Monday, February 26, 2018

Appendix N Review: The Face in the Abyss



Back to Abraham Merritt, because mind-blowing forgotten fiction is good for you.

Today it's The Face in the Abyss, which is a fix-up novel published in 1931 and based off two novelettes: The Face in the Abyss published in Argosy All-Story Weekly in 1923 and The Snake Mother published in Argosy in 1930, seven years later.

If you're keeping track, its technically his fifth novel, but only because it took so long between parts. The Metal Monster was 1920 and The Ship of Ishtar was 1924.

The story considers one Nick Graydon, an American mining engineer recruited for an adventure in South America in search of lost Incan treasure. The three other men are Starrett, a rough and tumble drunk, Soames, a lanky New Englander, and Dancret, a small, quiet Frenchman. They get lost deep in the jungle and tensions, already high, erupt when a beautiful young woman named Suarra is caught by Starrett around their camp. Graydon knocks out Starrett in a fit of berserker rage (the first of many he will experience over the course of the adventure) and learns the woman, Suarra, speaks a local language. The attraction between the two is immediate, and Graydon lets Suarra go, and she promises to bring back treasure to get the other men to leave the valley they're in.

It doesn't go well. Graydon's companions think he's ratting them out and their greed gets the better of them. They finagle their way into having Suarra take them to the source of the treasure, and so she does. A hidden valley where powerful men ride dinosaurs, and a giant obsidian face sweats gold out of its eyes and mouth.


Then it gets wild. Dinosaur arena fights, lizardmen, winged messenger snakes, advanced ancient technology, refugees from a lost civilization from now-frozen Antarctica called Yu-Atlanchi (and sharing common elements with the Atlantis myth), the shadowy Nimir LORD OF EVIL, creepy but friendly red spider-men called weavers and their leader Kon, and a mysterious and beautiful Snake Mother named Adana, who has powers beyond what the city itself has.

Graydon is a solid protagonist. Intelligent but quick to action, even when it gets him in trouble. Strong-willed and prone to the red mist rage when his sense of honor is thoroughly offended, he's a better hero than the bland crew from The Metal Monster but not quite on the level of John Kenton or (especially) Larry O'Keefe. Graydon's also an expert shot with a rifle.


Its also clear that Merritt's cast of stock characters is in full effect. Kon is the misshapen but strong and loyal friend, Regor is the battle-scarred big guy, and so on. Shockingly enough, the love interest Suarra ISN'T a redhead but a brunette.

The real star is the mysterious Adana. Upper-body of a beautiful woman, lower body of a snake, and ALL monstergirl, she's not the villain. Far from it, she's one of the most altruistic characters in the book. Which is funny when she's discussing melancholic matters with Graydon and then pausing to examine how she looks in a mirror. She feels like a real person with quirks and vanities, and a snake body.


Like all of the other Merritt books I've read so far, he just throws out one wild idea after another at the audience and keeps everything tied together and building until an explosive finale. Really solid stuff. I'm not going anywhere near spoilers, but I'll say this: it reads like one of those weird high-concept AD&D 1st Edition adventure modules. In a good way.

Absolutely recommended. Merritt is a goldmine.



Its also interesting to note that in my online wanderings, I found a set of photos from the 1980 Westercon on the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society website. Aside from being an amusing time capsule of hideous wallpaper and some very excellent early cosplay work, one of the guests was dressed up as Adana the Snake Mother. Which means Merritt was relevant as late as the 80s to inspire detailed (and bold) costume work.



Monday, February 12, 2018

Appendix N Review: Three Hearts and Three Lions



Where, oh where, to begin with this one? There's so much packed into Poul Anderson's 1961 novel Three Hearts and Three Lions that a thorough review would go deep into spoiler territory. And its only about 200 pages.

Okay. First, the plot. Holger Carlsen is a Danish-born engineer and former college athlete living in Pre-WWII America. When the war breaks out, he returns to Denmark and hooks up with the Danish Resistance and during a desperate mission to extract a scientist to Sweden, a bullet grazes his head and he passes out.

