tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8662659700159442652024-03-14T05:58:03.145-05:00The Devil's Exercise YardA blog by, and largely about, Canadian author David Nickle.David Nicklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08072702212586811185noreply@blogger.comBlogger282125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-866265970015944265.post-68192140501954431342020-07-17T19:59:00.002-05:002020-07-17T19:59:39.267-05:00This is not the Yard you're looking for... and there's nothing to see here. I've moved from the comforting embrace of Blogger, to a new website up in Canada. The new Devil's Exercise Yard is at <div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://davidnickle.ca/">davidnickle.ca</a></span></div>
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and you'll find everything that's here now, plus some new stuff. New books. New stories. Some drawings maybe.</div>
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There won't be any more new stuff here. So you may as well head over now.</div>
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See you there.</div>
David Nicklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08072702212586811185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-866265970015944265.post-48059873267917959922020-05-01T09:26:00.004-05:002020-05-01T09:38:40.277-05:00Meet Open Road Media, my new publisher<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkubs6hP5NqSDdv64EYW7QamWEhPW-i_a_TXO3AfW0m7falTV5e8x-6KFpeYAyGj8Fl9jQUPjPJRgD8CjJNzfFTGH1ykRt3QdYXYsprDkGrBGFzNPuhXskzz5oN6PV1B_bOsy_xP1N2RY/s1600/Q+and+Q.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkubs6hP5NqSDdv64EYW7QamWEhPW-i_a_TXO3AfW0m7falTV5e8x-6KFpeYAyGj8Fl9jQUPjPJRgD8CjJNzfFTGH1ykRt3QdYXYsprDkGrBGFzNPuhXskzz5oN6PV1B_bOsy_xP1N2RY/s400/Q+and+Q.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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I've been sitting on this news for awhile now, but with contracts signed and deal announced, I can finally spill: my backlist that had originally been published with ChiZine Publications will be republished under the <a href="https://openroadmedia.com/" target="_blank">Open Road Media</a> banner.<br />
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Here's the official announcement that went up today (May 1, 2020) at PubLunch courtesy my agent Ron Eckel at Cooke-McDermid.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjEe3z804z1ZWPqR7WUpkPW3vZpV_uVbbRoXX3_nA_T2_qEJoM6amS1ldWkgTMjoYFytGPBlO0VaVVDWh6ibg1_euwUHZqhe7mU-JFc6mf2KfgVJd5sIvet5NFMB10DIRR0CvNasJkGuc/s1600/OPEN+ROAD+DEAL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="120" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjEe3z804z1ZWPqR7WUpkPW3vZpV_uVbbRoXX3_nA_T2_qEJoM6amS1ldWkgTMjoYFytGPBlO0VaVVDWh6ibg1_euwUHZqhe7mU-JFc6mf2KfgVJd5sIvet5NFMB10DIRR0CvNasJkGuc/s400/OPEN+ROAD+DEAL.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
Those books are (in order of original publication): M<i>onstrous Affections, Eutopia: A Novel of Terrible Optimism, Rasputin's Bastards, The 'Geisters, Knife Fight and Other Struggles,</i> and <i>Volk: A Novel of Radiant Abomination. </i><br />
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They will be available primarily as e-books, but also as print-on-demand paperbacks, and be included on an impressive roster of back-list titles.<br />
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The books will all be available in the fall of 2020.<br />
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They won't have the Erik Mohr covers that long-time readers will be used to - but Open Road makes some good-looking book-covers and they know what they're doing.<br />
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<br />David Nicklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08072702212586811185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-866265970015944265.post-4922053618491034042019-12-04T08:42:00.002-05:002019-12-04T08:42:54.082-05:00ChiZine, my backlist, and some links....As you may have read elsewhere, I've had the rights to my books returned to me from my now-former publisher, ChiZine Publications in the wake of significant troubles, allegations and revelations that I won't detail here in this post. <div>
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The rights reversal means that all of those books will soon be out of print: <i>Monstrous Affections, Eutopia: A Novel of Radiant Abomination, Rasputin's Bastards, The 'Geisters, Knife Fight and Other Struggles</i>, and <i>Volk: A Novel of Radiant Abomination</i>. I'm hoping that situation will change soon, but for now, if you're interested in purchasing them there will be a limited time while stocks last in warehouses and booksellers. Then it will be public libraries and the used-book market for them.<div>
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I expect that the audiobook editions of Monstrous Affections, Eutopia: A Novel of Terrible Optimism and Rasputin's Bastards will continue to be available - and I am hoping to one day soon be able to announce new homes for print editions and ebook editions of those and other books in my backlist, and also new works going forward. But in the meantime, there are some other places that readers can find my work - in text online and in audio editions - for free.</div>
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Here they are:</div>
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"The Caretakers," published at Tor.com, can be read <a href="https://www.tor.com/2016/01/20/the-caretaker-david-nickle/">here.</a></div>
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"The Sloan Men," published on my own website The Devil's Exercise Yard, is right <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/davidnickle/thesloanmen">here</a>.</div>
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"The Pit-Heads," again on The Devil's Exercise Yard, is <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/davidnickle/thepit-heads">here.</a></div>
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"The Parable of the Cylinder," is available for free on the Canadian Notes and Queries site, <a href="http://notesandqueries.ca/short-fiction/parable-cylinderby-david-nickle/">right here.</a></div>
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I've also had a number of stories adapted by Pseudopod, the excellent horror podcast that is free (but deserving of support). Here are the links to those stories:</div>
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<a href="http://pseudopod.org/2008/05/30/pseudopod-92-the-sloan-men/">"The Sloan Men"</a></div>
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<a href="http://pseudopod.org/2009/05/29/pseudopod-144-the-inevitability-of-earth/">"The Inevitability of Earth"</a></div>
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<a href="http://pseudopod.org/2010/04/30/pseudopod-192-the-radejastians/">"The Radejastians"</a></div>
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<a href="http://pseudopod.org/2011/09/16/pseudopod-247-looker/">"Looker"</a></div>
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<a href="http://pseudopod.org/2014/10/18/pseudopod-408-knife-fight/">"Knife Fight"</a></div>
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For the rest, I've compiled an updated list of my published works at The Devil's Exercise Yard, right <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/davidnickle/all-the-lies-to-date">here</a>. </div>
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I don't have too much more to say at this point, other than to thank readers who've followed and supported me, and those in the community who have been supportive and good friends. There will, I think, be more to come.</div>
David Nicklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08072702212586811185noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-866265970015944265.post-6485176067834545422018-08-05T07:55:00.003-05:002018-08-05T09:45:58.115-05:00A belated round-up<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV_UZremDzUSA9dz679k2YIAtZ7ZFgIW9zUbV1Y4g6cZm3NFvr9kciyCsCxRzp7Gm-nqNnTtr7Vs_U_mnn27PTcdGXjiNb1eWW92uKMXrK3v3wRDv0Q5UWSjkxM9sGEk8MlfGaorGL2Nw/s1600/Leeman+Kessler+photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV_UZremDzUSA9dz679k2YIAtZ7ZFgIW9zUbV1Y4g6cZm3NFvr9kciyCsCxRzp7Gm-nqNnTtr7Vs_U_mnn27PTcdGXjiNb1eWW92uKMXrK3v3wRDv0Q5UWSjkxM9sGEk8MlfGaorGL2Nw/s320/Leeman+Kessler+photo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Last week, I joined Leeman Kessler - the YouTube star / municipal politician / voice of reason / world-class dad behind the web series Ask Lovecraft (pictured above with Martin, during a recent visit to Toronto City Hall), for a long chat on his Facebook/Youtube show Lovecraft After Dark. I was briefly mortified looking at it later, when one of the viewers noted that I had not updated this blog since last October. I must have been very busy, they kindly noted.<br />
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Well there was some of that. But what I really was, was negligent. So consider this, a catch-up blog post after all that time that will start, I think, with a link to Lovecraft After Dark, that time that Leeman invited me to talk about modernity:<br />
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We talked a fair bit about my 2017 novel <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Volk-David-Nickle/dp/1771484179%3FSubscriptionId%3DAKIAJBDF5XQBATGDX4VQ%26tag%3Dspea06-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D1771484179" target="_blank">VOLK: A Novel of Radiant Abomination</a></i>, and the book to which it is a sequel, <i><a href="https://www.novelrank.com/asin/1926851110" target="_blank">EUTOPIA: A Novel of Terrible Optimism</a></i>. In the last post, I pointed to a couple of reviews of VOLK, and here's one more, that came out in July from Cemetery Dance.<br />
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Reviewer Chris Hallock is very kind indeed. Here is a pull-quote:<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #4d4d4d; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Nickle has carved a path for himself as a pre-eminent author of speculative fiction. He covers a vast literary cross-section, but does so free of clutter. While this work is certainly a political treatise against oppressive entities and their dreadful acts, Nickle never loses sight of the dark poetry inherent in the genre, nor does he overlook simply spinning a good yarn."</span></span></blockquote>
You can read the whole thing at Cemetery Dance Online, <a href="https://www.cemeterydance.com/extras/review-volk-a-novel-of-radiant-abomination-by-david-nickle/" target="_blank">with a click right here</a>.<br />
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I have, in the mean time, been at work on some only-tangientally-literary artwork, in preparation for what I hope will be a very fine surprise in 2019.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRe_l7AQNcQ2fceOAO2nt8DXFh3hugg9f3b9gVH0WSommkxItJRXVsgH-BGBgP7uaIVtnwj4GY-OZvLB5CQPuxBP1F1kbyUum1Hxcb28brkyfwWHo2D8eMyPs5ZrYdlnK8AYFbiKh7mGs/s1600/MONSTROUS+AFFECTIONS+-+The+Pit+Heads+by+David+Nickle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="940" data-original-width="768" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRe_l7AQNcQ2fceOAO2nt8DXFh3hugg9f3b9gVH0WSommkxItJRXVsgH-BGBgP7uaIVtnwj4GY-OZvLB5CQPuxBP1F1kbyUum1Hxcb28brkyfwWHo2D8eMyPs5ZrYdlnK8AYFbiKh7mGs/s400/MONSTROUS+AFFECTIONS+-+The+Pit+Heads+by+David+Nickle.jpg" width="326" /></a></div>
I cannot say too much about the surprise, other than to say that this pen-and-ink drawing has a relationship to "The Pit-Heads," a story of mine that you can read for free over at The Devil's Exercise Yard website (<a href="https://sites.google.com/site/davidnickle/thepit-heads" target="_blank">right here</a>) and is a part of my 2009 collection <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Monstrous-Affections-David-Nickle-ebook/dp/B0779BQVBY/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=" target="_blank">Monstrous Affections.</a></i><br />
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I have a few new things coming out. "The Toy Mill," my very old story co-written with Karl Schroeder, is set to be reprinted in ChiZine's <i>The War on Christmas</i> anthology of twisted Christmas stories. This isn't the first time that "The Toy Mill" has been reprinted but it's the first time that it's illustrated, by me. Here is the first illustration (which will more than likely be printed in black and white but I present here in living colour).<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2Lh6SLYZKYoIK0iCXWgCGlNmoS9jPYLrFl5fQVpxArFlGn7WA_JDHu2xVfcx7z89KM5TezlM6a2HmVjPwK33cPMbnFHQDNWDPArBHpyyt4Hi5Q6S24Phf_-OxYMYu2rsPR-GcZPUznro/s1600/The+Toy+Mill+-+Colour+of+%2522Emily+gets+Her+Wish%2522.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1118" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2Lh6SLYZKYoIK0iCXWgCGlNmoS9jPYLrFl5fQVpxArFlGn7WA_JDHu2xVfcx7z89KM5TezlM6a2HmVjPwK33cPMbnFHQDNWDPArBHpyyt4Hi5Q6S24Phf_-OxYMYu2rsPR-GcZPUznro/s400/The+Toy+Mill+-+Colour+of+%2522Emily+gets+Her+Wish%2522.jpg" width="278" /></a></div>
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And later this summer, my story "On A Wooden Plate, On A Winter's Night" will appear in Eric J. Guignard's internationalist horror anthology, <i>A World of Horror</i>. I am very excited about this one: the anthology assembles horror storytellers from around the world; my story is representing Canada. Check it out, <a href="http://www.darkmoonbooks.com/world_of_horror.html" target="_blank">right here</a>.<br />
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And that is about it for now.<br />
