UNCHAINED

(Parts 1 thru 6)

A NOTE

The following is a series of six articles written by Joe R. Lansdale in a column he called, "Lansdale Unchained".

As he explains in Part 1, "...I intend to write about pop culture: writing and art and comics and movies and anything related. Sometimes the relations may be tenuous, but I'll do the best I can."

If you are reading my ePub, then you are probably very familiar with Lansdale's writing style, "personality" and his unique variety of stories and ideas.

I have presented all six parts of "Lansdale Unchained", one entry in this ebook.

Please rest assured, I have not edited the text in any way.

The only alteration made was to ensure a proper format for your eReader device.

Enjoy ...

Flyboy707

September, 2011

PART ONE

JUST DO IT

(Or Enjoying the Written Word Without Being Owned By It)

(but always have a savings account and a piggy bank, or in my case, I have a bear and a dinosaur and a Batman bank, and a few mutual funds.)

This is the first article of a column I'm calling "Lansdale Unchained". I intend to write about pop culture: writing and art and comics and movies and anything related. Sometimes the relations may be tenuous, but I'll do the best I can.

Let me tell you a secret. Everyone enjoys recognition, a little fame. Let me tell you another secret. If you like it too much it'll eat your guts out. In creative endeavors, like writing, it's the curse, baby.

You start out writing because you enjoy reading and then you write to please a certain in-crowd, usually other authors, or for some, critics and reviewers, and then pretty soon you find an audience, and that my friends is both good and deadly.

We all like to have an audience. You don't have someone reading you, then you don't get to sell your nifty writing, and if you don't sell it, it doesn't matter if you've written a lot or not at all, because a creative endeavor for most people is sharing. No sharing. No writing. When it's in your desk drawer, it might give you a hard on when you go over it, or make your nipples stiff (depending on gender), but it's not satisfying if there are no readers. Reading aloud to the dog doesn't count.

There's something inside the creative mind that thinks it has something someone would want to read, see, or hear. It takes some ego to believe that. Even the quietest, most withdrawn of authors, like to believe they have some worth, if only in that one area. Writing.

But if you find an audience, you began to give your audience what you think they want. Some people can do this very well. They can become rich and famous. They can have so much money that when they fart they blow out spare change, but good as this may be, it can ring a bit hollow if your creativity is within one constant artery, because eventually, that artery gets filled up with plaque of the non-artistic kind, and you're just pumping it out, but it's not a clean pump, because all that plaque you know, it'll make you grab your chest from time to time, and eventually, it just might kill you, creatively anyway. Now, just knocking it out, find that audience and giving them exactly what they want at the expense of all else is not a bad thing if your job is as a prostitute where a certain rhythm of movement, or at least a willingness to take a fucking will get you by, but as an author, well, brethren and sisteren, (yeah, I made that one up) 'tain't so good.

Sometimes the publishers can be a problem. They may want to restrain you. Sometimes that can't be helped. If your publisher doesn't want you to say pussy or fuck or shit or prick or have pronouncements against the powers that be, if you think religion sucks the big ole donkey dick but they fear their readers like sucking the donkey dick, and they want your work to be about kitties and puppies and to be non-offensive, and you aren't that kind of writer, well, you can be, to put it mildly, disappointed.

Doesn't mean you can't modify if you have to, but it does mean there's a difference in modification or adjustment, and bending over and greasing up.

You write to please everyone else but yourself, you might as well get a job at the grocery store sacking groceries. Because you do everything but what you want to do, you aren't happy. You aren't writing for love. You will find yourself reading less, because you no longer know how to enjoy it. Or because you have developed your own formula for success, and it's frustrating to read others who don't share your formula. Perhaps because it sounds different and you think it should be only one way. You are a Baptist of a writer, and they are a Methodist of a writer. You're both working for the same deity, but you have different angles of attack, and of course, like all pious Christians, you think your sect knows the truth and theirs doesn't. The mind narrows, and so does your taste and your ability to absorb new things.

Face it. We're all a little that way. But if we recognize that we are, we don't have to let that aspect of ourselves overwhelm us like some sort of outer space parasite.

Bottom line is if you think you know how it's done and there's only one way to do it, you are on your way to creative destruction and will soon live in a creative world that lacks greenery and is nothing but dry, white sands. It's uncomfortable there. It sucks your soul empty and shits it down a dark gopher hole.

I know. I've seen it. I have friends who have done quite well financially through chasing what they thought was popular, only to be like the dog chasing the car. When they catch it, it wasn't exactly what they expected or wanted.

Now I'm not knocking money and I won't say I haven't written some things for a few bucks in my time, but it's never been my driving force. I have written the things I've wanted to write with as much passion as I could bring to them, and for as large an advance as I could manage. I'm no idiot or blind idealist. But I believe you have to do your work, not the work you think you should do to satisfy some unknown audience. You can't write for others, because, who are the others? You can't please everyone, so don't try. You can only write for yourself, and you can only be yourself. So if your ideas are sharp and clean, put them down. If your ideas are a bit messy, unzipped pants and exposed genitals, then you got to go that direction. Next time out, you might find your muse is all dressed up with a coat and tie, sophisticated. Time after that, the fickle witch may be wearing Bermuda shorts and a sports bra, drinking cheap beer from the bottle and scratching her ass. Time beyond that, nothing but a smile, her pubic hair shaved in the shape of a heart. (Remember, muses are traditionally female, so I've gone with that image. You want a boy muse, hell, you're the creator, go for it. Let him flap his pecker at you if you like.)

You have to follow that muse where it takes you. The bright places, the dark places, the distant planets, the center of the earth, or just over to the 7-11 where you think you saw the story of your dreams behind the doughnut counter.

So you go at your work because it is your work, and it grows out of your subconscious, not some overly conscious design to please. To put it together in such a tedious way that it hits all of the tenets of "good storytelling" will end up knocking you ass over heels, throwing you face down in a puddle.

Here's a secret. Listen up. Everyone wants the secret, and I'm going to be pretentious and offer it to you. Good storytelling is just good stories well told with conviction. You should want to know how grammar works, but you don't want it to work you. You should have some idea of structure, but you shouldn't be afraid to branch off the standard scaffolding. Hell, if you want, tear it down. Understand how it works, then mess with it.

Okay. A confession: I don't want to sound too high and mighty after giving you this valuable secret (later I'll reveal where you can buy all your ideas), but I want you to know, I've written for money. I like getting paid. I always want to know how much something pays and can I get more than that. That's just common sense, money jobs can be jobs for love, I still think like that. I want to get paid for doing what I can do that not everyone can do. Being paid for being in love, that's pretty high cotton.

On the occasions I took the work for money, because there was really no choice. I had to make a car payment, or stick something back so I could write one I was dying to write but knew had about as much chance to make big money as a crippled monkey selling pencils on the one street corner in a dirt road town called Podunk, but I always put as much of myself in them as I could. Sometimes there was less of me available, but I gave it what I had. In a few cases, because I still went at it like I loved it, I came to love it. And the results were a pleasant surprise. But there's a difference in working to eat, and just making more money. At some point, how much money do you really need?

There were other times when money wasn't a question at all.

I was just in the mood to write and I let it go. I wasn't thinking: Wonder where I can sell this? I was just writing. Nothing profound, but something moved in the back of my head and I sat down at the machine and wrote. Whatever came out I let come out. I wanted to be surprised. Sometimes the surprise wasn't all that good and had to go back in the box, so to speak, never to raise its ugly head again. Sometimes it wasn't amazing, but it was curious and I felt the world might like to see it, so I released it into the wild.

