So Awful It's Awesome: The Vulture (1967)

My friends... Can your heart stand the shocking facts of atomic vultures from out of the past?

I never saw this 1967 British-made horror movie as a kid; I was in my 30s, I believe, and it was on a late-night picture show on television. I ended up falling asleep on it periodically, but I saw enough to later recall that it was weird and mostly terrible, yet strangely atmospheric, featuring a character or two that damn near gave me the creeps. The Vulture has never been released domestically on VHS or DVD, and since the early 90s, I've never seen it listed on broadcast television. For years, I've been hoping to catch it again just to satisfy my occasional (certain of my acquaintances might say frequent) craving for bizarre entertainment. Just today, I discovered that the entire movie is available to watch for free on YouTube, and though the video quality is none too great, the film is there, all right, in all its ridiculous glory.

To describe the plot might suggest that I have reverted to my college days when my fondness for mind-altering substances ran rather high. (The statute of limitations for such things has expired, right?) Regardless, I'll run through it here, and there be spoilers. On a rainy night in Cornwall, a lady gets off a bus and takes a shortcut through an old graveyard to get home. As she passes though, a gravestone falls over and something that makes nasty screeching sounds comes out and takes to the air. Lady ends up in hospital, hair turned all white. The police pay a visit to local nobleman Brian Stroud (Broderick Crawford) to inform him that the ruined grave belonged to one Francis Real, an 18th century practitioner of black magic who was buried alive by the Strouds' ancestors. Stroud's niece, Trudy (Diane Clare), and her husband, Eric Lutens (Robert Hutton), an American nuclear physicist, decide to investigate this strange case, and they learn that Francis Real revered the Easter Island god, Tongata Manu, a half-vulture, half-human creature, and even owned a vulture as a pet, which — along with a crapload of Spanish doubloons — was buried with him. The police, and most everyone else, conclude that the grave was despoiled by someone who was aware of the old legend and intended to relieve the grave of its treasure. Lutens, on the other hand, comes to the quick conclusion that a sophisticated nuclear experiment has revived the long-dead Real and transmutated him and the vulture into a half-man, half-bird monster bent on killing the descendents of the family that buried him alive.

No one believes Lutens, of course, except Trudy and a good friend of the Strouds — the elderly, kindly, crippled Professor Koeniglich (Akim Tamiroff), who is, coincidentally, one of Francis Real's direct descendents. Sadly, Brian Stroud and his brother, Edward (Gordon Sterne), are brutally murdered, the only clue left behind some vulture feathers. Occasionally, the local church's creepy sexton (Edward Caddick) appears for the sole purpose of warning everyone against interfering with this murderous, supernatural force from the past. Lutens believes that the guilty party can be tracked down by discovering whether anyone has been using vast amounts of electricity to carry on the suspected nuclear experiments. As it turns out, the guilty party is none other than the elderly, kindly, crippled Professor Koeniglich. According to Lutens, the nice professor had intended only to resurrect Real to pick his brain about how they did things back in the day, but Koeniglich hadn't counted on the vulture being in the coffin. Thus his experiment transformed him into a half-human, half-bird monster, bent on wreaking vengeance against the Strouds.

In a very brief scene in the final minutes of the movie, the vulture-man Koeniglich appears and menaces Trudy. Lutens, just in the nick of time, arrives and shoots him dead. Rather than preserve the creature's body so he might prove his wild theory correct, he takes the body out to sea in a rowboat and dumps it overboard. Then he and Trudy go back to New York on a ship.

It's probably fair to say that The Vulture is one big plot hole. By far, its most appealing aspect is that it drips with eerie atmosphere. Since I first saw the movie all those years ago, the creepy sexton has stood out in my memory, and though the character is essentially pointless, his manner does provide an authentic shudder. The story is part mystery, part science fiction, part traditional horror. Apart from sheer zaniness of the plot, though, there are also numerous unintentional laughs, such as the "driving theme" that plays whenever a character is in a car. It's a rambling, orchestral motif with a shunting rhythm, like a train passing over the rails. Dr. Koeniglich is really too sweet to make a convincing murderous vulture, and apart from his ludicrous bird outfit, he doesn't even get any scary facial makeup. He's just too damn cute.

So, if after all that, you feel you're up to it, you can watch The Vulture right on YouTube. Here it is below, in fact, Scream away, do.

Young Blood: Evil Intentions — The Novel

Zoe Cox and Autumn Ward in Young Blood: Evil Intentions (2012)

In 2012, brothers Mat and Myron Smith made a fun little indie movie called Young Blood: Evil Intentions, in which I had a bit part as a Highly Concerned Citizen of a little town that gets overrun by a veritable horde of juvenile vampires. Alternately grim and hysterically funny, Young Blood has played in numerous theaters around the region, appeared at film festivals, and been released on DVD. With cameos by The Munsters star Butch Patrick (Eddie Munster), Troma Entertainment founder/actor Lloyd Kaufman, and horror host/musician Robert "Count Smokula" Miles, the movie has gained a sizable cult following.

And it's about to become a book.

I have been contracted to write a novelization of the movie, and this fun endeavor is currently well in progress. A teaser chapter will soon be foisted upon the public at large, and you will be encouraged to run screaming... for a whole lot more. Be afeared. Be very afeared.

