[Blogging Northwest Smith] "Julhi"

The March 1935 issue of Weird Tales featured "Julhi," the fifth of Catherine Lucille Moore's Northwest Smith tales. That same issue also featured Robert E. Howard's "Jewels of Gwahlur," a classic Conan tale.

After a year of writing Northwest Smith tales, Moore's "Julhi" manages to integrate what are now the "old stand-by's" of the Smith series with an energy that keeps the repeating narrative devices feeling fresh -- and to be fair, some of what is going on in this tale is quite fresh. Like in the first Northwest Smith tale, Moore gives us a brief introductory paragraph reminiscent of a campfire story. It's a device that Moore had abandoned in the prior three stories, but it helps to set the tone here and notify the audience that we are going to be reading an event that transpired in Smith's past.

The tale of Smith's scars would make a saga. From head to foot his brown and sunburnt hide was scored with the marks of battle...But one or two scars he carried would have baffled the most discerning eye. That curious, convoluted red circlet, for instance, like some bloody rose on the left side of his chest just where the beating of is heart stirred the sun-darkened flesh..."

The "campfire" paragraph provides Moore with a couple of advantages, and one major challenge, as the story unfolds. First and foremost, this preamble let's us know a little bit about the story we are about to read, we will be learning just how Smith acquired that "bloody rose" scar. Fans of Smith will be getting a glimpse into his, as yet, largely unrevealed past. Second, our curiosity as readers is piqued as we wonder just what kind of beast or device would leave such a wound. As mentioned earlier though, these advantages don't come without a price. By revealing to the audience that the story takes place at some point in Smith's past, any fear that Smith will fail to overcome the challenges within the tale can be easily cast aside. We know he survives because we know he bears the scar.

It's harder to create an aura of mystery and weird terror when the audience knows the outcome, but Moore knows what she is doing. She immediately disorients the reader, by inserting them in media res -- along with Smith -- into an unknown environment. As the story begins we find Smith literally in the dark without "the faintest idea of where he was or how he had come there." Adding to his mysterious surroundings, Smith is immediately attacked by some unknown and unseen foe and falls unconscious. The reader may know that Smith will find a way out of the situation, but the reader also feels the urgency of the situation in which Smith has found himself.

As a side note, as in other Moore tales, much could be made in this story about the use of light and dark and how she uses them to create discomfort for the reader. Much of this story takes place in the dark and the majority of the references to light are referring to one character's ability to open a portal between worlds.

When Smith awakens from his unconscious state, he finds once more that he is not alone. Moore's descriptions of movement are identical to the ones she used to describe the unseen assailant, maintaining the uncomfortable anxieties she created earlier as long as possible. This time, Smith takes action and finds -- much to his pleasure -- that this time it is a fellow prisoner and not an unknown horror who has joined him in this mysterious place. Smith's new companion, the fair Apri, knows where Smith is and why he is here and quickly shares what information she has with Smith and the audience.

Here Moore exhibits one of the least appreciated skills in writing. She deftly provides the audience with much needed exposition in the form of natural dialog. When Apri is discussing the "haunters of Vonng," who are the slaves of "Julhi," it is conversational rather than expository, yet it fills in all of the necessary information to inform the audience how dire the circumstances are and how mysterious the place Smith has found himself in is. One of the ways Moore accomplishes this is to have Smith's thoughts interact with Apri's dialog to fill in the blanks.

For example, when Apri mentions that Smith is in Vonng the reader is immediately granted access to Smith's thoughts, rather than having to read Apri explain what and where Vonng is. And it is a place reminiscent of sunken R'lyeh, "The stone had been quarried with unnamable [sic] rites, and the buildings were queerly shaped, for mysterious purposes. Some of its lines ran counter-wise to the understanding even of the men who laid them out, and at intervals in the streets, following patterns certainly not of their own world, medallions had bedn set, for reasons known to none..." Like many of the locations in H.P. Lovecraft's fiction, Vonng is a city that exists at a nexus of worlds, where the geometry of the universes allow one universe to affect others...if they have the proper means of communication. We quickly find out that Apri is a vessel through which Julhi, a horrifying being from another world, can bring people into her own "Vonng" to serve as food.

