Hawk the Slayer

Co-written by novice director Terry Marcel and legendary Hammer composer Harry Robertson (The Oblong Box, The Vampire Lovers, Twins of Evil) and born out of their shared love for sword and sorcery novels, 'Hawk the Slayer' crams every Tolkien and Robert E. Howard trope it can afford - a witch, an elf, a dwarf, a suspiciously ungigantic giant, a magic sword and massed armies of several - into it's £600,000 budget (of which star Jack Palance was reportedly paid a sixth) to create a ridiculously fantastic travesty of a movie that personally I have a bit of a soft spot for.  

The storyline is essentially a thinly disguised riff on The Magnificent Seven with the six shooters swapped for swords and bows and with the action relocated to a chilly, dry ice drenched park in Buckinghamshire.  Obviously made with an eye to the international market the producers cast two Americans in the leads, the aforementioned Palance and debutant action hero John Terry and they are both, well, they're both pretty terrible.  Of the latter it's perhaps kindest to say that he's ineffectual and wooden and way out of his depth but would mature into roles in 'The Living Daylights', 'Full Metal Jacket' and 'Lost' whilst the former gives a scenery chewing performance of epic awfulness.  Acting around them we have a troupe of reliable Brit supporting actors such as Carry on... staple Bernard Bresslaw (who would return to the fantasy genre again three years later in Krull), One Foot in the Grave's Annette Crosbie, Patricia Quinn (The Rocky Horror Picture Show), Harry Andrews (Theatre of Blood), Patrick Magee (The Skull) and Roy Kinnear (The Bed Sitting Room) all of whom do much of the heavy lifting and keeping admirably straight faces.

Released at a time when fantasy movies of this sort were extremely thin on the ground and when interest in the fantastical was hitting fever pitch in the wake of Star Wars, Hawk was a box office bomb but one that quickly acquired a devoted fan following and whilst no sequels were ever made (until Garth Ennis' 2022 comic series) it has been credited with triggering the flurry of similar movies that followed in it's wake such as Dragonslayer, Excalibur, Conan the Barbarian, The Beastmaster and the aforementioned Krull to name just a few.

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.

The War Hound and the World's Pain

Michael Moorcock
New English Library

"The forest flourished, a lush and spreading refuge from the Wars, coolly green and welcoming. Beyond its borders the land burned flame red, blood red, ghastly black. Men and women, hacked to death, choked the paths and streams as the Armies of Religion clashed and slaughtered. Carrion-hung gibbets loomed starkly through the smoke and all the land was desolate. The forest was a refuge. Yet silent, utterly silent and without life, as through it wearily rode the War Hound, Graf Ulrich von Bek. To come suddenly on a castle."

This is the story of Ulrich Von Bek and his quest for the grail at the behest of his master Lucifer who has tired of Hell and wishes to return to a state of grace.

Von Bek is a soldier of the 100 year war, a mercenary captain of some skill but no reknown.  Finding his way to a deserted castle he meets his love and acquires an insight into the fate of his soul and a bargain that would enable him to avoid it.

In the great fantasy tradition this is a quest book but one that is more travelogue than most.  We are subjected to little, very little, of the tedious hacking and slashing and girding of loins that generally comes with the territory and in it's place is a tour of the worlds that Bek must traverse and a meditation on just what the grail is when he eventually finds it.

It makes for an enjoyable read for a non fantasy head like me.  There are links to the Elric books in the manner of the world - not to mention the Elric / Ulrich hint - but strangely for a book about Heaven and Hell and all points in between this is a much more grounded read than I was expecting and is all the better for it.

Buy it here - UK / US.

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.

Lud-in-the-Mist

Hope Mirrlees
Gollancz

Lud-in-the-Mist - a prosperous country town situated where two rivers meet: the Dawl and the Dapple. The latter, which has its source in the land of Faerie, is a great trial to Lud, which had long rejected anything 'other', preferring to believe only in what is known, what is solid.
Nathaniel Chanticleer is a somewhat dreamy, slightly melancholy man, not one for making waves, who is deliberately ignoring a vital part of his own past; a secret he refuses even to acknowledge. But with the disappearance of his own daughter, and a long-overdue desire to protect his young son, he realises that something is changing in Lud - and something must be done.

I first read Lud-in -the-Mist about a decade ago having finally tracked down a copy after years of searching.  I'd first heard of it many years ago via Neil Gaiman but in those pre-internet days had started to think of it is an author's fiction; a dream book from Morpheus' library or a grand deception to send wannabe bibliophiles into a frenzy of futile furtling. And then I found one newly reprinted as part of the Gollancz Ultimate Fantasies sequence alongside more well known fantasy stallwarts suich as Conan, Elric and Lyonesse.

My first read all those years ago revealed to me that it was an intriguing but achingly slow read that I soon began to think of as Lud-in-the-Mud.  Truthfully though it just wasn't the right book for me at the time. I'm very much a whim reader and I follow my moods when choosing a book to read which often leads to me getting stuck in particular genres for a while. At that time I was reading lots of neo-noir, southern gothic and beat literature by folks like Charles Willeford, Barry Gifford, Harry Crews and Richard Brautigan so a delicate and very English fantasy about faeries written in 1926 proved a tad slow.

