Prose fiction

Prose & Poetry Update

May 24, 2011
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Prose & Poetry Update

This week’s issue begins and ends with G.K. Chesterton. Up first, the “Prophet of Common Sense” on Art, Literature and accepting the status quo: “The beautification of the world is not a work of nature, but a work of art, then it involves an artist.” – Illustrated London News, 9-18-09 “By a curious confusion, many modern critics have passed from the proposition that a masterpiece may be unpopular to the other proposition that unless it is unpopular it cannot be a masterpiece.” – On Detective Novels, Generally Speaking “And all over the world, the old literature, the popular literature, is the same. It consists of very dignified sorrow and very undignified fun. Its sad tales are of broken hearts; its happy tales are of broken heads.” – Charles Dickens “The aim of good prose words is to mean what they say. The aim of good poetical words is to mean what they do not say.” – Daily News, 4-22-05 “A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.” – The Everlasting Man, 1925 Short Fiction The Disadvantage of Having Two Heads written & illustrated by G.K. Chesterton “A little boy once looked

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Loren D. Estleman’s “Retro:” The Sincerest Form of Hard-Boiled

May 23, 2011
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Loren D. Estleman’s “Retro:” The Sincerest Form of Hard-Boiled

By Lars Walker With apologies to Dashiell Hammett fans (after all, I am one myself), I think the archetypal hard-boiled private eye will always be Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe. Every hard-boiled shamus to this day—and likely far into the future—has to touch his cap, one way or another, to that tall Californian in the trench coat. Even if “he” is a she, even if the writer updates the concept by giving him computer skilz, endowing him with a regular girlfriend, or moving his office to an airplane cockpit. Even if he doesn’t smoke and doesn’t drink, has adopted Buddhism, and treats his body like a temple. Loren D. Estleman bucks that trend. He flatters, sincerely, by imitation. His Detroit P.I., Amos Walker, could be Marlowe’s love child, or maybe Marlowe was cryogenically frozen. Amos Walker wears a hat (or did in the early books of the series, though he admits here that he doesn’t own a trench coat). He smokes and refuses to worry about it, and drinks with enthusiasm. His office, in a seedy building downtown, is exactly like Marlowe’s as far as I can tell, except for the view. The result makes for a very comfortable read for

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Prose and Poetry Update

May 17, 2011
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Prose and Poetry Update

While the Newt flames out after less than a week in the spotlight as the “Big Republican On Campus,” folks might want to think about something other than politics. How about a good story? But first, a few literary quotes on good and evil, and the love of books. “No one who can read, ever looks at a book, even unopened on a shelf, like one who cannot.” – Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend “When I am king, they shall not have bread and shelter only, but also teachings out of books; for a full belly is little worth where the mind is starved.” – Mark Twain, The Prince and The Pauper “The devil’s agents may be of flesh and blood, may they not?” – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles “We live in a world of transgressions and selfishness, and no pictures that represent us otherwise can be true, though, happily, for human nature, gleamings of that pure spirit in whose likeness man has been fashioned are to be seen, relieving its deformities, and mitigating if not excusing its crimes.” – James Fenimore cooper, The Deerslayer Short Fiction Luck by Mark Twain “It was at a

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Science Fiction Authors Pick (What They Regard As) The Best SF

May 16, 2011
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Science Fiction Authors Pick (What They Regard As) The Best SF

By Mike Gray You have to wonder how much these writers’ opinions were shaped by their politics, religion, and/or philosophical beliefs: It requires little sophistry to consider Daniel Defoe’s immortal Robinson Crusoe as a metaphor for a man stranded on an alien planet. Crusoe is an exile, and exile has proved a perennial theme within the genre of science fiction. Of all its great themes, lingering on the fringes of comprehension is Star Maker, by Olaf Stapledon (1882-1950). Stapledon was an exile, his childhood spent between Egypt and England. Star Maker is both illuminated and darkened by a feeling of not belonging, the essence of exile. It was published in 1937, when it received a rather chilly reception; the public did not know what to make of it. If it was influenced by Milton’s Paradise Lost, it was doubtless also formed by the terror of the war against Nazi Germany, which was about to descend upon us. — Brian Aldiss on Stapledon’s Star Maker Fahrenheit 451 predated Marshall McLuhan and his theories about how media shape people, not just the reverse. We interact with our creations, and they themselves act upon us. Now that we’re in the midst of a

