We Print the Truth.

When I was a youth I read a lot of science fiction short stories, and fantasy too, some dating back to the earliest days of the genres. One of my all-time favorite stories is Anthony Boucher's novella "We Print the Truth," published in 1944.

It has an absolutely terrific setup and really works the premise out well. In the story, John McVeagh, the editor of a small city paper, is granted one wish -- and his wish is that his newspaper live up to its proud and lofty slogan, "We Print the Truth." Back in those days, children, newspapers really prided themselves for genuine (not pretend) objectivity, desiring to actually tell the public the facts. Our hero's wish reflects well on his character and dedication.

That's how the trouble starts. 

He envisions the wish being a preventive against the paper printing anything false, but it doesn't work out that way. When a 77-year-old resident passes away, a typo in the obituary lists the man's age as 17. Thus, the coroner and McVeagh are shocked to find in the casket the body of a teenager. 

As he begin to realize what this magic power means for the paper, McVeagh decides to change the world. He goes for broke and runs a story that World War II is over! The Allies have won! And the whole town reads the news with great joy.

Except the war is not over. Everyone within the paper's circulation district believes the war is over, but it's true nowhere else. When the FBI sends a man to find out why the factory has stopped fulfilling munitions orders and the draft board stopped sending men, he too believes the war is over when he enters the town. All over the world, however, the war continues. 

And that's just one crazy issue caused by the power of this particular press. 

I've given away enough of the plot; you can read the story at the Internet Archive. Just look for the collection of Boucher stories entitled The Compleat Werewolf, and Other Stories of Fantasy and Science Fiction. It's worth the time. 

I guess I was thinking of it because, while few journalists really seem to care about the truth today, they sure want to change the world. But, as with McVeagh, they really have far less power over the world than they think, even if they're willing to run the truth into the ground and spit on it to make it what they want. Of late we've been given a very good look at what they mean by "truth," and whatever they mean by it, it sure isn't true. 

The one thing that gave them legitimacy, honesty, is the currency they paid for power, and now they find themselves with much less of both. 

P.S.: My favorite science fiction short story is “Happy Ending“ by Henry Kuttner, if you’re curious. There are spoilers, so don’t look for plot summaries.

Swords and heroes.

This year I reread one of my favorite trilogies in the world of fantastic fiction -- the Swords series by the late and prolific fellow Fred, Fred Saberhagen. I had been meaning to do so for years, but couldn't find my copies. (I think a relative absconded with them.) So I bought them again and I'm glad I did. 

Fred Saberhagen had a number of distinctions in his career. For example: 

⚔ He had multiple well-loved fantasy series, and one well-loved science fiction series (about the Berserkers, exceptionally adaptive robotic enemies of all life in the universe). 

⚔ He wrote a very successful series about Dracula, bringing in Sherlock Holmes for fun.

⚔ When he began the Swords series in the 1980s, he had an eye toward using it for a video game series. He was ahead of his time -- back then, "the project was deemed technologically infeasible" (according to Dr. Wiki), but no question it could be done now. 

⚔ He became a joke for my unappreciative wife; his work on Dracula stories was so well-known that he wrote the book adaptation of the 1992 film Bram Stoker's Dracula, which was sold as Bram Stoker's Dracula by Fred Saberhagen. Which she thought was hilarious, and she has used "by Fred Saberhagen" as a running gag for years. ("Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind by Fred Saberhagen.") Philistine! 

The main conceit in the Swords books is that the gods have, for their own fun, created twelve swords of the most astonishing and varied powers, and tossed them into the (medieval-level) human world for their own amusement. Little did the gods realize that the Swords were so powerful that they themselves could be harmed by them. Each Sword is virtually indestructible, and has its own hilt symbol and its own superpower, as you can see on this li'l chart I drew up: 

Some of them have an instant appeal. Like Doomgiver, for example -- you could travel in safety anywhere, because no matter what an enemy tried on you, from violence to psychological warfare to sorcery to poison to anything else, just carrying the Sword of Justice would leave you unharmed and inflict the damage on your foe. Farslayer is perfect if you want someone dead, because once you send it flying, nothing can stop it from piercing the heart of your enemy. 

Of course, they all have drawbacks of some kind. The perfect good luck of Coinspinner makes it unbeatable, but the Sword up and vanishes without warning. You can literally defeat an army with Townsaver, but the Sword does nothing protect its wielder, and you still take all the hits -- and once the fight is over, so are you. Wayfinder will lead you to anything you want, but doesn't take the safest path. And if you use Farslayer on your enemy, you'd better hope his friends don't know who sent it, because guess who has the Sword now?

 

Of all of them, only Dragonslicer seems out of place in that it has a weirdly specific purpose: to kill dragons. But in Saberhagen's world, dragons are not friendly, not helpful, not very intelligent -- they are enormous and very much akin to natural disasters, wiping out entire towns, destroying flocks and agricultural lands, bringing down castles. The one with the Sword of Heroes is a hero indeed. 

The original trilogy was so much fun that Saberhagen went on to write an eight-book series with further adventures connected to the Swords. There was even a book of stories by other authors with Swords-related adventures. 

The appeal of these books is all about the magic weapons -- what can they do, what will characters do with them, what happens when forces use them against one another -- and Saberhagen's careful plotting never fails to please the reader. His characters are vivid and memorable. If he has a weakness as a writer, it is that sometimes he lets the reader down with emotional payoffs. In one case, family members are violently separated, each believing the other dead, and are reunited years later, and we don't even get to see the reunion. It's just glossed over. It's like the writer was too busy with other stuff to care. 

We cared! We wanted to see it! 

Oh, well. It's a small price to pay for some very exciting and often terrifying action. The third book of the original trilogy has a god-versus-men battle that is simply outstanding. I can't think of any other scene that was more of a page-turner. And that's only one of the climactic confrontations in the novel. 

So, highly recommended. 

At one time I really hoped that someone would make an adaptation of the series. After reading about Amazon TV's revolting and disrespectful Rings of Power series, however, I no longer hope for that. Moviemakers used to ruin book adaptations by limitations in running time and budgets. Now they ruin them by their lack of talent and insertion of ideology. Who needs it? 

Fred's Book Club: Look Before...

Good day, persons of book interests, and welcome to the latest edition of the Humpback Writers, the book feature that falls on Hump Day, but as far as we know has no actual hunchbacks among the writers. I keep asking but they refuse to acknowledge one way or another. Of course many of the writers are no longer alive to return my calls, but today's writer, England's own Jonathan Stroud, is alive and kicking. And leaping.

Stroud is best known, and justifiably so, for two of the great fantasy series of the modern day, the  Bartimaeus books and the Lockwood & Co. books. The Bartimaeus books are set in an alternate world where magic works because of the use of the capture of extra-dimensional demons, such as the snarky narrator, Bartimaeus; Lockwood & Co. stars a company of ghost-hunters in a London where dangerous hauntings have suddenly erupted. Both series are full of humor and suspense and genuine frights. They are targeted to young adult readers (that is, teens), as is today's one-off title, but I'd recommend them to any adult as well. 