Often, I was right to release it. Now and again, maybe not so much.

These writings were not always brilliant, or my best work, but they were me and they came out of me in rush of excitement, or at least mild curiosity. I learned I was happier than the guy or gal who sat up late at night trying to figure how to repeat what they had done before so that they might repeat the success of before, and the one before that.

Again, I like success. Who doesn't? The Bestseller list is cool. You make big money when you hit it. That kind of success is good, but I don't want to be, and refuse to be its bitch. I get there, I want to get there on my own terms.

And let me tell you the most wonderful surprise of all. Sometimes these whims, these urges, turned into the best of my work, and they sold really well. That was a neat surprise. There's an old adage, and in my case it's been true. Do what you love, and the money will come.

Of course, when you the money comes, don't be stupid. Save some of it. We all like to eat. And the old adage, well, shit, it isn't always right. But mostly. So be smart with your money and never be so prideful as to not do a project for money, but again, don't base your career on that. The difference in a hack and a professional is attitude. Remember, I never said don't write for money. I said don't let money be the reason you write.

Oh, and that secret about where you can get all your ideas. I've changed my mind. I'm not telling.

PART TWO

Robert E. Howard and The World of Almuric

When I was a kid I read Edgar Rice Burroughs for the first time, and his stories blew the top of my head off and sent it into orbit. I'm pretty sure that shrapnel from that explosion is still circling the planet, if it didn't knock it all the way to the moon, or beyond. Perhaps it's way out there some place spinning in the black between the stars.

Before I read Burroughs, I already knew I wanted to be a writer, but after his assault of pulp sense of wonder, flashing swords and bold heroics, the die was cast. I had to be a writer. It had chosen me instead of me choosing it. I was wrestled to the floor, pinned, the demon whispering sweet nothings in my ear.

As the pulps might have put it, the shiny and wonderful doom was mine.

This reading, one of the Martian novels, led to a passion for all things Burroughs, and next, all things similar to Burroughs. I read as many stories in this vein as I could. Somewhere around 1970 or so I came across Almuric by Robert E. Howard.

Man. What a killer. There was a taste of Burroughs here, and a big ole dollop of Jack London, and some other influences as well, but there was a whole lot of a guy named Robert E. Howard. Already the things that made him unique were slipping through. Sure, the prose was often rushed and purple, some of these faults having to do with the style of the time, and some because Howard wrote for magazines that paid by the word and times were tough and he needed money.

His work was raw and savage and original and he was a lover of the primitive, or at least the primitive as he viewed it. But Howard was not a primitive talent. He was well read. This is proved by his correspondence with others, and by the discussions Ms. Novalyne Price, perhaps his one true love, reported in her book about Howard, One Who Walks Alone.

Howard was not just hammering at it. Sure, the storytelling was natural, but there was intent behind his work, even if it wasn't of a great literary ambition, and his main concern was that of entertaining the reader. No easy thing to do, I might add.

Take for instance this section from Almuric, as his hero Esau Cairn considers the life he has fallen into on his new world.

"I was living the life of the most primitive savage; I had neither companionship, books, clothing, or any of the things that go to make up civilization. According to the cultured viewpoint, I should have been most miserable. I was not. I reveled in my existence. My being grew and expanded. I tell you, the natural life of mankind is a grim battle for existence against the forces of nature, and any other form of life is artificial and without meaning.

"My life was not empty; it was crowded with adventures calling on every ounce of intelligence and physical power."

There is something of the little boy's yearning for adventure in all of this. The view that the primitive life is a good one, the whole noble savage bit. Spend a week in the woods in your skivvies trying to survive on ants and grubs, drinking creek water and hunting your food with a pointed stick, crapping behind trees with leaves as your toilet paper, and the primitive experience would most likely cause the bulk of us to long for our bathrooms and hot showers and bedrooms and soft beds, our books and our TV remote. But the idea of being free, of being eternally youthful and capable, is just the sort of thing to grab boys and young men by the throat and engage them on some level that has little to do with truth or literary criticism. Howard, like Burroughs, is reaching into that part of us that is forever Huck Finn; the wild boy free of all restraints and inhibitions, out for a ride on the world, spurs dug in, riding the bucks and the jumps like a rodeo rider.

And Howard is studied enough, purposeful enough, to do just that, give us that bucking, wild ride. In these kinds of fantasies, when well done, and Almuric is well done, you can project yourself into the main character, and fill him up, give him bits of yourself that are not in the narrative, become Esau Cairn, constantly capable, youthful, smart, and in the end, guess what?

Yep. You get the girl.

And we're not talking the local poke or the library spinster.

You usually end up with a hot little virgin who can't live without you. And even Howard backs off a bit, gives Altha the "gentler instincts of an Earthwoman". He couldn't quite go the whole hog. Womanhood in most of his stories was still that of the 1930's Texas woman who could cook your dinner, tend you in bed, and cut your throat with a razor if you done her wrong. There is something in the ending of Almuric that makes one consider that soon, Esau Cairn may not be quite so wild, since now there is peace between warring cities, and shortly he could be carrying out the trash, walking the Almuric equivalent of old Rover, wondering why he can't just put his feet up.

But thank goodness Howard doesn't go that far. He leaves us in our bubble, in this false but seemingly perfect world, or at least perfect to that aforementioned eleven-year-old boy, or the eleven-year-old boy inside of most men.

* * *

Again, Howard was very much aware of what he was doing. Even the name of his hero, Esau Cairn, brings up certain images. In the bible, Esau was the hairy one, not thought capable of carrying on the civilization he was, as the elder son, supposed to inherit and push forward. He was the outcast, the rough one, the savage. Howard saw this not as a loss, but as a positive, so it strikes me that the name is a purposeful connection. And Esau Cairn is not only savage, he is dangerous. Doesn't the name Cairn strike close to Cain, the man who killed his brother, Abel? When God asked him where his brother was, Cain replied: "Am I my brother's keeper?"

One gets the impression that Howard wanted to be free of all responsibilities, even the keeping of one's brother, or in his case, his ailing mother. It was all a double-edged sword for Howard. Sure, he loved his mother and was attached to her, but on some level he just wanted to be free. And in 1936, shortly after he knew she would never regain consciousness, had fallen into a death watch coma, he, not so much out of depression, but out of sense of no more responsibility, a lust for dark freedom, lit a blue steel candle that threw him out of this world and unchained him. Perhaps that snap of gunfire tossed him across the black void of space to one of his created worlds like Almuric.

My guess is he hoped so, or wished to be reincarnated in some other time, more savage, more in need of a man of brawn and quick wit.

And if you throw out this idea of his character's name being a connection to the biblical Cain, the name of the ultimate outcast, just leave the last name as it is, Cairn, and you still have an interesting and dark connection. A cairn is a pile of stones erected by someone to mark something of significance, often to mark a burial site or to stand as a memorial to the dead. Death was never far from Howard's mind, and it is interesting that his hero's name bears both the mark of the outcast, Esau, and a tribute to the dead, and if you want to carry the idea of Cain into it, which I admit might be stretching it a bit, but I believe it, you also have yet another reference to the outsider, an outcast, someone who has shirked the responsibilities and the actions of polite society and is living from moment to moment.

I bring this up, and perhaps belabor the point, to show that Howard was fully aware of what he was doing, had literary technique, even if it is with a small "l", and that he was tapping into our knowledge of words and images and archetypes. He was not a primitive creator of tales, a savage genius, but was a clever man of letters with a little boy's heart.

