Why would we at greydogtales celebrate Black Speculative Fiction Month? Because. But if you want that it in more detail, we can supply. We came at the whole black creator scene in our usual manner – whoa, something interesting. Weird works with fresh perspectives; stories that introduce new characters and put different spins on old ideas.

We were already into an unconnected range of black writers such Octavia Butler, Benjamin Zephaniah, Samuel Delaney, Charles R Saunders, Chinua Achebe and N K Jemisin – now here were Sword & Soul, Steamfunk and Afrofuturism as lively and thought-provoking movements. And we found black creators happy to talk about what they were doing, and why. We didn’t do it because we’re worthy or well-meaning, we did it because they’re good.

So that’s us. Why should you care, dear listener, even if you’re as white as a recently-scrubbed albino sheep in a Yorkshire snowdrift? Because:

• Black creators are putting out new and exciting fiction (and art) for all readers, but some of it doesn’t get noticed;
• This might encourage other budding black creators to take those first steps;
• It reminds editors, publishers and others of the wealth and diversity of material out there;
• Kids of every origin should have great fictional role models for them to grow up with;
• It’s a hell of a lot of fun.

Today’s post is merely a quick round-up of a few ‘things of interest’ related to Black Speculative Fiction Month. We’re a signpost site, and this sort of stuff deserves a signpost to it.

In Black Speculative Fiction, the real work is being done by the black creators themselves, trying to get their own networks and communities to celebrate and contribute, to buy and recommend their books and graphics. Spreading the news of their creativity into the wider world. Taking ownership of their work and ideas, not letting them be used and messed with by corporate white offices. Getting noticed at all.

A lot of issues, in short, which any creator should recognise.

As we said in a recent social media discussion, we’re a guest at the table. We don’t have to be there if we don’t want to be, and it’s not our place to complain that we don’t like the tablecloth, or where the spoons have been placed. On the other hand, if we’re passed a dish that excites and intrigues, then why not say so – and ask politely if there are more courses to come, trying not to drool too much?

So, for those of you who want to see what might be for dinner, or who want to help with the washing up and chat about it all later, here are a few links to get you going.

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Black Speculative Fiction Month

Slightly oddly, we’ll start with a couple of older ones which still stand up well – a brief ‘starter’ article by Troy L Wiggins:

https://afrofantasy.net/2013/05/08/six-essential-fantasy-and-science-fiction-books-written-by-black-authors/

And a piece by Nisi Shawl which gives you a jolly good run-through of some key black speculative writers from 1859 to 2015 – A Crash Course in the History of Black Science Fiction.

http://www.fantasticstoriesoftheimagination.com/a-crash-course-in-the-history-of-black-science-fiction/

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On our point about the importance of black role-models, it’s worth reading this report on the ‘Black Heroes Matter’ discussion held at the New York ComicCon 2017, on Bleeding Cool:

https://www.bleedingcool.com/2017/10/07/creators-discuss-black-heroes-matter/

Or if you want a serious look at Afrofuturism, check this out.

“Imagination is the key to Afrofuturism for black people. We need alternate images of what could be. Sometimes in the world of activism, people can get lost in the problem and can’t imagine a solution.”

Ytasha Womack

https://thinkprogress.org/afrofuturism-imagining-a-black-planet-d515413927d2/

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For all sorts of info relevant to Black Speculative Fiction Month, go and browse Balogun Ojetade’s site Chronicles of Harriet. Balogun’s industry ranges across the media, including graphic works (Black Power: The Superhero Anthology), the Ki-Khanga roleplaying game and his own fiction.

We can also add that his novel Savannah in the SWATS is well worth getting – a potent mixture of African source myths, demonic possession, shapeshifting – and dare we say even Lovecraftian elements, when the dirt really hits the fan. Add in a seriously gross god, and note that the conjured children are particularly weird and nasty. Read it as a big grimdark contemporary adventure, or as a twisted struggle of right and wrong, love and hate.

https://chroniclesofharriet.com/

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For a fun look at People of Colour in period fantasy, Denny Upkins makes a few points:

https://thenerdsofcolor.org/2016/02/11/going-medieval/

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One of the most hard-working black creators we know is Milton Davis, who as writer, publisher and editor, has been involved in YA fiction, Sword and Soul, Steamfunk and Dieselfunk, role-playing games and almost every branch of taking black creators forward.

Apart from his own imaginative writing (Changa’s Safari, Bass Reeves and lots more), his Griots anthology is an excellent introduction to the fantasy side of Afrika.

“Griots is a terrific introduction to Sword and Soul, and a way to find a whole range of authors who you may not have encountered before. It’s not surprising that The Three-Faced One by veteran black fantasy writer Charles R Saunders (‘Imaro’) stands out, but there are some terrific other writers in here as well. I would recommend this collection as an ideal ‘starter’ text for anyone who wants a proper taste of Africa and a refreshing change from pseudo-European medieval fantasy. 4 stars rather than 5 because it is a very varied collection, as it should be; 5 stars for its intentions and the work of the editors, Milton Davis and Saunders himself.”

He has also recently published Charles R Saunder’s Nyumbani Tales.

“With his visionary take on African-themed sword and sorcery, Charles Saunders was decades ahead of his time. He’s a true original. The rest of us are still trying to catch up with him.”

