Some people are hard to kill. I don’t mean the moral decision to kill, but the difficulty in getting someone to die, who is stubbornly opposed to the idea. Some people are hard to kill because they are physically tough, some have one of those spirits that refuses to quit, and some are just plain durable.
So imagine how much more difficult it can be to kill someone, who is already dead but comes back anyway.
It was in the early days, before all the betrayals and family intrigues … OK, we always had those going on, but this was back in the days when we still imagined that we played by the rules. You couldn’t attempt to murder a sibling then, without at least feigning innocence, and alliance with genocidal maniacs was only allowed if the said monsters were friends of Oberon.
So, when word got out that someone or something was making its way through the halls of Castle Amber at night, killing members of the staff and generally hurting the castle’s reputation for fine dining and keeping folks safe from threats to their safety, the family decided it was time to take matters in hand. And, being expected to take the lead, I did so.
Oberon, as he commonly did, was traveling and away from Amber. Caine and Gerard were at sea and therefore also unavailable. Dierdre and Llewellen on a diplomatic mission for the Golden Circle, Brand, Random and Eric were out of the city for reasons not known to anyone else in the family, or if known not shared with me. That, of course, was also a reason for me to take charge; it would gall Eric no end if I could resolve things before he even heard about them … and give me no end of amusement if I could find a way to suggest he was somehow responsible for the problem. I was in those years when I was trying to show up everyone else, and convinced I looked good doing it. So it was that four princes and two princesses gathered for dinner, as we often did when we wanted to discuss issues of importance, and to imagine ourselves civilized.
The food was fine. The conversation, however, was wholly unsatisfying. It soon became apparent that none of us knew what was really going on, had any idea who or what was behind the attacks, and no one wanted to appear as helpless as we all felt.
After dinner, we all went to the library for drinks, and a second try at strategy. That fell apart as soon we chose our drinks. I watched as we chose different drinks, then different seats. Hell, we weren’t even looking at each other. I tried logic, first sitting with Benedict, who usually presented the best plan for dealing with any threat to Amber, but Benedict was even less talkative than usual. I followed with Julian, who was still angry with me for a prior disagreement, and he refused to even acknowledge my presence.
And so it went until I came to Fiona.
I knew something was about, when she smiled at my approach. Fiona and I never shared amusements or ideals, so a smile from her could only come at my cost. It also struck as strange that she seemed to be enjoying the present crisis. Was she its instigator, or if not, what was the source of her pleasure in this moment? I chose a drink, a seat, and a gambit.
“Hello Fiona”, I said. “You couldn’t just kill your enemies in a duel, like anyone else in the family?”
Fiona glared at me for a moment, then that smile returned as she realized – all too quickly – that I was just trying to draw her out.
“You play at things you do not understand, Corwin”, she answered. “As usual.
“I have no interest in your word games, and I must say I disapprove of your manners, and their lack.”
“I am not playing a game here” I protested, “but hunting the cause and source of our present threat. It is an elusive bird, truth, one which seems to be hidden by at least one of our princesses.”
Fiona smirked and replied, “Whereas wit is a bird that eludes the hand of rather too many princes.”
I shrugged. “Your disapproval concerns me even less than usual, Fi. All things considered.”
She tossed her head, red hair like a fall of flame. “Yet, perhaps it should. All things considered.”
I did things with my own eyebrows, emptied my glass, swung my boots down from the table, and headed for the door.
She chuckled, behind me.
I stopped, refrained from turning, and waited. Fiona could never resist showing the rest of us that she was a step ahead. Or pretending to be.
“You are wearing your blade,” she said. “Good.”
I went out, uttering no clever comments. With at least three murderous ghosts stalking Castle Amber, the time for such things was past.’
Hours passed, as I waited with blade drawn and senses wary, sitting in the hallway outside a row of rooms where I thought an appearance most likely by one or more of our homicidal specters.
I guessed wrong. The most dangerous thing to pass my way that night was an odor wafting from Julian’s room. I could pretend it was some feral scent from our nocturnal attackers, but I am sure it was simply the unwashed aroma of a pair of his dogs. In any case, I saw no spirits floating about, encountered no need to use my weapon, and generally felt like I was wasting my time.
Until I heard Flora scream. Down another hall, and far from my chosen station. Naturally. Or un-naturally. Whatever.
I felt damn foolish as I ran towards Flora’s room, hoping my missed guess would not be a costly mistake.
Fortunately, the volume of Flora’s shouts was not matched by actual peril. That is, Flora was not a passive screamer; when assailed by spirits coming at her, as she claimed, from within the walls, she not only cried for help but began throwing things at her attackers. It was hard to tell if any of them was some effective weapon, or the sheer volume of makeup, jewelry, hair care items and mirrors had thwarted their aggression. For all I knew, Flora had surprised them as much as they surprised her. There was no way to be sure. For the moment, we all relaxed in the discovery that our disembodied attackers seemed able to make mistakes, and we felt more confident that we ourselves were perhaps immune to their threat.
Then Bleys found Julian, more than half-dead in his quarters. Julian did not appear for breakfast, and Bleys was the first to check his rooms. I began to wonder why I had not heard anything from my vigilant post, and why Julian’s dogs had done nothing to defend him.
Also, for some reason Julian had not worn his armor the previous night. That cost him. He had been attacked from behind, as was evident by the burn marks on his back. He had fought off his attackers, but his arms, back, and legs were badly burned. I wished I could ask Julian what he had seen, and how he had fought off his assailants, but he was in a coma from his injuries, or the same thing for practical purposes. Benedict saw to his wounds and set a guard to door, with instructions to call him the instant Julian awoke – or anything appeared that might be the spirit murderers coming to finish the job.
I was not friendly with Julian, but an attack on family trumped personal arguments. Besides, just as I stood to gain from Eric’s humiliation if I could solve a mystery he was not around to handle, so too I would suffer my own humiliation if I could not resolve the problem right in front of me – and if a brother prince died on my watch, especially one I was not close to, I could count on Eric making me pay for it. And Father had made it clear that he counted fratricide as unforgivable. Failing to protect a brother was guilt by omission, and I knew that no defense I could present would clear me unless Julian lived. And I resolved the mystery and destroyed the threat.
I spoke to Benedict again, and – while cryptic – his comments included suggestions on where I might try my next vigil, and when I might expect to meet my foes.
It was very late, or rather early, before one of the walls opened in a place where it should not have done, and something that was both silver and shadow joined me.
Grayswandir felt good in my hand as I put down what I was finished drinking anyway, and waited.
Patience, they say, is a chiefly a virtue for statues, but I’d made more than my share of mistakes, thus far, and blood is hell to get out of good rugs.
Came a whisper, out of darkness. “Corwin, is it time?”
A fight for my life, I expected. Temporal confusion from the spooks, I have to admit, I did not see coming.
“No, go back to sleep”, I tried. OK, not a brilliant strategy, but I was tired and didn’t expect the question anyway.
There was a moment of silence, then the forms began to take shape. I expected something, I don’t know, human-like and perhaps demonic. These were, after all, undead spirits seeking to kill the living. Nor was I wrong.
Not exactly.
The attackers swirled into the room like sentient fog, and quickly surrounded me. I suddenly realized something was behind me, taking more substantial shape, and – I felt dread rush up my spine – preparing to strike me the same it had attacked Julian.
Something like lightning flashed, and surprised me. Mostly because the lightning came from inside the room … from Grayswandir.
I jumped to my feet, swinging up Grayswandir with one arm as I threw the book behind me into the – face? – of my posterior assailant. I heard the book smack into something, which swore as if hurt, and I pivoted, putting my back against the wall while swinging my sword into a guard position. Then I stopped.
That was a mistake.
The spirits, once the sword, stopped moving, resumed their attack, and I felt a crackle of something hot shoot past my head, striking the wall hard as if a crossbow bolt. Something else, like a burning lasso, wrapped my boots and tried to trip me. I hopped reflexively, brought my sword up again and swung it about me as if trying to burn cobwebs with a torch.
And shadows fled before me, and I was alone.
My book was on the floor, blackened. Damn. I watched lightning flicker and wondered if I would ever know what I fought, or why. Family politics seemed as tiresome as ever.
Three ghosts, Benedict had said, and had been on the brink of saying more ere his face had smoothed and he’d turned away.
Which meant he’d recognized the one he’d seen.
So had the lamplighter, before the ghost that slew him caught up with him and burned his skull bare, from within.
Coln had died, before that, and one of the cooks. Seven maids, or more by now, since.
Then they started on us. Flora had almost fallen to one, and then Julian. Almost.
We’re tough meat, we of Amber.’
Speaking of meat, I found myself famished. Deciding between preparing for a second round with the spooks, alerting the rest of the family to my attack, and getting an early breakfast, the stomach spoke with the greatest authority. Besides, I was somehow sure the attack for the night was done, and I needed to think through what had just happened before I spoke to anyone else. If one of us was behind the attacks, I had no intention of giving out thoughts on how to make sure I was properly killed next time.
I made my way to the kitchen and found it empty, as I hoped it would be. A half-dozen eggs, some cheese, ham and the appropriate spices produced a passable omelet, which I ate with coffee I made while I thought over the attack. I’m a good enough cook, but the quality of thoughts I considered diminished my appetite a bit.
I realized that I had to share my encounter, with at least one person. The attacks on Flora, then Julian so close afterwards showed that anyone could be next, and I had to help protect the innocent. If only I could be sure none among us was the guilty …
I decided on Benedict. He had shared the plan to catch out the spirits, so I already owed him a report on the attack for that reason. Also, he was the least likely to try a sneak attack on any of us – and if he had, his victims would not have survived. No, this was not Benedict’s trick, whatever it was.
I found him sitting with Julian. Julian remained still and lifeless, to all appearances. Enough to make his usual loquacity and stiff behavior seem positive ebullient. Benedict was not much more enthusiastic. I think I knew why. Julian was not so strong as some of us, but a prince of Amber should not be laid low so easily by anything. He seemed not to be resting, so much as lying helpless. That could be any one of us, even Benedict, and I could see that in Benedict’s thin, grim face.
“No Change, Corwin”, said Benedict, as I entered the bedroom.
“So I see”, I answered. “But I have news for you.”
I handed Benedict the scorched book from my encounter. He looked at it, then met my eyes with his own.
“You encountered them, then?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Yes, but unlike you, I did not recognize any of them” I said, watching for a reaction to my observation. But Benedict remained solemn and still, as was his usual mood, even in happier times.
I waited for him to speak, but Benedict simply held my gaze, and after a moment. I continued.
“Yes, I was attacked”, I said. “Where you said they would likely be, and only an hour or so after the time you predicted. Which makes me curious, of course, how you knew …?”
I somehow expected Benedict to smile at being prescient, but he remained solemn. I also expected him to provide more helpful information, but I was wrong on that count as well.
“What do you know about this, Corwin?” asked Benedict, his left hand casually resting on the hilt of a dagger he had on his belt. There was no menace in his tone, but Benedict was clear in his meaning.
“Of the attacks? Nothing to speak of, Benedict.” I replied. “I told you my thoughts the last time we spoke, and I am trying to free us from who or whatever is attacking us."
“Convenient, though”, remarked Benedict, “that you were the closest to Julian of us all, and yet you saw and heard nothing when he was attacked.”
“I know”, I protested, “and you know I would have arranged an alibi if I were going to attack Julian. Like, say, being away from Amber during the attacks?”
Benedict shook his head in irritation.
“Don’t start that stupid game again, of plots and intrigue, Corwin.”
“I won’t”, I replied, “as long as you agree to stop accusing me of being behind the attacks I’m trying to stop.”
Benedict sighed.
“All right”, he agreed. “But you were attacked, yourself, yet you have not yet told me about it.”
So I did. Including my reluctance to trust the full story to anyone in our family who might be the plotter behind the ghosts.
Benedict sighed again.
“I hate to agree with you on this, Corwin” he said, “but I sense that these attacks are part of something larger.
“And until we find a way to stop it, our danger will only grow.”
[ to be continued ]
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Sunday, February 13, 2011
The Continued Chronicles of Amber, 2: What the Short Stories Contribute – Revisited
This article is a reprint of one I originally published in January 2010. I am reprinting here now, for two reasons. First, I have discovered that some of my original thoughts, specifically the ones surrounding “A Secret of Amber’, were hasty and incorrect. I’d like to revisit that story from a new and, I hope, wiser perspective. Also, I realized that I never wrote a promised third article on the last two short stories by Roger Zelazny. To get the perspective correct, I am reprinting the first two articles – with some revisions – and then the third will hopefully make sense in the proper context.
WARNING – This essay contains spoilers from the first ten books of the Chronicles of Amber, and speculates on the intentions of the late writer Roger Zelazny, had he written a third cycle.
I finished the first part of these posts by discussing things learned in one of the short stories written by Roger Zelazny after publishing 'Prince of Chaos' in 1991. We can get a sense, I think, of where things were headed by considering what we find in those short stories.
For review, and for those who may not know about the short stories, Roger Zelazny wrote six short stories, or fragments of stories, after publishing his last novel in the Amber Chronicles. They were as follows:
“A Secret of Amber” (co-written with Ed Greenwood, begun before 1994 but not published until March 2005, and never completed)
“The Salesman’s Tale” (published February, 1994)
“The Shroudling and the Guisel” (published October, 1994)
“Blue Horse, Dancing Mountains” (published 1995)
“Coming to a Cord” (published 1995)
“Hall of Mirrors” (published March, 1996)
I can’t prove it, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the fragment story, ”A Secret of Amber”, started Roger thinking about another cycle, and the subsequent stories took more and more shape in that direction. As I wrote last time, the short stories introduced a new villain and chief conspirator, hinted at major and surprising changes in Merlin’s relationships with his friends and family, warned that the prime forces of Order and Chaos had no intention of behaving, and reintroduced Corwin’s role in the supernatural conflict, with Dworkin and Suhuy as star players for primal forces. To look at what we can glean from the short stories, I begin with the one first begun, yet ironically never finished.
“A Secret of Amber” is a difficult work to find. Only a few paragraphs long, it can only found in Amberzine issue 12-15, and most fans will tell you not to buy the anthology just for the story, because there are no plot secrets revealed. Perhaps. Also, since this work was done in cooperation with Ed Greenwood, some may claim that this work is not even pure Zelazny. Again, perhaps. But we do find out a few things from the setting and characters. What happens in the story is a chat between Corwin and his sister Fiona, and it concerns attacks, as Corwin put it, by “at least three murderous ghosts”. When I first wrote about the story, I said that ‘no new information appears to be divulged’.
Oops.
I went back and re-read “A Secret of Amber”. The story is problematic, not least because it started as an informal game between Roger Zelazny and Ed Greenwood. Also, there’s not much there from Roger. 348 words. 29 sentences. Two, maybe three scenes, depending on whether the last was new or continued the previous episode … it can be read either way. But when you look closely, there are some intriguing points from Zelazny, even in this short submission. The following are key items from the story:
‘She [Fiona]chuckled, behind me ... “You are wearing your blade,” she said. “Good.”
Hmm. While Corwin is hostile to Fiona, could it be important that she mentions his sword? And given the situation, why is she laughing about the situation?
Anyway, the next sentence is Corwin’s response, just so you know things are serious:
’I went out, uttering no clever comments. With at least three murderous ghosts stalking Castle Amber, the time for such things was past.’
Hmm. Three murderous ghosts? Corwin as Holmes? Certainly grabbed my interest.
Here’s the next key phrase from Roger in the story:
‘one of the walls opened in a place where it should not have done, and something that was both silver and shadow joined me.’
Two things come up from that passage. First off, we see that Castle Amber can be manipulated, and second, we note the first host referenced is ‘silver and shadow’, as if reflecting Corwin’s own silver and black colors.
This is also a clear indication about when the story took place. I originally thought that the story took place sometime after the novels. But by even the end of the first series, Corwin understood a great deal more about how chaotic Amber could be, than he appears to be in this story. Also, by the end of the first series, Corwin and Fiona are, if not friends, at least not hostile to each other, as appears to be the case in "A Secret of Amber". This is in the early years, then, before Corwin’s disappearance from Amber when Eric tried to kill him. We have the full set of siblings, then, to consider as actors, perhaps suspects.
We get another clue then, in Zelazny’s last passage in the story:
‘My book was on the floor, blackened. Damn. I watched lightning flicker and wondered if I would ever know what I fought, or why. Family politics seemed as tiresome as ever.
‘Three ghosts, Benedict had said, and had been on the brink of saying more ere his face had smoothed and he’d turned away.
‘Which meant he’d recognized the one he’d seen.
‘So had the lamplighter, before the ghost that slew him caught up with him and burned his skull bare, from within.
‘Coln had died, before that, and one of the cooks. Seven maids, or more by now, since.
‘Then they started on us. Flora had almost fallen to one, and then Julian. Almost’
OK, that’s several clues actually. The ghosts are human-formed, but not very human in form. Benedict and other victims recognized their attackers, even so, but for some reason are reluctant to talk about it. Politics somehow plays a role, even in murder. The ghosts kill by fire and lightning.
Oh, my. A lot here to think about, especially since this story gives us a look into how Roger thinks about Amber and the family.
Not a story to ignore, after all, but one to weigh in the full context of the whole set of chronicles. Including the five short stories.
Moving on now to those short stories.
In those short stories, we see Corwin on the road again. It seems he is headed back to Amber, but from where? At the end of “Prince of Chaos”, Merlin sent Corwin directly back to Amber. That seems to mean he gets a mission, apparently a very personal one. The nature and purpose of that mission is, I think, something we should talk about.
The first full short story is “The Salesman’s Tale", and focuses on the actions of Luke. Or King Rinaldo, but no, for here we must call him Luke, for his character tracks along the character we knew, hmm, pre-coronation.
In this story, Luke escapes from the Pattern as described in 'Prince of Chaos' - turns out when he cries "I spilled it!", he only meant his tea. Luke did that on purpose, to distract the Pattern while he got out fast. From there, Luke finds his way to Amber and meets with Vialle, Queen of Amber and wife of King Random, who is less than friendly with Luke. Along the way, Luke calls up the sword Werewindle to him, demonstrating sentience in the sword with all sorts of implications for Grayswandir and the spikards. Speaking of which, after discovering that Vialle has prophetic powers, Luke also learns about the 'guardians', a “self-exiled Prince of Amber and his sister” who have custody of the spikards, rings of tremendous power which first showed up in “Knight of Shadow” and were named in 'Prince of Chaos'. Vialle asks Luke to query Delwin as to ”whether his stewardship of the spikards remains intact”. We know, of course, from the novels that this is not so; Merlin has two of them now, and in ”Prince of Chaos” Bleys was wearing one. Of the nine spikards total, two became Werewindle and Grayswandir, and three more are accounted for by Merlin and Bleys, leaving only four that Delwin could control. And since Suhuy, Mandor, and Dara are aware of the spikards, the cat is well out of the bag, but Vialle could not know that at this point. A final significance of the story is pointed out by Vialle after Luke speaks with Delwin, that Delwin was intrigued by Brand being Luke’s father, but Jasra’s mention warned him off cold. We see a hint that there is something of a higher-level threat from Jasra, more than was obvious earlier, and by the way the last time we saw Jasra (in 'Knight of Shadows') she was less than completely amiable with Merlin, and by the way she now holds complete control of the Keep of the Four Worlds, or will once she returns from wherever Ghostwheel sent her at the start of 'Knight of Shadows'.
