Shadows and Shadows

Look at that cover, fine stuff, isn't it? Cary Nord no longer pencils Dark Horse's Conan comics, but he contributes the odd piece now and then.

I'd been meaning for a while to read more of the modern Conan comics. As I've indicated before, I have a LOT of varied interests. I sometimes let some of them lie dormant for a while, so I'll find something to start (or re-start) reading and collecting at a later date.

I bought the first Dark Horse Conan collection when it was new, and also own the first Savage Sword of Conan collection. I'm a big fan of both the Cary Nord Darkhorse Conan, and the John Buscema/Alfredo Alcala black and white Marvel version of the character. However, other things caught my attention, and only recently did the itch come over me to acquire more Dark Horse releases. I knew this time would come, sooner or later, and the wait is over.

In the meantime, I read some criticisms of the artwork by Tomas Giorello, who took over for Nord along the way. I'd see the collections in the bookstores, and, honestly, the art looked decent enough. Timothy Truman took over as writer, and I've been a fan of his since I acquired Straight Up to See the Sky, many years ago. I also remember Truman as an artist for D&D products back around 1987. Since I'm familiar with the plot to Robert E. Howard's original stories, I decided I should get a book in which Truman and Giorello were able to use a lot of their own ideas. Thus, I bought a copy of The Hand of Nergal, which is expanded from a REH synopsis.

It was a fun adventure, with plenty of bloodshed and grimness. The art is quite good, and I think complainers are only upset that it is different from Nord's work. Giorello is actually a better artist than Nord, in basic terms, but Nord has him beat in making an impact with his work. Both are fine choices for this sort of tale.

I was left with the urge for more Dark Horse Conan, and on the second purchase, I couldn't pass up Iron Shadows in the Moon, with its dynamic cover art. It isn't one of my favorite REH stories, but I was interested in comparing the Truman/Giorello take on it with the version by Roy Thomas and Buscema/Alcala. Both are equally good, overall, but Dark Horse has the advantage of not having Conan wear his notorious "fur diaper!"

I'll probably do a major purchase soon, of all the Dark Horse collections that I'm missing (I now have 1, 6, & 10, out of 10). These books are a worthy tribute to REH and his creations, done with respect and care. They are well-worth buying and reading.

Moonsorrow have long provided a great soundtrack for reading Conan and other REH material. I finally caught up with their latest,Varjoina Kuljemme Kuolleiden Maassa, now that a legal American download has become available. The title translates as "As Shadows We Walk in the Land of the Dead," and the album is as cheery as that suggests. Their last full album, 2007's V: Hävitetty ("Chapter 5, Ravaged"), told of the end of the world, as described in Norse and Nordic legends. VKKM is a loose sequel, in that it tells the tale of the fate of a handful of survivors of the cataclysm.

My favorite Moonsorrow song remains Haaska ("Carrion") from 2005's Verisakeet ("The Blood Verses"). That album was the first time the band achieved a really tough production tone that reflected how they sound live. In particular, Baron Tarvonen's drumming was captured at its full potential. This new album essentially takes the template from Haaska, and expands it into four full songs (along with three short interludes that advance the story). This is a leaner, more muscular Moonsorrow than what was heard on Voimasta ja Kunniasta ("Of Strength and Honor") and Kivenkantaja ("Stonebearer"). The drums pummel, the guitars are aggressive, and the keyboards play only a minor role. If you're looking for the "happy" sounds of Voimasta and Suden Uni (A Wolf's Dream"), you'll be disappointed, but if, like me, you enjoy the Tama Ikuinen Talvi ("This Eternal Winter") demo, well, there's echoes of it here, twelve years down the road.

If you're new to Moonsorrow, listen to Huuto ("The Scream") to get a feel for their sound. It's the most accessible song on Varjoina Kuljemme Kuolleiden Maassa, and also the most varied. There's some "tribal" drumming, some folk strumming, and plenty of heaviness around those moments. But all four full songs very good, and up to Moonsorrow's high standards.

