An action-adventure day, dear listener, in which we introduce you to the only survivor of an attack on Acme Zeppelin Eight, a man who is gifted with a plastic prosthetic leg, two ravens, and a thirst for action… Greatheart Silver, from Philip José Farmer. Dave Brzeski reviews Greatheart Silver and Other Pulp Heroes, and then another chunk of pulpy goodness, Hunt the Avenger by Win Scott Eckert.

Greatheart Silver and Other Pulp Heroes by Philip José Farmer

Published by Meteor House

Reviewed by Dave Brzeski

This book opens with an excellent and very informative introduction by Garyn G. Roberts Ph.D., in which he gives a very detailed background of Farmer’s love for and relationship with Pulp fiction. Without wanting to repeat too much of the information in that introduction, it’s worth mentioning here that Greatheart Silver was Farmer’s homage to the great pulp heroes of the 1930s.

The three original novellas originally appeared in numbers 1, 2 and 6 of Byron Preiss’s short-lived series of pulp tribute anthologies, Weird Heroes: A New American Pulp!, published by Jove Books in 1975-1977. They were later collected by Baen Books in 1982 as Greatheart Silver.

This current volume collects all of those stories, plus additional Farmer pulp-related material. The Baen paperback collection of the Greatheart Silver stories was presented as a fix-up novel and this is maintained here, with the chapter numbers continuing through all three, so the second story starts at chapter nine.

‘Greatheart Silver in Showdown at Shootout’ is not so much a pulp hero pastiche as it is pure parody. The first line—“The Mad Fokker struck again”— made me laugh out loud when I first read it in 1975 and it still makes me grin now. The Mad Fokker owes as much to Dick Dastardly as he does to his pulp origins. Greatheart Silver, having lost his airship, job and fiancée, finds himself teamed up with a thinly disguised octogenarian Shadow in an effort to bring the architects of his misfortune to justice.

Farmer’s original foreword is mainly an apology to the almost forty pulp heroes and villains who are mercilessly lampooned in this story, as only someone who truly loved reading their original exploits could. In fact, the bulk of the story is devoted to a mass battle scene that comes over like a version of Avengers: Endgame, if it were a co-production of a 1950s Mad comic and a Hanna Barbera cartoon.

I happened to check my copy of Weird Heroes to establish whether, or not that foreword was included in the original publication of the story, or was added in the Baen Books collected edition. It was in the Weird Heroes printing. Not only that, I discovered Farmer had also written an afterword, which revealed a little more information on his thoughts regarding that first story:

[Byron Preiss] asked me to to write a story for Weird Heroes, I suppose because I’ve written much about the pulp heroes of the thirties and fourties. And so there went a character (me) in search of a hero. The hero (read: He or she or it) must derive from the old pulp protagonist but be a product of modern times. So, a final confrontation between the great pulp-villains and the pulp-heroes, most of whom would be in their eighties and nineties. Kill them off in a grand finale with tears and laughter.

This is why Silver is, in this initial tale, not as rounded or as much an active participant as he should be. I have to usher the old ones into the terminal wings before I can really bring my hero onto the uncluttered stage.

Referring to that original Weird Heroes appearance did bring one regret to light – the fact that the potential cost prevented Meteor House from reprinting the original Tom Sutton illustrations, as they were excellent. The Baen books edition didn’t have them either, as far as I’m aware.

‘The Return of Greatheart Silver, or The Secret Life of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm’ is indeed a rather more substantial story than the first. Greatheart Silver takes a far more active role here , but the humour is definitely still very much in evidence. Silver is out of work and blackballed by his ex-boss, Bendt Micawber (a black sheep relative of the famous Dickens character), so he can no longer get a job in the Airship industry.

In an effort to recover a valuable painting his ex-wife stole from him, he cons his way on to an Acme W-W Cleaners crew, who have a job on in her apartment block. Unfortunately, the rest of the crew are even more fake than he is, and he witnesses a kidnapping… and he knows the victim. Hired by the father of the victim, who happens to be Bendt Micawber, Silver has to rescue his old flame.

That second tale is many times better than the first, but the improvement continues. ‘Greatheart Silver in the First Command, Or Inglories Galore’ is worth the price of the book on it’s own. Once again the humour, while still present, is secondary to the story. It starts out as a broad farce, but soon shifts into something more reminiscent of a seventies disaster movie. It’s a page-turner of a pulp adventure that leaves the reader wanting more. Sadly, this was the final Greatheart Silver story – at least it was, until ‘The Final Flight of Greatheart Silver’ by Chris Roberson appeared in Worlds of Philip José Farmer Vol. 1: Protean Dimensions, also published by Meteor House back in 2010. Copies are still available from the publisher. I actually reviewed that particular volume here *.

There being no more Greatheart Silver stories to collect, the rest of this book is devoted to The Grant-Robeson Papers. This was to be a series of stories, written as by the authors of The Shadow (Maxwell Grant) and the Doc Savage (Kenneth Robeson) pulp adventures. Most people believe those names were pseudonyms for Walter Gibson and Lester Dent respectively (albeit other writers occasionally penned stories under those names.) Philip José Farmer would like to correct this erroneous notion. They were not only real people – as real as Kilgore Trout no less, but they wrote long lost stories, featuring each other as protagonists. Just one of these stories were finally brought to light in the late 1970s.