We change course now, and catch up with Merlin in ”The Shroudling and the Geisel”. In this story, Merlin wakes up to find himself in bed with Rhanda, his childhood friend whose parents thought him a vampire or demon. Oddly enough, Merlin now believes Rhanda is a vampire, but in this story he discovers that he is mistaken, as well. Rhanda, it turns out, is of a race known as Shroudlings, sort of high-principled ghouls who only eat “those the word might be better off without”. Shroudlings can enter normal space through mirrors; their world is on the other side and they seek to remain unknown as much as possible, not least because they seem to be dying off, in some part due to a beast known as a Guisel. Shroudlings also have the ability to prevent conscious notice and to remove memory of their appearance and actions in mortal realms. They can also ‘lock’ a mirror behind them to prevent beings from entering or leaving through a mirror. Rhanda, it turns out, regards Merlin as a ‘pet’, of whom she is fond.
Rhanda warns Merlin that Dara and Mandor continue to form schemes, that Julia is determined to play up feelings for Merlin in order to turn Jurt against him again. We learn that despite his front-runner status for the throne of Chaos, Merlin faces six other contenders now that he knows about, and Rhanda warns that there is one more that he does not know. Rhanda calls him ‘the hidden one’, and says “I do not know his name to tell you, though I know you saw him in Suhuy’s pool. I know his appearance, Chaotic and human. I know that even Mandor considers him a worthy antagonist” - though Rhanda also says this ‘hidden’ one fears Mandor. This is a prime clue we must consider later on.
The ‘hidden one’ has procured a guisel and has been using it to kill off rivals, apparently through the mirrorworld for surprise. In between human killings, it has apparently been killing Shroudlings, which seems to be another reason Rhanda seeks out Merlin. Merlin finds a way to come at it through another mirror, but is surprised by it anyway and what’s worse, he finds out that even the spikard has limited effect on it. Merlin calls on Ghostwheel, but discovers the mirrorworld is a place barred to it. Fortunately, Merlin is able to call up Kergma, a childhood friend and more to the point a chaos intellectual structure Zelazny calls “the living equation”. In the end, a combination of the spikard and the vorpal sword last seen in 'Sign of Chaos' at the Wonderland Bar are sufficient to defeat the guisel. In an imaginative mood, Merlin saves a last piece of the monster, renews it into a new creature and sends it back after the guy who was trying to kill him.
We return to Prince Corwin in ”Blue Horse, Dancing Mountains”. I found this story especially intriguing, for the following reasons. First, it reintroduced Corwin as a major character, and seemed to indicate a father-son team might be in the works. Next, it tied two of the stories together, as it foreshadowed ”Hall of Mirrors”, an irrational phenomenon of magic and psychology which appears to act independent of any power but its own, although in ”Prince of Chaos”, Merlin seemed to believe it was influenced by Suhuy, which carries its own implications. At first read, one may be confused by Corwin’s purpose and timing – Zelazny never mentions what Corwin was doing, that he had to flee Chaos on the strange steed Shask. This does not pick up where ‘Prince of Chaos’ ends, since at the end of that book, Merlin seemed to send Corwin from Chaos directly to Amber by way of his spikard. Therefore, Corwin appears to have returned to Chaos, and did something that required him to flee in great haste. Or else Merlin was only able to send Corwin part of the way … As the story tells it, Corwin “fled smoke ghosts across the Uplands of Artine. I slew the leader of the Kerts of Shern as her flock harried me from hightowered perches among the canyons of that place” . Sounds like we can rule out sightseeing or a simple vacation, especially since in the Merlin Cycle there were a number of references which implied peaceful conditions between Amber and Chaos, such as the fact that Mandor was free to return from Amber to Chaos, even following the disaster when the Pattern and Logrus clashed in the castle itself in 'Knight of Shadow'. We are not told what Corwin was doing in Chaos, but as it follows the visit by Luke to Vialle – who incidentally told Luke in that story that she was expecting Corwin to arrive back in Amber, and as a by-the-way Corwin was referenced by her talking sculptures as vital to addressing the crisis.
Soon after escaping from Chaos, Corwin finds himself making his way in a more leisurely manner, now somehow indicating no rush – whatever was important, it was time-sensitive in Chaos but apparently not time sensitive in the shadowlands. That changes during the first night out, though, as Corwin finds himself to a very strange variety of chess game between Dworkin and Suhuy – one in which the known universe comprises the pieces, with Amber Castle and the Unicorn on one end of the board, and Thelbane and the Serpent on the other. Pieces specifically named in the game include Mandor, Corwin, a Fire Angel, and a female being manipulated by Dworkin which surprises Suhuy, in that the woman is of Chaos. Dara? Or someone else?
The two masters also discuss a ‘hall of mirrors’ which is important to their contest – but only if he gets there in time; Suhuy wonders “without their clues, how effective will he be?” As if on cue, Corwin wakes his steed and rushes him to reach Amber in time.
next: “Coming to a Cord”, "Hall of Mirrors”, and some speculations. Yes, really, I will post them this time.
WARNING – This essay contains spoilers from the first ten books of the Chronicles of Amber, and speculates on the intentions of the late writer Roger Zelazny, had he written a third cycle.
I finished the first part of these posts by discussing things learned in one of the short stories written by Roger Zelazny after publishing 'Prince of Chaos' in 1991. We can get a sense, I think, of where things were headed by considering what we find in those short stories.
For review, and for those who may not know about the short stories, Roger Zelazny wrote six short stories, or fragments of stories, after publishing his last novel in the Amber Chronicles. They were as follows:
“A Secret of Amber” (co-written with Ed Greenwood, begun before 1994 but not published until March 2005, and never completed)
“The Salesman’s Tale” (published February, 1994)
“The Shroudling and the Guisel” (published October, 1994)
“Blue Horse, Dancing Mountains” (published 1995)
“Coming to a Cord” (published 1995)
“Hall of Mirrors” (published March, 1996)
I can’t prove it, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the fragment story, ”A Secret of Amber”, started Roger thinking about another cycle, and the subsequent stories took more and more shape in that direction. As I wrote last time, the short stories introduced a new villain and chief conspirator, hinted at major and surprising changes in Merlin’s relationships with his friends and family, warned that the prime forces of Order and Chaos had no intention of behaving, and reintroduced Corwin’s role in the supernatural conflict, with Dworkin and Suhuy as star players for primal forces. To look at what we can glean from the short stories, I begin with the one first begun, yet ironically never finished.
“A Secret of Amber” is a difficult work to find. Only a few paragraphs long, it can only found in Amberzine issue 12-15, and most fans will tell you not to buy the anthology just for the story, because there are no plot secrets revealed. Perhaps. Also, since this work was done in cooperation with Ed Greenwood, some may claim that this work is not even pure Zelazny. Again, perhaps. But we do find out a few things from the setting and characters. What happens in the story is a chat between Corwin and his sister Fiona, and it concerns attacks, as Corwin put it, by “at least three murderous ghosts”. When I first wrote about the story, I said that ‘no new information appears to be divulged’.
Oops.
I went back and re-read “A Secret of Amber”. The story is problematic, not least because it started as an informal game between Roger Zelazny and Ed Greenwood. Also, there’s not much there from Roger. 348 words. 29 sentences. Two, maybe three scenes, depending on whether the last was new or continued the previous episode … it can be read either way. But when you look closely, there are some intriguing points from Zelazny, even in this short submission. The following are key items from the story:
‘She [Fiona]chuckled, behind me ... “You are wearing your blade,” she said. “Good.”
Hmm. While Corwin is hostile to Fiona, could it be important that she mentions his sword? And given the situation, why is she laughing about the situation?
Anyway, the next sentence is Corwin’s response, just so you know things are serious:
’I went out, uttering no clever comments. With at least three murderous ghosts stalking Castle Amber, the time for such things was past.’
Hmm. Three murderous ghosts? Corwin as Holmes? Certainly grabbed my interest.
Here’s the next key phrase from Roger in the story:
‘one of the walls opened in a place where it should not have done, and something that was both silver and shadow joined me.’
Two things come up from that passage. First off, we see that Castle Amber can be manipulated, and second, we note the first host referenced is ‘silver and shadow’, as if reflecting Corwin’s own silver and black colors.
This is also a clear indication about when the story took place. I originally thought that the story took place sometime after the novels. But by even the end of the first series, Corwin understood a great deal more about how chaotic Amber could be, than he appears to be in this story. Also, by the end of the first series, Corwin and Fiona are, if not friends, at least not hostile to each other, as appears to be the case in "A Secret of Amber". This is in the early years, then, before Corwin’s disappearance from Amber when Eric tried to kill him. We have the full set of siblings, then, to consider as actors, perhaps suspects.
We get another clue then, in Zelazny’s last passage in the story:
‘My book was on the floor, blackened. Damn. I watched lightning flicker and wondered if I would ever know what I fought, or why. Family politics seemed as tiresome as ever.
‘Three ghosts, Benedict had said, and had been on the brink of saying more ere his face had smoothed and he’d turned away.
‘Which meant he’d recognized the one he’d seen.
‘So had the lamplighter, before the ghost that slew him caught up with him and burned his skull bare, from within.
‘Coln had died, before that, and one of the cooks. Seven maids, or more by now, since.
‘Then they started on us. Flora had almost fallen to one, and then Julian. Almost’
OK, that’s several clues actually. The ghosts are human-formed, but not very human in form. Benedict and other victims recognized their attackers, even so, but for some reason are reluctant to talk about it. Politics somehow plays a role, even in murder. The ghosts kill by fire and lightning.
Oh, my. A lot here to think about, especially since this story gives us a look into how Roger thinks about Amber and the family.
Not a story to ignore, after all, but one to weigh in the full context of the whole set of chronicles. Including the five short stories.
Moving on now to those short stories.
In those short stories, we see Corwin on the road again. It seems he is headed back to Amber, but from where? At the end of “Prince of Chaos”, Merlin sent Corwin directly back to Amber. That seems to mean he gets a mission, apparently a very personal one. The nature and purpose of that mission is, I think, something we should talk about.
The first full short story is “The Salesman’s Tale", and focuses on the actions of Luke. Or King Rinaldo, but no, for here we must call him Luke, for his character tracks along the character we knew, hmm, pre-coronation.
In this story, Luke escapes from the Pattern as described in 'Prince of Chaos' - turns out when he cries "I spilled it!", he only meant his tea. Luke did that on purpose, to distract the Pattern while he got out fast. From there, Luke finds his way to Amber and meets with Vialle, Queen of Amber and wife of King Random, who is less than friendly with Luke. Along the way, Luke calls up the sword Werewindle to him, demonstrating sentience in the sword with all sorts of implications for Grayswandir and the spikards. Speaking of which, after discovering that Vialle has prophetic powers, Luke also learns about the 'guardians', a “self-exiled Prince of Amber and his sister” who have custody of the spikards, rings of tremendous power which first showed up in “Knight of Shadow” and were named in 'Prince of Chaos'. Vialle asks Luke to query Delwin as to ”whether his stewardship of the spikards remains intact”. We know, of course, from the novels that this is not so; Merlin has two of them now, and in ”Prince of Chaos” Bleys was wearing one. Of the nine spikards total, two became Werewindle and Grayswandir, and three more are accounted for by Merlin and Bleys, leaving only four that Delwin could control. And since Suhuy, Mandor, and Dara are aware of the spikards, the cat is well out of the bag, but Vialle could not know that at this point. A final significance of the story is pointed out by Vialle after Luke speaks with Delwin, that Delwin was intrigued by Brand being Luke’s father, but Jasra’s mention warned him off cold. We see a hint that there is something of a higher-level threat from Jasra, more than was obvious earlier, and by the way the last time we saw Jasra (in 'Knight of Shadows') she was less than completely amiable with Merlin, and by the way she now holds complete control of the Keep of the Four Worlds, or will once she returns from wherever Ghostwheel sent her at the start of 'Knight of Shadows'.
We change course now, and catch up with Merlin in ”The Shroudling and the Geisel”. In this story, Merlin wakes up to find himself in bed with Rhanda, his childhood friend whose parents thought him a vampire or demon. Oddly enough, Merlin now believes Rhanda is a vampire, but in this story he discovers that he is mistaken, as well. Rhanda, it turns out, is of a race known as Shroudlings, sort of high-principled ghouls who only eat “those the word might be better off without”. Shroudlings can enter normal space through mirrors; their world is on the other side and they seek to remain unknown as much as possible, not least because they seem to be dying off, in some part due to a beast known as a Guisel. Shroudlings also have the ability to prevent conscious notice and to remove memory of their appearance and actions in mortal realms. They can also ‘lock’ a mirror behind them to prevent beings from entering or leaving through a mirror. Rhanda, it turns out, regards Merlin as a ‘pet’, of whom she is fond.
Rhanda warns Merlin that Dara and Mandor continue to form schemes, that Julia is determined to play up feelings for Merlin in order to turn Jurt against him again. We learn that despite his front-runner status for the throne of Chaos, Merlin faces six other contenders now that he knows about, and Rhanda warns that there is one more that he does not know. Rhanda calls him ‘the hidden one’, and says “I do not know his name to tell you, though I know you saw him in Suhuy’s pool. I know his appearance, Chaotic and human. I know that even Mandor considers him a worthy antagonist” - though Rhanda also says this ‘hidden’ one fears Mandor. This is a prime clue we must consider later on.
The ‘hidden one’ has procured a guisel and has been using it to kill off rivals, apparently through the mirrorworld for surprise. In between human killings, it has apparently been killing Shroudlings, which seems to be another reason Rhanda seeks out Merlin. Merlin finds a way to come at it through another mirror, but is surprised by it anyway and what’s worse, he finds out that even the spikard has limited effect on it. Merlin calls on Ghostwheel, but discovers the mirrorworld is a place barred to it. Fortunately, Merlin is able to call up Kergma, a childhood friend and more to the point a chaos intellectual structure Zelazny calls “the living equation”. In the end, a combination of the spikard and the vorpal sword last seen in 'Sign of Chaos' at the Wonderland Bar are sufficient to defeat the guisel. In an imaginative mood, Merlin saves a last piece of the monster, renews it into a new creature and sends it back after the guy who was trying to kill him.
We return to Prince Corwin in ”Blue Horse, Dancing Mountains”. I found this story especially intriguing, for the following reasons. First, it reintroduced Corwin as a major character, and seemed to indicate a father-son team might be in the works. Next, it tied two of the stories together, as it foreshadowed ”Hall of Mirrors”, an irrational phenomenon of magic and psychology which appears to act independent of any power but its own, although in ”Prince of Chaos”, Merlin seemed to believe it was influenced by Suhuy, which carries its own implications. At first read, one may be confused by Corwin’s purpose and timing – Zelazny never mentions what Corwin was doing, that he had to flee Chaos on the strange steed Shask. This does not pick up where ‘Prince of Chaos’ ends, since at the end of that book, Merlin seemed to send Corwin from Chaos directly to Amber by way of his spikard. Therefore, Corwin appears to have returned to Chaos, and did something that required him to flee in great haste. Or else Merlin was only able to send Corwin part of the way … As the story tells it, Corwin “fled smoke ghosts across the Uplands of Artine. I slew the leader of the Kerts of Shern as her flock harried me from hightowered perches among the canyons of that place” . Sounds like we can rule out sightseeing or a simple vacation, especially since in the Merlin Cycle there were a number of references which implied peaceful conditions between Amber and Chaos, such as the fact that Mandor was free to return from Amber to Chaos, even following the disaster when the Pattern and Logrus clashed in the castle itself in 'Knight of Shadow'. We are not told what Corwin was doing in Chaos, but as it follows the visit by Luke to Vialle – who incidentally told Luke in that story that she was expecting Corwin to arrive back in Amber, and as a by-the-way Corwin was referenced by her talking sculptures as vital to addressing the crisis.
Soon after escaping from Chaos, Corwin finds himself making his way in a more leisurely manner, now somehow indicating no rush – whatever was important, it was time-sensitive in Chaos but apparently not time sensitive in the shadowlands. That changes during the first night out, though, as Corwin finds himself to a very strange variety of chess game between Dworkin and Suhuy – one in which the known universe comprises the pieces, with Amber Castle and the Unicorn on one end of the board, and Thelbane and the Serpent on the other. Pieces specifically named in the game include Mandor, Corwin, a Fire Angel, and a female being manipulated by Dworkin which surprises Suhuy, in that the woman is of Chaos. Dara? Or someone else?
The two masters also discuss a ‘hall of mirrors’ which is important to their contest – but only if he gets there in time; Suhuy wonders “without their clues, how effective will he be?” As if on cue, Corwin wakes his steed and rushes him to reach Amber in time.
next: “Coming to a Cord”, "Hall of Mirrors”, and some speculations. Yes, really, I will post them this time.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
A Thief In Amber – Second Draft (Still Very Very Rough)
Some people are hard to kill. I don’t mean the moral decision to kill, but the difficulty in getting someone to die, who is stubbornly opposed to the idea. Some people are hard to kill because they are physically tough, some have one of those spirits that refuses to quit, and some are just plain durable.
So imagine how much more difficult it can be to kill someone, who is already dead but comes back anyway.
It was in the early days, before all the betrayals and family intrigues … OK, we always had those going on, but this was back in the days when we still imagined that we played by the rules. You couldn’t attempt to murder a sibling then, without at least feigning innocence, and alliance with genocidal maniacs was only allowed if the said monsters were friends of Oberon.
So, when word got out that someone or something was making its way through the halls of Castle Amber at night, killing members of the staff and generally hurting the castle’s reputation for fine dining and keeping folks safe from threats to their safety, the family decided it was time to take matters in hand. And, being expected to take the lead, I did so.
Oberon, as he commonly did, was traveling and away from Amber. Caine and Gerard were at sea and therefore also unavailable. Dierdre and Llewellen on a diplomatic mission for the Golden Circle, Brand, Random and Eric were out of the city for reasons not known to anyone else in the family, or if known not shared with me. That, of course, was also a reason for me to take charge; it would gall Eric no end if I could resolve things before he even heard about them … and give me no end of amusement if I could find a way to suggest he was somehow responsible for the problem. I was in those years when I was trying to show up everyone else, and convinced I looked good doing it. So it was that four princes and two princesses gathered for dinner, as we often did when we wanted to discuss issues of importance, and to imagine ourselves civilized.