As I wrote earlier, Moore is using many of the narrative elements from prior Smith stories in this piece. In "Scarlet Dream," Smith found himself transported to another universe. In "Black Thirst," Smith found himself in a vast and unending castle/city whose ruler could manipulate the geography to make it a prison. In all the prior tales, save "Dust of the Gods," the villain was some form of vampiric inspiration for a creature of classical myth. Shambleau was the vampiric origin of the Gorgon, the Alendar was the elemental horror version of Dracula, and the very planet in "Scarlet Dream" was a blood feeding terror. In "Julhi," the eponymous villain seems to be the vampiric inspiration for the Siren or Lorelei.

Like most of Moore's vampires, Julhi feeds on something other than blood -- in this case in addition to blood. The Alendar fed on beauty, Shambleau fed on sexual pleasure and desire, and Julhi feeds on emotion, "but to experience the emotions we crave we must have physical contact, a temporary physical union through the drinking of blood." Julhi is a traditional vampire, in that she drinks blood, but a non-traditional one in that she feeds on the experiences, sensations, and emotions of the victim -- all kinds of emotion, save possibly one.

Of all of Moore's creatures, the Julhi is the most interesting to date and quite unique. I was taken aback by Moore's description of the creature and how she managed to bring horrifying imagery to my mind while describing the creature as one of beauty.

He caught his breath at the sleek and shining loveliness of her, lying on her black couch and facing him with a level, unwinking stare. Then he realized her unhumanity, and a tiny prickling ran down his back -- for she was one of that very ancient race of one-eyed beings about which whispers persist so unescapably in folklore and legend, though history has forgotten them for ages. One-eyed. A clear eye, uncolored, centered in the midst of a fair, broad forehead. Her features arranged in a diamond-shaped pattern instead of humanity's triangle, for the slanting nostrils of her low-bridged nose were set so far apart that they might have been separate features, tilting and exquisitely modeled. Her mouth was perhaps the queerest feature of her strange yet lovely face. It was perfectly heartshaped, in an exaggerated cupid's-bow, but it was not a human mouth. It did not close, ever. It was a beautifully arched orifice, the red lip that rimmed it compellingly crimson, but fixed and moveless in an unhinged jaw. Behind the bowed opening he could see the red, fluted tissue of flesh within.

Sexual imagery aside, this description is highly disconcerting. When added to the slightly serpentine arms, indescribable lower half, and feather crest above the head, we have a truly haunting creature. In fact, the imagery in my mind was a kind of combination of the monster from The Man Trap, a serpent (diamond shaped head and all), a lamprey, and a peacock. Not something I would want to meet while trapped in an alternate dimension. It's also a creature I would love to see illustrated.

Though Julhi cannot speak she can, like the Lorelei, sing, and her song creates a hypnotic state that manipulates the emotions of the listener. Smith is run through the gamut of emotions and the ride only stops on two occasions. Once, it is stopped because Julhi has experienced more powerful experiences than she has ever experienced before. The other time Julhi withdraws, without comment I might add, is when Smith remembers his first (and likely only) true love -- a love that hints at horrible loss in this tale. This love is a place where it seems Julhi will not go, and is evidence of another recurring theme in Moore's tales. She often places love in a favored, though typically tragic, position over sexuality. Sexuality and sexual desires are more base than the love she often presents, as was evidenced in the earlier discussion of beauty in "Black Thirst."

While Julhi herself may be the inspiration for the Siren or Lorelei, she is not representative of her eerily beautiful race. As the story unfolds, we learn that she is an aberration among her people...a corruption if you will. This makes her markedly different from Shambleau and the Alendar who were representative of their respective species. Here Moore might be commenting on humanity itself and how those who live vicariously through others, and to the destruction of those others, are a kind of leech to be shunned by society.

Previous Blogging Northwest Smith Entries:

4)[Blogging Northwest Smith] "Dust of the Gods"
3)Blogging Northwest Smith: "Scarlet Dream"
2) Blogging Northwest Smith: "Black Thirst"
1) Blogging Northwest Smith: "Shambleau"

Out of the Box Games to Release Pirate vs. Pirate Boardgame

Earlier this year, Out of the Box games released the excellent simple strategy game Ninja vs. Ninja. The game featured excellent graphic design and a solid rules set which balances strategy and chance to create a game that is quick to play and entertaining as well.