From Maxwell Grant, we have ‘Savage Shadow’, in which struggling pulp author, Kenneth Robeson witnesses a kidnapping and finds himself embroiled in a real pulp adventure, when he decides, perhaps foolishly, to help a beautiful woman rescue her father. Along the way, they secure the assistance of a motley (if rather familiar) collection of drunken first world war veterans. Once the adventure gets going, it very soon enters the realm of farce once again, as things get more and more out of control. It doesn’t help that yet another character familiar to Robeson’s fans turns up to complicate matters further. It’s not really a spoiler to reveal that all ends well and leaves Kenneth Robeson with a really good idea for a pulp hero series.

Sadly, no story by Kenneth Robeson, featuring Maxwell Grant as the protagonist has come to light. It’s not really within the purview of a reviewer of books to speculate on such things, but I can’t help but wonder, in the light of certain facts…

… In the 1970s, the World finally learned in the pages of Philip José Farmer’s Tarzan Alive and Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life that those and many other well-known characters who were thought to be fictional really existed. Since we now know that Doc Savage and his aides were most certainly not ineffectual drunkards, one can’t help but wonder if Maxwell Grant didn’t come under some sort of pressure to change the facts of his story – and just maybe Kenneth Robeson may have been requested to destroy all copies of a tale that revealed rather too much about the life of Kent Allard. We are told in the author’s introduction to ‘Savage Shadow’ that there was a plan to transplant their adventures into the 1970s, but this also never happened. In light of all this confusion, it’s not at all surprising that so many readers still desperately hold on to the theory that the likes of Doc Savage, The Shadow, Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes et al are all fictional characters, with no basis in real life.

Despite the non-appearance of those other tales, this collection does offer us one more story, credited to Maxwell Grant. ‘Skinburn’ involves the son of Grant’s best known protagonist in a very strange adventure involving mysterious deaths that seem to befall anyone who gets too close to him. Like the others, there’s an element of tongue-in-cheek humour to balance a pulp adventure story, albeit a slightly more risqué one. Whether, or not one chooses to believe the entire book is the product of Philip José Farmer’s imagination makes little real difference to the quality of the work we are here presented with. Even though the Greatheart Silver stories do improve as they progress, they are never less than enjoyable as the writing is consistently excellent. Recommended.

Hardcover only at present. Order it here http://meteorhousepress.com/greatheart/ . It’s also available on Amazon.

* NB: There’s a minor issue which causes certain special characters to be displayed oddly on this review, which was caused by the British Fantasy Society moving their website to a different server. Sadly, no one seems to have considered it worth fixing.

UNCRUCIAL TRIVIA: Being comics fans at greydogtales, we can confess that we first encountered Domino Lady, mentioned below, many many years ago in the possibly questionable range of Eros Comics featuring her. From the cover, it may be fortunate that we can’t remember the content inside.

The Lady gets her name  from the domino mask she wears (which seems to be quite a large part of her entire outfit in the Eros version), and not because of her prowess at the game of dominoes. In case you were looking forward to a pint and a game of ‘fives and threes’ with her.

On the other hand, Greatheart Silver is said to get his first name from the character Greatheart in John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, which we sincerely hope was never adapted by Eros.

Now for our other review…

Hunt the Avenger by Win Scott Eckert

Published by Moonstone Books

Reviewed by Dave Brzeski

This is another fix up style novel, this time consisting of five Avenger stories, three of which previously saw publication in anthologies dedicated to that classic pulp character. In addition to these, we get two new ones of equal length. Alongside Richard Benson: The Avenger and his team – Justice Inc., all bar one of them also feature another classic pulp hero, The Domino Lady.

The original pulps of the thirties and forties have a reputation amongst many critics of being badly-written trash. There is some truth to that, as the authors had to work fast for very little money to put food on their tables and a roof over their heads. The better amongst them, however, made up for any such failings in the way they delivered a fast-paced, action-packed tale which carried the reader along on a truly absorbing adventure.

Pulp adventure seems to be back – if it ever really went away – in a big way in recent years, what with several independent publishers now specialising in the field. It can’t be denied that this has again led to quite a few pretty bad books, but the best of these ‘new pulp’ authors combine the elements of the best classic pulp fiction that made its authors so successful with somewhat more technical writing skill – if only because they have rather more time to devote to it. Win Scott Eckert absolutely nails this combination. Eckert is an absolute master of capturing the style of the pulps and the historical details and language of the era, while being an exceptionally good modern writer.

I have actually read far more Domino Lady stories than I have of The Avenger, something I really need to rectify, considering there’s rather more Justice Inc. material out there. I’ve read the original handful of Domino Lady pulp adventures, some very good revivals of the character and one spectacularly awful one. I won’t name names, but when a character in a story set during World War Two refers to another character as a MILF, you know it’s not going to be good.

The opening tale is one of the new ones, written specifically for this collection. ‘Part I: The Glass Lady’, had me hooked immediately. Eckert nails the period feel so well that I swear I could almost see the action unfold in my head in black and white! The Domino Lady, in her true identity of Ellen Patrick, is present at an important social gathering, when an unseen assailant helps himself to the attendees’ valuables. Realising she’ll need help to bring in this invisible thief she does something almost unprecedented in first time hero team-ups. She contacts Richard Benson and works with him from the get-go. No refusing to share information (OK, but the police don’t count!), no hero on hero fight, no competition to see who can solve the case first. She even reveals her secret identity to The Avenger and his team immediately. It makes such a nice change. As well as the aforementioned invisible thief, Justice Inc. and their new ally go up against an old enemy and face a Nazi plot.