Back to Conan, in the days since I first started composing this post I bought another Dark Horse collection, volume 9, Free Companions. I think Truman did a great job bridging the events of of Black Colossus (a REH story covered in volume 8) and Iron Shadows in the Moon. Truman himself did a good part of the art in this book, and Joe Kubert handled a bit too. I used to read Kubert's work extensively 25 years ago and more, in DC war comics such as Sgt. Rock. It was fun to see his first Conan work, but his scenes look out of place next to the other material. Truman does a decent job, but, ultimately, his sections and Kubert's pale next to Giorello's half of the book. The pencil samples in the back of the book really make clear how excellent Giorello is. It's good to know that Truman and Giorello are still working together, for adaptations of some of REH's stories of King Conan. The Scarlet Citadel is in-progress now, as a comic book mini-series. I'll definitely be getting the eventual trade paperback collection, whenever it is released. By that time, I'll hopefully own the other Conan volumes that I'm currently missing.

Minor Clen Cook News

I'm preparing a post on what I've been up to over the past few months. I'm working on a new book of my own, but meanwhile, Glen Cook continues to have his work repackaged and republished.

I was lucky to get a used copy of A Matter of Time thrown in on a purchase from an online auction site. The book was hard to find a couple of years ago, but Nightshade added it to their roster of reprinted Glen Cook titles. I haven't read it yet, but will probably get to it in the next year or so.

Penguin/Roc probably found it difficult keeping Cook's many Garrett books in print. They never did get around to reprinting Red Iron Nights and Deadly Quicksilver Lies (volumes 6 & 7), and have let Cold Copper Tears, Old Tin Sorrows and Dread Brass Shadows slip back out of print (volumes 3-5). Cook's other major series have been collected in omnibus editions, so it is no surprise that Introducing Garrett, P.I. will be out this summer. I'm not fond of that cover, but I like the idea that, in theory, the entire series will be in print again in a year or two. Now, Glen just needs to write two more Garrett books, so that there can be five omnibus volumes!

Finally, a second new Black Company story will be out soon in the anthology Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy 2. The book sports another "meh" cover, but hopefully the tale is a good one. I enjoyed Tides Elba, the story in last year's Swords & Dark Magic. I never did finish that book, fwiw, but I may eventually return to it.

The latest, and perhaps final, of Del Rey's Robert E. Howard collections came out since my last post. Sword Woman and Other Historical Adventures is essentially an expanded, illustrated version of Lord of Samarcand, one my favorite REH collections. Both bring together the tales he wrote for Oriental Stories/The Magic Carper Magazine. They feature Crusaders and Sultans, Mongol hordes and Cossacks, all caught up in some of the grimmest, saddest stories written by a man who excelled at capturing the dark and tragic in his work.

There's moments of humor too, as REH wrote in many styles, and this new volume adds Spears of Clontarf, the "non-fantasy" version of Howard's telling of the 1014 Battle of Clontarf. That Irish battle had its 997th anniversary a few days ago, and while history books don't record that Odin was physically present, REH could imagine him there, when he re-wrote the story as The Grey God Passes. I prefer that version, but it makes sense that a story-collection that is supposed to be rooted in historical works would use the earlier piece. Anyone reading this who enjoys the dark vibe that Glen Cook injects into his Black Company and Dread Empire books will likely enjoy Sword Woman, even if they aren't Conan fans. If the book is your introduction to Howard, and you like what you've read, The Grey God Passes can be found amid many other REH tales in The Best of Robert E. Howard volume 1.

Back to Glen Cook, I hope to learn of a publication date for NEW full books by him soon. Working the God's Mischeif (Instrumentalties 4) and Wrath of Kings (the final Dread Empire omnibus) can't be too far from being announced, can they? I certainly hope not....

Time Out of Mind

My first meal of the new year was consumed at one of those mock-bakery restaurants, which feature overpriced sandwiches and baked goods. Still, it was a good sandwich, and the place makes wonderful monster cookies. They use real monster, not the artificial kind so common these days. And the place offers iced tea by the tub, which, no joke, is one of the best ways to attract my business.

