The House on the Borderland; A Review

In the early 90s, I had the privilege of traveling to the British Isles and, while there, picked up a small paperback. I had never heard of The House on the Borderland or its author, William Hope Hodgson. I remember that Brian Aldiss wrote the introduction. Then I remember being so captured by the story that I reread the novel several times until one day, one of my cats destroyed my original copy.

At that time, I discovered ebooks, so I always had a copy of this incredible tale. However, a few days ago, I found a small paperback (see the above graphic) at a bookstore in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Once again, I wandered with the narrator through the western part of Ireland, which is so rural and desolate that few maps of the area exist.

Written in 1908, the main story is framed by two men, Tonnison and the unnamed narrator, avid anglers who fish obscure streams for prize catches. One day, they discover the ruins of a large building perched precariously above a water-filled pit. Nosing about, they find the manuscript written by the last resident of the great House, only referred to as The Recluse.

Accompanied by his elderly sister and dog, Pepper, the Recluse enjoys his extreme solitude until one day, the House is unexplainedly besieged by hideous creatures in the shape of anthropomorphic swine from a nearby pit.

The story continues as the House works its evil will on the Recluse. With him, we fight off waves of the Swine-Things, explore the massive basement, the Pit, and experience a vision of the end of the universe. 

The bottom line is that lovers of weird literature can call themselves true devotees only if they have read this classic story. 

H. P. Lovecraft loved this tale, and he wrote:

The House on the Borderland (1908)—perhaps the greatest of all Mr. Hodgson’s works—tells of a lonely and evilly regarded house in Ireland which forms a focus for hideous other-world forces and sustains a siege by blasphemous hybrid anomalies from a hidden abyss below. The wanderings of the narrator’s spirit through limitless light-years of cosmic space and kalpas of eternity, and its witnessing of the solar system’s final destruction, constitute something almost unique in standard literature. And everywhere there is manifest the author’s power to suggest vague, ambushed horrors in natural scenery. But for a few touches of commonplace sentimentality this book would be a classic of the first water. (Supernatural Horror in Literature by H. P. Lovecraft)

Having reread this tale just a day ago—even though I knew what would happen—the writing still has the power to sway me with its cosmic horror, wonder, and subplot of lost love.

The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson is in the public domain. eBook and PDF copies can be found through any of your favorite search engines. Paperbacks are available through any book dealer.

Blade Runner 2049: A Review

Let me start out by clearly stating that I very much enjoyed Blade Runner 2049 and it is a worthy sequel to the 1982 film.

I can see why the public has panned Blade Runner 2049 and it is not doing well at the theater:

• The public is tired of dystopia movies.
• The movie is almost three hours long.
• You have to pay careful attention to the plot line as it is rather convoluted with a number of significant red herrings.

However, I very much liked it. I thought the acting top notch, the story was great, and the cinematography was amazing.

The story follows a Blade Runner known only as Joe chasing down a rogue Nexus 8 replicant. This is not a spoiler as it is revealed immediately that Joe himself is a Nexus 9 replicant. In the ensuing investigation, Joe and the LAPD discover a body buried on the property that makes an amazing revelation about the Nexus 8s that changes all that was known about replicants.

I did not like the unnecessary nudity and MILD SPOILER ALERT, I thought the bizarre scene where Joe's holographic girlfriend superimposed herself over a "lady of the evening" was simply silly. (to see the script, hold down the right mouse button and run the cursor over the blackened text)

I was not aware the director of Blade Runner 2049 made three short videos to lay the groundwork for the film. I wish I had seen them before viewing the movie. Be aware these videos are NOT for children and the squeamish as they contains scenes of blood and violence. The films are:

• Black Out 2022 when Nexus 8 replicants create a global EMP in a struggle for freedom.
• 2036: Nexus Dawn is 14 years later when the ban against creating replicants is lifted opening the door for Nexus 9 models that must obey Asimov's Three Laws.
• 2048: Nowhere to Run takes place a year before the film introducing one of the characters that appears in the opening scenes.