<br />David Nicklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08072702212586811185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-866265970015944265.post-30731522340326101182017-10-06T11:58:00.002-05:002019-01-02T16:42:32.626-05:00Early VOLK reviews are in<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"...a political, psychological and philosophical allegory of remarkable depth and ambition: the most intellectually provocative horror novel of the twenty-first century." </span></span></blockquote>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxJQDm07iEsURHG8It7Az6qJ4sRDxgMc1zLpkdENmvkn9Un7Vltq1BZfY-Hds5J-IBtNzGV72NUtwlfOWxwO8WWUw_L276Mr7ITnU7-SUaBaVpRoEIs2V0c03gI0wib_QmXLct00m4OSU/s1600/CZP_VOLK_05.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1082" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxJQDm07iEsURHG8It7Az6qJ4sRDxgMc1zLpkdENmvkn9Un7Vltq1BZfY-Hds5J-IBtNzGV72NUtwlfOWxwO8WWUw_L276Mr7ITnU7-SUaBaVpRoEIs2V0c03gI0wib_QmXLct00m4OSU/s320/CZP_VOLK_05.jpg" width="216" /></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">That is a pull-quote, from Alex Good's review of VOLK: A Novel of Radiant Abomination (read the full review <a href="https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/reviews/2017/09/29/science-fiction-fans-the-latest-mind-warping-reads.html" target="_blank">here</a>) that went live at The Toronto Star on Sept. 29. It is more specifically, a hell of a pull-quote. I saw that very early in the morning it appeared, a week ago as of this writing, and it is one of four very good reviews for the book that've come out since its publication in September. So far, there have been no bad reviews. Of course, that could change at any moment, b</span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">ut for the time being, please let a happy and very relieved old hack bask</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;">, and pitch his new novel in the best possible light. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Here's a run-down of the other three reviews.</span></span></span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #1d2129;"><span style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A starred review in Publishers Weekly says of VOLK: "It is a dazzling horror novel that's unafraid to ask questions and leave some of them unanswered." </span></span></span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> (The full review's <a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781771484176?permamore" target="_blank">here</a>)</span></span></span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Hellnotes.com reviewer Gordon B. White writes: "<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">With multiple engaging protagonists, a unique antagonist, and a well-realized pre-WWII European setting, </span><span style="background-position: 0px 0px; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Volk</span><span style="background-color: white;"> picks up the story of Juke but shifts its focus away from the literal monsters to the humans that try to control them. It’s a bold, but natural progression for the story, with an ending that hints at much more to come." (<a href="https://hellnotes.com/volk-a-novel-of-radiant-abomination-book-review/" target="_blank">Here's</a> the full review)</span></span></span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">Paul StJohn Mackintosh says of Volk, at the wonderfully-named See The Elephant Magazine: "</span><em style="color: #383838; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Volk </em><span style="background-color: white; color: #383838;">is technically and intellectually very ambitious, and it succeeds on almost every level, including as good, intelligent entertainment</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #383838;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">." (Read it <a href="http://www.metaphysicalcircus.com/a-review-of-volk-a-novel-of-radiant-abomination-by-david-nickle/" target="_blank">here</a>)</span></span></span></li>
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<span style="color: #383838; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">These are all very good, and get my heart-rate and respiration back to normal in the nicest possible way. The reviews, and the fact that coterminously, Amazon seems to have copies in warehouse in both its U.S. and Canada iterations (<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Volk-David-Nickle/dp/1771484179%3FSubscriptionId%3DAKIAJBDF5XQBATGDX4VQ%26tag%3Dspea06-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D1771484179" target="_blank">here</a>, and <a href="https://www.amazon.ca/Volk-Radiant-Abomination-David-Nickle/dp/1771484179?SubscriptionId=0V4JT1H35KWYMF0SKQR2&tag=novelrankca-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1771484179" target="_blank">here</a>). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; letter-spacing: -0.11999999731779099px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>David Nicklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08072702212586811185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-866265970015944265.post-58907902458649313252017-09-10T10:54:00.003-05:002017-09-10T12:10:20.852-05:00Stephen King's IT and me: Some thoughts on second thoughtsI have a confession to make -- about something I've been carrying around for years, for at least seven years -- since I submitted the manuscript for <a href="http://chizinepub.com/eutopia/" target="_blank">EUTOPIA: A Novel of Terrible Optimism</a> to Brett Savory and Sandra Kasturi at ChiZine Publications.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy743FnF3NZULjs1G5v0LPY4N9RfpgDcqEfKxOpKH4HR-4ixvdHljRMw1KxBbH2IvucFdY5kkJg-Y9fBgvUGSbUnyBnwhOiLRT2NXt-dYcImKvwuY0DFC344iLM0jOeBwiDyprLgTjEJo/s1600/EutopiaCover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="474" data-original-width="316" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy743FnF3NZULjs1G5v0LPY4N9RfpgDcqEfKxOpKH4HR-4ixvdHljRMw1KxBbH2IvucFdY5kkJg-Y9fBgvUGSbUnyBnwhOiLRT2NXt-dYcImKvwuY0DFC344iLM0jOeBwiDyprLgTjEJo/s320/EutopiaCover.jpg" width="213" /></a>And it is this: in the original early draft, Jason Thistledown, one of the two dashing heroes of that novel, was considerably younger: fourteen years old, as opposed to the seventeen years old that he eventually became. When I made the call to age Jason, I went through the manuscript and as best I could, tweaked his dialogue and reactions to reflect those crucial three years of maturation. But it wasn't enough to fool a few readers, who noted that in many ways he seemed much younger than his age. For them, the switch weakened the character and pushed them out of the story. For the sake of the art of EUTOPIA, I probably should have left Jason as he was: a fresh-faced orphaned Montana farm boy, taken under the wing of his aunt in 1911 and hauled all the way to northern Idaho, to endure the horrors inflicted by early-20th-century eugenicists and also a terrible parasitic monster the eugenicists had named Mister Juke.<br />
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The only trouble was that horror and atrocity weren't the only reasons Jason was heading to Eliada, Idaho. He was also going to fall in love with a rich girl, and eventually have some sex with her.<br />
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Now bear in mind, there are a lot of creepy things going on in EUTOPIA. It is about eugenics after all: that means racism, ableism, genocide all sit front and centre. Mister Juke's nature and its effect on the population of Eliada would for many readers count as blasphemous. The N-word is peppered through the manuscript to a degree that while historically accurate, did open the book (and me, as the white writer who put it all down) to potentially damning criticism.<br />
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But it struck me at the time that even in that difficult company, a fairly explicit under-age sex scene was not something I could get away with, or even necessarily should attempt to get away with. So I could either cut the sex scene which I felt was crucial to the plot, or I could change Jason's age, which I thought I could swing more easily. And I chose the second plan.<br />
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I've been wondering about that decision, since the book came out. In a sense it was an artistic compromise -- but only in a sense, in that it was a compromise that no one asked me to make. It was entirely my call, in the course of finishing a final draft. <br />
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I've been wondering about it more intensely just lately. With the release of the film adaptation, I'm reminded that it was a compromise that Stephen King refused to make, in the middle 1980s, when he submitted and then saw published his magnum opus at the time, IT.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtEqDqVQMdxFo9CxZ7-CTZkuHNuKXD8gq8r6v5Qyx0HIXtgGnDahVu_NTRtJoTEdWAFStD2iS8Rwd0sIK0nwbZOJGTO8v-Cs-ensVi6rt1HV7iAPM-Q9ChPgzdaNgNSu2lyUm8cQ051OI/s1600/It_cover-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="442" data-original-width="302" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtEqDqVQMdxFo9CxZ7-CTZkuHNuKXD8gq8r6v5Qyx0HIXtgGnDahVu_NTRtJoTEdWAFStD2iS8Rwd0sIK0nwbZOJGTO8v-Cs-ensVi6rt1HV7iAPM-Q9ChPgzdaNgNSu2lyUm8cQ051OI/s320/It_cover-1.jpg" width="218" /></a></div>
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IT is about a group of kids -- four boys and a girl, on the cusp of puberty, who in the 1950s band together to combat an alien evil that lives in the sewers underneath the fictional town of Derry, Maine and regularly preys on the town's children. These children endure awful horrors at the oversized clown hands of the creature, Pennywise a.k.a. It, discovering crucial powers magically derived from their own weaknesses as they go. Finally, the girl, an abused tomboy named Beverly, uses her weakness-turned-power -- her gender, as the novel depicts it -- to empower herself and the four boys for one last push, by having sexual intercourse with each of them. The afterglow of pubescent sex is enough to save the day, if not quite the world (that comes later).<br />
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For a lot of readers (including myself at the time) that scene was enough to push them right out of the story. The novel is strong enough to survive the experience. And King himself feels strongly enough about the decision to defend it, even now as the film (without that scene) is in theatrical release.<br />
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In 2013 he wrote this (an argument that <a href="http://www.vulture.com/2017/09/stephen-king-statement-on-child-sex-in-novel-it.html" target="_blank">King told Vulture.com just recently</a> that he still stands behind):<br />
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<span style="color: #5a5a5a; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 16px;">"I wasn’t really thinking of the sexual aspect of it. The book dealt with childhood and adulthood –1958 and Grown Ups. The grown ups don’t remember their childhood. None of us remember what we did as children–we think we do, but we don’t remember it as it really happened. Intuitively, the Losers knew they had to be together again. The sexual act connected childhood and adulthood. It’s another version of the glass tunnel that connects the children’s library and the adult library. Times have changed since I wrote that scene and there is now more sensitivity to those issues."</span></blockquote>
That's an argument that <a href="http://io9.gizmodo.com/stephen-king-says-focus-on-that-creepy-it-sex-scene-is-1802958987" target="_blank">a lot of people aren't buying</a> -- particularly given the addendum he added when asked about it by Vulture:<br />
<span style="color: #111111; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #111111; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 16px;">“To it I’d just add that it’s fascinating to me that there has been so much comment about that single sex scene and so little about the multiple child murders. That must mean something, but I’m not sure what.”</span></blockquote>
This is a passive-aggressive addendum if ever there was one, and I'd hold it more against King if he hadn't otherwise gathered such strong progressive and feminist cred, through word and deed over many decades. He made an artistic choice in including that scene in IT, and he is standing behind it, and he makes the case that prurient interest in child murder might be just as indefensible as prurient interest in underage sex. I would apply the apples-for-oranges test to that one. The child murders aren't intended to excite anything but empathy for the victims and horror at the perpetrator, whereas the orgy-in-the-sewers is treated as at least redemptive and empowering -- invoking wish-fulfillment nostalgia about too-early sexual experience-- and at the worst, prurient and possibly titillating to pedophiles.<br />
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That said, I don't get a say in another writer's artistic choices. And even if I did, and I could somehow travel back in time and send editorial notes to the King residence in Bangor, I'm not sure what else could have been done to make the thematic points that King wanted to make with IT.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKj3D6HnwCwNTctMacd4QgA40nYmCx36BLGROJQrX7pRnzXWlD7Jp7VJjuJ1zXqQXWGyPiH_fUeSdsovA_TMWBsBFPAKRy2V0nRysc49sLd028n-zwHC_9TavG5ySzespSdg9vEYzpE98/s1600/15965479_10158173214990226_6855133628987193790_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="649" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKj3D6HnwCwNTctMacd4QgA40nYmCx36BLGROJQrX7pRnzXWlD7Jp7VJjuJ1zXqQXWGyPiH_fUeSdsovA_TMWBsBFPAKRy2V0nRysc49sLd028n-zwHC_9TavG5ySzespSdg9vEYzpE98/s320/15965479_10158173214990226_6855133628987193790_n.jpg" width="216" /></a></div>
But it has got me thinking about my own artistic choices. In EUTOPIA, I did include a lot of other ugly and triggering things: all those instances of the N-word; articulation of the ethical justification for eugenics and forced sterilization; and depictions of sexual violence to a degree that has again, been a bit much for some readers.<br />
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Seven or so years later, I've written EUTOPIA's sequel: <a href="http://chizinepub.com/volk/" target="_blank">VOLK: A Novel of Radiant Abomination.</a> It's out now (trickling into bookstores as I write this). And again, I've made some artistic choices. The N-word is still there in the pages, but not tossed with such abandon as it was in EUTOPIA. Part of that, of course, is that the book takes place in Europe, in 1931, largely but not entirely in Germany. There were other words then and there for denigrating black people. But as the world has marched from 2011 to the place it is today, I also felt less easy about using it even in a historically correct context. As King put it himself, "there is more sensitivity about those issues." Although really, there always has been: pedophilia and racism both.<br />
<br />
I didn't make any big changes draft to draft -- certainly not changes on the level of aging Jason Thistledown three years in order to keep a sex scene. The book is still filled with ugly eugenics, and shadows of genocide, a little bit of sexual violence... and of course, this time, card-carrying Nazis and their collaborators.<br />
