Take a healthy dose of mythology and eastern religion, mix in the humor of Big Trouble in Little China and the buddy-cop banter of Lethal Weapon and adorn with a fantastic Jon Foster cover and what do you get? Well, you get the beginnings of an entertaining new mystery series by author Liz Williams.
There are several chapters in the Bible consisting solely of genealogies, lists of who beget who, used mostly to establish bloodlines. The last being in Matthew in which the lineage of Jesus is established through the bloodline of King David. I have always found these fascinating because of what they don’t say. You look at the names on the lists and wonder just who these people were and what they did. What big or small things did they do in their lives that may have wrought monumental changes on the world for future generations. There is an unwritten history there that fascinates. The same can be said for J.R.R. Tolkien’s saga The Lord of the Rings. Whether reading the books or watching the films you come across names of individuals and of peoples that give historical depth to the work but also make you wonder who they were and what part they had to play in the development of the Middle-earth of the Third Age. Thankfully Tolkien didn’t just mention these people and pass on, he spent his lifetime developing the creation of his world. The culmination of these efforts can be found in The Silmarillion.
Harrowing the Dragon is the first collection of short stories by celebrated fantasy author Patricia A. McKillip. Patricia and I have a special bond. Early on in the development of my reading tastes I was exposed to science fiction by my uncle and could not get enough. At that point in my life I had not read any fantasy novels. Then one birthday or Christmas my brother Jason bought a book for me: The Riddle-Master of Hed by Patricia A. McKillip. It was the first in a trilogy and I devoured all three. Between the late 70’s when I read the Riddle-Master series and the late 90’s I hadn’t realized that Patricia was such a prolific writer. Around that time her novels began coming out in hardcover with wonderful covers by artist Kinuko Y. Craft and my fond memories of her earlier work had me buying these books. Her incredible artistry with language has kept me buying each new book the moment it is released.
Having read so many of her novels I was excited to see how her writing style translated into the short story format. Harrowing the Dragon contains 15 stories written between 1982 and 1999 that had not been collected before. Patricia A. McKillip writes fantasies. There is nothing of the science fiction vein in these tales. To be quite accurate about it, however, Patricia A. McKillip’s work always seems to have a strong sense of the fairy tale in it, much more than many fantasy authors I have read. Her stories have an atmosphere about them formed by tapping into the mythos of the fairy tales of old. These 15 tales are no different.
In Harrowing the Dragon you will find dragons and trolls, witches and princesses, love and loss, music and magic. You will not always find happy endings. You will also not be fed fairy tales in small, easy-to-digest nuggets. Patricia A. McKillip has a true gift of creating art with language. Her stories are not confusing by any means but they are thought provoking and several of these short tales hint at much more going on under the surface than one can see with a quick read through. It is hard to describe how Patricia A. McKillip is different from other fantasy writers, but she is. There are many good writers who do not necessarily have a unique voice. Then there are writers like Neil Gaiman, Gene Wolfe, Jonathan Carroll, and Patricia A. McKillip that you could recognize just by reading a few chapters of their work even if you weren’t aware of who the author was. Patricia’s command of the English language is present in these tales and they are truly enjoyable, but for the full effect of her work I would recommend her novels, Ombria in Shadow being my favorite.
Of the stories in Harrowing the Dragon my favorites are Baba Yaga and the Sorcerer’s Son which in some ways feels like a Hellboy story, Lady of the Skulls, Toad (which is the kiss-a-toad story told from the toad’s point of view), and the Lion and the Lark. Those are my favorites but that isn’t to say that the rest of the stories aren’t good. I actually enjoyed each and every one. Star-Crossed is a very interesting take on the deaths of Romeo and Juliet told from the point of view of the man on watch sent to investigate the mystery of their deaths. The Snow Queen tells a tale of a woman forced because of love lost to become more than she ever was before. There really are some great original stories in here standing side by side with wonderful reworkings of classic fairy tales.
When it comes to Patricia A. McKillip you really cannot go wrong. Her unique and talented voice has produced a number of memorable novels over the last 25 years and I look forward to many, many more. For me, walking into a bookstore and seeing a new Patricia A. McKillip book is akin to finding lost treasure and there are few authors that I would recommend more highly than her.
Continuing with the centennial celebration of Robert E. Howard I want to review the first two books in a three volume series encompassing the stories that make up the canon of Conan: The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian and The Bloody Crown of Conan.
A few years ago the UK’s Wandering Star Books under took a labor of love: the restoration and rerelease of Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories. According to Wandering Star, “As with many authors who’ve been republished frequently and badly, Robert E. Howard’s work has undergone an unpublicized, but fairly constant process of editing, expurgation, and rewriting”. In their passion to release a product of quality Wandering Star consulted Howard scholars to restore the stories to their original text. They also chose to publish them in the order in which Robert E. Howard wrote them rather than the chronological reordering that had gone on with other publishers. Wandering Star Books also chose talented illustrators and the results were outstanding. A well-crafted book is a thing of delight to me thus I find this letter from Wandering Star to be a moving demonstration of their dedication to making their books a tribute to Robert E. Howard. Random Houses’ Del Rey division obtained the rights for US publication and has released these books in wonderful trade editions as can be seen here.