The Smith brothers are currently wrapping up their latest movie, Invasion of the Killer Cicadas, in which I play mad scientist Dr. Werner von Schwartztotten. Look for it this summer, and you can become even more afeared.

For now, be sweet.

THE MONARCHS — Daily Deal on Amazon.com

Not much time to jump on it, but The Monarchs, my most recent novel, is one of today's Daily Deals on Amazon.com, which means you can purchase it for your Kindle for 99¢. You're dying to be scared, aren't you? Well, here you go — this one ought to fix you all nice and proper.

A bit of the story:

"After her husband murders their daughter and then commits suicide, Courtney Edmiston, devastated and homeless, accepts an invitation to move in with her old college friend, Jan Blackburn. Jan lives with her brother, David, and eccentric Aunt Martha in the town of Fearing, North Carolina, at the edge of the Dismal Swamp. The Blackburn family has suffered its own recent tragedies — and Courtney learns that Jan and David have more than their share of enemies in the town. Because of her association with them, Courtney soon finds Fearing a very dangerous place to live. For reasons Courtney cannot comprehend, many of the townspeople fear old Martha Blackburn. However, she begins to understand why when Martha threatens the Surbers with swift retribution — by way of a ghostly entity known as the Monarch — and gruesome death does indeed visit the Surbers. And to her horror, Courtney, caught between the two feuding families, at last becomes the focus of Aunt Martha’s fury.

In desperation, two of the Surber brothers abduct Courtney and Jan and threaten to kill them unless the Blackburns meet their demands. However, Martha unleashes the horrific Monarch against her family's rivals. And Courtney, whom Martha now considers an enemy, becomes as much a target for its inhuman wrath as the remaining members of the treacherous Surber family...."

Check it out: The Monarchs by Stephen Mark Rainey

"I would recommend The Monarchs to anyone who enjoys their horror intelligently written, character driven, and bloody. Without giving too much away, I can say that The Monarchs has one of the most exciting endings to a novel that I’ve read in the last year. You really shouldn’t pass this one by."—TT Zuma, Horrorworld

If you miss out today, fret not overmuch. On any given day, the Kindle price is only $4.99 — you won't go broke. Or if you do, you can at least have a grand old time in the process.

No Acercarse

River rats

Some geoaching milestones come and go without me paying much notice, but for my 7,000th find, I figured I should attempt something memorable. A kayak run down the Yadkin River with a number of friends seemed just the ticket, and a boat park-n-grab hide — "Another 'DAM' Skirt Lifter" (GC3W0G6) — struck me as agreeably whimsical. Ms. B. and I met up with Scott "Diefenbaker" Hager, Robbin "Rtmlee" Lee, and a couple of Mr. Lee's friends in Greensboro, dropped a car at the Old 421 boat access point, and made our way up to Rt. 67. At first, we figured we were going to have a chilly day on the water, but it wasn't long before the sun came out and the temperature warmed up to just about perfect. We enjoyed a mostly leisurely paddle down the river to the dam where the cache resides. Here the current was enjoyably challenging. On the upper and lower sides of the dam, there are concrete ramps and a walkway for boat portage, and a big sign that reads "No Acercarse" admonishes you not to go over the dam in your boat (it would be bad). Once we were all feet-dry... more or less... on the walkway, I drew the cache from its hiding spot and laid my moniker on the log. Find #7,000 — yay! We soon got ourselves back in the kayaks and started on our way, only to realize that Mr. Lee's boat was going downriver without him. Where's Mr. Lee? Oh, there he is... a wee bit wet. Or perhaps more than a wee bit. Anyway, it wasn't long before we were all properly mounted up again to make our final run back to the Old US 421 River Park. Indeed, #7K was a memorable cache — an excellent day on the river, followed by wine and good company at nearby Flint Hill Vineyards.

I sleep now.

Photos by Scott Hager:

Ms. B. stylin' with paddle.

Hey, Rob! Wait... where's Rob?

Merrily, merrily, merrily...

Mandatory portage

No acercarse.

Team 7K

Return of the King?

The spectacular trailers and advance positive reviews of Legendary's new Godzilla led me to feel guardedly optimistic that director Gareth Edwards' big-ass monster romp might be a real Godzilla movie, an effort worthy of the sixty-year-old iconic monster that I have loved beyond the bounds of reason ever since I saw the 1956 Godzilla, King of the Monsters around age four. I purposefully shied away from spoilers so I might go in with as open a mind as possible, and, on this count, I succeeded. Knowing relatively little about what I might actually be getting into, I caught Godzilla in IMAX/3D yesterday, which did provide me with an agreeably stimulating sensory experience.

It was pretty good. Not great, but pretty good.

Though I'm not revealing much of the plot here, there are some spoilers, so if you don't want 'em, don't read 'em.