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But honest: no explicit under-age sex at all. For the sake of the art of this one, there was no call for it.<br />
<br />David Nicklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08072702212586811185noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-866265970015944265.post-69730276381457117312017-08-14T16:02:00.003-05:002017-08-15T13:26:27.172-05:00Orlok: The prologue to VOLK<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxJQDm07iEsURHG8It7Az6qJ4sRDxgMc1zLpkdENmvkn9Un7Vltq1BZfY-Hds5J-IBtNzGV72NUtwlfOWxwO8WWUw_L276Mr7ITnU7-SUaBaVpRoEIs2V0c03gI0wib_QmXLct00m4OSU/s1600/CZP_VOLK_05.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1082" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxJQDm07iEsURHG8It7Az6qJ4sRDxgMc1zLpkdENmvkn9Un7Vltq1BZfY-Hds5J-IBtNzGV72NUtwlfOWxwO8WWUw_L276Mr7ITnU7-SUaBaVpRoEIs2V0c03gI0wib_QmXLct00m4OSU/s200/CZP_VOLK_05.jpg" width="135" /></a>As the release date grows nearer for VOLK: A Novel of Radiant Abomination, we offer a small treat: the entire prologue, which appeared in a slightly different form in my 2014 collection Knife Fight and Other Struggles.<br />
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The prologue takes us to a certain Munich beerhall, in the years after the War to End all Wars, by way of a peculiar Bavarian spa. It may contain a certain amount of Nazi punching.<br />
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It is called ORLOK, and it is <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/davidnickle/volk-a-novel-of-radiant-abomination" target="_blank">right here. </a><br />
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VOLK: A Novel of Radiant Abomination is available from ChiZine Publications (and all the usual sources) <a href="http://chizinepub.com/volk/" target="_blank">right here.</a>David Nicklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08072702212586811185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-866265970015944265.post-64888263739749952952017-07-22T16:01:00.000-05:002017-07-29T09:14:28.742-05:00Some early praise for Volk<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAeXyHa30Xfdlhkew0NZussxBs8Ghq3wqabyEDkQGN9w_66bq3IXMKldL6kXqxlIA7b5_Ug1idA5AihWvC7HLlrdEI1H-ZRN3Pt4GJNYA2OLHCiQNC_yzpS6p8Eg4BSMF0MoDy5Ark7SM/s1600/15965479_10158173214990226_6855133628987193790_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="649" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAeXyHa30Xfdlhkew0NZussxBs8Ghq3wqabyEDkQGN9w_66bq3IXMKldL6kXqxlIA7b5_Ug1idA5AihWvC7HLlrdEI1H-ZRN3Pt4GJNYA2OLHCiQNC_yzpS6p8Eg4BSMF0MoDy5Ark7SM/s320/15965479_10158173214990226_6855133628987193790_n.jpg" width="216" /></a>We are coming upon the day, now, when the new book drops. <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Volk-David-Nickle/dp/1771484179" target="_blank">VOLK: A Novel of Radiant Abomination</a></i> is slated to hit bookstores and mailboxes of those who pre-ordered August 22. And we have been busy, fixing typos and checking translations (this is the kind of book that has translations in it) and laying out pages. We have also been putting the manuscript in front of others, in hopes that they might like it enough to talk about it in blurbs.<br />
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<div>
It has been trickier doing this for VOLK than it is with most books, because <i>VOLK</i> is a sequel, to my first book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Eutopia-Terrible-Optimism-David-Nickle/dp/1926851110/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1500756944&sr=1-3" target="_blank"><i>EUTOPIA: A Novel of Terrible Optimism</i>.</a> So it's best to read the one before the other. And the odds that one writer will like two books is somewhat lower than the odds that a writer will like just one.</div>
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But we founds some! Here is some advance praise (as it will say at the front of the book) from some very cool writers:</div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">"David Nickle's compelling <i>Volk</i> extends and expands upon his <i>Eutopia: A Novel of Terrible Optimism</i>. In elegant, engaging prose, Nickle explores the darker highways and byways of the middle decades of the last century, when science joined hands with frightening ideology. It's the latest contribution to what is emerging as one of the truly substantial bodies of weird fiction in the early twenty-first century, and further cements David Nickle's reputation as one of the leaders of his generation of writers."</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">--John Langan, author of <i>The Fisherman</i></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"David Nickle's sequel to his eugenicist novel <i>Eutopia</i> switches the action to 1930s Europe, but jumping to a different continent doesn't mean the gruesome horror is about to diminish. <i>Volk</i> is a worthy book with plenty of secrets to unravel. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
--Sylvia Moreno-Garcia, World Fantasy Award-winning editor<br />
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"David Nickle's distinctive mastery of voluptuous horror makes for a sequel every bit as enthralling and disturbing as <i>Eutopia.</i>" </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
--Molly Tanzer, author of <i>Vermillion</i></blockquote>
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David Nicklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08072702212586811185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-866265970015944265.post-32585486155083908082017-02-25T13:10:00.000-05:002017-02-25T13:10:38.615-05:00Arrival at the Thorn farm: a VOLK preview<div style="background: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-top: 0.2cm; text-decoration: none;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Below: An excerpt from an early chapter of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Volk-David-Nickle/dp/1771484179/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1488046017&sr=1-1&keywords=VOLK+David+Nickle" target="_blank">VOLK: A Novel of Radiant Abomination</a> (due on bookshelves and from sellers in August 2017, from ChiZine Publications). This is a sequel to my 2011 novel, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Eutopia-Terrible-Optimism-David-Nickle/dp/1926851110/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=" target="_blank">EUTOPIA: A Novel of Terrible Optimism</a>. A lot of VOLK takes place in 1931, in a land far away from the northern Idaho mill town of Eliada and ten years after the events described in EUTOPIA. This bit, however, takes place immediately after those events.</span></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqfQ90a07de6JnzTMvAIxTXy_VAZXSikRFnPst1jKHb1sz2Erm-0xTpXijGditM9EzbU5ODrZL09L6W-qqwX7ZjSBDEOPNTYytWG5VVhgTwEmInIhG8wUuDg4NQ7XvnqUxuSy1xCIFPDI/s1600/CZP_VOLK_05.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqfQ90a07de6JnzTMvAIxTXy_VAZXSikRFnPst1jKHb1sz2Erm-0xTpXijGditM9EzbU5ODrZL09L6W-qqwX7ZjSBDEOPNTYytWG5VVhgTwEmInIhG8wUuDg4NQ7XvnqUxuSy1xCIFPDI/s320/CZP_VOLK_05.jpg" width="216" /></a><br />Death preceded that raft by two days. Corpses, bloated and blue, their clothing slick tatters, floated down the Kootenai from Idaho and more than half went past the Thorn farm. By Lawrence Thorn’s firm order, not one of them got fished out. His boy Tom had spotted the first one—a lady, face down with her Sunday finery blooming around her like a swirl of pale algae. By the time Lawrence’d come to see, there were four others: two men, a negro woman, and a corpse that’d encountered such obstacles that it was no longer possible to tell. The river-bank smelled worse than a privy. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Go back to the house,” Lawrence ordered him when Tom showed him. “This isn’t wholesome.”<br /> <br /> They weren’t wholesome, true enough. What Lawrence didn’t tell his boy was he feared they’d bring nothing but disease. Lawrence’s own father and mother had built the farm he owned in the very south of Alberta, and two seasons in, when he was but 12 years old, his mother had fallen ill and died. The dead folk in the river might’ve died like that and might yet carry the sickness.<br /> <br /> So he sent the boy inside, found himself a stout branch, did the work of dislodging the corpses as they caught in the river’s edge—sending them onward down river to whatever fate might have in store for them. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiAAD7XKo7SPiO2kTCx39cq6YXJGTDL3zaUVyyLsh3yVrjAzX4FmRzRVNyBMDO3FLWYED1Azij62fBZwfQDpKAL_ii3O4byMEZxbiRx4NpAwHOS9tyl4wPheg16ukBxOJWbDbJ2O30ke4/s1600/Eutopia_FINAL_%2528Nov-1-2010%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiAAD7XKo7SPiO2kTCx39cq6YXJGTDL3zaUVyyLsh3yVrjAzX4FmRzRVNyBMDO3FLWYED1Azij62fBZwfQDpKAL_ii3O4byMEZxbiRx4NpAwHOS9tyl4wPheg16ukBxOJWbDbJ2O30ke4/s320/Eutopia_FINAL_%2528Nov-1-2010%2529.jpg" width="213" /></a> The raft came after the main flow of corpses had passed the farm. It was in the afternoon, a grey day threatening rain, and by happenstance, old Lawrence Thorn was at the river-bank with his branch—checking to see what horrors the river’d washed up, and moving them along as best he could. He was in a state of some melancholy by that point, and full wondering whether he was doing right or wrong. His own family might be protected from disease, sure enough, but what of the souls of those dead in the river, that Lawrence had let pass by without so much as a prayer for their passage to Heaven, never mind a Christian burial? What about the farm-steads down stream? The Blackfoot reserves, for that matter? If the bodies carried sickness, wasn’t he just sending it onward? What a terrible coward was old Lawrence Thorn.<br /> <br /> It was in this temper, as the afternoon sun began to lower over the western mountains, that he spied the raft, with passengers on it, rounding the gentle bend in the river and appearing over some rocks.<br /> <br /> The raft itself sat too low in the water, and listed badly to the right, where a tall young man stood trying to keep it steady with a branch about as big as Lawrence’s. A woman sat up at the opposite end of the vessel, cradling another woman’s head in her lap. In the middle, a negro sat clutching something in his arms, looking unwell indeed. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
A day prior, Lawrence might have been a mind to wave them all on, tell them to find somewhere else to put to ground. But—as he later explained to Jason, and Dr. Andrew Waggoner and Nurse Annie Rowe, over the sleeping form of Ruth Harper that evening—his aching conscience would no longer allow that choice. </blockquote>
David Nicklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08072702212586811185noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-866265970015944265.post-72632624714635813832017-01-14T09:22:00.000-05:002017-01-15T13:57:43.562-05:00The Long Dream, and Caligari<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Last year was a good year for short story publications, as I may have mentioned, and I've talked up a lot of them. I want to come back to one for a moment: "The Long Dream," which is a story that was solicited by Joe Pulver, a little over a year ago, for his dream anthology, as it were, The Madness of Dr. Caligari. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">It is a very specific sort of anthology: the stories are all inspired by a famous and influential piece of cinematic art history, the groundbreaking expressionist horror silent, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. That is to say, it is a step up in specificity to a lot of the other tribute anthologies that editors--Joe included--have put together, where the brush can be applied more broadly: writers take on stories inspired by the work of Robert Chambers, or H.P. Lovecraft, or Robert Aickman. Stories can range pretty far from the source in tribute, as long as they genuflect in the source's direction. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">But mining a single work of art: that's something else. It's more a work of illumination. The product will be of necessity bound tightly with the subject matter... producing at its best, a kind of arms-length collaboration, or at the least, a decent piece of fan fiction.</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgig-awSLZFcMmk-i9xZpKM4iy4DHfGQpLmapAOWUo6XYAp2z2Ab3wvuPOSFtr96dF_CzdpiPqgl9ki3zv08IITvc2ztp_QBC8TgcDrOGydK71KRNI4xzxq0XAttbNRzMQoGOO9gJseWqI/s1600/Unknown-3.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgig-awSLZFcMmk-i9xZpKM4iy4DHfGQpLmapAOWUo6XYAp2z2Ab3wvuPOSFtr96dF_CzdpiPqgl9ki3zv08IITvc2ztp_QBC8TgcDrOGydK71KRNI4xzxq0XAttbNRzMQoGOO9gJseWqI/s1600/Unknown-3.jpeg" /></a><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I have some experience with putting together such a project. In 2015, my wife and I assembled a collection of stories about James Bond--in particular, James Bond as Ian Fleming conceived him. You couldn't get in if you didn't have something to say about that flavour of James Bond. There was some wiggle room. But not much. This was delicate work.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The constraints are even tighter with Caligari, and for that, more deliciously challenging. Robert Weine's 1920 film is a surrealist masterpiece, set in a town of hallucinogenic distortion, its characters portrayed with expressionistic bombast. The 'monster,' the oracular somnambulist Cesare, is singular in purpose and affect. The villain, Caligari, is a marvellous creep of an alienist, but like Cesare, entirely singular.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">But there was still wiggle room. Because while all the elements of this story are very singular--a zombie-like somnabulist, committing a series of proof-of-concept murders on behalf of the evil puppet-master Caligari--the context in which the film was made and released is vast. It is a film of and about Germany, fractured and broken after defeat in the First World War, and reanimating toward Nazism and the horrors of World War II. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">This is what interested me most: unsurprisingly, I guess, because I was working on the new novel, VOLK: A Novel of Radiant Abomination, which is set in very late Weimar-era Germany. I'd already done the research, and so in "The Long Dream," I applied some of it. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Madness of Dr. Caligari has more to recommend it than "The Long Dream." The Table of Contents that Joe assembled includes the work of an A-list of writers in horror and the Weird, kicking off with Ramsey Campbell and finishing up with Gemma Files. All of these writers dove deep into a dark, dreamy posthumous collaboration with Weine and Pulver--making a book that is in its way, just as singular a work. The publishers, Fedogan & Bremer, are just putting together a special hardcover edition signed by all of us, and I am told that's available for pre-order <a href="https://www.fedoganandbremer.com/products/the-madness-of-dr-caligari-slipcased-signed-limited-edition" target="_blank">here</a>. But hardcover, softcover, and e-book editions are also available, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Madness-Dr-Caligari-Ramsey-Campbell/dp/1878252720/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=" target="_blank">here</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">That is indeed a plug. I recommend picking this one up. But to give you an idea of what's in store, here's the opening passage from "The Long Dream."</span><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">In psychoanalysis as in all matters of scientific inquiry, it is too