-David Anthony Durham, author of the Acacia Trilogy

A lot more can be found at Milton’s MVMedia site:

http://mvmediaatl.com/sword-and-soul.html

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If you want simply to pick up a few major-name books, you can’t go wrong with N K Jemisin or Nnedi Okorafor, but not every black creator gets their sort of coverage. We have regularly recommended J Malcolm Stewart’s collection The Last Words of Robert Johnson, and Victor Lavalle’s The Ballad of Black Tom.

Valjeanne Jeffers writes some very enjoyable tales, such as her Mona Livelong paranormal detective stories. Try them out.  Nisi Shawl, mentioned above, has written her own fiction, such as Everfair, and has written and taught on the question of writing ‘the other’ for non-PoC creators (with Cynthia Ward)*. And we’ll be interviewing the black writer Brian Barr (Carolina Daemonic) soon – Brian is turning out short stories, comics and novels with a wide range of themes and characters.

There are many others, but you’ll find them through some of the links above, which saves us rattling on too long.

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CYBER/PUNK/FUNK

To add to the fun, we’ve just remembered this already-funded Kickstarter which you might like to get in on – “A cyberpunk anthology comprised of 10 short stories drawn and written by queer folk and people of color. The purpose of the anthology is to bring the most marginalized voices to the fore, to tell tales of speculative fiction that examines the world as it is and how it may one day be.” Three weeks to run at time of typing.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/678235406/cyber-punk-funk

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Comics fans can also check out sites like Ziki Nelson’s Kugali, one of whose comics we covered here:

http://greydogtales.com/blog/weird-bookshelf-news/

You can find issues and information on their Newborn Saga and other projects at their store:

Newborn Saga

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If you’re in the States, you can find details of some happenings for Black Speculative Fiction Month, with additional links, here:

http://blackspeculativefictionmonth.com/index.html

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We’re exhausted now, and will have missed out all sort of good stuff. Go enjoy yourselves.

NOTE: You can find interviews with Milton Davis and J Malcolm Stewart on greydogtales:

http://greydogtales.com/blog/black-is-the-new-black-milton-davis-on-the-rise-of-sword-soul/

http://greydogtales.com/blog/went-roadhouse-met-j-malcolm-stewart/

*We discussed this whole complicated issue in an earlier article: http://greydogtales.com/blog/appropriate-conscience-writing-black-characters/

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Be kind to each other, and come back soon…

“Iä! Shub-Niggurath!” shrieked one of the nightjacks, as if reading her thoughts.

“An’ the same to you, wiv nobs on.” Emily stuck her knife in the creature’s head. Sandra managed one more shot, but there was no way that she could reload. The alien was squirming in her arms now. Poor thing, she thought, it must be very confused.

“An’ where’s…” Emily gasped as they fled, “Where’s the horsey goned?”

We return, dear listener, for the October Frights Blog Hop, with the second half of our exciting free scary story, ‘Sandra and the Saucer of Doom’. A misleading title, in that it wasn’t exactly a saucer, and it had nothing to do with doom in itself. Although it does have Sandra in – and of course, the slightly psychotic pony Mr Bubbles. And aliens. And monsters. If you missed the first half, ‘Whateley Wood and the Nasty Things of Doom’, you can find it here:

http://greydogtales.com/blog/whateley-wood-and-the-nasty-things-of-doom/

If you didn’t miss the first half, then you can find out how little this story has to do with saucers or with that malign entity of the woods, Shub-Niggurath, by reading on…

(As before, there is a pdf available as well saucerofdoom2)

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SANDRA & THE SAUCER OF DOOM

by John Linwood Grant

PART THE TWOETH

The expedition was lead by a reluctant Mr Bubbles. He wasn’t reluctant to go into the darkening woods. The guides, however, chattered and whistled incessantly, demanding frequent stops for a slug of gin or to go wee-wees.

Whateley Wood was close to being a forest. It had trees which shouldn’t be there, an unlikely number of sacred groves and sacrificial stones, and a lot of brambles. It also held Britain’s only colony of whip-poor-wills, birds which in their native America were reputed to guide the souls of the dead.

As the motley group entered the woods, some of the birds called out in their haunting fashion, hopeful that they might soon have work to do. Most of them had chest infections, so it was not a pleasant sound.

“Mary-Sue, take your troop north and east, and check the fringes.”

“Shore will, ma’am. Easy as shuckin’ corn.”

Sandra winced.

“Emily, you stick with us. Send the others south. Maybe they can intercept these little chaps before anything horrible happens.”

Emily saluted.

“She has promise, that little girl.” said Sandra.

Mr Bubbles muttered something rude, and began to force his way through the undergrowth. The undergrowth, faced with a somewhat psychotic pony who had muscles on his muscles, gave way with good grace.

Sandra had chosen the most dangerous route for the three of them. Her Remington pump-action shotgun was loaded, and she had rubbed herself and Emily with camphor. It wouldn’t protect them at all, but some of the nightmares deep in Whately Wood were decidedly niffy.

This was the territory of Shub-Niggurath, the Black Goat with a Thousand Young. Not the actual monstrous and ancient evil Herself, but many of Her spawn and adherents. A visiting academic had suggested that the membrane of reality was so thin in certain pockets of the Wolds that almost anything could break through, even televangelists.

Emily pulled at Sandra’s combat trousers.

“I founded a trail. An’ it is slimy an’ wettish.”

“Good. Let’s follow that.”

Ivy and brambles gave way before Mr Bubbles’ broad chest.

“Good horsey.” said Emily.

“Please don’t say that.” Sandra caught the slightly psychotic gleam in one of the pony’s eyes. He hated being called a horse.