Director Edwards does a lot right with the monsters. By dropping hints and offering only glimpses of the creatures before revealing them in all their glory, he capably builds suspense leading up to their appearances. The pair of Muto (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism) creatures work exceedingly well; in fact, it could be argued that they have the more substantive monster roles. Godzilla does not appear in full until about halfway through the film, and though I've heard a few complaints about this fact, I find its slow revelation effective in context. While I remain far more enamored of the traditional suitmation monsters and miniature sets that have been the mainstay of Godzilla films over the decades, the special effects work here proves to me that a CGI Godzilla can, in fact, ultimately succeed. However, the Godzilla design, while endlessly superior to the silly big iguana in Roland Emmerich's insipid 1998 Godzilla, still falls short of the Toho's best suitmation Godzillas. This one looks like a big scaly grizzly bear with dorsal fins and a long tail, and its stubby, non-functional-looking feet, which ought to be reserved for a quadrupedal creature, actually annoy the hell out of me. Not to say Godzilla as a monster isn't oftentimes visually impressive; it is, sometimes with a vengeance. Its powerful bellow, which retains at least some of the contrabass-produced rumbling-and-scraping timbre of the original Toho monster, couldn't have been more well-done.

The best aspect of the monster scenes is that, unlike many of this film's contemporaries — including Pacific Rim, a movie I generally enjoyed — they aren't all presented with jump-cuts, super-fast action, and close-ups that are so close you have no idea what you're looking at. Most of the time, you get long, lingering shots of the creatures, a stylistic touch perfectly in line with longstanding Godzilla movie tradition. In the Toho films, you always got to see plenty of monster. No ridiculous, dizzying camera work but real, honest-to-god cinematography that shows you exactly what you want to see: majestic, impressive, larger-than-life daikaiju.

In the story, Godzilla and the Muto creatures are revealed as essentially products of mother nature in her earliest days; unlike the original Japanese monster, Godzilla is not a result of nuclear testing gone horribly wrong. Though the creatures in the film thrive in a radioactive environment, none of the allegorical elements about the horrors of atomic energy that formed the heart of the original Godzilla remain here. If anything, nuclear weaponry is retained as the last hold-out of hope for the American military. This downplaying of a once-crucial tenet has more in common with the Heisei-era (1984–1995) Godzilla films, in which nuclear power is generally reduced to a convenient catalyst for monster appearances (most egregiously in 1991's Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah).

Alexandre Desplat's musical score for Godzilla complements the visuals well enough, and there are a few motifs that effectively underscore the emotions conveyed in any given scene. A brief portion of György Ligeti's "Requiem for Soprano and Mezzo-Soprano," originally made famous in 1968's 2001: A Space Odyssey, provides a dark, ethereal backdrop to a dramatic scene in which a Special Forces team makes a HALO drop into San Francisco to recover a nuclear bomb scavenged by the Muto creatures. However, as with most contemporary film scores, Desplat's incorporates few memorable themes or full-fledged compositions that go beyond controlled cacophony — certainly nothing like Akira Ifukube's original classic monster themes or Michiru Oshima's rousing, distinctive scores to several of Toho's Millennium-era Godzilla movies. At the risk of portraying myself as the consummate old fart... I so miss the good old days of movie scores, when they were truly music, not just staccato blasts of orchestral noise to punctuate the action on the screen at any given time.

The real test of a daikaiju picture... or most any picture... is whether the story holds up. Do the actors portray characters you can relate to on some level? Do the moviemakers create a world you can believe in? Do you want to believe in it? In Godzilla, the human drama runs perilously thin. None of the actors — even the capable Bryan Cranston as nuclear engineer Joe Brody (who meets his demise much sooner than I might have expected) and distinguished Ken Watanabe as scientist Ichiro Serizawa — manage to overcome the inherent flatness of their characters. Juliette Binoche is wasted Brody's wife, who meets her demise within minutes of her introduction. Brody's son, Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is a likable enough heroic character, and he actually gets to do some stuff, rather than stand around watching the action, but even he is at the mercy of a script that takes us down too many familiar boulevards. In fact, most of the timeworn disaster movie conventions can be found here: the devoted scientist whose warnings of dire events on the horizon go unheeded; an element of strife between family members (in this case between Brody and Ford, who believes his father has just gone over the deep end); the young child separated from his parents and the inevitable quest for a reunion. It's by-the-numbers people plot, and while it beats the hell out of the 1998 Godzilla and even some of the later Toho Godzilla movies, particularly those from the Heisei era, it falls distressingly flat in a movie where every resource was in place to make the drama riveting from top to bottom. Shinichi Sekizawa and Kaoru Mabuchi, two of the premier screenwriters of the original Godzilla series, offered plenty of lessons in great monster stories. No one seems to have noticed.

In the end, Godzilla succeeds on many levels, particularly in the spectacle department, yet, despite its clear aspirations, from a dramatic standpoint, it is neither moving nor engrossing. It offers no real thematic depth, especially compared to many of the early Toho Godzilla films, which, even at their simplest, addressed real human issues, such as unchecked use of atomic weaponry; rampant human greed; the need for people to respect each other and view even those with whom they differ as brothers; the dangers of spreading toxic pollution over the face of Mother Earth. Gareth Edwards may be a true fan of everything Godzilla stands for, and he clearly sets out to entertain audiences, at which, on many counts, he clearly succeeds — yet he also stops right there. Coming up so thematically empty is a disservice to audiences, not to mention the legacy of one of the longest-lived icons in cinematic history.

I kind of liked this Godzilla. But I surely didn't love it. I may be completely wrong — I rather hope so — but I have a feeling the Godzilla to love exists only in the past.

Darkness Falls, Cache On

"Okay, we know it's up there. How the hell do we get it down?"