The Leap is a different sort of fantasy novel. It takes place in current times, but tells a much more personal tale. At the story's beginning, a boy named Max has drowned in a mill pond. Max's best friend, Charlotte (called Charlie), almost died trying to save him. During the event she saw strange and horrible things -- and no one believes her. And it's not surprising that they don't:

And then I noticed other things moving in the water; pale thin women with long hair streaming like river moss, who wrapped their arms around him as he spun in the waters of the mill pool. 

I swam toward them, and they turned, and Max's face was white and his eyes were open, but I knew he couldn't see me anymore. He smiled and the women smiled with him, and they could see me all right -- they were looking at me with eyes as green as buried pebbles.

Charlie's single mom and her older brother are terribly concerned about her, of course, even though she stops trying to tell the truth and goes along with the usual psychologists and grief counselors. She is sure that something strange has happened to Max, but can't understand what. Then she starts to have exceptionally vivid dreams, beginning with coming out of the water and finding something shocking:

I bent down to the nearest print. It was crisscrossed with lines and had an oval imprint in the heel. Crouching there, I bit my lip until it bled; Max's Nike trainers had that pattern in the sole. Before I straightened, a vague dread made me scan the sand for a few yards on either side of Max's trail, but there was no sign that anyone else accompanied him.   

Where is Max going? Why is Charlie having this dream? 

Night after night, Charlie follows the trail, hoping to catch up to Max. Then one day she wakes up and finds that the cuts she sustained in the dream are on her body, and thus somehow her dreams are real. Which means Max must be alive somewhere.

Her actions in the waking world become increasingly distressing to her little family, who find her doing things like searching around Max's house, upsetting his mother and father. The crisis and the suspense build through the book. Something very strange is going on, and Charlie is determined to find out what -- but the farther she travels, the more it looks like her own life is in jeopardy.

It's a moody story, so well and richly written that it's hard to believe it's just over 230 large-print pages. Stroud is simply an excellent wordsmith with an imagination to match. 

If you like fantasy novels but are not convinced that The Leap is your cup of tea, do try one of his other books. I have not yet read them all but I've enjoyed all that I have. 

Castles, cottages, and cabins.

This castle has towers that are probably full of the bones of fair maidens who died waiting to be rescued by the mighty princes who were imprisoned in the dungeon, whose bones are in the dungeon. There are also bones of fair princesses littering the grounds, badass no-nonsense princesses who were not going to wait for their prince, who plummeted to their deaths. Which at least was faster. This creepy castle is also regularly visited by man-eating dragons, not the kind who sit down and chat with you but the kind that slither up behind you and eat you whole. It takes a while to digest a fully armored knight, but these dragons are prepared to do so. This castle was owned by Mad Queen Plychwych, who liked to drink the blood of infants to stay alive. Didn’t work. Some say she haunts the dark and spiderweb-encrusted halls, rattling chains made of bones, waiting for the Devil to come take her away. Good schools, minutes from train. 18 bd, 12 bth, 25,562 sq ft. Best offer. Contact Bobbi Smith, Better Homes & Gardens Real Estate, 555-9855.

Handyman special, needs a little love and some paint. Manor, stone keep, towers, cellars, kitchens, a great hall, gatehouse, chapel, amazing views. Unlimited parking. Not all features still in place. Terrific fixer-upper bargain. For sale by owner. Serious inquiries only. Contact Glenn c/o Knobblebury Pizzeria and Post Office. 

Begorrah! Sure'n 'tis a perfect little country cottage ye be wantin', and this little thatched item is just what ye need! Two rooms (not incl. mushrooms), outdoor bath, charming windehs, cozy as a goldcrest's nest. Secluded. 1/2 pot o' gold or equivalent lucky charm value. Listing via Sean Seamus Fergus-Fergus at Fergus-Fergus and Fergus-Fergus, Inc., fergusfergusfergusfergus.com.

Lovely cabin for sale. Excellent accents, gorgeous accessories, location fungible. You will tell your friends: Isn't it good? Swedish wood! Some assembly required. Free meatballs. Visit us at ikea.com for more details. 

Paradise on earth! Amazing place, perfect weather, opportunities galore! Highly diverse population in exciting location! Plenty of wealth to be made for spirited go-getters. Wonderful schools, incredible shopping -- no place finer in the nation. Restrictions apply. Many, many, many restrictions apply. Call today! Inquire c/o G. Newsom, gov. 

Fred's Book Club: A Turning Point.

Hello, book lovers! Welcome to our Wednesday Humpback Writers feature, where writers without humps (or maybe with; we're not ableist) are celebrated on Hump Day.

This being Holy Week, I wanted to make a brief mention of a brief book that was crucially important to me.

Mere Christianity was not the first C.S. Lewis book I ever read. Like so many other people, I came to meet him through the Chronicles of Narnia, when I was in high school and reading my way through every classic science fiction and fantasy series I could find. Then, in college, I read his Space Trilogy, which is a series written for adults and also follows Christian themes in a compelling way. Then I borrowed his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, from the library, and that was a body-blow to my muddled mess of neo-paganistic pseudo-Christianish soul. That led me to Mere Christianity.

As Anthony Burgess wrote, "Lewis is the ideal persuader for the half-convinced, for the good man who would like to be a Christian but finds his intellect getting in the way." I think that's true, but I also think in cases like mine that it was not all intellect but also mental glitches and half-baked notions -- and maybe most of all the fear that I was going to have to give up things I liked if I followed this path. How did he bring me around? It is a logical progression from first principles, like showing that people believe in Right and Wrong even though that would not possible in a world without transcendent meaning, and from there leading up to where our instincts should lead us, to the Source of happiness and all good things.

Mere Christianity (titled mere as in basic, or what all Christians believe regardless of denomination or sect) is just 173 pages in my Collier edition, but every page has a powerful thought put in a plain and dynamic way. Let's look at some bits from this immensely quotable book:

"Whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real Right or Wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later. He may break his promise to you, but if you try breaking one to him he will be complaining 'It's not fair' before you can say Jack Robinson."

"Think of a country where people were admired for running away in battle, or where a man felt proud of double-crossing all of the people who had been kindest to him. You might just as well try to imagine a country where two plus two made five. Men have differed as regards what people you ought to  be unselfish to -- whether it was only your own family, or your countrymen, or everybody else. But they have always agreed that you ought not to put yourself first. Selfishness has never been admired."

“This is the fix we are in. If the universe is not governed by an absolute goodness, then all our efforts are in the long run hopeless. But if it is, then we are making ourselves enemies to that goodness every day, and are not in the least likely to do any better tomorrow, and so our case is hopeless again. We cannot do without it, and we cannot do with it. God is the only comfort, He is also the supreme terror: the thing we most need and the thing we most want to hide from. He is our only possible ally, and we have made ourselves His enemies. Some people talk as if meeting the gaze of absolute goodness would be fun. They need to think again. They are still only playing with religion.”

“There is nothing indulgent about the Moral Law. It is as hard as nails. It tells you to do the straight thing and it does not seem to care how painful, or dangerous, or difficult it is to do.”

“Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end submit with ever fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”

"Christianity is a fighting religion. It thinks God made the world -- that space and time, heat and cold, and all the colours and tastes, and all the animals and vegetables, are things that God ‘made up out of His Head’ as a man makes up a story. But it also thinks that a great many things have gone wrong with the world that God made and that God insists and insists very loudly, on our putting them right again."

“When a man is getting better he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him. When a man is getting worse he understands his own badness less and less.”

"He chose an earthly career which involved the killing of His human desires at every turn --poverty, misunderstanding from His own family, betrayal by one of His intimate friends, being jeered at and manhandled by the Police, and execution by torture. And then, after being thus killed—killed every day in a sense—the human creature in Him, because it was united to the divine Son, came to life again. The Man in Christ rose again: not only the God."

It is powerful writing with the concision that any poet ought to envy. It is amazing that a book built on a reasonable argument could have so many quotes that are clear and potent when standing alone, as if every brick in a lovely home could be a work of art by itself.

Lewis was about as educated in the liberal arts as a man could get; also a combat veteran of the First World War. He was a hardened atheist brought to his knees by faith. He brings myth (as the echoes of reality) and stone cold fact together to reveal the truth that is beyond nature itself.

This book contains a somewhat simplified version of his philosophy and apologetics; classics like The Abolition of Man and Miracles are more sophisticated. But his goal here in these essays was to lay out his case plainly, and he did, and it hit me like a thunderbolt. I'll tell you one thing: He's the best modern writer you'll find at Hobby Lobby.

Fred's Book Club: It Ain't Over Till....

Yes, it's Wednesday, Hump Day, and the Humpback Writers feature, and you know it's not about hunchbacks -- although one actually does appear in today's book, a "hunchbacked midget" called Little Walter. So that's about as close as we've gotten to an actual Humpback Writer. This is a baseball book, chosen this week because I'm sick to death over the cancellation of spring training and postponement of the baseball season. Here we go:

"My name is Gideon Clarke, and, like my father before me, I have on more than one occasion been physically ejected from the corporate offices of the Chicago Cubs Baseball Club, which are located at Wrigley Field, 1060 West Addison, in Chicago."

So begins The Iowa Baseball Confederacy (1986), by the late W. P. Kinsella, whose prior novel, Shoeless Joe, became the film Field of Dreams. An elderly coworker recommended Shoeless Joe to me a couple of years before the film debuted, and I loved the book. But I thought The Iowa Baseball Confederacy was a much better book, and I stand by that.

It is the craziest baseball book I've ever read, more so than John Alexander Graham's Babe Ruth Caught in a Snowstorm, and at least as crazy as Robert Coover's The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop., but a lot more thrilling. Like Coover, or Fred fave Ray Bradbury, Kinsella was a prose stylist with a vivid imagination for magical realism. So what's this book about?

In one way it's about the magic of Iowa, the setting for this book as well as Shoeless Joe and Kinsella's penultimate novel, Magic Time. Kinsella was actually from Canada, but he must have sensed something in the air in that land of cornfields and weird caucuses.

Our hero, an albino-looking fellow named Gideon Clarke, has a mission, and that mission is his dead father's, which is to prove that the titular Iowa Baseball Confederacy once fielded a team against a barnstorming Chicago Cubs in the town of Big Inning, a game that lasted for thousands of innings, day after day for weeks, because the home team always tied the score in the bottom of the inning but couldn't go ahead. But that's hardly all that's going on:

About a baseball game going on for a month or more. And in a rainstorm, too. And there was something about lightning. Oh, and a big Indian, and a dead midget, and an albino. The river flooded and carried away the town while the game continued right on, as nice as you please, and the sun sucked ballplayers right up into the sky. 

After Gideon's father, Matthew, was struck by lightning in 1943, an event that Gideon says "tampered with my father's blood, rearranged his chromosomes gently as a baby's breath turns a mobile," he was gifted with the thorough knowledge of the league and the events of 1908:

In Matthew Clarke's brain, which that morning felt bright as chrome, full of white light and blinding metal, the complete history of the Iowa Baseball Confederacy was burned in, deep as a brand, vivid, resplendent, dazzling in its every detail. 

But the memory of this incredible game, which featured Cubs stars like pitcher Three Finger Brown and the still-famous double-play combo of Tinker and Evers and Chance, has been wiped from humanity. When his father wrote to various men whom he knew had been involved in the Iowan league, they claim to have no knowledge of any game or of the league itself. And of course, the Cubs threw Matthew out of their office multiple times.

Now the burden of this knowledge is on Gideon's shoulders. How did this game happen? Why did it go on so long, supposedly into the Cubs' World Series-winning season? Did all those wild things really occur (and there were many bloody and astounding events in the game)? Who won? And why was this singular event completely forgotten?

Ultimately there is only one way to find out what really happened during that game -- Gideon must go through a crack in time, back to 1908, and see it for himself.

That's just the first part of the book. To find the answers, we readers must follow Gideon and see the game. And I am honor-bound to give away no more.

Sports novels are tough to write, and they usually don't sell. Why? Well, men who like sports generally don't like novels, but that's hardly the real issue, I think. The thing is, the drama of sports comes from not knowing what's going to happen on the field. But when a novelist is writing, he has to know. So you can't escape the contrivance. The reader knows that someone is in charge of events -- the author -- and he is pulling the strings. It's what I disliked about Roger Kahn's novel The Seventh Game; you could see the strings. Strangely, this is not true with sports movies, perhaps because the live image of people playing the game gives us the illusion that we are watching real, unpredictable events. The funny thing is, unless based on real events, works of fiction always have the author making the decisions in the back, but the relative simplicity of sports, with rules and mutual goals, makes the director of the plot more visible.

The best baseball novels, as Kinsella knew, are not just about baseball. That's why The Iowa Baseball Confederacy, Shoeless Joe, Eric Rolfe Greenberg's The Celebrant, Mark Harris's Bang the Drum Slowly, Bernard Malmud's The Natural, Ring Lardner's You Know Me Al, David Carkeet's The Greatest Slump of All Time, Darryl Brock's If I Never Get Back, Douglass Wallop's The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant, Mark Friedman's Columbus Slaughters Braves, and maybe even Five-Yard Fuller of the N.Y. Gnats were all so successful, artistically if not all financially. Because while baseball provides a motive force and dramatic drive, these stories, like the best novels, are really about everything else as well. And, incidentally, It's what I intended to do in my humorous book MacFinster II: MacFinster's Folly.

⚾⚾⚾

And speaking of that book, and of awesome novels, don't forget! This week, through the end of Friday, all my novels are TOTALLY FREE! Well, for the Kindle or Kindle software, anyway. The paperbacks'll cost ya. All this as we gear up for a YUGE announcement next week. Can you stand it? Yeah, probably.

Fred's Book Club: Wizard and Weirdstone.

Happy Wednesday, and welcome to another episode of our Humpback Writers, the book club named after Hump Day, not after actual protrusions. None need apply.

Today we look at a children's book that the author says is not a children's book, a fantasy novel by Cheshire's favorite son, author and lover of archaeology Alan Garner. Of course I am referring to his first book, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen. 