* * *

Burroughs was perhaps more able to suspend my belief quickly, but only slightly, for Howard was just gaining his chops with this one. A few pages in, and I was as hooked as a bass on a handmade fly, right through the gills. Soon I was with Esau Cairn, and in an even shorter time, I was him; a civilized man that didn't fit in and who all his life had held back his energies and physical powers for fear of hurting someone; I was him, loose now on a world that was designed for me, a world where mortal combat was the order of the day, a world where strange monsters slipped, slid, walked, and flew over the landscape; a land where I was forever vigilant, forever in top physical shape and something for the ladies, who I might add, were also primitives, always good looking and secretly lustful minus the pesky problems of real primitives, ticks, fleas and body odor; beautiful maidens who have saved themselves for me to ravish, with, of course, the aforementioned "gentler instincts of the Earthwoman", therefore not carrying the male reader too far from mama.

* * *

Howard, like Burroughs, had that ability to make you believe anything, even when the writing went off a little. I think Almuric has some of Howard's most convincing and natural writing, but there are moments when he strays, when the night oil has burned too long and the fingers have flexed too much on the typewriter keys; little moments any commercial writer will have, but they were blips, nothing more, and sometimes they were interesting blips. But the true measure of Howard was when he strayed we could forgive, because his internal storytelling compass constantly pointed true north.

This also has to do with the method he used to tell this specific tale. It was not a method Howard used as much as Burroughs, but I must admit up front that for me the first person method of telling a story is the best, the truest and the purest, and in the end the most convincing. It is in one way the easiest way to tell a story, and the hardest to do well.

Like Burroughs with his tales of John Carter of Mars, as well as others, Howard uses a foreword to set up the story, and by the time Esau Cairn starts talking, the narrative becomes smooth and swift, and because of the first person narration, believable, at least for the time it takes you to read the book. That's an achievement, friends.

But, it's not all about storytelling, or first person narrative, it's also about the prose, and Howard could turn a phrase, or several of them. He could engage you, excite you, and still stay on target with his theme-shallow perhaps, but constant.

Take this example:

"On his rude throne above us, old Khossuth lifted a spear and cast it earthward. Our eyes followed its flight, and as it sheathed its shining blade in the turf outside the ring, we hurled ourselves at each other, iron masses of bone and thew, vibrant with life and the lust to destroy."

This scene is the theme of the novel, and Howard never loses this thematic intent in his adventure. It is front and foremost, the idea that being close to nature and our basic impulses is the way men and women are meant to live, though there's no doubt that Howard's world is mostly a masculine one, a manly wet dream where one can constantly prove himself through combat.

When I was a kid, I ate that up. It allowed me, the youthful reader, to feel powerful. More powerful than I really felt, and that is the secret to this kind of fiction's success. Again, I belabor, but I am caught up in the spirit, so back off brothers and sisters, stand down and listen to me testify.

Howard gave me happiness.

He gave me adventure that went beyond my own part time Huck Finn experiences.

He gave me lust; what could be better than those savage dolls he portrayed in his fiction. Women who could be feminine one moment, and run with the wolves the next.

Yes, brothers and sisters, I say it once again unto you: Howard speaks to youth, speaks to the youth inside all of us, the frisky part of us that is tired of electric bills and water bills and phones that ring and children that need braces.

It takes a storyteller to truly take us away, to lose us inside the pages of his tale, and what makes a great storyteller is the ability to tell you a bald faced lie and make you believe it, make you part of it, make you the character.

Sure, his characters weren't Ahab or Nick Adams or Augie March, but they were in some ways better, for they were archetypes, and Howard could make us become them. When you get right down to it, some of our finest writers fail to do that. What Howard had was something that is often overlooked. He had the ability to make the narrative the character; it was the totality of the book that was the character, all else was there to serve the story, and to finally create this wonderful, bumpy faced novel with blood in its teeth.

Ray Bradbury, a more literary writer for sure, is still a writer of this ilk. His characters are not to me true characters, no more than his dialogue is real dialogue. What he does is sculpt out a story where a little of this, a little of that, bits of business we don't understand in pieces, but only as a whole, come together to create the story as character.

Burroughs did that. And Howard did that.

This, as well as the ability to convince, is more of an inborn talent than a skill, and it serves a writer well if he or she has it, not to mention it's helpful to politicians as well. Because it is not only necessary to lie convincingly to make your stories work, but on some deeper level, the good storyteller, or politician, must somehow believe his or her own lies to the extent that they become, well, characters of a sort, a thing you can embrace that somehow goes beyond mere words.

When Howard was writing Almuric, or the bulk of his tales, I don't doubt that he entered into a kind of trance that put him right where he was writing about. Made those worlds so real to him that they became real to us.

Maybe Almuric fails to be quite as convincing as John Carter's journey, but there was a similarity in approach, in conviction, and had Howard continued to write in this vein, which is just slightly to the left of his Sword and Sorcery, he would have been very successful. In fact, a series of short books continuing in this style might actually have solidified his career better, at least earlier on. But Howard was all over the map. Sword and Sorcery, Westerns, crime stories, horror stories, you name it, he wrote it. Unlike his peer, H. P. Lovecraft, he thought being a writer meant you wrote, meant you could write when you needed to, not just when you wanted to. He was all about making a living, being able to look any sonofabitch in the eye and tell them to go to hell, because he didn't need them. It was, in a strange way, as close as Howard, the good ole boy writer from Texas, could come to the freedom of the savage.

PART THREE

Little Boys Unite

Recently in this column I wrote an article on Robert E. Howard and his novel Almuric. It got a lot of response, directly and indirectly. I was pleased that so many liked it and were made aware of his work, and I was pleased that it stirred up discussion by those who were less pleased with my comments.

I suggested the idea that Howard was writing for the little boy inside of himself. This premise bent one reader at least a little bit. A very smart and well spoken reader, I might add. But I stand by that comment and add this: So what? That's not a negative criticism. He appeals primarily to boys and men who still remember what it's like to be a boy. Those of us who love the idea of being muscular and powerful, swinging a sword and knocking down the villains, living in the wild with nothing more than our wits to guide us, are more numerous than lying politicians.

Truth be known, we got out there in the wild, we would all most likely be eaten by lions and ants within about an hour and a half, even if we spent the first hour or so hiding in the top of a tree.

It is a fantasy, and a beautiful one, and that always appeals to the adolescent in us, no matter how sophisticated the fantasy might be. That's my opinion, and I hasten to add it's an opinion, and as I've said before, the old saying about opinions is they are like assholes, everyone has one, so take it for what it is: an opinion, not word from On High. I like to think I have enough background to write a reasonable opinion, but I don't expect everyone to agree with me. As the detractor pointed out (and I'm sure he is in good company), there is violence and death in the Howard stories, and therefore it's dealing with real life, but my take on that is how does that make it any less adolescent. In fact, in my view, that's what seals the deal. Where I grew up, hunting, for example, was part of everyday life. Some could say they hunted for food, and back then, many of us did. But mostly people hunt these days because of the joy of killing something. And if that isn't so, then switch to hunting with a camera. See if that works for you. These mighty Nimrods like to feel they are close to the "old" days when it was just them in the wilderness. Of course, in the old days, they didn't have the kind of weapons we have now, telescopic sights, that sort of thing, and they had to hunt or die. But still, it's a little boy's impulse to get out there and bring in the game. And instead of wearing the antlers on their heads these days, they mount them on the wall, which strikes me as even stranger, and certainly savage. I mean, shit, if you're going to take the antlers, at least fasten them to a helmet and wear them on your head, stretch the skins out and tan them and wear them for shoes. Show up for work in that gear. I want to see it.