A decade on and whilst all those authors mentioned - particularly Brautigan - still have a place on my shelves my whims have since led me down the paths that spurred me to start the Wyrd Britain blog and so it was time for another visit

Lud-in-the-Mist, the principal town of the state of Dorimare, is a merchant town situated at the confluence of the rivers Dapple and Dawl and it is the former of these that lies at the heart of Lud's problems as it rises in the land of Faerie far to the west and it brings the madness of the fruits of that land.

The story sends the mayor of Lud on a journey across Dorimare and beyond in his search for answers to the misfortunes that have beset him and along the way, as is to be expected, he learns new truths and new values.

The book is a gentle read that finds it's conflict in the contrasts of the stolid and unimaginative middle class of the town and the wild, carefree, lawlessness of the faeries with Mirrlees laying her sympathies right in the middle and so the story becomes one of finding a way of life that embraces both law and anarchy, industry and art. 

And one of my first impressions was right, the book is slow but that's definitely to its advantage.  It's a gentle river along which one can float whilst sampling it's bounty of fairy fruit.

Buy it here - UK / US.

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.

Elric

Michael Moorcock
Grafton

Elric the albino emperor of Melnibone an island of decadent elven-ish sorcerors has long been the most beloved of Michael Moorcock's creations.  Armed with his black soul-eating sword Stormbringer  Elric is one of the aspects of Moorcock's Eternal Champion charged - whether they like it or not - to maintain the balance between order and chaos across the multiverse.

Apart from the first book (published in 1972) the stories were originally published in the pages of Science Fantasy magazine in the early 1960s as a series of novellas and then collected together into the series of books below with their iconic Michael Whelan covers in the 1970s.

My partner bought me the almost set of the Grafton Elric books for Xmas after we found them in a junk shop last November.  It was unfortunately missing the first book and it's taken me several months to track a copy down.  I've long had a hankering to re-read the full series and once I finally had the set in my hands I dove right in and read the lot in a week and thought I'd lay them all on you in one go.

............................................................................

Elric of Melnibone

This is the tale of Elric, later called Womanslayer; of his love for Cymoril and of the rivalry with his cousin Yrkoon, a rivalry that was to bring the Dreaming City crashing in flames, destroyed by the reavers of the Young Kingdoms.
Elric, red-eyed, albino, the inheritor of waning powers, his strength precarious, sustain by arcane drugs. A hero seemingly unfit for his role. His story treats of monstrous emotions and high ambitions, of sorceries and treacheries, agonies and fearful pleasures - an adventure that Elric was to remember on in his darkest nightmares.

Elric, the fey albino king of a fading island power, Melnibone, is beset by challenges on all sides.  From without by the humans of the 'young kingdoms' jealous of Melnibone's wealth and vengeful for its past despotism and from within by his covetous cousin Yrkoon who believes Elric unfit to rule and it is he who drives the story.

As Elric strives to foil the usurper we are introduced to mythology that feels real and which is lacking in the tedious cod-Arthurian / Robin Hoodisms that make much fantasy literature such a bore.  The Chaos Gods seem suitably quixotic without being tediously evil and even at this early point there feels to be a fully developed and complete vision of all levels of the world.

The story itself is fairly slight and tells quite a straight forward story but that's not the joy here.  The joy is the invention and the bold vision that has created so singular a character as the albino king.

............................................................................

The Sailor on the Seas of Fate

Leaving his cousin Yrkoon sitting as regent upon the Ruby Throne of Melnibone, leaving his cousin Cymoril weeping for him and despairing of his ever returning, Elric sailed from Imrryr, the Dreaming City, and went to seek an unknown goal in the world of the Young Kingdoms where Melniboneans were at best, disliked.

After rescuing Cymoril and rather stupidly placing his treacherous cousin on the throne of Melnibone Elric begins his year long odyssey to try and understand the new world.  Unfortunately fate has other plans for him as he finds himself aboard a strange boat alongside other incarnations of the Eternal Champion, Erekose and Corum.  It's a quest book but one with a bit of a difference as Elric is a truly unwilling participant especially after events take on a bafflingly cosmic turn.

The second of the trio of tales here is by far the weakest.  Indeed in the time between reading the book and writing this review I had completely forgotten about a large section of the story where Elric and his new companion Smiorgan rescue a young girl who may or may not be the reincarnation of someone from an ancient Melnibonean myth from someone who was actually there.

The book ends strongly with a journey into the history of Elric's race as he accompanies explorers to his race's ancestral homeland.  Again the story is a pretty linear journey, a from points A to B sort of deal, but one that feels like a crucial step in the development of the overarching story.

Another fun instalment with a not unenjoyable middle section buoyed up by the two very enjoyable tales either side of it.

............................................................................