Historically, a couple of the advantages that video games often have over board games have been their lack of long set up time and the ability to "save" progress in a game without having to either keep detailed journals or leave out hundreds of cardboard chits. The Eurogame movement countered this advantage in that the majority of Eurogames are quick to set up and quick to play. If you only have an hour to spare for playing a few games, the modern Eurogame influenced market has many games available and Ninja vs. Ninja is one of those games.



Later this year, Out of the Box Games will be releasing the natural thematic -- if not mechanical -- sequel to Ninja vs. Ninja with their forthcoming Pirate vs. Pirate. The game, which is a three-player game as opposed to Ninja vs. Ninja which is a two-player game, should be available before the end of the year and I am very much looking forward to the design. Out of the Box has been fairly quiet with regard to what the game itself will look and play like, but if it plays well I'll certainly be hoping they manufacture a Pirate versus Ninja game in the near future.

Hulu Recommendation Friday: V -- The Series

With ABC running a remake of the classic V miniseries, I had no other choice than to have this week's Hulu recommendation be a V related one.

While there has been much talk lately regarding how SF and Fantasy have come to so dominate popular culture and the collective social conscience that we may now be entering into a "post-SF" era, it should be noted that film and television have been saturated with SF and Fantasy narratives since their beginnings. Even prior to the television and films that affected me as a young Gen X viewer, these media had entertained generations with fantastic SF/F. This earlier influence is what made growing up an SF/F fan in Generation X such a joy. There was an amazing abundance of quality sfnal material to watch when I was growing up, and it wouldn't have been there if not for how much earlier entertainment influenced those who created entertainment in the 70s and 80s.

Let's take a quick look at some of the entertainment offerings that Generation X was able to enjoy. On television, we had THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN and the BIONIC WOMAN, SUPERFRIENDS, JOHNNY QUEST, STAR BLAZERS, BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25th CENTURY, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, SPACE 1999, SALVAGE, and V. In film, we had ALIEN, OUTLAND, STAR WARS, KRULL, THE LAST STARFIGHTER, EXCALIBUR, SUPERMAN, FLASH GORDON, and BLADE RUNNER. The lists above don't even scratch the surface of how much wonderful sfnal material was being produced as Generation X was growing up. Science Fiction and Fantasy films may have bigger budgets today, but they are no more ubiquitous today than they were in the 70s and 80s.

It is often jokingly remarked that the Golden Age of Science Fiction is 13 (or insert some other young age), as that is the time one can best enjoy the fantastic tale merely for the sake of its being fantastic. I'm not one who usually agrees with this statement, as I have yet to be disillusioned about the SF/F I read as a child. Most of what I enjoyed, I still enjoy. Most of what I missed that others tell me I should have read, but may not enjoy as much now that I am "a more mature reader," I have enjoyed. Sometimes, as was the case with the ending of SLAN, I find small quibbles with particular narrative devices or decisions, but for the most part I find that a good story remains a good story.

I remember V being a very good story. It was a wonderful reversal of the alien story told in films like THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL. We had aliens who were visiting our planet claiming to be peaceful, like in DAY. Unlike the humans in DAY, we believed them much to our eventual dismay. That one small difference made V more plausible to me than the high minded and hopeful narratives offered by movies like DAY.

The argument in DAY is, essentially, that if all the scientists can work together (because they understand the futility of war) then Earth can become a wonderful and peaceful place. Of course, if they cannot then the Earth will be destroyed, since apparently the Galactic Community believes in using violence preemptively to stop nuclear capable planets from attacking them. I very much enjoy DAY, but still have trouble with the "we have evolved beyond violence and if you don't..we'll destroy you" narrative. The short story is better with regard to this issue.

The argument in V is "beware of aliens bearing gifts." The aliens come to help us achieve peace and can end all the problems facing human society. One small thing, they really want to turn us into dinner. Given the messages that tyrants have used throughout history to attain power have been ones of "peace," "equality," and "progress." I found the story plausible. (I also found the narrative in ALIEN NATION extremely plausible, and more compelling than V as a "human" story.) The costumes the aliens wore, and the way they manipulated specific humans in order to get their "help," are fairly obvious references to Nazism.

I cannot wait to see what ABC is doing with the new V series on November 3. To get ready, I recommend watching the miniseries link above from google video and watching the spin-off series on Hulu. I've embedded the first episode of the followup series below. It isn't as solid as the miniseries, and I don't know how it will hold up as I'll be finding out over the weekend, but I have fond memories.