Alien: Covenent--A Review

Posing with my posse

Went to see Alien: Covenant last Saturday with a pile of friends and family and I thought I would share my thoughts. There are spoilers in this post and some major spoilers in the comments.

It is rather hard to put my thoughts together about this film as my feelings are so mixed. In 1979 when the first Alien film came out I was blown away by the overwhelming emotions of fear, revulsion, and wonder at what I was experiencing. Aliens (1986) came along seven years later and though a very different film, still added so much to the mythos.

As far as I'm concerned, Alien 3 (1992) and Alien: Resurrection (1997) never happened. They were nothing more than nightmares Ripley had in hypersleep while en route to home from the end of the second film.

Alien: Covenant is a direct sequel to Prometheus (2012) so if you have not seen that film, you will miss much of what is referred to in Alien: Covenant and the motivation of the android, David.

The film opens with the spaceship Covenant en route to Origae-6 that they hope to colonize. Along with a regular crew, they have 2,000 colonists in cryosleep and a few hundred human fetuses.

An emergency forces the crew awake early and with a badly damaged ship, they discover that there is a habitable planet closer than their original destination so they change course.

The new planet is the original home of the Engineers, an alien race introduced in Prometheus, but the planet appears to be abandoned. It isn't. David, the android from Prometheus, is alive and well.

My mixed thoughts:

• Michael Fassbender is an amazing actor. He pulls off two roles in this film, playing David 8 as well as the other android, Walter, each with different appearances, personalities, and accents and he does it flawlessly.
• Director Ridley Scott should have learned from the disappointment of Alien 3 where the audiences witnessed the deaths of Newt and Colonel Hicks from the Aliens film that characters the audience has an emotional bond to should not be discarded as unimportant. We deserved a better treatment of Dr. Elizabeth Shaw who was the heart and heroine of Prometheus.
• The source of the xenomorphs is completely revealed in Alien: Covenant. I was not impressed. Somehow the storyline has lost its magic and the xenomorphs have lost a little of their vicious majesty.
• The action scenes will put you on the edge of your seat, especially as the survivors attempt to leave the planet for the relative safety of the Covenant. That one xenomorph is worse than a tick.
• I was surprised to discover that some of the trailers contained scenes that were not in the film and not meant to be there. In fact, NONE of the scenes in this trailer appear in the film:
   
• The cinematography is incredible. The Covenant's scout ship soaring over the landscape of the Engineer's homeworld is breathtaking.
• New xenomorphs are introduced and they contribute to an understanding of the evolution of the more familiar monster that we know.
• The movie moves too fast. There is important information given in the film and it flies by so rapidly, if you blink, you'll miss it. There should have been some more time spent on the revelation of Shaw's fate and why David betrayed her when he said of her that he had never experienced such kindness from another human being.
• What happened in 2,000 years that the Engineers apparently devolved culturally and were no longer a space-faring race?
• Why are Ridley Scott's scientists so stupid?
• The ending was so necessary for the sequel (Ridley Scott has said there will be two or three more), but it was so emotionally a bummer for me.

Share your own thoughts in the comments.

Goldlust, by A.R. Mitchell: A Review

Goldlust is a collection of short stories from A. R. Mitchell, a collection of tales that pay homage to the golden age of the pulps when the characters and the stories they appeared in were bigger than life.

The opening tale, Goldlust and the one immediately following are both timeslip stories where the protagonists suddenly find themselves in another time, but the locales and tropes quickly change to stories of science fiction (an eerie and unsettling tale entitled Remember Me), post-apocalyptic drama (Armageddon’s Grace) and others spanning numerous times and locations.

Many of the stories are too short leaving the reader wishing they had been expanded into novels, but for this reviewer, some of the real gems besides the aforementioned Remember Me are:

Forty Eight Lashes that introduces a private investigator who discovers his wife of six months holds a secret that drives her to self-destructive acts.

A policeman in Love and Shotguns gives advice to a lovelorn young man.

The Outlaws of Sawdust tells the two-fisted Old West tale of a young cowgirl trailing down a gang of train robbers who stole her five dollars.

In Reliquary of Fear a renegade archeologist undergoes an involuntary rite of passage in a pagan Mayan temple.