The Weird of the White Wolf

"We must be bound to one another then. Bound by hell-forged chains and fate-haunted circumstance. Well, then - let it be thus so - and men will have cause to tremble and flee when they hear the names of Elric of Melnibone and Stormbringer, his sword. We are two of a kind - produced by an age which has deserted us. Let us give this age cause to hate us." 
Imrryr, the dreaming city; Yyrkoon, the hated usurper; Cymoril, the beloved... all had fallen to the fury and unearthly power of the albino prince and his terrible sword. An Elric faced at last the fate that was to be his in this haunted era - that he must go forth, sword and man as one, and havoc and horror would be forever at his forefront until he found his Purpose that was yet obscured to him.

The third Elric book finds him suddenly heading back to Melnibone all tooled up with an army of Young Kingdom fighters at his back to exact revenge on his cousin who had been just as awful a ruler as everyone except Elric had predicted.  The raid has typically tragic consequences but a depressed Elric is soon drawn into another quest.

This time out he again tangles with the minions of chaos and makes a friend in the shape of Moonglum a cheerful little chappie who provides a perfect foil to Elric's morose nature.

Like the previous book this is essentially several novellas detailing adventures along the way of Elric's life which makes them fast and fun to read as they refuse to allow themselves to get bogged down and instead revel in their pulpy glory.

............................................................................

The Vanishing Tower

Elric of Melniboné, proud prince of ruins, last lord of a dying race, wanders the lands of the Young Kingdoms in search of the evil sorcerer Theleb K'aarna. His object is revenge. But to achieve this, he must first brave such horrors as the Creatures of Chaos, the freezing wilderness of World's Edge, the golden-skinned Kelmain hordes, King Urish the Seven-fingered with his great cleaver Hackmeat, the Burning God, the Sighing Desert, and the terrible stone-age men of Pio. Although Elric holds within him a destiny greater than he could ever know, and controls the hellsword Stormbringer, stealer of souls, his task looks hopeless - until he encounters Myshella, Empress of the Dawn, the sleeping sorceress.

The fourth of Moorcock's Elric novels continues the albino's pursuit of the of the magician who had plagued him in the previous volume.  This time across the three novellas that make up the book Elric battles him at the world's end, in the city of the beggars and in Tanelorn the eternal city beyond the battle between chaos and order.

We get to meet several aspects of the Eternal Champion - Corum and Erekhose - and learn slightly more regarding Moonglum and the nature of his link to Elric.

As ever Moorcock delivers a super fast and very readable romp filled with hacking and slashing and soul stealing which is, as always, great fun.

............................................................................

The Bane of the Black Sword

Elric returns to Yishana, and finds peace at last. Meanwhile, at the world's rim, dragging red horror in its wake, a horde unimaginable moves on the fabled, gentle, impossible city Tanelorn.

Continuing directly on from the fourth volume Elric is once again being plagued by the twin threats of the sorcerer Theleb K'aarna and his spurned once lover Queen Yishana a reckoning with whom brings the albino back in contact with the remnants of his former people.

The second story finds the albino falling rapidly in love with a stranded maiden, Zarozinia, in the hellish Forest of Troos where he and Moonglum are forced to fight the dead.

The third tale tells of a break in Elric's newly idyllic existence in the arms of his new lover as he is once again forced to take up his sword to defend his new home.

The book ends then with an epilogue that allows us to revisit the land of Tanelorn and those that live there as the beggars of Nadoskor march on the city to take it for Chaos.  It's a lovely little diversion from the Elric stories and gives us a glimpse of the wider world of the Eternal Champion that exists in Moorcock's mythos and the ways in which he thinks of the roles of Order and Chaos within his tales.

As with the other four books, these Elric novellas are fleeting and fun twists on the whole girded loins, hack 'n' slash brand of fantasy with the added extras of Moorcock's deliciously anarchic sensibilities at the helm.

............................................................................

Stormbringer

The epic tale of Elric of Melniboné, albino prince of ruins, moves to its awesome conclusion - with the whole of the natural and supernatural world in mighty conflict - the final conflict, Armageddon. Elric holds the key to the future: the new age which must follow the destruction. To turn that key he must sacrifice all that he loves and risk his very soul.

Stormbringer is the final part of the original Elric stories and tells of the final battle between the albino misery guts and the forces of chaos that are rapidly turning the world into tentacles and ooze.

As with the other books in this run Stormbringer is split into several (four) novellas each telling another step in Elric's journey to the final reckoning

As an end to the series it's quite satisfying but there are a few hiccups along the way, two of the turning point battles are very much glossed over with both using unwielded floating magic swords to win the fights.  It does feel very much like Moorcock has lost interest in that side of things which I suppose is entirely understandable, I imagine there's only so many ways you can write about Elric stabbing someone.

It does though come to an entirely apt conclusion.  The end when it comes is definite and true to what has gone before and wrapped the legend of Elric up perfectly right up until Moorcock decided to write some more.

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Lavondyss

Robert Holdstock
Orion Books

At the heart of the wildwood lies a place of mystery and legend, from which few return and none emerged unchanged: Lavondyss . . . the ultimate realm, the source of all myth.
When Harry Keeton disappeared into Ryhope Wood, his sister Tallis was just an infant. Now, thirteen years old, she hears him whispering to her from the Otherworld. He is in danger. He needs her help. Using masks, magic and clues left by her grandfather, she finds a way to enter the primitive forest and begin her search. Eventually she comes to Lavondyss itself, a realm both beautiful and deadly, a place in which she is changed forever.

