrel, Donkey, Kitten and Sharkbait. The bond and innocence of this group of young friends is dangerously contrasted with the Council Houses of the court of the fantastic Empire of Bharaghlaf. Throughout the tale the Council Houses show how childish and irresponsible they can be.

The names of the children serve as a foil for the ultimate tone of the plot of A Business of Ferrets. Mrs. Hilgartner cleverly builds her tale in increasing steps of danger and intrigue. The children are Slum Rats and their rights as citizens of the Empire are tenuous, at best, in an Empire with no prohibition against the evils of slavery and drug distribution. Rather, these crimes are the very markets which are controlled by the Council Houses of the Empire of Bharaghlaf. Ferret and her friends become deeply and often uncomfortably involved with the Houses in the slow progress of this craftily constructed tale.

A Business of Ferrets begins without pretext but the trappings of the tale are those familiar in fantasy fiction; magic, myth, royal courts and intrigue and thieves guilds with knife fights in allies. I believe that A Business of Ferrets was listed as a graphic novel because the shocking nature of the climax of the tale which starts simply enough with a group of slum kids who’ve named themselves after woodland creatures.

Andre Norton’s The Time Traders

Miss. Norton’s novel The Time Traders is another oldie, but, a goody. The Time Traders was first published in 1958 and the tone is typical of that golden age of Sci-Fi Lit. The main character, Ross Murdock, is a juvenile delinquent who is drafted into a top secret government program instead of receiving criminal detention. This program or project involves tracking the secrets of the “Reds” but the chase is through time as well as across the globe. The backdrop of the Cold War does not have the effect, with the immediate relevance, it held sixty years ago but it still serves as a meaningful historical marker and plot point.

The “project” takes the Time Agents to a time on the fringes of civilized history. The agents pose as traders of the era, the Bronze Age of Western Europe, in order to move through the ancient society in freedom. They, the agent -traders, must learn the language and practices of their historical setting to pass as legitimate members of the ancient society. I’m a real sucker for these 1950s era Sci-Fi and Norton has woven an intriguing story with the elements of time travel, history and alien involvement. The pace of the book was quick and I seemed to fly through the one hundred and ninety-one pages. The plot pace reminded me of a Robert E. Howard adventure containing action around every corner or chapter. The Time Traders is one of the Sci-Fi books on the 501 Must Read Books List. The Time Traders is also available as a Google Book, through Project Gutenberg and Paperback Swap dot com.

Recent Acquisitions: RPG and RPG related

Hello, my name is Chris and I have Gamer A.D.D. When I'm not distracted by my job or family I'm usually hunting to add new items to my collection of role playing games and related material.
Three of these items, Fight On! issue 1, The Encounter Critical Phaysic Cyaborg Edition and Miscellaneum of Cinder are the products of my first order from Lulu. I received two Perry Rhodan novels from Paperback Swap dot Com. I also received a copy of the Edgar Rice Burroughs based rpg, Red Planet, compliments of the author Clovis Cithog. Thanks Clovis!

The dice are from e-bay. When I'm not surfing the blog-o-sphere or otherwise looking for rpg material, I randomly shop for dice on e-bay. The six sided die is actually numbered 5 through 10 and should come in quite handy when creating npcs. All these items should add plenty of content to my gaming table and blog.

Guest Book Review of Mercedes Lackey’s The Fairy Godmother

One day, a few weeks ago, I found my wife, Sally, searching around her bookshelves. I immediately ask her if she had run out of things to read. Her response was the “uh huh” which I anticipated. I remembered that I had purchased a copy of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and began searching through my piles of books. I found Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and two other books for her to choose from. One of the books was The Fairy Godmother by Mercedes Lackey and this was the book she chose to read first. Once she finished reading the book I got the idea that she could do a guest book review for the ol’ blog and composed the following questions for a brief interview.

Q. What genre would you consider The Fairy Godmother?
A. It’s fantasy but not what I would consider romantic fantasy. It is really a modern twist on fairy tales. The setting is called the Five Hundred Kingdoms and the main character, Elena, is ushered into “the tradition” of the Fairy Godmothers. Elena was supposed to be the Cinderella of her kingdom and became a Fairy Godmother initiate when this plan went astray.

Q. How long did it take you to read this novel?
A. Two weeks.

Q. As a point of reference, would you compare the style of The Fairy Godmother too Shrek?
A. Yes, the characterization is similar.

Q. Would you recommend The Fairy Godmother for male readers?
A. Yeah, sure.

Q. Was this book better than an Archie comic?
A. Yes

Q. Was the book better than a Hellboy comic?
A. No

Q. What are you reading now?
A. Wild Fire by Christine Feeham

Q. Would you do another guest review for the Polyhedral Windbag in the future?
A. Sure

Thanks to Sally for this brief view into this novel which we received through a book trade we established on Paperback Swap dot Com.

Tarnsman of Gor, part 1

Along with The Hobbit, Dragon Riders of Pern and some Nancy Springer novels, Tarnsman of Gor was one of the earliest building blocks of my pulp fiction reading and fantasy role playing hobby. The tales of Gor or Counter Earth are a combination of Conan meets John Carter of Mars. The hero, Tarl Cabbot, is an earthman who is abducted to Gor and finds adventure in a barbaric culture controlled by a small group with highly advanced technology which is, of course, called magic. (This, high tech culture controlling barbarians with their “magic,” is a plot element common in many a pulp fantasy novel, including Fritz Leiber’s Gather Darkness.) The books over flow with magic, sword fights, scores of alien creatures like the Tarns, science fiction and, with an added appeal to adolescent boys, slave girls.

I believe there are twenty-eight novels in the Counter Earth series and they’re all supposed to be in print. I never see these books available at used book stores but I’ve been able to find a few copies of the books through Paperback Swap dot Com. I will be posting a recent publication copy of Tarnsman of Gor for trade through this service, PBS.com, right away. I noticed that on the new copy of the book, the artist bio is as nearly as fictitious as the contents of the story. I’ve also noticed many comparisons to other works of pulp fiction and I think I’ll feel inclined to continue this book review when I complete my reading.

Order of the d10,000, Paperback Swap and such...

Since G. Benedicto at the Eiglophian Press has created the Order of the d10,000 I was inspired to create a chart for using this set of dice. There are only 100 possible names in the chart but it was fun using the d10,000 designations and I hope this is just the beginning of my chart making. The chart is a random name generator for PCs and NPCs for weird fantasy rpgs. I hope you all follow the text link to the download at Scribd and enjoy!

I threw the dice a few times to test the chart with these results. 5887 = Stretcher, 2120 = My Space, 5163 = Soda Pop, and 6041 = Claw or Claws.

As suggested in the archives of the many rpg blogs, I have been using the Paperback Swap for a few months now. I enjoy using this service and have found many classic fantasy and sci-fi novels through the site. Occasionally I'll receive a paperback which is on it's last dog-eared leg. So I'm beginning a new feature for my blog to distribute these books. I'll use the title Pulp Fiction Giveaway in the blog header when I have an old book up for adoption. In fact, I've already started the Giveaway as I mailed The Skylark of Space to my in-state neighbor Brutorz Bill this morning.