There was a wet trail, as if someone had dragged a net full of jellyfish through the trees. It smelled of vanilla, as far as she could tell through the camphor. Much like Mr Sr.

“It’s them, and-”

The nightjack which leapt down from an oak tree was as surprised as Sandra, though for different reasons. She hadn’t expected the wiry creature to appear; it hadn’t expected a shot-gun blast to take its head off. The three-eyed bristly lump rolled a few feet, leaving the rest of it the nightjack kicking at Emily’s feet. Ever the opportunist, the freckle-faced nine year old hauled a fish-gutting knife from her waistband and put an end to the kicking.

“’S good money, them’s feet,” she said. It was true. Credulous Goths at festivals would pay for the clawed feet, even though they were never told the nature of the original owner.

“Scrawnies.” said Mr Bubbles, looking around. “Bad news.”

It was. The nightjacks would be getting bolder as the sun went down, and in numbers they could even give Mr Bubbles a fight. Sandra had Emily and the two aliens to worry about.

“Push on,” she said, making sure she had a cartridge in the chamber.

Whip-poor-wills shrieked and coughed excitedly, and various underpowered members of the wildlife community could be seen heading in the opposite direction. A wild boar urged its piglets past them, casting a wary glance at Mr Bubbles.

They relied on the pony in the gloom cast by towering hemlocks and an unpleasant stand of elm trees. He could smell the trail of the probe-buds. His hooves lashed out once to crush a nightjack, but he kept moving forward…

“Bugger.”

Mr Bubbles halted abruptly. Before them lay a space between the trees where only yellowed grass made a living. At least thirty nightjacks crouched or capered there, poking sharp sticks into a couple of dirt-encrusted blancmanges. One of the blancmanges was making a faint whimpery noise.

“Worse coming.” said the pony, his head high again.

Sandra listened. Beyond the small shrieks of the nightjacks, she could hear a lumbering crunch like trees being pushed aside.

“Emily – you and me grab the squishies. Mr Bubbles-”

“Yeah. I know.”

With an annoyed whinny, the pony threw himself into the clearing, kicking out in all directions. A nightjack left too many of its limbs on display, and they disappeared between the pony’s large yellow teeth. He spat them out, and slammed one hoof through another one’s forehead. The creature fell dead, but others clambered on his back as Sandra and the guide scooped up the probe-buds.

“This is no good,” said Sandra, managing to get off a few more rounds even with a dripping alien stuck to her chest. “Run.”

With cover from a violently bucking Mr Bubbles, the girls charged back the way they had come, Emily pausing every so often to ululate. Sandra welcomed the gesture, but none of the guides were equipped to deal with these things. The vicar called nightjacks “the unholy spawn of Satan’s teats”, which she thought a bit rude.

Father had always said that they were the inevitable hybrids caused by Euclid forgetting what he was doing and Shub-Niggurath sending out foetid waves of her own insanity into the area. But he knew more about Great Old Ones than almost anyone.

“Iä! Shub-Niggurath!” shrieked one of the nightjacks, as if reading her thoughts.

“An’ the same to you, wiv nobs on.” Emily stuck her knife in the creature’s head. Sandra managed one more shot, but there was no way that she could reload. The alien was squirming in her arms now. Poor thing, she thought, it must be very confused.

“An’ where’s…” Emily gasped as they fled, “Where’s the horsey goned?”

“Pony,” said Sandra. “He’ll be coming.”

She felt bad, knowing that her best friend must be beleaguered by nightjacks behind her. He would make it. Mr Bubbles always did.

Mary-Sue appeared from the bushes, took one look and whistled her troop on. The four guides fell on a nightjack ahead of its fellows and managed to pin it down. A wet gurgle announced that there would be plenty more feet for sale at the next festival.

The trees were thinning out. Sandra could see Cooper’s Field in the dusk, looking more inviting than usual.

The two girls ended up on their knees next to the spaceship, gasping for breath.

Sr, still in the rounded entrance, opened multiple ocular patches in surprise.

<Horrible horrible horrible,> moaned Yr, the larger probe-bud, sliding out of Sandra’s grip.

<Inside, quickly.> Sr slid from the entrance, letting the probe-buds flow into the vanilla-scented darkness within.

“Do you… do you have weapons?” Sandra took a deep breath. “Defences, anything like that?”

“No. We are a peaceful race. When we’re not at war with anyone.” he added, feeling he ought to be truthful under the circumstances.

“You’d better leave then, get out of here. More trouble’s coming.”

She glanced at Emily, who was looking for a suitable rock for throwing at nightjacks. You couldn’t fault the local Girl Guides. Not on endeavour and potential for violence, anyway. She reloaded the Remington.

“I can’t impulse in this state.” The alien was shuddering with fear.

“Then get inside with your buds and lock the door.”

The guides emerged from the woods in ones and twos, bedraggled and yelling to each other. Sandra fired at a movement in the undergrowth, and waved the gun barrel to pull the guides back. Lucy Smuthers, a bright girl who was not normally allowed matches, had brought a home-made petrol bomb and was lighting the fuse.

“To the left, Lucy!” Sandra shouted.

Two nightjacks went up in a flare of burning fuel, which provided enough light for Sandra to see Mr Bubbles break from the trees, a horde of hissing creatures not far behind. The pony was scratched, torn and mad. He reared, slamming his iron-shod hooves into the mass of nightjacks, and then turned to head for open ground again.