Nothing like going to bed at night knowing you've protected the world against deadly attacks from squirrels, deer, and assorted birds.

Hey, they're good to eat, and I've eaten them. I eat cows and chickens and pigs, etc. Every time I buy meat, I've killed something. But frankly, chicken is cheaper than all those bullets and beer and the outfits and the gas and I don't have to be embarrassed about playing Nimrod anymore. Being out there with nature is part of it, certainly, but there's something hypocritical in the idea that you're being one with the universe when you're blasting the shit out of birds and animals. You can at least say you're keeping the deer population down. There's a truth to that. You can say you like venison and they don't sell it much in the store. And that's true. I like it too. I like elk as well. But, hey, let's be honest. It's killing something that drives the beast. You know it, and I know it. Otherwise, once again, you'd carry a camera, not a gun.

I even know one guy who, when his son killed his first deer, had the boy wipe the deer's blood on his face. You know, that's kind of creepy. If it had been a bear and he'd killed it with a spear or a knife, you could maybe understand that. Big balls there, but otherwise...not so much.

Somewhere, Bambi sleeps without a father. Or mother. Or brother or sister. But at least when Bambi lays down he can be assured that somewhere a drunk has sobered up and taken the body of his loved one to be processed, and much of it will, when mixed with pork or beef, make good sausage.

Okay, I'm sidetracked and I'm not through.

I even saw in our newspaper a full page article on a boy who had prayed to god to kill his first deer, and god gave it to him. Had a picture of this religious kid and his dead deer. A big motherfucker with enough antlers to loan a couple of lesser deer. And I thought, shit, this kid should have prayed for peace in Iraq, something along those lines, 'cause god is getting distracted giving kids dead aim and dead deer when he could do something important, like ending wars, healing sickness, giving me six more inches on my dick and making me twenty-five-years-old again, but given the knowledge I have now. I also wouldn't mind being a couple inches taller.

All that stuff god is supposed to be able to do, and the kid prays for a dead deer.

This, among other obvious things, assures me that if there is a god he/she/it hasn't any sympathy for us in any manner shape or form. We're an ant farm and our owner has gone off to play. More likely, there just isn't anybody up there. Or he likes seeing deer get shot. Or he likes to make sure good football teams with good looking cheerleaders who show the most ass when they jump get his graces. I mean, think about it. Football players pray not to be hurt before a game, and that's valid, but they also pray to win. This is true of both teams. They don't want to get hurt and they don't want to lose. Some still get hurt, and someone loses. Are they losing because they're not as good a people as the other team? Does god not like them? If they get hurt, is god saying, "Showed that little cocksucker?" Or is it all...let me see what's the word I'm looking for...Oh yeah, bullshit? That's the word.

Yes, is it all bullshit.

And so, Lansdale, as is often the case, strays....

.....

Almuric is a favorite of mine because it reminds me of an author I like even more, Edgar Rice Burroughs. I say this without feeling that I'm out to duel one author against the other. I like them both. Howard was maybe even more grown up about his material (so I give the detractors that), but at heart they both were small boys writing fantasy to keep themselves entertained and to pick up a check. They were both grown men playing with swords, if only in their heads.

Burroughs lived longer, and perhaps being more of this world, with a family and a mortgage, lost some of his love for the work, and therefore some of his appeal. He was successful enough to live pretty well, so he didn't need as much of the fantasy. The books became repetitive and about as inspired as summer camp ashtrays.

But... He wrote some doozies. A Princess of Mars is my sentimental favorite novel of all time, while my favorite in other ways is To Kill a Mockingbird.

You couldn't find two books further apart. Yet they are both about childhood in a way. Burroughs was writing from the inner child, and Harper Lee was writing directly about a child and how a child sees things and becomes an adult. Loss of innocence is a theme I've always loved, and have explored in a number of my own fictions, but I believe on some level, though we may lose innocence, we never lose our yearning to have it back.

Sometimes, springtime in East Texas I'll come out of the house, on the way down to my study, which is the bottom floor, and unconnected to the rest of the house, and smell on the wind some springtime scent, and I will time travel to when I was a young boy in East Texas sitting out under a shade tree reading Edgar Rice Burroughs, or I'll remember another time when I was lying in bed in front of what we called a window fan, which was cleverly called that because it was pushed up tight in a window, and had straw in the back of it, and there was a hook up to the water hose that was supposed to feed the straw with water and make the stirred air cool. The little hook up never seemed to work, but we would take the water hose and wet down the straw at the back of the fan, and that would last for hours, and it made our tall ceiling house cool and wonderful and I would read, and I would be John Carter.

Later, as a young man, divorced, visiting a friend in Berkley, CA, trying to find a job, finally doing day labor with winos and drug addicts, odds and ends type of work, I would end the day by going by a bookstore on Telegraph, if memory serves me. And there, with a few spare coins, I would buy used copies of Conan books. I had read Howard before this, while living in Tyler, Texas, going to the University, newly married (that marriage already dissolving and me not wanting to believe it), trying to go to the university (never finished), and so I knew Howard and I knew his ways. In Berkley, divorce papers served, living on pot pies and a desire to write, I read every one of these Howard books I could get my hands on. When I left to go back to Texas, I was ready to toss out clothes just to get those books back home. And I did, though over the years a few of them got kidnapped by someone here and there.

But I loved them. I loved Howard. I still do.

Still, he was the little boy writing about his idea of a grown man. He may have been a grown man, but the stories came from the child about the idealized man. Hell, Howard even dressed up in cowboy outfits when he was full grown and swung swords against weeds.

I worked hard physical jobs when I was young, and for a long time. I know what it's like to keep your brain alive by visiting places that don't exist. By using that little boy impulse to set your mind free.

On one level, I've never grown up. Even though I write about some pretty realistic things from time to time, the impulse is no different than when I write wild and fantastic things that come from a more obviously adolescent place. Writing is dreaming on paper, and trying to figure out a way to not have to work for anyone and still pay the bills.

Howard never grew up.

Writers never grow up.

Readers wouldn't want them to.

Be it Hemingway telling us about Nick Adams, or Twain telling us about Huck and Jim in Huckleberry Finn, it is always about the inner-child, and note, when I say inner-child, I'm not talking about that pop psychology shit about the inner-child. This is simply that impulse we have to connect with our imagination when it was fresh and buck wild and it allowed us to sail away to some place other than math class. Since I mentioned Huckleberry Finn, and am, as you have seen, not afraid to digress, I'll add that Huckleberry Finn, though about a child, is not a children's book as some think. It is a dark and sometimes disturbing book, and though about childhood, it is also about real things, which Howard seldom was. There are no social issues in Howard's work, and if there are, they are minimal. I add that not as a slight, but as something that seems obvious to me. Howard was even more about childhood dreams than the rest of us. This is an obvious reason for his success. He can do what a lot of writers cannot. He can give us our dreams back. And I should also note, childhood dreams are not all sweetness and light, and in fact many of them are dark as the pit and deep as Pellucidar. Shadows crawl there. Urges collide.

Howard was a fine writer of exciting tales. He was a kind of Texas Jack London. He was a force of nature. Not all he wrote was wonderful. His Elkins stories are overrated, from my point of view. Vultures of Whapeton is so bad it makes my back teeth ache.

But man, when he was on with Conan and Bran Mak Morn and Solomon Kane and Kull and his horror stories, his other creations, including the flawed but highly enjoyable Almuric, he could make the heart flutter.