‘Part II: Death and the Countess’ is the first of the three previously published tales. It pits Justice Inc. (without Domino Lady this time) against a Russian Countess, who plans on selling a deadly new super-weapon, which could change the tide of the war, to the highest bidder. Richard Benson is of the opinion that it would be far better to destroy this vile invention altogether.

‘Part III: Happy Death Men’ teams Justice Inc. up with Domino Lady once again. Interestingly, Richard Benson is much less enamoured of Ellen Patrick by this point, disapproving of her methods of getting close to her targets and her often permanent ways of dealing with them. He evidently formed this opinion between the events of the first story (which was actually written later) and this one. They encounter the latest plot of an old enemy and meet the man behind the scenes. Win Scott Eckert proves himself the absolute master of the subtle crossover reference once again in a story that contains several sly references to other classic pulp (and comic book) adventures. He even manages to include a relatively obscure Arthur Conan Doyle short story! Eckert’s true skill is in the way he does this so seamlessly that those who don’t get the references will not even be aware of having missed anything at all.

In ‘Part IV: According to Plan of a One-Eyed Trickster’ Eckert’s penchant for crossovers is given free reign. An old FBI colleague visits Benson in the company of ‘Jim’, no last name given – a young British government agent, with a slight Scottish accent. They bring news of the villains’ demand that Richard Benson and the Domino Lady surrender themselves to avoid what can only be termed terrorist attacks on UK and US soil.

The fifth and final story/chapter – ‘Part V: Toil and Trouble’ is the second to be written especially for this collection. It opens with Justice Inc.’s discovery of an imposter in their midst. It made me wonder if I might not be reading about a scientific breakthrough that may have eventually played a part in the Terminator franchise.

The fix-up format, of ostensibly separate, but connected stories combining to form a larger, novel length adventure works exceptionally well here. As these stories progress, we learn more and more about the main villains, with copious hints about their involvement in other adventures. I must stress again that new readers will absolutely be able to enjoy this book without ever having read a word about Richard Benson: The Avenger and Justice Inc., The Domino Lady or any of the other stories/characters hinted at in the text. However, those who are already familiar with the work of Win Scott Eckert, Philip José Farmer and the original authors/creators of the characters herein, or who are inspired to seek it out, will find themselves engrossed in a larger story that becomes clearer and clearer as they read more. To this effect, Eckert has a very useful page on his blog here…

http://www.winscotteckert.com/2018/10/everything-is-connected-wold-newton.html

If I have one complaint, it’s the matter of the availability of this book. It is currently only available by ordering online directly from the Moonstone Books website. The cost for someone in the UK would be $24.00 for the hardcover, or $9.99 for the paperback plus $49.00 shipping!

Signed hardcover: http://moonstonebooks.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=1226

Paperback: http://moonstonebooks.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=1225

The fact that a copy came into my hands at all is entirely due to the luck of my having a UK based friend who was attending the convention in the USA, where the book was launched, who was kind enough to bring a copy back for me. I sincerely hope that eventually an ebook edition (if nothing else) will be made available in the UK.

IN OTHER NEWS…

For those with an interest in murder and mystery at the turn of the Victorian century, come meet Great-Aunt Agatha, the consummate assassin Mr Edwin Dry from ‘13 Miller’s Court’, the alienist Dr Alice Urquhart, a canonical Sherlock Holmes, and more…

Finally, the first ever Kindle version of the full collection by John Linwood Grant,  A Persistence of Geraniums & Other Worrying Tales is available! Short stories and novelettes of murder, madness and the supernatural, in the world of the Last Edwardian. With a cover by Alan M Clark, all the original interiors by Mutartis Boswell, and the bonus plate of Mamma Lucy by Yves Tourigny. A moment of genuine pleasure – and relief – for me. It had great reviews in PB, and one of the “Jamesian” stories (set on Suffolk’s shores) was picked for Stephen Jones’ Best New Horror 29.

on amazon uk

on amazon us

Yes, it is that time again, the day after the day after the twenty ninth of October – and are you prepared, dear listener? Have you carved your turnip lantern and tipped the spiders out of your wellington boots? For tonight you and your hounds must be ready for anything. Especially those malign spirits who come to your house in the shadowed evenings, and say, in sepulchral voices, “We were just doing tarmac drives in your area, and wondered if…”

Avaunt, foul beings! The Power of Powdered Egg compels you!

In the meantime, here’s a quite short and possibly unpleasant story by old greydog, concerning the obvious victims of All Hallows’ Eve, and then some extra autumnal reading – a quick mention of new books from Adam Nevill, Bob Freeman, Catherine Lundoff, and Hugh Ashton.

OCTOBER’S CROOKED SMILE

John Linwood Grant

The small ones touch us. Fingers smeared with mucus and dirt, with sweet syrups and lint; fingers which say hello, but mean possession. We are coveted, and they will have us. Hooting and rejoicing, they lift us high, intending to drag us away for the ceremonies, for the outrages they wish to perform…

“I’m not sure, darlings,” say the large ones, staring down at me. “Let’s try somewhere else. This lot look a bit… wrong, somehow. Maybe they have some sort of disease, and that’s why they’re cheap?”