It is hoped by this reviewer to see Mitchell expand her tales into at least novella-length stories. These twenty tales are proof she has the talent.

Goldlust in paperback can be purchased here.

Goldlust for Kindle can be purchased here.

A.R. Mitchell's blog can be found here.

And Now Good-Bye, by James Hilton: A Review

James Hilton (1900-1954) is best known as the author of Lost Horizon, and Goodbye, Mr. Chips, but I did not recognize his name when I picked up a hardback with his name and the title, And Now Good-Bye. Published in 1931, two years before he published Lost Horizon and put the name, Shangri-La into the common vernacular, the copy I found was printed in 1932 by William Morrow and Company, Inc. and the pages are brittle and yellowed with age.

As a writer of dark fantasy, this slice-of-life story appealed to me only because the protagonist was one Rev. Howat Freemantle, a clergyman. The opening prologue tells of his heroism when the London train he was a passenger on derailed. He jumped from his passenger car and running to the one that had overturned and on fire, he saved five lives, dragging them from the wreckage even though his hands and arms endured terrible burns.

After that dramatic prologue that includes the story of  his nervous breakdown the resulting recovery and the heroic welcome he received when he returns to his impoverished, middle-class, and fictional village of Browdley, the novel starts detailing the good Reverend's week before the train accident.

I enjoyed the book only because I too am an ordained member of the clergy and I was surprised to read that the travails of the clergy in Great Britain between the two World Wars mirrored mine exactly, almost 90 years later. Unfortunately, the ending left a very bad figurative taste in my mouth. The solution to his problems are not ones that are held in high admiration and we discover that his reasons for his heroic behavior are not so altruistic as first thought. The book then reveals itself to be a tragedy.

Nonetheless, I am glad I took the time to read the novel. I’m well aware the trope of the morally flawed clergyman has been done to death to the point that if I am reading a mystery or other genre novel that contains a member of the clergy, I already know who the bad guy is. However, in Hilton’s day and age, the trope was still fresh and, therefore, adds a more shocking dénouement to the work. Able to put myself in the mind of a reader that would have read the book during the early 1930s, I can appreciate how Hilton constructed the tale. In addition, I always like to read outside my comfort zone. And Now Good-Bye is not a genre novel by any stretch of the imagination, but the benefit of reading a viewpoint from another time and another culture is priceless.

I started keeping track of books that I completed and since August 5, 2010, And Now Good-Bye is book #232 and my fourteenth completed book for 2016.

A New Review of Opal Wine

Just came across this review today even though it was posted about 6 weeks ago.



Reviews inspire me to write more.

Opal Wine is my anthropomorphic story collection and features a baker's dozen of stories for your entertainment:

• The Substance of Things Hoped For  
• The Clockwork Cat  
• Sawyer  
• Fox Hunt  
• Festival of Masks  
• Wild Carrot  
• A Fairy Tale  
• My Pretty Pony  
• Night Mares  
• Storyteller  
• Lair of The White Rabbit: A Collection Of Unexplored Vignettes  
• Pick’s Model  
• Coventry House

In-depth reviews of Opal Wine can be found here and here and the collection can be purchased through your country's Amazon.


Opal Wine (United States) Kindle eReader and Paperback
Opal Wine (Canada) Kindle eReader and Paperback
Opal Wine (United Kingdom) Kindle eReader ONLY
Opal Wine (Australia) Kindle eReader ONLY

Re-enter Fu Manchu, by Sax Rohmer: A Review

Re-enter Fu Manchu is the twelfth book in the series of thirteen adventures Sax Rohmer wrote about his best literary creation, the diabolical Dr. Fu Manchu.

"Imagine a person, tall, lean and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, a close-shaven skull, and long, magnetic eyes of the true cat-green. Invest him with all the cruel cunning of an entire Eastern race, accumulated in one giant intellect, with all the resources of science past and present, with all the resources, if you will, of a wealthy government--which, however, already has denied all knowledge of his existence. Imagine that awful being, and you have a mental picture of Dr. Fu-Manchu, the yellow peril incarnate in one man."

