REHupa

Earlier this month I got the DVD for the movie Solomon Kane. The movie itself was no great surprise having seen the trailer some time back.  There is a character called Solomon Kane in this movie and there are swords. That is about as close to Robert E. Howard as it gets. It is surprisingly boring for a good portion of the movie. The costumes look good, the fight scenes were actually better than what I was expecting. The cinematography was good and I was happy to not see any gray filter. The film was overwrought in spots such as the scene of Kane with his arms upraised asking (I assume) God if this is what was intended. The crucifixion scene was ridiculous. Historically, as pointed out at other sites, the movie is a hopeless mess.

The origin story is what really screws the pooch. Having Kane’s brother as the evil enforcer was too much. Also the Balrog. If you are going to have a Balrog, you better have a Balrog worthy battle instead of what happened in the movie. Less would have been more here. And, Balrogs should be in Tolkien movies.

I was thinking of the same weaknesses found in L’il Abner Versus the Moonies (aka Conan the Barbarian). Way too much time is spent in both movies creating a revenge driven, angst ridden character. Both movies have sorcerers in a takeover with armies and in both the bad guys are more intriguing because there is mystery. You don’t really like Solomon Kane in this movie as the origin story has him as an unlikeable guy. Same with Chip Rommel in Conan the Barbarian.  You want more when you finish a Robert E. Howard story. Paul “Masturbation or What” Berrow is talking about a second Solomon Kane movie. I don’t think the average movie goer wants a second movie. The character is both emotionally and physically spent by the end. This movie is a funeral, not a birth for a series. There is frankly little room for believably carrying on the character.

This movie has so little of Robert E. Howard in it that someone else can do it right the next time. It will be an historical oddity shown at science fiction conventions. It isn’t the worst movie I have seen but I will be hard pressed whether to watch Solomon Kane or Mega-Piranha.  It would have been better had the character had a name like “Samuel Absalom” or something like that. This movie will still probably be far better than the upcoming Conan the Samoan movie with Momo in sarong. That coming  movie is Paradox approved. They got rolled like a teenage farm-boy in the big city on a Saturday night by Hollywood on that one.

It looks like everyone’s favorite Ilyassai warrior has found his way onto Facebook.  Charles Saunders’ epic hero now has his own fan club page where you can keep up with his latest adventures and those of his creator.

Here is a recent update from Charles from the Facebook page on all the great fantasy fiction he is currently working on:

Next up in my publishing pipeline is Dossouye II, the sequel to the Dossouye volume that came out in 2008. That book was a compilation of previously published stories about the Black Amazon. Dossouye II is a brand new novel.

After Dossouye II comes Imaro V. This volume can be considered a book-length epilogue to Imaro IV

Next in line is The Warrior’s Way, a collection of the Imaro short stories that were not incorporated into the novels. Seven of the ten stories in this book were previously published in the 1970s and 1980s; three are brand-new, written during the time period of 2007-2008.

Also, I recently completed another Imaro story for the Sword and Soul anthology I’m putting together with Milton Davis.

Farther down the pipeline is Nyumbani Tales, a collection of short stories that do not have either Imaro or Dossouye as lead characters. However, one story features Imaro’s mother, Katisa, and two are about Imaro’s sidekick, Pomphis.

So be assured there will be more Saunders fiction coming out over the next couple of years.

(Left to right: a leather ‘day’ sporran, two ‘semi-dress’ sporrans, one of sealskin, the other of horsehide, and a military hair sporran of the old 72nd Highlanders.)

noun

1. a pouch usually of skin with the hair or fur on that is worn in front of the kilt with Scots’ Highland dress

[origin: 1752; Scottish Gaelic sporan purse]

HOWARD’S USAGE:

Let Saxons sing of Saxon kings,
Red faced swine with a greasy beard—
Through my songs the Gaelic broadsword sings,
The pibrock skirls and the sporran swings,
For mine is the blood of the Irish kings
That Saxon monarchs feared.

The heather bends to a marching tread,
The echoes shake to a marching tune—
For the Gael has supped on bitter bread,
And follows the ghosts of the mighty dead,
And the blue blades gleam and the pikes burn red
In the rising of the moon.

[from “Black Harps in the Hills”; for the complete poem see The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard, p. 58 and Night Images, p. 52.]