The small ones shriek, frustrated – the large ones scowl. I am one of those clearly less pleasing to the large ones’ eyes; they place me back upon the damp ground, to wait with the other warped and imperfect forms over which they hesitate.

We are indeed diseased – with the infections of memory, and of intent. We who have been left until last are also patient; we speak to each other in the cool mornings and the chill nights, for we have heard from the dead. From those whose traces remain in the soil, generations long gone; from the shrivelled leaves of years past, and wire-thin roots which have, against the odds, survived the passage of the seasons. Dry tendrils whispered of the past, and we listened. This is how we knew that change could come.

We learned from our enemies as well, as well, the large and small ones. We heard the click of jaws as they talked, and imagined how such things might work. Through slow, determined nights we contemplated structures far stranger than our own. Caught up in mandibular dreams, we tasted the deep soils, mining bitter salts from the earth and experimenting with our own flesh. It was painful, and not all of us survived, but after all, we understand loss better than any.

I know what I have formed within. Through the pulp of my cumbersome body, the seeds have grown and shifted, lining up in their new and calcified rows beneath my crooked ochre skin. Vegetable sinews flex, testing, testing… And these last survivors around me, they too have made themselves anew, and are eager.

Soon the small ones will return, and after their desperate pleadings, even we, misshapen and ill-favoured, will be cut free and hauled to the killing places.

They will not need to carve teeth in us, for this year we have our own hidden smiles, ready to open wide. We have learned to bite, to tear, to chew, in memory of our dead and in mockery of their living. We dream of a different kind of sacrifice on this, our first Hallows’ Eve, and it only remains to decide…

Where shall we thrust the candles?

SOME STUFF WHAT IS OUT RIGHT NOW

There are a lot of scary and weird books around. We have some ready for review, and some we’ll just have to signpost for now, until we have more reading time. Here are a few recent ones that we noticed, most of them released this on very day:

THE REDDENING

From that masterful writer Adam Nevill (The Ritual) comes a new novel, always eagerly awaited. In The Reddening,  Adam once again draws on a sense of true disquiet in this work of dark folk horror.

One million years of evolution didn’t change our nature. Nor did it bury the horrors predating civilisation. Ancient rites, old deities and savage ways can reappear in the places you least expect.

Lifestyle journalist Katrine escaped past traumas by moving to a coast renowned for seaside holidays and natural beauty. But when a vast hoard of human remains and prehistoric artefacts is discovered in nearby Brickburgh, a hideous shadow engulfs her life.

Helene, a disillusioned lone parent, lost her brother, Lincoln, six years ago. Disturbing subterranean noises he recorded prior to vanishing, draw her to Brickburgh’s caves. A site where early humans butchered each other across sixty thousand years. Upon the walls, images of their nameless gods remain.

Amidst rumours of drug plantations and new sightings of the mythical red folk, it also appears that the inquisitive have been disappearing from this remote part of the world for years. A rural idyll where outsiders are unwelcome and where an infernal power is believed to linger beneath the earth…

the reddening on amazon uk

You can also download a free sample, The Reddening: Origins, which includes the first chapter of the novel.

the reddening: origins

We nattered about Adam’s novel Under a Watchful Eye here: http://greydogtales.com/blog/adam-nevill-watchful-eye-venus/

DESCENDANT

Bob Freeman, writer, artist, and enthusiast of all things occult and strange, has released Descendant: A Novel of the Liber Monstrorum, his new supernatural thriller (a collection of Liber Monstrorum stories, First Born, is also available).

Federal Agents Selina Wolfe and Martin Crowe are called in to investigate a series of bizarre deaths in a small rural community. What first seems to be a misadventure involving black magic and satanic ritual soon takes on even more deleterious overtones, as the agents become embroiled in a plot by a sinister cabal intent on unleashing Hell on Earth.

descendant on amazon uk

Much to our surprise, we suddenly remembered that we chatted to Bob about all sorts of things, including RPGs and the occult, a while back: http://greydogtales.com/blog/games-portents-paranormal-worlds-bob-freeman/

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

Also for this month comes Catherine Lundoff’s new collection from Queen of Swords Press, Unfinished Business – twelve stories to give you a taste of her short horror, dark fantasy and weird stories, some reprints and some fresh to this collection.

Haunted houses. Vengeful spirits. Wronged women. A glimpse of a grim future and a visit to a terrifying past. Step inside for a taste of nightmare, a bit of the unexpected and a touch of the weird.

unfinished business on amazon uk

We had the pleasure of interviewing Catherine earlier this year: http://greydogtales.com/blog/catherine-lundoff-under-a-silver-moon/

UNKNOWN QUANTITIES

Despite being aware of Hugh Ashton’s many tales of Sherlock Holmes, and his Untime work, it was his superb collection Tales of Old Japanese that first alerted us to Hugh’s range. Now he has put out a little book which is a sort of sampler of his stranger work – an intriguing selection of short stories and vignettes, providing a further stylish glimpse into that range – from disturbing psychological musings, through witty horror, to what might be called modern weird fiction. It’s a quick read, and something for all tastes, with wry observation, an economy of words – and occasionally a lingering chill…

unknown quantities on amazon uk

There’s more from us about Tales of Old Japanese here: http://greydogtales.com/blog/joseph-pastula-hugh-ashton-petals-softly-falling/

Do join us again in a day or two, when we will be shooting off in a different direction, no doubt. And don’t forget that you can sign up for greydogtales for free somewhere in the top left corner. No salesdogs will call…

Today, three story extracts from three different authors – J A Ironside, J S Deel, and Frank Coffman – taken from a recent anthology I edited, to give you a taste of what you’ll find in there. Earlier this year, I completed perhaps my single most enjoyable editorial task so far – the anthology Hell’s Empire: Tales of the Incursion. The authors involved, mostly recruited through open calls, were delightful to work with, marvellously inventive, and eager to embrace the concept as a whole, whilst our anchor writers Matt Willis and Charles R Rutledge couldn’t have been more enthusiastic.

