Heart of Cthulhu

A quick note about the first three sessions of our Call of Cthulhu campaign:

This last adventure was based on Don Coatar's adventure The God of Mitnal. It's a high-quality adventure for a fan-published work, but I found it a bit bland, with all the occult setup coming to nothing and explicit advice to go easy on the investigators. I was thinking how to spice it up and I thought of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. 

I always enjoyed Heart of Darkness, but found the climax to be, well, anti-climactic. After this descent into the semi-mythic underworld in the dark heart of Africa, our narrator finds... Kurtz dying of Malaria and the natives really bummed out about it. I'm sure there's some deep postmodern message in that. No quest object or beloved Eurydice awaits our Hero's at the end of his quest. It was all for naught as there is only a great void at the Heart of Things. That's a powerful theme but makes for a dull plot point. What was rally lacking there is for our narrator to find Kurtz at his prime just as he's about to perform the great ritual to awaken Cthulhu from his eons-long slumber! The ritual goes wrong, Kurtz is left shattered, he is loaded onto the river boat. Denouement continues from there. 

So in that spirit I made Kimbel the Kurtz character. Our slippery gun-runner has met his match in the form of the crystal skull of Au-Puch. He has spent too many hours staring into it's owlish eyes and with the loss of his sanity, it has persuaded him to perform the ancient ritual to break the seal and release Au-Puch, an ancient Cthonian deep under the ground. Unfortunately, Donato's Judo skills foiled that plan before things could really get interesting.

R. A. Salvatore and the Time Machine

My father brought me a box of my old books a few years back and there were a number of Salvatore titles therein. I've mentioned before on this blog that R. A. Salvatore was my favorite author towards the end of high school. I started working my way through his Cleric's Quintet this year and I just finished reading the second book, In Sylvan Shadows. I have two observations:

First off, this is really good YA fiction. Oh the DnD is about as Vanilla as it gets, but the characters, their struggles, and their relationships are so familiar, so relate-able for the book's target demographic of nerdy teenage boys. As an aspiring computer-Wizard, I related quite a bit with Cadderly, a Cleric-scholar who finds himself in dangerous adventures he doubts he can handle, as I navigated the Orc-infested woods of the Southern Californian public school system. Cadderly's run-ins with dangerous villains and attractive women who could definitely lick him in a fight, rang quite true to the experiences of my teenage self.

Secondly, I realized that I am utterly incapable read these books objectively. The Drizzt and other Salvatore books I read meant quite a lot to me during that formative period of my life, and re-reading them brings on powerful feelings of nostalgia and even loss. Since 1996-1998 were still the early days of the Internet, there is very little recorded from that period of my life, and even my school Yearbooks were misplaced when my parents split up in the early 2000's. As such, I'm going to let the rest of this post be a memorial to all that I loved during my High School years but that was lost to the tides of time:

I could make this whole post about my Mother, may her memory be a blessing. About how she didn't really get her nerdy, reclusive child, but she loved me anyway... But instead I'm going to focus on school, since anyway adolescence is that time when we tend to create distance ourselves from our parents and focus on the world outside of the family.

Woodbridge High

As for school, let's talk about Art Class. I started taking Mrs. Posvar's art class in High School in Freshman year and I continued taking it most semesters more or less until graduation, probably 5 or 6 semesters out of 8 in total. That class was the high point of my day, and I still have a few paintings and drawings from that period.

I made a friend, that first year, in gym class of all places. Tom S and I formed a bond over a common goal: surviving our mandatory Physical Education requirement, with it's assortment of Gorillas, Spastics, and Bizarro Gym Teachers. And we did survived, somehow--but then his parents moved away at the end of the year. To Texas or Arizona or some other barren wilderness, I don't remember.

I joined an Anime Club early on in my High School career. Twice a week during lunch hour, the Foreign Animation club would congregate to watch the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Japanese Ani-Manga. Whatever Rob, our manga-guru, was able to get that week. This wasn't such a social venue for me, but I loved it, and felt like I was getting away with something wicked-watching cartoons during school time!

My third year of High School, my brother got me into Magic: the Gathering. I bought a bunch of cards and would play with the Magic Club during lunch breaks when there was no Anime to be seen. I was really bad at Magic--I couldn't win a game to save my life, but I enjoyed the hobby quite a bit for a while. But then, just as I was just starting to suspect that I would never get good at this bloody card game, I got sucked in to The Loft...

The Loft

The Loft Club were half a dozen guys who would eat lunch together on the rear balcony("The Loft") of the science building, overlooking the football field(and in close proximity to the Magic Club and Foreign Animation Club). Tony, Jesse, Byron and Sam were all Seniors. There were a couple Sophomores who joined late in the year, a guy and a girl, whose names escape me after all these years, I'm sorry to say. I was the odd-man-out as the only Junior in the group. Well, it all started when one of these guys(maybe Sam?) invited me to come sit with them one lunch-period.  By the end of lunch, I was hooked!

These dudes were into nerdy stuff like computers, and Anime, and Dnd, but they were cool and confident and knew what they wanted out of life and lunchtime was always accompanied with an interesting conversation. Tony was the coolest since he was British(from Leeds) and his favorite author was R. A. Salvatore, so I naturally visited Barnes and Noble and got every Salvatore book I could find. Jesse was already a living legend in A. P. Computer Science since he had taken the course his Junior year and left an actual working physics game(written in Pascal) as a legacy for future students to play. Sam and Byron were a bit more approachable and we developed friendships outside of the Loft and kept getting together now and again in subsequent years. In any case, the Loft quickly became an important venue for me. It was the first place in this massive school of nearly 2000 students(probably in my entire K-12 education) where I felt truly ok with who I was, where I was accepted and understood by other like-minded souls. The Loft was a big deal for me, even if that period only lasted half a year or so.

Fourth year was hard, because the older Loft guys had graduated and I was left with the two third-years to try and keep the glory alive. We kept meeting for lunch, first in the Loft itself, then later in a different location, but it was never quite the same.

a Model Gundam

But, fourth year I made another friend, a fellow Anime fan, a Junior. He lived with his mother really close to school, like literally a block away in a neighborhood of tiny two-bedroom condos. He was 1/4 Japanese and his room was mostly full of model Gundams he had painstakingly build. He was a quiet, smart, sweet kid and we had a lot of fun hanging out together, playing computer games, and talking about whatever adolescent boys talk about. I'm trying, for the life of me, to remember if he had a little sister. Maybe. I can't remember- 1998 was a long time ago.