A few days ago, I wrote about Dorchester Publishing phasing out the mass market paperback. One of Dorchester’s imprints was the short lived Cosmos Books. Among the books of the imprint were the mass market Weird Works of Robert E. Howard that came to five volumes. The books were culled from the Wildside Books Weird Works series. The Cosmos books were not complete and yeah, the Ken Kelly covers were crappy. But– they were mass market paperbacks which are how paperbacks were meant to be read instead of the bastard child trade paperback. The font type and size make for easy reading. These paperbacks are great for when you take the kids to the playground on Saturday morning. And-they are not Paradox approved!

Dorchester just fired all of the editorial staff except one and fired the sales staff. Speculation is the company will go into liquidation in the next six months. That means get these paperbacks now. I have contended these five paperbacks are going to be uncommon if not the Howard rarities of the first decade of the 21st Century A.D. Some Leisure paperbacks are rare and collectible. Joe Lansdale’s Texas Night Riders being a prime example. I am giving serious thought to getting a second set for trading purposes in the future. You don’t want to be trying to track down copies in near fine condition five years from now.  They are great introductions to Robert E. Howard. Hey, pick up copies as Christmas gifts.

Sixteen hundred years ago today, Alaric the Visigoth sacked the city of Rome.  A classic example of blowback, the Romans attempted to use Alaric and his Goths as troops for their various civil wars. Alaric decided to go freelance. It wasn’t helped that the idiot Roman emperor Honorius killed the best general he had, the Vandal born Stilicho and instituted a massacre of barbarians in the Roman Army. Those barbarians went over to Alaric who marched down Italy while Honorius hid in the marshes protecting Ravenna.  Alaric died not long after sacking Rome.  Under Wallia they again were in Roman service hammering the Alans, Vandals, and Suevi in Spain before being settled in Gaul to keep the peasants under control. The Franks later pushed the Visigoths out of Gaul and into Spain. The Visigoths ruled in Spain until 711 A.D. when the Moslems destroyed their kingdom and turned the Catholic church in Corboda into a mosque.

noun

1. a sheet in which a corpse is wrapped; a shroud

[origin: 15th century]

HOWARD’S USAGE:

Ask not of the glories of dawns that have gone before;
The sunrise dreams are gone from our empty eyes—
The lines are down—the crimson sabres gore—
Ours the songs of defeat as starlight dies.

Ask not that bugle-voiced we once could sing
The riding song, the chant song and the boast—
The years are a sluggard moth a wasp can sting,
And we were born to fall before the Host.

For we are they that are born to songs of defeat—
The cup of gall and wormwood was our first drink—
Like ants we waver on Eternity’s brink
And cry on God in vain for a winding sheet.

[from “A Song of Defeat”; for the complete poem see The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard, p. 388 and Echoes From an Iron Harp, p. 76.]

This past month, Norman Spinrad has blogged (normanspinradatlarge.blogspot.com) about the trials and tribulations of getting his book The Druid King published. I have heard and read of horror stories in the publishing world. This one ranks up at the top.

This is only the second Spinrad book I have ever read. About 20 years ago I read The Iron Dream, his satire on supposedly fascist science fiction. It reads like an attack masquerading as parody of Robert Heinlein.  Spinrad also wrote the Star Trek episode with the wind sock planet destroyer.

I can remember when The Druid King came out in 2003 and mentioning it to Steve Tompkins. We both had plans on reading it but I don’t think Steve ever got around to it.

The novel itself was out of character for Spinrad who had a reputation as a “New Wave” science fiction guy switching gears and going into the historical novel field.  The book’s genesis had it origins for a screenplay for a French movie called Druids. This novel is about Vercingetorix who led a revolt against Julius Caesar in Gaul. Vercigetorix almost succeeded in driving out the Romans but in the end failed. He is one of those magnificent but ultimately tragic Celtic leaders you find in history alongside Caratacos, Boudicca, Arthur, Urien, and Hugh O’Donnell. The novel takes some time to get going as there is the setup of Vercingetorix’s life. His father attempts to make himself King of Gaul but is killed under secret Roman orders. Vercingetorix is trained as a Druid, becomes a companion of Caesar, discovers Caesar’s complicity in his father’s death, and leads the Gauls against Rome. There are some idiosyncrasies to the novel. Roman legionaries are referred to as legionaires. Spinrad also switches into a present tense for some scenes. Spinrad mentions in his blog about an editor forcing him to rewrite the book and the writing was getting worse.