Following on from the glorious 'Mythago Wood' the second book in the Ryhope Wood cycle takes a slightly different tack to it's predecessor.

Beginning shortly after the departure, in book one, of Harry Keeton into the depths of Ryhope Wood we here have the story of his little sister 'Tallis' and her quest to find and help him escape from it's confines.  In this she is aided by both the masks and the mythagos she creates along the way in a story that spans her entire life.

This time out Holdstock seems more interested in the role of place and landscape in myth and legend than he does in those that populate it.  Many of the characters and places are crude and at times bestial and here magic is at it's most primal, found literally within their bones, their twigs and their stones.

Life in the wood, as befits a realm made from the mythic collective unconscious of a nation, is tumultuous and brutish but in Tallis we have a guide whose understanding of the realm is instinctive having lived her entire life in it's shadow and it's very substance.

As a sequel Lavondyss is an odd sort of creation that takes two points from it's forebear and weaves them into it's narrative but I think considering it as a sequel does it an injustice. Lavondyss is a book almost entirely unto itself that tells a different sort of story and does so in a manner that is every bit as awe-inspiring as it's - let's call it a - companion volume.

But it here - Lavondyss

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Other Edens

Christopher Evans (ed)
Robert Holdstock (ed)
Unwin

This 1987 collection of sci fi and fantasy shorts was produced to address a perceived gap in the availability of a mass market anthology collection at the time.  A hark back to the myriad of books of shorts that covered book shelves of the 1970s.  It went on to spawn two sequels over the next two years.  This first one boasting a line up entirely consisting of UK based - not necessarily British - authors proved to be an enjoyable if slightly inconsistent read.

The standout story here is Robert Holdstock's 'Scarrowfell'. Having just emerged from his 'Mythago Wood' I was enthused to read more and it certainly delivered with another piece of pagan Celtic fantasy that felt both uncontrived and remarkably fresh.

I'm a huge Michael Moorcock fan so the biggest disappointment here is undoubtedly his 'The Frozen Cardinal' which I thought was just daft although the treatment of women in many of the tales was an equally disappointing experience with both Tanith Lee's 'Crying in the Rain' and Christopher Evans' 'The Facts of Life' reducing them to mere property and Lisa Tuttle's 'The Wound' to that of a mutation.

Ian Watson's 'The Emir's Clock' is an interesting piece with a dumb ending and R.M. Lanning's 'Sanctity' was an interesting set up to an ending that reminded me of  Monty Python joke and David Langford's ' In a Land of Sand and Ruin and Gold' owed a real debt to Moorcock's 'Dancers at the End of Time' series.

Graham Charnock's 'Fulwood's Web' was an entertainingly old fashioned bit of 'man shouldn't meddle' fun. David Garnett's 'Moonlighter' gave a tweak to the hoary old parallel dimension trope whilst M. John Harrison's 'Small Heirloom's' was intriguing but needed far more room than it had here. Gary Kilworth's 'Triptych' was one interesting idea sandwiched between two lesser ones but Keith Roberts' 'Piper's Wait' was very much the redemption of the book's latter half.

As I said an inconsistent read redeemed entirely by Holdstock's tale but not without a smattering of other interests strewn across it's pages.

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Mythago Wood

Robert Holdstock
Gollancz

Deep within the wildwood lies a place of myth and mystery, from which few return, and none remain unchanged.
Ryhope Wood may look like a three-mile-square fenced-in wood in rural Herefordshire on the outside, but inside, it is a primeval, intricate labyrinth of trees, impossibly huge, unforgettable... and stronger than time itself.
Stephen Huxley has already lost his father to the mysteries of Ryhope Wood. On his return from the Second World War, he finds his brother, Christian, is also in thrall to the mysterious wood, wherein lies a realm where mythic archetypes grow flesh and blood, where love and beauty haunt your dreams, and in promises of freedom lies the sanctuary of insanity.

A little while back I had a real hankering for something featuring trees; something where a wood was central to the story.  Not just as a location but as a character, a defining point within the story.  I bought a couple of things I saw around - 'The Vorrh' and 'Wychwood' - but neither delivered the fix I wanted but as luck would have it a 'What are you reading?' post on the Wyrd Britain Facebook page brought this one to my attention and I'm so glad it did.

The wood of the title is Ryhope Wood in Herefordshire a tiny woodland that you could walk around in a couple of hours but which could take you a more than a lifetime to walk through - a TARDIS wood if you will.

The wood is one of the last remaining pieces of the ancient woodland that once covered the country - it is the very heart and soul of Britain - and in it can be found all the myths and legends of the land in the form of 'Mythagos', defined by Holdstock as "myth imago, the image of the idealized form of a myth creature".  Myths and legends created from and filtered through the minds of those intruding upon its confines; if, for instance, the defining consensus of Robin Hood is as the tights wearing, acrobatic, chivalrous righter of wrongs then that's the 'mythago' that will be presented but as the consensus shifts to perceiving him as a sadistic, arrogant woodland terrorist then...