The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian presents the first 13 of Howard’s Conan Tales. These stories are a perfect introduction to the unequaled work of Robert E. Howard. Herein lie tales of adventure, piracy, conquest, battle, heroism, travel, horror, romance…there is literally a taste of almost all genres that Howard was proficient in. My surprise in reading the stories of Conan was that he is not the ignorant barbarian that he has been portrayed as over the years. Conan is a savage in comparison to the more cultured people’s who populate his world, his people are strong and mighty and come from a tradition of success by labor and battle, but he is not ignorant. Conan may be a man of simple wants and desires but he is also intelligent, shrewd and cunning. I was pleasantly surprised at the philosophical leanings of Howard’s barbarian. These stories are rich with action and adventure but the real treasure is the way in which Howard’s words bring these tales to life. He really was a unique and talented storyteller. My favorite story in the bunch is the Conan pirate tale Queen of the Black Coast but they are all quite enjoyable.
This first volume contains beautiful artwork by one of my favorite illustrators, Mark Schultz. I posted recently about his first art collection here. His color work, as seen here in the cover illustration
is magnificient as are his pen and ink illustrations scattered throughout the book. Examples can be seen here. Again the quality of these books is amazing.
The Bloody Crown of Conan continues Howard’s Conan Tales. This volume contains 3 longer works including Howard’s only Conan novel. I was curious how Howard’s writing style would read in these longer tales in comparison to the shorter stories in the first volume. I need not have been concerned as they are once again outstanding. I rather enjoyed traveling with Conan on these bigger adventures. As I stated in yesterday’s post, Robert E. Howard created a genre that is now known as the Sword and Sorcery genre. In his tales Howard brings us lands and people that are so familiar that one could almost believe that they are historical fiction. Howard’s idea of creating epochs of time that are destroyed by cataclysmic events that render them as a vague memory or as mythology passed on to the next generation lend life and realism to his tales. Howard’s style of presenting the ferocity of battle without reverting to gore is unrivaled. It is the addition of ancient magic that lifts Howard’s tales into a genre all their own. The magic in these tales isn’t like the magic in traditional fantasy. Reading Howard’s descriptions of arcane magic and evil magicians feels like you are reading accounts of occultic practices from times that pre-date ancient Egyptian religion. The simplist way to describe the writing of Robert E. Howard is that is is filled with life…vibrant life.
The Bloody Crown of Conan is illustrated by Gary Gianni. Gianni is a fantastic illustrator whose work, especially his pen and ink drawings, hearkens back to the golden age of illustration. His work has a truly classic look and feel to it.
You can see more of his illustration work for Conan and other books in the gallery section of the above link. I had the opportunity to meet Gary Giani at a comic convention years ago. It was at the start of his book illustration career and he had just completed an illustrated work of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. At that time I had not discovered my affection for classic illustration and am kicking myself now for not picking up some of his work.
In addition to the stories and high quality illustration these books contain extras on par with the DVD’s that geeks drool over: “contextual notes, synopses, plot outlines, initial drafts, original ideas, notes — everything Conan’s creator ever wrote about the greatest barbarian adventurer of all time!”.
These books were originally released in trade paperback format in the United States but are now being reprinted in hardback form with 4 full color illustration plates in each volume. For the avid book collector there are still limited special editions of Wandering Star Books original print run that make me quiver with envy! A sample of what these editions look like can be seen here. Ironic that it took a British publisher to put together a high quality collector’s edition of one of the pioneers of American fantasic fiction.
Forget anything you think you know about Conan and fantasy fiction and discover the wonder of Robert E. Howard’s work for yourself.
Angels and Visitations is a collection by Neil Gaiman, given to me by Jeff as a birthday gift. It is a wonderfully illustrated book containing short stories, poems, and book introductions. At least half of the short stories are also included in Gaiman’s later short story collection Smoke and Mirrors but there were a handful of gems that I had not had the privilege to read.
Let me start by talking about the packaging. I frequently find myself thinking that the ability to make a good book is a lost art. On fewer and fewer occasions do I find new books that show craftsmanship and attention to detail. Angels and Visitations is published by a small publishing company, DreamHaven Books, which also runs a local comic shop in Neil Gaiman’s residence of Minneapolis. DreamHaven got it right. The book has a terrific dust jacket illustrated by Gaiman’s Sandman cover artist and fellow movie maker (Mirrormask) Dave McKean. Underneath the dust jacket lies an amazingly solid book with a cool gold embossed angel of death design. Inside are illustrations by graphic artists Charles Vess, P. Craig Russell, Michael Zulli, and Bill Sienkiewicz to name a few.
But what about the stories? If you have read Gaiman, then you know they are good. Angels and Visitations combines some of my absolute favorites that are in Smoke and Mirrors and adds some great new work. Among the previously read stories are two wonderful stories, Chivalry and We Can Get Them For You Wholesale. Chivalry is a quaint story in which a little old woman in modern day England discovers the Holy Grail in a second hand store, buys it, and begins getting visits from Galaad, a Knight of King Arthur’s Court, who hopes to barter for it thus completing his Holy Quest. We Can Get Them For You Wholesale is a Twilight Zone-ish horror story about a guy who just cannot pass up a good bargain. New stories for me included Webs which is a creepy fairy tale with spiders and the The Case of the Four and Twenty Blackbirds, a comical hard-boiled detective story set in the world of Mother Goose. There was also a terrific review of Josiah Thompson’s book Gumshoe that primarily involved the reviewer’s inability to find the book he was meant to be reviewing…quite entertaining. The book also includes poems, a prologue written for someone else’s story and a wonderful essay about G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown mysteries. Being a fan of Chesterton after only reading one book I had been wondering about these stories and am now anxious to add them to my reading pile.
If you love a good short story you owe it to yourself to check out Neil Gaiman’s work. When he is at his best his shorter fiction can stand to anything. If you are a Neil Gaiman addict like myself, this book also makes a marvelous collector’s item as its production quality is marvelous.