The winter holiday season usually makes me reflective, and when I'm in that mindset, my musical taste changes. Man does not live by Metal alone. At least, this one doesn't, even if Metal dominates my listening. But I've been listening to Steely Dan for as long as I've been into harder rocking music. I played a LOT of Steely Dan in the car, when I was in high school. My mom found their material odd, but it must have made some sort of impression on her, as she was eager to attend one of their reunion concerts with me, back around 1993. She had a good time, and it was one of our last bonding experiences before she died a year or so later.

All these years later, the Steely Dan album I listen to the most, the one that really resonates with me, is Gaucho. This is probably the most-maligned of their original seven releases. It is generally considered the worst of the lot, but it works for me better than any of the rest. The band's career can be viewed as a gradual shift from being New Yorkers to becoming out-of-place Californians. I've seen Gaucho, released at the end of 1980, labeled as a concept album on life in the SoCal of that era. In a loose sense, that's certainly true, even if the songs are only related in theme, not storyline.

Mike Powell does an amazing job of echoing my thoughts about the songs in this piece, published a few years ago. I only wish he had commented on my favorite one, Third World Man. I'm amazed at how Walter Becker and Donald Fagen took a stellar Larry Carlton guitar solo, left over from the sessions for a previous album, and constructed a song around it. It fits together seamlessly, with the listener unaware that Carlton had no other involvement in the song or album.

The music is tired and laid back, but the tales it tells are sadder and tawdrier than ever before in Steely Dan's oeuvre. It appeals to the same part of me that loves John Crawford's compositions for Berlin. I won't defend Berlin as great music, but I admire how he wrote songs about sex and lust, rather than about imaginary romantic love. Yet, just as with Becker and Fagen, a bit of real feeling emerges from time to time, and is all the more poignant because of the artists' track record for emotional honesty.

So here's a shout out to Gaucho: Happy 30th Birthday! I'm glad you are finding appreciation, and that Steely Dan continue to play some of your songs on their current tours.

On a different note, regarding the reflection I mentioned above, it was a year ago today that I limped into Bedford, Pennsylvania, on my journey to the East Coast. As related in an earlier post, I became violently sick in the early hours of January 1, 2010. I was exhausted as I drove away from Columbus, Ohio, that morning. I should have completed my drive to New Jersey that day, with just a visit to Patti Bonn in Bedford. But getting to her home, at the halfway point of that day's scheduled route, was all I could manage. Patti is one of my publishers, so we're old friends and business partners, and she had already offered me her spare bedroom for a night. I took her up on the offer, and felt much better on January 2, when I finally made it my friend's house in western New Jersey (and picked up Ember from the kennel that was housing her).

2010 was a very lucrative year for me, and moving was well worth the effort and expense. Now I'm ready to take on even more challenges and changes in 2011. I'm expecting the best, and I hope everyone reading this finds it too! Happy New Year!

Furious Tides and Heavy Metal

I'm at a big chain bookstore in Union Square, Manhattan, typing this just a few hours before seeing Blind Guardian tonight at the Nokia/Best Buy Theater in Times Square. I took the shuttle over to NYC from New Jersey a few hours ago, and after lunch at Yoshinoya, walked a few blocks to the theater. I'd never been there, and wanted to learn where it was, precisely (I vaguely knew more or less where to look for it). I also hoped that, just maybe, I'd bump into some of the Blind Guardian guys. SevSon1 and I were lucky enough to meet Hansi, Marcus and Fredrik before the Denver show four years ago.

I found the Nokia without difficulty, and across the street from it was the fourth member of Blind Guardian, Andre, using his video camera to film the animated marquee above the theater, which at certain moments was announcing Blind Guardian's show. He was very friendly and gracious when I approached him. We chatted a bit, and he signed my At the Edge of Time and Imaginations From the Other Side booklets (I made sure to bring several booklets and a sharpie with me, for just such an event). I decided not to bother him further by asking for a photo, since he was preoccupied in trying to get the video he sought, and I was distracting him.