"For the world might still be saved if a band of warriors, pure in heart, and brave, could defy him in his hour and compel him to sink once more into the Abyss. Their strength would be not in numbers, but in purity and valour. And so was devised the following plan. The king chose the worthiest of knights, and went with them to Fundindelve, the ancient dwarf-halls, where they were put into enchanted sleep.... The heart of the magic was sealed within Firefrost, the weirdstone of Brisingamen, and it and the warriors became my charge."

So says the wizard Cadellin, as he and his warriors secretly await the return of the Nastrond, the Great Spirit of Darkness. But there is one problem: Firefrost, the weirdstone, has been stolen, and without it the sleeping warriors will wake too soon, and when Nastrond returns none can oppose him, for he has corrupted the world.

Susan and Colin are twins, staying in Cheshire, and they come into possession of the stone -- which makes them able to help Cadellin, but also makes them the target of the forces of evil, unless the stone is returned to Fundindelve. And that quickly becomes a task of enormous difficulty.

The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, first published in 1960, is a brisk and thrilling adventure. Although it is not long, and its heroes are children, Garner has said that he never intended this or his other books to be children's books. While the age of the heroes is important to the story, and younger readers can certainly enjoy it, there's no writing down to the kids here. Things definitely feel more Brothers Grimm than Brothers Krofft in this adventure.

A Reader's Guide to Fantasy described this book and its sequel, The Moon of Gomrath, as "powerful amalgamations of Norse legend, Welsh mythology, and British folklore, set in Adderly, Garner's home town in Cheshire." It goes on to say that "The writing in these two is rich and full of atmosphere and detail, and there are scenes which can make the reader shudder with claustrophobia, or chill in awe." I couldn't agree more.

I read The Weirdstone years ago when my battered copy of the above paperback edition was published in the United States. I was a regular reader of Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine at the time, and the reviewer announced the new edition of this and three other Garner books -- The Moon of Gomrath, and standalone stories Elidor and the highly praised The Owl Service. He particularly noted that the art on these paperbacks by Laurence Schwinger (who is still working!) is gorgeous, frameable fantasy covers for fantasy illustration fans.

I've been hoping for months to cover this book for Fred's Book Club, but it'd been a long while since I read it and I wanted to read it again. I started it, but time demands got me only got about a quarter of the way in. It's only 198 pages in my edition, but I just had not had the time. Well, thanks to my recent hospital stay, and my wife who scooped it up for me from the nightstand, I finished it in my hospital bed. What a joy it was! What a break from my own concerns. The book was every bit as exciting as I remembered.

Maybe it's even too exciting! Children's book or not, children can certainly enjoy it, but there's none of the winking-at-evil that one finds so often in books and films for middle-grade kids. These bad guys mean business:

As if in some dark dream, Colin and Susan strained to tear themselves free, but they were held like wasps in honey.
     Slowly the figure rose from its seat and came towards them. Of human shape it was, but like no mortal man, for it stood near eight feet high, and was covered from head to foot in a loose habit, dank green, and ill concealing the terrible thinness and spider strength of the body beneath. A deep cowl hid the face, skin mittens were on the wasted hands, and the air was laden with the reek of foul waters. 

It gets worse.

As the review I quoted above indicates, these book may be too much for the claustrophobic -- I've never read anything quite so terrible in that manner as the children's flight with friendly dwarves through ancient elvish mines, far below the earth, in darkness -- mines made by creatures smaller than men, mines crushed smaller in the intervening centuries:

Colin screwed himself round in the tunnel. It was really not possible, but desperation tipped the scales; and once he was on his stomach, his knees bending with the tunnel, there was just enough play for Durathror to force Colin's legs around the angle, and from then on Colin was better off than any of the others, because they were now lying on their backs, and in that position movement was even more exhausting and unpleasant. 

And then the tunnel dips, and the way forward is filled with water. How far does the water go? Too far to hold their breath? With the twisting tunnel, the heroes crawling along like earthworms, there is no turning back if it is too far. In fact, there's really no turning back already.

As a youngster reading these I was thrilled by the writer's means of telling the story, with short, powerful descriptions and real assessment of the dangers that the heroes faced. Forget any Disney movie silliness -- this is an adventure in a serious manner, one that in real life no one would ever want to experience. I think these characters would have had PTSD something awful.

In fact, years later, in 2012, Garner published a third book, Boneland, featuring the adult Colin. This did not get the play that the first two did, especially not in the States, but I have ordered a copy online. Will Colin be suffering from the events of the past? He seems to have no memory of anything that happened before his teen years, and his sister is missing, so maybe....

If Garner has one writing habit that irks me, is that his books all come to an end suddenly. There's no wrap-up, not a moment for someone to say "Whew! That was a close one!" or "Hurray!" or "Nooo!" or anything like it. A battle is over or an escape effected or something and THE END. I'm not one for long farewells in books, but I do like a moment to take a breath before the closing credits. But, in Garner's honor, I think I'll just stop this book club entry right here.

Do you read? Over.

You might think that publishers are purposely trying to make sure men don't read books anymore, by the kind of stuff they publish. And there's some evidence to support that. Twenty-nine percent of the fiction market is said to be romance books, exclusively targeted at women. Almost without exception, teen books star "badass" female heroes, or more romance, or a combo thereof. Even in the traditionally male dominion of science fiction, "wokeness," which is by nature anti-male, has twisted the field to the point of revolution within the ranks for the last five years. I expect the "Woke Western" to be the next field of contention, if not "Woke War." Where are the books for your average straight guy?

Publishers, for their part, throw up their hands and say, "These men are not buying books! They are playing video games! They are fooling around with their phones! They are reading naughty manga! They are streaming billions of movies! They do not read!"

It could be a chicken-egg situation; did men drop out of reading or did books drop men?

I actually don't know. I love to read, have since childhood. But I didn't grow up in a bookish house. Mom read one novel during the entire time I was alive, I think -- a tawdry Vegas book that a friend pushed on her. Dad liked science fiction, though, but he had stopped reading books by the time the kids came along. Maybe the lack of peace and quiet around the house turned him toward TV in the evenings, which is more social and requires less concentration. When I discovered his trove of old Science Fiction Book Club novels in the cellar one day, some time after I had become a confirmed bookworm, it was like finding out my dad was Batman. I feel like I hardly know you -- and yet this is so cool! 

He did not read again, however; not until his final illness, which lingered for a long while and prevented him from much physical activity. (He liked Planet of the Apes particularly; said it was quite different from the movie, which I already knew.) Later, he was on serious end-of-life painkillers and could not focus enough to read at all. 

Most men I knew who were casual readers were fond of mysteries, SF/fantasy, and especially espionage. I even had an English professor who was a huge fan of spy novels. The father of one of my best friends was never without one, especially wartime espionage; my pal said, "Put a swastika and a bloody knife on the cover and Dad's reading it."

Men are being told to read, but it's generally in the same way that they are being told to eat kale and go to the gym. It's good for you. Well, I agree. But if it's no fun, they aren't going to do it. No one pays for homework.

I may not be a typical male about these things, since I have a lifelong reading habit and a professional involvement, but I feel exactly the way the average guy might when looking over a shelf full of modern books: Mildly discouraged. It's hard to find the quiet time to do any reading, so give me one reason why this is worth the trouble. And most publishers, and perhaps writers, can't. 

