Tales from the Ragged Edge

This week saw the release of Blood Rites: An Invitation to Horror from the most excellent horror publisher Blood Bound Books (Available in both print and ebook format although I’ve only linked to the Kindle). This is not my first publication with them. No, that would be Rock ‘N’ Roll is Dead which I’ve written about previously.

When it came time to send something to them for consideration for the new anthology, I really didn’t know what to send. I had been trying to write something brand new, but it was stuck. Meanwhile, other recent horror stories had all sold to other markets. And that left me with an earlier story simply called “The Lake” which was…unsettling.

One approach for writing horror is to have the hero confront some sort of monster, some evil, some…thing! And since it’s horror and not fantasy, the hero suffers greatly in the process. In some horror, the result is that by confronting the monstrous, the hero themselves becomes a monster, becoming either an extension of the original horror or a different, perhaps greater monster than what they were facing. And for me, that tends to be more terrifying. An excellent example for me is the movie Straw Dogs. (If you haven’t seen it, it’s a masterpiece and a movie that, once seen, I’ll never watch again. Brutal. Just brutal.)

It’s possible this kind of horror is all the more terrifying because we see it all the time in the real world.

I wrote the initial draft of “The Lake” when I was sifting through the crumbling remains of a marriage that had fallen apart. The story showed a couple that chose to try and move on from a personal tragedy rather than throw in the towel. Added to this, I had a powerful nightmare that involved swimming in a lake, and I couldn’t shake it for anything once I woke up. These elements combined to make for a story that was a bit too close to the bone for me. A story of loss, and false hopes, and something ancient and hungry hiding beneath the surface.

When I realized I didn’t have anything else to send, I went back to “The Lake” and tore it apart with the cold dispassion of having moved past the emotions that inspired the story. When I put it back together, it was less personal. It was something leaner. Meaner. And I almost didn’t send it in. The last time I had a story I was reluctant to submit, it was “Fishwives of Sean Brolly,” and there are some fascinating parallels to the story. Both involve a marriage in crisis and a dangerous, submerged temptation.

And, of course, death and horror.

The location for what became “Cold Comfort of Silver Lake” is in many ways inspired by growing up in Colorado’s silver country. With quaint old mining towns like Ouray, Telluride, Silverton, and Creede now turning into expensive and quiet places to retire, they aren’t the kind of locations you would expect to inspire horror. We weren’t all lucky enough to grow up in Maine. I grew up in a town like that, perched on the apron between mountain and high desert. It was a town built around a smelter for the mines higher in the mountains–silver at first, then uranium as the industry changed. When I was in high school, the smelter was demolished, and the giant hill of radioactive tailings next to it–and next to the river–was shipped off and buried somewhere. Somehow, I grew up in a town where a giant radioactive hill cast a shadow over downtown for most of my childhood without thinking about it. That same radioactive dirt had been used as fill for foundations all over town…even under the public swimming pool.

I don’t know if you’ve ever had pets that died of cancer. I don’t know how common that is. Growing up, we lost three pets to it. Maybe it was a fluke. Or maybe there was a hidden darkness in that town…something you just didn’t talk about, hoping that it wouldn’t hear you and pass by for someone further down the line.

That’s horror. The buried darkness. The hidden danger, lurking there, waiting.

Like a little personal tragedy between a married couple that they can’t put behind them but won’t talk about.

Like whatever is waiting in the bottom of Silver Lake.

I encourage you to take a look for yourself. Blood Rites: An Invitation to Horror includes 23 deliciously dark stories by Brian Lumley, Joe McKinney, Lisa Morton, Daniel O’Connor, Jeff Strand, John McNee, K. Trap Jones, Maria Alexander, Ed Kurtz, and many others. And it’s available wherever books are sold. (Really! Go special order it from your favorite small bookstore!)

What if Thor was a Blaxploitation character in the mid-70′s?

My brain asks these questions some times.

Oftentimes, they turn into stories.

In this case, I was contemplating the Cobalt City Timeslip anthology Timid Pirate Publishing was putting together. We had stories ranging from the early pre-history of the area up to modern, but no one had tackled the Silver Age. Or, as I like to think of it, the period of Weird Heroes. This was the era where you got a lot of strange comic books, including favorite characters like Ragman, Howard the Duck, Man-Thing, Daimon Hellstrom the Son of Satan, Brother Voodoo, or Satana, Ghost Rider, and of course Dracula from Tomb of Dracula. You were starting to see superhero books that flirted with the mystical and certainly the weird. You were also seeing a decade of new, prominent black characters–you could tell because most of them had “Black” in the name: Black Lightning, Black Panther, Black Goliath, and then Power Man, and the Falcon (debuting in 1969 as the first character of African descent not to have “Black” in his name).

The mid-seventies in comics was just way too cool for someone to pass up.

So I started thinking about what was going on in the mid-seventies that excited me. Part of it was that whole post-Age of Aquarius vibe of magic and the old gods returning. Toss in movies like Shaft and Superfly. Then there was the music! Soul was starting to give way to disco. These were chaotic times.

The mid-seventies were tumultuous. Watergate was still fresh on the mind, as was the specter of the Vietnam War. That was some very fertile ground in which to plant seeds.

So I thought about one of the most iconic god-heroes of comic books–the golden haired, hammer-swinging God of Thunder. I mean, he’s public domain. No one owns the Nordic gods. And in fact, the more you distance your vision of Thor from an established interpretation, the more freedom you get. So what if Thor wasn’t a person so much as a title–an Avatar or the concept of the God of Thunder? What if Thor was like a Voodun Loa, a powerful spirit that rode a mortal host, a horse/mount as it were? Well then…Thor could really be anyone then, couldn’t he?