The food was fine. The conversation, however, was wholly unsatisfying. It soon became apparent that none of us knew what was really going on, had any idea who or what was behind the attacks, and no one wanted to appear as helpless as we all felt.
After dinner, we all went to the library for drinks, and a second try at strategy. That fell apart as soon we chose our drinks. I watched as we chose different drinks, then different seats. Hell, we weren’t even looking at each other. I tried logic, first sitting with Benedict, who usually presented the best plan for dealing with any threat to Amber, but Benedict was even less talkative than usual. I followed with Julian, who was still angry with me for a prior disagreement, and he refused to even acknowledge my presence.
And so it went until I came to Fiona.
I knew something was about, when she smiled at my approach. Fiona and I never shared amusements or ideals, so a smile from her could only come at my cost. It also struck as strange that she seemed to be enjoying the present crisis. Was she its instigator, or if not, what was the source of her pleasure in this moment? I chose a drink, a seat, and a gambit.
“Hello Fiona”, I said. “You couldn’t just kill your enemies in a duel, like anyone else in the family?”
Fiona glared at me for a moment, then that smile returned as she realized – all too quickly – that I was just trying to draw her out.
“You play at things you do not understand, Corwin”, she answered. “As usual.
“I have no interest in your word games, and I must say I disapprove of your manners, and their lack.”
“I am not playing at game here” I protested, “but hunting the cause and source of our present threat. It is an elusive bird, truth, one which seems to be hidden by at least one of our princesses.”
Fiona smirked and replied, “Whereas wit is a bird that eludes the hand of rather too many princes.”
I shrugged. “Your disapproval concerns me even less than usual, Fi. All things considered.”
She tossed her head, red hair like a fall of flame. “Yet, perhaps it should. All things considered.”
I did things with my own eyebrows, emptied my glass, swung my boots down from the table, and headed for the door.
She chuckled, behind me.
I stopped, refrained from turning, and waited. Fiona could never resist showing the rest of us that she was a step ahead. Or pretending to be.
“You are wearing your blade,” she said. “Good.”
I went out, uttering no clever comments. With at least three murderous ghosts stalking Castle Amber, the time for such things was past.’
Hours passed, as I waited with blade drawn and senses wary, sitting in the hallway outside a row of rooms where I thought an appearance most likely by one or more of our homicidal specters.
I guessed wrong. The most dangerous thing to pass my way that night was an odor wafting from Julian’s room. I could pretend it was some feral scent from our nocturnal attackers, but I am sure it was simply the unwashed aroma of a pair of his dogs. In any case, I saw no spirits floating about, encountered no need to use my weapon, and generally felt like I was wasting my time.
Until I heard Flora scream. Down another hall, and far from my chosen station. Naturally. Or un-naturally. Whatever.
I felt damn foolish as I ran towards Flora’s room, hoping my missed guess would not be a costly mistake.
Fortunately, the volume of Flora’s shouts was not matched by actual peril. That is, Flora was not a passive screamer; when assailed by spirits coming at her, as she claimed, from within the walls, she not only cried for help but began throwing things at her attackers. It was hard to tell if any of them was some effective weapon, or the sheer volume of makeup, jewelry, hair care items and mirrors had thwarted their aggression. For all I knew, Flora had surprised them as much as they surprised her. There was no way to be sure. For the moment, we all relaxed in the discovery that our disembodied attackers seemed able to make mistakes, and we felt more confident that we ourselves were perhaps immune to their threat.
Then Bleys found Julian, more than half-dead in his quarters. Julian did not appear for breakfast, and Julian was the first to check his rooms.
For some reason, Julian had not worn his armor the previous night. That cost him. He had been attacked from behind, as was evident by the burn marks on his back. He had fought off his attackers, but his arms, back, and legs were badly burned. I wished I could ask Julian what he had seen, and how he had fought off his assailants, but he was in a coma from his injuries, or the same thing for practical purposes. Benedict saw to his wounds and set a guard to door, with instructions to call him the instant Julian awoke – or anything appeared that might be the spirit murderers coming to finish the job.
I was not friendly with Julian, but an attack on family trumped personal arguments. Besides, just as I stood to gain from Eric’s humiliation if I could solve a mystery he was not around to handle, so too I would suffer my own humiliation if I could not resolve the problem right in front of me – and if a brother prince died on my watch, especially one I was not close to, I could count on Eric making me pay for it. And Father had made it clear that he counted fratricide as unforgivable. Failing to protect a brother was guilt by omission, and I knew that no defense I could present would clear me unless Julian lived. And I resolved the mystery and destroyed the threat.
I spoke to Benedict again, and – while cryptic – his comments included suggestions on where I might try my next vigil, and when I might expect to meet my foes.
‘It was very late, or rather early, before one of the walls opened in a place where it should not have done, and something that was both silver and shadow joined me.
Grayswandir felt good in my hand as I put down what I was finished drinking anyway, and waited.
Patience, they say, is a chiefly a virtue for statues, but I’d made more than my share of mistakes, thus far, and blood is hell to get out of good rugs.
Came a whisper, out of darkness. “Corwin, is it time?”
A fight for my life, I expected. Temporal confusion from the spooks, I have to admit, I did not see coming.
“No, go back to sleep”, I tried. OK, not a brilliant strategy, but I was tired and didn’t expect the question anyway.
There was a moment of silence, then the forms began to take shape. I expected something, I don’t know, human-like and perhaps demonic. These were, after all, undead spirits seeking to kill the living. Nor was I wrong.
Not exactly.
The attackers swirled into the room like sentient fog, and quickly surrounded me. I suddenly realized something was behind me, taking more substantial shape, and – I felt dread rush up my spine – preparing to strike me the same it had attacked Julian.
Something like lightning flashed, and surprised me. Mostly because the lightning came from inside the room … from Grayswandir.
I jumped to my feet, swinging up Grayswandir with one arm as I threw the book behind me into the – face? – of my posterior assailant. I heard the book smack into something, which swore as if hurt, and I pivoted, putting my back against the wall while swinging my sword into a guard position.
That was a mistake.
The spirits, once the sword, stopped moving, resumed their attack, and I felt a crackle of something hot shoot past my head, striking the wall hard as if a crossbow bolt. Something else, like a burning lasso, wrapped my boots and tried to trip me. I hopped reflexively, brought my sword up again and swung it about me as if trying to burn cobwebs with a torch.
And shadows fled before me, and I was alone.
My book was on the floor, blackened. Damn. I watched lightning flicker and wondered if I would ever know what I fought, or why. Family politics seemed as tiresome as ever.
Three ghosts, Benedict had said, and had been on the brink of saying more ere his face had smoothed and he’d turned away.
Which meant he’d recognized the one he’d seen.
So had the lamplighter, before the ghost that slew him caught up with him and burned his skull bare, from within.
Coln had died, before that, and one of the cooks. Seven maids, or more by now, since.
Then they started on us. Flora had almost fallen to one, and then Julian. Almost.
We’re tough meat, we of Amber.
Speaking of meat, I found myself famished. Deciding between preparing for a second round with the spooks, alerting the rest of the family to my attack, and getting an early breakfast, the stomach spoke with the greatest authority. Besides, I was somehow sure the attack for the night was done, and I needed to think through what had just happened before I spoke to anyone else. If one of us was behind the attacks, I had no intention of giving out thoughts on how to make sure I was properly killed next time.
[ to be continued ]
So imagine how much more difficult it can be to kill someone, who is already dead but comes back anyway.
It was in the early days, before all the betrayals and family intrigues … OK, we always had those going on, but this was back in the days when we still imagined that we played by the rules. You couldn’t attempt to murder a sibling then, without at least feigning innocence, and alliance with genocidal maniacs was only allowed if the said monsters were friends of Oberon.
So, when word got out that someone or something was making its way through the halls of Castle Amber at night, killing members of the staff and generally hurting the castle’s reputation for fine dining and keeping folks safe from threats to their safety, the family decided it was time to take matters in hand. And, being expected to take the lead, I did so.
Oberon, as he commonly did, was traveling and away from Amber. Caine and Gerard were at sea and therefore also unavailable. Dierdre and Llewellen on a diplomatic mission for the Golden Circle, Brand, Random and Eric were out of the city for reasons not known to anyone else in the family, or if known not shared with me. That, of course, was also a reason for me to take charge; it would gall Eric no end if I could resolve things before he even heard about them … and give me no end of amusement if I could find a way to suggest he was somehow responsible for the problem. I was in those years when I was trying to show up everyone else, and convinced I looked good doing it. So it was that four princes and two princesses gathered for dinner, as we often did when we wanted to discuss issues of importance, and to imagine ourselves civilized.
The food was fine. The conversation, however, was wholly unsatisfying. It soon became apparent that none of us knew what was really going on, had any idea who or what was behind the attacks, and no one wanted to appear as helpless as we all felt.
After dinner, we all went to the library for drinks, and a second try at strategy. That fell apart as soon we chose our drinks. I watched as we chose different drinks, then different seats. Hell, we weren’t even looking at each other. I tried logic, first sitting with Benedict, who usually presented the best plan for dealing with any threat to Amber, but Benedict was even less talkative than usual. I followed with Julian, who was still angry with me for a prior disagreement, and he refused to even acknowledge my presence.
And so it went until I came to Fiona.
I knew something was about, when she smiled at my approach. Fiona and I never shared amusements or ideals, so a smile from her could only come at my cost. It also struck as strange that she seemed to be enjoying the present crisis. Was she its instigator, or if not, what was the source of her pleasure in this moment? I chose a drink, a seat, and a gambit.
“Hello Fiona”, I said. “You couldn’t just kill your enemies in a duel, like anyone else in the family?”
Fiona glared at me for a moment, then that smile returned as she realized – all too quickly – that I was just trying to draw her out.
“You play at things you do not understand, Corwin”, she answered. “As usual.
“I have no interest in your word games, and I must say I disapprove of your manners, and their lack.”
“I am not playing at game here” I protested, “but hunting the cause and source of our present threat. It is an elusive bird, truth, one which seems to be hidden by at least one of our princesses.”
Fiona smirked and replied, “Whereas wit is a bird that eludes the hand of rather too many princes.”
I shrugged. “Your disapproval concerns me even less than usual, Fi. All things considered.”
She tossed her head, red hair like a fall of flame. “Yet, perhaps it should. All things considered.”
I did things with my own eyebrows, emptied my glass, swung my boots down from the table, and headed for the door.
She chuckled, behind me.
I stopped, refrained from turning, and waited. Fiona could never resist showing the rest of us that she was a step ahead. Or pretending to be.
“You are wearing your blade,” she said. “Good.”
I went out, uttering no clever comments. With at least three murderous ghosts stalking Castle Amber, the time for such things was past.’
Hours passed, as I waited with blade drawn and senses wary, sitting in the hallway outside a row of rooms where I thought an appearance most likely by one or more of our homicidal specters.
I guessed wrong. The most dangerous thing to pass my way that night was an odor wafting from Julian’s room. I could pretend it was some feral scent from our nocturnal attackers, but I am sure it was simply the unwashed aroma of a pair of his dogs. In any case, I saw no spirits floating about, encountered no need to use my weapon, and generally felt like I was wasting my time.
Until I heard Flora scream. Down another hall, and far from my chosen station. Naturally. Or un-naturally. Whatever.
I felt damn foolish as I ran towards Flora’s room, hoping my missed guess would not be a costly mistake.
Fortunately, the volume of Flora’s shouts was not matched by actual peril. That is, Flora was not a passive screamer; when assailed by spirits coming at her, as she claimed, from within the walls, she not only cried for help but began throwing things at her attackers. It was hard to tell if any of them was some effective weapon, or the sheer volume of makeup, jewelry, hair care items and mirrors had thwarted their aggression. For all I knew, Flora had surprised them as much as they surprised her. There was no way to be sure. For the moment, we all relaxed in the discovery that our disembodied attackers seemed able to make mistakes, and we felt more confident that we ourselves were perhaps immune to their threat.
Then Bleys found Julian, more than half-dead in his quarters. Julian did not appear for breakfast, and Julian was the first to check his rooms.
For some reason, Julian had not worn his armor the previous night. That cost him. He had been attacked from behind, as was evident by the burn marks on his back. He had fought off his attackers, but his arms, back, and legs were badly burned. I wished I could ask Julian what he had seen, and how he had fought off his assailants, but he was in a coma from his injuries, or the same thing for practical purposes. Benedict saw to his wounds and set a guard to door, with instructions to call him the instant Julian awoke – or anything appeared that might be the spirit murderers coming to finish the job.
I was not friendly with Julian, but an attack on family trumped personal arguments. Besides, just as I stood to gain from Eric’s humiliation if I could solve a mystery he was not around to handle, so too I would suffer my own humiliation if I could not resolve the problem right in front of me – and if a brother prince died on my watch, especially one I was not close to, I could count on Eric making me pay for it. And Father had made it clear that he counted fratricide as unforgivable. Failing to protect a brother was guilt by omission, and I knew that no defense I could present would clear me unless Julian lived. And I resolved the mystery and destroyed the threat.
I spoke to Benedict again, and – while cryptic – his comments included suggestions on where I might try my next vigil, and when I might expect to meet my foes.
‘It was very late, or rather early, before one of the walls opened in a place where it should not have done, and something that was both silver and shadow joined me.
Grayswandir felt good in my hand as I put down what I was finished drinking anyway, and waited.
Patience, they say, is a chiefly a virtue for statues, but I’d made more than my share of mistakes, thus far, and blood is hell to get out of good rugs.
Came a whisper, out of darkness. “Corwin, is it time?”
A fight for my life, I expected. Temporal confusion from the spooks, I have to admit, I did not see coming.
“No, go back to sleep”, I tried. OK, not a brilliant strategy, but I was tired and didn’t expect the question anyway.
There was a moment of silence, then the forms began to take shape. I expected something, I don’t know, human-like and perhaps demonic. These were, after all, undead spirits seeking to kill the living. Nor was I wrong.
Not exactly.
The attackers swirled into the room like sentient fog, and quickly surrounded me. I suddenly realized something was behind me, taking more substantial shape, and – I felt dread rush up my spine – preparing to strike me the same it had attacked Julian.
Something like lightning flashed, and surprised me. Mostly because the lightning came from inside the room … from Grayswandir.
I jumped to my feet, swinging up Grayswandir with one arm as I threw the book behind me into the – face? – of my posterior assailant. I heard the book smack into something, which swore as if hurt, and I pivoted, putting my back against the wall while swinging my sword into a guard position.
That was a mistake.
The spirits, once the sword, stopped moving, resumed their attack, and I felt a crackle of something hot shoot past my head, striking the wall hard as if a crossbow bolt. Something else, like a burning lasso, wrapped my boots and tried to trip me. I hopped reflexively, brought my sword up again and swung it about me as if trying to burn cobwebs with a torch.
And shadows fled before me, and I was alone.
My book was on the floor, blackened. Damn. I watched lightning flicker and wondered if I would ever know what I fought, or why. Family politics seemed as tiresome as ever.
Three ghosts, Benedict had said, and had been on the brink of saying more ere his face had smoothed and he’d turned away.
Which meant he’d recognized the one he’d seen.
So had the lamplighter, before the ghost that slew him caught up with him and burned his skull bare, from within.
Coln had died, before that, and one of the cooks. Seven maids, or more by now, since.
Then they started on us. Flora had almost fallen to one, and then Julian. Almost.
We’re tough meat, we of Amber.
Speaking of meat, I found myself famished. Deciding between preparing for a second round with the spooks, alerting the rest of the family to my attack, and getting an early breakfast, the stomach spoke with the greatest authority. Besides, I was somehow sure the attack for the night was done, and I needed to think through what had just happened before I spoke to anyone else. If one of us was behind the attacks, I had no intention of giving out thoughts on how to make sure I was properly killed next time.
[ to be continued ]
The Continued Chronicles of Amber – Updated Thoughts on Zelazny’s Unfinished Masterpiece
This article is a reprint of one I originally published in January 2010. I am reprinting here now, for two reasons. First, I have discovered that some of my original thoughts, specifically the ones surrounding “A Secret of Amber’, were hasty and incorrect. I’d like to revisit that story from a new and, I hope, wiser perspective. Also, I realized that I never wrote a promised third article on the last two short stories by Roger Zelazny. To get the perspective correct, I am reprinting the first two articles – with some revisions – and then the third will hopefully make sense in the proper context.
WARNING – This essay contains spoilers from the first ten books of the Chronicles of Amber, and speculates on the intentions of the late writer Roger Zelazny, had he written a third cycle.
In late 1991, Roger Zelazny published his tenth book in the Amber saga, 'Prince of Chaos'. The book completed the second five-book story arc in the series, the first five addressing Prince Corwin and the second five his son Merlin. The first five, originally published between 1970 and 1978, were originally considered collectively as the ‘Chronicles of Amber’, but when the second series started the first five became known as the Corwin Cycle. The second series, known as the Merlin Cycle, were originally published between 1985 and 1991, and continues where the first series left off, but with a different focus on events and characters. Most fans of the Chronicles prefer the first series over the second, for its complex imagery and character development, but generally anyone who reads the first book of the collection will make his way through them all. And the books hold up well to re-reading and time; there is a timeless quality to the Chronicles which makes it genuinely great literature, as I see it.
Roger Zelazny passed away on June 14, 1995, from kidney failure associated with cancer. The news shocked the literary world and his fans have for the most part never found someone worthy to fill Roger’s place. This is important, because of a crucial question – would the series continue? John Gregory Betancourt began a new series of Amber stories in 2002, but they failed both critically and in sales; I believe fans simply found the stories incomparable to Zelazny’s level. I think they failed for another reason, which I shall address in the next paragraph. There is also Roger’s reported statement that he did not want anyone else writing about Amber, which at first may seem a bit of selfish proprietorship but upon reflection I think there is some wisdom in it.
There are a number of reasons, however, why many fans believed that the Amber saga should continue. In the first place, a number of mysteries and questions were unresolved at the end of 'Prince of Chaos'. But more, Roger himself began to indicate he was headed towards a new series. After 'Prince of Chaos', Zelazny wrote six short stories between 1994 and 1995, of which five were linked in a clear continuation of events following the end of 'Prince of Chaos'. Those short stories introduced a new villain and chief conspirator, implied drastic changes in Merlin’s relationships with his friends, family, and even the prime forces of Order and Chaos, and reintroduced Corwin’s role in the supernatural conflict, now being acted out between Dworkin and Suhuy as agents for the Absolutes. It was certain that Zelazny planned to conclude his Chronicles with another series, once beginning where 'Prince of Chaos' ended. This, by the way, is one reason Betancourt’s series failed – he set his stories as a prequel, focusing on Oberon and frankly failing to show in that character the progenitor of Eric, Corwin, Benedict, and the other heroes of the family. The new series by Betancourt also demonstrated the difficulty which any author would face in continuing the story – the Zelazny touch is singular, priceless, and frankly inimitable. Even if an author got all the facts right as Roger would have had it, the style would be impossible to mimic perfectly. It would simply sound ‘off’, no matter who attempted the venture.