(Must pause here to add a side note: Many believe Almuric was finished by someone else. Maybe so, but I haven't seen any solid evidence of this, and until I do I consider the book Howard's. Otis Kline is one of the suspects, and it's certainly his type of story, very Burroughsian, but...again, until the evidence surfaces.)

....

Poor Howard, if his chemistry had been different, he might have lived on for many decades. He killed himself because of events on the ground, but these events were those many others would have weathered. He couldn't. He was always the little boy and the little boy needed Zoloft, yet to be invented, or some drug of the type, and without it, the real world, the adult world, fell down on him like boulders. Even his broad shoulders couldn't carry the weight.

Poor Howard. He had to have been like something nailed down and squirming in pain, as the old line goes. Living in a place and time that didn't understand him. Having ambition that was far beyond anything even he could understand. He wanted to be like the other tough guys around him, the Texans who worked in the oil fields and boxed and did hard labor and had a clear and simple view of right and wrong. At least on the surface he wanted to be that way.

But he was different.

He was an intellectual in work khakis, and maybe on some level a little ashamed of it, or at least constantly aware of it.

Bless him. For he gave us much to read.

Curse him, because he killed himself.

Bless him, because it's doubtful that he could have done much else. The chemistry boiled inside of him and exploded and at the same time life threw him one too many curveballs to catch.

In the end, he wasn't Conan.

He was Robert E. Howard.

Writer.

PART FOUR

Typewriter Mystique, the Bull of it

There's a myth I hear every now and then, and it's right up there with All is Right and God is in his heaven. It's also stupid and dated, but it's still going around. It's the myth that the typewriter is the true method of writing. Or to be more precise, any instrument beyond the development of the typewriter is evil. And that to be a good writer you should stay away from the word processor, because it gives you bad habits and makes you sloppy and makes you less inventive and less careful.

This is a curious position. Especially since it's way outdated and the war between typewriters and word processors is over. Word processors won. But, alas, I still hear this curious stupidity from time to time. Writers saying they have to stick to the typewriter because it is the only honest tool of creation for the writer. These folks must be possessed, which is another way of saying they are full of shit.

Most of these writers at one time or another changed typewriters, and usually because it had electricity or you could correct with something other than white out, or it had a few computer elements, like seeing the line you're writing displayed on a narrow screen about the width of a couple of number two pencils. Of course, some are still pounding manual typewriters, and to that, all I can say is you go man or woman, you go. And bless your heart. But the typewriter being the actual tool of the Writing Gods...Well...maybe not.

Some of the people I've heard spread this myth surprise me. Some of them are, or were, the movers and shakers in their fields of writing. Most of the writers I'm talking about are successful writers. Some of them more so in the past than now. No criticism there. That is the way of things. The point is they are from a generation that began on typewriters. I'm from that generation. I know. There is something magical about the idea of a typewriter, and recently when I saw once again, All the President's Men, and saw the reporters using typewriters, and I could hear the clatter in the newsroom, I felt a pang of nostalgia. I have had similar feelings for the hula hoop, the slinky, and Lincoln logs, but it passes.

As one grows older nostalgia sets in. You like what went before better than you like what's coming down the pipe. That is a scary place to be. I'm not saying nostalgia is all bad. It isn't. It has fueled many a story and book I've written, but I'm also aware that I'm living in the here and now and the past was probably only marginally better than the future if it was better at all. When you're young, your heart is lighter due to lack of responsibility (exceptions, of course), the discovery of your sex organs, and only a generally awareness of your mortality. That last one. It's a biggie.

As one ages, and in this case, as the writer ages, he discovers the need to express his deathless ideas. My generation more often than not, chose the typewriter. Some, of course, never discovered it. Some of us (not me) wrote, or still write, longhand and hire someone else to type it up. I've heard those who write longhand begrudge the typewriter because those who use it don't take as much time with the work. Doing it long hand makes them ponder, consider; they have to mark out and work harder to reread it. They like to say the typewriter is just another barrier between themselves and the page.

The typewriter people say the same thing about the word processor.

Many years ago, when I was still using the typewriter, and had no plans to change, a number of writers I knew were beginning to use the word processor. It was becoming popular. Damn new-fangled stuff.

I was at a World Fantasy Convention, sitting at a table in a hotel with a bunch of other writers, me at the time not a brand new kid on the block, but someone who was relatively new, and down at the end of our table was one of the gray beards. Actually, I don't think gray had settled into his beard yet. It was still black, but the symbolism is the same. Here was a guy who was doing it, someone who was receiving a lot of recognition for his work, and he was telling us all how the hoss ate the apple, which may be an expression as old as the use of the typewriter. Especially if you're from East Texas.

I'm going to be one of the first to say if you're a new writer, and an older, experienced writer has something to say, you ought to shut the hell up and listen. You can learn a lot that way. I know I did. I was able to avoid a lot of pitfalls just from the business angle, let alone from the writing angle itself. I read what experienced writers had to say. I listened when they spoke. I knew there was much to be learned about the craft and the business. In some cases I wish I had listened more closely.

But I was talking about this gray beard who was a black beard, who was sitting down at the end of the table, and someone mentioned word processors, and this guy, acquiring an air of superiority, lifted his nose so high I though he was pointing at something on the ceiling with it. He said the typewriter was the best way to work, because the word processor was just one more barrier between the writer and the page.

Keep in mind I had heard this from a number of writers who wrote longhand, and now I was hearing it about the typewriter. I'm sure that after the invention of writing, which may have been lines drawn in the dirt with a stick, someone got all pissy when a young turk started scribbling his musings, pictographs if you will, on cave walls with charcoal and paints made from plants and animals, or whatever they made it from. And then as that guy aged, the one who wrote on the wall, I bet he became indignant when someone chiseled something in rock, or wrote in wax, or on papyrus...Well, you get the idea.

So when this gray beard who was a black beard said that about typewriters, I let out with a whoop. I couldn't contain myself. I said something unintentionally disrespectful, like, "That's the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard."

I can turn rowdy.

The gray beard who was a black beard just looked at me.

I said something along these lines. "A page is a page, if it's a piece of paper with handwriting on it or a piece of paper pulled from a typewriter, or a screen that represents a page. It's a page. You either have the ability to create, or you don't. How you go about it is irrelevant."

The gray beard who was a black beard looked at me as if I had gone to the Vatican, got a front row seat to see the Pope, then cut a big, wet fart and yelled out, "Catch that in your big ole hat, Pope."

Others at the table turned to look at me. A couple of them, of course, thought who is this young upstart criticizing the voice of God? I was in my thirties then, and I suppose this guy was closer to fifty, so maybe it came across as disrespectful. But hell, I was always older than my age except when it came to fart and dick jokes.

Anyway, the air was as thick as lies at the White House for a moment, and then a couple of folks at the table snickered. Probably owners of word processors.

The gray beard who was a black beard smiled like he had inadvertently shit his pants, got up and left the table. He had been called on his bullshit, and he knew it.

Might I add again, at the time of this event I was a user of the typewriter-having graduated from the pad and pen in the early seventies-and had no intention of changing my method of writing. It wasn't this asshole's use of the typewriter that irked me, it was his arrogance and narrow-minded stupidity.

What I knew from what this guy said-and now we pause for a little shade tree psychiatry-was that he preferred to work that way and thought of himself as so important that for anyone to consider working in a different way was heresy, the equal of asking the Pope to catch that fart in his hat.

