The Bloody North

Well, we've done it again. Tony Healey wrote it; I edited it, and now it's available for your reading pleasure. The first title in Tony's The Fallen Crown series, The Bloody North, is now live on Amazon. It's also only 99 cents for the e-book right now, so grab it! Anyhow, Tony has a bit more to say on the subject, so I'll let him do the rest:

ON WRITING 'THE BLOODY NORTH'

My first exposure to fantasy was The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis. I saw the old BBC adaptation of it (which I still think stands head and shoulders above both the animated movie and the more recent Disney motion picture) and then found a copy of it in paperback at a car boot sale. I was about nine at the time. I spent months afterward trying to track down copies of all the others. I succeeded, never paying more than about fifty pence for each one. Eventually I had all seven Narnia books lined up on my shelf, each one from a different edition.

A year or so later, I found a box set containing all seven, with cover art to match their respective BBC adaptations. I used that as my excuse for reading them all again from scratch. I still have that same box set now.

In my teens, my uncle loaned me a copy of Spellsinger by Alan Dean Foster, and I proceeded to bug him for the other five, tearing through them at a rate of knots. A few years back, I had the honour of having a short story of mine published alongside Mr. Foster. In that anthology (see: Resistance Front by Bernard Schaffer, Alan Dean Foster, Harlan Ellison, et al.) I dedicated my story to Alan, thanking him for Spellsinger.

If the work of C. S. Lewis had introduced me to fantasy as a genre (at the age I was when I read it, I honestly didn't pick up on all of the religious notes – it was just a good story), then Spellsinger showed me you could take traditional fantasy and inject it with facets of modern life.

From a very early age, we'd had three films on VHS I'd constantly watch, over and over again. The first was The Goonies – recorded off of the TV with commercials included. The other two were Watership Down and The Lord of the Rings.

After reading Spellsinger, my mind turned to those two cartoons I'd watched as a small child. So I read my way through Watership Down, and then tackled The Lord of the Rings at about the same time as The Fellowship of the Ring came out at the cinema. With Watership Down, I got to see world building on par with Narnia, but done in an entirely different way. Set in the world of rabbits, with their own language, their own beliefs, their own mythology. I found it completely fascinating.

The Lord of the Rings was a slog most of the time, but I have happy memories of the experience. It was a long work to tackle in my teens, but I managed it, just about. A recent attempt at a reread failed miserably. I simply lost interest. A lot of that comes from the books I am used to reading now as an adult. They're faster, more concise. To my mind, Tolkien's opus is a must-read for anyone. But I don't think many will delve back in for a second go. It's a huge undertaking. The Lord of the Rings is a classic work of fantasy that truly established a gold standard for the genre at the time. And there have been many attempts by other writers at recreating Middle-Earth in their own work, to varying degrees of success.

Coming out of my teens, The Dark Tower series and J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter were hugely influential to me. What Stephen King accomplishes with The Dark Tower is something he has tried often and succeeded at rarely. That is, telling a long story and holding the reader's attention from start to finish. Some – novels like The Stand and IT – have worked brilliantly. Others . . . ugh. But for whatever reason, The Dark Tower grips you from the first tantalizing sentence ("The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed . . .") and never lets go. It's a little crazy, it's a bit of a mash-up of multiple genres and sources, but that's okay. You take it in your stride. The Dark Tower is King's greatest work. A rich, hugely entertaining epic.

The very same can be said for Rowling's Potter series. I read them one after the other (luckily the last, The Deathly Hallows, was just coming out as I finished The Half-Blood Prince). My habit with those was to sit on the kitchen floor at night, cup of tea by my side and read into the early hours. I lived in a house with six other siblings at the time, so really the kitchen at night was about the most peaceful place for reading.

She did a fantastic job of world-building, of plotting each book out so that it was its own self-contained story, yet progressed the overall plot piece by piece. Readers were literally spellbound (forgive the pun) by the interactions between the characters and the relationships that developed along the way. By the progression of a plot that grew steadily darker and darker – and by what had happened in the past, before the books take place. Certainly the greatest, well-rounded character of the series is not Harry Potter himself, but Severus Snape. Dumbledore's machinations become somewhat omnipresent by the end, whereas Snape comes into his own in what is a truly heartbreaking series of revelations.