Written in 1957, the story follows the eleventh book in the series written in 1948: The Shadow of Fu Manchu. The evil doctor has been believed dead since the adventures in the last book, but Dr. Fu Manchu is very much alive and very much still involved in world conquest. Now the unquestioned leader of the Sai Fan, a secret order that he once worked for, Dr. Fu Manchu has kidnapped his old nemesis, Denis Nayland Smith, and using plastic surgery has created an almost perfect imposter. Next, the doctor hires under false pretenses, one Brian Merrick, a young man who is also the son of a U.S. Senator. He ships him off to Cairo to meet the fake Nayland Smith and then jets them both to New York where the real action takes place.

By the time Rohmer released this book, he had been aggressively writing novels, stories, and nonfiction for nigh on five decades. The writing in Re-enter Fu Manchu is very polished and very professional, but the plot line drags along slowly as we watch Brian struggle with his doubts and trying to discover who he can and cannot trust. It is not until the last few chapters we learn exactly what Fu Manchu is trying to do, the reasons behind hiring Merrick, and the final interaction between Fu Manchu and the real Sir Nayland Smith.

Compared to the other books in the series, there is very little action to speak of and I confess that in the first two thirds of the book, I was wondering if Rohmer had simply become bored with his creation.

Out of the original twelve novels, Rohmer wrote in the Fu Manchu universe, I presently own eight and I will continue to haunt used book stores until all twelve are mine.

On August 5th, 2010, I began keeping record of the books that I have read. Re-Enter Fu Manchu is book #229.

One Final Review for Rowan Dreaming

 The last review I will post, but I am grateful for all of them, regardless of how many stars are attached. As my biography states:

Loewen also makes no bones about his writing: he writes solely to entertain, his first desire to be a storyteller. If the reader discovers some great universal truth in a Loewen-crafted tale, that's icing on the cake, but as Loewen has said, "I want my readers simply to enjoy themselves in a story of my own creation. If they feel their time has not been wasted and they liked the story, I have achieved my primary goal."

Thanks to all who bought the chapbook and enjoyed the tale. Feedback inspires me to write more. Rowan Dreaming is still available for your enjoyment and at 99¢ is, in my humble opinion, a bargain.

Amazon US
Amazon UK
Amazon Germany
Amazon Australia

And Another Rowan Dreaming Review!

I am deeply grateful for those who take the time to leave a review regardless of how many stars are given.

Rowan Dreaming also includes the short story, Strange Streets, and according to Amazon takes 90 minutes to read in its entirety, the length of a feature length movie. Here in the United States, a first run film can cost you anywhere from $6 to $15, but for 99¢ you not only get two stories, but one you can read over and over again as many times as you want.

You can buy your own copy of Rowan Dreaming here at any of these fine sites: 

Amazon US
Amazon UK
Amazon Germany
Amazon Australia

Rowan Dreaming Receives Its First Review!

The Raven Series, by Richard Kirk: A Review

In mid-2014, I picked up a fantasy book entitled Raven: Swordmistress of Chaos for a quarter at a used bookstore and finished it on August 11. I would have stopped there, but I discovered to my delight that the author, Robert Kirk, was merely a house name for the writing team of Angus Wells (1943-2006) and Robert Holdstock (1948-2009). Though I confess I am not familiar with Wells, Holdstock was the author of Mythago Wood, one of my top five literary fantasies of all time. With that tidbit of information, I made the decision to read the entire series.

The next three books in the series were gifts from Eric Hinkle, a friend of mine who shares my interest in fantasy and is a wonderful writer in his own right, and I devoured them as soon as he found them and sent them to me. The first book in the series was written by both Wells and Holdstock as a team, but the second and fourth books were the sole works of Holdstock, while Wells worked solo on the third and final book in the series.

I polished off Raven: A Time of Ghosts on November 24, 2014 and then had to wait five months for the next book in the series: Raven: The Frozen God (April 28, 2015). The fourth book followed quickly:  Raven: Lords of the Shadows (July 20, 2015) and this morning I finished Raven: A Time of Dying. From start to finish, as the books (which are out of print) were acquired, it took me a total of of 1 year, 7 months and 24 days to finish the series.