Could the nightjacks damage the alien craft? She didn’t know. They could certainly damage her and the guides.

“We is in trubble,” said Emily, weighing a stone in each hand. “An’ them stinkies is still comin’.”

The guides fell back automatically to gather round Sandra and Mr Bubbles.

“Tactics, boy?”

Mr Bubbles snorted, his blood-stained hooves trampling the marshgrass.

“Kill them,” he bellowed. “Kill them all!”

Oh dear, thought Sandra. He was in one of his moods.

It was almost dark, and they could see nightjacks creeping from the woods. They hissed to each other, focussed on the girls gathered on either side of the pony.

“Excuse me.”

Sandra looked down.

“Mr Sr? I told you to lock yourself in the ship!”

The jelloid alien had changed colour, and he was now the colour of the broccoli smoothies which Mother made for the hens.

“We should all move backwards,” said Sr. “Not too quickly, please. They need to be out in the open, away from these woods.”

It was no worse a suggestion than anything Sandra had, but hardly solved the problem.

“But why-”

“Please?”

She could hear the whip-poor-wills having fits in Whateley Wood, over-excited by the thought of a massacre. They were sweet little birds, but they took their job seriously.

“Alright.”

Whispering instructions to the guides, they backed away, Mr Bubbles grumbling.

“You are not to charge them on your own,” said Sandra. “If we have to attack, we do it together, right? Mr Sr has a plan. I think.”

A derisive snort, but the pony took a few more steps back. The nightjacks hissed and jeered, capering on to Cooper’s Field. They had never eaten a Girl Guide, but clearly saw the possibilities tonight. Only twenty yards separated them from their dinners…

“An’ I weed myself.” said Emily, sounding less enthusiastic than usual.

Sandra took her hand.

“We won’t let them get you, darling. Mr Bubbles will-”

Light, blinding light, flooded Cooper’s Field. Blinking, Sandra looked to the alien ship. It wasn’t that. Some of the guides squeaked in surprise. From one side of them came a deep grinding noise, machinery waking from its slumber.

“I am an impulser.” said Sr, wobbling back and forth. “I make thing move and work.”

Old Aggie’s combine harvester rolled forward, its floodlights trained on the nightjacks. Animals at heart, however disgustingly re-arranged by monstrous forces, the creatures stared at the lights, rabbits caught in the beam of a poacher’s torch. They froze, out in the open and now potential meat for a deeply inedible pie.

Mr Bubbles gave a wild neigh, and the guides readied their weapons, but there was no need. The combine harvester was gathering speed, more speed than it had ever had in its life. Gears which had never worked meshed faultlessly, and the great blades whirred. Down Cooper’s Field it came, deafening the girls, cutting through gorse and marshgrass, a grim reaper which didn’t need to borrow a scythe…

The result was almost unpleasant. Even Mary-Sue halted her American profanities as Old Aggie’s combine rolled into and over the paralysed nightjacks. With shrills cries and eldritch curses, the nightjacks disappeared inside the machine, a process which sprayed blood across the field.

Sandra, somewhat shocked, watched as spidery limbs went everywhere, most of them without a body attached any more.

“Like it,” said Mr Bubbles.

The guides began to cheer, and it took some effort to stop them pursuing the few surviving nightjacks back into the trees. Whateley Wood was awake, and was best left to its own device, this night at least.

“Gee-whillickers, we shore whooped their asses!” cried Mary-Sue.

“Yes, dear.” Sandra counted heads, relieved that they still have everyone with them. The field stank of nightjack, a cross between rotting sheep and cheap vinegar.

“I am an impulser.” Sr was flowing around Sandra’s feet in a motion which was surely triumphant.

“You certainly are. And a very good one.”

There were things to think of. The guides were scouring the field for bloody keepsakes and anything still saleable; Mr Bubbles, caught between exhaustion and bloodlust, was trotting up and down the field kicking things.

“What will you do now, Mr Sr?”

He had already faded back to his normal cardboard colour.

“We leave. Yr and Te do not wish to scout anything else. I do not think that they want to be probe-buds any more, somehow. I d not think any of us will be coming to your planet again, either.”

Sandra nodded. “I don’t think the whole planet’s like this. I told you, the Wolds are a bit different.”

“Different.” Sr wobbled. “An interesting use of the word.”

He extended a portion of his plasm. Sandra took hold and shook it gently.

“Well,” she said. “Nice to have met you.”

The alien’s ocular patches slid round, taking in the sight of Mr Bubbles, the Girl Guides dismembering nightjacks and the gore-spattered combine harvester.

“Um, yes.”

As she watched the aliens’ craft disappear behind its cloaking shields, rising into the night sky, Mr Bubbles trotted to her side.

“Bored now,” he said. “What’s happening?”

Sandra glanced to her own scouting party. Emily was almost asleep with her back to the harvester, clutching a bag of nightjack feet like a bloodied teddy-bear. Sandra looked up, but the spaceship had disappeared.

“Everybody,” she said with relief, “Is going home.”

END

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That’s us exhausted for the weekend, so call back in a couple of days for something different. In the meantime, there’s a nice list below of other October Frights Blog Hop sites to browse…

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

(We’re the third one down, maybe)

The story so far… Mr Bubbles, a slightly psychotic pony who combats folkloric and Mythosian madness, is short of turnips. His companion Sandra, a cheerful teenage girl rather handy with a pump-action Remington, is worried about her forthcoming maths test. And Sandra’s mother has found yet more annoying sheep camping out in their farmhouse, which stands on the edge of the picturesque* Yorkshire village of St Botolph-in-the-Wolds.