Recently, I found myself browsing the kindle store for something new to read when I came across The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie. I got the sample, devoured it in one sitting, and bought the rest of the book.

The next day, I found myself in town buying the whole trilogy in paperback and proceeded to read them one after the other. Abercrombie takes the conventions of the genre and turns them on their head. First of all, he does away with the stilted writing of the past and brings his contemporary voice to Fantasy – complete with swearing, sex, and some of the most complicated characters I've ever come across. Each and every one of them broken in some way.

Glokta, broken in body but not in spirit. Logen Ninefingers, broken inside as he tries (in vain) to turn away from the man he used to be. These two characters begin the story broken and end up whole by the end (though not necessarily better people as a result) whilst the character of Luthar begins whole and is steadily broken first in body, then in spirit. Abercrombie writes a kind of fantasy that critics and readers alike have come to coin "Grimdark." I guess it had its beginnings in the work of Robert E. Howard way back when, and I reckon there were the seeds of it in the dark deeds that went (mostly) unseen, in the background, throughout The Lord of The Rings. If Aragorn and company spent the majority of those books fighting nameless, faceless hordes of Orcs with little repercussions for their deeds, Abercrombie makes every kill resonate.

Men fight men, with all the horrific slaughter and detail involved. And when the fight is over, when most of them have died, the survivors are left with their guilt and their shame and their hurt. Left to deal with it all on their own.

It's no wonder, in Abercrombie's fictional setting, that Logen turned out the way he did.

But what some reviewers of The Blade Itself have criticized it, and its sequels, for is its lack of hope, and I have to disagree there. I found plenty of hope in The First Law trilogy. It's there, trust me. What Abercrombie does is to counter-balance these moments, these flashes of characters achieving the positive, with the darkness. If a character is winning in one chapter, the next time we meet them, their luck has taken a turn for the worst.

Is that fair? Probably not. But is it realistic to what we experience in real life?

Yeah.

I took a similar approach in The Bloody North, by having a character consumed with grief to the point where he'd almost stopped living. He just existed – until, that is, his company is slaughtered in front of him and he's left on his own. What ensues is a bloody path of vengeance as Rowan comes to terms with all that he's lost and his quest to destroy the man who took it all away from him. Along the way we get to know some of the world in which The Fallen Crown series takes place.

This just the first small chapter in a truly epic story. If you think The Bloody North sets the stage, well . . . wait till you read Book 2. Boy, oh boy, is it going to blow your socks off.

Next level doesn't cut it.

Thank you, Tony.

Happy Reading!

The Girl from Tenerife by Bernard Schaffer

Before I offer any opinion about this book, my latest project, I want to give you, my faithful readers, the opportunity to read the first chapter. It won't take long. It's only about five pages, about 1700 words. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

**********

We met at a bar, but it's not what you think. She worked there. It was my first time going in, taking a chance on an authentic-looking Mexican restaurant with the misfortune of being built into the rear end of a run-down shopping center. The writer in me suggests I tell you it was the sad, soulful music that lured me in, calling to me past the newspaper stand and tire center and discount shoe store, but really, it was the neon Mexican beer signs blinking in the windows. 

It was dark and the tables were empty as I slid onto the barstool and inspected the taps. Modelo Especial. Good. Corona. Obviously. Negra Modelo. 

Sold. 

I tapped my fingers on the counter waiting for the bartender to come my way. He slid a bowl of fresh salsa in front of me and I told him, "Negra Modelo, tall." He pulled their largest icy mug out of the freezer under the bar and filled it, then dropped in a lime wedge. 

This was in my serious drinking days so I lifted the glass and drained it hard, swallowing until the lime wedge was soaked in nothing but white suds. The bartender vanished, probably crowded with the rest of the waitstaff into one of the booths near the kitchen, watching futbol, not thinking the gringo with the pot belly would drink so much so fast. Two Central American teams battled it out over a field of never-ending green. Looking the waitstaff over, I wasn't sure who they were rooting for. 