The novel tells of Stephen Huxley's reluctant return to his family home following his experiences fighting in Europe during WWII.  The home where his recently deceased father had based his obsessive research on Ryhope Wood and where Stephen's brother Christian seems to be following in his footsteps.  Once there, as Christian disappears into the depths of the wood, Stephen begins his own journey.

At it's heart the book is a rumination on the centrality of legend, of myth and of story in the British identity.  The Wood encapsulates the entirety of the British mythic identity and feeds it back to the observer.  The stories and their characters have a strength to them that enables them to both adapt and endure as can be seen through the actions of such mythagos as 'Guiwenneth' and 'Sorthalan' and in the way Stephen's own journey through the Wood, his quest for love and for revenge, acquires an increasing mythic resonance.

I also wonder if Holdstock was maybe making a more subtle point, an accusation of blame perhaps, as to the loss or lessening of the relevance of myths within British culture as it transpires that it's the arrival and actions of the 'outsider', (the) Christian, that's damaging the Wood and all it holds.

Mythago Wood proved to be that most rare of beasts a truly transformative novel.  One that took hold of me from the off and twisted and writhed and caressed and gnawed and stared and whispered and grinned and punched at me for the entire time I was reading and is still running riot around the back of my head several weeks later.

I adored this book,  unequivocally adored it.

Buy It Here

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much appreciate a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Krull

Throughout the 1980s there was a surge in fantasy cinema with a constant stream of both low and high budget hack and slash movies appearing, some with more ideas than budget and some very much the opposite.  Billboards and video store shelves were groaning with images of hunky men holding aloft various swords, axes or glaives. From Hawk the Slayer to Dragonslayer, Dark Crystal to Deathstalker, Yor the Hunter From the Future to Conan the Barbarian this craze kept makers of woolly loincloths and longswords pretty busy.  Britain with it's landscape of castles was always keen to get in on the action and - often with backing from elsewhere - produced some fine entrants into the genre (the first three of those listed above were filmed in the UK).

One of the most fondly remembered entrants was the 1983 science fantasy escapade, 'Krull'. Made on a massive $30 million budget Krull is a giant, glorious mess of a movie.

The arrival of 'The Beast' in his space travelling mountain and his kidnapping of Princess Lyssa (Lysette Anthony) spurs the formation of an unlikely band of heroes led by Prince Colwyn (Kenneth Marshall) that includes the likes of Liam Neeson, Robbie Coltrane, Freddie Jones, Bernard Bresslaw and Todd Carty.

Despite it's budget and it's sprawling scope 'Krull' manages to be a fairly low-key sort of thing with it's roots in the Arthur myth, it's head in the Star Wars and it's feet firmly in the walk and talk heritage of Lord of the Rings but director Peter Yates singularly fails to build any sort of satisfying action sequence with the final showdown between Colwyn and The Beast where the fabled 'glaive' is finally used being particularly anti-climactic.  But that aside this is a movie I first saw when I was a young fella with a then burgeoning love of all things sword and sorcery and a well established fondness for science fiction and so to see them brought unapologetically together like here was a real treat.


..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much appreciate a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Boating for Beginners

Jeanette Winterson
Methuen

A pleasure boat company is transformed when the proprietor, Noah, is chosen by the "One True God" to put "sunny" faith back in the world and women back in the kitchen.

Following on from the success of 'Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit' Winterson decided to rewrite the story of Noah and his ark which, on the surface, seems a fairly odd idea until you've read it and then you'll be convinced that it is a very odd idea indeed.

Winterson's biblical tale is a fever dream of gossip, romance novels, frozen food, celebrity and stupidity. It's of us and a potential end of us but a back then sort of us that's pretty much entirely the same as the now us except with a capricious Frankenstein's dairy deity.

It doesn't work.  I like Winterson when she lets her ideas run wild - 'Sexing the Cherry' is a real favourite - but this is just a bit silly.  The core relationship between the women is fun but the rest is bogged down in absurdities and everything dissolves into a bit of a chore that fizzles out in the end.

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Astercote

Penelope Lively
Piccolo Books

A brother and sister discover that nearby woods not only hide the site of a medieval village but also a well-kept and potentially dangerous secret.

 Peter and Mair Jenkins are new to the village of Charlton Underwood but have found a home there roaming the countryside.  In the woods nearby they make friends with an odd young man with his two large dogs and tame hawk who shows them the secret of the dead town of Astercote.

Coming into this book with no knowledge of what to expect I was kind of thinking it was going to be a lost world or time slip sort of thing but what I actually got was something quite different.  Astercote is a story of beliefs.  Belief in the the past, in heritage, in ideas, in selflessness and selfishness, in protecting ones own and in getting ones own way and at the heart of it all in community and friendship.

It makes for an interesting little read and a very enjoyable one.