Rich in history, and so steeped in folk horror that it gives psychogeographers a spontaneous orgasm, St Botolph’s is fortunately unique – as three visitors from afar discover in today’s thrilling adventure tale, ‘Sandra and the Saucer of Doom’.

*Picturesque is an old Wolds term for ‘unstable and somewhat dangerous’.

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Mr Bubbles already has many followers, but for new listeners, the general mood of these fine stories can be summarised in two extracts from previous excursions:

THE THING IN THE WOODS

Sandra slid back against the nearest boulder, her shotgun useless against the figure before her. The whole of Whateley Wood itself seemed to crouch over her, the air thick with its presence.

“From this land, these woods, these stones, I have made myself,” the being hissed. “Moss I have perverted; briar I have twisted against its will; rough clay and towering bark I have bent into new forms for my dominion. Fortunate girl, that you should be the first to hear of my plans for…”

Two great iron-shod hooves slammed into the creature’s head, decorating a local pine tree with most of the contents. A nightmare in the making fell over, its last thoughts presumably tinged with a certain disappointment. And a lot of hoof.

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FOLK MYTHS OF ST BOTOLPH’S

Last Thursday’s talk at the Church Hall, which left several villagers hospitalised and resulted in a spate of bed-wetting across the village, will not be repeated. Local historian Edith Cremble would like it to be known that there have been NO sightings of the Botolph Grinder since 1923. Most children in the area now make it past puberty without bone extraction, she added.

When asked about the truth behind rumours of nightjacks in Whateley Wood, Ms Cremble took several tablets and pretended to have broken her hip, thus bringing the interview to an abrupt end.

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So here for the 2017 October Frights Blog Hop is the first part of that brand new, unpublished tale of Mr Bubbles in Whateley Wood. The concluding part will follow in a couple of days. You can read it online here, or possibly download this handy pdf, should it work at all. Dammit, Jim, I’m a writer, not a computer programmer…

saucerofdoom1

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SANDRA & THE SAUCER OF DOOM

by John Linwood Grant

PART THE ONETH

 

A night sky, a low sky, the darkness threaded with cloud and a spattering of rain. After powering its way across billions of miles, starlight gave in and waited. There would be a better night to twinkle.

The visitors had chosen well. They came with the cloud cover and with stealth, their craft shielded from the most sophisticated devices known, cloaked from an ignorant planet.

They knew that they could not possibly be seen by humanity.

“Something up there,” said Mr Bubbles.

Sandra glanced round at her pony. She had been watching the edge of the moors for activity, scanning sedge and cotton-grass through her father’s binoculars. The tinted lenses made your eyes go funny after a while.

“Sorry, what did you say, boy?”

The pony kicked a pebble.

“Something up there. Metal thingy. In the sky”

“Oh.” She considered this information. “The RAF on night manoeuvres again?”

It seemed unlikely. After the incident over the crags last March, pilots had been given strict instructions not to fly in this area. There was still considerable doubt as to why one of the Tornadoes from Staxton Wold had come back with more wings than it had when it set out.

“No. Weird shape.”

Mr Bubbles tossed back his long black head and sniffed the wet air. They’d patrolled this section for hours and nothing especially malign had been found. It was high time he was back in his nice warm barn.

“Go home.”

Sandra agreed.

Packing the binoculars into her school satchel, she scrambled up onto the pony, ignoring his mutter about passengers, and they made their way back to the farmhouse. It was an easy trot, using the upper part of the old mining road and then down by Hanged Man’s Lane.

“Landed now.” The pony sniffed again.

Sandra hesitated. It was a school night, and she had double mathematics in the morning.

“We’ll look tomorrow,” she decided.

“Good.”

A suitable orbit had been hard to find, given the clutter of satellites and metallic junk surrounding the planet. The father-ship had elected to scan the fourth planet, particularly some historical remains inside an unusually large volcanic protrusion. One small shuttle had peeled from the father-ship’s underside as it passed the third planet. Find a lightly populated area, they were told. Observe and report.

Sr, the impulser for the shuttle, flowed slowly across the console. Te and Yr, his probe-buds, lay quiet in their containers. There were anomalies in the magnetic field, but this seemed a suitable observation point – small settlements only, good cover, very low air traffic. Very low.

Was there a reason for that? Sr checked the console again, puzzled by the minor fluctuations in every reading. He soothed the drive, but with no parent-form to consult, he would have to decide.

They would land, close to that vegetation. Trees, he believed they were called. Te or Yr would know. The buds had received RNA updates in preparation for scouting. An impulser was… an impulser. What more could be said?

The cloak was intact; the drive slumbering. Sr woke the others and slid gratefully into his own container. Nutrition oozed from the walls, and he settled down for his overdue dinner.

Apricot Surprise

Breakfast at the farmhouse was a simple meal. Sandra’s mother was frequently sober at that time of day and a few slices of gammon, fried in cornflakes and topped with apricot jam, was all she could manage. Sandra didn’t complain – she was thankful that the home-made yoghourt had finally died and been laid to rest.

“There was a message,” said her mother, kicking the table and making the teacups rattle. One of the sheep was exploring under the table, occasionally banging its head and bleating, which made conversation difficult.

Sandra wiped jam from her chin.

“Mmmm?”