Soccer matches are tough to watch on TV. The camera is too far back from the field so it looks like a bunch of tiny ants running around not doing much. I guess people who know the game want to see how everyone is positioned, but personally, I can't get into it. Soccer has too many crazy rules my simple western mind can't wrap itself around. How in the hell can a game end in a tie? How in the hell can a referee decide they're playing in overtime but nobody knows for how long? 

People around the world love it though. Beautiful Brazilian women fill the stands in tight-fitting t-shirts to sing their team songs. British hoodlums follow fans of rival teams home and stomp their heads in. Every once in a while, you get a full-scale riot with a dozen people dying, crushed against a chain link fence. 

Now, American football fans are committed, but you don't see that. Maybe a fistfight when some ignorant, drunken Cowboys fan opens his mouth one too many times at an Eagles game. I mean, what do they expect? 

And that's when she came into the bar area.

No. Not yet. Let me back up. 

You see, in movies and books moments like these are something you immediately recognize. The golden filters of the cinematographer's lens and deep, swelling crescendos of symphonic orchestration cue you, the audience, that something important is happening beyond just the momentary impact of a woman of rare beauty surprising you by appearing in a bar. 

In real life, it's just another minute that passes. Just something that happens one moment to the next. There will be another empty glass of beer that another bartender comes to fill, helping you kill time before you pay, get out of your seat, and go back to the monotony of real life. In real life, you don't realize a moment is worth remembering until you have a reason to. 

It can be years after the fact when you look over at the person lying next to you in bed and think, "I would have never met you otherwise." 

And that can be good or bad, depending on your current evaluation of the relationship. 

My ex-wife and I were introduced by our mothers. They met at a country western dance club. "My son's in his twenties, he's single." 

"My daughter's in her twenties, she's single too." 

"You're kidding. Oh my God!" 

"Oh my God! Do you think?" 

Two amazingly precious children later and one long, seven-year drought of only-occasional companionship, I would sometimes roll over and look at her sleeping face and I would think, "If I pull the comforter over her face and she dies, is it still murder? Shouldn't most people have the fortitude to yank the covers down before they suffocate? Isn't it more like I'm leaving it up to God if she dies or lives on to torment me in perpetuity?" 

She lived. 

I moved out. 

Nothing got better. 

Being divorced from a mentally abusive maniac is actually worse than being married to one, because they can come after your time with your kids and come after your money. So you have to play nice. When you're married and aren't nice, the most they can do is cut you off from sex. When you're divorced and aren't nice, the mind of a female can find new and exciting ways to torture you forever. 

Or at least until the kids are grown. 

Sometimes I've found myself wishing the kids were eighteen already and immediately hate myself for it. It's not what I really want, anyway. If that were the case we wouldn't spend so much time on the floor of my small apartment playing board games or having full-scale wars with every toy they own from Batman to Malibu Barbie. No, I don't wish their youth away at all. I just don't want to have to talk to their mother anymore. 

In our relationship, she's Lucy and I'm Charlie Brown. The football symbolizes us getting along. Every time she tells me she's serious about it, I take off running down the field like an idiot and try to kick the thing in for a field goal. We could be a team. A unified force of parental guidance. One cohesive family unit in two different locations. 

Every goddamn time I try to kick one in for the win and every goddamn time she yanks the ball away and sends me sailing through the air to land flat on my back. But I keep doing it. 

Why? Because I love the little buggers, man. At twelve, my boy Sam is smarter than I ever was. My little girl, Rosa? She's walking sunshine. That kid giggles and it's music for the soul. The kicker is that she kind of looks like her mom. I'm convinced the reason I can't hate my ex-wife is because of her resemblance to my daughter. That's why no matter how many times she puts the football down and says, "You want to kick it, Charlie Brown?" I go running. I'm an idiot. But I'm an idiot in love with two little kids. 