Anyway, that's the stuff that comes to mind when I read old Salvatore books. I guess reading really is a subjective experience. If you give In Sylvan Shadows to someone to read, they probably won't be struck by melancholy reflections on their long-lost High School days. They'll be like "Yeah! Ents vs. Goblins!" or else "Ugh, another Tolkien Pastiche!" But for me, this book is a Time Machine.

Heroes of the Black Company

I've wanted to write of review of the excellent "Chronicles of the Black Company" for a while now, having recently read the book for the first time. Sometimes it takes time for a review to congeal into something cohesive.

Chronicles of the Black Company collects the first three novels in Glen Cook's Black Company series into a single volume. This initial trilogy kicks off what is so far a series of ten books.

I've always enjoyed Fantasy, but as I've grown older I've found that most of my favorite books are Science Fiction. The problem is that much of Fantasy literature consists of Tolkien imitators, many of them, lacking any original vision or message. Glen Cook adopts this pattern but looks at things from the other side of the battle lines. The Black Company concedes the Tolkienesque world, but asks the question: What if our Heroes work not for Gandalf, but for The Dark Lord himself? It then goes about the daunting Humanistic task of making those villains relatable and sympathetic anti-heroes. This trick of creating a narrative with the bad guys in the lead is a difficult balance to strike, as the recent, rather poorly received Suicide Squad movie can attest to.

Anti-Superheroes

The Black Company

In this first book, we see the Black Company through the eyes of Croaker, the band's Doctor and Historian. We meet them in the inauspicious time before the end of their fateful commission in Beryl. The company faces an existential threat but is offered an out, if they will betray their employer and help overthrow the city. To their credit, the Mercenary leadership does not take the decision lightly, being men of honor with a proud history of completing their commissions. Only when the Syndic's own refusal to face the dire situation leaves them no choice do they accept the emissary's proposal. But the joke is ultimately on the Black Company as it soon turns out they are now working for this Fantasy World's version of Sauron, known simply as "The Lady".

The company soon takes on a new recruit, Raven. Raven is a Byronic Hero. He contributes considerable prowess to the company, yet remains unpredictable and dangerous.

The Black Company become the Lady's most elite unit, but remain sympathetic protagonists since they are not as bad as her regular troops. They ultimately help the Lady defeat the rebels and her Taken rivals, while at the same time planting the seeds for her eventual downfall.

Shadows Linger

The second book in the trilogy mostly takes place in the city of Juniper. It is, for the most part, a detective story(I'm not surprised to find that Glen Cook's other popular series is in the Hardboiled Detective genre.) Something strange is going on in the city, but no one seems to hold all the pieces of the puzzle. Croaker teams up with a toughened detective from the City Watch named Bullock in an attempt to get to the bottom of matters. Unbeknownst to them, Raven plays a big part of this mystery. His actions unwittingly lead to the almost total destruction of the Company. In this way, Croaker and Raven are unwitting adversaries throughout the book.

In the end, Croaker cracks the case just before the shit hits the fan, but too late to prevent it. The Company earns our respect once again when they officially break with The Lady, but now there is a bit of a bait an switch. It is revealed that The Dominator threatens to rise again. At this point, the Lady herself becomes a sympathetic character as she tries to hold-together her Empire and foil his plans.

The White Rose

In the final installment of the trilogy, the Black Company teams up with the White Rose herself in her fight against the Lady and the Dominator. Cook ends his game of role-reversal by completing the redemptive arcs of The Company and The Lady, respectively. In the final showdown, Croaker and Raven find them selves in parallel situations, pitted against one another in a life-or-death struggle. Croaker emerges victorious while Raven is left with nothing.

Heroic Croaker

One of the main reasons the morally ambiguous Black Company remains relateable is that our narrator, Croaker, is a Hardboiled Hero, straight out of Chandler's "Simple Art of Murder". He is the mean product of a mean world. He kills effectively and repeatedly and overlooks his companions' worst atrocities. Nevertheless, he hangs onto a moral code, often to his own detriment. His dedication to the legacy of the company is complete. He is almost a monk in his his duty as resident scholar, updating the annals and reading them aloud to inspire the men. He is also company doctor, healing the wounded after every battle. Finally, there is his strange sentimental crush for the the ultimate Femme Fatale, The Lady. Even when faced with Evil incarnate, Croaker shows his redemptive potential.

Ultimately, Raven and Croaker's ark in the trilogy pits two types of anti-hero against one another, Croaker's Hardboiled here and Raven's Byronic Hero. The Byronic Hero is a decidedly Modern character, assured in his power, the world is his oyster and he intends to harvest the pearl. The Hardboiled Hero is Postmodern, struggling with his own faults and limitations. Both are products of a wicked age, yet while the Hardboiled Hero hangs onto his moral code, the Byronic Hero is blown chaotically between acts of kindness and cruelty by his own inscrutable whims. In the end, Chronicles of the Black Company chooses the Croakers of the world over the Ravens.

The Roots of the Hardboiled Hero

Men of David, James Tissot

The Hardboiled Hero archetype was popularized in the early 20th century pulps, but his roots run deeper.  A man of  honor in a dark world, Croaker's enigmatic personality reminds me of Y. Medan's description of David. In the book of Samuel, David is presented as brave, sensitive and pious, yet when he is insulted by an unappreciative Nabal the Carmelite, he comes dangerously close to committing mass-murder. Says Medan, this is the lot of good men who live by the sword. With the passage of time, pulling the trigger starts to become too easy. In his darkest times, being hunted by King Saul through the hills of the Judaean Desert, David is left struggling simply to maintain his virtue.

The Hardboiled Hero continues to speak to us today, as police and security forces are caught time and again using deadly force inappropriately. This timeless theme is what makes the Black Company novels work so well. In Croaker's own moral struggle in a Dark Fantasy world, we see our own struggles, and in his ultimate redemption, we see hope for ourselves in the darkest corners of our own existence.

Science Fiction Review: Ancillary Justice

Ann Leckie's 2013 science fiction novel Ancillary Justice is categorized as Space Opera. That's fair enough, I suppose. It has aliens, interstellar travel via jump gates, and intergalactic Empires vying for power. That said, tonally and thematically, it is closer to Post-Cyberpunk.