Waking up, he discovers himself naked in a forest with a horse waiting nearby with a set of clothes, weapons and armor. As you do.

The horse's name is Papillon (French for “butterfly”) and with the stallion, he rides to a cottage and gets advice from an old witch who sets him up with a dwarf guide named Hugi. Holger wants to know two things: How to get home, and who is this famous knight with a shield with three hearts and three lions that he's supposed to be.

He encounters a young swanmay named Alianora. She's a human girl who was gifted a cloak that allows her to change into a swan. She, like most of the other people in this world, speak in a stylized dialect meant to sound archaic that takes some getting used to on the page.



After barely evading entrapment by the Elven King Alfric of Faerie, Holger has a run-in with Morgan Le Fay, who knows him from his forgotten past, and he and Alianora begin to fall in love, though his desire to return to the Earth that he knows prevents him from acting on his feelings for her.

Holger finds himself swept up in a grander cosmic conflict as a champion of Law against the fickle and deadly Faerie armies of Chaos. Werewolves! Magic Swords! Dragons! Riddling Giants! Trolls! Heroic Saracens! Comic Relief Wizards! Throwing an Elf into another Elf! True Love!



Much has already been said about how much this story in particular has had an influence on the development of Dungeons & Dragons. Law and Chaos are foundational for the alignment system. The rapidly regenerating troll at the end that can only be permanently harmed by fire is translated directly into the Monster Manual instead of the traditional Scandinavian rock troll (though the fight with this troll is far more hardcore than anything I've seen presented in other stories). Swanmays, Nixies, Unicorns, all have their folkloric predecessors, but again, they are translated almost directly into D&D creatures from this book.


The Paladin, though, is one of the most famous/infamous D&D classes, and it comes from this book. Everything the Paladin class does in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons is done in this story. Detect Evil? Yep. Character is bonded to a special mount? Yes. Immune to fear? Yes (though in Holger's case, much of it comes from being a man of action and an engineer trying to figure out practical reasons for why magic is happening around him) Laying hands on the sick to heal them? Symbolically, yes. Losing certain protections and bonuses when he begins to have impure thoughts? Yes.

Its all there. This book is the bridge between Charlemagne's heroic knightly warriors and Gygax's knights in heavenly armor. I knew that going in, and it still blew my mind to see it in action. (Incidentally, I recommend reading The Song of Roland, where Charlemagne's paladin Roland gets his famous last stand. Badass action and Charlemagne pulling on his beard in grief abounds)

The key to Holger's powers is faith. True faith. Cold Iron, the Cross, and sincere invocations of Jesus Christ all cause physical harm to the forces of Faerie, who are frequently described as having no souls. The tangible power of faith on this strange world shifts Holger from being a modern agnostic to someone who converts to Catholicism by the end (Anderson himself was apparently agnostic with a favorable attitude toward Christianity)



The book features a lot of lighthearted comedy. Holger's no idiot, but he can be a blockhead, especially around pretty ladies. The book takes frequent pauses to think up scientific reasonings for things, like how a dragon would work, or the principles behind a dagger that can be lit on fire. These excursions never get too long, but occasionally they get close.

Then, when the book gets serious, it fully commits. When Holger is presented with the challenge of identifying a werewolf that is terrorizing a town, he gets put into an emotionally difficult situation. Without spoiling it, he has to choose between two grim options, and in true Paladin form, chooses a third.

This book is nothing like the deconstructionist cynicism clogging modern bookshelves. Over and over and over, Holger Carlsen proves himself to be a true-blue White Hat style hero without ever becoming boring. Human and flawed, Holger's a dope with the ladies and a hearty drinker, but at every turn he tries to do good, and in return, becomes a better person and betters the world around him. This is the kind of heroism I've been starved for, and here it is, fully realized by a Grandmaster of Science Fiction.

I can't recommend this book enough. Read it, if for no other reason than to understand how Paladin characters are meant to be played.