So then, are we doomed to never resolve the questions or to unravel the mysteries? Perhaps not. I am hardly able to read the mind of Roger Zelazny, but I can read a map, and he laid out his stories in a way which points to certain places to go. Like Merlin’s instructions to Ghostwheel when seeking the Logrus, certain indicators are laid out which tell you a general direction to turn, and so give a hint of the picture. This writing is an attempt to consider those hints. I must also admit, that while no one can ever replace Roger Zelazny, someone may yet do a decent job in completing the Amber saga with a proper conclusion.
I’d like to start by re-examining a common contention made by fans of the saga, that the Merlin Cycle is inferior to the Corwin Cycle. What strikes me about that claim, is the question of why that should so, assuming that is correct? Some fans have claimed that Roger knew he was dying and wanted to finish his books before he died. However, that claim has problems, including the fact that Zelazny lived for four years after 'Prince of Chaos' was published, and 'Prince of Chaos' left a number of important questions hanging, something Roger would not do if he just wanted to wrap up the saga. Also, on a personal note, I was once told that I was likely to die from my abdominal cancer, a form known as Pseudomyxoma Peritonei. The oncologist who said so was, it turned out, not up to speed on the treatments available for my form of cancer, but at the time it did give me a sharp recognition that my life was not unlimited, and that there were certain things I had better get done soon if I expected to complete them. My point there, is that at no time did I decide to rush off a sloppy job just so I could say it was done – if I was going to die soon, the last things I did were things I wanted to get done as perfect as I could. I would want my last work to be my best, not some sloppy effort. I can hardly imagine that Roger Zelazny would care less about what he considered his final work.
If this is true, however, it brings us back to ask why the Merlin Cycle appears to be less satisfying then the Corwin Cycle. Some of that comes down to Zelazny being fifteen years older when he started the 'Trumps of Doom' from when he began 'Nine Princes in Amber', but I also think it comes down to the fact that Zelazny wrote the Corwin Cycle, he knew there would be five books but was not sure whether the series would prove popular enough to continue the story. He had a lot of back-story, but could not know in advance how much demand there would be, to learn more about Grayswandir, about Dara, about Merlin and the Courts of Chaos, about the nature of the Pattern and the structure of his universe. When he started the Merlin Cycle, Zelazny knew that the market would bear not only the second series, but another after that, and I believe that from the start of the second series, Zelazny was thinking not just about books six through ten, but all the way through to the end of the saga. Look through the first ten books, and you will see any number of references or comments which point to doors for plot departures. While some of those were used, I believe, to counter any sense the reader had of omniscience in the story and to provide Roger the means to drop in plot surprises when he pleased, I also think they were there to be used in later parts of the story. Merlin’s decision to spare Corwin the first time they met in the Courts of Chaos, for example, foreshadowed Merlin’s determination to find and save his father in 'Prince of Chaos'.
And that is part of the dance, as well, the matter of sensing which themes and events are meant to reflect others in the story. Certainly Zelazny pointed this out in a number of places, that there is a balance and a certain continuity to things, a literary yin/yang balance if you will. Zelazny noted, for example that the royal family of Amber was in constant chaos, while the royal family of Chaos was serene. Therefore, we do well to consider the themes and lessons we have already seen in play during the first two cycles, as they will be repeated or continue in the same manner in the third series.
The first cycle focused on Amber. The second cycle focused on Chaos. The third, then, will focus on Shadow.
The first book of each cycle featured the imprisonment of the main character. So will the third.
The final book of each cycle saw the death of a King, and a new King. So will the third.
Corwin was betrayed by a love. So was Merlin. This will happen in the third cycle as well.
Corwin depended on his magic word, Grayswandir. Merlin depended on his shadow computer construct, Ghostwheel. The protagonist of the third cycle will depend on a similar artifact specially suited to his person.
In each of the first to cycles, the hero grew through the books from a self-centered person to a duty-focused person. So too, in the third cycle.
All through the books, we saw that people were not as they seemed. Carl Corey discovered he was really Prince Corwin, his buddy Ganelon turned out to be his father Oberon, Dara was Corwin’s lover and the mother of his son Merlin, but she never loved him and wanted Amber destroyed , Merlin’s best friend Luke tuned out to have attempted his murder several times, his girlfriend Julia became his nemesis Mask, and his brother Jurt, who spent his whole life trying to kill Merlin, in the end became his ally and helped him free Coral from the Pattern and the Logrus both. So moving into the last series, we should expect to not only see new characters added, but also see some surprises from the cast in place. Especially from Mandor, Fiona, and – wait for it – Bill Roth. Yep, good old “mortal” Bill, Corwin’s lawyer buddy from shadow Earth. There’s things to chew on regarding this guy, and more than a few suspicions. Consider how many times we see this guy throughout the stories. Bill Roth out-lives several major characters and turns up in all kinds of important places.
When Corwin got stabbed in 'Sign of the Unicorn' and was bleeding to death, who found him and got him to a hospital? Bill Roth.
Who helps Corwin with the disposal of his house on Earth in 'The Hand of Oberon'? Bill Roth.
Who wrote the terms of the Patterfall Treaty between Amber and Chaos? Bill Roth.
When Merlin decides to deal directly with whomever is trying to kill him in 'Trumps of Doom', who does he talk to besides Luke and (unknowingly) Nayda? Bill Roth.
Merlin talks again with Bill Roth in 'Sign of Chaos', he even runs across Bill Roth in the Hall of Mirrors, and when Merlin looks into Suhuy’s pool in 'Prince of Chaos' to consider candidates for the throne and people who are playing a role in that conflict, one of the people Merlin sees … is Bill Roth.
If Roger Zelazny had written a third series, Bill Roth would be a major surprise character, someone much different than he appeared to be all along. Some readers will remind me that Bill Roth is just a mortal human, but to that claim I would remind you that the claim came from Bill himself, and we have no proof whatsoever that Bill Roth is just what he claims. In the Merlin Cycle we discovered that Luke was not what he seemed, nor Coral, nor Julia. So Bill Roth, I strongly suspect, is a ringer.
Let’s go back to a nagging question that a lot of readers had in the Merlin Cycle: How, exactly, are we supposed to believe in Merlin as the new King of Chaos? Merlin himself admitted that he was far from qualified, yet at the end of 'Prince of Chaos' it sure looks like he got the job. Why, exactly? OK, I get that Merlin is from the royal houses of both Amber and Chaos, but again, why should this impress us? Where has he shown special qualities that would explain both the Unicorn and the Serpent wanting to sign up Merlin as their figurehead?
Merlin regards himself as a dime-a-dozen sorcerer, a decent but unexceptional swordsman, and an utter neuf in matters of state and politics. So how does he get the crown? We know from 'Prince of Chaos' that Merlin defeats both Dara and Mandor, and with the help of Ghostwheel he even seems to force the Logrus to accept his terms, after an earlier confrontation with the Pattern which seems to have been 90 percent luck on Merlin’s part, and a healthy assist from Luke for the rest of it. But Merlin does not accomplish this with skill or brilliant planning – he basically carries around the magic version of a handheld nuclear power plant and simply uses force until the obstacle is removed. And Merlin did not create or develop the Spikard – it was given to him! We find out from Bleys that there are nine of these rings, and it so happens that Merlin gets to carry out a second ring, which previously belonged to King Swayville and which was enchanted by Mandor and Dara in hopes of controlling Merlin. So OK, what are the odds , if you’re Mandor, say, that you come across an artifact of fantastic power, so much so that the bearer is all but unstoppable, and your thought is not only to not keep it for yourself, but hand it off to someone you plan to control, on the assumption that if things don’t work out you can still regain the upper hand? Isn’t it a lot more likely that you’d find more than one of those, so you had a power source of your own, should you need it? But of course, when Merlin dueled Mandor, he won. Odd. But I noticed something there.
Merlin mentioned that Mandor was fond of carrying around a group of small iron balls, which he used as an idiosyncratic magic aid. This is important for two reasons – one, in the short story “Hall of Mirrors”, Zelazny confirms that two of the spikards were turned into swords – Grayswandir and Werewindle, as a matter of fact. So there’s no reason that Mandor could not have transformed his spikard into three magic iron balls. And reason two, when Merlin abruptly confronts Mandor, he catches him by surprise. Mandor is led to believe that he is in control of Merlin through the spell on what he thinks is Merlin’s spikard, and in that section we never see Mandor use his magic iron balls. Guess Mandor picked a bad day to leave them at home or send them on an errand, huh?
By the way, in the short story “The Salesman’s Tale”, we find from Luke that he can summon Werewindle to him by way of a Trump. This lets us know that the spikards can be manipulated in the same way, and also oh by the way this answers a lot of questions about how Grayswandir shows up in various places seemingly on its own, such as Merlin being able to use in the land-underneath-Shadow in 'Knight of Shadow'. Being able to call up artifacts on cue makes things a lot more fluid in the third cycle, hmm?
Before moving on, I also found "The Salesman’s Tale" an important revelation on another score – Vialle’s ability for prophecy. One valid criticism of the first cycle was the limited value placed on the women in the stories, especially the Princesses of Amber. Zelazny’s discussion of Vialle’s prophetic powers is not only consistent with her legacy from Rebma, but a welcome acknowledgement of her value in her own right as a person – Queen in substance as well as name.
Next: What the Short Stories Contribute (Revised)
WARNING – This essay contains spoilers from the first ten books of the Chronicles of Amber, and speculates on the intentions of the late writer Roger Zelazny, had he written a third cycle.
In late 1991, Roger Zelazny published his tenth book in the Amber saga, 'Prince of Chaos'. The book completed the second five-book story arc in the series, the first five addressing Prince Corwin and the second five his son Merlin. The first five, originally published between 1970 and 1978, were originally considered collectively as the ‘Chronicles of Amber’, but when the second series started the first five became known as the Corwin Cycle. The second series, known as the Merlin Cycle, were originally published between 1985 and 1991, and continues where the first series left off, but with a different focus on events and characters. Most fans of the Chronicles prefer the first series over the second, for its complex imagery and character development, but generally anyone who reads the first book of the collection will make his way through them all. And the books hold up well to re-reading and time; there is a timeless quality to the Chronicles which makes it genuinely great literature, as I see it.
Roger Zelazny passed away on June 14, 1995, from kidney failure associated with cancer. The news shocked the literary world and his fans have for the most part never found someone worthy to fill Roger’s place. This is important, because of a crucial question – would the series continue? John Gregory Betancourt began a new series of Amber stories in 2002, but they failed both critically and in sales; I believe fans simply found the stories incomparable to Zelazny’s level. I think they failed for another reason, which I shall address in the next paragraph. There is also Roger’s reported statement that he did not want anyone else writing about Amber, which at first may seem a bit of selfish proprietorship but upon reflection I think there is some wisdom in it.
There are a number of reasons, however, why many fans believed that the Amber saga should continue. In the first place, a number of mysteries and questions were unresolved at the end of 'Prince of Chaos'. But more, Roger himself began to indicate he was headed towards a new series. After 'Prince of Chaos', Zelazny wrote six short stories between 1994 and 1995, of which five were linked in a clear continuation of events following the end of 'Prince of Chaos'. Those short stories introduced a new villain and chief conspirator, implied drastic changes in Merlin’s relationships with his friends, family, and even the prime forces of Order and Chaos, and reintroduced Corwin’s role in the supernatural conflict, now being acted out between Dworkin and Suhuy as agents for the Absolutes. It was certain that Zelazny planned to conclude his Chronicles with another series, once beginning where 'Prince of Chaos' ended. This, by the way, is one reason Betancourt’s series failed – he set his stories as a prequel, focusing on Oberon and frankly failing to show in that character the progenitor of Eric, Corwin, Benedict, and the other heroes of the family. The new series by Betancourt also demonstrated the difficulty which any author would face in continuing the story – the Zelazny touch is singular, priceless, and frankly inimitable. Even if an author got all the facts right as Roger would have had it, the style would be impossible to mimic perfectly. It would simply sound ‘off’, no matter who attempted the venture.
So then, are we doomed to never resolve the questions or to unravel the mysteries? Perhaps not. I am hardly able to read the mind of Roger Zelazny, but I can read a map, and he laid out his stories in a way which points to certain places to go. Like Merlin’s instructions to Ghostwheel when seeking the Logrus, certain indicators are laid out which tell you a general direction to turn, and so give a hint of the picture. This writing is an attempt to consider those hints. I must also admit, that while no one can ever replace Roger Zelazny, someone may yet do a decent job in completing the Amber saga with a proper conclusion.
I’d like to start by re-examining a common contention made by fans of the saga, that the Merlin Cycle is inferior to the Corwin Cycle. What strikes me about that claim, is the question of why that should so, assuming that is correct? Some fans have claimed that Roger knew he was dying and wanted to finish his books before he died. However, that claim has problems, including the fact that Zelazny lived for four years after 'Prince of Chaos' was published, and 'Prince of Chaos' left a number of important questions hanging, something Roger would not do if he just wanted to wrap up the saga. Also, on a personal note, I was once told that I was likely to die from my abdominal cancer, a form known as Pseudomyxoma Peritonei. The oncologist who said so was, it turned out, not up to speed on the treatments available for my form of cancer, but at the time it did give me a sharp recognition that my life was not unlimited, and that there were certain things I had better get done soon if I expected to complete them. My point there, is that at no time did I decide to rush off a sloppy job just so I could say it was done – if I was going to die soon, the last things I did were things I wanted to get done as perfect as I could. I would want my last work to be my best, not some sloppy effort. I can hardly imagine that Roger Zelazny would care less about what he considered his final work.
If this is true, however, it brings us back to ask why the Merlin Cycle appears to be less satisfying then the Corwin Cycle. Some of that comes down to Zelazny being fifteen years older when he started the 'Trumps of Doom' from when he began 'Nine Princes in Amber', but I also think it comes down to the fact that Zelazny wrote the Corwin Cycle, he knew there would be five books but was not sure whether the series would prove popular enough to continue the story. He had a lot of back-story, but could not know in advance how much demand there would be, to learn more about Grayswandir, about Dara, about Merlin and the Courts of Chaos, about the nature of the Pattern and the structure of his universe. When he started the Merlin Cycle, Zelazny knew that the market would bear not only the second series, but another after that, and I believe that from the start of the second series, Zelazny was thinking not just about books six through ten, but all the way through to the end of the saga. Look through the first ten books, and you will see any number of references or comments which point to doors for plot departures. While some of those were used, I believe, to counter any sense the reader had of omniscience in the story and to provide Roger the means to drop in plot surprises when he pleased, I also think they were there to be used in later parts of the story. Merlin’s decision to spare Corwin the first time they met in the Courts of Chaos, for example, foreshadowed Merlin’s determination to find and save his father in 'Prince of Chaos'.
And that is part of the dance, as well, the matter of sensing which themes and events are meant to reflect others in the story. Certainly Zelazny pointed this out in a number of places, that there is a balance and a certain continuity to things, a literary yin/yang balance if you will. Zelazny noted, for example that the royal family of Amber was in constant chaos, while the royal family of Chaos was serene. Therefore, we do well to consider the themes and lessons we have already seen in play during the first two cycles, as they will be repeated or continue in the same manner in the third series.
The first cycle focused on Amber. The second cycle focused on Chaos. The third, then, will focus on Shadow.
The first book of each cycle featured the imprisonment of the main character. So will the third.
The final book of each cycle saw the death of a King, and a new King. So will the third.
Corwin was betrayed by a love. So was Merlin. This will happen in the third cycle as well.
Corwin depended on his magic word, Grayswandir. Merlin depended on his shadow computer construct, Ghostwheel. The protagonist of the third cycle will depend on a similar artifact specially suited to his person.
In each of the first to cycles, the hero grew through the books from a self-centered person to a duty-focused person. So too, in the third cycle.
All through the books, we saw that people were not as they seemed. Carl Corey discovered he was really Prince Corwin, his buddy Ganelon turned out to be his father Oberon, Dara was Corwin’s lover and the mother of his son Merlin, but she never loved him and wanted Amber destroyed , Merlin’s best friend Luke tuned out to have attempted his murder several times, his girlfriend Julia became his nemesis Mask, and his brother Jurt, who spent his whole life trying to kill Merlin, in the end became his ally and helped him free Coral from the Pattern and the Logrus both. So moving into the last series, we should expect to not only see new characters added, but also see some surprises from the cast in place. Especially from Mandor, Fiona, and – wait for it – Bill Roth. Yep, good old “mortal” Bill, Corwin’s lawyer buddy from shadow Earth. There’s things to chew on regarding this guy, and more than a few suspicions. Consider how many times we see this guy throughout the stories. Bill Roth out-lives several major characters and turns up in all kinds of important places.
When Corwin got stabbed in 'Sign of the Unicorn' and was bleeding to death, who found him and got him to a hospital? Bill Roth.
Who helps Corwin with the disposal of his house on Earth in 'The Hand of Oberon'? Bill Roth.
Who wrote the terms of the Patterfall Treaty between Amber and Chaos? Bill Roth.
When Merlin decides to deal directly with whomever is trying to kill him in 'Trumps of Doom', who does he talk to besides Luke and (unknowingly) Nayda? Bill Roth.
Merlin talks again with Bill Roth in 'Sign of Chaos', he even runs across Bill Roth in the Hall of Mirrors, and when Merlin looks into Suhuy’s pool in 'Prince of Chaos' to consider candidates for the throne and people who are playing a role in that conflict, one of the people Merlin sees … is Bill Roth.
If Roger Zelazny had written a third series, Bill Roth would be a major surprise character, someone much different than he appeared to be all along. Some readers will remind me that Bill Roth is just a mortal human, but to that claim I would remind you that the claim came from Bill himself, and we have no proof whatsoever that Bill Roth is just what he claims. In the Merlin Cycle we discovered that Luke was not what he seemed, nor Coral, nor Julia. So Bill Roth, I strongly suspect, is a ringer.
Let’s go back to a nagging question that a lot of readers had in the Merlin Cycle: How, exactly, are we supposed to believe in Merlin as the new King of Chaos? Merlin himself admitted that he was far from qualified, yet at the end of 'Prince of Chaos' it sure looks like he got the job. Why, exactly? OK, I get that Merlin is from the royal houses of both Amber and Chaos, but again, why should this impress us? Where has he shown special qualities that would explain both the Unicorn and the Serpent wanting to sign up Merlin as their figurehead?