“You don’t need to worry about your maths homework, dear. There’s been another accident with the school howitzer. Something to do with inventories.”

“Incendiaries, mother. I told them that the Third Form wasn’t safe with those things.”

Her mother frowned at the sheep, which was chewing the tablecloth.

“Never mind, dear. There are less Third Formers now, so I’m sure that it will work out fine.”

No school today. Probably less physical school altogether, in fact, if the howitzer had been involved. A whole day with her prize-winning pony Mr Bubbles – grooming him, plaiting his mane, maybe sharpening his horseshoes…

Then she remembered the weirdly shaped metal thing that the pony had mentioned. She supposed that she should investigate it. Since father had left to do unspeakable things in foreign parts, it had been up to her and Mr Bubbles to protect the village. Grimdyke moors, the crags, the brooding presence of Whateley Wood on the edge of the village – it was a stupid place to live, really, but it was home.

Mr Bubbles was already up and about, slamming his hooves into an old enamel bath for practice. The bath was losing.

“Hello, boy,” she called.

The pony paused.

“Bored.”

“We could go and see what that was last night?”

“S’pose.”

Sandra tied back her hair, and zipped up her flak jacket. For a moment she wondered about going to the gun-cabinet, but decided against it. The day was clear and bright, and she felt cheery.

Beyond the farmhouse lay the oddly-folded landscape of the Yorkshire Wolds. Sandra looked south briefly, checking that the village was intact. It was all there, from the twisted, mind-numbing spire of St Botolph’s church to the Girl Guides hut, a sandbagged building on the far side of the village.

It was possible that Whateley Wood had moved nearer during the night, but that was normal for a Tuesday. By the end of the week the wood would have slouched its way a few hundred feet to the north. No-one knew why.

The two of them turned onto Sod’s Luck Lane, which skirted the upper edge of the woods – most of the time. As usual, a badger was being sick somewhere in the bushes.

“So where do you think this object came down?” asked Sandra.

“Cooper’s Field.”

She sighed. Marshgrass, ankle-breaking tussocks and an especially thorny species of gorse. She hated having to cross Cooper’s Field. Legend had it that a skilled cooper once set up his trade there, relying on the woods to supply timber for his intricately fashioned barrels. Not long after, he died. It wasn’t much of a legend, really.

They trudged along the northwest edge of the trees, watching out for unusual activity. Here and there the bluebells had been trampled by huge misshapen feet, and in one pretty, sunlit clearing, something had created a sculpture of bones, mostly femurs. It resembled an extremely large spider in the act of mounting an ash tree for reproductive purposes.

“Nothing odd here,” said Sandra.

Only when the trees gathered in knots and started muttering did Sandra reach for the shotgun. Or when the nightjacks appeared, but no-one in their right mind would go deep enough in the woods to disturb them.

Into Whateley Wood

The two probe-buds, Te and Yr, were uneasy. They had been fed with suitable knowledge on the father-ship, and prepared for exploration of this planet. But there was something peculiar about this area.

<That tree moved>

Yr flowed with derision. <Trees are sessile, vegetative.>

Te eased a photosensitive patch of protoplasm to one side, then the other.

< Up your vacuole. It moved. And there are things…>

<Mammalian inhabitants. Seed eaters, small predators.>

Te slid over a log, sampling lichen as he went. He was not convinced. They had agreed to start with the dense cover near the human habitations, and then ease their way nearer the buildings to observe. Te was no longer thrilled about this approach. Sr had talked of magnetic fluctuations picked up by the ship. Te’s own plasm itched. There were unexpected sounds in these woods, low murmurings which seemed… wrong.

<We should catalogue the fauna,> said Yr. <See if it’s typical of temperate woodland.>

<You mean likes those eyes staring from behind the bushes?>

Yr shifted his receptors. There were definitely eyes, peering through the briars that lay across their path. Thick, spiked arches hid whatever owned those eyes.

<Interesting.> Yr refreshed some of his mitochondria, sought a match in his knowledge for the creatures hiding from them. Nothing quite fitted. What had three eyes, an indeterminate number of legs and gave off a sharp, pungent odour?

<I wonder if- >

Then the nightjacks pounced.

Mr Bubbles lifted his long muzzle and drew in the scents of pasture and woodland.

“Around here.”

Sandra couldn’t see anything that looked like a flying vessel. The Wolds did have unusual visitors, of course. Scholars, after many years of academic debate, had pinned down the key characteristics of the area and tried to express them in precise terms. ‘It’s a bit weird up there,’ was the consensus.

“Weather balloon, wonky helicopter, a very large goose caught up in tinfoil?” she suggested.

“Bollocks,” said Mr Bubbles.

She went back to poking around under gorse bushes. Old Aggie’s combine harvester was on the edge of the field, left there the previous week in case the wheat ripened early. As it was only May, this seemed unlikely, but Old Aggie also collected potatoes in the shape of Queen Victoria, so no-one bothered about it.

The day was overcast. Another hour and she was going home for her tea. Mother was making Fish a l’Orange, which was so unpleasant that they always had a nice big round of cheese and pickle sandwiches instead.

Clank.

Sandra turned to see the pony tentatively kicking thin air.

Clank, clank.

“Got it,” said Mr Bubbles.

“I can’t see anything.”

“Will soon.”

He slammed one heavy hoof into the nothing, and was rewarded by a shriek. The air shimmered, and a slightly dented object appeared. It was the size of Mr Pearson’s SUV – before the villagers had decided that they didn’t like SUVs and had removed its panels to make chicken runs – and gleamed dully in the afternoon light.