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John Sandford’s “Storm Prey” Is the Best Sandford In Years

May 12, 2011
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John Sandford’s “Storm Prey” Is the Best Sandford In Years

By Lars Walker It’s true enough that John Sandford’s Prey series of mystery/thrillers is getting a little long in the tooth. Anyone who compares the early books with the later ones (like Storm Prey) will immediately notice that the hero, Minnesota state policeman Lucas Davenport, is now a very different man from the younger millionaire-cop who was so good at hunting down psycho killers because he was a borderline psycho himself. Today Lucas is a happy husband and father, generally purged of his personal devils. But author John Sandford (actually John Camp) knows there are more ways to engage the reader than train-wreck psychological voyeurism. In Storm Prey, Lucas’ wife, surgeon Weather Karkinnen, is involved in the high-risk separation of a pair of Siamese twins when she happens to see a particular Emergency Room doctor in a part of the hospital where he doesn’t properly belong. She thinks nothing of it at the time, but when the drug theft that doctor has plotted goes sour and a hospital worker is murdered, the doctor and his accomplices hire a sociopathic skinhead to murder her as a witness. Fortunately he fails in the first attempt. But Weather refuses to go into protective

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Prose & Poetry Update

May 9, 2011
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Prose & Poetry Update

Enjoy a bevy of literary links including Andrew Klavan, Rudyard Kipling, Evelyn Waugh, John Buchan, George Washington’s Beer, and a love poem by Pablo Neruda. But first some quotes from great literature concerning justice, war and liberty. “There are times, young fellah, when every one of us must make a stand for human right and justice, or you never feel clean again.” – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World “The Almighty gave us our lives, and I suppose He meant us to defend them, at least I have always acted on that, and I hope it will not be brought up against me when my clock strikes.” – H. Rider Haggard, King Solomon’s Mines “Peril, loneliness, an uncertain future, are not oppressive evils, so long as the frame is healthy and the faculties are employed; so long, especially, as Liberty lends us her wings, and Hope guides us by her star.” – Charlotte Bronte, Villette “You know, there are two good things in life, freedom of thought and freedom of action.” – W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage Short Fiction A Creed, A Word and a Blade of Grass by Peter Orullian “The familiar glow of candlelight was the

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A Fictional 100th Birthday Commemoration for Mr. Johnson

May 7, 2011
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A Fictional 100th Birthday Commemoration for Mr. Johnson

The crowd emitted an audible wail. They shook in superstitious fear as Peetie forced the six strings of his guitar to scream above his moan. Zann smiled as he watched the group, unawares, rise collectively several inches above the ground. He hadn't taught Peetie this parlor trick. Peetie was levitating crowds without their knowledge even before Zann met him.

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Buchan’s “Prester John” Is a Great Story, Marred by Racial Attitudes

May 4, 2011
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Buchan’s “Prester John” Is a Great Story, Marred by Racial Attitudes

By Lars Walker I remember there was a copy of Prester John in the library of my childhood elementary school (something which wouldn’t happen nowadays, for reasons which will appear). Its cover, as I remember it, featured a painting in the style of N. C. Wyeth (perhaps one of Wyeth’s own) of a bound white man being led across the African veldt by a black man on a horse. My tastes in those days didn’t run to African stories, so I gave it a pass. But in the years since then I’ve become a Buchan enthusiast, and when I found it for free in a Kindle version I snapped it up. John Buchan was one of the inventors of the modern thriller novel, elevating the genre from the level of earlier (and excellent in their own way) writers like H. Rider Haggard to new realism, seriousness, and economy of language. His most famous work is The 39 Steps, adapted out of all recognition by Alfred Hitchcock, but he wrote other excellent novels. I’m particularly fond of the Richard Hannay books. Prester John is not part of that series. It will never be widely popular again because, fine as it is

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Mises and “Socially Conscious” Literature

May 3, 2011
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Mises and “Socially Conscious” Literature