Merlin regards himself as a dime-a-dozen sorcerer, a decent but unexceptional swordsman, and an utter neuf in matters of state and politics. So how does he get the crown? We know from 'Prince of Chaos' that Merlin defeats both Dara and Mandor, and with the help of Ghostwheel he even seems to force the Logrus to accept his terms, after an earlier confrontation with the Pattern which seems to have been 90 percent luck on Merlin’s part, and a healthy assist from Luke for the rest of it. But Merlin does not accomplish this with skill or brilliant planning – he basically carries around the magic version of a handheld nuclear power plant and simply uses force until the obstacle is removed. And Merlin did not create or develop the Spikard – it was given to him! We find out from Bleys that there are nine of these rings, and it so happens that Merlin gets to carry out a second ring, which previously belonged to King Swayville and which was enchanted by Mandor and Dara in hopes of controlling Merlin. So OK, what are the odds , if you’re Mandor, say, that you come across an artifact of fantastic power, so much so that the bearer is all but unstoppable, and your thought is not only to not keep it for yourself, but hand it off to someone you plan to control, on the assumption that if things don’t work out you can still regain the upper hand? Isn’t it a lot more likely that you’d find more than one of those, so you had a power source of your own, should you need it? But of course, when Merlin dueled Mandor, he won. Odd. But I noticed something there.
Merlin mentioned that Mandor was fond of carrying around a group of small iron balls, which he used as an idiosyncratic magic aid. This is important for two reasons – one, in the short story “Hall of Mirrors”, Zelazny confirms that two of the spikards were turned into swords – Grayswandir and Werewindle, as a matter of fact. So there’s no reason that Mandor could not have transformed his spikard into three magic iron balls. And reason two, when Merlin abruptly confronts Mandor, he catches him by surprise. Mandor is led to believe that he is in control of Merlin through the spell on what he thinks is Merlin’s spikard, and in that section we never see Mandor use his magic iron balls. Guess Mandor picked a bad day to leave them at home or send them on an errand, huh?
By the way, in the short story “The Salesman’s Tale”, we find from Luke that he can summon Werewindle to him by way of a Trump. This lets us know that the spikards can be manipulated in the same way, and also oh by the way this answers a lot of questions about how Grayswandir shows up in various places seemingly on its own, such as Merlin being able to use in the land-underneath-Shadow in 'Knight of Shadow'. Being able to call up artifacts on cue makes things a lot more fluid in the third cycle, hmm?
Before moving on, I also found "The Salesman’s Tale" an important revelation on another score – Vialle’s ability for prophecy. One valid criticism of the first cycle was the limited value placed on the women in the stories, especially the Princesses of Amber. Zelazny’s discussion of Vialle’s prophetic powers is not only consistent with her legacy from Rebma, but a welcome acknowledgement of her value in her own right as a person – Queen in substance as well as name.
Next: What the Short Stories Contribute (Revised)
Tuesday, February 08, 2011
A Thief In Amber - First and Very Rough Draft
Some people are hard to kill. I don’t mean the moral decision to kill, but the difficulty in getting someone to die, who is stubbornly opposed to the idea. Some people are hard to kill because they are physically tough, some have one of those spirits that refuses to quit, and some are just plain durable.
So imagine how much more difficult it can be to kill someone, who is already dead but comes back anyway.
It was in the early days, before all the betrayals and family intrigues … OK, we always had those going on, but this was back in the days when we still imagined that we played by the rules. You couldn’t attempt to murder a sibling then, without at least feigning innocence, and alliance with genocidal maniacs was only allowed if the said monsters were friends of Oberon.
So, when word got out that someone or something was making its way through the halls of Castle Amber at night, killing members of the staff and generally hurting the castle’s reputation for fine dining and keeping folks safe from threats to their safety, the family decided it was time to take matters in hand. And, being expected to take the lead, I did so.
Oberon, as he commonly did, was traveling and away from Amber. Caine and Gerard were at sea and therefore also unavailable. Dierdre and Llewellen on a diplomatic mission for the Golden Circle, Brand, Random and Eric were out of the city for reasons not known to anyone else in the family. That, of course, was also a reason for me to take charge; it would gall Eric no end if I could resolve things before he even heard about them … and give me no end of amusement if I could find a way to suggest he was somehow responsible for the problem. I was in those years when I was trying to show up everyone else, and convinced I looked good doing it. So it was that four princes and two princesses gathered for dinner, as we often did when we wanted to discuss issues of importance, and to imagine ourselves civilized.
The food was fine. The conversation, however, was wholly unsatisfying. It soon became apparent that none of us knew what was really going on, had any idea who or what was behind the attacks, and no one wanted to appear as helpless as we all felt.
After dinner, we all went to the library for drinks, and a second try at strategy. That fell apart as soon we chose our drinks. I watched as we chose different drinks, then different seats. Hell, we weren’t even looking at each other.
[Corwin in conversation with Fiona, in some mild disagreement]
‘ “Whereas wit is a bird that eludes the hand of rather too many princes.”
I shrugged. “Your disapproval concerns me even less than usual, Fi. All things considered.”
She tossed her head, read hair like a fall of flame. “Yet, perhaps it should. All things considered.”
I did things with my own eyebrows, emptied my glass, swung my boots down from the table, and headed for the door.
She chuckled, behind me.
I stopped, refrained from turning, and waited. Fiona could never resist showing the rest of us that she was a step ahead. Or pretending to be.
“You are wearing your blade,” she said. “Good.”
I went out, uttering no clever comments. With at least three murderous ghosts stalking Castle Amber, the time for such things was past.’
Hours passed, as I waited with blade drawn and senses wary, sitting in the hallway outside a row of rooms where I thought an appearance most likely by one or more of our homicidal specters.
I guessed wrong. The most dangerous thing to pass my way that night was an odor wafting from Julian’s room. I could pretend it was some feral scent from our nocturnal attackers, but I am sure it was simply the unwashed aroma of a pair of his dogs. In any case, I saw no spirits floating about, encountered no need to use my weapon, and generally felt like I was wasting my time.
Until I heard Flora scream. Down another hall, and far from my chosen station. Naturally. Or un-naturally. Whatever.
I felt damn foolish as I ran towards Flora’s room, hoping my missed guess would not be a costly mistake.
‘It was very late, or rather early, before one of the walls opened in a place where it should not have done, and something that was both silver and shadow joined me.
Grayswandir felt good in my hand as I put down what I was finished drinking anyway, and waited.
Patience, they say, is a chiefly a virtue for statues, but I’d made more than my share of mistakes, thus far, and blood is hell to get out of good rugs.
Came a whisper, out of darkness. “Corwin, is it time?” ’
A fight for my life, I expected. Temporal confusion from the spooks, I have to admit, I did not see coming.
‘And shadows fled before me, and I was alone.
My book was on the floor, blackened. Damn. I watched lightning flicker and wondered if I would ever know what I fought, or why. Family politics seemed as tiresome as ever.
Three ghosts, Benedict had said, and had been on the brink of saying more ere his face had smoothed and he’d turned away.
Which meant he’d recognized the one he’d seen.
So had the lamplighter, before the ghost that slew him caught up with him and burned his skull bare, from within.
Coln had died, before that, and one of the cooks. Seven maids, or more by now, since.
Then they started on us. Flora had almost fallen to one, and then Julian. Almost.
We’re tough meat, we of Amber.’
[ natt
er natter natter ]
So imagine how much more difficult it can be to kill someone, who is already dead but comes back anyway.
It was in the early days, before all the betrayals and family intrigues … OK, we always had those going on, but this was back in the days when we still imagined that we played by the rules. You couldn’t attempt to murder a sibling then, without at least feigning innocence, and alliance with genocidal maniacs was only allowed if the said monsters were friends of Oberon.
So, when word got out that someone or something was making its way through the halls of Castle Amber at night, killing members of the staff and generally hurting the castle’s reputation for fine dining and keeping folks safe from threats to their safety, the family decided it was time to take matters in hand. And, being expected to take the lead, I did so.
Oberon, as he commonly did, was traveling and away from Amber. Caine and Gerard were at sea and therefore also unavailable. Dierdre and Llewellen on a diplomatic mission for the Golden Circle, Brand, Random and Eric were out of the city for reasons not known to anyone else in the family. That, of course, was also a reason for me to take charge; it would gall Eric no end if I could resolve things before he even heard about them … and give me no end of amusement if I could find a way to suggest he was somehow responsible for the problem. I was in those years when I was trying to show up everyone else, and convinced I looked good doing it. So it was that four princes and two princesses gathered for dinner, as we often did when we wanted to discuss issues of importance, and to imagine ourselves civilized.
The food was fine. The conversation, however, was wholly unsatisfying. It soon became apparent that none of us knew what was really going on, had any idea who or what was behind the attacks, and no one wanted to appear as helpless as we all felt.
After dinner, we all went to the library for drinks, and a second try at strategy. That fell apart as soon we chose our drinks. I watched as we chose different drinks, then different seats. Hell, we weren’t even looking at each other.
[Corwin in conversation with Fiona, in some mild disagreement]
‘ “Whereas wit is a bird that eludes the hand of rather too many princes.”
I shrugged. “Your disapproval concerns me even less than usual, Fi. All things considered.”
She tossed her head, read hair like a fall of flame. “Yet, perhaps it should. All things considered.”
I did things with my own eyebrows, emptied my glass, swung my boots down from the table, and headed for the door.
She chuckled, behind me.
I stopped, refrained from turning, and waited. Fiona could never resist showing the rest of us that she was a step ahead. Or pretending to be.
“You are wearing your blade,” she said. “Good.”
I went out, uttering no clever comments. With at least three murderous ghosts stalking Castle Amber, the time for such things was past.’
Hours passed, as I waited with blade drawn and senses wary, sitting in the hallway outside a row of rooms where I thought an appearance most likely by one or more of our homicidal specters.
I guessed wrong. The most dangerous thing to pass my way that night was an odor wafting from Julian’s room. I could pretend it was some feral scent from our nocturnal attackers, but I am sure it was simply the unwashed aroma of a pair of his dogs. In any case, I saw no spirits floating about, encountered no need to use my weapon, and generally felt like I was wasting my time.
Until I heard Flora scream. Down another hall, and far from my chosen station. Naturally. Or un-naturally. Whatever.
I felt damn foolish as I ran towards Flora’s room, hoping my missed guess would not be a costly mistake.
‘It was very late, or rather early, before one of the walls opened in a place where it should not have done, and something that was both silver and shadow joined me.
Grayswandir felt good in my hand as I put down what I was finished drinking anyway, and waited.
Patience, they say, is a chiefly a virtue for statues, but I’d made more than my share of mistakes, thus far, and blood is hell to get out of good rugs.
Came a whisper, out of darkness. “Corwin, is it time?” ’
A fight for my life, I expected. Temporal confusion from the spooks, I have to admit, I did not see coming.
‘And shadows fled before me, and I was alone.
My book was on the floor, blackened. Damn. I watched lightning flicker and wondered if I would ever know what I fought, or why. Family politics seemed as tiresome as ever.
Three ghosts, Benedict had said, and had been on the brink of saying more ere his face had smoothed and he’d turned away.
Which meant he’d recognized the one he’d seen.
So had the lamplighter, before the ghost that slew him caught up with him and burned his skull bare, from within.
Coln had died, before that, and one of the cooks. Seven maids, or more by now, since.
Then they started on us. Flora had almost fallen to one, and then Julian. Almost.
We’re tough meat, we of Amber.’
[ natt
er natter natter ]
Friday, February 04, 2011
A Thief In Amber – Scratching the Itch
Every so often, a little voice tells me to write something. That’s part of why I blog. Also, I am sometimes a bit unhappy with the lack of good fiction available, and I like to imagine that – just maybe – I could tell a story as well as the original author. Maybe even better.
Such hubris often leads to an attempt to write something myself. And very often I am forced to admit that it’s not easy at all to do a proper job writing something. But even so, it’s an itch to scratch, and some itches are more persistent than others.
Which brings me to Roger Zelazny.
In my opinion, Roger Zelazny is the best author I ever had the pleasure to read. The man could tell a story better than anyone else in the business. And my favorite works of his were the Amber Chronicles, the ten books and five short stories about the Eternal City and the twin poles of Reality in Zelazny’s mythic universe. Oh, and a very short story, incomplete and only partly written by Roger. “A Secret of Amber” is really a fragment, actually, but it hints at a few things that add to the depth of Amber, things which I thought could – and should – be drawn out to show something more of Amber.
For those unfamiliar with the Amber Chronicles, Roger Zelazny wrote a series of five novels from 1970 to 1978, focusing on the adventures of a hero named Corwin, who hailed from an eternal city named Amber. The series was wildly successful in all respects, and was followed by a second series of five books, which focused on Corwin’s son Merlin. After these came five short stories which many people, including myself, believed to mean that Zelazny was considering a third series to round out the myth and complete his story in full. Unfortunately, Roger contracted a cancer of the kidney and died before the third series could be written. Zelazny’s estate contracted with Gregory Betancourt to write a new series, but the effort was – to me at least – disappointing, in part because Betancourt wrote a prequel, addressing events before the time of the first series and focusing on Oberon, rather than resolving all the loose ends left from the Merlin Cycle. Also, that series was never completed, for reasons we don’t need to go into here. Suffice to say that many Amber fans have been left with unsolved mysteries for more than a decade. I wrote before that there are hints in the way the first two cycles were written, as well as the five short stories, which could be used to build the framework of the third series. That said, the idea that anyone but Zelazny could do his work justice is daunting even for one book, let alone trying to put together a five-book series to follow the theme and pattern of the first ten.
Which brings me to Ed Greenwood. Like many Amber fans, Greenwood found the books by Zelazny to be masterpieces of writing. Unlike many of us, Ed took it upon himself to present Roger with a bookmark at a convention – a bookmark with a snip of script he wrote about a conversation between Corwin and Fiona. And Roger wrote a follow-up to it. Over time, a short but significant story continued, with Ed writing some and Roger writing some. It is, sadly, far from complete, only a few paragraphs in all. And many Amber fans would consider it far from Canon, seeing it the fruit of a passing jest between two writers, and that in the most informal of settings. Nevertheless, we have those words from Roger, and I do think that even written on the spur of a moment, he would write them true to the spirit of his city and the royal family of Oberon.
What’s more, there’s a new story there, one that adds to the overall story and hints at things we should consider in total.
The itch was small at first, but as time passed that little voice suggested that I should give it a go. After all, it’s not as if I would be trying to write a true Amber novel, nor taking anything away from Mr. Greenwood. The bits from Mr. Zelazny were short enough to qualify as ‘fair use’, especially if I made sure to credit Zelazny’s parts as his own. Nothing against the parts written by Ed, but as a Zelazny fan I have to admit I wanted to put my own text alongside Roger’s, much as it seems Ed wanted to do. But I also wanted to see if I could finish the story, to do it in a way faithful to the Amber spirit and the known canon.
That itch has become too annoying not to scratch, so I have decided to give it a try. That said, there’s a reason I have never been published, and many people who have read my other writing have told me to make sure I kept my day job. So, before you read my work, be warned that I cannot promise its level of quality will rise to your expectation.
So why write it? Well, as I said there’s that itch. Also, I do think that every so often I do hit the message right and put out something that’s not a complete waste of time. And even if the result of my effort is a care wreck, well, there are a lot of people who like to watch car wrecks. I am not going to use Ed’s title, so – since I’m swiping the idea and also since I think it suits the theme, I’m going to call it ‘A Thief In Amber’.
So where to start? First, we need to set the story, and to do that, we should start with the fragments in “A Secret of Amber”, as written by Zelazny himself (with credit to Ed Greenwood, Amberzine 12-15, 2005):
[Corwin in conversation with Fiona, in some mild disagreement]
‘ “Whereas wit is a bird that eludes the hand of rather too many princes.”
I shrugged. “Your disapproval concerns me even less than usual, Fi. All things considered.”
She tossed her head, read hair like a fall of flame. “Yet, perhaps it should. All things considered.”
I did things with my own eyebrows, emptied my glass, swung my boots down from the table, and headed for the door.
She chuckled, behind me.
I stopped, refrained from turning, and waited. Fiona could never resist showing the rest of us that she was a step ahead. Or pretending to be.
“You are wearing your blade,” she said. “Good.”
I went out, uttering no clever comments. With at least three murderous ghosts stalking Castle Amber, the time for such things was past.’
OK, first off, the last time I wrote about this story, I said it took place just after Merlin was returned to Amber following Merlin’s showdown with Chaos. I now take that back. The manner of both Corwin and Fiona is not the friendship they had begun at the end of the Corwin Cycle, and both are far too brash for what they have come to learn by the end of the Merlin cycle. So this story takes place much, much earlier, prior to the original conditions in Nine Princes In Amber. Before Corwin lost his memory on the Shadow Earth, I think. It takes place in that time when Corwin and his brothers and sisters were much younger, before any of the scheming we see in the books came to full flower. This is important to me, because it means the scheming is the result of characters like Oberon, Dworkin, Suhuy, and of course the main actors behind the curtain, the Pattern and the Logrus. With that said, on to the next fragment:
‘It was very late, or rather early, before one of the walls opened in a place where it should not have done, and something that was both silver and shadow joined me.
Grayswandir felt good in my hand as I put down what I was finished drinking anyway, and waited.
Patience, they say, is a chiefly a virtue for statues, but I’d made more than my share of mistakes, thus far, and blood is hell to get out of good rugs.
Came a whisper, out of darkness. “Corwin, is it time?”’
Once again, we see that the events happening here must have preceded the books’ events. After learning of the Primal Pattern and his experiences with the Hall of Mirrors, Corwin would not have been surprised to see walls open up in the Castle itself. Also, Corwin very obviously thinks very highly of his ability to deal with the situation, a trait not diminished later, but he’s just plain overconfident here. On to the next fragment, then:
‘And shadows fled before me, and I was alone.
My book was on the floor, blackened. Damn. I watched lightning flicker and wondered if I would ever know what I fought, or why. Family politics seemed as tiresome as ever.
Three ghosts, Benedict had said, and had been on the brink of saying more ere his face had smoothed and he’d turned away.
Which meant he’d recognized the one he’d seen.
So had the lamplighter, before the ghost that slew him caught up with him and burned his skull bare, from within.
Coln had died, before that, and one of the cooks. Seven maids, or more by now, since.
Then they started on us. Flora had almost fallen to one, and then Julian. Almost.
We’re tough meat, we of Amber.’