Back in February of this year, I spent several nights out on the Greensboro watershed trails restoring Darth Sketcher's ingenious but aging and decrepit night cache, "Darkness Falls" (GC14WGB; see "Restoring 'Darkness Falls'" and "Darkness Falls Restored"), and last night, a group of brave geocachers went out to see if they might conquer it. They invited me to accompany them — in case they became lost in hyperspace — and I gladly accepted, figuring I could throw a monkey wrench into all their best-laid plans. So, as the sun began to set, I met a passel of creeple people bearing the aliases Cantergirl, Jamestown Pastor Jay, Jesusfreaks33, Charlie Alpha Lima, Kenzielaken1102, and 3Newsomes, at the Bald Eagle trailhead at Lake Higgins and set out for the first target. There are five stages spread over five trails, extending all the way from northwest to northeast Greensboro, the first stage being relatively easy, the others varying in difficulty but all presenting unique challenges. I vowed to offer only moral support, no significant hints (unless the group started to head for the wrong trail, which looked to be in the offing until the old man did step forward to set them straight). I was quite curious to see how a group would fare on the stages, especially because this is the first bunch to hunt it since I completed the restoration work.

Happily, the team made it all the way to the final stage and conquered the last challenge: putting together the information gathered at each stage so they could access that all-important logbook. Although there was some fierce wildlife out there, such as radioactively mutated millipedes, giant frogs, and something that might have been a Sasquatch, everyone survived the venture, completing all five stages in just about three hours.

I will say, if I had not been there, they might have discovered Berwyn, and from there, no one ever returns.

Most interestingly, as we were making our final egress from the woods, at the Townsend Trail, we came upon a most curious arrangement of reflectors tacks, which spelled "CACHE ON" on a tree near the trail head. I'm told it's probably a remnant of an older night cache, no longer extant, set up by the Pirates of the Carolinas. I'd love to see them do another one, as I quite like the reflector artist's style.

These rather larger crawlies were all over the trail.

Jesusfreaks33, Kenzielaken1102, and Cantergirl sorting out the vital info from one of the stages

Cantergirl puts her signature on the logbook at the final stage

Victorious, they are. L to R: Jesusfreaks33, 3Newsomes, Kenzielaken1102, Charlie Alpha Lima,
Cantergirl, Jamestown Pastor Jay

Cache on.

Auf Wiedersehen, Mad Prof!

Some of you regular visitors may recall that, in addition to writing tales meant to be read late at night and occasionally utilizing multi-billion dollar satellites to hunt little containers hidden in the woods and elsewhere, I have also offered my not-necessarily-considerable thespian talents to a couple of indie movies made by Martinsville, VA, natives Mat and Myron Smith. In their most recent offering, Invasion of the Killer Cicadas, I play the role of Professor Doctor Werner von Schwartztotten, the twisted genius responsible for genetically engineering the malevolent title creatures. In the Smith Brothers' first movie, Young Blood: Evil Intentions (2012), which told the story of numerous child vampires running loose in a small southern town, I had a weenie part as an outspoken citizen. In Cicadas, the mad prof doesn't have much more screen time than the loudmouthed old fart, but, as creator of the title monsters, he provides a tad more substance to the storyline. Several months ago on the set, I delivered a rousing lecture about the nature of monster insects to a committee of concerned townsfolk; today, the good doctor spoke his final lines for the movie, which is now wrapping up shooting.

I expect the movie will be entirely in the can by the end of June, and — hopefully — it will soon afterward follow in the footsteps of Young Blood and make an impressive circuit of numerous theaters around the region and elsewhere, as well as play at film festivals and see a DVD release. Both movies are a hootin' holler — just the kind of productions to appeal to fans of Troma Entertainment movies and such (in fact Young Blood features Troma Entertainment founder Lloyd Kaufman as a hysterical news reporter). Young Blood: Evil Intentions is available on DVD and may be purchased here: Young Blood: Evil Intentions

Here's the official trailer for Invasion of the Killer Cicadas. Enjoy.

No Birthdays for Old Grumps

"It has been written since the beginning of time,
even unto these ancient stones, that evil supernatural
creatures exist in a world of darkness."

Per my personal tradition, I took my birthday off from work and went geocaching, among other things. Last night, I headed up to Martinsville for a nice birthday dinner with Mum, and then, bright and early this morning, took off for Fairy Stone Park to hunt a relatively new cache. I found the hide readily, but I also discovered a ton of trash scattered around ground zero, which is the barest remnant of an old stone foundation, for what was at one time a fairly sizable structure. It would be interesting to find out what the place was back in its day. In any event, being the ever-grumpy but always civic-minded geocacher, I went back to my car, grabbed a garbage bag from my stash, and spent about 20 minutes picking up litter. I filled up most of the bag and left the area about as close to pristine as it can be left, so that was my good birthday deed. (I hope no one expects any more today, as they are liable to be disappointed.) On the way home, not far down the road from Fairy Stone, there was a major traffic checkpoint, with numerous local sheriff's deputies and the Virginia State Patrol running license checks. A bit later, on my way back to Greensboro, I encountered another one one near Sandy Level, VA, on the backest of back roads. I gather someone did something bad, but this time, at least, I'm pretty sure it wasn't me.