One side note before I continue: Ignore the cover art as displayed above. Wells and Holdstock know their stuff and though the series is clearly R-rated, Raven is first and foremost a warrior. When she walks around, she is fully armored.

Though written for a male audience and though the books are clearly a product of the late 1970s, toward the end of the series, Wells and Holdstock found their respective voices and broke free of the chainmail bikini mindset into one that began to explore the greater themes of purpose and free will.

The first book was pure pulp, but in the final book, Wells almost touched more upon epic fantasy with lyrical writing that was not present in the opening volumes. And unfortunately, there is no more. The series ends with none of the larger questions answered.

The entire series is narrated by Spellbinder, half human and half mage, trained in the magical arts by the mages of Kharwan, an island in the middle of the sea that is concealed and protected by magic. In the books, he wanders a world that has lost almost all vestiges of civilization and though in the series, he is Raven's tutor/lover/bodyguard, he walks the world alone speaking of Raven in the past tense. His hand is heavily bandaged and the implication is that it was badly maimed by a friend, but the series ends with none of these questions answered. It simply ends.

And unfortunately, we will know no more. Both Wells and Holdstock have unfortunately passed away and it is clear that Ace Publishing never had any desire to continue the series after the fifth book. So we will never know why the mages of Kharwan chose Raven, a former slave, to be their Worldchanger, the ultimate agent of Chaos, or why they even meddled in the affairs of the world to begin with. The post-apocalyptic world in which Spellbinder wanders telling his tales to anyone willing to listen is certainly not the end the mages strove for. We will never learn whatever happened to Raven herself or her other companions, Gondar Lifebane, the pirate, or Argor, outlaw and leader of a band of mercenary horsemen.

And though the Raven series is not high fantasy in any understanding of the genre, I confess I feel cheated as a reader. A series should come to an end that brings a modicum of satisfaction, so instead, I will simply ponder the mysteries of what might have happened and move on.

The world is full of books and there is never enough time to read a good tale.

How to Write a Sentence: A Review

Crafting a review on a book about writing and appreciating sentences becomes a challenge as one has to use sentences themselves. In the light of Stanley Fish’s excellent book, the impulse to construct each sentence of the review as a pristine gem becomes overwhelming. So if I may pervert Gustave Flaubert’s complaint, I fear this review “is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.”

Authors often hear the advice to ignore individual sentences in favor of the total work whether story or essay. I believe Stanley Fish would disagree strongly. A building is composed of individual bricks and though it may be a beautiful edifice, if the bricks are rotten, the building cannot last. A gourmet meal may look appealing as a whole, but if each individual bite is a torment, it matters not the aesthetics of the table setting. A literary work is composed of individual sentences put together in a systemic manner that build up the structure, but are also strong enough to stand on their own.

In How to Write a Sentence and How to Read One, Fish leads us on a tour de force of sentence structure looking at structure and style as well as the importance of the first and last sentences. His examples are a true delight. Yet, this is not a mechanical “How to…” like Strunk and White’s seminal work. A human being is composed of more than bones and internal organs and a sentence carries within itself its own type of metaphysical wonder that appeals to the heart as well as the mind. In its own way, Fish’s work is a love letter to the simple sentence.

However, do not think it an easy read. For such a short book, there is amazing depth here. I found myself rereading several passages several times to make sure I grasped what Fish was communicating.

The bottom line is that I believe reading Stanley Fish’s inspirational work will make me a better writer as well as a better reader.

The Jersey Devil: A Review

Published by The Middle Atlantic Press in 1976.

With well over 60,000 copies in print in a myriad number of editions, James F. McCloy's and Ray Miller, Jr's work on New Jersey's most famous bogey is the predominate study on the Jersey Devil.

Starting with the conflicting tales of the Jersey Devil's origin, the core of the book is the third chapter with a detailed description of the events of January16-23, 1909 when New Jersey and the surrounding area erupted with dozens of Jersey Devil sightings.

Though a number of sightings could be attributed to hoaxes or hysteria, the authors have provided maps showing the majority of sightings follow a logical, linear path. Whatever it was that terrified the citizenry that week, leaving footprints and dead and wounded livestock and pets in its wake, it was certainly real.