And that’s it from Roger, but that last part has a number of clues in it. Ghosts familiar to Amber’s family and household, with the ability to microwave people. And apparently holding a grudge against the Royal Family, though not all that picky over their choice of victims.
I’m starting on the story now, no idea when it will be done. If it’s not too horrible, I will post what I have done from time to time. Wish me luck, or stay to watch the car wreck.
Such hubris often leads to an attempt to write something myself. And very often I am forced to admit that it’s not easy at all to do a proper job writing something. But even so, it’s an itch to scratch, and some itches are more persistent than others.
Which brings me to Roger Zelazny.
In my opinion, Roger Zelazny is the best author I ever had the pleasure to read. The man could tell a story better than anyone else in the business. And my favorite works of his were the Amber Chronicles, the ten books and five short stories about the Eternal City and the twin poles of Reality in Zelazny’s mythic universe. Oh, and a very short story, incomplete and only partly written by Roger. “A Secret of Amber” is really a fragment, actually, but it hints at a few things that add to the depth of Amber, things which I thought could – and should – be drawn out to show something more of Amber.
For those unfamiliar with the Amber Chronicles, Roger Zelazny wrote a series of five novels from 1970 to 1978, focusing on the adventures of a hero named Corwin, who hailed from an eternal city named Amber. The series was wildly successful in all respects, and was followed by a second series of five books, which focused on Corwin’s son Merlin. After these came five short stories which many people, including myself, believed to mean that Zelazny was considering a third series to round out the myth and complete his story in full. Unfortunately, Roger contracted a cancer of the kidney and died before the third series could be written. Zelazny’s estate contracted with Gregory Betancourt to write a new series, but the effort was – to me at least – disappointing, in part because Betancourt wrote a prequel, addressing events before the time of the first series and focusing on Oberon, rather than resolving all the loose ends left from the Merlin Cycle. Also, that series was never completed, for reasons we don’t need to go into here. Suffice to say that many Amber fans have been left with unsolved mysteries for more than a decade. I wrote before that there are hints in the way the first two cycles were written, as well as the five short stories, which could be used to build the framework of the third series. That said, the idea that anyone but Zelazny could do his work justice is daunting even for one book, let alone trying to put together a five-book series to follow the theme and pattern of the first ten.
Which brings me to Ed Greenwood. Like many Amber fans, Greenwood found the books by Zelazny to be masterpieces of writing. Unlike many of us, Ed took it upon himself to present Roger with a bookmark at a convention – a bookmark with a snip of script he wrote about a conversation between Corwin and Fiona. And Roger wrote a follow-up to it. Over time, a short but significant story continued, with Ed writing some and Roger writing some. It is, sadly, far from complete, only a few paragraphs in all. And many Amber fans would consider it far from Canon, seeing it the fruit of a passing jest between two writers, and that in the most informal of settings. Nevertheless, we have those words from Roger, and I do think that even written on the spur of a moment, he would write them true to the spirit of his city and the royal family of Oberon.
What’s more, there’s a new story there, one that adds to the overall story and hints at things we should consider in total.
The itch was small at first, but as time passed that little voice suggested that I should give it a go. After all, it’s not as if I would be trying to write a true Amber novel, nor taking anything away from Mr. Greenwood. The bits from Mr. Zelazny were short enough to qualify as ‘fair use’, especially if I made sure to credit Zelazny’s parts as his own. Nothing against the parts written by Ed, but as a Zelazny fan I have to admit I wanted to put my own text alongside Roger’s, much as it seems Ed wanted to do. But I also wanted to see if I could finish the story, to do it in a way faithful to the Amber spirit and the known canon.
That itch has become too annoying not to scratch, so I have decided to give it a try. That said, there’s a reason I have never been published, and many people who have read my other writing have told me to make sure I kept my day job. So, before you read my work, be warned that I cannot promise its level of quality will rise to your expectation.
So why write it? Well, as I said there’s that itch. Also, I do think that every so often I do hit the message right and put out something that’s not a complete waste of time. And even if the result of my effort is a care wreck, well, there are a lot of people who like to watch car wrecks. I am not going to use Ed’s title, so – since I’m swiping the idea and also since I think it suits the theme, I’m going to call it ‘A Thief In Amber’.
So where to start? First, we need to set the story, and to do that, we should start with the fragments in “A Secret of Amber”, as written by Zelazny himself (with credit to Ed Greenwood, Amberzine 12-15, 2005):
[Corwin in conversation with Fiona, in some mild disagreement]
‘ “Whereas wit is a bird that eludes the hand of rather too many princes.”
I shrugged. “Your disapproval concerns me even less than usual, Fi. All things considered.”
She tossed her head, read hair like a fall of flame. “Yet, perhaps it should. All things considered.”
I did things with my own eyebrows, emptied my glass, swung my boots down from the table, and headed for the door.
She chuckled, behind me.
I stopped, refrained from turning, and waited. Fiona could never resist showing the rest of us that she was a step ahead. Or pretending to be.
“You are wearing your blade,” she said. “Good.”
I went out, uttering no clever comments. With at least three murderous ghosts stalking Castle Amber, the time for such things was past.’
OK, first off, the last time I wrote about this story, I said it took place just after Merlin was returned to Amber following Merlin’s showdown with Chaos. I now take that back. The manner of both Corwin and Fiona is not the friendship they had begun at the end of the Corwin Cycle, and both are far too brash for what they have come to learn by the end of the Merlin cycle. So this story takes place much, much earlier, prior to the original conditions in Nine Princes In Amber. Before Corwin lost his memory on the Shadow Earth, I think. It takes place in that time when Corwin and his brothers and sisters were much younger, before any of the scheming we see in the books came to full flower. This is important to me, because it means the scheming is the result of characters like Oberon, Dworkin, Suhuy, and of course the main actors behind the curtain, the Pattern and the Logrus. With that said, on to the next fragment:
‘It was very late, or rather early, before one of the walls opened in a place where it should not have done, and something that was both silver and shadow joined me.
Grayswandir felt good in my hand as I put down what I was finished drinking anyway, and waited.
Patience, they say, is a chiefly a virtue for statues, but I’d made more than my share of mistakes, thus far, and blood is hell to get out of good rugs.
Came a whisper, out of darkness. “Corwin, is it time?”’
Once again, we see that the events happening here must have preceded the books’ events. After learning of the Primal Pattern and his experiences with the Hall of Mirrors, Corwin would not have been surprised to see walls open up in the Castle itself. Also, Corwin very obviously thinks very highly of his ability to deal with the situation, a trait not diminished later, but he’s just plain overconfident here. On to the next fragment, then:
‘And shadows fled before me, and I was alone.
My book was on the floor, blackened. Damn. I watched lightning flicker and wondered if I would ever know what I fought, or why. Family politics seemed as tiresome as ever.
Three ghosts, Benedict had said, and had been on the brink of saying more ere his face had smoothed and he’d turned away.
Which meant he’d recognized the one he’d seen.
So had the lamplighter, before the ghost that slew him caught up with him and burned his skull bare, from within.
Coln had died, before that, and one of the cooks. Seven maids, or more by now, since.
Then they started on us. Flora had almost fallen to one, and then Julian. Almost.
We’re tough meat, we of Amber.’
And that’s it from Roger, but that last part has a number of clues in it. Ghosts familiar to Amber’s family and household, with the ability to microwave people. And apparently holding a grudge against the Royal Family, though not all that picky over their choice of victims.
I’m starting on the story now, no idea when it will be done. If it’s not too horrible, I will post what I have done from time to time. Wish me luck, or stay to watch the car wreck.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Non Compos Mentis
Well, I’m back from China. Lots of stories to tell, most of which no one but me will find worth the telling, so I know better than to trot them out here. At least for now. I actually got back Monday night, but had a lot to do once I got home, and today I’m really feeling the jet lag, or whatever you want to call that disorientation, mild discomfort, and general lack of mental acuity that often occurs when you get back from a long trip. And yes, in case you were thinking that I plan to use that as an excuse to post a stupid article then claim I was incapacitated if it crashes, that is my intention.
President Obama had his State of the Union address Tuesday, speaking of someone else working with less than a fully functional cerebellum. I guess the word that best describes it would be ‘predictable’. As in, demands that his programs not be repealed by the GOP-controlled Congress, mixed in with promises of bipartisan respect and cooperation, verbal jabs at leading Conservatives while demanding softer political rhetoric, and promises to control or even ‘freeze’ spending – while at the same time urging more and more money be spent on his personal pet projects. The same old predictable narcissism and hypocrisy, in other words. Of course Big Media – my new tag for corporate sycophants who still try to pretend that their blatant and omnipresent contempt against anything conservative, rational, or common sense as ‘objective journalism’ – thought the world of Obama’s dialectic, and cheered him on as de facto cheerleaders, but I don’t get the sense that the average American buys the spin anymore, at least not to the degree that the Obamites believe they will.
Obama being what he is, we should not be surprised to discover his approval of a slap at the U.S., performed by one of the very guests invited to perform at the White House. Lang Lang, a musician of mediocre ability but acceptably leftist perspective, performed an instrumental piece celebrating a military victory by Chinese soldiers over the Americans – at an event celebrating Sino-American cooperation and goodwill. We now have the choice to believe either that President Obama’s protocol corps was so inept and stupid that they did not bother to consider the provenance of the piece, or that they secretly approved of the sentiment and allowed the offensive performance to take place on the assumption that the public would not notice the insult or worse, that the Administration did not care that America was being insulted in the very heart of her government. The decision is not an attractive one, and this event happening in the same week where Obama’s aides and staff have emphasized that words and symbols have significant meaning, does not do them credit at all.
My perspective on these current events is colored by my recent experiences in China, a nation whose government hates the U.S. but whose people plainly love Americans. During my time there, I discovered a wide range of public opinion regarding foreigners and their business in China. To be blunt, Asians have an advantage in China but not so much Koreans, Russians are flat-out unpopular, but Americans, while relatively scarce in China, are generally popular and well-liked. That’s a generalization, of course, and it has risks in too broad an application, but from what I have seen, heard and experienced there is a great respect and affection for Americans. Applying that to the Lang Lang incident, it seems to me no wonder that Hu Jintao enjoyed the gesture, because in his country he is generally not able to attack Americans or their way of life. Quite the opposite, although most of my time was spent in coastal regions, even when I went inland to more rural parts of China, Americans are respected and, well, envied, for what they have been able to achieve and what they represent to China. China is a land full of hard-working, intelligent people, but they have been hindered by both a lack of infrastructure and a government which regards innovation as disloyal. American companies succeed in Asia to some degree, because Americans are not afraid to challenge assumptions and seek practical solutions, rather than just play to some rote expectation . In that sense, both Obama and Jintao are alien to the true character of their people and their national culture. I have no doubt that they both mean well, but they lack, well, the ‘common touch’ that true leaders possess; they are professional mandarins, who dress well and speak smoothly, but who do not understand the issues in full and who do not represent their nations half so well as they imagine.
If China ever reaches her full potential, she will lead the world in Commerce and many aspects of Culture. But to do so, she will have to follow the path taken by America. That is, to allow free expression in all public respects, to encourage and reward risk-taking and innovation, not only in processes but also fundamental concepts.
President Obama had his State of the Union address Tuesday, speaking of someone else working with less than a fully functional cerebellum. I guess the word that best describes it would be ‘predictable’. As in, demands that his programs not be repealed by the GOP-controlled Congress, mixed in with promises of bipartisan respect and cooperation, verbal jabs at leading Conservatives while demanding softer political rhetoric, and promises to control or even ‘freeze’ spending – while at the same time urging more and more money be spent on his personal pet projects. The same old predictable narcissism and hypocrisy, in other words. Of course Big Media – my new tag for corporate sycophants who still try to pretend that their blatant and omnipresent contempt against anything conservative, rational, or common sense as ‘objective journalism’ – thought the world of Obama’s dialectic, and cheered him on as de facto cheerleaders, but I don’t get the sense that the average American buys the spin anymore, at least not to the degree that the Obamites believe they will.
Obama being what he is, we should not be surprised to discover his approval of a slap at the U.S., performed by one of the very guests invited to perform at the White House. Lang Lang, a musician of mediocre ability but acceptably leftist perspective, performed an instrumental piece celebrating a military victory by Chinese soldiers over the Americans – at an event celebrating Sino-American cooperation and goodwill. We now have the choice to believe either that President Obama’s protocol corps was so inept and stupid that they did not bother to consider the provenance of the piece, or that they secretly approved of the sentiment and allowed the offensive performance to take place on the assumption that the public would not notice the insult or worse, that the Administration did not care that America was being insulted in the very heart of her government. The decision is not an attractive one, and this event happening in the same week where Obama’s aides and staff have emphasized that words and symbols have significant meaning, does not do them credit at all.
My perspective on these current events is colored by my recent experiences in China, a nation whose government hates the U.S. but whose people plainly love Americans. During my time there, I discovered a wide range of public opinion regarding foreigners and their business in China. To be blunt, Asians have an advantage in China but not so much Koreans, Russians are flat-out unpopular, but Americans, while relatively scarce in China, are generally popular and well-liked. That’s a generalization, of course, and it has risks in too broad an application, but from what I have seen, heard and experienced there is a great respect and affection for Americans. Applying that to the Lang Lang incident, it seems to me no wonder that Hu Jintao enjoyed the gesture, because in his country he is generally not able to attack Americans or their way of life. Quite the opposite, although most of my time was spent in coastal regions, even when I went inland to more rural parts of China, Americans are respected and, well, envied, for what they have been able to achieve and what they represent to China. China is a land full of hard-working, intelligent people, but they have been hindered by both a lack of infrastructure and a government which regards innovation as disloyal. American companies succeed in Asia to some degree, because Americans are not afraid to challenge assumptions and seek practical solutions, rather than just play to some rote expectation . In that sense, both Obama and Jintao are alien to the true character of their people and their national culture. I have no doubt that they both mean well, but they lack, well, the ‘common touch’ that true leaders possess; they are professional mandarins, who dress well and speak smoothly, but who do not understand the issues in full and who do not represent their nations half so well as they imagine.
If China ever reaches her full potential, she will lead the world in Commerce and many aspects of Culture. But to do so, she will have to follow the path taken by America. That is, to allow free expression in all public respects, to encourage and reward risk-taking and innovation, not only in processes but also fundamental concepts.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
A Question That Shows Something I Don't Like
OK, we've all heard about the shooting in Tucson, and quite a bit about Rep. Giffords and her condition. A senseless crime, and we all hope and pray for her complete recovery.
But ...
There were SIX people murdered that day. How many others' names have you heard, or remember? One man, for example, died shielding his wife, who survived. Do you know his name?
There were TWENTY people shot that day. How many of them have not even been mentioned by the media?
WHY?
But ...
There were SIX people murdered that day. How many others' names have you heard, or remember? One man, for example, died shielding his wife, who survived. Do you know his name?
There were TWENTY people shot that day. How many of them have not even been mentioned by the media?
WHY?
Sunday, January 09, 2011
Free Speech, Foul Actions
The horrific attack on Rep. Giffords yesterday in Tucson has sparked a debate about, well, debate. Even as the media has acknowledged that the alleged gunman in custody had no ties to any political party or movement, many well-known anchors have tried to blame selected groups for the attack; in the absence of evidence, they fall back on innuendo and gossip, blaming their enemies for the “climate” they claim at least ‘influenced’ the crime. In such false and hateful accusations, these self-impressed narcissists not only fail to stop and consider their own behavior, as they demand of others, they try to turn the crime to their own advantage.
Let’s just stop right there, and focus on what we know at this time:
1. None of the victims of yesterday’s shootings deserved any of the violence, regardless of their political or personal opinions;
2. The suspect in custody had a history of aberrant behavior and violent, antisocial beliefs. In succession, he was rejected by the Army and suspended from his university for what seemed, even years go, to be advocacy of violence and a rejection of civil discourse to discuss and address political issues;
3. No mainstream or significant television or radio talk show ever advocated violence, especially against elected officials. The hyperbole being thrown out now is essentially dishonest and inflammatory, ironically in character and justification no different from even the strongest political campaign ads run in the past several election cycles;
4. Rep. Giffords is no extremist, no enemy of common sense. The meeting she held yesterday was no part of an election campaign, but a commitment to meet her constituents and learn their opinions. As a Democrat, Giffords supported her party and the President but she was notably open to Republican opinions and alternatives as well. There is no sense to committing violence against an elected official, but even from the paranoid perspective attacking Giffords makes no sense.
This was a senseless act of violence, and should no more be assigned to an official or significant political opinion than a mugging or drive-by shooting. As we remember the families of the victims, and consider how we move forward from this, we would all do well to put aside blame and attacks of opponents, and to count the perpetrators of such crimes as they are – failed and worthless creatures, who tried to drag others down to their level in a futile act of hatred and violence. Such monsters need to be put away, and at need put down, but they should be forgotten, not used to advance personal or political vendetta or machinations.
At times like this, we need to be people, not politicians, and to focus on healing, not the hatred.
Let’s just stop right there, and focus on what we know at this time:
1. None of the victims of yesterday’s shootings deserved any of the violence, regardless of their political or personal opinions;
2. The suspect in custody had a history of aberrant behavior and violent, antisocial beliefs. In succession, he was rejected by the Army and suspended from his university for what seemed, even years go, to be advocacy of violence and a rejection of civil discourse to discuss and address political issues;
3. No mainstream or significant television or radio talk show ever advocated violence, especially against elected officials. The hyperbole being thrown out now is essentially dishonest and inflammatory, ironically in character and justification no different from even the strongest political campaign ads run in the past several election cycles;
4. Rep. Giffords is no extremist, no enemy of common sense. The meeting she held yesterday was no part of an election campaign, but a commitment to meet her constituents and learn their opinions. As a Democrat, Giffords supported her party and the President but she was notably open to Republican opinions and alternatives as well. There is no sense to committing violence against an elected official, but even from the paranoid perspective attacking Giffords makes no sense.
This was a senseless act of violence, and should no more be assigned to an official or significant political opinion than a mugging or drive-by shooting. As we remember the families of the victims, and consider how we move forward from this, we would all do well to put aside blame and attacks of opponents, and to count the perpetrators of such crimes as they are – failed and worthless creatures, who tried to drag others down to their level in a futile act of hatred and violence. Such monsters need to be put away, and at need put down, but they should be forgotten, not used to advance personal or political vendetta or machinations.
At times like this, we need to be people, not politicians, and to focus on healing, not the hatred.