These are the thoughts of a man sitting at the bar of a Mexican restaurant, staring into an empty glass mug, surrounded by people he can't understand. Maybe that's why I liked it there. I couldn't understand what they were saying and they weren't interested in me. 

And that's when she walked in. She looked at me and smiled and said, "Do you like another beer?" 

It is with the sudden shock of a sniper's bullet to the soldier's forehead that a man looks upon such a woman for the first time.

Her smile was a long, curved dagger sunk deep in my chest, all the way in, all at once. 

Her face bore the kiss of the Costa Adeje sun and sand with high-angled cheeks and rose pink lips that drew to a swollen heart at their center. Almond-skinned with long dark hair, she wore it pulled back and out of the way. I could not help but wonder what she looked like in six-inch heels with a blood red rose pinned in her hair. 

I looked up at her that first time and said, "Yes, thank you." Then, I paused and said, "Where are you from?" 

She moved her long brown hair over one ear and smiled, caught off guard. "Why do you ask?" 

"Your accent is different than theirs. You aren't Mexican." 

"I am from Spain," she said. It sounded like "I em ah frahm Spayne." 

I nodded and told her what beer I was drinking.

She carried my mug over to the tap and started to pour, looking back at me over her shoulder. "Do you speak Spanish?" 

"Only a little. I picked it up from an old friend." 

"Is good, yes?" 

I took the mug from her hands before she could set it down and said, "To speak Spanish? Or to have an old friend." 

"Both?" 

I didn't know what the hell we were talking about but she smiled again and I nodded eagerly and said, "Yes it certainly is." 

She smiled easily, I could tell. People who do that amaze me because I rarely smile. Not to be melodramatic about it or come off like I'm some sullen, artistic type, because I laugh all the time. I laugh hard. I laugh until I snort and cough and beg the person making me laugh to stop. I'll be one of those guys who laughs himself into a heart attack. But I don't smile much, I don't think. 

Actually, I smiled when I wrote about my kids. 

So maybe I'm lying. Maybe I've finally de-evolved into one of those unreliable narrators you always hear about in English class. The kind that all the good and decent narrators grew up knowing they were to keep a good distance from. 

She swiped her hair over her other ear and spun like a dancer to attend to the register and the whole time she was turned away I didn't touch my beer. I watched her instead. "What is your name?" I said. 

The Girl from Tenerife
by Bernard Schaffer
cover art by Keri Knutson
of Alchemy Book Covers
edited by Laurie Laliberte

"Sahily," she said. 

"Sai-lay?" I said, trying to get the pronunciation right.

"More soft," she said. "You must be gentle with it." 

"Sahily." 

"Better." 

"And you? What is your name?" 

I told her and she said it slowly, rolling the r's with wild abandon, and then we both smiled.     

And that was the moment. 

Right then.

The kind I spoke of. 

The kind you look back on and say, "That's where this all began."

**********

Every once in a while, I come across a book that I can't leave behind. I carry it in my handbag, or keep it by the side of my bed for weeks after I've finished reading it because I cant let it go. THIS is one of those books. Fortunately, because it's in the Kindle app on my tablet, I can keep it with me forever.

As this book's editor, I'm not allowed to post a review on Amazon, but believe me when I tell you this is the best book I've read all year. It's the only novel I've edited from which I suffered a "book hangover." I did, slightly, with Reeni Austin's Barboza Brothers trilogy, but not so much because I knew that fairly soon, I'd be revisiting the world Reeni created. (Yes, there's more to come from the extended family, but that's all I'm allowed to say for now.) GfT didn't elicit waves of emotion from me like some of my writers' books do. It's a beautiful story, told in beautiful language, that held me captive from beginning to end. I've read it three times and it's possible I'll read it again, not because I have to, but because I want to.

You see, for the two years I've been working with Bernard Schaffer, I've told him he has the potential to be a truly brilliant writer. I think he's finally starting to believe me, because you can see it here. That glimmer of brilliance that I saw two years ago is becoming a beacon that glows brighter every time he releases a new work.

Happy Reading!