The real bad ones are the human garbage that called my mom the other night, impersonating my daughter, claiming to be in trouble and needing money to be bailed out of jail. Apparently, the scam was uncannily convincing, for Mom would swear she was actually talking to my young 'un. If you have elderly relations, please, please warn them against believing such a story; these scammers hit you right where it counts, emotionally, and they're sophisticated enough to make a trusting person believe it's true. Here's a website that explains the scam in detail, and it matches down to the letter what happened to my mom: Grandparent Scam

Don't believe it. Not for an instant.

A portion of ancient Kadath showing just above ground?

Cache in, trash out.

A Random Tornado Story

I just heard there's a tornado watch in our area. I don't see one out there, though, so it seems a waste of time to sit here and try to watch it. Now, back in my college days, at University of Georgia, we had this one tornado warning — a twister had reportedly touched down very close to campus. In Georgia, tornadoes are something to take seriously. Gainesville, where my mom grew up, was utterly destroyed by a tornado in 1936, when she was very young. One of my relatives, William M. Brice, wrote a book about the tragedy, called A City Laid Waste. In the instance at hand here — 1980, I believe it was — because this tornado was in view of the UGA campus, the powers that be paraded the residents of my dorm down into the basement of the building, where it was supposed to be safer. Well, if you were on one side of the wall down there, it might have been safer, but in the common area, where I and several friends were sent, there was a bank of plate-glass windows that faced the lower parking lot. When my roommate, Steve, and I realized we were being set up to become shredded southern-style barbecue should that tornado come through, we decided we weren't going to stay there. I shall not right here admit to having done certain mind-altering substances in college, but I will say that I did have a rather different mindset then than I do now. Rather than seek a more suitable place of shelter, Steve and I hit the street and went looking for the offending windstorm.

The sky was black, pink, and green, and there was a prodigious wind pummeling us, but I think we walked a mile or so around campus, searching, searching, searching. Never did find that tornado. I don't know that I was disappointed, necessarily, though I might not have complained too much had the thing come through and taken down my dorm building. The bathroom kind of sucked.

Space Oddity

I wonder if this old image will spark any memories from members of the generation to which I belong, at least in body. It was, to the best of my recollection, my first exposure to the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, which I still consider among the most convincing and engrossing space movies ever made. During my childhood, even on into young adulthood, my family traveled to Georgia from our home in Virginia several times a year to visit both sets of grandparents, and stopping at Howard Johnson's — they were ubiquitous in those days — somewhere on that long trip was tradition with my folks. I remember ever-so-well on that trip in late 1967 being handed this children's menu, which was essentially a comic book of the movie, shown from the perspective of a couple of insufferable young brats who go to the movie's premiere. The comic offered the most terrible distortion of the film's story, as such comics were ever wont to do, but the art was quite good, most of it clearly based on pre-production stills from the movie. Naturally, in the comic, nary a hint of 2001's surrealistic style or philosophical undertone was in evidence; it was all made out to be a charming space adventure that would thrill and excite insufferable young brats, including me, the whole world over. It was a silly, primitive, ridiculous marketing tool that was characteristic of marketing tools back in the 50s, 60s, on into the 70s. Back then, movie studios pulled out all the stops to draw in young seekers of cinematic thrills, and I certainly fell into that category.

I was eight years old when I saw 2001, and though its finer dramatic aspects were almost certainly lost on me, I remember having the hardest time believing that what I was seeing wasn't actually real. The movie systematically shattered every preconceived notion I had, virtually all of which had come directly from the Howard Johnson's comic. I immediately fell in love with the movie, and I think I saw it on the big screen a half a dozen times over the next couple of years (back then, movies were also re-released to theaters for second and sometimes third runs). Arthur C. Clarke's novel was one of the first, if not the first, adult novels I ever read. I was only in third grade at the time, but I don't remember having any difficulty comprehending the words, if not necessarily the context of the book. That Howard Johnson's menu comic, which, prior to seeing the movie, I had held in the highest esteem, became almost an object of contempt, and I suspect that at some point in my less-than-farsighted youth, I dumped my copy in the trash.

How I wish I still possessed that old thing now. But a few years ago, I did discover, much to my satisfaction, that the comic was reproduced in its entirety online. Oh, happy boy, me.

At least, a few years after that — 1977, I think — I did have the foresight to preserve my copies of that wretched Godzilla vs. Megalon comic that came out along with the film.

A few sample panels from Howard Johnson's 2001: A Space Odyssey children's menu follow.

WORLD WAR CTHULHU Campaign, Up and Over

A triptych of illustrations by M. Wayne Miller for World War Cthulhu, coming soon from Dark Regions

I've posted numerous times about the Indiegogo campaign for World War Cthulhu, the Dark Regions anthology edited by Brian Sammons and Glynn Owen Barrass, which includes my story, "The Game Changers," and here's another one for you. The campaign for World War Cthulhu has now ended, having become one the most successful for any book to date, with 233% of its $10,000 target raised. Due to this success, not only will several custom editions of the book be released, along with numerous perks for campaign contributors, the length of the anthology can be increased to accommodate a few tales the editors initially had to withhold due to space limitations.