[Blogging Northwest Smith] "Dust of the Gods"

"I have graven it within the hills, and my vengeance upon the dust within the rock." -- Edgar Allan Poe, Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym

Catherine Moore's fourth Northwest Smith story is one which continues a noble tradition in Weird Horror fiction, that of the Antarctic/Arctic expedition. This tradition has included some of my favorite horror and sf tales and movies. A list that includes Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness, John W. Campbell's Who Goes There?, and John Carpenter's The Thing, based on Campbell's tale. These stories combine mankind's natural curiosity, the desire to explore the unknown, with mankind's natural fear of that same unknown. Given the lifeless wastes of the Antarctic/Arctic environment, it is the perfect setting for a scary story.

It is a particularly perfect location for the "post-mythological" horror story, the kind of horror story that leaves superstition and mysticism to the dust bin of history and creates supernatural horror that might exist in a rational and material universe. This is the perfect horror for a scientific age. Kenneth Hite, in his [Tour de Lovecraft] entry for At the Mountains of Madness describes this kind of tale as "remythologization." As he describes it, horror that provides a "plausible entryway for 'adventurous expectancy' not through a world-view that saw everything as magic but through a new world-view, one that saw everything as rational." It is horror for a world where "God is Dead," and where traditional spooks don't provide the chills they once did.

One can also see the line of "remythologized," or "post-mythological," horror represented in film franchises like SAW, HOSTEL, LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, MANHUNTER, and TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. Films like these, themselves descendants of Grand Guignol, provide the shocks and chills that thrill the imagination without the need of "mystical" events.

Unlike these human-o-centric tales of mass murder the Antarctic/Arctic expedition tale does include elements of the "supernatural," but it is only "supernatural" in the sense that what is encountered goes beyond what we currently understand about nature. The supernatural element isn't something that violates the laws of nature, rather it is something that man has yet to encounter that evolved according to the laws of nature in a manner different than previously encountered. Poe is the possible exception here -- the one that proves the rule. Like the monster in ALIEN, and the Couerl of A.E. Van Vogt's Voyage of the Space Beagle (which are expedition tales that substitute space for Antarctica), the unstoppable horrors are material and not mystical.

This is a fun genre and it is nice to see Moore dip her toes in with "Dust of the Gods."

"Dust of the Gods" begins, like many Dungeons and Dragons campaigns and too many fantasy stories, at an "inn" where our protagonist and his loyal companion sit in search of something to do. Northwest Smith and his trusty Venusian sidekick Yarol are broke and down to their last drop of whiskey. They are in need of adventure and finances...not necessarily in that order.

While they are commiserating about their lack of liquidity, Yarol notices two men entering the establishment. He describes them as "hunters" to Smith, and hints that they might know where he and Smith can get some work. It doesn't take long for Yarol to notice that there is something different about these two men than Yarol remembers. They are more paranoid than usual. Smith sarcastically proposes that the reason the two men are so skittish is that they may have found what they were looking for and are now haunted by the experience. This is in fact, as it turns out, the case. The two men were hired to go into the arctic regions of Mars to find the "Dust of the Gods" and bring it back, but after finding it have returned to civilization psychologically scarred.

China Miéville argues convincingly in his introduction to Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness that it was a retelling of Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, and not in any way a sequel. I think he is right, but I think that Moore's "Dust of the Gods" is a sequel to both the Lovecraft and Poe tale. It is also, if Miéville's account of the politics of Lovecraft's tale is correct, a political response to the Lovecraftian version. The two "hunters" are the men who have returned from Lovecraft's Antarctica forever changed by the experience, Lovecraft's Antarctica has merely been moved to Mars so that Northwest Smith and Yarol can follow in the footsteps of those who have been broken, like Lovecraft's Danforth and Poe's Pym, and succeed where the others have failed. Smith seeing once brave men, now jumpy and frightened, has intrigued his own sense of adventure. He wants to know what could shatter the psyche's of once brave men.

Smith doesn't have to wait long, for he is quickly approached by an old man of indeterminable race. His features are described as follows, "under the deep burn of the man's skin might be concealed a fair Venusian pallor or an Earthman bronze, canal-Martian rosiness or even a leathery dryland hide." The old man's race, and the true color of his skin, is obfuscated by time and wear (an important contrast to the clear black/white dichotomy of both the Poe and Lovecraft version).