When boys hit high school, the vast majority of books directed toward their age group are written for girls. It got that way because girls were buying more books, and has avalanched since. Even teen books about male characters -- even those written by men -- usually star a male who is a doofus who has a female friend who is a badass. 

When I was in high school, there were very few Beverly Clearys for boys; I was reading books for adults from the time I was thirteen, because there was little else to read. I think now that that was a good thing. But all this illustrates that the problem may start earlier; high school is the first time reading assignments are focused on adult literature, but not the books kids would select themselves, so if self-directed reading for enjoyment is to be instilled, it must be done before that.

I'd like your thoughts on this. I know there are serious publishers who would love to crack the code, find the way to get books into the hands of teenage boys and encourage them to be lifelong readers. I've written a couple of books for that crowd, but couldn't get an agent for them; it's hard to write for boys, but harder to find a publisher since no one cares enough to try anymore. Where do we go from here?

Fred's Book Club: Mr. Dark.

Hello again, readers, and welcome to another episode of the Humpback Writers, our Wednesday book feature. To date we have had no writers with actual Quasimodo-type humps, and if we don't on the day before Halloween, it's looking less likely that we ever will. But we do have a scary classic for you today, one of my all-time favorites.

When Ray Bradbury published Something Wicked This Way Comes in 1962, he was a long-established writer, primarily of science fiction but almost entirely of short stories. It was his second novel, after the more and still famous Fahrenheit 451 (two other books published as novels, Dandelion Wine and of course The Martian Chronicles were assembled from previously published short stories). Unlike the futuristic Fahrenheit and many of his science fiction stories, Something Wicked takes place in the contemporary era, or at least as it was when Bradbury was a boy in the Midwest, ninety years ago.

It's a small Midwestern town, in the autumn, much too late for a carnival, when Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show arrives in the dead of night. Then very strange things start to happen. The heroes of the book, Jim Nightshade, his friend Will Halloway, and Will's father Charles, will face many terrors in the days to follow.

It may sound pretty clichéd now, but despite carnivals having been kind of creepy forever, I don't know that anyone ever did them so well as Bradbury. Not even Charles Finney, whose Circus of Dr. Lao (1935) is also a classic of the form. What happens in Something Wicked doesn't always seem like much at first, but is always truly eerie, painted by Bradbury's colorful, sensual flourishes. You might come across a boy, for example, who has literally ridden the calliope too many times:

One hand hung off the platform.
     It did not belong to a boy.
     It seemed like a huge wax hand shriveled by fire.
     The man's hair was long, spidery, white. It blew like milkweed in the breathing dark.
     They bent to see the face.
     The eyes were mummified shut. The nose was collapsed upon gristle. The mouth was a ruined white flower, the petals twisted into a thin wax sheath over the clenched teeth through which faint bubblings sighed. The man was small inside his clothes, small as a child, but tall, strung out, and old, so old, very old, not ninety, not one hundred, no, not one hundred ten, but one hundred twenty or one hundred thirty impossible years old.
     Will touched.
     The man was cold as an albino frog. 

Later in the book, when Mr. Dark takes a more personal interest, and goes looking for the boys, things get hairy:

"Smart hide-and-seekers, both," said Mr. Dark. "But someone's smarter. Did you hear the carousel calliope tonight? Did you know, someone dear to you was down to the carousel? Will? Willy? William. William Halloway. Where's your mother tonight?"
     Silence.
     "She was out riding the night wind, Willy-William. Around. We put her on. Around. We left her on. Around. You hear, Willy? Around, a year, another year, another, around, around! ...
     "Around, around, and when we let your mother off, boy, and showed her herself in the Mirror Maze, you should have heard the one single sound she made. She was like a cat with a hair ball in her so big and sticky there was no way to gag it out, no way to scream around the hair coming out of her nostrils and ears and eyes, boy, and her old old old. ..."

I've read plenty of books that are scary, but Bradbury can be absolutely visceral. Mr. Dark came to play, yo.

I never wanted to see the film version of the book, made in 1983. It seemed the definition of an unfilmable book. So much happens inside characters' heads (true for his work in general) that could only be shown visually by a director of extraordinary genius, and I don't think from the reviews that even Jack Clayton was up to the task. If you've read any of Bradbury's suspense stories, you might figure that a Bradbury character, seen in real life, is a guy who just stands there and goes nuts. From outside it's just strange, but from inside it makes all the interior sense that insanity can provide. That's why I never bothered with The Ray Bradbury Theater either; a story like "The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl" is terrific reading but, to not test the patience of the film audience, would have to have a running time of five to ten minutes tops. (And I'd rather not discuss the 1980 Martian Chronicles miniseries before breakfast.)

Something Wicked is a chilling book, not only because the evil is so close, and seems unstoppable, but because it also is often so tempting. The carnival tempts our three heroes in different ways right up to about the end of the book. The boys are on the cusp of manhood; the father feels old and failed; men torn in life by different ways, faced with an evil that thrives on exploiting them. Can they pass the test? Can they even survive? Neither are givens in Bradbury's dark fiction.

When I first encountered Bradbury in high school, I wanted to write just like him -- but it is much harder than it looks. I've never gotten close, and finally just had to try to find my own style. Sometimes I'll forget him for a while, and then I'll grab one of his newer books or pick up an older one again and wow! What a great writer.

I was sad when I heard he'd died in 2012, even though he was 91, and would have needed to run on the calliope backward to stay around much longer. He's the only book writer I ever sent a fan letter to, and he wrote back very cordially, which made my decade.

And speaking of decades, I last read this book ten years ago almost to the day -- I know because when I dug out my copy I found a bus ticket inside that I'd been using for a bookmark. The date stamp was 10/23/09. Time for another ride on Mr. Dark's calliope, perhaps?

Magically delicious?

Umm...

Yes, I spotted this box of Kellogg's Unicorn Cereal in the supermarket last week. I have to confess, I'm confused by it for several reasons, which, if you'll indulge me, I will share with you:

1) The unicorn is serious. Not like, I'm gonna spear you serious, but like a little girl would draw. Not snarky, like a modern My Little Pony. Like, really supposed to look like a pretty, gentle, magical fantasy horsey creature. Cartoon cereal mascots usually look either half insane (Cap'n Crunch) or completely insane (Krave squares).

Crunch-a-tize me not, Cap'n

As long as it lives, no one is safe

Sorry, but I'm just so stunned to see a non-wacky and non-snide illustration that I'm not sure I know what to do with it.

2) It's billed as a limited edition, but the US Patent and Trademark Office confirms that Kellogg's has trademarked the name "Unicorn Cereal." It's a bigger pain in the rear end to trademark something than most people think; it actually takes years of work for even a huge corporation to get a valid trademark. Unlike a copyright, you have to prove you are using the product name in commerce, for one thing. So why "limited edition"? I think they're being coy.

3) If Kellogg's intends to keep the unicorn character around, why no name? Frosted Flakes has Tony the Tiger; Froot Loops has Toucan Sam; Rice Krispies has Snap, Crackle, and Pop; Apple Jacks has Apple and CinnaMon. Why no name for the unicorn? (I like Misty.)