Having had little other experience with crowd-funded projects, I wasn't sure how such a thing might actually go. Needless to say, I'm thrilled that World War Cthulhu zoomed over the top and then some. Crowd-funded efforts — be they for books, music, movies, and just about any creative endeavor — are popping up everywhere, offering opportunities to creators where opportunity might otherwise be scarce. At the same time, it is tiresome to forever bombarded by "invitations" to contribute to any and all endeavors with which I might have only the most tenuous connection, if any. While crowd-funding does rather democratize the process of determining which efforts will see the light of day and which won't, to my mind, entities and individuals who embark on such campaigns need to have already built some degree of trust with their audiences — Dark Regions, for example, has been around for many years and has produced tons of first-rate products — for the opportunities for fraudsters are also plentiful. Safeguards for investors may vary wildly, depending on who has ultimate responsibility for the project.

The Indiegogo campaign for World War Cthulhu is over, so the window for all those custom perks is closed, but the standard edition will be available as an e-book, a trade paperback, and deluxe hardback. Authors include Neil Baker, David Conyers, Tim Curran, Ed Erdelac, Cody Goodfellow, Ted Grau, C. J. Henderson, David Kernot, William Meikle, Christine Morgan, Edward Morris, Konstantin Paradias, Robert M. Price, W. H. Pugmire, Peter Rawlik, John Shirley, Darryl Schweitzer, Jeffrey Thomas, and Lee Zumpe. Cover art is by Vincent Chong, interior illustrations by M. Wayne Miller. Visit Dark Regions Press for more info.

Contraptions, Caches, and Good Companions

The contraption you see there is an old cotton press, very near nowhere, South Carolina, which one passes when traveling Highway 38 between Hamlet, NC, and the junction of US Highway 501, in our case on the way to Myrtle Beach, SC. Of course there is a geocache here (GC47CA4), and Ms. B. and I actually ran into another couple of cachers here on their way home from the beach. It's been some years since we've been able to get to the coast, but our friends Joe and Suzy Albanese, and their son Sam and friends, were in Myrtle for a few days and had a place with enough room in the crawlspace for us to crash, so we decided to inflict ourselves upon them. Ms. B. and I got down there Thursday evening and returned today — unfortunately, in a pretty good downpour most of the way home. Fortunately, while we were there the weather was chilly but mostly clear. I was surprised by the number of folk — mostly young, of course — who were actually out swimming in the ocean or otherwise dressed for summer weather. That water had to be damn near polar plunge frigid.

For the years between 1977 and 2000, my folks owned a timeshare condominium at Regency Towers on the south end of Myrtle Beach, and Ocean Lakes campground, where we were staying on this trip, is only a couple of miles from there. How nice it was to find that a geocache resides right at Regency Towers — along the wall where I used to regularly sit, playing my guitar and frightening the beachcombers. Kimberly and I headed over there straightaway yesterday morning, found the cache, and walked up the beach toward another cache nearly a mile to the north. Chilly but nice, and it was kind of bittersweet to be out on such a familiar and yet very changed stretch of oceanfront properties.

Regency Towers; my family used to have a time-share here. No longer, but there is a geocache nearby.

Being that many kids are out for spring break, Myrtle was very crowded, almost as crowded as when we used to go during the prime weeks of summer. Ocean Lakes is basically a community unto itself, enclosed and relatively serene; for us, buzzing around the premises in the Albaneses' golf cart was kind of a highlight, especially on Thursday night, when just about everyone there paraded the streets in their carts, some decorated and illuminated in fun ways. The young children that abounded were clearly enjoying it all no end, and for at least that evening, I actually felt an uncharacteristic lack of hostility toward the younger set. Now that, I tell you, is the old man at his most mellow.

A fishy feeding frenzy at Broadway at the Beach

Yesterday afternoon, we visited Broadway at the Beach, which is kind of a souped-up replacement for the old pavilion that was once the big bright tourist spot in Myrtle. There's a winery there — The Boardwalk Winery — but we're not talking any kind of fancy or sophisticated stuff here; they specialize in wines that are sweet to semi-dry, and they even feature novelties such as wine slushies (in non-alcoholic varieties for the youngsters). Their dry reds — Syrah, Sangiovese, Merlot, and a blend — are described as "young," and as to their quality, I'll elaborate no further. The highlight of this Mecca for tourists, apart from a couple of caches, is the Pepper Palace, a fairly extensive hot sauce shop that offers lots of free samples. As tempting as it was, I didn't buy them out, but after several samples, I left with sufficient inner fire to brace me against the chilly evening wind.

Dinner last night was in Murrell's Inlet, at Russell's Seafood Grill and Raw Bar, a place I had been once before, several years ago, but I remembered little about the quality of the place. Mercy, but last night I loved this restaurant; I think we all did. I ordered a peck of fresh, local oysters, and I've gotta tell you, a peck of steamed shellfish is nothing to sneeze at. It's a huge freaking pot of the best oysters I think I've ever tasted, with plenty of melted butter, cocktail sauce, tabasco sauce, and horseradish to accompany. In fact, though I'm rarely fond of naked oysters, these guys were delicious straight out of the shell, dipped in nothing. To finish them, I did need some help from Joe and Suzy (Kimberly is not a connoisseur of shellfish) but at the end of the evening, that pot was empty. Kimberly and the Albaneses all enjoyed their dinners; between us, we sampled a pretty fair portion of the menu. Service was excellent from top to bottom — the owner greets you at the door; the lady bartender was as professional, amiable, and efficient as any I've ever seen (she made a damn fine gin martini); and our server was friendly, prompt, and conscientious. We did have to wait almost an hour for a table, since everyone in South Carolina was dining in Murrells Inlet last night, but we didn't mind a bit, as the company, drinks, and ambiance were better than fine. The restaurant's interior has the quintessential "beach tavern" atmosphere, and they do have a balcony with outdoor seating, though the weather allowed for none of that last night. I'd say dinner at Russell's was beyond satisfactory, and all for less-than-extortionate prices.