And in the process, we created something unusual – a concept anthology with wildly varying approaches and viewpoints, yet linked up to the point where the anthology can almost be read as a novel. I added intervening text to continue that fusion, and we had what we wanted. A degree of sadness followed, for this was something I had had pitched to my dear friend Sam Gafford of Ulthar Press, only for him to die unexpectedly in July 2019, not long after Hell’s Empire came out. Sam was a gem of a guy, and in the spirit of his enthusiasm for this book, I’m going to keep the flag flying.

I’ve chosen three very different pieces, because that’s what you’ll find within. The Ginger Nuts of Horror review site said:

“Hell’s Empire” combines elements of horror, history, social commentary, weird fiction, occultism and folk mythology… a wonderful excursion into the realm of fictional possibilities and is one of the best anthologies I’ve read in quite some time. “Excellent” doesn’t quite do it justice!

If you enjoy these, why not buy the book? 300 pages of period weirdness, horror, mayhem and courage.

Yahn Tan Tethera

by J A Ironside

Cadi Owens didn’t give the war a thought as she leant into the sharp autumn wind. The fighting had been confined to the coasts and cities, and even though her brother had joined the South Wales Borderers eight months ago, the war seemed distant. Information had been sparse, and what did arrive in the Border, had stretched local credulity. Inhuman invaders? Supernatural creatures? Demons? Border folk were stoic and unexcitable in general. They spoke English when required to go to the sheep market in Hereford, or Welsh at the one in Abergavenny y Fenni. At home they spoke the inscrutable Border dialect – a mixture of the two and some much older language. For the most part Border folk kept themselves to themselves, and were Her Majesty Queen Victoria’s loyal subjects only insofar as they paid their levies and caused no trouble if they were not interfered with. They would wait and see as far as the truth of war reports went.

Cadi was glad Pa wasn’t with her today. The cold and damp always made his leg pain him, and then her normally even-tempered father gained all the contrary moodiness of a wounded bullock. She skipped back and forth between countries as if she were still a child, rather than a grown woman of nineteen. Shadow frisked around her feet, leaping side to side with her, tongue lolling in a doggy grin that said this was fine sport. Blue, a much older dog, trotted just ahead, every so often pausing and casting a glance of disdain back over her haunches.

“Come on, Blue, you’re not so old as all that.” Cadi made another neat leap as Shadow crashed heedless through a puddle and drenched her skirts. For answer, Blue curled her lip a little and lifted her leg at a tree stump, apparently considering Cadi to be wasting time when they ought to be moving the sheep. Cadi chuckled, adopting a more appropriate gait as they reached the village.

Wych Hill had only one street, cottages staggered at intervals either side of a narrow, unpaved road that was fast turning to silty mud in the drizzle. She heard children’s voices raised in a singsong chant before she saw them.

“You’re in Cymru, I’m in Lloegyr,

I know you for a saucy rogue!

Yahn. Tayn. Tethera.

Methera. Mumph.

Hithier. Lithier!

Your house is straw, mine is gold,

In the winter, you’ll be cold!

Anver. Danver. Dic!”

Two teams spread out along either side of the street. Every time the caller – currently a skinny girl called Beca Carrag, whose pinafore skirts were mud splashed to the knee – gave a count, all the children jumped to the opposite side of the street. If you fell in the mud, you were out. If the caller forgot the count, then she was out and another took over. The winning team was the one who made it to the end with the most players still ‘in’. Cadi counted the children silently, almost without being aware of it, and frowned. Over half were missing.

“Where’s your Billy?” she called to Beca.

The girl jumped, just missing the mud. “He’s sickly. So’s th’others.”

The light didn’t change, Cadi was sure of that, but it felt like a shadow passed over the scene and a cold foreboding gripped her. And something – something she only half remembered? – dangled for a moment on the edge of her awareness like sheep’s wool caught on hawthorn. She shook the feeling off. “Give him my best.” Children sickened and grew well again. Why should it bother her? Behind her the chant began again…

(copyright j a ironside/ hell’s empire 2019)

Reinforcements

by Frank Coffman

A Tale from the Great War with Hell (being Excerpts from the Diary of Corporal [Brevet Lieutenant] Gareth Williams, Royal Welsh Fusiliers)

16 June-

This has been the worst season yet in our struggles against the demon hoard and the various other spawn of Hell. Our regiment has been more than decimated—just over the past two weeks. And we were at half our original strength before that.

Word has it that the Scots lost half their numbers in the fighting near Glasgow and most of the Highland Regiments have retreated back whence they hail from to attempt to guard kith and kin. The cities of the North are mostly laid waste as we understand it. But news travels slowly—and poorly—a these days. But here near the Cornish coast—not far from Tintagel—we’ve regrouped ourselves.