often the case that our failures advance our knowledge better than
our successes. We can only truly take a measure of light by the
shadows which surround it. </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">.It is with this maxim in mind, gentlemen, that we begin our
discussion of the case of a most unusual and shall we say
enlightening patient of ours.<br />
We will call him Conrad.</span></blockquote>
<div style="text-align: center;">
* </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
Conrad was a tall well-formed youth of sixteen when he first came to
us. He complained of symptoms indicating anxiety and depression:
which is to say, he was prone to bouts of melancholy and
extraordinary lassitude. He was a vegetarian and loathed the touch of
meat, much as he would recoil from human contact. His speech
indicated a stutter. </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
Conrad was reading in Vienna, and was referred to us by one of his
tutors-- an Austrian veteran who had consulted here for compulsive
pederasty two years past and pronounced himself cured, prematurely in
our regard. Because of that, we at first suspected that the tutor's
sexual attentions were a root of Conrad's difficulties and our first
meetings delving in this direction. </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
Conrad claimed that his tutor had never touched him erotically,
either with his consent or in an act of rape, and neither had he done
to his tutor. Cesar described himself as a-sexual in orientation,
expressing a loathing for the fluids and touch of man and woman
alike. </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">We inquired as to his relations with his father and this seemed to
yield more. At first, Conrad claimed to never have met his father,
who died in the fields when he was but an infant. But when we asked
of his mother, Conrad said that his most vivid and earliest
recollection of her was in a carriage, at the side of a tall and
muscular gentleman with a bald head and a terrible scar across his
jaw-line who waved to Conrad before they set out along a road through
a thick wood. Was he his step-father? Or an uncle? Conrad was quiet
for a moment and stammered that no: he was his father. </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
“But you said your father died when you were young. </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
“An infant,” he said. </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
“This does not sound like the memories of an infant." </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
“No,” said Conrad, and his stutter became terrible as he
explained that he must have been five or six at youngest. </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
“Was it a photograph you saw?” we inquired, and at that, he shook
violently and held himself, drawing his feet from the floor and his
knees to his chest. We administered a small dose of chloral hydrate
and were able to calm Conrad sufficient that he might elucidate a
response. </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
It was not a photograph, gentlemen. It was, Conrad confessed, a
dream. </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
Although we did not apprehend it fully until many years later, the
dream was to be the crux of Conrad's neurosis, and was to become the
sole engine of our inquiry.</span></blockquote>
David Nicklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08072702212586811185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-866265970015944265.post-38308429592809221402016-12-26T17:57:00.001-05:002016-12-26T20:51:31.331-05:00The 2016 awards eligibility post. Awkward...<div>
Here is an awkward, year-end post of the sort you'll be seeing a lot of from author-types: the awards-eligible-stories-for-the-coming-year's-award-season post.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I don't normally do this. But while 2016 has been a terrible year for many things, it has been for me at least a pretty good year for short story publication. Even with two story sales falling through the cracks in publishing schedules, I've got five stories out this year that I'm proud to have my name on in all sorts of different ways. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I've mentioned each of these stories in blog posts throughout the year. But as the year draws to a close, I'm rounding them up here for posterity if not prizes.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
So here they are, for people looking for an excuse to nominate a David Nickle story or novelette, or just like clicking links: the eligible stories that I published in 2016, by category:<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Short Story: <a href="http://www.tor.com/2016/01/20/the-caretaker-david-nickle/" target="_blank">The Caretakers</a> at Tor.com; <a href="http://notesandqueries.ca/short-fiction/parable-cylinderby-david-nickle/" target="_blank">The Parable of the Cylinder</a>, at Canadian Notes & Queries; The Long Dream, in Joe Pulver's <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Madness-Dr-Caligari-Ramsey-Campbell/dp/1878252720/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=" target="_blank">The Madness of Dr. Caligari.</a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Novelette: <a href="http://www.congressmagazine.com/article/the-bicameral-twist/" target="_blank">The Bicameral Twist</a>, in Congress Magazine #1 (at once oh so not safe for work, and the only bona fide science fiction story by me for 2016); Jules and Richard in Ellen Datlow's <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Children-Lovecraft-Ellen-Datlow/dp/1506700047" target="_blank">Children of Lovecraft. </a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
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David Nicklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08072702212586811185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-866265970015944265.post-74949340413519880872016-09-30T07:05:00.000-05:002016-09-30T08:13:41.246-05:00Volk: A Novel of Radiant Abomination<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwaonW7vfMEykH7EkI4UVioNREsQGhfe5PLdVgvegPLvLjZ4C_eSiV7UQ2nlQSYbowepR1ggXaRK1Ene9nrDRaltyNbj5KuSegs66u9rU4e1yzPpohluEC86932rUWBNWWnDneB4QUf7k/s1600/CZP_VOLK_05.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwaonW7vfMEykH7EkI4UVioNREsQGhfe5PLdVgvegPLvLjZ4C_eSiV7UQ2nlQSYbowepR1ggXaRK1Ene9nrDRaltyNbj5KuSegs66u9rU4e1yzPpohluEC86932rUWBNWWnDneB4QUf7k/s400/CZP_VOLK_05.jpg" width="270" /></a></div>
<br />
This one's been a long time coming, and it's going to be a little bit longer: the sequel to my 2011 novel <a href="http://chizinepub.com/books/eutopia.php" target="_blank">EUTOPIA: A Novel of Terrible Optimism</a>*. The book is due out from ChiZine Publications a bit less than a year from now; the manuscript is not yet ready. But this week, my friend Erik Mohr delivered this cover--a to-my-eye spectacular iteration of the design that he supplied for the front of EUTOPIA.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8ye5dakkA8XLjizeT4DDJy3QTVd3MniPcFeVEYBT1wwAMhMxb1G0e08SueVhheVRHhV1eTv-AHB3dXH6zJ9ULUGLFE8OpuTs4MXvX2_7FSACkCjQGZKp9bKS8Dn5dfKnaeM634KlXrHw/s1600/EutopiaCover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8ye5dakkA8XLjizeT4DDJy3QTVd3MniPcFeVEYBT1wwAMhMxb1G0e08SueVhheVRHhV1eTv-AHB3dXH6zJ9ULUGLFE8OpuTs4MXvX2_7FSACkCjQGZKp9bKS8Dn5dfKnaeM634KlXrHw/s400/EutopiaCover.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>
<br />
By the time VOLK comes out, it will have been six years since that one, my first novel was published. For the people in EUTOPIA, it will have been a little longer: the story takes up 20 years later and a continent away, in France and Bavaria, in 1931.<br />
<br />
I can't show off much of that now, but back in 2014 I did offer a taste, at the back of my story collection <a href="http://chizinepub.com/books/knife-fight" target="_blank">KNIFE FIGHT and Other Struggles</a>: the prologue, "Orlok."<br />
<br />
Here's a taste of the taste, of the opening, which takes place a little earlier than 1931:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: black;">“</span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Was
he beautiful?”</span></span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;">As
though he had just registered his own nakedness at that instant,
Gottlieb blinked and covered himself.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"> </span><span style="color: black;">“</span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Beautiful?
No. He was compelling. Huge. Very muscular.”</span></span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span></span><span style="color: black;">“</span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">And
you were sexually attracted to him."</span></span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span style="color: black;">“</span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Of
course I was.”</span></span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;">The
doctor allowed a dozen beats of the metronome before he spoke the
obvious: “He was not like you.”</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"> </span><span style="color: black;">“</span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">No.”</span></span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;">Gottlieb
was grasping at his penis. The doctor made no attempt to disguise his
observation of that fact and noted with satisfaction that Gottlieb
didn’t seem to care. He was as guileless as a babe then. Could a
metronome tick triumphantly? The doctor let it, twice more.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"></span><span style="color: black;">“</span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Describe
to me the ways he was like you.”</span></span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;">Gottlieb
drew a deep breath and turned to the windows. They were open a crack
to clear the air from the morning’s session, and the sweet smell of
apple blossom wafted in. The doctor was used to the smell—this was
a room in which he spent a great deal of time—but he noted it,
along with the flaring of Gottlieb’s delicate nostrils.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"> </span><span style="color: black;">“</span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">How
was he like you?” asked the doctor again.</span></span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span></span><span style="color: black;">“</span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">I
don’t really know,” said Gottlieb. “I didn’t know him for
very long.”</span></span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span></span><span style="color: black;">“</span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Anything.”</span></span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span></span><span style="color: black;">“</span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">All
right. He was German like me. And he was my age.”</span></span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span></span><span style="color: black;">“</span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">How
old were you then?”</span></span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;">The
slightest frown. “Twenty-two.”</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;">The
doctor looked again to the window. A conversation was drifting in
along with the apple blossom scent. Two of the girls—Heidi and
Anna? Yes. He recognized Anna’s lisp, and she and Heidi were
inseparable. Ergo . . .</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">They
weren’t too distracting—they would barely register on the
recording. If they lingered, or became silly, he would have to stand
and shut the window, and risk disturbing Gottlieb. But the pair were
on their way somewhere, and within four ticks of the metronome were
gone. The doctor settled back.</span></span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span></span><span style="color: black;">“</span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">His
hair was brown,” said Gottlieb. “Like mine too.”</span></span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;">Three
ticks.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"></span><span style="color: black;">“</span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">And
he was homosexual,” said Gottlieb.</span></span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;">Four
more ticks now.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"></span><span style="color: black;">“</span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">But
not like me.”</span></span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span></span><span style="color: black;">“</span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Tell
me how he is not like you.”</span></span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span></span><span style="color: black;">“</span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">As
to his homosexuality?”</span></span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span></span><span style="color: black;">“</span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">If
you like. Yes.”</span></span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span></span><span style="color: black;">“</span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">He
is a masculine force. He looks at me and causes me to feel as if . .