It turns out that the old man is the person who hired the other hunters and that they indeed found what they were seeking (or at least "where" they were seeking), but that they failed to return with that which the old man seeks. Smith and Yarol listen as the old man gives them his sales pitch. He wishes Smith and Yarol to travel to the arctic in search of the remains of the god Black Pharol, of whom all that remain are a pile of dust. Pharol was one of the three original gods, on whom all others are based, and the only one to leave behind any physical essence. As the old man describes them:

There were gods who were old when Mars was a green planet, and a verdant moon circled an Earth blue with steaming seas, and Venus, molten-hot, swun round a younger sun. Another world circled in space then, between Mars and Jupiter where its fragments, the planetoids, now are. You will have heard rumors of it -- they persist in the legends of every planet. It was a mighty world, rich and beautiful, peopled by the ancestors of mankind. And on that world dwelt a mighty Three in a temple of crystal, served by strange slaves and worshiped by a world. They were not wholly abstract, as most modern gods have become. Some say they were from beyond, and real, in their way, as flesh and blood.

In one paragraph, Moore has transformed a theological construct into an alien and material one -- following very much in the footsteps of Lovecraft by making her "gods" ancient trans-dimensional aliens. The first two alien gods, Saig and Lsa, disappeared so long ago that not even legends of them exist, but Pharol -- "a mighty Third set above these two and ruling the Lost Planet" -- continued to exist after the other two had faded away. Eventually Pharol too passed from this dimension leaving behind a pile of dust that still contains some of his essence, and which the old man seeks so that he can reach Pharol and control him. The old man knows tht for "the man who could lay hands on that dust, knowing the requisite rites and formulae, all knowledge, all power would lie open like a book. To enslave a god!"

For some reason, that old man's maniacal declaration doesn't dissuade Smith and Yarol from taking the job -- apparently they are desperately in need of money and the whiskey it can buy. Besides, if you're drunk enough are you really going to notice the primordial extra-dimensional god destroying the universe as you know it? Smith and Yarol accept the man's offer and travel off to the arctic to find the dust remains of an ancient god.

They eventually arrive at a range of mountains in Mars polar region and follow the directions the old man gave them, where they discover a passage leading under the surface of the planet and -- if the old man is right -- into the heart of the crystal temple that once was home to the Three gods.

As they pass through the tunnels, they encounter two phenomena that are references back to the earlier Poe and Lovecraft tales. First, they encounter a darkness that is impenetrable. Their space age flashlights cannot penetrate the darkness and it is an almost palpable thing. In a way, Moore's inclusion of a physically palpable darkness is reminiscent of Poe's inclusion of dark people in the Antarctic regions, only here Moore refrains from the racist undertones of Poe and Lovecraft by having the darkness itself alive and no more terrifying than the next "thing" to appear. That thing is a white apparition reminiscent of the figure at the end of Poe's Pym. Smith and Yarol are able to determine that this white figure is what the two original hunters fled from and it is this that they fear is chasing them.

It should be noted that while Poe's Narrative ends abruptly with the appearance of a white apparition, it is the narrator's recalling of this apparition that likely causes his untimely death and thus inability to finish the tale. Poe's readers never find out what happened next because the narrator dies, likely from fear, during the retelling. One might say that Smith, after he encounters and passes Moore's white apparition, is continuing where Pym left off. He is certainly continuing beyond where the hunters explored. The appearance of the white apparition pulls on Smith's psyche, but he manages to retain his connection to reality and leap past the apparition and "fall" deeper into the planet. Smith eventually speculates that the apparition may only be able to exist in the palpable darkness.

When Smith and Yarol do find the crystal temple and open its doors, they have yet more one wonder revealed to them. The crystal temple is illuminated by light that behaves like a liquid and their entry has provided a whole by which the light can drain from the room like a crack in an aquarium. This light is the true counterpart to the darkness described earlier and the description of it draining from the room is one of the most interesting descriptions I have read in fiction for sometime. I might venture to say that the concept of "liquid light" is one of the more original ideas I've read.

As the light drains from the room, Yarol walks up to the triple throne and finds the dust of Pharol and is about to pack it up for delivery when he picks up on Smith's thoughts that it may not be the best idea to give a madman this kind of power. They had initially written the "power" of the dust off as superstition, but their journey has made them think better of it. Smith and Yarol finally make their first "moral" decision to date in the NW stories, they decide to destroy the dust if they can. During their attempt, Smith's psyche is overwhelmed as he sees images of the world as it was when it was ruled by Pharol and the others of the Three. He even sees the death of the Lost Planet and realizes that this temple crashed into Mars eons ago where it became a temple for ancient Martians before their civilization decayed and the gods were forgotten. Smith and Yarol leave to return to their lives having encountered darkness, but still whole for the experience.