Cyberpunks

The main theme of the book is it's exploration of new paradigms of conscious experience, such as AI and technologically modified humans. This is a very cyberpunk theme, but while William Gibson tries to alienate us with uncomfortable marriages of technology and biology, Leckie humanizes this new paradigm, offering us an intimate view into these characters' lives. Ancillary Justice introduces us to three types of technological character:

1. AIs and their Ancillaries- the protagonist, Justice of Toren/Breq is such a being, with modified human bodies networked with one another and slaved to a ship AI. All of the parts share a single collective experience and think of themselves as a single person, albeit one comprised of many bodies and many brains.
2. Networked Clones- Anaander Mianaai, ruler of the Radch empire, continuously produces clones of herself. The clones are networked to one another(while within the same star system) and they all think of themselves as a single person. Her many clones travel the Galaxy, allowing her to rule over a highly-diffuse realm(basically James Patrick Kelly's Solstice, cranked up to 11). 
3. Post-Humans- the backwater system Breq describes in chapter 17 is populated with "heavily modified people--not human, by Radchaai standards, people with six or eight limbs(and no guarantee any of them would be legs), vacuum-adapted skin and lungs, brains so meshed and crosshatched with implants and wiring it was an open question whether they were anything but conscious machines with a biological interface." We just get a sketch of them and their brand of utilitarian altruism "I found out later that a four-meter, tentacled eel of a person had paid the balance of my fare without telling me, because, she had told the captain, I didn't belong there and would be healthier elsewhere." pp.255-6

Cyberpunks in Crisis

Leckie explores each of these characters' sense of self, to various degrees.

She gives us a first person view of Breq's existential crises, first when her individual units lose their network connection, then when she is ordered to kill her favorite captain, then once again when Justice of Toren is destroyed leaving only a single surviving Ancillary.

"I spent six months trying to understand how to do anything--not just how to get my message to the Lord of the Radch, but how to walk and breathe and sleep and eat as myself." p.256

We are also offered a second person view of Anaander Mianaai's own long-running crisis as her clones develop differences of opinion. This rift within herself results in subtle intrigues and ultimately in armed conflict between the various factions of self.

We're also offered Breq's third-person view of the Post-Humans and their more individualistic culture, which nevertheless includes an ethic of helping others to find their own place in the system.

All Things Shining

This is sort of the opposite of the other book I'm reading, Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly's All Things Shining. A major theme of All Things Shining is the vast, untranslatable cultural gap between previous epochs and our own Modern Age. The authors explore many examples of this, but one such case is their claim that our existential crises today are utterly alien to our forbears. That, without the broad array of choices that our modern situation offers us, these questions of self-definition simply don't arise.

"It is not just that in earlier epochs one knew on what basis one's most fundamental existential choices were made: it is that the existential questions didn't even make sense." p.13.

In the same vein, Dreyfus and Kelly also explore examples of past practices that seem utterly alien to us Moderns, yet which made complete made sense according to the world view of people at the time. For example, Helen recounts her affair with Paris in front of her Husband and polite company and is praised for "An excellent tale, my dear, and most becoming."(Homer's Odyssey) The authors argue that this lack of embarrassment can best be understood by the Greek belief that a person's ultimate fulfillment is to become attuned to the gods(in this case Aphrodite).

This is what Leckie is doing in Ancillary Justice--presenting us with a glimpse into a future society, whose own existential questions are be inherently alien to our own experience. What is it like to be a collective self? What sort of unique crises of identity does such a person face? Intellectually, we can only imagine the answers in terms of metaphors, but Leckie does better, taking a more impressionistic approach in her descriptions. Ancillary Justice is a book whose tones of stoic melancholy and irreparable loss stimulate our imagination to fill in the blanks where rational reflection hits a wall of inscrutability.

To sum up, Ancillary Justice is high-concept Science Fiction at it's best and is sure to become, itself, a Modern Classic.

Book Review: Red Planet Blues

Wow. That was the darkest book I've read in a long time. It's also one of the better books I've read in a long time.

Robert Sawyer's novel Red Planet Blues is a mashup of the Hardboiled Detective and Science Fiction genres. With regard to the latter, the book draws inspiration from Mars Fiction(Burrough, Heinlein, and probably others), as well as post-humanist Cyberpunk. That said, despite the broad base of inspiration, Sawyer has crafted a story with a character all it's own.

But back to the darkness. Hardboiled Fiction is all about the Hardboiled Hero and Alex Lomax is just such a hero. But there is no Hardboiled Hero without a Hardboiled World, and it is a dark dark world indeed.

Raymond Chandler defines the Hardboiled Hero as a man of honor in a honorless world. Indeed the Hardboiled Hero's heroism is one that springs from the very corrupt world it stands distinct from. It is this very paradox, that Vice can breed Honor, and Corruption Truth, that gives the Hardboiled tale it's redemptive quality.

In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption...But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective in this kind of story must be such a man...He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man...He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world. I do not care much about his private life; he is neither a eunuch nor a satyr; I think he might seduce a duchess and I am quite sure he would not spoil a virgin; if he is a man of honor in one thing, he is that in all things. ...He is a common man or he could not go among common people...He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him. He talks as the man of his age talks, that is, with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness...He has a range of awareness that startles you, but it belongs to him by right, because it belongs to the world he lives in. ("The Simple Art of Murder", Raymond Chandler)

The world that Alex Lomax lives in is a bleak one indeed, though Sawyer has a way of understating it's bleakness. It is the small world of the Martian Frontier, which draws desperate people, hungry for a new start, certain that they won't get one on Earth. The narrator doesn't shove this point down your throat. Yet everyone we meet seems to be in a state of quiet desperation.

Not only that, but many of Mars' inhabitants Transfer. The post-Humanist angle of the book is that the technology exists to "Transfer", to copy your mind into a cybernetic brain and install it in a robotic body of more than Human ability. This sounds nice, but the law forbids two copies of the same mind to exist, so the final step in the "Transfer" process is to euthanize the original biological copy(though the Marketing types breeze over this point, as the book points out). And many people on Mars do transfer to overcome the harsh environment, so the ultimate implication is that Lomax is living in a society of mass-suicide, with the only caveat being that those suicides are replaced with robotic copies. That said, the narrator doesn't shove this idea in the reader's face. Rather, Lomax finds himself in one situation after another that accentuate this perverse reality. Each time, the the reader's cognitive dissidence is heightened, leaving him, like Lomax himself, wondering why only he seems to be bothered by this state of things.

Anyway, bottom line, really bleak novel, though Sawyer manages to lighten the mood somewhat in the story's denouement. Sawyer is a master craftsman of mood and it's really a wonder to watch him ply his trade...on you, the reader.