Strangely enough, I'm not listening to Blind Guardian as I type this. I'll listen to them later, soon before the show, to psych myself up (make that, further psych myself up!). But yesterday I picked up the new Dio-related releases. These are the Dio band double-CD set of their Monsters of Rock shows at Donington in 1983 and 1987, and the Heaven & Hell concert from the 2009 Wacken Open Air Festival. The latter is available as separate CD and DVD, and I have the ripped-CD playing through my MP3 player. Finally, a modern show that captures Dio sounding as good as he could late in life! He was sick for the Holy Diver Live (2005) and Radio City Music Hall (2007) concerts, but was in magnificent voice when I saw Heaven & Hell later in 2007 and again in 2009. This Wacken concert is just like those, with Dio sounding great and the band far tighter and in-synch with each other than they were for the RCMH DVD.

Surrender to the Will of the Night is out. Officially, the release date is Tuesday, three days from now. However, someone on the Glen Cook email list already picked up a copy at Borders, which often puts books on the shelves early. I have had no luck in a finding a copy in my wanderings yesterday and today, just as I failed to find an early copy of Gilded Latten Bones.

Speaking, or writing, of Gilded Latten Bones, I defied a nasty case of food poisoning to get to the store and buy a copy on the day of release. I then read the book gradually, over the next two weeks. Why rush it? I savored it, since for all I know it could be the last-ever Garrett book. I expect that it isn't, and I certainly hope for more, but I try not to take things for granted. I have some thoughts on the book, but they are full of spoilers, so I'm going to leave some space below, for anyone who wants to avoid them.












Ok, still with me? Gilded Latten Bones is a fine addition to the Garrett saga, but is a really lousy place for newbies to jump in. Not that much actually happens, the mystery is really just a background catalyst and motivator. The book is really about advancing the interactions between the numerous characters in the Garrett universe. They have aged and changed over the 23-year course of the series, and Cook was wise to not have them acting static, as if time was not passing. I'm a big fan of ratgirl Pular Singe, and she is shown to be becoming an adult, and a very responsible one for what it's worth. I've never much cared for Tinnie Tate, but even she is beginning to realize how difficult a person she is. Garrett gets swept away by a Furious Tide of Light, literally and figuratively.

That was the biggest surprise, for me. The in-progress title for the book was Gilden Latten Lovers, and I thought the "Lovers" portion referred to Garrett and Tinnie. Instead, Garrett basically gives up on Miss Tate, and instead starts an affair with Windwalker Furious Tide of Light. She had a small role in the preceding Cruel Zinc Melodies, in which she did nothing to hide her attraction to Garrett. I found her the most memorable part of that book, but it was completely unexpected that she would return in this new book to shake up Garrett's life. Even Tinnie's relatives like her, so perhaps Garrett has found a keeper! We'll see in the next book, if there is one. For now, fans of the series will probably greatly enjoy Gilded Latten Bones, but the merely-curious should go back to the start and read their way up to this one. It's a great ride, and well worth the trip!

German Metal (no, not Panzers)

I was vacationing back in Colorado this past week, catching up with old friends and reliving some of my old routines. I took in two Colorado State Volleyball matches, and was pleased to see the Rams stomp all over the University of Denver and then Wyoming (never mind that I'm a graduate of DU's Publishing Institute, my BA's from CSU!). I did a lot of reading, finishing John Mosier's The Myth of the Great War, and getting most of the way through Steven Erikson's House of Chains (I just have the final convergence left, it should make those final 150 pages fly by).

I stayed at SevSon1's place, and took the opportunity to listen to a few of his new CDs. I've been lax in acquiring new music, partly because the last efforts by some of my favorite bands were lackluster. I'm still not too fond of Kamelot's Ghost Opera, and so I wasn't too surprised that the new Poetry for the Poisoned did nothing for me. I will admit, however, that the lead song, The Great Pandemonium (video link), is pretty good.