It is in this ending where Moore breaks most strongly from Poe and Lovecraft. In their tales, the protagonists are broken by an experience beyond their control. In Moore's tale, Smith and Yarol leave having decided to save a world -- possibly a universe -- from horror. China Miéville argues that the Shoggoths of Lovecraft's tale represent the "masses" and their decaying effect on civilization. Lovecraft's protagonist has a mental breakdown while in a subway station, reminded by the sounds of the masses around him of the amoeboid horrors in Antarctica. The masses are the horror in Lovecraft, in Moore it is the dictator who is the horror. All Smith and Yarol need do is to stop one man to save mankind, mankind isn't the villain of the tale. "Dust of the Gods" was written in 1934 and the "Enabling Act" that gave Hitler dictatorial control of Germany had been passed on March 23, 1933. One wonders if the rise of the dictator in general, and Hitler in particular, were on Moore's mind as she wrote this tale. Whatever the case it is certain that by focusing on the evil one man is capable of doing, rather than the terror of the mob, Moore was not merely writing a sequel to Lovecraft. She was also writing a political response to him.

It should also be noted that Moore's use of the dust of Pharol seems to be a reference to the final sentence of Poe's Narrative, which is the quote at the top of the piece, and demonstrates how centrally important story titles can be to the literary conversation that authors participate in with each other as history unfolds.

Previous Blogging Northwest Smith Entries:

3)Blogging Northwest Smith: "Scarlet Dream"
2) Blogging Northwest Smith: "Black Thirst"
1) Blogging Northwest Smith: "Shambleau"

Castle Feeds the Joss Whedon Fan

The writers of ABC's lighthearted procedural CASTLE (full episodes available at the link) have no illusions regarding who watches their show, and they are giving the early adopter fans some easter eggs tonight. In the brief episode preview below, I counted two Whedon easter eggs and one Underworld/White Wolf World of Darkness easter egg -- and I wasn't paying that close attention to the preview. It's nice to see the staff on CASTLE acknowledge that a lot of their fan base is there solely due to Nathan Fillion. We might be staying because the show is very enjoyable, and I certainly think it is, but we followed Nathan here.

It has been interesting watching the first few episodes this season. The title sequence is making it clear that the show is still in the "recruiting an audience" mode. Every episode begins with a brief description of the premise, something only new fans need. Certainly not something that the fan who has already purchased Heat Wave need to see. My guess is that they are trying to recruit some of the older demographic that is currently watching DANCING WITH THE STARS and wanders over to CSI: MIAMI when that show is over. Given the comedic and romantic tones of CASTLE, versus the almost 4-color melodrama of CSI:MIAMI (which I really like for all its over-the-top-itude), it's probably a good strategy.

Hulu Recommendation Friday: The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)

This Sunday will mark the sixteenth anniversary of the death of a horror film legend. October 25th, 1993, Vincent Price left this mortal coil. The horror films that Vincent Price starred in were not the violent shockfests people so often imagine when they thing of the words "horror film." His films were not about gore, or quick cathartic release of tension, rather they were about fear. H.P. Lovecraft, a pioneer in American "Wierd Fiction", wrote in his essay Supernatural Horror in Literature :

5-27-1911 to 10-25-1993

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is the fear of the unknown...their admitted truth must establish for all time the geniuneness and dignity of the wierdly horrible tale as a literary form. Against it are discharged all the shafts of a materialistic sophistication which clings to frequently felt emotions and external events, and of a naively insipid idealism which deprecates the aesthetic motive and calls for a didactic literature to "uplift" the reader toward a suitable degree of smirking optimism...men with minds sensitive to hereditary impulse will always tremble at the thought of the hidden and fathomless worlds of strange life which may pulsate in the gulfs beyond the stars...

This horror of the unknown is the kind of horror that permeated the films of Vincent Price. To be sure some like the Tingler had moments of visual shock, but most of the horror in Price's films was internal to the viewed characters. The audience felt the horror not as an immediate thing which passes when the musical sting chimes, but as a lingering afterthought which remained with the viewer long after the film had been viewed.