He was also saying something else. I'm a dinosaur and I know it and I don't want to change because I can't change, and the mysteries of the word processor scare me. My world is changing. Once I was the cutting edge, and now, maybe I'm as dull as a plastic butter knife and my work is growing stale and I might as well be sticking my finger up my ass and writing my stories in shit, which is what they are becoming because I can't embrace the future.

Hell, we all think that from time to time. But this writer wasn't being honest with himself, and he was trying to punish technology for his shortcomings-perhaps it could use some punishment, but the thing is, change itself is inevitable. It sucks sometimes. I know. I've wrestled manfully in my time with TV channel changers, microwaves, digital watches, cell phones, video players, DVD players, cassette tape players, and CD players, and that fucked up Fox News with not only its techno-graphics but bullshit much worse than the myth of the typewriter. And just to show I'm still behind the curve, that goddamn crawl line at the bottom of all the news channels makes me want to scream; reading it and watching the news too is a little too multi-task for me. So note, you're not getting this diatribe from a techno nut.

* * *

All right. Jump forward a few years and I'm still using the typewriter, but the word processor is more common, and a lot of writers I know say it's the way to go. Some of them former anti-technocrats, who have now seen the light and have done gone on to testify to their brothers and sisters with an enthusiasm that borders on the embarrassing, are pushing me to switch.

They're saying: "It's easier, Lansdale."

"You're behind the curve."

"You can write dick jokes faster with easier correction."

Now I'm listening. Considering.

I finally broke down. I bought a computer. It stayed in the box for about a year as I continued to write on an IBM SELECTRIC. Part of the reason for this was the fact that I had a novel in motion, and had to finish it on the typewriter. Part of it was I had other contracts set and I didn't want to pause to learn how to use the machine, because that was valuable writing time lost. But the big reason was that big ole box with the magical machine in it scared me to death.

The thought of a machine that had a kind of brain was, well, creepy. I had grown up on science fiction after all, and computers could turn on you. I'd seen it in the movies, read it in books. And here was one in my home; its brain was great though its size was small. My brain was small and not so great, and on top of that, I was nervous.

Finally, with the help of my wife and a friend of ours, I got it put together and learned the program. I promptly erased everything I had written, and I did this more than once. I cursed. I screamed. I threatened to go back to the typewriter. I threatened to inhabit a cave, live off locusts and honey, shit behind a bush and wipe my ass on leaves. I had had enough of the modern world.

But then I remembered the gray beard who was a black beard. I thought, well, I'm not one who is telling folks that word processors are evil, but I sure like that typewriter, and maybe that's what I should be doing. On the other hand, the world is moving on and I could save a lot of paper and not have to take out the trash so often and I really didn't like that know-it-all-son-of-a-bitch, so, let's reconsider.

I hung in. I was beginning to like the idea of not using white out or white out strips, or replacing ribbons or knocking keys off the typewriter from hitting them too hard, or wearing out the balls of type on the IBM from machine gun typing. I was beginning to like being able to spell correctly words quickly and easily (which is not to say I don't still screw up, but nowhere as often, and I've actually become a better speller by constantly being made aware of my shortcomings), and I loved being able to rewrite swiftly without having to recopy the entire page.

I found that instead of making my work better by constant recopying on the typewriter, I had in fact been going into a zone that was less observant and less spontaneous. I was trying so desperately not to make a typo, or other mistakes I would have to correct by recopying the entire page, I was in fact restricting my creativity and spontaneity because my mind wasn't as free. And leaving the typewriter behind meant there was no more of that damn carbon paper or getting that carbon shit all over my fingers when I pulled the carbon free from the typewriter roller.

I missed hitting the lever that pulled the carriage back, or hitting the button on the IBM that made it jump back, but on the whole, not a whole lot to miss, really.

Fact is, more I think about it, there's so much about the typewriter not worth missing I could probably make a list a foot long, and print it out on my speed printer faster than a jackrabbit fucks.

* * *

So, I'm saying the word processor may not be for everyone. The typewriter, if you can still find them, might be your tool. And all the old farts who come from my generation or generations before, can certainly continue to work on their outdated machines if they want. It's a choice.

But as for another barrier between the writer and the page, kiss my highly attractive, rosy red ass.

* * *

Not long ago I went on a trip with my family to a Caribbean island, and though I dislike working when I travel, I decided since I'm not that fond of islands and sand and sea after more than a couple of days, it would be a great time just to relax and read, and I had a novel to do, so maybe I could get that started.

I didn't own a laptop, just a desk model word processor. I decided I would purchase a typewriter with some computer functions and take it with me. When I cranked the machine out, I had a feeling of nostalgia. It wasn't a pure typewriter, but it was close to it and it had the same kind of keys, and those kind of keys, I discovered as I sat down to write, were hard to push into position because the keyboard required a heavier touch.

You had to really press those mothers, and the machine seemed to move like a sloth on anti-depressants. Within five minutes I was nervous, and within fifteen I was hysterical.

I put the machine away, and except for the half a page I wrote, which became the beginning of Rumble Tumble, I was through with the typewriter. Forever. That damn trip back in time had nearly caused me a nervous breakdown.

I still feel warm and nostalgic about typewriters. I like seeing them; it's like seeing some old book you loved. But like some of those books you read as a kid, when you re-read them you wish you hadn't. They were best left to the memory.

For me, that's the case with the typewriter. The world has moved on, and it won't be passing that way again.

For writing, the most important thing is passion. A love for what you do. A desire to create something with all of your enthusiasm and as much attention to your craft as you can muster.

The method of execution be damned. The secret is the human mind, not the device that allows the story to be recorded.

Besides, another twenty years, and all those users of typewriters will be dead, and they won't be making any more of them, the typewriters or the users. And you know what? There will come a time when the word processor will be dated, and there will be new old farts saying how that new-fangled mind reading printing device is just one more barrier between you and the page.

PART FIVE

Kuttner Sharpens His Literary Sword

The following article appeared as an introduction to Kuttner's Sword and Sorcery book, Elak from Atlantis from Planet Stories.

I'm reprinting it here because I love Henry Kuttner's works, and though these are not his best work, they are fun, and anything that can stimulate interest in his work is a good thing.

I hope you enjoy it, keeping in mind it was designed for a specific book, but the information stands alone.

......

Henry Kuttner is something of an unsung hero of science fiction and fantasy, and to some extent, horror fiction, if for no other reason than he wrote a classic little booger tale called "The Graveyard Rats".

He was a witty, fast writing kind of guy who could come up with a story at the drop of a hat, and maybe have it finished before the hat hit the floor. Perhaps had he lived longer, and not been knocked dead by a heart attack in his forties, he would be better known, and perhaps if his novels, written by himself and in collaboration, had elicited the same impact his short stories received, he might also have a greater reputation with the mainstream. Within the field of the fantastic, and the science fictional, he is better known, and among certain aficionados of his work, he is considered to be as important a writer as almost anyone who ever wrote in the field (s).

Another reason he is not as well known as he ought to be is because he was so versatile. Unlike one of his proteges, Ray Bradbury, he never developed a singular voice by which he could be identified immediately. This is not to say he wasn't stylistic. He was, and the echoes of his style can be seen in the works of Ray Bradbury, but unlike Bradbury who worked to codify his approach to story, Kuttner did not.

To make matters even more confusing, he wrote under a number of different pen names, and if that isn't enough, when he married C.L. Moore, another wonderful writer, the two of them worked together on almost all stories thereafter. It might even be said that if Henry Kuttner is unknown, so is C.L. Moore, because in a way, they became the same person, a writer(s) who wrote stories and used a lot of names to hide behind. They had to. They were producing a lot of stories for a lot of different markets and needed different names and different voices. They were like spies, moving from one country to another with falsified passports.