A number of skeptics claim the creature people claimed to be the Jersey Devil was actually a Sandhill crane (Grus canadensis), but that takes too great a step of faith. New Jersey is not included in the proper range of the bird and it winters far south from the areas in which the sightings took place. Though the size and general shape of the Sandhill crane does mimic the size and shape of the Devil as reported by eye witnesses, why did none of the witnesses use the phrase "a large bird" in any of the reports? With all the people that saw the creature, you would think somebody would recognize a large bird and as the Great Blue Heron is native to New Jersey, they had a similar example for comparison.

Some people think the witnesses mistook this bird for a monster.

I do not claim to know what it was the good people of New Jersey saw that week, but to claim they mistook a bird for a creature out of a fever dream is incredibly insulting. If anyone is interested in what I believe is the only realistic explanation of high strangeness, I would encourage the reader to study the works of the late John Keel and his theory of "ultraterrestrials."

Note: On August 5, 2010, I started logging the books I read to completion; The Jersey Devil is #222 on the list.

Steampunk Cthulhu: Mythos Terror in the Age of Steam: A Review

As a reader of anthologies as well as a writer who has been published in a number of them, I can say that for those whom the gods (Elder Gods?) destroy, they first make them an anthology editor. Far too many anthologies suffer from a number of ailments such as stories that do not necessarily fit the theme or are very uneven in quality, or the editor's ego gets in the way of final product.

I picked up Steampunk Cthulhu: Mythos Terror in the Age of Steam, edited by Brain M. Sammons and Glynn Owen Barass with a shrug, fully expecting the typical anthology with its typical flaws and I can say with unequivocal delight that I struck a gold mine.

The 17 stories collected here are mostly very high quality tales where the authors do the very difficult: combine the myriad aspects of the Chtulhu Mythos within the steampunk genre and make it look flawlessly easy.

Those Above by Jeffrey Thomas takes place in a world where the sky above is filled with an eldritch horror that feeds on dreams and steampunk technology appears to have come to the rescue of the hapless humans that live below. At least that is what appears to be the case.

The Blackwold Horror by Adam Bolivar tells of a folklorist traveling to England's West Country to research its tales and legends and spends a frightful night with the host and staff of Blackwold Abbey.

No Hand to Turn the Key by Carrie Cuinn tells the tale of an alternate future where humanity has been wiped out by Mythos horrors leaving only automatons behind to defend what remains of Earth's human legacy. The result is a touching tale of sacrifice and hope in the face of overwhelming odds.

The Reverend Mr. Goodworks & the Yeggs of Yig by Edward M. Erdelac is the story of a traveling preacher who is more steam-powered automaton than human as he seeks to rid the American Old West of a cult that has taken root in the town of New Valusia, a cult bent on world domination.

Carnacki – The Island of Doctor Munroe  revisits the occult world of detective Thomas Carnacki, first created by English fantasy writer, William Hope Hodgson. Other writers have expanded on Hodgson's creation, but author, William Meikle, has remained true to the Carnacki tropes while  avoiding the stale creation of a pastiche.

Pain Wears No Mask by John Goodrich is a fascinating tale of several air pirates determined to steal the Crown Jewels that are kept on board the airship of England's reigning monarch. It is a tale of greed and corruption and The King in Yellow.

Before the Least of These Stars by Lee Clark Zumpe is a beautifully crafted tale of a man trapped out of time in a world where humanity is under attack by the Old Ones from the sea.

The Promised Messiah by D.J. Tyrer revisits the world of the King in Yellow. An inventor has created a machine that writes poetry. In his home, he has invented a machine that channels horror.

Unfathomable by Christine Morgan is a story of an advanced steam-powered submarine with a worthy crew of sailors and scientists sailing to retrieve a meteor that has fallen in the ocean. It is something far, far worse.

The Flower by Christopher M. Geeson is a tragic retelling of the American Civil War with steampunk weapons and a historical twist that puts the tale solidly in Lovecraft's mythos.