An image from The Tingler more akin to modern horror.

Vincent Price and Roger Corman's screen adaptations of Edgar Allen Poe tales are some of the best examples of this lingering kind of fear. With modern special effects making the imagery in The Pit and the Pendulum tame, possibly completely enervated of shock value, in comparison to the slaughter a Jason Voorhees is capable of committing. It is not the violence in Pit which horrifies, it is the thought of what man is capable of doing. This is the best kind of fear, the fear that reminds us as we look into the abyss that the abyss is looking back into us. True fear is horror at the possible meaninglessness of existence and the potential cruelty of man. How horrible is the realization in Fall of the House of Usher that Roderick Usher had accidently put his living sister prematurely into the tomb? The audience who watches this film can imagine both having to dig oneself free of an early grave and the terror of realization Roderick comes to when he realizes what he has done. There but for the grace of God go I.

Edgar Allan Poe is the founding voice for a great deal of American literature, including the modern horror tale. There have been some more recent Poe translations than the Corman/Price collaborations, but none seem to capture the tone as well. Price is magnificent in roles where we get to watch an otherwise noble man descend into madness. The Corman/Price films also manage to capture hints of the "unreliable narrator" literary device that Poe was famous for using/inventing. The lens through which the audience views the scene isn't the unreliable narrator, but the characters themselves often conceal their real motivations from each other. Have fun this Halloween with horror whose legacy can be seen in the SAW series, and the first HOSTEL, though the Poe versions spend a little more time on psychology of terror and less on the visceral sensations.

Button Men for the iPhone: Thrust Interactive and Cheap Ass Games Release a Winner

I have long been a fan of the deceptively simple Cheap Ass game Button Men. In the game, each player possesses a button, the kind with a pin that fits nicely on those lanyards one tends to acquire at gaming conventions, which bears a nice looking illustration and a series of five numbers listed from lowest value to highest. Those numbers represent dice the player uses in an abstracted, and dice based, version of War. The goal is to "capture" your opponent's dice, which are each worth a point value equal to the number of sides that die possesses, by one of two methods (in the basic game at least). You can capture your opponent's dice through "power" attacks or "skill" attacks. The Button Men website does a wonderful job of describing the rules in detail.



It's great fun that seems mindless at first, until you finally encounter the player who plays the game "rationally." Then you come to understand that there is more to this little diversion than mere random chance. Strategy matters. Button Men is iconic of the inexpensive, but challenging/fun/and deep, games that James Ernest has made a career designing. The table top version of the game is a true classic that I cannot recommend highly enough.

So when the Button Men iPhone app became available yesterday, I found out thanks to John Kovalic, I leapt at the chance to purchase it. I didn't really know what the game would offer, but my hopes were high. I have come to trust Cheap Ass games over the years, their "Totally Renamed Spy Game" is one of the best card games ever made, but I have no experience with Thrust Interactive (

I had some minimum expectations. I hoped that the game would be graphically appealing, contain a decent variety of "buttons," and offer a decent randomization mechanism for two-player play. Essentially, I hoped -- at minimum -- that it was a game I could play with a friend by passing my iPhone between us.

What was offered was that and more. The game features buttons from two of the button men sets -- Soldiers and Vampires -- with new artwork that is appealing and with a color palette suited to the iPhone's digital display. Not all the artwork is better than the old images, the new picture of Shore is one of the weaker images, but the Starchylde and Dunkirk images are excellent re-inventions of already excellent images.



The game allows for 1 or 2 player games. In the 1 player game, I have been impressed with the AI so far -- though it has made a couple of baffling choices from time to time -- and have found it to be quite a time consuming distraction as I test different strategies. The 2 player version can be played in one of two ways. You can share your phone with your opponent, the 2 player play I expected, or interact with your opponent through bluetooth. I haven't had a chance to play a bluetooth opponent, but you can bet I'll be hunting down someone at the next gaming convention I attend.

The inclusion of two full sets of button men -- a $40 value if you buy the physical buttons -- for a $2.99 price makes this a bargain. The game play of the iPhone is quite addictive. Thrust's Button Men captures the simplicity and complexity of the tabletop version and adds some nice animations and sound effect to make a must buy application for any gamer's iPhone.

Now when are the Brom, Dork Tower, and Diceland expansions coming out?

Speaking of Diceland...when do I get that app?