. as if I am not. Not masculine.”</span></span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;">The
doctor smiled. The last time Gottlieb had spoken of this moment, he’d
immediately denied his homosexuality. They were progressing very
well, at least as measured against their stated objective of delving
into Gottlieb’s neurosis. The doctor started to reach for a pencil
where his breast pocket would have been, but stopped himself and
settled his hands back in his lap. He spoke quietly, calmly, in
rhythm. Like a lullaby. “He is looking at you now,” he said.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;">Tick.
Tick.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;">Gottlieb
flushed and, as his hand came away from his penis, the doctor was
pleased to see it was flushed too.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"> </span><span style="color: black;">“</span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">In
the beer hall, yes?” said the doctor.</span></span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;">Gottlieb
stretched his slender legs on the chaise longue, and his eyelids
fluttered shut. A breeze from the window lifted the drapes, and
raised gooseflesh as it passed. The air in the beer hall would not
have been so fresh as this alpine breath.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"></span><span style="color: black;">“</span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">In
the Bürgerbräukeller,” said Gottlieb.</span></span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span><span style="color: black;">“</span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">What
does it smell like?”</span></span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span></span><span style="color: black;">“</span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Many
things. Food . . . there is a basket of schnitzel nearby. There is
some smoke. I mean from tobacco. And the whole place stinks of old
beer. Of course. Men have been drinking beer all day.”</span></span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;">The
doctor waited until it seemed as though Gottlieb might drift off to
sleep, before prodding:</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"></span><span style="color: black;">“</span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Where
is he?”</span></span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;">Gottlieb
smiled. “He is leaned against a pillar. By himself, across the hall
from me. He is a very ugly man—his eyebrows meet in the middle of
his forehead, so it seems he is scowling into his beer mug.”</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "timesnewromanpsmt" , serif;">The
doctor shifted in his chair. The towel he’d placed on the leather
cushioning had moved, and in the warmth of the day the bare skin of
his buttocks was sticking there. But he fought to contain his
discomfort, his growing impatience. The metronome ticked seven times
more before Gottlieb was ready to continue.</span></blockquote>
<div class="western" lang="en-US" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
*Coincidentally, the second printing of EUTOPIA has just recently arrived. The first printing in 2011 was unusually large, because of an unusually large death-bed order from the late Borders chain, but it is finally all gone. It should be noted that this second run is NOT the illustrated version that I promised earlier this year. That will be coming out later, a little closer to VOLK's release.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />David Nicklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08072702212586811185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-866265970015944265.post-16581181144135609002016-09-28T07:09:00.000-05:002016-09-28T07:09:53.071-05:00The Trump Man<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqIAP0-aXixDPoZpMBRaBZzUCMI6YPRFA99RjQYIyGVohwauc3CDVSC9AC0Z11Eb0jh6mqHwsoy0nS1j_3qhkLsXlIBuEq1jRkNQc_v7hjIFMPzScv5Hjejotm64xsI8-5RaGIf71AVrk/s1600/12347768_10156420111205226_9207610735042550047_n-1.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqIAP0-aXixDPoZpMBRaBZzUCMI6YPRFA99RjQYIyGVohwauc3CDVSC9AC0Z11Eb0jh6mqHwsoy0nS1j_3qhkLsXlIBuEq1jRkNQc_v7hjIFMPzScv5Hjejotm64xsI8-5RaGIf71AVrk/s400/12347768_10156420111205226_9207610735042550047_n-1.jpg" width="258" /></a><br />
<br />
This image came to me a couple months shy of a year ago, when the Republican Party primaries hadn't had much of a start. An anonymous fan with photoshop had whipped this up and posted it on Reddit, and another fan had sent it to me. How did I feel about it? What is the word for a feeling of flattered delight reaching a crescendo while throwing up in one's mouth? That.<br />
<br />
After watching the first debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, I found myself thinking back to that picture, and realized that I'd never given it the place it deserved here in the Yard.<br />
<br />
It is, of course, a play on the cover of this book, <a href="http://chizinepub.com/books/monstrous-affections.php" target="_blank">Monstrous Affections</a>:<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb-rJAAnktHagoeOCqPCIp9_XIwJl5cLzNoEEZqP5JW8k1sQfHHiJIay-3kpzKzRlhqwvop_VmcwD6Y3MA7gbJ1e-KfGAW-bhW9AcvtrkSOM16PKuTFBLWzWNJYte7DvAf-HZfI8-pTi4/s1600/my+comp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb-rJAAnktHagoeOCqPCIp9_XIwJl5cLzNoEEZqP5JW8k1sQfHHiJIay-3kpzKzRlhqwvop_VmcwD6Y3MA7gbJ1e-KfGAW-bhW9AcvtrkSOM16PKuTFBLWzWNJYte7DvAf-HZfI8-pTi4/s1600/my+comp.jpg" /></a></div>
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And it is illustrative, in more ways than one, of my short story "The Sloan Men," which leads off Monstrous Affections and is also available to read <a href="http://"The Sloan Men" David nickle" target="_blank">right here</a>. </div>
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I hope this helps.</div>
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<br />David Nicklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08072702212586811185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-866265970015944265.post-22737582998115530682016-09-21T07:37:00.000-05:002016-09-21T07:50:42.275-05:00Children of Lovecraft rides out!We've talked about this before at the Yard: my novelette "Jules and Richard," and its inclusion in Ellen Datlow's Children of Lovecraft anthology--with its all-star lineup of weird writers, its Mike Mignola cover, its editorial pedigree. Well. Dark Horse has let it free this week, and its available all sorts of places: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Children-Lovecraft-Various-ebook/dp/B01IA68K6G" target="_blank">Amazon</a>, <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/children-of-lovecraft-ellen-datlow/1123178237" target="_blank">Barnes & Noble,</a> <a href="https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/children-of-lovecraft/9781506700045-item.html" target="_blank">Chapters-Indigo</a>.<br />
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<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXRM8_x_PKdFvEfjtnF3g6Zegkr024EGV53wez4ab_lamoWsgQlOre2IFVAeRl67TFXBSzOI1CZqgDKewMgYMMEaZhpgI2ry70OUCoDS5sONkPTJiFuy6FPPvAjavV7JEwI8Mf0N06OlA/s1600/29115.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXRM8_x_PKdFvEfjtnF3g6Zegkr024EGV53wez4ab_lamoWsgQlOre2IFVAeRl67TFXBSzOI1CZqgDKewMgYMMEaZhpgI2ry70OUCoDS5sONkPTJiFuy6FPPvAjavV7JEwI8Mf0N06OlA/s320/29115.jpg" width="210" /></a>When Ellen invited me to submit to the anthology, she made the premise very clear: she was looking for stories that were inspired by Lovecraft without pastiching him. No tentacles, was I believe a direct commandment.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Well, there's no tentacles in "Jules and Richard," although it does take a pretty direct stab at one of Lovecraft's more famous stories (not necessarily a Cthulhu Mythos piece). So yeah, no tentacles.<br />
<br />
But Ellen didn't say anything about avoiding bicycles. And so, I did take a rather more direct inspiration from my single most serious bike accident a few years back, that did a real number on my shoulder, and also my dignity. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
With that in mind: Here's the first bit--the bit about bicycles--of "Jules and Richard." </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“<span style="font-size: 12pt;">I was crossing back
there...”</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Jules pointed, with his good
arm, to the intersection a dozen meters to the east, just beyond the
tangle of his once reliable old commuter bike: “… and as I was
building up speed--”</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“<span style="font-size: 12pt;">--over you went,” she
said.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Over I went, said Jules. He
thought about it a moment, his mishap. “Stupid. I was checking to
make sure I had my glasses in my pocket.”</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Did you?”</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“<span style="font-size: 12pt;">I did.”</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“<span style="font-size: 12pt;">You don't have them now
though.”</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“<span style="font-size: 12pt;">They fell out,” said
Jules.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Ah. Over there.”</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">The glasses had fallen into
the shadow of the exhaust pipe of a parked van. Jules couldn't see
them, but she rose to fetch them and returned them to Jules. They
were new glasses and they weren't cheap.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">He put them on, and blinked
at his rescuer.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Funny. I thought you were
older,” he said, and immediately apologized. “I'm a little shaken
up,” he explained. </span></blockquote>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<br />
Well, it was pretty scary at the time...<br />
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</div>
</div>
David Nicklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08072702212586811185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-866265970015944265.post-28876445142874195822016-08-05T09:02:00.000-05:002016-08-05T09:02:02.663-05:00H.P. Lovecraft and meActor and dad Leeman Kessler stopped by Toronto earlier this summer with his beautiful family, and of course the resuscitated shade of H.P. Lovecraft. We met up at a local pub on the Danforth for a chat and a drink, and somehow the conversation got around to exsanguination.<br />
<br />
This happens more often than you might think.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zKUYGhzN5gQ" width="100%"></iframe>David Nicklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08072702212586811185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-866265970015944265.post-17884650524896777042016-06-29T08:22:00.000-05:002016-06-29T08:22:10.462-05:00"The Parable of the Cylinder"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<br />
A couple of months ago, Canadian Notes & Queries published my story "The Parable of the Cylinder," in their Spring 2016 "Games" issue. It's a story about Russian roulette strategies, and religion, and following from both of those, a discussion of the ramifications of turning the other cheek. It was also hard-ish to find, particularly for international readers. But now CN and Q has put the story online.<br />
<br />
Here's the first bit:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>You not been to one of these. I’d remember if you had, even if you stayed at the back of the trailer, hiding your eyes as you do . . . pretty little brown-haired girl like you, with that tattoo’d crucifix right there . . . though I don’t remember everything with my cracked-up noggin as it is, so maybe I’m wrong . . . but you’d have made an impression, looking like you do. </i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>So how’d it go way back when, in those bad times before the Lord set us on the straight road and our Ministry was proper begat? Gather ‘round, gather ‘round, you and your little ones in tow, and I’ll lay it out for you.</i></blockquote>
You can read the rest of it, right here at CNQ's website:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://notesandqueries.ca/short-fiction/parable-cylinderby-david-nickle/" target="_blank">"The Parable of the Cylinder"</a>David Nicklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08072702212586811185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-866265970015944265.post-70784926739050125442016-06-17T09:25:00.001-05:002016-07-02T15:19:28.349-05:00"The Bicameral Twist" and "The Long Dream"There will be at least two more stories out from me this year, it looks like. Maybe three, possibly four. If the fourth happens, I count seven new stories in different venues for 2016, which for me is a pretty big haul.<br />
<br />
One of those stories is available now in Molly Tanzer's amazing new journal of thoughtful and well-plotted erotica, <i>CONGRESS</i>. You can check out the first issue <a href="http://www.congressmagazine.com/" target="_blank">here,</a> containing my story "The Bicameral Twist." It is pretty smutty and properly tawdry, but also, I am proud to say, definitively within the genre of hard science fiction ("The Bicameral Twist" is neuro-porno, not Beltway porno). With the rise of Chuck Tingle at the Hugos this year, I am preparing my acceptance speech for 2017.<br />
<br />
In the fall, I'm pleased to say that my story "The Long Dream" will be among a very impressive list of contributors in Joe Pulver's Cabinet-of-Dr.-Caligari tribute anthology <i>The Madness of Dr. Caligari.</i><br />
<br />
Here's the very stellar table of contents:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Ramsey Campbell – “The Words Between”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Damien Angelica Walters – “Take a Walk in the Night, My Love"</span><br />
Rhys Hughes - "Confessions of a Medicated Lurker"<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Robert Levy – “Conversion”</span><br />
Maura McHugh - "A Rebellious House"<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">David Nickle – “The Long Dream”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Janice Lee – “Eyes Looking”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Richard Gavin – “Breathing Black Angles”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">S.P. Miskowski – “Somnambule”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Nathan Carson – “The Projection Booth”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Jeffrey Thomas – “The Mayor of Elementa”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Nadia Bulkin – “Et Spiritus Sancti”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Orrin Grey – “Blackstone: A Hollywood Gothic”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Reggie Oliver – “The Ballet of Dr. Caligari”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Cody Goodfellow – “Bellmer’s Bride"</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Michael Griffin – “The Insomniac Who Slept Forever”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Paul Tremblay – “Further Questions for the Somnambulist”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Michael Cisco – “The Righteousness of Conical Men”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Molly Tanzer – “That Nature Which Peers Out in Sleep”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Daniel Mills – “A Sleeping Life”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">John Langan – “To See, To Be Seen”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Gemma Files – “Caligarism”</span></blockquote>