Tentacular Spectacular by Thana Niveau is an odd and horrific tale about corsets. That's all I'm going to say.

Fall of an Empire by Glynn Owen Barrass & Brian M. Sammons is a sprawling tale starting with a female thief worthy of her own series. After her failure to achieve her objective, the story flashes ahead a few years where a Lovecraftian horror is now ruling the world through the British Empire. Unless three rebels bring its reign of horror to a close, humanity has no future remaining.

The Baying of the Hounds by Leigh Kimmel unites Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla as they team up to bring the world back to normal after one of Tesla's experiments goes horribly wrong.

Mr Brass & the City of Devils by Josh Reynolds is the story of a Pinkerton detective who is more automaton than human and his urgent mission to stop a cult from unleashing a world of horror upon the Earth. In the tale we revisit the Mi-Go, the creature from Robert Bloch's, The Shambler from the Stars, and the ghostly reptilian race from Lovecraft's, The Nameless City.

The Source by D.L. Snell tells the tale of Corwin Carroll, an inventor of steampunk weapons for the armies of the American Revolution. However, he learns that inquisitiveness and the drive to invent without thinking out the repercussions has a price.

Happy Birthday, Dear Cthulhu by Robert Neilson is a story of another weapons manufacturer who discovers that Mythos horrors make great fuel for his steampunk creations. But somebody else wants his discovery for themselves and they are more than willing to kill for it.

The Strange Company by Pete Rawlik is the last story and a hodgepodge reminiscent of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen using multiple characters across the Mythos tales.

All in all, if you like steampunk and you like tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, Sammons and Barass have done a superb job in putting this anthology together. It appears they have partnered for others with the blessing of Chaosium Press and I look forward to their future offerings.

Rock And Rule (1983): A Review

The war was over... The only survivors were street animals — dogs, cats and rats. From them, a new race of mutants evolved. That was a long time ago. Mok, a legendary super rocker, has retired to Ohmtown. There his computers work at deciphering an ancient code which would unlock a doorway between this world and another dimension. Obsessed with his dark experiment, Mok himself searches for the last crucial component: a very special voice. (Opening narration to the 1983 US version of Rock and Rule)

In the late 80s, watching late night television, I came across an animated film being broadcast called Rock And Rule. The story centers on a wannabe rock group consisting of four anthropomorphic dogs: Angel, Omar, Dizzy, and Stretch living in a future dystopian world where all the humans have died out. Angel comes to the attention of the super-rocker, Mok, who is in the declining years of his popularity. Determined to exact revenge on a fickle public, he has dedicated all his efforts to summon a demon from another dimension that will make his last show a real killer attraction. Literally.

And I was fascinated. I set out determined to find a copy and it was not until the late 90s, a friend of mine gifted me with a DVD of the production put out by Unearthed Films. 

Before I continue, one caveat. The Motion Picture of Association of America did not come up with the PG-13 rating until a year after Rock And Rule was released. The film, with its blatant drug references, fleeting nudity, use of strong language, and some fleeting disturbing images puts the film squarely into PG-13 territory. This is not a movie for the kiddies.

Let me be honest. Rock And Rule is a glorious train wreck of an animated film and for good reason. Nelvana, a Canadian animation studio, didn't have much of a script to go with and the story and characters were changed on the fly. According to my DVD's liner notes, the crew behind Rock And Rule went straight into production "without a solid story and a completed screenplay. Indecision on the part of the producers was rampant. Constant re-writes and script alterations invariably took their toll on everyone from animators to camera operators. Whole sequences were cut, leaving months and months of work lying on the editing room floor and the bottoms of dumpsters. Numerous retakes of both minor and crucial scenes became commonplace; characters were redesigned and completely reanimated from scratch, long after the scenes they were featured in were already shot."

And the story gets worse from there.