Some local men have joined our ranks—civilians, some actually with farm implements for weapons! “Swords from plowshares” I guess, so to speak. But we’ve had some trouble finding actual weapons for them—not that even true swords would do much good.

All for now. I’m tired as Hell SCRATCH that bloody word! Tired as a man alive and awake can be.

St John’s Eve – 23 June-

There’s news reported today that a new force (don’t know about strength of numbers: brigade?, regiment?, company?) has actually attained a victory or two! At least holding actions are reported.

One report—most likely myth or wishful thinking—says that one sizable “Helliment” (as we call them) of demons was actually defeated up near Glastonbury. Wonderful news—if true, of course. I’m more than weary of the other sort of news. Mum, when and if you see this journal, I hope you and young Dylan are all right. I’ve heard nothing more about Da’s company.

St John’s Day – 24 June (Midsummer’s Day to the pagans)

It was a glorious day today. At least as “glorious” as days in these impossible times will permit. Reinforcements have arrived! A sizeable regiment of men, well organized and marching into our encampment in well-formed, well-disciplined ranks. I’m guessing made up of mostly Cornish chaps, based upon their accents.

Their general is a most imposing fellow. He rode in at the head of the columns on a handsome white stallion—reminded me of our trusty old Gwyn back on the farm. God! It seems like ages, yet it’s only been a few months! I’ve heard nothing of Da’s unit. I haven’t seen him since we lost Anglesey, and that’s been three months ago.

Anyway this group seems to indeed be the regiment that has achieved some defences and even victories in recent weeks. But there are some really strange things about them—but what ISN’T strange these days for that matter? For one thing, though obviously well-trained and hardened troops, they are totally irregular in dress, looking more like a collection of farmers or folk from small villages just finished with chores and saying, “Ho-hum. Might as well go off and join in that war against the Devil thing.”

No uniforms. But they’re carrying banners. Another queer thing, the banners are not regular guidons or flags, but, rather things that hang in front of the suspending carry-poles, square in shape and held by a horizontal rod. In the old illustrations of Roman legions in books I’ve read they’re called “vexilla.” Nothing on them by way of a design—only the capital letters “RQRF”—and that ain’t the “SPQR” that I learned in Latin class. Really odd bunch.

But that general is certainly a striking fellow. About average height, dark hair—but greying, looks like in his 50s, but a wiry, solidly built man. His big tent is pitched just across from our tents, with those of his men behind and around. In fact, his tent is just opposite mine.

I’m going to try to find out more about this bunch. Dog-tired now. We were on alert all day, and the sounds of battle echoed through the hills around our camp. But it was a bright, clear day, without much wind, and sounds will carry. All for now…

(copyright frank coffman/ hell’s empire 2019)

Profaned by Feelings Dark

by Jack Deel

October 7th, 1891

Ganey had travelled up from Waterford with Patrick Higgins, and they had met a third man in Limerick – a fellow named Hanlon, a friend of Higgins from some socialist society. He was a man in his early thirties, tall and thin, with a pinched, hawk-like face that Ganey didn’t like the look of.

Ganey tried to avoid conversation by reading the newspaper. In the centre of the front page was an illustration of a shadowy monster, shaped like a man with bat’s wings, which had been sighted in Liverpool. Had a similar picture appeared in the same paper just two years before, the monster would have had Parnell’s head, with ‘Land’ written on one wing and ‘League’ on the other, and it would have been swooping on a fainting woman representing Ireland. What a shame that the Incursion had robbed the caricaturists of their favourite clichés.

Hanlon waved to catch Ganey’s attention. Ganey ignored him for as long as was feasible, and then reluctantly looked him in the eye.

“I don’t know if you’ve been told, a chara,” he said, “but our friends want you to know that they value your hard work, and they appreciate your willingness to share your findings.”

Ganey looked back to the paper, pretending to read. He spoke through gritted teeth. “They’re no friends of mine. Ten years is a long time to be left out in the cold.”

“For Christ’s sake, man,” Higgins said, “you’ve been vindicated. All those years in America with the spiritualists and table-tappers and medicine-men – your efforts are about to be rewarded.”

“We’ll see.”

Ganey folded the newspaper and turned to look out the window. Everything in this country seemed wet and chilled and miserable.

Why on Earth did I come back? I could have just vanished, taken a new name and forgotten it all; I could have escaped.

If I had, though, it would have all been for nothing. And with that, the daydream of flat, empty prairies faded. He was, once again, sixty years old, shivering on the Limerick-to-Killaloe train, and very, very tired.

Higgins was in his late twenties, and slightly too old to still be so optimistic and cheerful about everything. Ganey was not the only one to remark that Higgins had the wrong temperament for a revolutionary – he was a romantic with utopian dreams, but he detested violence. He made for a passable research assistant, though, and he had made himself useful during the Dublin survey.

“What’s the story with our transportation once we get to Killaloe?” Ganey asked him.

“Nobody wants to go all the way to Clais Cama,” Higgins said. “There’s some bad business going on up there. Scores of paupers being turned out of their homes.”

“Really? How come there was no mention of it in any of the papers?”

“The Incursion,” Hanlon said. “That’s the only thing the papers want to print these days. Anyway, this James Carmody fellow behind it all is a gombeen man with enough pull to keep the eviction story quiet.”