</blockquote>
<div>
These two stories ("The Bicameral Twist" and "The Long Dream") will join "<a href="http://www.tor.com/2016/01/20/the-caretaker-david-nickle/" target="_blank">The Caretakers</a>" (<i>Tor.com</i>), "The Parable of the Cylinder" (<i>Canadian Notes & Queries</i>) and "Jules and Richard" (<i>Children of Lovecraft</i>) in definitively-scheduled 2016 titles.<br />
<br />
There are two others that might or might not come out this year. Whether it's this year or next, though... you'll hear about them here.</div>
David Nicklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08072702212586811185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-866265970015944265.post-45277840477638936272016-03-07T10:32:00.001-05:002016-03-07T12:06:24.373-05:00Jules and RichardI'd been vague-blogging this one in the last post about "The Caretakers," which thanks to editor Ellen Datlow was up at Tor.com in February. Now I'm proper-blogging, that my novelette "Jules and Richard" will be appearing in Children of Lovecraft, again thanks to editor Ellen Datlow, who invited me to a party with a bunch of first-class weird writers, in a book with a cover drawn by Mike Mignola.<br />
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<div>
<div>
Here's Ellen's announcement:</div>
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<i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I’ve finished Children of Lovecraft, a new, all original anthology coming from Dark Horse Books this September:</i></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #464545; font-family: Geneva, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Table of Contents:</b><br />
Nesters by Siobhan Carroll<br />
Little Ease by Gemma Files<br />
Eternal Troutland by Stephen Graham Jones<br />
The Supplement by John Langan<br />
Mortensen’s Muse by Orrin Grey<br />
Oblivion Mode by Laird Barron<br />
Mr. Doornail by Maria Dahvana Headley<br />
The Secrets of Insects by Richard Kadrey<br />
Excerpts for An Eschatology Quadrille by Caitlín R. Kiernan<br />
Jules and Richard by David Nickle<br />
Glasses by Brian Evenson<br />
When the Stitches Come Undone by A.C. Wise<br />
On These Blackened Shores of Time by Brian Hodge<br />
Bright Crown of Joy by Livia Llewellyn</div>
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Cover below by <a class="profileLink" href="https://www.facebook.com/mike.mignola" style="-webkit-transition: color 0.2s linear; color: #535353; transition: color 0.2s linear;">Mike Mignola</a></div>
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<img alt="" src="https://i0.wp.com/ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51pjR-nHmML._SX326_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-color: white; background-image: none; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: repeat repeat; border: 1px solid rgb(226, 216, 186); height: auto; margin: 0px; max-width: 99%; outline: 0px; padding: 3px; vertical-align: baseline;" />image by Mike Mignola via Amazon</div>
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David Nicklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08072702212586811185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-866265970015944265.post-85077177143222500352016-01-24T21:42:00.002-05:002016-01-25T08:20:09.894-05:00The Caretakers (and other business)<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhsPUUe3cm-KljkNbTmHWszN2ey8sj5MKk8P2XOT6Bw-bCuft303zYO9ytD_M_lBflYRO8svlUj9zgZVcpmyOJ1dIKbaJcSkjyMU_Eb9PhQNzudGoNxQJtDRFVd4yUo4RF5jx0PP83BRQ/s1600/12279178_10156398090235226_340311212916833709_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhsPUUe3cm-KljkNbTmHWszN2ey8sj5MKk8P2XOT6Bw-bCuft303zYO9ytD_M_lBflYRO8svlUj9zgZVcpmyOJ1dIKbaJcSkjyMU_Eb9PhQNzudGoNxQJtDRFVd4yUo4RF5jx0PP83BRQ/s320/12279178_10156398090235226_340311212916833709_n.jpg" width="213" /></a>Call this an all-purpose post, to talk about stories arrived and upcoming. First up: "The Caretakers," a short story that's a big deal for me, as it's up at Tor.com now, thanks to the good graces and editorial acumen of Ellen Datlow, and also the graphic genius of Greg Ruth.<br />
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It is a strange little story, in the manner of Robert-Aickman-strange, and you can read it by clicking<a href="http://www.tor.com/2016/01/20/the-caretaker-david-nickle/" target="_blank"> right here</a>.<br />
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And happy news: Eutopia: A Novel of Terrible Optimism, has finally outsold its improbably large print run, which means, happily, that there is a second edition coming out. But it's not just a second edition. This one will feature illustrations by my late father, Canadian landscape painter Lawrence Nickle. This has great meaning for me, as you might guess. Lawrence's work--and more importantly, his approach to working--was a signpost to me for many years. And his good-humored delving into the macabre (really, against what he understood his nature to be) was one of the greatest gifts he gave me in his lifetime. I'm delighted to see his work more widely distributed than the collectable editions that appeared at the book's 2011 debut.<br />
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Here are a couple to wet your whistle on:<br />
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There are more stories coming out in 2016, too: "The Parable of the Cylinder," in Canadian Notes & Queries, and "Murder on the Prurient Express," in Unspeakable Horror 2: Abominations of Desire. There's at least one more, the details of which I can't yet reveal, and if I can stick the landing, then as many as three more past that...<br />
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So it could be a pretty good year for David Nickle short stories, if that's your bag.<br />
<br />David Nicklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08072702212586811185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-866265970015944265.post-31274542255146744222016-01-17T07:00:00.000-05:002016-01-17T08:43:05.949-05:00The Draughtsman's DaughterI've never written much fan fiction--not intentionally; I always had a sense that whatever my influences, they should stay influences. So if I thought well of Ian Fleming's stories, I should take lessons from them in a new work rather than writing a story about James Bond. If I enjoyed Kurt Vonnegut... I should probably just recall his moral sensibilities and sense of wit, rather than try and write a story about Kilgore Trout.<br />
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But once... about 20 years ago, Michael Skeet and I sat down to write a story about Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.<br />
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Those are the two characters that Fritz Leiber made, along with his sometime-collaborator Harry Fischer--a couple of sword-fighting rogues, one tall and strong and thoughtful from up north, another small and fast and clever, good with magic spells, from the south. The stories were classic sword and sorcery, a more debonaire take on the kinds of things that Robert E. Howard was doing with Conan the Barbarian a decade or so earlier.<br />
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If you're of a certain age, of a certain predilection, you'll know the guys I'm talking about. They were thugs, and rogues, and drinking buddies--mostly drinking buddies--two dudes in a life-long bromance, long before the term entered the parlance.<br />
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And in that spirit, about 20 years ago, Mike Skeet and I made a go of what has turned out to be a piece of Fafhrd-and-the-Gray-Mouser fanfic.<br />
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It wasn't planned that way. A long-ago publisher had put out the word that the estate of Fritz Leiber was opening up the characters for an anthology of new stories set in Leiber's imaginary universe of Nehwon. And we thought we'd make a go of it, try our hands at a genre--Sword & Sorcery--that we'd never tried. There was other business: a play on early aviation, a cheeky twist on the Arts & Crafts movement, a bit of Victorian sauce that might've gone well in The Pearl...<br />
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The anthology never materialized--at least not to our knowledge--and we never heard back one way or another in any case. And so our story, "The Draughtsman's Daughter," languished on our hard drives for what has turned into decades. It's safe to say that this story's not ever going to sell, or make us money. It is safe to say that at this point, it's fan fiction--a transformative work based on the stories and novels of Fritz Leiber.<br />
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With all that in mind, we thought we'd share it: <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/davidnickle/the-draughtsman-s-daughter" target="_blank">right here</a>.<br />
<br />David Nicklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08072702212586811185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-866265970015944265.post-67915010086505832972015-12-17T00:30:00.000-05:002015-12-17T00:30:00.527-05:00Marriage, Butchery... and Joy<div class="tr_bq">
It has been two months now since Madeline Ashby and I tied the knot. We had our wedding at a place in Toronto called The Forth -- a restaurant and event space that opened up not too long ago at Pape Avenue and Danforth Avenue in the east end of Toronto. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqeqH8884wTTcuv2Q7Ai848d0dXDuivqZpWlJ8LT2Jd8L5GfCj59ffiwxXgLqqGWK_tkBpFvhttB4wrhKtyJv_FwU5BaQz2YnqGXSjaUijqPyDEJvm7Mp-fwxRIHt6COBMQtERdLM6HrI/s1600/Madeline+%2526+David-191.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqeqH8884wTTcuv2Q7Ai848d0dXDuivqZpWlJ8LT2Jd8L5GfCj59ffiwxXgLqqGWK_tkBpFvhttB4wrhKtyJv_FwU5BaQz2YnqGXSjaUijqPyDEJvm7Mp-fwxRIHt6COBMQtERdLM6HrI/s320/Madeline+%2526+David-191.jpg" width="213" /></a><br />
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We picked the venue first because it was irresistibly lovely, but second for sentimental reasons: we had spent a year living just around the corner from it, in a tiny, perfect apartment on top of the Ellas Meat Market--itself, a very fine butcher shop on Pape just a few steps south of Danforth. We'd bonded well with the guys who ran Ellas, and also learned to appreciate well-marbled prime rib, properly-raised chicken, good bacon. But mostly, we bonded with those guys at Ellas. We charmed each other, and became like family. Enough like family that we connived our way into their spotless, gleaming meat locker for some wedding photos (by <a href="http://kayleighshawn.com/" target="_blank">Kayleigh Shawn McCollum</a>). Here are three of the best ones.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8B7v0l4-9SF_LKkZn2M3PNjQC9K_O0pjxwYRfFfqZRUnqnri1Ws0v9cqsbVi7wBczfxmkW_oLenlxRUVSl6dFHks9sZyc5mM4VAI-ZoieNaoSD2iZoWZ-Gqu5rP5c0uHCWZEjFxH3-3E/s1600/Madeline+%2526+David-246.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8B7v0l4-9SF_LKkZn2M3PNjQC9K_O0pjxwYRfFfqZRUnqnri1Ws0v9cqsbVi7wBczfxmkW_oLenlxRUVSl6dFHks9sZyc5mM4VAI-ZoieNaoSD2iZoWZ-Gqu5rP5c0uHCWZEjFxH3-3E/s400/Madeline+%2526+David-246.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYYd6fX83hVyX-hiq_j2vSGDQ-PzYLPUZm6-SoUr2-bv9nWysn3-RxJByA900OGN9A3pjRGvA8AhY8UNOJ1Moa1wTwjx2NfkHtuoP4pbRiZIyoXIbWR1ApMB-sYlOJopu6q55LDfEoSu4/s1600/Madeline+%2526+David-248.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYYd6fX83hVyX-hiq_j2vSGDQ-PzYLPUZm6-SoUr2-bv9nWysn3-RxJByA900OGN9A3pjRGvA8AhY8UNOJ1Moa1wTwjx2NfkHtuoP4pbRiZIyoXIbWR1ApMB-sYlOJopu6q55LDfEoSu4/s400/Madeline+%2526+David-248.jpg" width="266" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT0h-LzhgIDxzk13C1jTo033XLIerSE27Df2sqAw1TqzPqqXWCaol55pVX75Ju0To8pvq4JIqSMlyOm82wNKsdSIFJvvMBsh3GtjG50Kvc-CMatWsgV-vPHF2H-Fra-SutEY9X93M6iKw/s1600/Madeline+%2526+David-261.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT0h-LzhgIDxzk13C1jTo033XLIerSE27Df2sqAw1TqzPqqXWCaol55pVX75Ju0To8pvq4JIqSMlyOm82wNKsdSIFJvvMBsh3GtjG50Kvc-CMatWsgV-vPHF2H-Fra-SutEY9X93M6iKw/s320/Madeline+%2526+David-261.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
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That's us. Just married, crazy in love, whooping it up in the chilly fridge over which we once slept and ate and lived, really on top of one another, for a year before we found a bigger place, and through it all continued to build a life and love together that might also be a marriage.<br />
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The guys at Ellas have the middle picture hanging over their cash register. They're delighted for several reasons: first, that as it turns out their meat locker has enough light to take pictures like this (they were sure that it didn't), and second, that their friends and former neighbours thought they were a big enough deal to include them in a wedding (of course they are).<br />
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They are also delighted at the weirdness of it all.<br />
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The weirdness of it all is something that Madeline and I have been living for years, and one of the genuine joys of our life together. We came to one another at inconvenient times, later on in life when it might have been easier for both of us to continue in directions that would have been well-enough functional, but not nearly sufficiently joyful.<br />
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We didn't take the easy course. We took the course together--as collaborators in life and art, and again, life. It was worth it.<br />
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Oh yes, it was worth it.<br />
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We're writers, which meant that we couldn't go in for those stock, generic vows you find on the internet or in some dog-eared volume of the <i>Complete Idiot's Guide to Getting Hitched</i>. Of course we were going to write our own vows.<br />
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We were a little competitive about it. I had mine figured out early on, and lorded that over her. Madeline, realizing it was <i>on</i>, wiped the floor with my little missive and wrote <a href="http://madelineashby.com/?p=1846" target="_blank">this stunning, tear-jerking, set of vows.</a><br />
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This is going to happen, writers out there, when you marry so far above your writerly station. It is okay. When your partner wins, it doesn't mean you lose. The vows that you wrote and then spoke are still maybe the truest and best things you have written, and ever said.<br />
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Here then is what I wrote, and what I said on October 17 at the Forth:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>Madeline, my love,
here we are—at a major way-point in our improbable journey to one
another. I say improbable, in the way one describes magical
coincidences, miraculous discoveries. We have come from different
countries, different generations, and from very different lives. Of
course, the only improbabity was in our meeting: everything after
that was clear before us and took only courage of heart to make
manifest. Madeline, in this and so many other things, you have
inspired me and through that prodded me to courage, and growth, and
of course great love.</i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i> And here we are.