But here is why I love the film:

1. In its early years, Nelvana was one of the best quality animation studios on the block and a list of their shows can be seen here. Rock And Rule was the first feature-length animated film ever made principally in Canada.
2. The soundtrack features songs from Debbie Harry (of Blondie fame), Iggy Pop, Cheap Trick, and Lou Reed.
3. It was furry before furry became cool (and then ostracized).
4. Not made for the kiddies, even though the message of the film (love conquers evil) is as saccharine as you can get.
5. The film is unrelenting in its dystopian darkness (part of it takes place in Nuke York...that's not a typo).
6. Mok is clearly based on Mick Jagger, the character's full name being, Mok Swagger. Oh, yeah. That's subtle.
7. The animation is just fun to watch and some of the background art is exquisite.

 You can watch a documentary on the making of Rock And Rule here. Be aware this link may disappear. We are talking about the Internet after all.

Angel on keyboard, Dizzy on drums, Omar on lead guitar (and lead vocal) and stretch on bass guitar. And in case you're interested, they are all dogs.

This is Mok. He's the bad guy and, just so you know, he's a cat.

This is the demon Mok summons using Angel's voice, all because his last concert was not 100% sold out. Now I may be wrong, but in my humble opinion, this is not how one endears the fans to return.

Of course, Angel isn't doing this willingly. Mok drugs her and uses a special collar around her throat to force her to sing the demon up. Insert a snarky comment of your own on Mok's fashion sense.

Omar

Stretch and Dizzy (real name: Alphonse). Dizzy can't drive and ends up driving twice in the film. He wrecks both times.

Dogtown: Death and Enchantment in a New England Ghost Town: A Review

Part travelogue, part autobiography, and part true crime story, Alyssa East has managed to write a book about an obscure part of the Massachusetts coast that is both fascinating and intriguing.

East writes about a 3,000-acre woodland that attracts all sorts of eccentric personalities and writes in such a manner, she gives Dogtown, as the woodland is known, an eccentric personality of its own. Though filled with anecdotes and folklore, the book has at its core a true-life murder mystery that occurred in 1984, changing Dogtown and those whose lives are interwoven with it.

As we follow the story of the crime and the ultimate arrest, trial, and conviction of the murderer, we learn more about Dogtown's history, ecology and genius loci.

All in all, a fascinating and enjoyable read.

The Lost Level: A Review

Brian Keene is best known for being a writer of graphic horror and though I am not a fan of splatterpunk, I am an avid reader of Keene because he writes his characters with great poignancy, presenting them as fully fleshed human beings instead of existing for the sheer purpose of being nothing but monster chow. In addition, Keene has created an elaborate mythos he has named the Labyrinth that ties all his novels and stories together. As a result, his universe is not only huge, but is just as elaborate and fascinating as the Cthulhu Mythos first dreamed up by the Old Gentleman from Providence.

In The Lost Level, Keene tries his hand at another genre and his foray in pulp fiction results in a satisfying read that entertains and is worth another reading.

Aaron Pace is a young student of the occult who gains the ability to travel the Labyrinth that connects all parallel universes and individual worlds within those universes. His fascination and exploration unfortunately traps him in an oubliette, a world with only one entrance and no exit. Known as the Lost Level, it serves as the dumping grounds of all the parallel universes that connect to the Labyrinth. People and objects that have mysteriously disappeared in our world and others end up in The Lost Level, a world of such danger that survival is only remotely possible. In his wanderings, Aaron gathers two companions, a barbarian princess and a creature that is mostly an anthropomorphic cat with a prehensile tail. In their adventures, they encounter all sorts of wonders and horrors such as piranha birds, giant amoebas, dinosaurs, large metal killer robots and other challenges that allow Keene to let loose his full range of imagination.

My only disappointment is, and I say this with great respect, is that Keene needs an editor. In chapter 12, Aaron waxes eloquent on women's liberation that detracts from the story and appears to be nothing more than the author's attempt to use his narrative as a pulpit. Also, in a world of such horror with danger at every corner, when we are introduced to "the soft valley" the sheer silliness of its existence may have seemed cute, but so nonsensical that it acted as a huge interruption to the narrative. An editor would also have steered Keene to a more satisfying ending other than the sheer info dump that is the final chapter.

Other than that, as well as some other minor hiccups that an editor would have caught, Keene's foray into adventure pulp fiction is entertaining enough that, for this reviewer, I will make sure I pick up the next two books in the trilogy.