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Silver on the Tree

Susan Cooper
Puffin Books

The Dark is rising in its last and greatest bid to control the world. And Will Stanton -- last-born of the immortal Old Ones, dedicated to keeping the world free -- must join forces with this ageless master Merriman and Bran, the Welsh boy whose destiny ties him to the Light. Drawn in with them are the three Drew children, who are mortal, but have their own vital part in the story. These six fight fear and death in the darkly brooding Welsh hills, in a quest through time and space that touches the most ancient myths of the British Isles, and that brings Susan Cooper's masterful sequence of novels to a satisfying close.

And so we come to the end of The Dark is Rising sequence and I'm a little bit sad about it.  Now, if you'd told me a few months ago after I'd read the first in the series that I'd be lamenting their passing I'd probably have raised a disbelieving eyebrow at you but four books later here I am doing that very thing.

The first book in the quintet was a competent enough magicky tale on the tried and trusted Famous Five, Secret Seven, Existential Eight formula and felt a little bit old fashioned.  The second raised the bar significantly with the introduction of young Will and his induction as a 'Old One'.  It was still a bit pat and there was little suspense but Cooper had created a world that looked like it would be fun to visit and peopled it with characters that you wanted to watch. 

By the time she got to the third book she was flying; it blew me away!  I was nervous about the reintroduction of the trio from the first book but her depiction of them was much more nuanced and she slotted them seamlessly into the new, more substantial, universe.  The fourth built on this further and added a new element of Welshness into the story of the fight against The Dark that gave the narrative depth, age and a heritage.  Now, finally we are at the end; The Dark is coming and all those we have met have a part to play.

For 'Silver in the Tree' we are back in Wales roaming the mountains of the west and the lost land even further so.  Cooper weaves Welsh and Arthurian folktales into her narrative as Will, Bran and the three Drews explore the landscape and are also thrown both into the past and travel to lost lands of legend.

Reflecting, perhaps, the time it was written the book touches several times on issues of racial and cultural bigotry; explicitly so in the case of Will's elder brothers confrontation of three racist bullies and it's aftermath and later in passing following Bran's first meeting with the English Drew children.  Obviously, within the story these events are intended to show the power the resurgence of The Dark has in the hearts of people but I'd have liked more to have been made of them as they remain an issue that is depressingly current but perhaps in her handling of the topic as the beliefs of venal men that don't deserve to be lingered over she says far more.

At the book's conclusion we see the promised six in their final attempt to turn back The Dark and a seventh find his true nature in the final counting.  It's an ending that's very much in keeping with what has gone before as  - spoilers - you always know they'll win out and there's never been much jeopardy in these stories as it's regularly and specifically stated that The Dark are not allowed to hurt the Old Ones although there is one moment that is staggering in it's cruelty and which makes the injured party's subsequent actions all the more powerful.

The book ends with a nod to (or a lift from - depending on how you feel) Tolkein and the promise that most of the participants will forget the events which is kind of one step away from '...and then they all woke up' but I'll not belabour that point as the journey getting there was certainly worthwhile and I lament the passing of this series.

Buy it here - Silver On The Tree (The Dark Is Rising)

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

The Grey King

Susan Cooper 

Puffin Books

"Fire on the Mountain Shall Find the Harp of Gold Played to Wake the Sleepers, Oldest of the Old..."
With the final battle between the Light and the Dark soon approaching, Will sets out on a quest to call for aid. Hidden within the Welsh hills is a magical harp that he must use to wake the Sleepers - six noble riders who have slept for centuries. But an illness has robbed Will of nearly all his knowledge of the Old Ones, and he is left only with a broken riddle to guide him in his task. As Will travels blindly through the hills, his journey will bring him face-to-face with the most powerful Lord of the Dark - the Grey King. The King holds the harp and Sleepers within his lands, and there has yet to be a force strong enough to tear them from his grasp.

After the joy of the previous book in the series I had high hopes for this penultimate part of Cooper's 'The Dark is Rising' sequence. Young Will has come into his inheritance as an Old One and is secure and confident in his powers. So much so that he stood alongside the others to face up to the power of the Witch. Unfortunately as we begin this book an all too mundane illness has robbed him of much of this and he starts 'The Grey King' much the worse off.

As with the others in the series this is essentially a quest book. Will is once again tasked with finding and releasing an ancient magical force / entity that will aid in the fight against the Dark. As ever there are forces pushing against him.

Within all this magical malarkey Cooper has written a warmly human novel. The love and friendship experienced by Will during his convalescence / adventures in the mountains of West Wales make this a delightful read. The story is told with a deft hand for character and the keen eye for the fantastical which has helped cement this series as one of the modern classics of Wyrd Britain.

Buy it here:  The Grey King (The Dark Is Rising)

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

The Right Hand of Doom & Other Tales of Solomon Kane

Robert E. Howard
Wordsworth Editions

The sixteenth-century Puritan Solomon Kane has a thirst for justice which surpasses common reason. Sombre of mood, clad in black and grey, he 'never sought to analyse his motives and he never wavered once his mind was made up. Though he always acted on impulse, he firmly believed that all his actions were governed by cold and logical reasonings...A hunger in his soul drove him on and on, an urge to right all wrongs, protect all weaker things, and avenge all crimes against right and justice'.