4) The cereal itself appears to be in just three colors, red, purple, and blue, not the full rainbow. Toucan Sam's cereal has red, orange, yellow, green, purple, and blue (although the latter three were added in the 1990s). You'd think a magical unicorn would have more colors than a toucan.

5) I thought Starbucks' Unicorn Frappuccino was going to be the end of the unicorn craze, but apparently not. Generally speaking, the overlap for drinkers of fancy coffees and eaters of sugared cereals is not large, but who knows. Can't put anything past Millennials.

6) Kellogg's says it tastes like birthday cake (or "magic cupcake"), which is something I've seen a lot, starting with Perry's ice cream and later M&M's, gummies, protein bars, and doughnuts. Really "birthday cake" just means cake, since birthday cake, however decorated, is a basic cake. Same for magic cupcakes.

7) I couldn't bring myself to buy it. You all know that I've bought tons of ridiculous cereals to review for my public; everything from French-toastie cereals to candy-inspired cereals to superhero cereals to Girl Scout cookie cereals. But this was a bridge too far. Even the irrepressible Mr. Breakfast has failed thus far to review Unicorn Cereal, although he does mention that the cereal or one very like it is marketed in the UK as Unicorn Froot Loops. So that's interesting.

I don't know -- I may break down and try it just for the challenge. I'm trying to get off the sugar bandwagon, but with the holidays approaching anyway.... Still, purchasing a girly cereal for personal consumption would push me into Brony territory, I fear, and there's a stigma.

Of course, if it turns out that Kellogg's named the unicorn Misty, I would have to buy a box. I like Misty.

The October country.

And so it begins -- ever slightly, but begins.

OCTOBER COUNTRY...
...that country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coal-bins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away from the sun. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain...

--Ray Bradbury, The October Country

No point in fighting it; October is here. Let us not panic as I normally do with thoughts of how we are going to pay the Christmas bills -- yes, it will be tree-trimming time before we know it. But let's try to remember what October was like when we were kids. It was one of the loooooongest months of the year, because Halloween was at the end of it and Halloween was awesome. Also, the initial thrill of a new school year was long gone by now, and the days would drag on and on.

Now everything rushes forward -- the days may be long but the months are short. Can't we apply the brakes a little?

October was always my favorite month as a kid. I know some people always prefer the summer, and that's understandable if they have fun summer plans. I liked not being in school, of course, but I hated the heat and humidity, which usually get in New York City in spades. We did not have air conditioning. I know some people really enjoy the hot and humid weather of July and August, and yet these people are allowed to walk about free like normal people.

Ray Bradbury was the poet of October. He is -- wrongly, I think -- remembered as a science fiction writer. Mostly he wrote scary stories, travel stories, mystery stories, magical stories. He wrote the screenplay for John Huston's 1956 film Moby Dick. He wrote a lot of SF stories, yes, but he was not capable of writing hard science fiction, the way Robert Heinlein did. Heinlein had an engineer's soul and could do math. I get the feeling that Bradbury couldn't balance his checkbook. But who cares? He wrote like an October angel.

A friend of mine growing up would always be willing to trade his "left nut" for something of inestimable value -- "I'd give my left nut to have a date with her" "I'd give my left nut to play like Hendrix" "I'd give my left nut to drive a Testarossa" -- etc. I don't know what the going rate for testicles was supposed to be, but clearly he thought it was very high. If it still is, I'd like to make a deal regarding Bradbury's writing ability. My friend never found a taker for his nut, though, so I suppose there's no deal to be made.

I was thinking yesterday, on a bright, sunlit morning, that it was interesting that Bradbury chose October. November is far darker and more dank; December has the fire of Christmas to keep it lit, but January and February are desolate. But he was right. The turning of the leaves is more interesting than their absence. The dwindling of the sunlight is more dramatic than the dark. Those attics, cellars, and closets hide more secrets than the woods.

Slow down your October. Enjoy it. Listen for the rain on the empty walks, and wonder where the October people are going.

Bob the Mage, conclusion.

[Author's note: Fiction Friday! is here, and we are on the final chapter of our thrilling fantasy adventure, Bob the Mage. Please, no weeping. Yes, we have come to the end of this novella that I wrote years ago, and if you've stuck with it, I sincerely hope you've enjoyed it. It needed more work than I might have hoped, but there were a lot of things I thought showed some promise. Made me want to reach back through time and pat Baby Fred on the head.
At the end of chapter 15, incompetent wizard Bob actually caused the destruction of the evil wizard Mormor, saving himself, Princess Suzy, his friend Astercam, and the crew of the evil-wizard-killing ship Badass. Can they get home without something else horrible happening?

If you'd like to actually read the rest of it, the previous chapters are here: 
chapter 15, chapter 14, chapter 13, chapter 12, chapter 11,

chapter 10, chapter 9, chapter 8, chapter 7, chapter 6,
chapter 5, chapter 4, chapter 3, chapter 2, chapter 1

And remember, if enjoyed the book -- well, thanks!]

Bob the Mage

by Frederick Key

Chapter 16

Not a single sailor looked for any gold.

After Mormor’s departure for parts unseen, a departure that seemed to suck all imps and devils in his employ along with him, the two-thumbed arms that held our crew prisoner began to lose their grip. The sailors managed to free themselves and crawl hand-over-hand, so to speak, along the walls to safety. They’d had enough magic for one day and wanted off the island immediately.

As for Suzy, Astercam, and me, we fell to the ground, but not hard. We began to lose altitude slowly, but we increased speed, and only the last foot or so was gravity-normal. It did not occur to me at the time—not until we were far away from Big Evil Island—but somewhere on the premises was the Gallstone of the Gods, a counterforce to whatever remained of Mormor’s magic, and the longer he was gone the more magic was dispelled. Had it all gone poof at once, we probably would have fallen to our deaths. Thanks, Gallstone!

We hardly said a word, but got back to the boats, back to the Badass, and hauled anchor out of there. We knew Mormor was gone and not likely to ever return, but the island was still terrifying in light of the horrors we had seen. I took one last look as we sailed away, and the skull fortress looked like it was beginning to sag in the moonlight pouring from a now-clear sky. I wondered if the Gallstone would cause the whole castle to collapse, and maybe the whole island with it. I wondered if it would vanish from all nautical reckoning. I hoped so.

The silence on the ship was thick. Suzy was offered a cabin and locked herself in without a word to me or anyone. Astercam crawled up to the crow’s nest and refused to come down. I swabbed the deck just to keep busy.

Eight days crept along and eventually the horrors seemed to fade. Some still saw demons in dark corners, some still woke screaming, some still swigged more than his ration of rum. But enough about me. Most of the guys started to pick up. These sturdy sons of the salt knew that the sea had horrible secrets, and were buoyed by the knowledge that they’d be dining out on this one for a long time. No doubt thirty or forty of them would claim to be the man that slew Mormor.