Today. Making vows.</i></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<i>Here are mine. </i></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<i>I vow many of the
things one vows in a marriage: to love you first and always, to
honour you, to stand by you through thick and through thin, to if not
obey, then consider, and co-operate, and concede, to … to do all of
that through as long a life as we have. I vow these now. </i></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<i>But I want to add to
that, and vow something else. </i></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<i>Joy. </i></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<i>Madeline, I vow to
wed you in joy, and to sustain that joy through all of the matters of
a marriage. Some of that will be easy. Days like today? Joy is a
breeze. The October Festival of Horror Films; the launch of books
together and on our own; prizes; parties; happy surprises. Joy comes
with that. </i></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<i>There are times
where joy doesn't come easily, though, and that's where the vow comes
in. </i></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<i>I vow that when
circumstance tempts us to despondency, or grief, or disappointment: I
will do all in my power to kindle the flame of joy and build it into
a roaring fire. I will do that if we ourselves are on fire. Although
I also vow to clean out the lint trap in the drier and turn off the
stove when I'm done and mind the barbecue, so fires will be very
unlikely to occur in any house where we are living. </i></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<i>Now that was a
cheesy joke in the midst of solemn vows, but it is also an example of
one way I will strive to keep joy in our lives and our marriage, so
no apologies.<br />
<br />There are other ways
to keep joy alive for us both, some of which I have figured out (like
Horror Film Festivals, trips to strange places, cats, talking about
our writing, Korean barbecue and the perfect steak) and a great deal,
I think, yet to be discovered. I vow to be on the lookout for those
ways, to a joyful life. I vow to bring them out when gloom
encroaches, and drive it back.<br />
<br />I vow joy. </i></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<i>I want nothing less
for us, nothing less for you. We are off to a very good start of it:
And I vow to you, Madeline my love, to take that joy through all of
it, and leave nothing but joy in our wake.</i></blockquote>
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And that was that, on October 17, two months ago today. It made for a good, easy party afterward. It will make for a very good life.</div>
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<br />David Nicklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08072702212586811185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-866265970015944265.post-47307964731034912042015-08-24T07:56:00.001-05:002015-08-29T11:18:37.976-05:00Mentioning the War: some thoughts in the wake of NecronomiCon 2015It has been a year less a day now, since I wrote this piece, <a href="http://davidnickle.blogspot.ca/2014/08/dont-mention-war-some-thoughts-on-hp.html" target="_blank">Don't Mention the War</a>, whinging about the difficulties I'd experienced, getting people to talk about H.P. Lovecraft and the racism that informs a lot of his fiction, and also taking a few steps to argue the case that this was so. I guess there was a bit of Zietgeist going on--because the year that followed proved me utterly wrong on at least the first point.<br />
<br />
Don't Mention the War went a bit viral. Boingboing picked it up, Salon made a note of it, Disinformation reblogged it. And I got what I asked for: some good discussions on Lovecraft's racism. Anya Martin, who programmed the World Horror Convention in Atlanta, asked me to moderate a panel on Lovecraftian racism there. In Sweden this summer, I led a round-table discussion on the topic as a guest at SweCon. And this past weekend in Providence, Rhode Island, I sat on a panel talking about exactly that, at NecronomiCon, a bi-annual convention celebrating and examining the work of H.P. Lovecraft. Niels Hobbs, one of the convention organizers, invited me to that one too.<br />
<br />
All the discussions were good and thoughtful--the sorts of talks I'd hoped to be able to take part in. The NecronomiCon talk was that, but also an attempt at a healing affair. At the convention's opening ceremonies (which due to some transportation glitches I missed), editor Robert Price made a speech. <strike>I've heard about its contents but haven't been able to verify them by seeing the text or hearing a recording.</strike> I just saw a youtube video of the speech, in which Price praises Lovecraft's xenophobia as it pertains to "Jihadists" and "the advance of the hordes of anti-Western anti-rationalism to consume a decadent Euro-centric west." He goes on to describe this state of affairs as "the real life 'Horror at Red Hook" (the Horror at Red Hook being one of Lovecraft's more openly racist stories). Suffice it to say it caused Niels and the Lovecraft Arts & Sciences Council to issue the following statement:<br />
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OFFICIAL STATEMENT:<br />
The Lovecraft Arts & Sciences Council, organizers of NecronomiCon Providence 2015, would like to make it known that we unequivocally repudiate any form of racism, bigotry, xenophobia, and sexism, regardless of what the disreputable views were of a man now dead over 75 years. Lovecraft's literary legacy lives on, and we wish to continue to promote that globally, but we will do all that we can to counter his more vile personal views. They are NOT ours.<br />
Equally, we are committed to moving the weird fiction and art community further into the 21st Century and making our corner of it one that is clearly welcoming of ALL. We work hard at this, but clearly we need to work harder.<br />
<a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"tn":"*N","type":104}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/stopthehate?source=feed_text&story_id=925825060810631" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;"><span aria-label="hashtag" class="_58cl" style="color: #627aad;">#</span><span class="_58cm">stopthehate</span></a><a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"tn":"*N","type":104}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/blacklivesmatter?source=feed_text&story_id=925825060810631" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;"><span aria-label="hashtag" class="_58cl" style="color: #627aad;">#</span><span class="_58cm">blacklivesmatter</span></a><a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"tn":"*N","type":104}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/notoleranceforjerks?source=feed_text&story_id=925825060810631" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;"><span aria-label="hashtag" class="_58cl" style="color: #627aad;">#</span><span class="_58cm">notoleranceforjerks</span></a><a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"tn":"*N","type":104}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/necronomiconpvd?source=feed_text&story_id=925825060810631" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;"><span aria-label="hashtag" class="_58cl" style="color: #627aad;">#</span><span class="_58cm">necronomiconPVD</span></a><a aria-label="Like or comment as one of the Pages you manage." class="_4z8- _55pi _2agf _4z8- _55pi _4jy0 _4jy3 _517h _51sy _59pe _42ft" data-hover="tooltip" data-reactid=".5h" href="https://www.facebook.com/#" style="-webkit-box-shadow: none; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-image: none; background-position: 0px -21px; border-bottom-left-radius: 2px; border-bottom-right-radius: 2px; border-top-left-radius: 2px; border-top-right-radius: 2px; border: 1px solid transparent; box-sizing: content-box; color: #627aad; cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; font-weight: bold; line-height: 22px; max-height: 22px; max-width: 200px; padding: 0px 8px; position: relative; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: rgb(255, 255, 255) 0px 1px 0px; vertical-align: middle; white-space: nowrap; word-wrap: normal;" type="button"><span class="_55pe" data-reactid=".5h.1" style="display: inline-block; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; vertical-align: bottom;"><i class="img sp_-e0kEDPCYsX sx_489055" data-reactid=".5h.1.0" height="16" style="background-image: url(https://fbstatic-a.akamaihd.net/rsrc.php/v2/yd/r/acNd-cSTdHq.png); background-position: 0px -252px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: auto; bottom: 1px; display: inline-block; height: 16px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 16px;" width="16"></i></span></a></blockquote>
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So we talked about Lovecraft's racism, which is a matter of history and record, and we also talked about the racism that continues to assert itself among contemporary readers and followers. It was not easy going--particularly when, toward the end of the panel, a woman in the audience identifying as Hispanic called us all out: beyond apologizing, she asked, what were we doing about it?<br />
<br />
Now I had been going along this past year, thinking that talking about it was the same thing as doing something about it. Patting myself on the back for that whinging blog post, with its title riffing on a bit of funny dialogue from Fawlty Towers.<br />
<br />
But you know something about all those talks? With a few exceptions, they were all conversations among white, privileged people in the U.S. and Northern Europe, about the extreme racism and xenophobia of a dead white writer. They were conversations that may not have consciously excluded the people of colour who Lovecraft so consistently libelled, but nonetheless didn't really manage include them.<br />
<br />
That question--what are we doing?--was one for which we didn't really have a good answer. My fellow panelist Mexican-born author and editor Silvia Moreno-Garcia has done a great deal and<a href="http://www.silviamoreno-garcia.com/blog/necronomicon/" target="_blank"> promised in her own blog to do more</a>, helping fund a writer of colour attending the 2017 event. Niels talked after the panel about perhaps expanding NecronomiCon to focus on more diverse authors of weird fiction than the one from Providence who's rightly or wrongly credited as a progenitor of the weird. I can try and continue to bring a progressive voice into the mix when I write about Lovecraftian themes in the sequel to my eugenics horror novel Eutopia.<br />
<br />
So what to do about Lovecraft? More talk. More words on paper. And a lot more listening.<br />
<br />
Addendum, August 26: Here is a video recording of the panel:<br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ViSSsBrkWU0?rel=0" width="560"></iframe>David Nicklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08072702212586811185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-866265970015944265.post-7192096435047758032015-07-23T10:46:00.001-05:002015-07-23T11:16:06.212-05:00Licence Expired: The Unauthorized James Bond has a Table of Contents<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-caUd4R13nTcc2038fI7434p9yXNjxgdxBNtn-2pG5DoGYMNUj1r74F3Kobw47EVcfye9kmq4Bhj_307Um2PRV-qNDAU6uKUaWmjmx2bCSlAPm7FFuYmOGGp20rWdgKxUf9EAp7jqLX4/s1600/JamesBond_04.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-caUd4R13nTcc2038fI7434p9yXNjxgdxBNtn-2pG5DoGYMNUj1r74F3Kobw47EVcfye9kmq4Bhj_307Um2PRV-qNDAU6uKUaWmjmx2bCSlAPm7FFuYmOGGp20rWdgKxUf9EAp7jqLX4/s400/JamesBond_04.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>
We are one step closer to the world's first unauthorized but completely legal James Bond anthology today: here is the table of contents for LICENCE EXPIRED: The Unauthorized James Bond. There are 19 stories altogether from fantastic writers. My co-editor and partner Madeline Ashby has written <a href="http://madelineashby.com/?p=1827" target="_blank">more about the road we've traversed so far at her own blog</a>--so I will be brief.<br />
<br />