“Gosh,” said Sandra. “It looks like one of those alien scoutships in Mary’s ‘Bumper Book of Boy’s Unlikely Stories’. The ones which carry up to three occupants and have minimal armament.”

“And thin walls,” added the pony, lifting a hoof again.

Part of the spaceship opened with a whine, exposing what Sandra assumed was at least one occupant. It looked very like one of Mother’s experimental blancmanges – agitated and about two foot across. It was the colour of wet cardboard.

<Please, no more.>

Mr Bubble’s hoof paused in mid-kick.

“Did it say something?” asked Mary.

“Said it gives up.” The pony sniffed the blancmange.

“Sorry.” The alien flowed further out, almost touching the pasture. “English, yes? I’ve only been injected with three languages.”

Now that she looked more closely, Sandra could see a small part of the thing’s surface vibrating in time to the words.

“English is fine. Are you, erm, having problems?”

“Only with the dents in the walls of my ship. Does your animal have to do that?”

Mr Bubbles gave an irritated cough.

“He’s not ‘my’ animal, he’s a…” Sandra looked at the pony. A wild black mane (those plaits had come out again), a dark, thick coat and eyes which had perhaps a little too much crimson, primordial anger in them. Even Father had failed to work out exactly what Mr Bubbles was. But he ate turnips and liked winning rosettes at the local shows, so the family had left it at that.

“He’s a friend,” she managed to finish. “We sort of look after things around here.”

The blancmange wobbled.

“We’ve landed in the wrong place, haven’t we?”

“Where did you want to land?”

“No, I mean, this place. It’s… wrong.”

“Ah.” Sandra smiled. “You’re in the Wolds. You should have tried the South of England. Nothing much happens down there.”

Mr Bubbles spat and wandered off to forage. Cooper’s Field was not without its herby charms, if you could find the right part.

Alien and girl considered each other. As far as Sandra could tell, anyway.

“I am Sr. An impulser, mostly,” he said.

“Right. I’m Sandra – a schoolgirl, mostly.” She nodded to the pony. “That’s Mr Bubbles. Did you need directions? We don’t really have any leaders around here, so I can’t do much about that. I could take you to see the vicar.”

“Does he speak for your species?”

“He doesn’t even speak for his wife.”

After a confused explanation of what an impulser was (as far as Sandra could tell, it was a cross between a pilot and someone who could make machinery work), the alien wobbled in a tentative way.

“Um. I have two buds missing. In the woods. I don’t suppose that you’ve seen them?” A darker patch shifted in the direction of the pony. “Or trodden in them?”

People lost in the woods were Sandra’s speciality. Aliens shouldn’t be any different. But Cooper’s Field was on the more questionable side of the woods…

“Which way did they go?”

Sr extended a gooey pointer. “Towards those tall trees.”

Oh dear, thought Sandra. He meant the hemlock trees. That wasn’t good.

“Do they, I mean, are they like you, these buds?”

He quivered agreement. “They’re the same size, a bit darker. They’re probe-buds, Yr and Te, meant to scout and record. Quite harmless.”

Unlike Whateley Wood. Sandra whistled to her pony.

“Stay here, Mr Sr. Don’t leave your ship, whatever you see or hear.”

“What are you going to do, please?”

“We,” said Sandra, setting her jaw in her best imitation of a plucky, confident schoolgirl who had all the answers, “Are going to organise a search. Immediately.”

Yr had been eaten. Three times. It wasn’t an experience he wanted to keep in his cell-memory and cherish. The three-eyed yowling things, disappointed with their gastronomic experiments, were now harrying the two scouts, dragging them deeper into the trees. Larger eyes could be seen in the gloom there, and shapes which did not conform to either the bud’s database or their knowledge of geometry.

<Do something!> he vibrated to his companion.

Te, who had only just reformed after being clawed open, gave a whimper.

<What? I’m a probe-bud, damn it, Yr, not a violator!>

They continued to moan and argue as the nightjacks forced them on. Ancient madnesses were stirring in the deep woods, and other children of mild insanity were becoming interested.

The Usual Last Resort

It was inevitable that Sandra turn to the Girl Guides for help. Only they had the numbers and the feral nature required to go into the wilder parts of Whateley Wood. The Womens’ Institute made regular pilgrimages to the Moonstone, but she could think of no adults who would happily trot further in than that.

Adelaide Cleggins, the oldest guide, was away, probably trying to buy more Brasso in the nearest town to feed her habit. Sandra reluctantly negotiated rates with the girls she could find.

The process was complicated. Mary-Sue Perkins, who had been brought up to believe that she was American, insisted on doing everything in dollars and cents. Given that Mary-Sue also had a peculiar Virginia drawl, Sandra turned in frustration to Emily Pethwick, a nine-year old with remarkable freckles.

“An’ then she tooks the bus, and she says…”

“I know where Adelaide’s gone, Emily. I’m asking if you’ll help. Two bottles of Old Suzy and anything you can make off any, erm, remains.”

“An’ then she…” Emily paused. “An’ a bag of aniseed balls?”

“Yes.”

The small girl ululated in a manner known only to the Girl Guides of the village and certain Armenian hill-folk. They soon had nine disreputable guides in various stages of uniform available for the search.

“Now, this may be dangerous…” Sandra decided to cut herself short. This was the guides. A thin girl at the back was already sharpening a hunting knife on the metal cleats of her boots.