Friday, January 07, 2011
The Maltheists
Most people, including many who call themselves Christians, Muslims, and so on, are actually atheists in practice. Think about it. If you really, truly, believed that God is real and exists, then you would weigh your decisions and choose your actions with some serious interest in aligning things with His will, either out of love and evotion, or from fear of punishment or retribution. That does not match up well with the way people really act, including a disappointingly large number of mullahs, priests, ministers and so on. Let’s be honest – we all spend a lot of our energy, time, and focus thinking about how to get what we want for ourselves, and to prevent bad things from happening to ourselves. Some of that is biology (self-preservation) and some of it is cultural, but from what I see, pretty much everybody spends at least 85% of their time and effort on themselves. The use of religion, therefore, as an excuse to get what you want while pretending you’re a great guy, must therefore be considered early on as a popular human hobby.
I suspect this false devotion bothers a certain number of people, but what else is interesting is that hatred of religious practice and beliefs is very broad and has a very long history. And not just by Nazis, Cossacks and West Coast lawyers, either. A great many ‘regular’ people have found it, hmm, kosher to insult and deride people for their religious beliefs and practices. For every person who finds they cannot live without a reference to God on our coins, there seem to be as many or more who cannot live with any reference to God, no matter how vague. A sizable demographic has always found it not only reasonable to reject religion, but fashionable to attack and harass anyone who practices their faith, especially if that faith requires standards of dress or behavior which do not match popular social behavior. As a result, while it is not only illegal to discriminate against someone on the basis of their race or gender, but is also strongly disapproved by the public in general, and there is strong emotional support for perceived victims of discrimination because of sexual orientation or certain niche demographics, there is a common sense that insulting and harassing people for overt expressions of faith is not only acceptable but expected. Hence the consistent derision in popular dramas of anyone who displays their faith in public, and the same in many business practices – pray all you like, as long as it’s not where anyone else can see it. Come to that, many businesses have policies regarding religious expression which are similar to their policy regarding sexual harassment; if you get caught showing faith, expect the hammer to come down hard, albeit in unofficial form. To put it plainly, there are quite a few people who, whether they believe in God or not, hate Him, anyone who believes in Him, and even mention of Him. These are the maltheists.
The best-known maltheist, of course, is Satan, a being who rebelled against God, then when he realized that course was futile, set about hurting God the most effective way he could, by attacking, polluting, and subverting God’s children on earth. There are a lot of people who have no trouble trying to eradicate people whose religion offends them; the Russian then Soviet progroms against Jews, for example, the ‘ethnic cleansing’ in the Balkans, not only now but also back before World War I, and Muslim suppression of non-Islamic beliefs in any country they control. Maltheism in practice ranges from sneering condescension of anyone who practices a faith all to the way to genocide.
Let’s look at that for a moment. ‘Genocide’ is a word often used in exaggerated in discussing alleged abuse of various groups. But when a writer speaks against a perceived reluctance to spend more tax money on AIDS research, calling it ‘genocide of gays’ is not only inaccurate and a false indictment of the intentions of the relevant parties, it cheapens and insults the memory of real victims of genocide, like Buchenwald or Rwanda, Darfur or Bosnia. It ignores the history of the Genocide Convention, which at its inception in 1948 recognized that many people have been killed, in history and in contemporary days, simply for their religious identity and beliefs. Maltheists therefore, not only exist and in both significant numbers and power, but also practice hatred of faith to a degree that includes deliberate, premeditated murder. Most malthesists, of course, are not violent but merely advocate a lower-level hatred against people of faith, and imagine as a result that their hatred is not only excusable but a reasonable practice of free speech. A State Department briefing paper published in 1996, however, notes that this sort of speech can be a step on the road to advocation of violence, in “The 8 Stages of Genocide” :
Stage 1: Division into ‘us’ and ‘them’
Stage 2: Symbolism used to demean and insult target groups
Stage 3: Dehumanization
Stage 4: Organization of programs to oppress target group
Stage 5: Polarization, especially using the media
Stage 6: Preparation, target groups singled out by religious/ethnic identity
Stage 7: Mass Killing
Stage 8: Denial
The active conditions in many countries where differing stages exist should be obvious to the reader. And going back to the idea that most people look out for themselves most of all, it should be easy to understand why people who practice religious beliefs would be seen as irritating minorities and obvious targets for exclusion and reprisals. Religious people may seem to be trying to show off a superior personal morality, even when they only hold themselves to a personal code of ethics based on their religion. That a few high-profile religious figureheads try to hijack faith for their personal benefit only adds gasoline to the fire, as maltheists use the offenses of the few to condemn the many.
I am not saying that most maltheists would like to commit violence against people of faith, nor even that they would approve of violence against religion. The problem is that the opinion and character of maltheists is consistent, from insults against God and the people who believe in Him, all the way through to those who try to kill in the name of that hate.
I suspect this false devotion bothers a certain number of people, but what else is interesting is that hatred of religious practice and beliefs is very broad and has a very long history. And not just by Nazis, Cossacks and West Coast lawyers, either. A great many ‘regular’ people have found it, hmm, kosher to insult and deride people for their religious beliefs and practices. For every person who finds they cannot live without a reference to God on our coins, there seem to be as many or more who cannot live with any reference to God, no matter how vague. A sizable demographic has always found it not only reasonable to reject religion, but fashionable to attack and harass anyone who practices their faith, especially if that faith requires standards of dress or behavior which do not match popular social behavior. As a result, while it is not only illegal to discriminate against someone on the basis of their race or gender, but is also strongly disapproved by the public in general, and there is strong emotional support for perceived victims of discrimination because of sexual orientation or certain niche demographics, there is a common sense that insulting and harassing people for overt expressions of faith is not only acceptable but expected. Hence the consistent derision in popular dramas of anyone who displays their faith in public, and the same in many business practices – pray all you like, as long as it’s not where anyone else can see it. Come to that, many businesses have policies regarding religious expression which are similar to their policy regarding sexual harassment; if you get caught showing faith, expect the hammer to come down hard, albeit in unofficial form. To put it plainly, there are quite a few people who, whether they believe in God or not, hate Him, anyone who believes in Him, and even mention of Him. These are the maltheists.
The best-known maltheist, of course, is Satan, a being who rebelled against God, then when he realized that course was futile, set about hurting God the most effective way he could, by attacking, polluting, and subverting God’s children on earth. There are a lot of people who have no trouble trying to eradicate people whose religion offends them; the Russian then Soviet progroms against Jews, for example, the ‘ethnic cleansing’ in the Balkans, not only now but also back before World War I, and Muslim suppression of non-Islamic beliefs in any country they control. Maltheism in practice ranges from sneering condescension of anyone who practices a faith all to the way to genocide.
Let’s look at that for a moment. ‘Genocide’ is a word often used in exaggerated in discussing alleged abuse of various groups. But when a writer speaks against a perceived reluctance to spend more tax money on AIDS research, calling it ‘genocide of gays’ is not only inaccurate and a false indictment of the intentions of the relevant parties, it cheapens and insults the memory of real victims of genocide, like Buchenwald or Rwanda, Darfur or Bosnia. It ignores the history of the Genocide Convention, which at its inception in 1948 recognized that many people have been killed, in history and in contemporary days, simply for their religious identity and beliefs. Maltheists therefore, not only exist and in both significant numbers and power, but also practice hatred of faith to a degree that includes deliberate, premeditated murder. Most malthesists, of course, are not violent but merely advocate a lower-level hatred against people of faith, and imagine as a result that their hatred is not only excusable but a reasonable practice of free speech. A State Department briefing paper published in 1996, however, notes that this sort of speech can be a step on the road to advocation of violence, in “The 8 Stages of Genocide” :
Stage 1: Division into ‘us’ and ‘them’
Stage 2: Symbolism used to demean and insult target groups
Stage 3: Dehumanization
Stage 4: Organization of programs to oppress target group
Stage 5: Polarization, especially using the media
Stage 6: Preparation, target groups singled out by religious/ethnic identity
Stage 7: Mass Killing
Stage 8: Denial
The active conditions in many countries where differing stages exist should be obvious to the reader. And going back to the idea that most people look out for themselves most of all, it should be easy to understand why people who practice religious beliefs would be seen as irritating minorities and obvious targets for exclusion and reprisals. Religious people may seem to be trying to show off a superior personal morality, even when they only hold themselves to a personal code of ethics based on their religion. That a few high-profile religious figureheads try to hijack faith for their personal benefit only adds gasoline to the fire, as maltheists use the offenses of the few to condemn the many.
I am not saying that most maltheists would like to commit violence against people of faith, nor even that they would approve of violence against religion. The problem is that the opinion and character of maltheists is consistent, from insults against God and the people who believe in Him, all the way through to those who try to kill in the name of that hate.
Friday, December 24, 2010
A Christmas Story
“Dad, I’m going now.”
He looked up from his work, gestured to his staff to come back later, and walked over to his son, waiting by the doorway.
“Are you sure about this? You remember what I said …”
“Yes, Father” said the son, “I remember everything, and I know you are worried about me. I know it will be hard, painful, all of that, but you know that we have to do this. If we don’t … “
The father nodded gravely.
“You could at least take some comforts. You know you have the right to money, power, protection. I could arrange – ” but the son stopped him, shaking his head.
“If I did that, then those who have none of those things might not believe I was truly with them, truly one of them. I must be as poor, as ordinary as anyone else.”
The father sighed.
“I know. I know you must do things this way.” The father smiled. “After all, I said so myself a long time ago, didn’t I?”
The son smiled too.
“It’s a perfect plan.”
“But the cost?”
“We must pay it. Who else could?”
They stood together for a moment, father and son, no words but in perfect understanding and love.
“I love you, Father.”
“And I love you, Son.”
Later that evening, in the fields near Bethlehem, shepherds watching their flocks were startled by bright lights in the sky, and they were terrified. An angel appeared to them, saying “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people …”
He looked up from his work, gestured to his staff to come back later, and walked over to his son, waiting by the doorway.
“Are you sure about this? You remember what I said …”
“Yes, Father” said the son, “I remember everything, and I know you are worried about me. I know it will be hard, painful, all of that, but you know that we have to do this. If we don’t … “
The father nodded gravely.
“You could at least take some comforts. You know you have the right to money, power, protection. I could arrange – ” but the son stopped him, shaking his head.
“If I did that, then those who have none of those things might not believe I was truly with them, truly one of them. I must be as poor, as ordinary as anyone else.”
The father sighed.
“I know. I know you must do things this way.” The father smiled. “After all, I said so myself a long time ago, didn’t I?”
The son smiled too.
“It’s a perfect plan.”
“But the cost?”
“We must pay it. Who else could?”
They stood together for a moment, father and son, no words but in perfect understanding and love.
“I love you, Father.”
“And I love you, Son.”
Later that evening, in the fields near Bethlehem, shepherds watching their flocks were startled by bright lights in the sky, and they were terrified. An angel appeared to them, saying “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people …”
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Christ and Christmas
Every year, the same tired argument comes up between the overly religious and the overly cynical, basically about who owns the holiday season which comes around at the end of December each year. A great many things have been said which appear at first to make sense, but which lose a lot of their validity when you stop to consider them. As a result, anyone making an assertion about what the holiday season “should” mean tends to get ignored by a large portion of the public straight off, and sometimes that is a mistake. Not that my own opinion is better than anyone else’s, but I think there are some things we ought to consider, whatever our personal beliefs and perspective.
First, I want to emphasize that compulsion has no place in the Christmas season, as I think of it. That is, no one who is not Christian should feel obliged to act in accordance with Christian beliefs, anymore than someone who is not Jewish should observe Hannukah, or someone who is not Muslim should observe Ramadan, or someone who is not Seinfeld should observe Festivus. The flip side, of course, also applies. Someone who is not a Jew has no business attacking the observance of Hannukah, someone who is not a Muslim has no business trying to restrict Ramadan, and so on. In the United States, there is no valid legal or moral basis for trying to stamp out public ceremonies which peacefully celebrate a religious event. It may or may not be valid to restrict public funds for religious presentations (but if you ban one, you must ban all, including Kwanzaa, Gaia festivals, or even the Great Pumpkin), but the modern culture attacks private businesses and organizations for exercising their right to observe religion as they see fit.
Some critics have pointed out that most Christmas decorations and celebrations are secular events, anyway. You won’t find Santa Claus, Christmas trees, or the Grinch in any of the Scriptural accounts of Christ’s birth. And there is a lot of talk that Jesus was probably not born on December 25th. Of course, there’s a lot of people who go on to claim that Jesus was not born in that season, not in Bethlehem, does not really exist, and in fact is the creation of the Military-Industrial Complex of the Emperor Constantine … or Rush Limbaugh, take your pick. But we’re not going to talk about the Gores or the Kerry’s here today. Here’s the thing – when Christianity first got going, it was the oddest of paradigms; a religion which worshipped an all-powerful God who took human form as the son of a poor carpenter’s family, born without influence, money or status, who brought God’s truth and love but was rejected by the very class of believer who had been waiting for centuries for the Messiah to appear, who lived a life of perfect obedience to the law but taught that even perfect obedience was not enough, that a person whose religion was imperfect but who loved God was better than a person whose deeds were mighty but selfish. He was rejected by the leading thinkers of his day, ignored by the very priests who served specifically to prepare for his arrival, falsely accused, tortured, then murdered publicly to advance a conspiracy between Herod and Caiaphas to prevent an uprising by the masses (which was delayed for a time but happened anyway in 70 AD). With one exception, his followers scattered, or were arrested and killed. That one exception was exiled to a barren island, where he wrote a weird tale about the Messiah coming back and ruling forever in a perfect kingdom. The leaders of Rome, Judea, and Judiasm all expected the strange little cult to die out, especially as Rome increased penalties for following this Christ, from fines to imprisonment, to banishment to torture and execution. Yet the faith kept growing, with more and more believers all the time, until the Emperor Constantine found it advantageous to throw his support behind the Christians. From there, the Church gained material and political power, until it became oppressive and hateful in its own character, and splintered to become something else. To this day there remain intense debates about who is a ‘true’ Christian, and what it means to believe this doctrine or that, but the essence of Christianity is Christ, the revealed truth of the Triune God, which is to say One God revealed to Humanity in power, love, and hope.
The Scriptures do not say exactly when Christ was born, but the event was clearly important. Choirs of Angels, supernatural lightshows, and so on make it clear that Jesus’ birthday was a big deal. This led to the practice of celebrating the birthday because of Christ, rather than the date. The December date was chosen for two simple reasons – first, between Hannukah and the Winter Solstice, there were a number of celebrations which allowed Christians to celebrate the birth of the Savior without being particularly obvious. Also, Jesus’ decision to live meekly and teach his followers the same meekness (meekness in this case means to avoid hostility, not to be weak or silent) of spirit, reminds us that Christ represents us all, and so just as no one day is known to be his birthday, so we celebrate a day to focus on the love of God and not to put one day above another, just as we should not put one person above another in worth.
Christmas is about Christ. All the semantics in the world cannot change that fact. But as Christians, we should remember that our celebration of Christ in Christmas came in disguise, so we could worship without calling undue attention to ourselves. Demanding that people who do not share our faith give way to our commands is not the way of Christ. Neither is it the way of Christ to pretend that Christmas is the same thing as other celebrations. We love our families and friends, but Christmas is not about family and friends. We love to give and help, but Christmas is not about social justice. Christmas is about all those things insofar as they are from and of God, but the essence of God, His love and truth and hope, the miracles that are the reality of goodness and the definition of holiness, these are things which must not be discounted or replaced with meaningless baubles and egotistical , humanist blather.
God is real, and came to us as Christ Jesus. Not in judgment of our sins and errors, but in forgiveness, healing and hope. Not in his right to command our every thought and deed, but living in perfect service, that we might come to understand the value and virtue of humility and selflessness. Not to claim his right to all power and glory, but to bring us all up as his children and as the people in whole we were always meant to be, full in service, potential, and joy. We celebrate Christmas the right way, by remembering and celebrating Christ, and seeking his will we find our own freedom and perfection.
Merry Christmas.
First, I want to emphasize that compulsion has no place in the Christmas season, as I think of it. That is, no one who is not Christian should feel obliged to act in accordance with Christian beliefs, anymore than someone who is not Jewish should observe Hannukah, or someone who is not Muslim should observe Ramadan, or someone who is not Seinfeld should observe Festivus. The flip side, of course, also applies. Someone who is not a Jew has no business attacking the observance of Hannukah, someone who is not a Muslim has no business trying to restrict Ramadan, and so on. In the United States, there is no valid legal or moral basis for trying to stamp out public ceremonies which peacefully celebrate a religious event. It may or may not be valid to restrict public funds for religious presentations (but if you ban one, you must ban all, including Kwanzaa, Gaia festivals, or even the Great Pumpkin), but the modern culture attacks private businesses and organizations for exercising their right to observe religion as they see fit.
Some critics have pointed out that most Christmas decorations and celebrations are secular events, anyway. You won’t find Santa Claus, Christmas trees, or the Grinch in any of the Scriptural accounts of Christ’s birth. And there is a lot of talk that Jesus was probably not born on December 25th. Of course, there’s a lot of people who go on to claim that Jesus was not born in that season, not in Bethlehem, does not really exist, and in fact is the creation of the Military-Industrial Complex of the Emperor Constantine … or Rush Limbaugh, take your pick. But we’re not going to talk about the Gores or the Kerry’s here today. Here’s the thing – when Christianity first got going, it was the oddest of paradigms; a religion which worshipped an all-powerful God who took human form as the son of a poor carpenter’s family, born without influence, money or status, who brought God’s truth and love but was rejected by the very class of believer who had been waiting for centuries for the Messiah to appear, who lived a life of perfect obedience to the law but taught that even perfect obedience was not enough, that a person whose religion was imperfect but who loved God was better than a person whose deeds were mighty but selfish. He was rejected by the leading thinkers of his day, ignored by the very priests who served specifically to prepare for his arrival, falsely accused, tortured, then murdered publicly to advance a conspiracy between Herod and Caiaphas to prevent an uprising by the masses (which was delayed for a time but happened anyway in 70 AD). With one exception, his followers scattered, or were arrested and killed. That one exception was exiled to a barren island, where he wrote a weird tale about the Messiah coming back and ruling forever in a perfect kingdom. The leaders of Rome, Judea, and Judiasm all expected the strange little cult to die out, especially as Rome increased penalties for following this Christ, from fines to imprisonment, to banishment to torture and execution. Yet the faith kept growing, with more and more believers all the time, until the Emperor Constantine found it advantageous to throw his support behind the Christians. From there, the Church gained material and political power, until it became oppressive and hateful in its own character, and splintered to become something else. To this day there remain intense debates about who is a ‘true’ Christian, and what it means to believe this doctrine or that, but the essence of Christianity is Christ, the revealed truth of the Triune God, which is to say One God revealed to Humanity in power, love, and hope.