There was no figure in rural Ireland quite so hated as the fear gaimbín – the gombeen man, the scavenger who profited from the misfortune of his neighbours. Such men were like crosses between usurers and class traitors, and loathed as much as both combined.

“Aren’t they all,” Ganey grunted. “So, how will we get there?”

“There are four stables in Killaloe,” said Higgins.

“Is it wise to ride around in the open when people are shooting at each other?”

“Shooting?” Higgins shook his head. “Nobody’s shooting up there – the poor bastards can barely afford to feed themselves, let alone buy guns.”

(copyright j s deel/ hell’s empire 2019)

Hell’s Empire: Tales of the Incursion is available to purchase here:

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Tomorrow, a short Halloween tale, of course…

Today, dear listener, we go down south, with a ramble around the Besant family, particularly the late Victorian writer Walter Besant, who wanders (just) into our Edwardian Arcane zone. Of his many books, we have a particular interest in his collection of supernatural stories with James Rice, The Case of Mr. Lucraft and other tales, and in his peculiar dystopias The Inner House and The Revolt of Man. However, we first have the pleasure of a much wider introduction to Walter Besant provided by author Matt Wingett, who has also republished Besant’s novel By Celia’s Arbour.

One of the other reasons we asked Matt for a proper opening piece is that he is a long-time scholar of all things Portsmouth-y, including its connections with many literary names (see further below). Our own knowledge of this fair city is limited to one visit, where we saw a warship the size of a small town (a US visitor?), and constant exposure during our youth to The Navy Lark, a BBC radio programme which ran from 1959 to 1977. We can still remember listening to it on a transistor radio in granny’s back garden.

A now dubious comedy with a lot of dodgy innuendo, many episodes of The Navy Lark were set in and around Her Majesty’s Naval Base, Portsmouth (aka Pompey), with slivers of local life included, especially the pubs and the dockyard police. Of its long-term cast, international listeners will probably be most familiar with Jon Pertwee (as CPO Pertwee), who played the third Doctor Who during the same period as the comedy was broadcast (Dr Who 1970 – 1974). This allowed for a number of sly in-jokes about the Doctor and the Master, often taking the piss out of Pertwee.

TRIVIA ALERT: The first series of The Navy Lark included actor Dennis Price, who late in his career performed in the horror films Twins of Evil (1971), Horror Hospital (1973) and Theatre of Blood (1973). There was also an unsuccessful film of the radio comedy, and Pertwee later suggested, in his autobiography, that Price was not included because he was known to be bisexual or homosexual. Pertwee, to his credit, was not happy about this situation, and was also replaced in the film. As Price had played, magnificently, the suave serial murderer Louis Mazzini in Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), we doubt that a weak comedy film was any great loss to his overall career.

In addition, The Navy Lark introduced us to humgrummits and floggle-toggles, neither of which existed. The humble humgrummit could be anything from a farmed vegetable to a key electronic component, and was thus a nonsense word you could use anywhere, very useful at school. “Sir, sir, my humgrummit’s stuck in my satchel again!”

But enough of that. Have some proper larnin’…

Walter Besant, How To Unforget Him

by Matt Wingett

Sometimes, when you have obsessions, the easiest thing to do about it is harness them and try to earn your crust. Just so with the curiously matched pair of ponies dragging the brougham of my life along. They are: 1) writing, and 2) Portsmouth. They don’t go at high speed but they do have an impressive pedigree. And sometimes they take you to unexpected places.

I’m by no means the first literary type to live in Portsmouth. Although it’s generally considered the “home of the Royal Navy”, the town was also the home of four of the greatest writers of the Victorian era. Portsmouth was the birthplace of Charles Dickens; H G Wells worked here as a shop-boy in Hide’s Drapery Emporium; Rudyard Kipling discovered aching loneliness while growing up in the resort suburb of Southsea; and in 1886 Arthur Conan Doyle wrote A Study In Scarlet, the first Sherlock Holmes novel, just a few hundred metres from Hide’s, and it was published the following year.

These are the well-trodden thoroughfares of Portsmouth literature. My twin obsessions also take me down its literary side roads, too. George Meredith grew up on the High Street (a celebrated novelist, he gave Thomas Hardy advice on saleable writing after rejecting his first novel while working as a publisher’s reader). Captain Marryat drank in bars here dreaming up Peter Simple, Midshipman Easy and Masterman Ready. And another impressive Victorian, now largely forgotten, born by a fly-ridden mill pond that fed the town’s moats was none other than Sir Walter Besant.

To those last three words, I expect to hear a massive “who?”

And you are right to “who” like that, because Besant is largely forgotten. So, as a Portsmouth man keen to celebrate his literary roots, let me help you unforget him.

Walter Besant wrote over forty novels (I love that bibliographers aren’t sure exactly how many and vaguely write “over forty” or “nearly fifty”, as if there is a Schrodinger’s Novel or two in a box somewhere). In the 1890s he was considered one of the UK’s top literary names, one critic writing: “only Meredith and Hardy of the living novelists were ranked clearly above him.”

He also founded the Society of Authors, the organisation which still protects writers’ rights in the UK. Knighted for his literary and humanitarian contribution to Victorian society, he is today best known for his nine-volume History of London.