By Mike Gray The public, committed to socialist ideas, asks for socialist (“social”) novels and plays. The authors, themselves imbued with socialist ideas, are ready to deliver the stuff required. They describe unsatisfactory conditions which, as they insinuate, are the inevitable consequence of capitalism. They depict the poverty and destitution, the ignorance, dirt, and disease of the exploited classes. They castigate the luxury, the stupidity, and the moral corruption of the exploiting classes. In their eyes everything that is bad and ridiculous is bourgeois, and everything that is good and sublime is proletarian. — Ludwig von Mises Mises divides “socially conscious” authors of “proletarian” fiction into two groups: The first class are those who themselves did not experience poverty, who were born and brought up in a “bourgeois” milieu or in a milieu of prosperous wage earners or peasants and to whom the environment in which they place the characters of their plays and novels is strange. These authors must, before they start writing, collect information about the life in the underworld they want to paint. They embark upon research. But, of course, they do not approach the subject of their studies with an unbiased mind. They know beforehand what

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E-Publishing Sparks Entrepreneurial Spirit

May 2, 2011
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E-Publishing Sparks Entrepreneurial Spirit

While some see the Kindle, Nook, and other e-readers as threats to publishing and killing off paper books, others see an entrepreneurial opportunity. One such entrepreneur is novelist Libby Sternberg and her new venture Istoria Books. Istoria’s motto is “eBooks You Want to Read at Prices You Want to Pay,”™  and in that spirit this start-up publisher begins a new series of short story volumes priced at less than a buck each.I remember when a 32 page, 4-color comic book cost less than a buck. In these tough economic times it’s nice to see good books at good prices. The short story series is called Lunch Reads, and kicks off with two mystery shorts — Jenny Milchman’s suspense tale, “The Very Old Man,” and Libby Sternberg’s cozy mystery, “Escape from Southern Point.” Eventually Lunch Reads will also feature general fiction and other genres. Writers who would like to submit stories to Istoria Books’ Lunch Reads collections should check out the Submissions page at Istoria.com . Istoria will pay writers a flat fee for stories. As the economy attempts to pull itself out of the doldrums, it’s nice to see creative individuals stepping out into uncertain waters with a new venture.

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Prose & Poetry Update

May 1, 2011
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Prose & Poetry Update

Did you ever wonder if you’re on the right path, if your career reflects your true self? While you sip your morning coffee and gaze at that stack of paperwork on your desk, here’s a few literary quotes concerning the “true self” on which to meditate. “No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.” - Nathanial Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter “He remembered that she was pretty, and, more, that she had a special grace in the intimacy of life. She had the secret of individuality which excites–and escapes.” - Joseph Conrad, Victory “Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem.” - W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence “This above all,–to thine own self be true; and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.” - William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Short Fiction The Things by Peter Watts, a Hugo Award Nominee for Best Short Story from Clarkesworld Magazine “I am being Blair. I escape out

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The Brilliant Ignoramus: Sherlock Holmes and the Universe at Large

April 30, 2011
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The Brilliant Ignoramus: Sherlock Holmes and the Universe at Large

By Mike Gray One purported purpose of fiction seems to be an attempt to understand the human experience through stories. Science fiction has always been highly equipped to handle this problem by viewing culture and individuals through the lens of technology or fantastical concepts. Explaining life as we know it, or might one day live it, is certainly the task of all good science fiction. Similarly, the stories and enduring character of Sherlock Holmes provide a lens through which the human experience can be explained. Commenting on why Sherlock Holmes speaks to him specifically, Nicholas Meyer notes that, “They constitute a sort of secular bible.” For many, growing up with science fiction, the experience is similar. In an unreasonable world, the greatest science fiction can frequently comfort us, while at the same time forcing us to confront our greatest fears. And the ultimate impact of Sherlock Holmes is the same. — Ryan Britt Arriving late in a century of breathtaking material advancement, Sherlock Holmes could be said to embody the late Victorians’ idea of scientific progress: Essentially, Holmes believes any mystery can be approached, and a solution deduced, scientifically, by gathering necessary data, and drawing conclusions based

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"Culture is the expression of the guiding philosophy of the day."—Murray Rothbard
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