They worked together on stories so closely, that if one got up to go to the bathroom, the other could sit down and take their place and pick up where they left off, seamlessly producing prose until replaced once again by the other.

It was said C.L. Moore provided the romanticism to some of their best stories, and you can see this touch in her solo work. It was also said that Kuttner provided the wit and the ideas, and there is evidence of that.

Still, I've always found this to be an easy answer, and a little too pat. The true answer, especially since they were so interchangeable, is that they were both extraordinarily talented writers who found one another and together fell into a wonderful creative groove; it must have been one hell of a bonding; my guess is they could both be witty and romantic and exploding with ideas. The fact that writing was their profession and they needed to eat and pay bills didn't hurt either. That's a real incentive. But that need is not enough to explain the incredible ingenuity with which they worked, the sparkling style they created, and the lasting impact these stories have had on so many readers.

Perhaps, had they written alone, they might have produced better work individually than together, but it is hard to imagine better stories than those accredited to their pen names; these stories are some of the classic stories in the field of science fiction and science fantasy. To confuse this even more, some of their more famous pen names-Lewis Padgett and Lawrence O'Donnell come to mind-were sometimes the solo work of one or the other. Trying to decipher it all makes the head hurt.

Kuttner's work, or the work attributed to him more than C.L. Moore, has been the source for a few films, the earliest I believe was "The Twonky", which was done for television. One of his (and her?) best stories, "Vintage Season" was filmed interestingly, and most recently, "Mimsy Were The Borogroves" was filmed as The Last Mimzy. This is probably Kuttner's most famous story. The results were mixed. It was a movie that couldn't quite decide if it was serious science fiction film or something for the young adult viewer alone. But the premise and the general story line were all Kuttner, (or at least all Lewis Padgett) and that's what the viewer takes away with them when they leave the theater; that haunting idea so marvelously expressed in the original short story, and so proven in everyday life by anyone old enough to have trouble with the DVD player or the cell phone only to have their eight year old kid show them how it works. I won't say more. I hope your curiosity will invite you to read the original story, and afterward, to watch the film.

The bottom line is this. Kuttner was one talented dude and his stories move through the stories of a lot of writers writing today (I am one), and they will move through writers of the future as well; as long as there is the written word and there are heralds to proclaim his excellence, his stories will have their impact.

Okay. I lied. I don't trust that at all. That's the way it should be. It's not the way it is.

But, this introduction and this book are a kind of herald. We want to alert you to his genius. This is just a taste. This is just one side of Kuttner. His work is being discovered and rediscovered a lot lately; there have been encouraging signs of this in the films and new editions of his short stories. An example of the latter being Two Handed Engine, and this fine collection of early sword and sorcery stories. But neither of these volumes touch the bulk of Kuttner's output. I hope these films and collections lead to a thunderous awareness for all things Kuttner, but I'm not holding my breath.

Readers and writers these days find it hard to invest time into reading anything older than a year or two, but let me tell you, (and I pause to wag my finger and say shame on you) Kuttner still reads well and his stories are unique, and many ideas that are just now being explored by writers of science fiction and fantasy...well, sorry, Kuttner has already been there and he most likely did it better.

For many writers who are just drawing their swords, and are interested in what went before and how certain writers developed, or for that matter, how certain genres developed, look here, for you can see how Kuttner began sharpening his literary sword, and what better way to symbolize this sharpening, than with tales of swords...and, of course, sorcery.

But more to the stories at hand.

......

Early in his career, before meeting Catherine (better known in the pages of magazines as C.L.) Moore, he wrote for Weird Tales. Not only did he write the classic horror story, "The Graveyard Rats", also filmed, badly, for the TV film Trilogy of Terror 2, he soon wrote a series of sword sorcery stories, influenced by Howard's marvelous Conan tales, but quite different because they came from the mind of another highly original writer.

Kuttner's creation, Elak, was his own thing, and not Howard's Conan, but they certainly were characters who might have crossed paths and gone on a three day drunk and whoring expedition together. In the end, that ramble might have led to a savage duel due to the fact that they were both in their own way what today would be described as alpha males. There was also the fact that Elak had a fat, drunken, friend, Lycon, who always traveled with him, and whose smart mouth and attitude, might have stirred the pot and led to a savage decision made in blood.

It would have been Elak's skillful swordsmanship against Conan's brawn and fearless assault. It might have made for an interesting fight.

Kuttner's stories, unlike the tales written by Howard, have a sense of humor. This is not to say there wasn't a note of humor in Howard's work, but it certainly wasn't an identifying trait, and sometimes those notes were played quietly and without great success. Outside of Sword and Sorcery, Howard did write a series of Western Tall Tales that had a bit of the Pecos Bill humor about them, but they were never, at least for me, that successful. The humor seemed heavy and contrived, and though many scholars point to these stories as a sign of Howard's maturity as a writer, I always felt they were stories of the moment, of their time, and that the humor was as heavy as a rain cloud and twice as wet.

Kuttner understood humor, both the subtle sort and the more blatant, and unlike Howard, he was really good at it. Also unlike Howard, and more akin to Leiber, there's a playfulness about the prose and the descriptions; everything isn't so deadly dark and serious, though Kuttner could certainly summon up the shadows when he chose, and he could write some of the bloodiest and most exciting adventure scenes ever conjured by a writer's mind, as you will see when you read these stories.

I even think it's telling that Elak uses a rapier, and not a big heavy sword. The rapier suits his personality, which is, at least by comparison to say Conan, somewhat dapper. Still, Elak has a kind of confidence and force of will that would have made John Wayne move back a step.

.....

When it comes to Kuttner's other character, Prince Raynor, who made two appearances in Strange Tales, the prose presenting his adventures is in my estimation more little more formal and stiff, which may have more to do with distinguishing the two characters, Elak and Raynor, than anything else.

Most likely it was due to the fact that Kuttner was constantly exploring style, character, and story methods and didn't like to repeat himself. Of the two, I like Elak best, though there is certainly no lack of entertainment value in the other, though there seems less inventiveness and liveliness of style and the Raynor stories fill a little bit familiar. Fans of the Raynor stories may argue the point as a matter of personal taste, however, and I would be unwilling to battle them on the matter. They're still good tales.

I mention this business about style because I think the writing style of Kuttner was always interesting. He was always experimenting. He was one of those rare kinds of writers who was a combination story teller, stylist, and thinker, though when he wore science fiction clothes, he was more of an extrapolator of ideas and concepts, then he was an master of science. He was the forerunner of the Galaxy magazine writer who brought more characterization and social issues to the work than nifty scientific gadgetation, a word I think I just now made up.

Kuttner's work, for me, threw off sparks and set little mental fires that made me think. He was willing to toss ideas and concepts off like spaghetti, fling it against the wall to see if it sticks. And there was an echo beyond the reading. His ideas were so original and came from so far out of left field you had to have an aerial view of the grounds so you could see them racing at you from beyond the bleachers.

In these sword and sorcery stories his style, or more accurately, his styles, were developing. These tales are not the echo tales of the more mature Kuttner, not the stories chock full of ideas and sparks and little fires that burn in the brain and make you think. They are pure joy. They are the pudding after the steak and the sides. But they are wonderful pudding, fine entertainment.