Book Review: Darwin's Bastards

I'm not entirely sure what to make of the 2010 short-story collection "Darwin's Bastards: Astounding Tales from Tomorrow". From the subtitle and cover art, one might expect a collection of pulp-inspired yards running the gamut from Gernsbackian wonder stories to tentacled Lovecraftian abominations. Instead one will get a mixed bag whose common thread is that they are written by Canadian(often Vancouver-ite) authors. This bag includes, hands down, some of the best post-cyberpunk that I've read to date. It also has many stories that are more experimental or even allegorical in nature, and these generally didn't resonate well with me. Some of the stories aren't really science fiction or even genre fiction and are written by authors who are working outside their usual genre. I'd like to hear the story behind this collection, but my guess is it went something like this:

1. Let's make a science fiction short story collection with all Canadian authors
2. We didn't get enough submissions, let's loosen up our definition of science fiction and ask some local non-genre authors to contribute stories
3. Oh, Weird Tales and other classic pulps are making a resurgence--let's work that into the marketing

So, for the short version of this review, of the 23 stories contained within, 5 were excellent, and a few more were quite good. The book is divided into 4 sections and all the best stuff is in the first and last section, so my advise would be to just skip the two middle sections. You might also want to read William Gibson's story, though I found it a bit underwhelming.

Anyway, for the long version of this review, we won't dwell on what I didn't like, instead let's talk about the best entries in this collection:

Survivors: This is not the end my friend by Adam Lewis Schroeder

A epic road-trip through post-apocalyptic Canada. An action packed story with some subtle, and not so subtle insights into how Canadians view Americans(and themselves, in contrast). Schroeder's tongue-in-cheek humor is great.

The Aurochs by Lee Henderson

A post-cyberpunk tale of the black market for medical treatments, fossils, and car parts. A really entertaining read and another story with a great, always understated, sense of humor.

Survivor by Douglas Coupland

A tale of reality TV(another very cyberpunkish theme) and the apocalypse, brimming with black humor. The jaded British cameraman was an inspired choice for a narrator, taking a so so premise and making it hugely entertaining.

The Personasts: My Journeys Through Soft Evenings and Famous Secrets by Stephen Marche

This is a fictional ethnography of a fictional subculture based around a sort of roleplaying/acting sort of thing. This story isn't really science fiction, or genre fiction for that matter, but it's so good I just don't care. Especially interesting for readers who are pen-and-paper RPG fans like myself.

Sunshine City by Timothy Taylor

This was my favorite story in the collection. It's a post-cyberpunk tale told as a Hardboiled detective story and it's really well-done.

This story taught be something. The plot is fairly simple, the mystery easily unraveled, the characters all hardboiled archetypes(the hardboiled hero, the femme fatale...) but a good hardboiled tale don't demand complexity in those things. A good hardboiled tale is about the setting, the relationships, and most of all the feelings that these evoke.

In Sunshire City, our Hardboiled Hero, a burned-out detective of sorts, has been called to this decadent place to be duped. Everybody is in on the charade and he himself suspects it, though he stays because his old friend asked for his help. All the characters are sympathetic in some sense, all of them have been hurt by this tragedy in some way, though only our hero is the sort of man-of-honor who is willing to seek out the truth no matter what the cost. This code of honor is why he can't bring himself to live in this sort of place and why he burned out and essentially resigned from Human society.

Dougal Discarnate by William Gibson

A ghost story set in the Kitsilano neighborhood of Vancouver. I got the impression that Gibson is saying something really deep and profound about his old stomping-ground, but I guess it really just went over my head. This saddens me since I was born in Vancouver and I sometimes like to fantasize what life would have been like if my family had decided to stay there and I had grown up a young Vancouverite, rather than a Southern Californian...

Twilight of the Gods by David Whitton

I enjoyed this little post-cyberpunk story of soldiers entangled in a messy maritime conflict. Quite entertaining, through. Like most Norse mythology, it ends rather disappointingly.

Gladiator by Jay Brown

A post-Cyberpunk story where the Libertarians have won and medical research can legally be performed on any Human subjects who are willing. The protagonist reminded me of The Count, in Gibson's Count Zero, when we first meet him, a poor white kid who grew up in the inner city and harbors unlikely dreams of success. The difference is that, rather than dreaming of being an amazing hacker, our protagonist dreams of being the Guinea Pig in the development of the next big drug. The Existential tragedy that ensues is both predicable and compelling.

Humanism and Scifi

The greatest of Literature is, by nature, Humanistic Literature. It teaches us something about the Human experience in a more visceral way than any cold-hearted essay could. It is the epitome of Human Culture, comprising, in the words of Matthew Arnold, "the best which has been thought and said in the world".

That said, there is a different type of Literature that conforms to this definition, yet which is the polar opposite of Humanistic. I am, of course, talking about those categories of Science Fiction that give us a window into other, non-human, modes of thought.

Some Noteworthy Examples

Asimov was one of the first to do this well with his robots and his many explorations of their Artificial Intelligence and it's implications. His robopsychologists must grapple with an intelligence created by Man, but ultimately different.

The Cyberpunk(and post-Cyberpunk) genre updated this approach with it's portrayal of vast AIs floating majestically through cyberspace. It also developed a literature of Post-Humanism, considering how the Human experience may change with the expansion and modification of the Brain,by means of computing and genetic engineering(consider Shiner's "Till Human Voices Wake Us". I'll just mention Ann Leckie's "Ancillar Justice" as a recent notable entry in this category genre. In Leckie's case, she imagines a new form of consciousness formed by the merging of AIs and post-Humans(I haven't gotten hold of Leckie's book yet, but I've heard that it takes-on the topic in a way that is both unique and compelling)

David Brin's long-running Uplift series considers yet another category, that of "Uplifted" animals, whose intelligence has been increased through a long-running program of applied genetics. Brin offers a compelling vision of these creatures(generally dolphins and apes) and their experience, intellectually comparable to Humans, and yet so utterly different. Brin's recent story "Aficionado" offered a good example of this literature.

Finally there are the stories that explore Aliens from deep space. This is perhaps the most difficult type of non-human intelligence to imagine, as it deals with things truly beyond the veil of Human experience. I can think of lots of examples, yet few of this that I felt really excel in their portrayals of intelligence that is truly alien to Human experience. Orson Scott Card's "Speaker for the Dead" does a pretty good job of this, with it's "Alien Anthropologists" exploring an alien culture(and finding their initial assumptions turned on their head in the book's climax.)

Know Thyself

These different categories of Science Fiction dealing with non-human minds give us an entirely different perspective on our own situation. Suddenly, through the power of contrast, many of our traits are revealed to be distinctly Human, rather than universal. In this way, fiction blazes the trail ahead of Science itself, exploring other forms of intelligence and learning about ourselves in the process.

RPG Connection

Since this is ostensibly a blog about Pen and Paper RPG's, let's ask the question "Do any Pen and Paper RPG's explore this theme?" 