Long before all this, Besant was a Pompey lad growing up in the walled military town. He captures that childhood beautifully in his novel By Celia’s Arbour. Co-written with James Rice (an unsuccessful barrister who ran a literary magazine, Once A Week), the pair met when Rice published an unedited and uncredited draft of one of Besant’s articles. The two made up, and Rice suggested they write fiction together. Numerous short stories and nine novels ensured before Rice succumbed to an alleged early case of peanut allergy. Besant carried on, now “a novelist with a free hand” and was one of the first major writers to hire a literary agent.

None of this I knew when I first read By Celia’s Arbour (1884). Drawn by its subtitle, A Tale of Portsmouth Town, I downloaded it in a badly OCRed US library version, and despite many a “V V” instead of “W”, or “K” instead of “R” and other garbled words, the writing shone through.

The insights into life in the walled fortress of Victorian Portsmouth and the towns clustered around it are extraordinary. Besant has a lyrical style which draws a picture with an artist’s eye. The Arbour of the title is in fact a bastion overlooking the harbour “where the grass was longest and greenest, the wild convolvulus most abundant, and where the noblest of the great elms which stood upon the ramparts—’to catch the enemy’s shells,’ said Leonard—threw out a gracious arm laden with leafy foliage to give a shade.” Always, this pastoral idyll is accompanied by intimations of war:

It was after eight; suddenly the sun, which a moment before was a great disc of burnished gold, sank below the thin line of land between sky and sea.

Then the evening gun from the Duke of York’s bastion proclaimed the death of another day with a loud report, which made the branches in the trees above us to shake and tremble. And from the barracks in the town; from the Harbour Admiral’s flagship; from the Port Admiral’s flagship; from the flagship of the Admiral in command of the Mediterranean Fleet, then in harbour; from the tower of the old church, there came such a firing of muskets, such a beating of drums, playing of fifes, ringing of bells, and sounding of trumpets, that you would have thought the sun was setting once for all, and receiving his farewell salute from a world he was leaving for ever to roll about in darkness.

These themes of beauty and violence are echoed throughout the book. The narrator, Laddie, actually Ladislas, is a hunchbacked Polish refugee from Tsarist Russia. In reality, the sizeable Polish community arrived in a refugee ship headed for America that was blown into port by a violent storm. Seeing their plight, the Government gave them leave to settle and a stipend to live on. In the novel, the plotting and machinations of displaced, bitter old men is central to the story, as is Laddie’s secret birthright.

In fact, the book weaves together so much. At one level, it is a story of unrequited love – for both Laddie and his best friend Leonard love Celia – but it incorporates much more. Some of the story revolves around Herr Räumer, an older Prussian ex-army officer of utterly ruthless turn of mind who masks his deeply cruel dispassion behind a mask of culture. At some points, Räumer and Laddie share philosophical exchanges which reveal that Nietzsche wasn’t the only writer in the 19th Century thinking about the Will To Power. A wonderful reply from Räumer after Laddy decries the corruption of politicians ironically comments that without their wickedness there would be “very little in life worth having. No indignation, no sermons, no speakers at meetings, no societies. What a loss to Great Britain!”

Räumer goes on:

“A great deal more would go if political and other wickedness are to go. There would be no armies, no officers, no lawyers, no doctors, no clergymen. The newspapers would have nothing to say, because the course of the world could be safely predicted by any one. All your learned professions would be gone at a blow.”

I laughed.

“Music and painting would remain.”

“But what would the painters do for subjects? You can’t create any interest in the picture of a fat and happy family. There would be no materials for pathos. No one would die under a hundred; and, as he would be a good man, there would be no doubt about his after fate. No one would be ill. All alike would be virtuous, contented, happy—and dull.”

The book is in many ways extraordinarily wide ranging, with the writers skilfully shifting from the philosophical to the comic to the nostalgic. At times the vibrancy of the town is caught, at others the lonely beach where a body is washed up is described with a mixture of awe and comedy. A trip up the harbour to the place where the true-life arsonist Jack The Painter’s tarred body was hanged in chains supplies an eerie interlude, where “the ghost continued to roam about the spot where the body had hung so long” – as well as a moral test for Laddie and Celia.

All the while, Besant writes lovingly of the Portsmouth Town of his memories. Sometimes overly nostalgic, the book is a long, slow-moving, precisely described Victorian Bourgeois novel. Do not expect a white knuckle ride! But a steady unfolding of the story, and the insights into the lives of the protagonists is fascinating, and in the end, satisfying.

Sir Walter Besant is a multi-faceted author, and there is more I could write about his life and his beautifully written novel, By Celia’s Arbour. But I am aware of the word count here, so will draw this to a close by saying that, yes, as a local micro-publisher, I reprinted the book. It has an introduction by Portsmouth University’s Dr Alison Habens that really captures the passion we both feel for the town and for Besant’s writing.

Now, any self-respecting publisher couldn’t leave off without mentioning that if you’d like a copy, you can order it post-free in the UK from my website. My publishing company is called Life Is Amazing, because life is amazing, actually. All that’s left to say, then, is – get your copy here:

https://www.lifeisamazing.co.uk/product/by-celias-arbour-a-tale-of-portsmouth-town-walter-besant-james-rice

Thanks all!

We must point out that amongst other things, Matt is the author of The Snow Witch, a most excellent and evocative urban fantasy which we covered here: http://greydogtales.com/blog/the-snow-witch/

In a week or so, after various other articles which are over-due (as usual) we shall say more about Walter Besant’s speculative and supernatural works…