Kuttner wrote everything he wrote with heart and conviction and a dedication to craft. His intent was not always the same, and he got better and more interesting as he went along, but these tales of Elak and Raynor are a rare treat indeed. They are first of all hard to find, and give us a glance at what Kuttner was to become; we can watch his garden grow in these stories. This collection is a great service to all of us Kuttner fans, and to those it will introduce to his work. These stories may be pudding, but they aren't tapioca. There's something special here, a real frothy treat made from exotic ingredients containing lost cities and flashing swords and beautiful women and Druids and ghosts, a few pulpy wood knots and splinters of early prose, a flash of style and insight, and in the end, a flourish of tossed gory glitter in the hair.

He had a kind of magic all writers wish they possessed. Some of us can fake it a little, but Kuttner, he wasn't faking. He was the real deal. He was a writer of endless possibilities, and it saddens me to think his life, that wonderful magpie mind, constantly collecting thoughts and ideas for stories, was knocked silent by a premature heart attack.

Oh, the places he would have gone.

I hate what we as readers missed due to his early demise, but I am so happy he wrote what he wrote, which is quite a bit, and that he wrote so many different kinds of tales, presented us with so many literary meals to devour, from the steaks to the sides, to the gourmet treats, to the fine and frothy, sweet, desserts of Elak and Raynor.

Prove my fears unfounded. Let the heralds speak of Kuttner, and let their voices ring down through the ages, past my time and past yours, and over into the awareness of future readers, and let their words stick: "Kuttner is magic."

Enjoy.

PART SIX

Leslie Whitten: Neglected Master

In conversations with interviewers, when they ask me about favorite writers or books, there is one writer I admire that I always fail to mention. Leslie (Les) Whitten. Whitten has written a number of novels, and one of them, the Progeny of the Adder, is undoubtedly the influence for Jeff Rice's novel, The Night Stalker, the source for the television series of the same name, and two television movies, and a later not so good television series of the same name. Darin McGavin was the original Karl Kolchak, and for me, he defined the role of the intrepid reporter out to get a story at all cost. The stories always had to do with vampires and werewolves, and critters of their ilk.

The script for the original The Night Stalker television movie was written by the great Richard Matheson. At the time, it was one of the highest rated movies on television. So popular, it spawned another Jeff Rice book and another made for television movie titled The Night Strangler. This in turn gave birth to the television series, The Night Stalker. But the first film, the story of a vampire in modern times, is the best of all the movies and series episodes, and it owes much to its original influence, Progeny of the Adder.

Whitten's approach to the vampire is in considerable contrast to the popular version seen today in most vampire films. That of the stately, romantic, attractive and cursed young man that really only wants to love some beautiful woman eternally while sucking a bit of blood on the side. These vampire books, and films, tend to appeal primarily to women, and are romance novels with fangs. Nothing wrong with that, but I've had enough of it. I suppose Interview with the Vampire, a very good book, is to blame for this trend, along with certain vampire films, but it seems by now this approach would be as old as death itself. But, alas, not at all.

Whitten's version is not like this. His version is about a dark, loathsome creature whose breath smells like a rotting corpse, who has a lot of broken teeth, sagging skin, and blood red eyes, tremendous strength and endurance, and who is really hungry. He has some of the common vampire abilities, but he can't turn into a bat, or smoke, and in many ways he's more like a deranged human. He is anything but attractive or romantic, and is in fact, scary as hell.

And if it wasn't enough that Whitten wrote Progeny of the Adder, which defined a certain type of vampire story, sadly lost to the more recent romantic versions, he also wrote what I believe to be the definitive werewolf novel, Moon of the Wolf. Of course, it's a small field. Only a handful of werewolf novels stand out from, if you'll excuse me, the pack. Short stories seem to be where this creature is best defined.

Moon was not only a good werewolf novel with a unique approach to the subject, it was made into a creepy television film starring David Jansen. The film has lost some of its, ahem, bite in the following years due to the advancement in special effects, (the same could be said for The Night Stalker, the television movies and series) and the simple fact that more can be shown on TV now than in the past. But when this show first appeared (and it could stand a remake) I remember where I was when I saw it. A friend's house, and we came upon it by accident-there were only three channels in those days, and I was changing channels, and we did this chore by turning the dial on the set by hand, no clicker-and I came upon the program just as it was beginning. We got hooked. Our plans to go out and ride around looking for girls evaporated. We got lost in the story. Especially me. This was my meat. My writing career was still a few years away from starting, and almost twelve or thirteen away from me becoming a full-time writer, but this kind of story, especially then, was just the sort of thing that made my blood boil and my creative passions jiggle with the excitement of a big breasted stripper working it out to a conga beat.

In fact, I saw the film first, read the book later, then found Progeny of the Adder. This led to Whitten's The Alchemist, and later to some non horror novels, suspense books as I recall, (I believe he also wrote a historical) but they didn't stay with me. Not like the first three, Progeny of the Adder, Moon of the Wolf, and The Alchemist, the latter being pretty damn erotic and graphic for its time. But I'm only going to say it's about a modern man caught up in ancient secrets, with lots of sex peppering the story. It's a good and interesting read. But it isn't in the same league as Progeny and Moon of the Wolf. I mention it here because it fits as a kind of trio to his early work.

Leslie Whitten was not a fancy stylist, and could be pretty meat and potatoes in that arena, but he was a good and engaging storyteller and the prose never got in the way of the tale he wanted to tell. In fact, for me, there was something hypnotic about his prose. Just recently this was proved to me again when my friend David Schow gave me a book with two of Whitten's novels in it: Fangs of the Morning, and the aforementioned Alchemist.

I had never heard of Fangs of the Morning, and think the title is just awful. Since it had a nineties copyright, some many years after the novels I've mentioned, I thought it might have been an earlier unpublished novel that had finally found a home. Secretly, I feared it might be a late attempt for Whitten to cash in on his original vampire novel, Progeny. What I mean by this, is often when a writer seems to disappear, and you find a recent novel by them, it's not always a positive sign. Sometimes the reason that writer has disappeared is because their work played out, or they played out, and when they come back...Well...They've been away too long. You can stay away from writing and lose your edge, the way a boxer can. Unlike a boxer, a writer can last a lot longer, but only if they stay in the game. I was worried.

I need not have been. Whatever it's time frame of having been written, Fangs of the Morning is terrific. I felt the old zing of being captured by a simple story well told. Not the pure guts and gush of many modern horror novels, but that creeping sort of happy discomfort that reminded me of being younger, discovering this kind of fiction, lying in bed with one small light on, the fan blowing, the covers pulled up to my chin. It was a deliciously engaging horror novel and my recommendation is read it late at night when you don't have to be anywhere the next morning.

Laying it right out there, Whitten tells a cracker jack of a story with characters you care about. He does this all swiftly and without a lot of hullabaloo. Fangs of the Morning doesn't quite match Progeny of the Adder and Moon of the Wolf, but it's good. Progeny and Moon are in their own way as classic as I am Legend and 'Salem's Lot, yet the books, and Whitten, are mostly forgotten. That shouldn't be the case. Whitten and Matheson are of the same school. Simple ideas well told swiftly, but with an almost hidden chewy texture.

So go out and find these books. They are worth the search. They are true treats. I just wish some enterprising small press would find him, see if he has something new, and if there is nothing new, pay him to write one, or at least reprint these horror classics in the special volumes they deserve so that they can be placed on the shelf with Matheson and Bloch and Stephen King, whose nasty vampire in 'Salem's Lot might owe a little itself to Progeny. The influence of these books is broad, though general knowledge of them is slim. Maybe someone can remedy that with new editions.

Leslie Whitten. Remember the name.