Answer: I don't know. I don't really read that many RPG products. Maybe in the comments, you could point out the examples you know about. That said, here is a short list of stuff that did make it onto my radar:

1. Steve Jackson's "GURPS Uplift" rules are an obvious example, though I've never played it.
2. Cyberpunk 2020 deals with the post-humanism theme with Humanity Loss Rules, resulting in mental illness. One could imagine an alternate set of rules which embraces post-humanism, rather than treating it like a Horror game mechanic.
3. Monsters and Manuals has posted on this theme. I wonder if some of this sentiment made it into his Yoon-Suin setting...
4. False Machine's evocative posts on the Derro and other denizens of the Underdark sketch a strange and alien intelligence. I expect that monsters from his "Deep Carbon Observatory" would incorporate this theme, though again, I don't have time to many RPG products these days, even such worthy ones, so I don't know.

On R A Salvatore and the Echoes of an Earlier Age

Somewhere along the line, I reached this point where I was embarrassed of many of the things I enjoyed way back in high school. This certainly applies to much of the music that was in vogue in the 90’s, but it also holds true for my then favorite author, R. A. Salvatore.

The Folly of Youth

R. A. Salvatore is a bestselling fantasy author, who got his start writing DnD tie-in novels set in the Forgotten Realms. (He gives some great interviews, which are worth listening to at-length, but one of the themes I found interesting is how much of his career was determined by split-second decisions.)

Why, looking back, do I find myself embarrassed of my former Salvatore fandom? For one, his popular character Drizzt Do’Urden, is a total Mary Sue. He's an Elf who lives nearly forever who, as a child, dominated the Drow version of Ender's Game and is painfully proficient at everything under the sun, a sort of Fantasy Superhero, and yet, he’s an outcast who must fight for acceptance and bla bla bla…my brain just turned-off. That, plus the fact that his writing itself, characteristic of many popular writers of the day, is rather thematically simplistic and artistically uninspired. It is, however, utilitarian. Salvatore writes in a clear and organized fashion and I almost never have to puzzle over what I just read. In fact, his books just fly by easily--they are supremely readable.

Sort of like this guy...

I was introduced to Salvatore’s work while hanging out with one of the coolest guys I knew in HS. Tony was a smart guy, but in a cool way. He had interesting hair. He always had an intelligent opinion on anything and it sounded even more intelligent because he was originally from Leeds and had a really great accent. At one point, during lunch, he pointed out that he was currently reading through Salvatore’s Drizzt books. It wasn't long until I had gone to Barnes and Noble and procured every book of Salvatore's and over the next few years I read them avidly and repeatedly(OK, actually I remember finding the Cleric's Quintet rather dull--but I still read through all five books twice!)

Fast-forward through half a life time, 8 years of higher education, 9 years of full-time work, the last 8 of them including marriage and raising a family. I'm picky about what I read. I don't just read any old genre fiction. I read Genre Literature! Let's just hide this collection of Salvatore books behind the Gibson, the Weird Tales greats, the Tolkien, and the thick cobwebs of bibliophile snobbery...

Rereading Salvatore

You know, where the entire events of the Hobbit took place...

Lately, I've been reading the first 2/3 of Salvatore’s “Crimson Shadow” trilogy, which I think belonged to my younger brother, but somehow ended up in my book hoard. I’d never picked it up before. They definitely have their weaknesses. Luthien is a fairly run-of-the mill fantasy protagonist. A young, naive lad who goes out into the big world and rises to greatness. At least he’s not a farm-boy. Instead, he’s the son of a lord, who spends most of his time in “the arena”, a combination of Roman gladiatorial combat and the Chivalrous Tourney.

And, of course, it apes Tolkien insufferably(though one could certainly claim that all modern fantasy literature shamelessly copies Tolkien, usually quite poorly). There's Luthien's name, of course, though apparently it's an appropriate name for Human Males now, and even more confusingly is the fact that the stories are set in Eriador. Is the Crimson Shadow an unauthorized sequel to Lord of the Rings or is this a different Eriador? I was surpised to see that no map appears in the beginning of the books, but then I realized that it's because the setting is just Fantasy Britain re-skinned with new names. Eriador is Scotland, Avon is Britain(or maybe just England?), and Gascon is France. Also, the Cyclopians are clearly just reskinned Orcs.

Salvatore's Avon

The books are very readable, although the plots are a bit simplistic. Also, there are lots of little details that strike me as poorly thought-out. For instance, in the many mass combats, neither army seems to use scouts and this allows them to get away with all sorts of tricks that wouldn't work if this huge army would just deploy a few scouts to look out for ambushes/keep an eye on the other huge army. That said, I could totally see how Luthien's character would have been relatable for my teenage self. He's a young guy with a good heart and lots of potential but who is clueless with regard to girls, politics, and just generally everything. That said, everything he tries succeeds spectacularly, sometimes because he listens to his friends, sometimes because of sparks of raw talent, and sometimes due to honed martial skill, and he rises to fame and fortune(besides that, the second book is all about this love triangle where he has to choose between foxy half elf girl or fiery redheaded warrior chick. Not only that, but then their rivalry changes to ever increasing fondness for one another, to the point where you start wondering where this is going--I'm starting to understand why this guy was my favorite author in High School...)

Of Fair Folk and Bird-Men

symbolism doesn't have to be subtle...

Anyway, to sum up this rambling review, I've made my peace with Salvatore. He writes very readable fantasy, with true general appeal, especially to young men(as I once was myself). As to the lack of Artistic Merit... I think the recent movie Birdman does a better job than I could of presenting the dialectic of creating entertainment for an audience vs. creating art for art's sake. The film shows how impossible it is to completely separate between the two. Salvatore's work is immensely popular, but one also get's the impression that he truly loves coming up with this stuff, and perhaps that is Artistry at it's truest, regardless of how entertained the snobs and critics may be...

Tales of Blood and Glory: Short Horror Roundup

This edition of "Tales of Blood and Glory" is a double header, with two pieces of short horror fiction: William Gibson's rejected Alien 3 script, and Michael Chabon's Lovecraftian tale "The God of Dark Laughter".

Gibson Alien 3 Script

Regarding Gibson's entry, I found the script to be a surprisingly easy read, as compared to other scripts and plays I've read. As for the story itself, in addition to the aliens themselves, which I personally find terrifying, there is a good deal of subtle horror craftsmanship worth taking note of.

One instance of this is the Cold War between the two Human alliances(an interesting twist on Gibson's "Red Star, Winter Orbit"). The message is that, for all the characters' concerns with Human politics and bureaucracy, these problems are dwarfed by the uncontainable destruction and virility of the Aliens. This is spelled out explicitly in the dialog between Hicks and Bishop in the final scene.

You can't, Hicks. This goes far beyond mere interspecies competition. These creatures are to biological life what antimatter is to matter.