Gorgeous Darrell K. Sweet cover for the Baen edition

And some say he waits in timeless Avalon until France the fair is in danger, and some say he sleeps beneath Kronborg Castle and wakens in the hour of Denmark's need, but none remember that he is and has always been a man, with the humble needs and loves of a man; to all, he is merely the Defender.

He rode out on the wold, and it was as if dawn rode with him.”

Tuesday, February 06, 2018

Appendix N Review: The Scarlet Citadel



The Phoenix on the Sword was published in December of 1932, and was an immediate success for Robert E. Howard. The following month, January 1933, Weird Tales would publish the next Conan story: The Scarlet Citadel.

Conan, King of Aquilonia, is having a very bad day. His army was drawn into a trap and he himself is captured by a band of would-be usurpers: the traitorous ally Amalrus, the king of Koth, Strabonus, and Kothian sorcerer Tsotha-lanti. The first two want to kill him and be done with it, but Tostha wants to play with him before killing him because that's what evil sorcerers do.

Conan refuses an offer to let him abdicate, and Tsotha has him thrown into the dungeon of his bright red fortress (a scarlet citadel, if you will). Chained to a wall and facing down a giant snake, Conan escapes partly by luck, and wanders the dark recesses of the dungeon, encountering one of the sorcerer's horrific experiments after another.


Eventually he rescues another prisoner from a giant plant monster. The grateful man recovers and reveals himself as another sorcerer: Pelias, and old rival of Tsotha-lanti's who was imprisoned for a decade.

Conan, knowing that Aquilonia would be thrown into chaos, needs to get back in a hurry, but has no way of getting there. Pelias has a solution. He magics up a strange flying beast and tells Conan not to think too hard about where it came from. Conan reluctantly does, and it flies him back to his capital where the beatings commence.

The story segues into the chaos engulfing Aquilonia and how Conan's loyal retainers tried and failed to maintain order against a group of grasping nobles, and then a would-be usurper named Prince Arpello, who turns out to be an instant tyrant. Conan drops down onto a roof ready to go and after a very brief fight, grabs Arpello and throws him off the roof with a mighty heave, causing the usurper to smash on the stones below “like a mangled beetle.”


Sort of like A Song of Ice and Fire, only actually satisfying and not wasting your time with pages and pages of awkward sex and food descriptions.


But we're not done yet. We're going into SPOILER territory because the ending is really worth discussing.

Conan rallies his army for a pitched battle that deals with the mortal usurpers, and he runs down Tsotha-lanti on horseback and beheads the wizard.

Being a sorcerer, this doesn't stop him from trying to re-attach his body, but suddenly an eagle swoops down and carries the head off, laughing with Pelias' voice. The headless body takes off after it, and Conan is left wondering what the hell is wrong with wizards and their feuds and he just wants a drink.


Both here and in The Phoenix on the Sword, there are moments of dark comedy, and Howard delivers them exceptionally well. After the high tension of the entire story and the catharsis of the battles, dipping into screwball comedy doesn't hurt. It has to be deliberate comedy, since Conan's deadpan “I hate wizards” reaction is completely in character with a man used to dealing in concrete situations.

That said, The Scarlet Citadel features a similar plot to Conan's debut: King Conan has to deal with a plot to overthrow him. The solution involves stabbing many men. The execution is different. The fighting is larger scale and the Weirdness factor is ramped up dramatically. Tsotha-lanti's dungeon is a carnival of horrors, from plant monsters, invisible creepy things, a bloated monstrosity that weeps with a woman's voice, and deep pit leading down that feels wrong. The giant snake is mundane by comparison.

The Scarlet Citadel expands the scope of the Hyborean Age in every direction. Conflict is bigger, magic is stranger, and there's a bit of continuity discussing the “Mad Bard” Rinaldo from the first story.

Come for the badass fighting, stay for the weird magic. Its Robert E. Howard. Its Conan. Its a good time.