I was more intrigued by Blind Guardian's new At the Edge of Time (video link for A Voice in the Dark). It's gotten mostly rave reviews so far, and SevSon1 was in agreement with those. The predecessor, A Twist in the Myth, was a bit too rock-ish for me, lacking the grandiosity that is Blind Guardian's reason for existence. I understand that they wanted to simplify everything (arrangements, concepts, number of overdubs, etc.) after the over-the-top-and-far-beyond nature of A Night at the Opera. They probably also believed they were going back, a bit, to their roots. But there's a reason the Guardians no longer make conventional Power Metal of the Helloween and Gamma Ray sort. Their particular skill is to make the intricate sound epic and overpowering.

I was pleased to listen to At the Edge of Time (video channel), because it could almost be A Night at the Opera, part 2. The first ANatO took me a good 5 years to fully appreciate, but now I adore it. "Spinal tap go to 11? Let's go to 12!!!" was the philosophy, and that spirit is back. Of course it is cheesy, that's half the fun. No other band can make such complex arrangements actually sound catchy and ass-kicking. If you have no interest in songs about The Wheel of Time and A Song of Ice & Fire, then Blind Guardian might not be for you. Blind Guardian also write about Michael Moorcock's Multiverse again, with a piece about Tanelorn. I didn't notice anything based on Tolkien this time, but I still hope they'll eventually continue their coverage of The Silmarillion, begun in the awesome Nightfall in Middle Earth.

Even if I wasn't crazy about A Twist in the Myth, I still jumped at the chance to see Blind Guardian, when they played Denver on that album's tour in 2006. SevSon1 and I drove up to the venue early, and were fortunate to bump into three of the Guardians returning from dinner. They were gracious enough to chat with us for a few minutes, and sign some CD booklets. Perhaps I'll get to meet them again in a few weeks. They are playing New York City on November 20, and I have my ticket purchased. By then, I'll have my own copy of At the Edge of Time, and will be fully familiar with the songs. We all need some cheese in our diets, Happy Headbanging!

The War You Don't Know

World War 2 didn't occur as you probably think it did. Oh, the over all outline of the war is known, but popular accounts, until recently, rarely reflected the course of events that led to the known results.

This is particularly true of the events of the Eastern Front, so the so-called Russo-German War (which in fact involved numerous other nationalities on both sides). During the first 25 so years after the end of the war, it was normal to ascribe the Soviet victory to their masses of manpower and enormous number of tanks. This was followed by increased admiration for the Red Army, which was considered to have high quality armaments (especially armored vehicles), and a superior strategic vision. If it never mastered tactics, it still achieved victory through its own means, destroying the fighting capacity of the Wehrmacht. The Soviet Union thus deserved the bulk of the credit for the defeat of Nazi Germany.

I believed this latter view of the conflict, even if I had some nagging doubts. I own numerous rare unit histories and personal accounts from the war. I had trouble reconciling some details with the generally understood course of the war. The turning point, which finally allowed me to start making sense of things, came when Military History Journal, published an article by Eastern Front expert David Glantz. It was a preview of his 1999 book Zhukov's Greatest Defeat, about the fighting near Rhzev in late 1942.

I knew something awful had transpired near Rhzev at that time, because every history of the Grossdeutschland Division makes it clear that this fighting was the worst it faced during the war. Yet most campaign histories of the Eastern Front indicated that the fronts of German Army Groups Center and North were quiet at this time. Glantz had learned, from German unit histories and Soviet archived documents, that a massive Soviet offensive had been utterly defeated there at the same time the Red Army was finding success to the south at Stalingrad. However, the more northerly offensive was erased from Soviet official records because of its failure. Glantz soon realized that other Soviet failures had been similarly covered up, such as the late 1943 fighting around Vitebsk (the first attempt to destroy Army Group Center) and the May 1944 offensive in Bessarabia (subject of Glantz's Red Storm Over the Balkans). Even at the end of the war, the best the Red Army could do along the Oder was to frontally assault Berlin via the Seelow Heights, suffering appalling casualties in the process.

How can this be reconciled with the very real success that the Soviets had in driving the Axis forces back into German and Austria? John Mosier has explained it better than anyone before in his recent book Deathride. He has a repuation for turning history on its head, but this was my first exposure to his work. I came away enthralled by the most mentally-stimulating book I've read in several years.