I've never really had a hankering to read the Conan books.  The films were OK but I'm not much of a fantasy buff so the stories themselves held little appeal. The Solomon Kane stories on the other hand have always been an intriguing prospect.  The sword wielding puritan adventurer was always an enticing image.  The look of him always seemed correct to me for good, gutsy, godly vengeance type sword and sorcery romps.

The 10 stories and 3 (dreadful) poems that make up the book are - I believe - the entirety of the original Kane stories and tell of a man driven by his desire to serve his god by hunting down and dispatching evil wherever he finds it.  From his native Devon he travels several times to Africa battling murderers, rapists, pirates, vampires, flying creatures, slavers and an entire lost civilisation armed only with a sword, a couple of flintlock pistols and a magic staff given him by an African magician.

The stories are all pretty much the same as each time we join Kane at the culmination of a quest where with a last mighty effort of both iron will and iron limbs he reaches his goal and variously stabs, shoots or bludgeons his nemesis to death.  Howard takes great pains to repeatedly describe Kane's physical attributes giving the whole thing an unintentionally homoerotic quality which sits oddly next to some of the racism inherent in Howard's views of Africans although this certainly wasn't as bad as I was expecting it to be.  

I was hoping for a big silly sword and sorcery romp filled with daring do and that's what I got.  The fact that it was all that I got was a little odd but here, now and in the particular mood I was in at the time it was enough, just.

Over Sea, Under Stone

Susan Cooper
Puffin Books

On holiday in Cornwall, the three Drew children discover an ancient map in the attic of the house that they are staying in. They know immediately that it is special. It is even more than that -- the key to finding a grail, a source of power to fight the forces of evil known as the Dark. And in searching for it themselves, the Drews put their very lives in peril. This is the first volume of Susan Cooper's brilliant and absorbing fantasy sequence known as The Dark Is Rising.

In the literature of Wyrd Britain a few authors work has come to define the various aspects of the aesthetic, James, Wyndham, Wells, Kneale, Garner and a few other worthies reign supreme but there are other authors whose impact has yet to be fully assessed none more so than Susan Cooper.

'Over Sea, Under Stone' is the first book in Cooper's Arthurian(ish) story collection known collectively as 'The Dark is Rising' (also the title of the second book in the sequence).  It tells of three young children and their enigmatic 'uncle' and their search for the grail.  

Barney, Simon and Jane along with their parents relocate for the summer to the small Cornish seaside town of Trewissick to stay with Great Uncle Merry.  Once there the three kids are drawn into Merry's search for the Arthurian grail and are subjected to all the associated dangers that entails. 

In this first book the storyline is a fairly typical quest story with the 3 kids up against some remarkably ineffective adults and a rather stupid bully of their own age.  The three manage to dodge their way through the peril spouting vague (and not so) period sexist drivel (the book was written in 1965) whilst working out the clues they stumble across along the way. 

It's a fun little romp with one foot firmly in the 'Famous Five', 'Secret Seven' tradition and the other in the more lively and interesting forms of children's fiction being established by contemporaries like Alan Garner.  This duality does leave the book feeling a little uneven as the two halves occasionally make for odd bedfellows but it does give the whole thing a definite period charm.

Buy it here -  Over Sea Under Stone (The Dark Is Rising)

The Giant Under The Snow

John Gordon
Puffin Books

Three children find an ornate Celtic buckle. To them it is treasure, a fantastic find. They have no idea that it has awakened a giant who has lain at rest for centuries. Little do they know that an evil warlord and his Leathermen have also awaited this moment, this chance to wield their deadly power. In a chilling tale full of menace and suspense the final battle between good and evil must be fought. Beautifully written, subtle, and evocative, this story transcends age, transporting the reader into an intensely atmospheric world where the imagination knows no bounds.

I love my collection of Puffin (and similar) books mostly because of the stories that tell of a very different type of Britain where history and legends seep through into the present or a Britain that many authors have happily pulled the trigger on in order to watch it burn but also because of the utterly beautiful cover art of which this is one of my favourites but it's the story we're here to talk about so...

Three kids on a school field trip become embroiled in a battle to thwart the return of an evil warlord after one of the trio - the unusually named Jonquil - discovers an ancient belt buckle in a clump of trees that looks suspiciously like a giant hand.  Along with her two friends - the trusting boyfriend Bill and the sceptical frenemy 'Arf' - she is enlisted by the protector of the place and imbued with magic powers that will allow them to keep the buckle safe and away from those working to bring back the warlord - the grey and abhorrent 'Leathermen' - and whose magic will once again allow the Giant to be raised from the soil where it has lain since the warlords previous defeat.

There's some nicely creepy elements here, the sinewy 'Leathermen' being the standout, but the book does get more than a little silly once the three take to the skies.  As with the previous book I'd read by Gordon - 'The House on the Brink' - you are left with the feeling that he desperately wanted the landscape to feature intrinsically in the story - even to the point of animating it - but just doesn't seem able to imbue it with any real sense of character which is a shame.