Today, it was a rainy drive home, with only a few caches on the menu — though, amusingly, ten minutes after I found a cache just outside of Myrtle Beach, I received a call from local cachers c3 and Norah, who had just claimed the same cache on their way to the beach and retrieved the geocoin I had just left there. Too bad our paths didn't actually cross. That would have been just plain decent.

Back in my teenage years, and even some thereafter, going to Myrtle Beach was something of a dream vacation. The place has grown so much over the years, and the dense traffic and endless stoplights become outright stressful, so for me personally, Myrtle doesn't hold the kind of charm it used to. But this trip was so enjoyable and filled with such good company that it was kind of like a return to youth. I just loved it, and I hope Ms. B. and the Albaneses can say the same thing.

Be good to each other.

Left: The Albanese, not necessarily scary; Right: Ms. B. and Old Rodan, pretty scary.

Nincompooper! Is upside down!

A pretty heavenly spread at The Pepper Palace

Old Rodan might be a little afeared of that peck of steamed oysters on the table.

In Memory of a Sweetie

Today is 7 years since our little cat Charcoal crossed the Rainbow Bridge. She was the sister of Dusty, who passed away just a few months ago at age 16. Of all the critters with whom I have ever crossed paths, Charcoal was just about the sweetest. She had lived a relatively brief 8 years when she was diagnosed with a tumor in her sinus cavity. She didn’t last long after that, and burying her out in the back yard was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. I still miss her every day — along with all my other dear animals that are no longer with me.

At any given time, whatever Chester, the Siamese, was doing, that’s what Charcoal had to do. She loved him terribly — sometimes so much that he would come running to me to get her to leave him alone. There was never much I could do about this, but when she got tired of smushing Chester, she enjoyed smushing me. During the cold months, whenever I would sit at my desk, she would come and lie on my feet to make sure they were warm. I certainly never got cold feet!

I miss you, little cat.

Enough of This Whining

So I found geocache number 6,900 today (plus a couple), and I figured I'd start thinking about which cache I might target for my 7,000th — which prompted Ms. B. to call me a caching geek. Oh, what a poor soul! What a poor, unenlightened soul that fails to grasp the joys and challenges of finding and autographing log sheets in odd little containers that lurk in various and sundry entertaining locations. I mean, the experience of visiting a winery, such as Childress Vineyards in Lexington, is only made sweeter (or dryer, if you're like me and dislike sweet wines) when there's a cache waiting for you right there on the spot ("Enough of This Whining," GC3V1VG). How do you fully appreciate going shopping for home stuff with hysterical Swedish names at Ikea in Charlotte if you don't snag a cache or two in the process — particularly when one of them has additional, challenging logging requirements you have actually met ("The 366-Day Challenge," GC1XYQ4)? Can one really say one has had a satisfying dining experience at a restaurant such as 300 East in Charlotte's Dilworth district without conquering at least one of the nearby cache hides, such as "Artattack" (GC25V6H), or perhaps "I Have a Dream" (GC4M36T), which requires studying Martin Luther King's famous speech to calculate the coordinates for the actual cache hide? Why, I'm not sure one can. My gracious, a caching geek? Okay, sure enough, but I tell you this — on a day like today, one of us is a great big happy caching geek!

Well, in spite of her non-geocaching tendencies, Ms. B. is still a pretty danged good girlfriend. Maybe if I whine enough... er... wine her enough... she'll come around. Surely, this is only proper.

In the Court of the Yellow King

I don't recall with any clarity when I first read Robert W. Chambers' series of King in Yellow stories; it was probably sometime in the late 1980s or early 1990s. I can't say they grabbed me. I understood that these tales influenced H. P. Lovecraft, and that they themselves borrowed names from stories by Ambrose Bierce, whose work I had enjoyed since I first read it in college, but Chambers' prose — typical late Victorian era — and the themes of his stories failed to engage me as did the fiction of Bierce or Poe or Wells or Lovecraft, whose authorial voices, to me, tonally enhanced their works. For several years afterward, I thought very little of The King in Yellow.

Then, in 1997, there or about, the good Dr. Robert M. Price edited an anthology for Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu fiction line titled The Hastur Cycle, which featured a couple of Chambers' stories — "The Repairer of Reputations" and "The Yellow Sign" — along with numerous other tales that used Chambers' work as a backdrop or jumping-off point, written by such familiar authors as H. P. Lovecraft, Karl Edward Wagner, Lin Carter, and others. While Lovecraft's "The Whisperer in Darkness" only obliquely referred to the King in Yellow mythos, as many of the tales in the book revolved around it as around Chambers' own. This is no doubt because, once elements of Chambers' work found their way into Lovecraft's, it was inevitable that August Derleth and others might appropriate those elements and dilute or remove whatever essence might remain of Chambers' original. However, from this volume, two stories in particular caught my notice and gave me an entirely new appreciation for Chambers: James Blish's "More Light," which included an entire script — or most of one, anyway — of the play, "The King in Yellow"; and Karl Edward Wagner's "The River of Night's Dreaming."