This is going to be a fantastic collection. There are stories here that inhabit the space between the novels Fleming wrote and stories that take James Bond on a wing to undiscovered lands; stories that dig deep into the more problematic elements of the James Bond mythology (the still-shocking sexism, racism, and sadism) and stories that are almost as shocking for their raw humanity. The stories are sensual, and propulsive, and often, very, very funny. I can't imagine anyone wanting to miss it. <br />
<br />
Because of the discrepancies in international copyright law, it will only be available for purchase in Canada, where copyright is extended 50 years past an author's death. That may not last long--there are rumors coming out of the Trans Pacific Partnership negotiations that Canada will be asked to extend copyright protection from 50 to 70 years--but we're confident any legislative changes won't beat our November 17 2015 publication date.<br />
<br />
They better not. Because this, if I say so myself, is an extraordinary lineup. <br />
<br />
• Forward by Matt Sherman
<br />
• Introduction: The Bitch is Dead by David Nickle
<br />
• “One Is Sorrow” by Jacqueline Baker
<br />
• “The Gale of the World” by Robert J. Wiersema
<br />
• “Red Indians” by Richard Lee Byers
<br />
• “The Gladiator Lie” by Kelly Robson
<br />
• “Half the Sky” by E.L. Chen
<br />
• “In Havana” by Jeffrey Ford
<br />
• “Mastering the Art of French Killing” by Michael Skeet
<br />
• “A Dirty Business” by Iain McLaughlin
<br />
• “Sorrow’s Spy” by Catherine McLeod
<br />
• “Mosaic” by Karl Schroeder
<br />
• “The Spy Who Remembered Me” by James Alan Gardner
<br />
• “Daedelus” by Jamie Mason
<br />
• “Through Your Eyes Only” by A.M. Dellamonica
<br />
• “Two Graves” by Ian Rogers
<br />
• “No Mr. Bond” by Charles Stross
<br />
• “The Man with the Beholden Gun: an e-pistol-ary story by some other Ian Fleming” by Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer
<br />
• “The Cyclorama” by Laird Barron
<br />
• “You Never Love Once” by Claude Lalumière
<br />
• “Not an Honourable Disease” by Corey Redekop
<br />
• Afterword by Madeline Ashby<br />
<br />
For more info, check out ChiZIne Publications' LICENCE EXPIRED website, <a href="http://chizinepub.com/books/license-expired" target="_blank">right here.</a>David Nicklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08072702212586811185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-866265970015944265.post-76087540001154174502015-06-21T05:00:00.000-05:002016-02-08T23:29:26.521-05:00Art Lessons<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvt49GIh3bj4XjxvCI4JuBteQ_sc-oLDynO0TRwAYVEE8dZAuj26O1fZvsvVxXnm7wJ_kTWbmO6CKXtHXlK0f4I9bDqG7kFj_IFygSE_sXo7tewhPDMo8FYdn-AMNrfp8HWlwmFDvxzZ0/s1600/Lawrence+Nickle+photo+by+Liz+Lott.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvt49GIh3bj4XjxvCI4JuBteQ_sc-oLDynO0TRwAYVEE8dZAuj26O1fZvsvVxXnm7wJ_kTWbmO6CKXtHXlK0f4I9bDqG7kFj_IFygSE_sXo7tewhPDMo8FYdn-AMNrfp8HWlwmFDvxzZ0/s320/Lawrence+Nickle+photo+by+Liz+Lott.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lawrence Nickle, 1931-2014, photo by Liz Lott</td></tr>
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It's funny the things that pre-occupy one on Father's Day. In the best of worlds, the day would be spent talking, hanging out, maybe a bit of tippling with the old man.<br />
<br />
But that is not the world we inhabit today. My father, Lawrence, died just a few days into 2014. He was 83, which is not a bad time to die if you're finished with things, but as bad a time as any if you're not, quite yet.<br />
<br />
Dad spent his life marrying and divorcing--twice for each--and lovingly raising the boys that came from those marriages--one from each. He also painted. Dad was a professional artist, and a single-minded one. He painted in the mode of the 20th-century Canadian art movement of the Group of Seven, <i>en plein air</i>, which is to say outdoors and in sight of his subject.<br />
<br />
By the time of his death, he was touted as one of the last of the<i> en plein air</i> painters. It was no wonder that he was: for decades in the Canadian art world--the decades that Dad was working in his prime--<i>en plein air</i> didn't get much respect. It was representational and illustrative... decorative and old-fashioned... apolitical, except maybe to the extent that it celebrated the natural world in the time of strip mining and urban sprawl. People did buy Dad's paintings--he was able to make a solid living at it--but they weren't celebrated; Jackson Pollock he was not.<br />
<br />
In Kleinberg, Ontario, there is a private art gallery that collects and celebrates the Group of Seven: the McMichael Collection. It is a sprawling log structure that reminds one of a James Bond villain lair, as might exist if <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Thomson" target="_blank">Tom Thomson</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._Y._Jackson" target="_blank">A.Y. Jackson</a> ever conspired on dreams of world domination. I vividly recall an excruciating visit there with Dad in the 1970s, when I was very small. Dad had an appointment with the curator, to pitch a special exhibition of his work. It seemed like a good bet: he was working in the Group of Seven tradition, and he thought his work compared well with some of the works on display there.<br />
<br />
It was, alas, not to be. The problem, said the curator, was that my father's work compared too well with the museum pieces already on display. If they were to do a special exhibit at that museum dedicated to <i>en plein air</i> painters, it would not be the work of an artist who had dedicated himself to such an antique mode of artistic expression.<br />
<br />
I don't recall exactly what we did after that failed pitch. We probably drove into Toronto to go to the Royal Ontario Museum or the Ontario Science Centre or the Sam the Record Man's record store, or one of the other places that Dad and I went on our weekend visits (this was some time after divorce #1). What I absolutely don't recall is seeing my father Lawrence in a toxic rage at the utter disrespect the curator had shown to the artistic discipline that he had spent his own life honouring. However he filled the rest of the day, it involved the steady business of being a good and loving father--and the day after that for him, the various tasks associated with being as good a painter as he could be.<br />
<br />
Which brings me around to what turns out to be my preoccupation this Father's Day: the Sad Puppies, the Rabid Puppies, the Hugo Awards and the attempted ongoing boycott of TOR.<br />
<br />
A lot of words have been blogged and tweeted and Facebook'd refuting the arguments of a crowd of writers who maintain that "social justice warriors" have taken over science fiction and fantasy's Hugo Award and so marginalized the kind of old-school space adventure stories that they write and like to read. These writers and fans have chosen to retaliate to this imagined slight by campaigning to have works they prefer on the Hugo ballot. There is a nasty hard-right-wing tone to the whole business, and the stink of vendetta hangs over it all--particularly surrounding the 'boycott,' which demands the firing of TOR's artistic director Irene Gallo for some comments she made and the punishment of various TOR employees for comments they've made.<br />
<br />
I keep looking over that last paragraph to make sure I've got things right and included all the twists and turns in this so-very-public narrative, but I have to keep reminding myself the details are ever changing and not, as far as I'm concerned, what is at the core of this.<br />
<br />
What is then? To my mind, it is a seething resentment that every artist (or prospective artist) feels when it becomes clear that their work is not receiving the respect they feel it is due.<br />
<br />
Lawrence Nickle knew something about that. His work sold steadily but unspectacularly. In lean years, he would cut back on expenses--and generally worked to live as far off the grid as he could, so as to keep those expenses low no matter what. He worried during recessions that people might be simply giving up on original art. But his response was always the same: to go out and make more paintings.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by Liz Lott</td></tr>
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<br />
He didn't care to self-promote. I remember asking him in the early years of the internet why he didn't get a website, and seek out interviews in newspapers, and do other things that artists at the time were doing. He told me that he felt he had a choice: he could devote himself to promotion, or to painting. He chose painting.<br />
<br />
It is not that Lawrence was without envy or above pettiness. He had a real, not-always-quiet contempt for quite a few of his peers in the art world, who he relentlessly held to his own aesthetic and vocational standards even when they may not have been all that relevant. His gender and race politics were, shall we say, inconsistently progressive at best. He was a reformed-Baptist-turned-Atheist and had harsh and unkind words for believers.<br />
<br />
For that, I don't think he even conceived of tearing down the careers of artists working in the abstract or hyper-realist or minimalist or surrealist modes that had supplanted his niche. I think he would have seen public complaint as a kind of admission of failure. And allowing that sort of admission would have been first, horribly demoralizing; and second, inaccurate. Smart collectors paid good money for his work, and cultivated his friendship, and if they painted themselves (as many did), benefited from his mentorship.<br />
<br />
And most importantly, he made paintings like these:<br />
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It seems to me that the life of my father Lawrence is a good example to bring up right now, in this very political culture war about what is at its root, an art form. The point of doing art, to paraphrase <a href="http://www.uarts.edu/neil-gaiman-keynote-address-2012" target="_blank">Neil Gaiman</a>, is to make good art. It is not to chase awards, or other sorts of validation; it is not to look enviously at those who do receive those awards, who bask in that validation, and try to supplant them through forces democratic or otherwise.<br />
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It would be naive to say that such things don't happen in communities of proper artists. They do, again and again, and are happening now in this science fiction and fantasy community of proper artists.<br />
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But I think my father would have said that the behaviour of the Puppies whether sad or angry, is the one sure sign of their not being proper artists. He would take it as a vulgar sign of weakness. It would earn his quiet but certain contempt.<br />
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<br />David Nicklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08072702212586811185noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-866265970015944265.post-53262967795666898382015-04-03T11:02:00.000-05:002015-04-03T11:02:24.432-05:00We don't want you to talk. We want you to submit.You thought we were just monologuing when we said we'd be doing an anthology of unauthorized James Bond stories? Hah. Not so. LICENCE EXPIRED: The Unauthorized James Bond is open for unsolicited submissions, until the end of May. Madeline Ashby, my co-editor and other things too, have already got a couple of stories in the bag (and they are corkers) but we're looking for more. The deal, as you've heard here before, is straightforward as defusing a nuclear warhead: write stories under 5,000 words about James Bond as Ian Fleming wrote him. But DON'T CROSS THE WIRES and write about any of the movies or subsequent books. That is because as things stand today, Fleming's work is in public domain in Canada, but not in most of the rest of the world. Your story, if selected, will therefore only be published in Canada (unless we can convince the holders of the rights to allow publication elsewhere). But you will have written a story about James Bond. And you know you've always wanted to.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Any more questions 007? <a href="http://chizinepub.com/guidelines/licence-expired" target="_blank">Here's the full dossier</a>. You can read it on the plane.</div>
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David Nicklehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08072702212586811185noreply@blogger.com0