The novel is a page turner once it gets going. Spinrad isn’t bad with action. The book is anti-Roman, Robert E. Howard would approve. The cover is hideous as it is  photoshopped pieces of twigs. The book was also published in August which is a dumping ground along with January for new books. The trade paperback is still available with a better cover. I don’t know if the present tense scenes are the result of Spinrad or the editor. Fix that and change legionaires to legionaries and you have a keeper. Then get this book out in mass market paperback with a better cover and put it in the science fiction and fantasy section where more copies will be sold.

Two weeks ago, Dorchester Publishing announced that it would cease publishing mass market paperbacks starting in September. Dorchester has the Leisure imprint and also distributor for Hard Case Crime. The news sent a shock wave through the publishing and writing world. Dorchester was one of the major publishers for horror and westerns in the United States. Both of these genres are going to take a big hit. Dorchester was the only publisher producing pulp western reprints in paperback form.

For years, signs have been apparent the the mass market paperback was not doing well. The root problem of the distribution collapse back in the 1990s was a significant part of this decline. Mass market paperbacks were once cheap and everywhere. I can remember buying them at K-Mart, drug stores, the old Hill’s Department stores etc. Truck stops in Texas had the old wire stands with a selection of Louis Lamour paperbacks. One problem I have not seen discussed in any of the blogs or online articles is cost. Mass market paperbacks have gone up in price often greater than the rate of inflation. I once calculated that a Lancer paperback in 1966 costing $.60 would convert in 2007 to $3.81. Paperbacks were costing over double that. Paperback books ceased to be an impulse item. You now had to think hard if you really wanted to buy that paperback, Sturgeon’s Rule was always in the back of your mind.

Video games, computer games, the internet, on demand T.V., etc has all fought for the time for reading. I would be curious in knowing the percentage of male readers today vs. the 1960s.  A good portion of potential readers of one genre may have been lost as publishers shortsightedly thought they would market books to both genders, losing one in the process. Another problem is what David C. Smith calls the “Frampton Comes Alive” phenomena. Publishers wanted all their writers to make money like Stephen King instead of publishing more books that each make a smaller amount of money.

The expansion of Barnes & Noble and Borders in the 1990s all but killed off the local independent bookstore. Now the same might be done to them by a combination of Amazon and e-readers.  My guess is more and more publishers will phase out the mass market paperback as they get into the death spiral. There will be more trade paperbacks in the brick & mortar bookstores for a few years but what is to prevent happening to the trade paperback that happened to the mass market paperback? For that matter, will there be some new technology that will make the Kindle reader obsolete? Remember when the cassette tape sold more than the 33 rpm album? Then the compact disk came along and killed both. Now we have MP3 files, tomorrow who knows. The same is happening with the world of reading.

I still contend that the mass market paperback is the way to do things but that involves having salesmen getting the books sold anywhere and everywhere they can. It also means having editors who aren’t trying to sell books to all people (i.e fantasy) and realizing there are potential untapped audiences out there. It comes down to salesmanship and bringing in new readers.  The mass market paperback was originally a success because it was cheap. The multinational conglomerates need to figure that one out again. A collapse of Barnes & Noble and Borders might open up a new chaotic world with a return of the independent bookstore or even the old magazine stand.

I was talking to the Kinko’s clerk today while getting a print job done about the Kindle. I am not ready to get one as the price will come down as there will be competition for this market. I have no experience with a portable e-reader so can’t say if I like it or not. What I can say is the world is changing fast and ten years from now is going to be very different when it comes to reading.

Today is H. P. Lovecraft’s 120th birthday. So make yourself some extra sweetened coffee and have some ice cream. Then pull out your favorite H. P. Lovecraft story.

I may pull out my DVD of “The Call of Cthulhu” produced by the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society. Can’t wait for their version of  “The Whisperer in Darkness.”

The boats of HMS Penelope attacking a slave depot

noun

1. an enclosure or barracks formerly used for the temporary confinement of slaves or convicts; often used in the plural

[Origin: 1848; Spanish barracon, augmentative of barraca hut, from Catalan]

HOWARD’S USAGE:

As tribute, not as largess
I give the spoil of kings,
The chariots of Sargon
Brought you no finer things.

The hawk-winged Khitan horsemen
That haunt the red-veined cliffs,
The riders of Carchemish,
Could tender no such gifts.

Nor even he could offer,
Whose mandate reared the Sphinx
Though to the Nubian veldtlands
The sea his kingdom links.

His horses flail the grass lands
Beneath the Shushan moon;
His soldiers hale nude captives
To trek and barracoon.

[from “The Road to Babel”; for the complete poem see The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard, p. 305 and Shadows of Dreams, p. 67.]