Now, you may well know that Chambers' stories are founded on this play of his own creation, but like Lovecraft's Necronomicon, it existed only in fragments, with virtually no context. All we know from Chambers' work is that reading the play leads to madness or death. We know that it includes characters such as the inhuman King in Yellow, Cassilda, Camilla, the Phantom of Truth; and locations such as Carcosa, Hastur, the Lake of Hali, Alar, Dheme, and Aldeberan. We know that the play's first act is so mundane as to induce boredom, while reading even a few words of the second act inexorably draws in the reader and drives him or her mad with its revelations of "irresistible truths."

Blish's "More Light" was, by the author's own admission, ambitious and doomed to failure, yet the script he concocted, while hardly sufficient to drive one mad, possessed an allure that, for me personally, became the "King in Yellow," the play that Chambers himself could not and would not have attempted to write. Lin Carter built on Blish's story by turning a portion of the script into actual verse, though not very memorably. Chambers himself referred to Hastur specifically as a place, while Lovecraft left references to Hastur ambiguous, open to readers' interpretations. Derleth, however, made Hastur into another Great Old Entity, weakening, if not entirely severing, any connections to Chambers' mythos. Lin Carter attempted to reconcile these disparate interpretations, resulting in a few fragmented pieces that Price published under the apt title "Tatters of the King," but this attempt, while perhaps noble, proved ultimately underwhelming.

Wagner's "River of Night's Dreaming" merged contemporary reality both with aspects of the play and the speculative history that Chambers devised for his interrelated stories. Wagner's story, with its vivid imagery and memorable characterizations, haunted me much as had Blish's, and it was these tales that prompted me to revisit Chambers' original work. With so many intervening years since my first exposure to that small body of King in Yellow tales, and now armed with new appreciation for the subject matter due to the work of these later authors, in rereading Chambers, I found myself drawn into a domain so surreal and tragic that I actually found it emotionally draining — particularly the story "The Yellow Sign." While no script could possibly live up to the power attributed to it, Blish's version — which is to some (myself included) canonical — created a foundation for Chambers' tales that he himself had never imagined. This foundation is hardly necessary, but its best, most important function may be that it drives one to take another look at and even re-evaluate Chambers' original stories. Taken together, many of the various works in the King in Yellow cycle seem to offer glimpses of a realm that is not a single author's creation, but that exists and permits assorted authors to glimpse and then reveal small portions of it.

In more recent years, the King in Yellow has enjoyed some resurgence in the dark fiction community and has inspired many new works by numerous authors, such as Joseph S. Pulver Sr., whose collections Blood Will Have Its Season and Sin and Ashes, as well as the anthology, A Season in Carcosa, which he edited, have enjoyed considerable acclaim. Now, editor Glynn Owen Barrass has assembled a new anthology titled In the Court of the Yellow King, due in fall 2014 from Celaeno Press. This volume includes my story, "The Masque of the Queen," as well as new work by many names familiar to aficionados of Chambers and Lovecraft — not to mention from the pages of Deathrealm — such as Willie Meikle, Christine Morgan, Edward Morris, Robert M. Price, W. H. Pugmire, Peter Rawlik, and Jeffrey Thomas. The cover, shown above, is by award-winning artist Daniele Serra. You can read more about In the Court of the Yellow King from Celaeno Press here.

I will post any and all updates about the book here, so... as always... do stay tuned.

A Car Deal for You!

I had just come upon this slightly distressed vehicle in the woods when my phone went off — an email from Groupon reading "A Car Deal for You!" and, damn, yes it was! A bit of a fixer-upper, I guess, but there's a geocache here, and I did jump right on it. No resting on my laurels today. Spent most of the day in the lower southwest corner of Winston-Salem, getting in quite a bit of caching and hiking. Now I is sore.

A nice little pond and waterfall at Hobby Park

Lots of radio-controlled planes buzzing over at Hobby Park this afternoon.

A tired but happy old fart stumbling off the trail

Buccaneer's Beech, Big Bugs, and Gnome Homes

Andi "AndiMN" Newton and Chad "CJBowser" Bowser

After most of a week of feeling like warmed-over black death, it was nice to finally return to something like my normal state of abnormality this weekend. Happy enough it was that I spent today out on the caching trail with fellow writers/geocachers Andi "AndiMN" Newton and Chad "CJBowser" Bowser, mostly in the Winston-Salem area. Several miles of hiking, quite a few caches, no catastrophic accidents, and that's what I call a fine day. Highlights included a fairly lengthy hike and a prolonged search at a pirate-themed multi in Reynolds Park called Buccaneer's Beech (GCNNP6); a letterbox hybrid cache that ended with us finding a funky little gnome home in the woods; a garland of missile tow hanging up in a tree; and a giant spider (with a bison tube stuck in its abdomen) hanging out in a dank, dark culvert. Lunch at First Street Draught House also proved intriguing, not to mention pretty dang tasty: lamb sliders with basil mayonnaise and havarti cheese and a huge side of fried pickles, with a Sierra Nevada Ruthless Rye, which I quite enjoyed — though I rarely drink beer any more, when I do, I tend to prefer strong IPAs, which this definitely is.

Time to prop up the tired old feets (mainly so the cats will have a place to perch).

(Click images to enlarge.)