Suzy called for me that eighth day, and I entered the cabin and she cried for a few hours. My worst fears for her were not confirmed—it seemed that Mormor had retained hope he could twist her to his side right up until the Badass came into view on his magic mirror and he saw who was on it. So physically she’d remained unharmed, at least. Hearing her tale I cried, too. Then we sobbed, did a little weeping, some random tearing-up, and finished with a big WAAAH. That helped wash away the fears, and she was seen on deck from time to time for the rest of our journey to Tegora.

Tegora! How wonderful to smell her cesspools again! After what we’d been through, it felt like home. We landed, and Bugsby filed his official report with the admiral. Complete success, he said, and although the Gallstone was gone, so was the need for it, and we key figures were debriefed by the admiral over the next couple of days.

All charges were dropped against your humble hero here, because of my extreme heroism in the face of eternal torment, which is not a legal excuse but impressed the hell out of the magistrates. Also, I think by this point everyone was agreed that I was not much of a threat.

Not every sailor opted to continue a career on the sea following the trip. Kevin decided to go into carpentry, for one. I requested a formal discharge from the Tegoran army and got it. I also asked for Lefro’s sentence to be commuted or for him to be pardoned; he had been rotting in jail for many weeks now. What the heck; I was feeling merciful.

Of course, I was there to meet him when he was released, and I punched him in the nose.

A couple of days later a ship was arranged to bring Suzy back home to her father. “And you’re coming, too,” she said.

“I am? Wow!”

“If I leave you alone in Tegora you will get arrested again, and thrown into the army again, and sent on another horrible quest, and who knows what will happen? You need someone to keep you out of trouble.”

“And you’re volunteering?”

She smiled. Then she winked.

I’d never been so happy as I was in that moment.

Some of the boys wanted to take me out on my last night in Tegora, though. I said sure. So I was not cured of my poor judgment.

I’m blurry on some of the details. I seem to recall Bugsby getting sore at Chokolost around midnight, and they started dueling with silverware. Bourbon and Sanford pulled them apart, but when Karkill started vomiting we all got thrown out of the tavern. I staggered along, but I’m not sure where we were as I had a lantern shade on my head. A barmaid gave Wrax a hickey the size of a doubloon, and that was all I saw of him. Wiggen and a couple of the ex-pirates started a brawl somewhere along the line, but we left him to his fun. Sailors.

At dawn I was dragged to the dock where I saw a blurry ship waiting for a blurry Suzy who stood on by a blurry gangplank. I shook my head for focus, and realized I was still soaking wet from the impromptu bath the boys had given me. Then the boys took me to the gangplank and dropped me with a “Ta-da!”

“Hi, honey,” I said.

“You’ve been drinking,” she said.

“Who, me? Nevvvvver, well, maybe. How was the palace?” She had been the guest of Maximo the Seventh (may he blah blah blah) while in town.

“Nice. Boring. No one tried to kidnap me, so it had that going for it.”

“What’s Maxie like?”

“I never got to see him. Just a bunch of eunuchs and maids, and a couple of diplomats. Now we’ll probably have to put his relatives up if they drop into town.” She sighed.

“Well, as you can see, I am ready to go. Should we have the captain marry us now, or wait until we get out to sea?”

“Um… can we talk about that, Bob?” She drew me aside and the guys followed. “Alone?”

“Skedaddle, boys,” I said. They skedaddled, grumbling. “What’s up?”

She clutched my shoulders, either to firm her resolve or stop my wobbling. “I don’t want to marry you.”

I blinked. “Wow. Way to drop a brick on a guy.”

“I mean, not right away, at least.”

“But I rescued you. Well, after you rescued me. Maybe you did it twice if you count the serpent. But I was going to save you from the pirates, and I did rescue you in the end. So with all this rescuing I think we’re stuck together.”

She sighed again. “Bob, Bob, Bob… You read a lot of storybooks growing up?”

“So is this over? You don’t love me?”

She grabbed me around the waist. “Oh, Bob! It’s not that! Well, maybe it is that. I don’t know. We haven’t really had much time together, have we? I was smitten the moment I saw you and remain smited, but can we really have a relationship? Everything happened so fast. And some of our strongest memories together are literal hell.”

“Yeah, literally literal.”

“Kind of hard to get past that, even though it wasn’t our fault. I might have post-thaumaturgical stress disorder. Couldn’t we just… hang out together for a while before we make a commitment?”

“Oh, of course.” My turn to sigh. “I fought the world’s mightiest and evilest mage for you, the least I can do is go on a date.”

“We can’t just base our relationship on saving each other all the time.”

“I guess it could get to be a little—”

“Repetitive?”

“All right.” I looked in her eyes, and saw them shining. They were the opposite of every horrible thing I’d been through since I’d first set foot in this town. “As long as I can be with you, I’ll do whatever you ask, Suzy. When do we sail?”

“That’s… another problem.”

“NOW what?”

“The ship’s only supposed to take one passenger: me. They won’t take you.”

“You know, this is starting to sound like a brushoff.”

“I don’t know what to do! I have no real authority. I can’t even bribe anyone. I have no money. You have no money.”

“We should have gotten some of that Big Evil gold after all.”

“But I do want you to come with me.”

“All right. I will find a way. Leave it to me.”

I saw her to the gangplank, where all my pals waved good-bye. When she was aboard I said, “Okay, guys, I need your help one more time.”

An hour later I was sitting in a crate in the cargo hold, hungover, cramped, and stowed away. We were hardly off from shore when my stomach lurched with the seas. I was sick, exhausted, and had barely room to move. What I don’t do for a date.

If any of you had wagered I would wind up in a box at the end of this story, I hope you hadn’t paid off yet. 

Anyway, that’s about all there is to tell for now. I know you probably wanted an epic adventure, with at least more than one elf and two dwarves and just a mention of trolls, but I’m sure you could find some other book you’d like better, then, books that are up to their eyeballs in elves and dwarves and trolls. If it makes you feel better, though, I would like to impart one bit of important wisdom I have learned the hard way, something I tell all the kids who come to me for advice, something for them to remember as they go through this crazy world seeking fame and riches and excitement.

Remember always, kids, I say: Adventure sucks.

END

[So, will Fiction Friday! return next week? Not sure now, but maybe. I have a couple of other books in the trunk, but I think they may be irredeemable. Maybe a new story? We'll find out next week!]

Bob the Mage, ch. 15.

[Author's note: Fiction Friday! is here, and we are on the penultimate chapter of our thrilling fantasy adventure, Bob the Mage. Be grateful that it's more of a novella than a novel. I wrote Bob in my misspent youth -- the only fantasy-world book I ever completed -- and am editing and refreshing it and posting it here. At the end of chapter 14, incompetent wizard Bob and his friend Astercam the Academic had stormed Big Evil Island to rescue the Princess Suzy and slay the evil wizard Mormor, accompanied by Bourbon the Barbarian and the crew of the evil-wizard-killing ship Badass. Things went completely off the rails before they even broke into Mormor's fortress, and now the crew of the ship has been captured. Bob and Astercam are left free to go and face their wicked former captor, Mormor....