Six o’clock already, and still overcast. She couldn’t leave those poor aliens alone in the woods all night. It might cause an interstellar incident.

Or make them think that Earth wasn’t a friendly place…

TO BE CONTINUED

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Will Mr Quilling, the village pervert, find out what he did with his set of rubber hoses? Did J Linseed Grant’s breakfast egg really run across the kitchen floor, shrieking out Latin swear-words? And will Mr Bubbles get bored and go home, leaving everyone, aliens and humans, to get slaughtered?

Call back on Friday or Saturday for the inevitably disappointing conclusion.

 

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(We’re the third one down, maybe)

Shock to religious scandal! See how ministers clash! Watch armoured Puritan shock troops as they grind down the proud spires of ancient worship! And when you’ve done that, look at some photographs of Peterborough Cathedral while you have a nice cup of tea. Today, dear listener, we remind you of E G Swain, supernatural tale teller, vicar, and acquaintance of the more famous M R James. And we visit the colonies briefly. But it’s not really a convention report, so relax…

(All UK photographs by kind permission of Brian Showers and Amelia)

It may not have escaped everyone’s attention that we recently went to the only convention we usually risk, Fantasycon in Peterborough. And we enjoyed it.

Peterborough is, as you know, a small town in New Hampshire which was established in 1749. In 1760 it was incorporated by Benning Wentworth, then governor of New Hampshire and great-grandson of William Wentworth (1616-1697), an adherent of the divisive Free Grace faction in early New England church politics.

William Wentworth and most of the dissenters came from the same part of Lincolnshire in the UK – around Alford-  with a certain Anne (Marbury) Hutchinson being a leading light. Put crudely, they believed that personal salvation came through faith alone, and unlike ‘preparationists’, who thought that charitable deeds and action ‘prepared’ the way for faith and salvation, they preached that you were saved by your faith even if you were a complete sod, and then sinned afterwards as well. Which must have been a touch convenient at times. Anyway, they got squished.

Despite all the above being true, we have to admit that Fantasycon 2017 was actually in one of the other Peterboroughs, that city across the waters in Britland. The New Hampshire settlement wasn’t even named after it, even though Alford, the ancestral home of the Wentworths, Mayburys and Hutchinsons, is less than sixty miles from the cathedral city in question. It was named after a bloke whose first name was Peter.

It is to the cathedral, largely completed by 1237, that we turn our attention next. In the early summer of 1643 the cathedral was badly damaged by Parliamentarian troops during the English Civil War – troops whose core was made up of Puritans. In that very same summer, Anne Hutchinson, who had been cast out by the Puritan churches in New Hampshire, was killed, along with all but one of her family, by members of the Siwanoy tribe. That very same summer, listeners. It makes you wonder.

Or possibly it doesn’t. That would be an ecumenical matter…

THE REAL PETERBOROUGH

We had hoped to do a bit of sight-seeing whilst down there, but the convention and its bar put a stop to that. Our interest was in the relationship to E G Swain (1861-1938), mentioned before on greydogtales. Swain wrote only one short collection of supernatural stories, The Stoneground Ghost Tales, but what a marvellous collection it is. All the stories concern another churchman, the delightful Reverend Roland Batchel. We re-read it on a regular basis, and it never grows stale. One Mr Batchel story, taken slowly and in relaxed surroundings, is an antidote to most ailments.

Swain was vicar of Stanground near Peterborough from 1905 to 1916 (Stanground = Stoneground), and died in Peterborough after undertaking a number of roles in service to the cathedral.

He had been chaplain at King’s College Cambridge at the same time as M R James was the Dean there. His collection, published in 1912, is dedicated:

TO
MONTAGUE RHODES JAMES
(LITT.D., HON. LITT.D. DUBLIN,
HON. LL.D. ST. ANDR., F.B.A., F.S.A., ETC.)
PROVOST OF KING’S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE,
FOR TWENTY PLEASANT YEARS MR. BATCHEL’S FRIEND,
AND THE INDULGENT PARENT OF SUCH TASTES
AS THESE PAGES INDICATE.

Swain was neither Puritanical nor heretical, and it is thought that his central character Mr Batchel must reflect, at least in part, his own quiet and dry-humoured nature.

At the time of Fantasycon, a specific trip to Stanground was mooted, but it never happened. We did see the outside of the cathedral, but only because we kept getting lost in the enormous enclosed shopping centre and coming out of the wrong exit.

Then Brian Showers, the knowledgeable owner of Dublin’s Swan River Press, mentioned that he was on the hunt for Swain’s grave in the cathedral grounds, and we awaited the findings of his expedition. That seemed to require considerably less effort.

Happily, Brian was successful, and with grateful thanks to him and Amelia, we are able to provide a photographic record of the result.

“I explored Peterborough Cathedral for traces of ghost story writer, Rev. E. G. Swain (1861-1938), the first Jamesian. I am happy to report we were successful. The tower door bears a memorial plaque to Swain, and the latch is fashioned into an “S”. We found his grave in the south-east corner, much-covered with moss, though his name just barely still legible.”

Brian J Showers

We can always recommend a browse through Swan River Press’s site, where many beautifully produced books can be found. We picked up the latest issue of the always informative and interesting Green Book.

https://swanriverpress.wordpress.com/

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You can read more about Swain and the geography of his stories in our article here:

http://greydogtales.com/blog/m-r-james-friend-fens/

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