For instance, the mantle of Thor could be passed from one person to another on the field of battle, from a dreamy eyed Norwegian-American soldier to his platoon-mate, a hardened African-American from a poor neighborhood of Cobalt City. He’s not really Thor. He’s just the current embodiment of Thor.

This is how Cole Washington was born–an amalgam of influences culminating in my story “The War at Home” which is now available to read for free on Timid Pirate’s site.

But here’s where the story gets interesting.

It seems my friend and fellow author Minerva Zimmerman is a HUGE fan of Nordic mythology. And my story sparked all kinds of ideas in her brilliantly twisted mind. The end result of that is her novella “The Place Between,” in which Cole’s daughter begins to navigate her own destiny and her own relationship with the God of Thunder. Rich with humor, humanity, a clear love of Nordic mythology, and a hearty dose of action, this is the Thor for the NEXT generation. It’s currently available in Cobalt City Double Features, either directly from Timid Pirate in a 3-format bundle, or straight to your Kindle from Amazon. It will be available from the Barnes & Noble site soon directly to your Nook.

It even includes a smashing new Erik Scott de Bie novella featuring Stardust and Lady Vengeance which is not to be missed.

It’s a good summer to be a superhero fan!

I’m feeling all writerly today, possibly due to a few day stretch where I was unable to get any writing or editing done. (As a related aside, drivers, pay attention when you’re on the road. A car is just a slow-moving half-ton bullet. Corollary: my daughter is doing fine after getting flipped up onto the hood of a moving vehicle and thrown, limply into an intersection. They build ‘em tough in Colorado!)

So in the interest of talking writing, let’s dredge out the old chestnut of scene descriptions. Specifically, let’s talk about something that’s real easy to overlook because we’re so used to seeing it, but that can be used to really sell the realism of a scene. Take a look at that picture, the glowing pink neon of the Elephant Car Wash. That sign is a landmark in Seattle. Most cities have something like that–several, in fact–roadside beacons designed to get butts in the door or sell product. Sure, anyone can toss in the Space Needle to show their story takes place in Seattle. But that doesn’t necessarily make it feel more real. Throw in the slowly-spinning Pink Elephant sign and you achieve two things–you’ve sold locals with your insider savvy, and for those who don’t know the sign, you’ve added a concrete detail that makes the place feel more real.

This works for Sci-fi and fantasy (though to a lesser degree, or at least different degree in primarily illiterate cultures). My story “Odd Jobs” in the Space Tramps anthology took place entirely upon a space station. Even so, there were commercial districts, and at one point, our protagonist books a hotel room. The name had changed since the last time he had been there, the old name painted over in color that was a close–but not exact–match to the surrounding walls, with the new hotel name in neon above it. Was any of this important to the story? Not really. But it was important in setting the sense of place.

Signs say a lot–not just their design, but their condition. Old brick buildings used to have signs painted on the sides, and many of these are now long out of date. A mention gives a place a sense of history–the faded name of a hotel that’s no longer there, the space now turned over to offices or apartments, a 24-hr coffee shop that’s been gone for decades and is now a small bar or boutique shop.

Different communities have exhaustive rules for what kind of signage is allowed, so give that a thought because it says a lot about the place. Are the signs lit from behind or carved or painted on? Are the list signs brightly colored or more muted? Huge and gaudy or small and tasteful. To you have the Bavarian-themed signs of Leavenworth, or Seattle neon?

Placement is important, too. Seattle has this huge Pepsi sign that’s somewhat of a landmark on Aurora. Thing is, it was built back when Aurora was known primarily as U.S. Route 99, the chief means of travel up the coast until the 60′s. Filled with neon tubing, it was a sight to behold. Though it’s still there, I don’t recall the last time the sign was lit up. It’s a poignant reminder of how people move on and patterns shift when big interstates connected the country.

For homework, I want you to look up next time you’re out and about. Pick out three distinctive signs/landmarks in your town. And for extra credit, what is one thing that the sign implies other than the name of the business or product?

Class dismissed.

My sci-fi noir story “Odd Jobs” leads off Space Tramps: Full-Throttle Space Tales #5 which goes on sale today. I’ve already read it, and it is a fun celebration of space opera fiction. Mine is a classic tale of fringe characters with uncertain motives, deals too good to be true, revenge, and a sex bot with a heart of gold. So I’m giving you a taste to whet your appetite. Here, have a few hundred words. On the house.

The bartender returned the smile. He left the bills on the bar. With a steady hand, he poured a pair of shots for the two of them. “Folks call me Chet. You got a name?”

Roscoe pursed his lips, wondering how much Iron Mike might have told this bartender. Considering the nature of his newfound employment was still very much undecided, he chose to play it close to the chest. “Haven’t you heard? Hull rats like me don’t have names anymore.”

It could hardly be further from the truth, of course. When a person had nothing, like most of the stowaways and drifters who scavenged for a meager existence in the bowels of the Django’s hull, a name was one of the few things they truly owned. He wasn’t surprised when Chet accepted the casual lie. The bartender would never understand what it was to live like vermin in the near perpetual darkness of the lower decks.

Chet lifted his glass, more focused on it than on Roscoe. “I got a tourist in here the other day, member of a delegation negotiating an embargo. He booked time with a consort bot I run. Like a sucker, I take cash. He went to town on my girl, and I have no way to collect on damages.”