Mosier demonstrates that fiction was the order of the day in the Soviet Union during Stalin's rule. Stalin was told what he wanted to hear, whether about agricultural harvest yields, or the output of tank factories. Soviet official histories consistently overestimated the casualties inflicted on the Germans, while minimizing Red Army losses and inventing tank production numbers. The Red Army in fact ran out of armored vehicles on many occasions, which explains why they made such extensive use of allegedly-inferior British and American models. They often ran out of men, too, and could not have continued the war without conscripting women, men considered too young/old/unfit for service by other armies, and men from lands that were liberated or occupied during the advance to Germany. Only the most elite units were kept up to strength with fit Russian men of prime military age, the rest had to take whatever they could get or find.

What doomed the Germans, Mosier argues, is that they had to divert substantial resources to the Mediterranean theater, to Western Europe, and to the airspace over Germany. This removed manpower and armored divisions from the Eastern Front, but more importantly, it robbed the armies in the east of most of their air support. Meanwhile, American lend-lease supplied the Red Army with hundreds of thousands of trucks and similar vehicles. Previously, up to mid-1943, the Germans could make orderly retreats, exacting heavy losses from the Red Army. Thereafter, the Soviets could advance faster than the Germans could retreat, so that German defensive efforts became less and less effective, even as they continued to inflict far higher casualties than they suffered. German resources were stretched too thin, which saved the Red Army from the defeat it would have suffered if the Germans could have devoted their full effort to the Eastern Front.

It all makes sense to me. Mosier backs up his ideas with detailed end notes (including a minor reference to one of my own books). I'm familiar with many of his sources, and believe he interpreted them correctly. At the same time, I can understand how this unorthodox view of history will bother some historians. It makes some books on the same topic seem irrelevant. At the same time, the topic is too vast for comprehensive coverage in one book of 300 pages. So Deathride is essentially a guide for how to approach studying the Eastern Front, from now on.

I have since acquired Mosiers earlier The Myth of the Great War and The Blitzkrieg Myth. I've read the latter, and found it to have good ideas, but with execution less successful than in Deathride, which I think benefits from having stronger source material. I assume Mosier acquired much of this material in his research for Deathride's predecessor, Cross of Iron (a study of the Wehrmacht, which I haven't read, but intend to purchase).

This is a golden age in the study of World War 2. Numerous detailed, extremely informative books are easily and cheaply available to anyone who wants to learn about the era. Deathride is a fine addition to this body of literature.

Listen Up, Glen Cook Fans!

As the publication dates for Gilded Latten Bones and Surrender to the Will of the Night get closer and closer, I noticed something more on Amazon. Audible.com, owned by Amazon, has the entire Black Company series available as audio books for download! The series is split into its original ten volumes, and each sells for $24.95 on Audible, or $18.71 on Amazon. The individual books each take roughly ten to twenty hours to narrate, so that should keep listeners entertained through plenty of commutes and road trips. I haven't listened to any of them yet, but I'm sure I will before long.

The image this time is from another Glen Cook reprint, Nightshade's upcoming omnibus of the Darkwar series. It has all three volumes, Doomstalker, Warlock, and Ceremony. Doomstalker was actually the first Glen Cook book that I can recall seeing in a store, when it was new roughly 25 years ago. I own all three, but have yet to read them. I think a shiny new package can sometimes make a book more enjoyable than reading the same tale via a beat-up old massmarket paperback. Of course, the opposite can also be true, but I still plan to get the Darkwar omnibus to sit on my shelf next to my other Cook collections. It is scheduled for release in December.

Finally, Tor have made available an excerpt from Surrender to the Will of the Night. It's from the first chapter, and no, it doesn't make any sense to me either. Since Lord of the Silent Kingdom resolved most ongoing issues in the series, it makes sense to have new ones introduced. I presume this mysterious excerpt is connected to some new plot development. We'll know more in a matter of weeks, meanwhile, anyone who has listened to the Black Company audiobooks, please feel free to comment.