Sounds like the climax of the book! If you want to get up to speed with your friends and neighbors, here are the links: 
chapter 14, chapter 13, chapter 12, chapter 11,

chapter 10, chapter 9, chapter 8, chapter 7, chapter 6,
chapter 5, chapter 4, chapter 3, chapter 2, chapter 1

And remember, if you're enjoying the book, tell someone! Put it on Facebook! Promise Mark Zuckerberg than any resemblance between him and Mormor is purely coincidental!]

Bob the Mage

by Frederick Key

Chapter 15

This time I did not enter a banquet hall. Mormor had actually rearranged the rooms in his castle for our benefit. Gracious, eh? Astercam and I emerged on a balcony overlooking an enormous circular chamber. In the middle of the room floated Suzy, about thirty feet in the air and hollering her lungs out. (Those of you who thought Suzy would wind up having been in league with Mormor can just forget it. So there.) Suzy was wearing a torn and mud-splattered gown of sickly green, with matching veil, like she’d been caught in desperate flight wearing a gown woven from solid nausea. On the floor, surrounded by a ring of blood-red flame, was my old pal Zippy.

“About time,” he said, looking up at us. “I was losing hope that you would make it. I feared you might be so incompetent that you would trip and break your skulls.” I gripped my staff threateningly, like a big brave boy. He shook his head in disgust. Then he snapped his fingers, and Astercam and I were aloft. We drifted over to Suzy, not quite close enough to touch. She had stopped screaming, but looked at us with horror in her eyes.

“You should have stayed away,” she croaked.

“I couldn’t,” I said.

Mormor, who this time was wearing spotless black robes covered in runes, gestured again, and the ring of flame tightened around him. It lit him from beneath, scattering his visage with shadows, making him look scarier than ever.

My staff clattered to the floor next to him.

“Nuts!” I said.

He looked up. “That’s all you have, Bobby? You threw your useless stick at me?”

I shrugged. Even if I was good at staff throwing, hitting him in the head would have been a million-to-one shot.

He chuckled. “Bobby, Bobby, Bobby,” he said. “I don’t know how for a moment you thought you could foil my plans. Better men than you have tried, and they’d have failed with a hundred ships and a hundred anti-magic artifacts. But I’m so glad you gave it a whirl. After all, you destroyed my dungeons, and they need to be replenished. That is why you’re alive now; I needed you to bring me more subjects. And here they are!”

Every man from the ship appeared then, lining the walls and roof of that hellish amphitheater. They were pinned in place by the arms that had captured them, like paper dolls tacked to a child’s walls. They looked far more terrified than sailors and pirates ever let on. Bugsby was blubbering; Karkill looked stunned, like he was in a nightmare and could not awaken. Sanford stared, muttering what might have been a prayer over and over. Chokolost was aghast in shock, and even Bourbon, that tower of strength, was wailing. Hell, most of them were wailing. They had lost all hope.

I had led them to this. After killing every victim in Mormor’s dungeons with a bomb, a dark but merciful sin, I had just brought him more. If I’d let them kill me on the ship they wouldn’t be here. I was used to being useless and incompetent, but it was new to feel so horribly wrong.

“Before I put your little friends in storage for later,” said Mormor, “I want them to see something so horrifying that the shock of seeing it will torture them all their days. You see, Bob, Astercam, you two know me to be the foremost authority of torture in the world, and that is correct. But there are other worlds.”

The ring of flame rose slowly until it was about fifteen feet in the air. In its place on the ground was a perfect circle of gold. That’s when I realized what was going to happen. I could tell by his gasp that Astercam did, too.

In order to summon a really powerful demon, it’s not enough to draw a circle. To control such a being the circle must be completely perfect, and itself created by powerful magic. Mormor was going to invite a guest.

And as many times as people had told me to go to hell, I had never expected to actually go there.

Mormor spoke with a voice of doom. “For disobeying me, Astercam, and attempting to flee, and being a bloody boring old fool, I sentence you!”

Astercam squeaked.

“For resisting my advances, helping my foes to escape, and stealing my toys, Suzette, I sentence you!”

Suzy sobbed.

If I hadn’t come along, maybe she would not have wound up with this psychopath. Maybe she’d be dead on the bottom of the ocean, where we’d all be better off. Or maybe she’d have surrendered to him, and at least she wouldn’t be in this fix with me.

“And you, Bob,” said Mormor, smiling, “for escaping, leading a revolt against me, ruining my dungeons, and being so unutterably pathetic, I sentence you! You shall all taste the pain of eternal torment!”

Then, with a wave of his arms that caused great gusts of sulfur and ash to spray us, and all manner and color of fire to blaze about the room, he summoned forth with an unholy chant one of the most horrifying apparitions in hell.

The room shook as the twenty-foot monster rose from the ground, oozing acid and brimstone. Its dozens of arms ended in all sorts of mutated hands, its thirty mouths (some on stalks) wheezed and fumed. Its body was covered in a mockery of living, pulsating organs. It turned its hundred eyes of varying sizes this way and that about the amphitheater, then settled all of them on Mormor.

“Take these three you see above you to your plane,” commanded Mormor, “and do with them what you will.”

The beast seems displeased by the command. “I shall have you, Mormor!” it screeched, in voices high enough to rattle my teeth, low enough to loosen my bowels, probably some inaudible to human ears.

“Never, my slave of the pit!” cried Mormor, enjoying himself. “I shall endure beyond time, and you shall never catch me in your claws. Take what scraps I give you and be grateful!”

The demon’s eyes turned back toward us. Thus compelled, it had to obey Mormor to the letter. Freed, it could do as it pleased.

Freed?

What if…?

But then, what if…?

A monstrous arm reached toward Astercam.

Oh, what’s the difference at this point?

And so, saying to the gods above, Please, just once more, I fired with trembling fingers another heat spell directly at the ring of gold. It was a great shot, I must say, hitting that sucker from thirty feet away.

But the gold stayed solid.

And yet, the demon stopped.

“Do not delay!” cried Mormor. “You have your orders!”

“Orders I may deny!” cried the monster. “The circle is broken!” And it made some bizarre mélange of horrible noises I think was laugher. If everyone you’d ever heard laugh was insane, and they all laughed at once, it would have sounded like that.

“Liar!” sneered Mormor. “You mean Bobby’s little toe-burner? That couldn’t melt butter. Quit stalling.”

“I tell you, it is broken! This scrap you call Bobby melted it a few particles from its perfect form, Mormor, enough to snap your command!”

Mormor stared at the creature, horror dawning on his face. He waved his arms and began to chant the circle spell again, but it was too late. With one arm the demon grabbed Mormor around the waist, and with a mouth on a stalk bit one of the mage’s leg clean off. Mormor started screaming like—well, like a man on his way to hell.

A hundred eyes then turned on me, examining me with penetrating evil, and I thought, Here we go, my turn.

And then fifty of the eyes… winked?

And with a clap of deafening thunder, they were gone.

😈💥🔥

[Close call for our heroes! Next week we'll have the epilogue that will wrap everything up. Will Bob win the hand of the fair maiden? Will Bugsby or Karkill or Chokolost try to kill Bob? Will Bob and Astercam and Suzy plummet to their deaths from where they're floating in the air? All this and more will be revealed next Friday!]