The Scriptures do not say exactly when Christ was born, but the event was clearly important. Choirs of Angels, supernatural lightshows, and so on make it clear that Jesus’ birthday was a big deal. This led to the practice of celebrating the birthday because of Christ, rather than the date. The December date was chosen for two simple reasons – first, between Hannukah and the Winter Solstice, there were a number of celebrations which allowed Christians to celebrate the birth of the Savior without being particularly obvious. Also, Jesus’ decision to live meekly and teach his followers the same meekness (meekness in this case means to avoid hostility, not to be weak or silent) of spirit, reminds us that Christ represents us all, and so just as no one day is known to be his birthday, so we celebrate a day to focus on the love of God and not to put one day above another, just as we should not put one person above another in worth.
Christmas is about Christ. All the semantics in the world cannot change that fact. But as Christians, we should remember that our celebration of Christ in Christmas came in disguise, so we could worship without calling undue attention to ourselves. Demanding that people who do not share our faith give way to our commands is not the way of Christ. Neither is it the way of Christ to pretend that Christmas is the same thing as other celebrations. We love our families and friends, but Christmas is not about family and friends. We love to give and help, but Christmas is not about social justice. Christmas is about all those things insofar as they are from and of God, but the essence of God, His love and truth and hope, the miracles that are the reality of goodness and the definition of holiness, these are things which must not be discounted or replaced with meaningless baubles and egotistical , humanist blather.
God is real, and came to us as Christ Jesus. Not in judgment of our sins and errors, but in forgiveness, healing and hope. Not in his right to command our every thought and deed, but living in perfect service, that we might come to understand the value and virtue of humility and selflessness. Not to claim his right to all power and glory, but to bring us all up as his children and as the people in whole we were always meant to be, full in service, potential, and joy. We celebrate Christmas the right way, by remembering and celebrating Christ, and seeking his will we find our own freedom and perfection.
Merry Christmas.
Friday, November 26, 2010
Thoughts On Employment
One of the big differences in the working classes is the kind of job you get. I don’t mean industry, or even the pay and title. I mean, there are people who have enough money that they only work in order to pass the time, some don’t work but instead find a way to game the system for money, some work because they have to but have enough that losing their job means they live off their savings until they find a position that pays well enough to be acceptable and offers career growth … and a whole lot of people work hard at their jobs, hoping and praying those jobs will continue because if they lose their job they will be hurting pretty soon. Some of that last group have some savings, but they were naively imagining they might send their kids to college, or pay off their house, or maybe even retire while they are able to enjoy their remaining years. When one of those people loses their job, they pretty much take the first offer they get for another job, because they cannot afford not to work.
This is not an issue that can be quantified very easily. People still argue about tracking unemployment and defining underemployment, there’s not even an official term to describe 'the job that was available, but not in a million years the job I was hoping to do for my life’s work’. It’s not something that will be solved with more education or a higher minimum wage, it won’t be fixed by the government or some social program. It’s the kind of problem that can only be solved one person at a time, and this pretty much means that for most people it won’t be solved at all.
This is not an issue that can be quantified very easily. People still argue about tracking unemployment and defining underemployment, there’s not even an official term to describe 'the job that was available, but not in a million years the job I was hoping to do for my life’s work’. It’s not something that will be solved with more education or a higher minimum wage, it won’t be fixed by the government or some social program. It’s the kind of problem that can only be solved one person at a time, and this pretty much means that for most people it won’t be solved at all.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
What Do You Pray For?
There are many different faiths and religions to choose from. Some folks think that's evidence of a lot of people believing the wrong faith, and some think all religion is irrational and foolish. But having met a number of people who believe differently from me, and having tested and reconsidered my beliefs many times over the years, I think there is much more to the matter than the first reaction most people have. As I am a Christian, it should not surprise anyone that I believe in Jesus Christ and the Gospel. But I accept a wide range of dogma as legitimate, even when it's a bit different from my own. And I can even accept religions that seem alien to me as valid in their own right. Six billion people on the planet, there's a lot of possibility that any one of us can't comprehend, but could still be true.
What bothers me, though, is the hate. And I think some of that comes from false belief, the idea that shows up so many places where someone only holds faith because they think they can use it for their advantage; God to them is not King but Butler. Chewing on that point some more, I realize that when we commune with God, we do so through prayer, and that beings me to the question which reveals our heart - what do you pray for? I'm not saying it's wrong to pray for something you need, or something that is very important to you, but how often do you pray to be a better person, to help someone else, or to be more aware of someone else's need?
What bothers me, though, is the hate. And I think some of that comes from false belief, the idea that shows up so many places where someone only holds faith because they think they can use it for their advantage; God to them is not King but Butler. Chewing on that point some more, I realize that when we commune with God, we do so through prayer, and that beings me to the question which reveals our heart - what do you pray for? I'm not saying it's wrong to pray for something you need, or something that is very important to you, but how often do you pray to be a better person, to help someone else, or to be more aware of someone else's need?
Monday, September 27, 2010
Ghandi was Wrong
I have been thinking about the concept of Ahimsa recently. As a Christian, it rings true to me that a person should avoid violence in order to accomplish what matters most.
Yet … yet …
I keep thinking about Jesus’ command to His disciples to obtain swords, after His resurrection. I am reminded that God Himself commanded the Israelites to make war, and that some of the angels worse and used swords. Violence, it seems, has a place in the will of God, though it’s a perilous thing for any man to take it upon himself to decide how and when to take up arms.
Also, I find it interesting to consider how nonviolence pops up over and over in History. Does it do this because the concept is right, or because it is partly wrong, it inevitably fails?
Heresy, I know, to think that peace can be wrong. Of course I don’t mean that, but in fact I mean that nonviolence is not the same thing as peace. Peace is all things being as they should be, which requires Justice to be so. Nonviolence may lead to peace, but it is no sure thing. In fact, chewing on the idea leads me to think that there is a certain threshold for nonviolence to be effective. A nonviolent world may be a paradise, but one nonviolent man may well fail.
Also, nonviolence is unnatural. Nature is full of violence. Predators, chaos, death and destruction all the time.
More to think on …
Yet … yet …
I keep thinking about Jesus’ command to His disciples to obtain swords, after His resurrection. I am reminded that God Himself commanded the Israelites to make war, and that some of the angels worse and used swords. Violence, it seems, has a place in the will of God, though it’s a perilous thing for any man to take it upon himself to decide how and when to take up arms.
Also, I find it interesting to consider how nonviolence pops up over and over in History. Does it do this because the concept is right, or because it is partly wrong, it inevitably fails?
Heresy, I know, to think that peace can be wrong. Of course I don’t mean that, but in fact I mean that nonviolence is not the same thing as peace. Peace is all things being as they should be, which requires Justice to be so. Nonviolence may lead to peace, but it is no sure thing. In fact, chewing on the idea leads me to think that there is a certain threshold for nonviolence to be effective. A nonviolent world may be a paradise, but one nonviolent man may well fail.
Also, nonviolence is unnatural. Nature is full of violence. Predators, chaos, death and destruction all the time.
More to think on …
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Drummond’s Rules of Economics and Politics
The coming election is about the economy, no matter what the political-party-about-to-be-hit-with-a-ton-of-voter-rage claims. Oddly, this is the same myopia which blinded the other political-party-slammed-for-missing-the-obvious in 2006 and 2008; seems to be common for D.C. to be D.O.A. on the basics. There needs to be some basic primer about how money works in political terms, so I offer the following basic rules which drive the political consequence of money:
1. Everything has to be paid for
It’s quite fashionable for politicians to promise whatever the public wants, or at least the targeted voter bloc. But sooner or later, the services and goods have to be paid for, and with real money. Delaying the inevitable only adds interest costs to the total.
2. Taxpayers pay for everything the Government buys
Don’t be fooled when some official tries to say there will be no tax increase for a program, or that it will be paid from by another government or corporation. Other governments serve groups of taxpayers who won’t accept higher taxes either, and eventually the cost will come back around to your country again and hit the citizens. As for corporations, these are made up of people who don’t like paying taxes, and so a corporate tax will result either in higher prices, lower employment, or both.
3. People never like taxes
Joe Biden is a liar and a moron. No one, absolutely nobody will pay a penny more than required in taxes. Folks will pay what they feel they must, they may make virtuous noises to feel better about paying, and they may form mobs and demand that some certain person or group should be made to pay more in taxes, but no one chooses to pay more than they believe they have to pay.
4. Politicians lie to you about how much you have to pay
Politicians will either promise that your taxes will go down, or if taxes must go up, that someone else will have to pay more. Knowing how much people hate paying taxes, no politician planning to stay in office will ever tell you directly that he expects you to pay more.
5. There will never be a system where everyone pays a 'fair' amount of tax
There are several reasons for this fact. First, it’s impracticable in any medium-to-large country, since people will constantly try to reduce the taxes they pay, through resistance, political and legal actions, or just plain evasion and avoidance tactics. Second, no government truly wants a transparent system for collecting taxes, as this will inevitably lead to comparison, complaint, argument and further questions about who gets paid and why. By playing groups against one another, adjusting one group’s tax rate up or down to make it more ”fair”, governments distract the public from figuring out how much it is really gouging them.
6. Revenue is dependent on the health of the economy more than any other factor
This is sometimes missed when planning growth and forecasting revenue, whether by companies or governments. You need a healthy economy overall, in order for your goods or services to produce revenue. For tax purposes it is even plainer – you cannot collect money which is not there. Consequently,
7. The only functional tax rate is the one which maximizes revenue with the least interference with the economy
This is not a new idea. Remember the story warning not to kill the golden goose? The idea is that you pay attention to how folks are doing before you tell them they need to pay you more money. At the very least, tax increases (and ending prior tax cuts are tax increases, semantics won’t save you) should never happen when the economy is in decline, especially during a recession, and only a brain-dead moron would consider them when unemployment is 7% or higher. To bring in tax revenue, you need to spur job growth, because only when people have jobs can you get income tax from them. And to spur job growth, you have to lower the tax rate. Here’s why – the cause of every economic crisis always comes down to consumer confidence. When people stop buying things, the economy collapses, it’s really that simple. And when taxes are high, people worry about them and spend less, which causes businesses to slow down and fail. When businesses slow down, they lay off employees, which obviously raises unemployment. A low tax rate with low unemployment is better for revenue than a higher tax rate with a higher unemployment rate, as should be patently clear. There is a floor rate beyond which revenue fails to improve, but it is undeniable that in any recession, the most effective means to improve employment, and in so doing improve revenues from taxes, is to reduce the tax rate.
1. Everything has to be paid for
It’s quite fashionable for politicians to promise whatever the public wants, or at least the targeted voter bloc. But sooner or later, the services and goods have to be paid for, and with real money. Delaying the inevitable only adds interest costs to the total.
2. Taxpayers pay for everything the Government buys
Don’t be fooled when some official tries to say there will be no tax increase for a program, or that it will be paid from by another government or corporation. Other governments serve groups of taxpayers who won’t accept higher taxes either, and eventually the cost will come back around to your country again and hit the citizens. As for corporations, these are made up of people who don’t like paying taxes, and so a corporate tax will result either in higher prices, lower employment, or both.
3. People never like taxes
Joe Biden is a liar and a moron. No one, absolutely nobody will pay a penny more than required in taxes. Folks will pay what they feel they must, they may make virtuous noises to feel better about paying, and they may form mobs and demand that some certain person or group should be made to pay more in taxes, but no one chooses to pay more than they believe they have to pay.
4. Politicians lie to you about how much you have to pay
Politicians will either promise that your taxes will go down, or if taxes must go up, that someone else will have to pay more. Knowing how much people hate paying taxes, no politician planning to stay in office will ever tell you directly that he expects you to pay more.
5. There will never be a system where everyone pays a 'fair' amount of tax
There are several reasons for this fact. First, it’s impracticable in any medium-to-large country, since people will constantly try to reduce the taxes they pay, through resistance, political and legal actions, or just plain evasion and avoidance tactics. Second, no government truly wants a transparent system for collecting taxes, as this will inevitably lead to comparison, complaint, argument and further questions about who gets paid and why. By playing groups against one another, adjusting one group’s tax rate up or down to make it more ”fair”, governments distract the public from figuring out how much it is really gouging them.
6. Revenue is dependent on the health of the economy more than any other factor
This is sometimes missed when planning growth and forecasting revenue, whether by companies or governments. You need a healthy economy overall, in order for your goods or services to produce revenue. For tax purposes it is even plainer – you cannot collect money which is not there. Consequently,
7. The only functional tax rate is the one which maximizes revenue with the least interference with the economy
This is not a new idea. Remember the story warning not to kill the golden goose? The idea is that you pay attention to how folks are doing before you tell them they need to pay you more money. At the very least, tax increases (and ending prior tax cuts are tax increases, semantics won’t save you) should never happen when the economy is in decline, especially during a recession, and only a brain-dead moron would consider them when unemployment is 7% or higher. To bring in tax revenue, you need to spur job growth, because only when people have jobs can you get income tax from them. And to spur job growth, you have to lower the tax rate. Here’s why – the cause of every economic crisis always comes down to consumer confidence. When people stop buying things, the economy collapses, it’s really that simple. And when taxes are high, people worry about them and spend less, which causes businesses to slow down and fail. When businesses slow down, they lay off employees, which obviously raises unemployment. A low tax rate with low unemployment is better for revenue than a higher tax rate with a higher unemployment rate, as should be patently clear. There is a floor rate beyond which revenue fails to improve, but it is undeniable that in any recession, the most effective means to improve employment, and in so doing improve revenues from taxes, is to reduce the tax rate.
Monday, August 09, 2010
Thoughts on An Unsatisfactory Victory
I’m pretty freaking lucky. Sometimes in a gruesome way, however. One of those ways is the way my cancer was discovered in 2006. The short version is this sequence of events:
1. A kidney stone forms in my urinary tract.
2. I pass said kidney stone.
3. Not being an imbecile, I see my doctor, who schedules a CT scan
4. CT scan reveals I have ruptured my appendix; emergency surgery follows.
5. During the surgery, an unexpected mass is found in my abdominal cavity near the appendix. The mass is removed and sent for testing. The tests come back malignant.
So, in a span of a few days I went from being an annoying, overweight white guy to passing a kidney stone and breaking my appendix, to being diagnised with cancer.
Everything changed. For a while. I quickly experienced a range of emotions and discoveries, including an unprofessional oncologist and a surprisingly compassionate insurance company, but in the end I escaped major surgery and got to keep my hair.
Turns out I’m lucky, really lucky. My cancer was fond during surgery and oh-by-the-way I not only live in a city with one of the leading research centers on cancer, my surgeon sent my tissue samples to MDA for the initial tests.
I revisted my situation after reading about Christopher Hitchens’ own battle with cancer. It’s clear we are very different men. Mr. Hitchens is a very successful writer who has had to deal with a much harder situation than I have had to face. And yet, he too seems to be luckier than some. In my visits to MDA, I regularly see patients and their families, who are facing a much bleaker prognosis than even Mr. Hitchens has had to endure. And knowing this, I regularly face a kind of survivor’s guilt about my own good fortune. No major surgery, no chemo, no nausea, while everywhere I meet and see patients whose future is unknown, who must endure pain and doubt and the threat of death, and whose families suffer along with them. I want to help somehow, but I feel very helpless, and sometimes as if I’m wasting the time and resources of the doctors and nurses who should be focusing on people who really need help.
I have felt well for so long that by mid-2009 I began to worry that I did not have cancer at all. My oncologist ended that idea by showing me exactly where my tumors are residing; just because they’re not causing trouble at the moment does not mean they aren’t there. So while I feel like a normal person, my doctors make sure I never forget that I’m not just like anyone else. And because PMP is rare, with an unknown cause and with a very limited amount of clinical research available, there’s no guarantee that my present well-being will be permanent. That leads to some concern every time I have an unexplained pain in my abdomen or difficulty in urination or defecation. I find myself swinging from thinking that I’m overreacting, to worrying that I’m not telling my doctors something they need to know. This is important for another reason – since my cancer was found early, the doctors have been keeping records on me in hopes of learning more about PMP in the early stages. I can’t say that I’m doing much to help, but it’s better than nothing and just maybe something will come up that will help someone.
My point here is threefold – sometimes I need to vent, first of all. Second, never assume things will always be what you expect them to be, and three, there’s a reason for everything but that doesn’t mean everything will make sense when you try to figure it out.
1. A kidney stone forms in my urinary tract.
2. I pass said kidney stone.
3. Not being an imbecile, I see my doctor, who schedules a CT scan
4. CT scan reveals I have ruptured my appendix; emergency surgery follows.
5. During the surgery, an unexpected mass is found in my abdominal cavity near the appendix. The mass is removed and sent for testing. The tests come back malignant.
So, in a span of a few days I went from being an annoying, overweight white guy to passing a kidney stone and breaking my appendix, to being diagnised with cancer.
Everything changed. For a while. I quickly experienced a range of emotions and discoveries, including an unprofessional oncologist and a surprisingly compassionate insurance company, but in the end I escaped major surgery and got to keep my hair.
Turns out I’m lucky, really lucky. My cancer was fond during surgery and oh-by-the-way I not only live in a city with one of the leading research centers on cancer, my surgeon sent my tissue samples to MDA for the initial tests.
I revisted my situation after reading about Christopher Hitchens’ own battle with cancer. It’s clear we are very different men. Mr. Hitchens is a very successful writer who has had to deal with a much harder situation than I have had to face. And yet, he too seems to be luckier than some. In my visits to MDA, I regularly see patients and their families, who are facing a much bleaker prognosis than even Mr. Hitchens has had to endure. And knowing this, I regularly face a kind of survivor’s guilt about my own good fortune. No major surgery, no chemo, no nausea, while everywhere I meet and see patients whose future is unknown, who must endure pain and doubt and the threat of death, and whose families suffer along with them. I want to help somehow, but I feel very helpless, and sometimes as if I’m wasting the time and resources of the doctors and nurses who should be focusing on people who really need help.
I have felt well for so long that by mid-2009 I began to worry that I did not have cancer at all. My oncologist ended that idea by showing me exactly where my tumors are residing; just because they’re not causing trouble at the moment does not mean they aren’t there. So while I feel like a normal person, my doctors make sure I never forget that I’m not just like anyone else. And because PMP is rare, with an unknown cause and with a very limited amount of clinical research available, there’s no guarantee that my present well-being will be permanent. That leads to some concern every time I have an unexplained pain in my abdomen or difficulty in urination or defecation. I find myself swinging from thinking that I’m overreacting, to worrying that I’m not telling my doctors something they need to know. This is important for another reason – since my cancer was found early, the doctors have been keeping records on me in hopes of learning more about PMP in the early stages. I can’t say that I’m doing much to help, but it’s better than nothing and just maybe something will come up that will help someone.
My point here is threefold – sometimes I need to vent, first of all. Second, never assume things will always be what you expect them to be, and three, there’s a reason for everything but that doesn’t mean everything will make sense when you try to figure it out.
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