What we have though is a fun and frantic romp of a story filled with kids zooming around performing feats of magical daring-do and destroying monsters from the dark past which is what I was hoping for when I plucked it off the shelf.

The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains

Neil Gaiman (author)
Eddie Campbell (artist)
William Morrow

The text of The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains was first published in the collection anthology Stories: All New Tales edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio. This gorgeous full-color illustrated book version was born of a unique collaboration between writer Neil Gaiman and artist Eddie Campbell, who brought to vivid life the characters and landscape of Gaiman's story. In August 2010, The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains was performed in the concert hall of the Sydney Opera House to a sold-out crowd—Gaiman read his tale live as Campbell's magnificent artwork was presented, scene-by-scene, on large screens. Narrative and art were accompanied by live music composed and performed especially for the story by the FourPlay String Quartet.

The arrival of this book completely snuck past me and so coming across it on the shelf at the local corporate bookstore was a really nice surprise.  I've been a fan of Gaiman since he arrived on the scene.  I was working in a comic shop in Cardiff at the time and from the first thing of his I read I knew he was going to be a writer I'd follow for a long time to come.  With Eddie Campbell it's even more so.  I really like his art but as a writer he's right up there with my absolute favourites (if you've not read anything I heartily recommend his 'Fate of the Artist' - Buy it here).  Here the words are all Gaiman with Campbell providing painted illustrations.

The Black Mountains of the title are on the Isle of Skye and there amidst their peaks is a cave full of gold.  Walking to this cave are two men.  One is a dwarf with two secrets and the other is his guide.  The latter has visited the cave in his youth and paid the toll that it's contents ask whilst the former is looking for something and will willingly pay any price.

The book is very much a Gaiman story centred in a slightly folkloric version of our own world, in this case the Jacobean era.  For the most part the book feels like it's going to be a fairly typical adventure story until without warning actions, events and characters take a sharp turn down the left hand path.  What really stands out though is how unrepentantly dark the story is.

The art is presented as central to the book.  Rather than restricting it to typical comic book boxes - which does happen on occasion - it is allowed free rein on the page sitting next to, behind and around the words with the text presented sometimes in Campbell's characteristic lettering but mostly in type which I think is a shame as the former is far more to my tastes.

As I'm sure you can imagine from what I said earlier I was excited by this and I wasn't disappointed.  It isn't the best thing either of them has done but it's very enjoyable nonetheless and will satisfy fans of both.

Buy it here -  The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains by Gaiman, Neil (2014) Hardcover

Mirrormask

A movie written by Neil Gaiman and directed by Dave McKean was always going to be a pretty enticing prospect for me.  

I love Gaiman's writing.  His worlds are ones populated by characters and situations usually more at home in fairytales (the original pre-Victorian ones not their crappy watered down versions) and gothic horrors.  I love McKean's art for essentially the same reasons.

Mirrormask tells the story of Helena (Stephanie Leonidas) a young girl dreaming of running away from the circus to join real life.  She gets her wish when her mum, Joanne (Gina McKee), is rushed to hospital and she and her dad (Rob Brydon) are forced to stay in a drab, grey tower block while they wait for Joanne's operation.

Helena decorates her world with ink drawings that she plasters all over the walls, the balcony, the fire doors that - in Dave McKean's fabulous style - portray a vast aray of characters, creatures and buildings.  A make believe world which - as tends to happen in these sort of things - is where Helena soon finds herself stuck in what may be her dream or may also be Joanne's dreaming mind as she is operated on.

Inside the 'dream' world Helena makes the aquaintance of a juggler named Valentine (Jason Barry) with whom she sets off on a quest - inevitably - to wake the The Queen of Light and defeat The Queen of Shadows (both also played by Gina McKee) by locating the titular Mirrormask.

Storywise it's a fairly heavy handed exploration of illness - the sleeping mother being attacked by the black cancerous tendrils causing the world to collapse around Helena - and personality - the duality of Helena's love for her family and friends and her desire to find herself and her own way in life and of course the masks themselves.  But, there's penty of warmth and humour enough that for the most part you don't feel like you're getting slapped around the head constantly.

I remember at the time it came out all the pre-release hype, interviews and then the extras on the DVD kept referring to the tiny budget. At the time I thought they were labouring a point but now I know why.  Essentially the film consists of lots of static set pieces with the actors reduced to talking and gesticulating their way through the scenes instead of being allowed to move around the, visually sumptuous, world that McKean has created.  You are utterly immersed in the McKean's beautiful art and the scope of both creators vision for the movie is readily apparent as the use of green screen (for almost the entire movie) allowed them to build an utterly fantastical reality but which, in turn, stiffled both the actors and ultimately the movie.

Lastly, it is a shame that they aimed this at kids. I can't help but feel that it really would have benefited if they'd got a lot darker, a lot creepier and a hell of lot scarier.  That said though it's an enjoyable enough distraction for 90 minutes and even if you're not paying it much attention it makes for frankly lovely wallpaper.