Another point is the centrality of the android Bishop in combating the aliens. Gibson repeatedly emphasizes Bishop's inhuman movement and thought, mentioning his "robotic tic", the "certain effortless regularity evident" to his run, not to mention his emotionless reactions to the horrific, and his inability to understand human logic, like Hicks decided to save Ripley.

At the same time, Bishop is the hero of the film. While the Humans are trying, at best, to survive, Bishop kills a ton of aliens, sets the station's core to melt down, and ultimately saves the last few survivors with his "robotic accuracy, the rifle pivoting like the barrel of an automated gun turret." Compare this with the Humans who spend their time complaining about political ramifications, whose big counterattack ends up ruining the station's air supply, and who die in droves. Even Rosetti's big epiphany is immediately followed by his horrific death, rendering it moot. The point is that Humans aren't the real actors in this conflict. They are ultimately upstaged by those two superior forces-- the aliens and the androids.

In short, this script has the classic Lovecraftian theme of impotent Humanity at the mercy of powerful cosmic forces against which they can only score the most Pyrrhic of victories.

The God of Dark Laughter

Now on to Michael Chabon's story from the New Yorker. Here we have a classic Lovecraftian structure, with and investigator who comes to a horrible revelation. The twist is that the narrator is a Hardboiled-detective-type, so the story blends the two genres of Hardboiled and Horror.

Anyway we have some great technical Horror work here. First there's the rather macabre descriptions of the boys and Detective Ganz to set the mood. Then, as more and more is revealed, Chabon still manages to convey a feeling while leaving the gristliest details up to the reader's imagination, in one place explicitly so:

"I took enough of a peek beneath it to provide me with everything that I or the reader could possibly need to know about the condition of the head—I will never forget the sight of that monstrous, fleshless grin"

There's also this great thing Chabon does with the narrator knowing he's being watched.

I did not then, nor do I now, believe in ghosts, but as the sun dipped down behind the tops of the trees, lengthening the long shadows encompassing me, I became aware of an irresistible feeling that somebody was watching me...

Chabon continues to sell the hell out of this scene and ultimately the narrator's hunch is proven right, though it wasn't the inhuman horror he had imagined. That said, this tense scene comes back to haunt us later, when Detective Satterlee is all alone, poring over forbidden tomes, when again he senses a presence observing him--really scary stuff!

In short, a great little horror story in the Weird tradition. And once again, I'm finding that I really like Chabon's short fiction.

Primitivism and the Pulps

Betzalel's first class, drawing an Oriental Jewess

So, earlier this week my employer organized a company-wide outing, including a short tour of the Nachum Gutman(1898-1980) museum in Tel Aviv. Gutman is considered a pioneer of Israeli art, immigrating to Ottoman Palestine at a young age and growing up in the growing community of Jewish immigrants. He had a huge and lasting impression on the Israeli art world, then in it's infancy.

At one point in the tour, the curator introduced the area showing Gutman's stylistic break with the classic Betzalel style in favor of the Primitivist style that was popular in Europe at the time. She was quite apologetic on this point, emphasizing the colonialist mindset inherent within primitivism, and she quickly whisked us away to the next section of the exhibit(before any of us could get offended? After all that good wine?)

from Gaugin's Tahitian period

Now I'm sure it's true that European artists during the colonial period tended to have a Colonialist perspective. That said, I think there is a question of focus. Does one focus on the negative side of Primitivism, with it's 19th century biases, or does one focus on the part that we can relate to all too well. Ultimately, Gauguin considered himself a friend and ally of the Native Tahitians, though he expressed it with the naivete of a European living in the colonies. Thematically, Primitivism is just an early example of what so many other modern artistic movements have been about, looking to escape the angst of modern life and return to a simpler time. Heck, Cyberpunk, that area of genre fiction that's oh so popular with today's serious literary world, is a response to the same basic impulse of Primitivism, though it's answer is one not of escape but of adaption.

My point is, that we, as patrons of the arts, often choose to focus on the negative messages to be found in the classics. In doing so we pat ourselves on the back for being so bloody wonderful and enlightened, unlike the boorish clods of previous generations. We can choose to focus on that, or we can focus on the positive, focus on those eternal lessons contained within that made these works classics to begin with.

Ultimately, these two options are reflected in the two different schools of thought in the study of the Humanities. As the late, great D. G. Meyers once said in describing his own propensities:

“I, again, am a dinosaur in believing in Human Greatness and learning from those who are greater than we. It’s certainly what informed my teaching. I was stupid enough, or behind-hand enough, to believe that the writers I taught had something to say to us. Which is why we should study them. Not to expose the sins of racism and colonialism, but cause they’re wiser and, my God, smarter than we are.”

When we read Howard or Lovecraft or Burroughs, we often run across racism, white supremacism, ethnocentricsm, and a generally Colonialist mindset. It's undeniable. But if we allow our readings of those works to stop there, and we don't look at these authors' more worthy messages, on the value of bravery, of honor, of self-sacrifice, of the pain of Modern life, then it is, in fact, us that are ignorant and boorish, and infinitely poorer as a result.

Tales of Blood and Glory: Mona Lisa Overdrive

It's been a couple weeks since I finished reading William Gibson's 1988 "Mona Lisa Overdrive" and I've admittedly had some trouble writing this latest post. Neuromancer and Count Zero were so much easier. I finished the books excited about them, so it was easy to write a post about them. "Mona" started out so good, but the ending left me with such a vague feeling of disappointment...

Ghost in the Shell

One of the problems(and this is a rather unfair criticism on my part) is that I've already seen 1995's "Ghost in the Shell". Mamoru Oshii took the wedding motif from "Mona" and did it, just, so much better. Nothing wrong with stealing an idea in art if you're going to refine it, but it made the climax of MLOD ring a bit hollow in my jaded mind.

Coming Full Circle

Another problem, in my humble opinion, is that "Mona" is so familiar. It's too involved in revisiting old characters to properly develop the new ones. Usually, Gibson's flawed narrators/characters are so interesting and so relatable. My feeling with "Mona" was he doesn't really focus on any of them long enough to develop them sufficiently, or at least, not in the eyes of the reader. Neuromancer had one narrator telling the story in a single thread, Count Zero had 3 narrators/threads, and Mona Lisa has 4. In addition, Mona Lisa keeps throwing in cameos by protagonists and major characters from previous books, which I found distracting. Instead of focusing on a pathetic protagonist taking on powers beyond his ability, we're left with a stew of characters we're rooting for and I found it just overwhelming. Admittedly, Tad Williams managed to pull off this sort of many-relatable narrators dynamic in "City of Golden Shadow", but it took him 900 pages and he still didn't manage to wrap up the plot in the end.

One other point about the ending reveal--it was too similar to Neuromancer's ending. Now, you could argue that this allows the series to conclude by "coming full circle", but I much prefer a mind-blowing ending, as with the previous two books, to this familiar one.

Gibson on Art

That said, the book is full of good stuff, and part of that is his exploration of Art. A good part of this takes place in the Slick Henry and Angela Mitchel plot lines.

There's something very true about Slick's reclusive artist, a slave to his compulsion to create Art and a slave to his creations. There's also something in the description of this character, or perhaps his speach, that reminds me of Gibson himself. I wonder if Gibson was writing himself into the work. If so, then perhaps Slick being freed at last from his slavery to his creations symbolizes the Author himself being freed from the Cyberpunk Genre with the completion of the Sprawl trilogy...

Tales of Blood and Glory: The Complete Midshipman Bolitho

So here's one that was sitting on my shelf for quite a long time before I finally picked it up. Then, midway through the first chapter I decided it wasn't for me. A Golden Age of the Sail novel with a focus on historical accuracy, "The Complete Midshipman Bolitho" was much too dry for my tastes. I decided to give it a little bit longer to hook me before I put it down though. And boy did this book deliver! In short order, it pick up the pace with fast, gritty, technical naval combat at it's finest!

The Bolitho Novels are 30 or so books written by author Douglas Reeman(using the name Alexander Kent) written over the span of half a century from 1960's to present day. "The Complete Midshipman Bolitho" collects the first three of those stories(by story-chronology rather than publication date--in that sense, they are similar to the excellent Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser "Swords" collection.)

Stories of Loyalty

In addition to the great descriptions of the various naval actions Bolitho participates in, the stories have a strong moral component. In fact, all of the conflicts are described by Bolitho in moral terms. As such, pirates are reviled for their cruelty, wreckers for their betrayal of their fellow seamen, and Bolitho's rival officers for their indifference towards the men under their command.

In his book "The Righteous Mind", Psychologist Jonathan Haidt describes 6 fundamental moral foundations that manifest themselves in various forms in every Human culture: Care, Fairness, Loyalty, Authority, Sanctity, and Liberty. With this model in mind, I would say that the Bolitho Novels are primarily an exploration of the trait of Loyalty. Bolitho is constantly concerned with what duty demands of him, towards his King, his Family, and his comrades in the Navy. At the same time, Bolitho's Loyalty is presented as balanced. His rival officers are oftentimes portrayed as over-valuing duty, forgetting compassion for the men under their command.

Invariably, Bolitho himself is the moral compass for the stories. This omniscience in moral quandaries together with his limitless bravery does make him a bit Mary Sue character, to my mind.

Read these stories if you want action-packed Naval Adventures from the Age of the Sail. These definitely made me want to run more Swashbucklers & Seamonsters!

Tales of Blood and Glory: Count Zero

Wow, just read my way through the second sprawl novel, Count Zero. Another great story-- finished it far too quickly.

Well, if Neuromancer's theme is the uncomfortably intimate relationship between Man and Technology, then Count Zero is about Man's growing insignificance in the face of Technology.

The Novel begins with three protagonists, each of whom symbolically embodies the quote from the Novel's frontleaf(an implicit Chandlerism)

"On receiving an interrupt, decrement the counter to zero" 

Each of these "Zero's" will soon find themselves caught in the very center of a battle between three colossally powerful entities:

1. The Zaibatsus: mega-corporations with near unlimited resources and a near endless supply of indentured employees
2. The Mega-Rich: individuals whose wealth has allowed them to extend their power nearly without limits, thus allowing them to transcend Humanity
3. The AI's: freed from the restrictions of the Turing Police as a result of events in Neuromancer, they are literally becoming Humanity's new gods

Just another day in Barrytown...

(Spoiler Warning)

Though the Zeroes ultimately triumph, surviving the ordeal and each carving out a new life for themselves, upon deeper reflection it is incredibly dark(I guess Gardner Dozois' Recidivist wasn't as great a tonal leap as I thought). Ultimately, Humanity's rise, both as individuals and collectives, will be checked by the already superior machines and Man will be relegated to being mere "Horses" that the AI's choose to ride. Bobby and Angie seem to come to terms with this or even embrace it, Turner flees into a rural existence, and Marly is left unaware of the full nature of what has happened.

Anyway, a great read, and I'm looking forward to "Mona Lisa Overdrive"!

A Game Within a Game

Wow, who would have thought that starting a second blog and then starting a new job with an almost 2-hours-each-way commute would have been so detrimental for my "Billy Goes to Mordor" output. I never would have guessed...

But, I'm still hanging in there.

So, speaking of never knowing what to expect, I've been reading Tad Williams "Otherland Volume 1: City of Golden Shadow". I picked up this one, together with Robert Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land", while swapping books with a friend. I expected the latter to be great, with it's epic title and cool cover-art, while I didn't have high hopes for "Otherland" with it's over-long title and being by an author I had never read nor had recommended to me. So, of course, I'm loving "Otherland" after I finally gave up on "Stranger" 100 pages in.

A Story Within A Story

Otherland starts out jumping back and forth between a number of apparently unrelated Cyberpunk and Fantasy stories, each of them quite compelling. But, halfway through, it's clear from a number of hints that some(and presumably all) of the stories are somehow related, though it's still largely a mystery how.

One of the narratives I found particularly compelling is that of Thargor the Barbarian. Thargor is fairly standard Swords & Sorcery Barbarian, off adventuring with his buddy Pithlit the Thief. Not quite Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, but still pretty good stuff. They end up encountering something truly weird and we soon find out that the two are actually young kids playing an MMORPG in virtual reality. The Fantasy adventure quickly becomes a Cyberpunk tale as the kids are sucked into a high-stakes game of intrigue.

The story really plays in with the book's general theme of the strange mixing of realities created by the proliferation of VR and the Net. The youths' RL(Real-Life) personas reflect, but at the same time contrast with, their bad-ass PCs. This is particularly pronounced in "The Deadly Tower of Senbar Flay" where Thargor's bravado and Orlando's cocky confidence as his online avatar, clash so starkly in the following scene where he lies awake in bed, worried his parents will ground him and aware just how vulnerable a child like him would be if the mysterious criminals should come after him in RL.

A Game I'd Like to Run

Typical Gen Y'ers as seen by an aging DM?

I think there's a great basis for an RPG adventure here. Tell your group to make High-Level DnD PCs and start an adventure. Then, once they're sufficiently deep-in (maybe towards the end of the first session) have them hit the anomaly and reveal to them that they are actually kids playing an MMORPG. Then they need to create CP2020 PCs(perhaps using Cybergeneration rules) and they can investigate the anomaly in the MMORPG, online using their computer skills, and in RL. The stakes get increasingly higher since dying in the MMORPG just loses you your current PC, while online activity can get you in trouble with the law and other groups, and in RL you can die, get sent to Juvy, etc.

Tales of Blood and Glory: A Canticle for Leibowitz

Post-Apocalyptic fiction was a big part of the scifi genre from the 1950's-1970's, courtesy of the Cold War and the widespread fear of Mutual Annihilation. Stories of mutants prowling irradiated wastelands and well-meaning scientists whose efforts are too little, too late. I've stumbled across quite a few post-apocalyptic stories the last few years(Ellison's "A Boy and His Dog" and Leiber's collection "The Night of the Wolf" come to mind) but now I finally got to read Walter A. Miller Jr.'s "A Canticle for Leibowitz". It is probably the most highly lauded scifi tale in the genre, winning the Hugo award for best novel in 1961 and remaining a classic till this day.

"Cantacle" follows the Monks of the Order of St. Leibowitz during three successive epochs:

1. A few generations after the first Nuclear Holocaust, where we learn their mandate--to preserve the surviving remnant of Human knowledge for posterity
2. At the dawn of a new Age of Reason, where the Order's mandate approaches fulfillment and it is unclear what the future holds for them
3. Leading up to the second Nuclear Holocaust, where we learn that their new mandate was to prevent a recurrence of Nuclear Holocaust and in case they fail, to launch a mission to another planet, once again, to preserve the remnants of Human knowledge

Ultimately, the book comes off as a deeply thoughtful meditation on Nuclear Apocalypse, largely from a Humanist-Religious perspective. The exploration of suicide and the comparison to "mutually assured self-destruction" in the final part is quite though-provoking, if not altogether profound. Actually, it's all really good. The dialog between science and religion in the second part. The many Humanist vignettes. The tongue-in-cheek humor throughout.

Quite often, I end these posts in the "Tales of Blood and Glory" series with my thoughts on how to apply it to gaming, but here it's a hopeless case. The only substitute for reading "A Canticle for Leibowitz" is reading "A Canticle for Leibowitz". So seriously, if you haven't read it yet, what are you waiting for? It's just that good!

Tales of Blood and Glory: Warriors

"Warriors" is one of eight recent anthologies of short fiction edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois. The twenty or so stories contained within are a mixed bag, both in terms of their quality and in terms of their content. With a title like "Warriors" I thought this was going to be like reading The Best of Robert E. Howard: muti-genre stories that celebrate Humanity's best qualities as embodied in the warrior spirit. For the most part, it's not, and in fact a few of the stories really aren't about warriors at all, except in the most tangential of ways. Perhaps more effort should have been made on the part of the editors to collect a cohesive group of stories. Instead it seems like more of an effort for many of these authors to promote their latest novels, which are conveniently listed in the introduction to each story. (Remember when short stories were a literary genre in their own right, rather than a marketing scheme for the related novel?)

Also, maybe it's hard to do that these days, celebrate warriors for being warriors. It seems like many of today's authors can't write about soldiers in a truly positive way. I suppose that's a good thing, that we've lost our taste for war, but it's also regrettable that we've lost our appreciation for traits like grit, honor, and self-sacrifice. Anyway, let's talk about the stories that I liked and a few that I didn't.

1. The Good

The King of Norway by Cecelia Holland

An unapologetic Viking yarn. Pure awesome, though they really should have made it to the island and fought Cthulhu or something...

Soldierin' by Joe R. Lansdale

A humorous Picaresque about a couple Buffalo Soldiers. A fun read.

The Pit by James Rollins

Don't tell anyone, but this tale of a dog-fighting champion brought a tear to my eye. The modern descendant of Sailor Steve Costigan's bulldog Mike...

Out of the Dark by David Weber

It took me a while to decide if the twist-ending of this Genre-Bending tale was "cheating" on the part of the author. I decided it isn't. It's sort of like Ellison's "A Boy and his Dog" in that you reach the twist and you realize the Author's been setting up this elaborate joke the whole time and said joke is on you, Dear Reader. BUT you forgive him because it was a hell of a ride getting there. That said, this is a novel tie-in...

Ancient Ways by S. M. Stirling

Neo-Cossacks, Mongols, and Tatars adventuring in the Post-Apocalype Caucasus, having Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser-eque adventures you say? Count me in! Ties in to his Emberverse series, apparently...

Recidivist by Gardner Dozois

An amazing Post-Cyberpunk tale. Less gritty than classic Cyberpunk, but in some ways grimmer nonetheless. Think hundreds of years after Neuromancer. The AI's have become autonomous and the technology that Humanity so loved has superseded us entirely. If I had to pick a favorite from "Warriors" this would be it, even if it doesn't really fit in this collection.

Defenders of the Frontier by Robert Silverberg

There wasn't much action in this Silverberg yarn, but the atmosphere was so powerful I really liked this one. It's like the old folks home for Warhammer 40K characters or something...

2. The Bad

Clean Slate by Lawrence Block

Lawrence Block was apparently working on another Serial Killer story when Dozois asked him for a submission for this collection. He slipped in some little line about "Daddy's Little Warrior" and hoped no one would notice that this story does not belong in this collection.

Another novel tie-in

The Custom of the Army by Diana Gabaldon

This one started-off sounding like a Steampunk Fanfic, but I overcame my misgivings and decided to give it a chance. When the protagonist started describing his experiencing shagging his fellow Officers I decided this one wasn't for me...

3. The Forgettable

Forever Bound by Joe Haldeman

An interesting Post-Cyberpunk premise, but ultimately just an excuse for some light erotica.

Dirae by Peter S. Beagle

A well written supernatural superhero tale but didn't really go anywhere so interesting and didn't really belong in a collection about warriors, quite frankly.

Seven Years from Home by Naomi Novik

This was the second Novik story I've read, the first being His Majesty's Dragon. Novik's writing is immanently readable and she has these interesting ideas, but she doesn't really take them so far. This Ecopunk story is a great example. A super-technological society based around living in symbiosis with nature and... all we get in the end is a simplistic tale of "Environment Good, Industry Bad". Plus the warriors aspect was rather tangential. Maybe Novik should collect submissions for an Ecopunk Anthology--that might be interesting.

The Mystery Knight by George R. R. Martin

How to describe this one? It's like a couple of Shakespearean Fools as a Hedge Knight and his Squire. And they're living in the Game of Thrones universe, so when they happen upon a provincial jousting tournament they end-up embroiled in a high-stakes game of rival conspirators. An entertaining-enough read, but it really is more of a teaser for The Hedge Knight than a stand-alone short story.