Gameholecon 2019 Schedule

In case you're looking for me at Gameholecon this week, here's where I'll be:

I won't be there Sunday, but I will be there Wednesday night, probably running something off-books.

See you all there!!!

"Gemini" in XVIII

I am proud to announce the inclusion of my story "Gemini" in the upcoming anthology XVIII, a part of the sure-to-be-outstanding Underland Tarot series, based on the Major Arcana, published by Underland Press. The TOC list follows:

• Forrest Aguirre - "Gemini"
• Darin Bradley - "Sweet Water"
• Scott Edelman - "A World Without You in It"
• Christopher East - "Introduction to Immersive Memory-Crafting"
• Nicole Feldringer - "Diamondskin"
• Benjamin Gamblin - "A Reckoning"
• Ingrid Garcia - "The Taste of Things to Come"
• A. P. Howell - "Like Gold Upon Her Tongue"
• Emma Johnson-Rivard - "The Spread"
• Elizabeth Eve King - "Summer's End"
• Jessie Kwak - "Once More with Soul"
• Shannon Lawrence - "Following the Rules"
• Gerri Leen - "She"
• Mark Mills - "Snake Eyes"
• Jonathan Mosman - "Old Gar"
• Christi Nogle - "Unschooled"
• Tammie Painter - "A Case of Mamma's Love"
• Josh Rountree - "Rewind"
• Erica Sage - "The Collective"
• Lorraine Schein - "SP World"
• Richard Thomas - "How Not to Come Undone"
• Wendy Wagner - "When Only Bears Carry Arms, Only Weapons Will Be Born"
• John Waterfall - "What Remains of the Great Alchemist"
• Todd Zack - "It's Good to Be Here in Alaska"

Especially grateful to be TOC mates with Darin Bradley and Josh Rountree, both of whom have inhabited a nearby segment of the literary astral plane as myself. If you haven't checked out their writing before, repent and go forth and read! Congratulations to everyone!

E(xtinction)/E

E(xtinction)/E by Alcebiades Diniz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I am reminded of the more psychedelic instances of Decadence Comics, but less psychedelic and much, much more mystical. This is an introspective graphic novel. Now, you don't have to have read Lanterns of the Old Night to fully enjoy this wordless wonder, but one's insight is accentuated, having read it.

(Limited edition, 40 of 45)

View all my reviews

Mothership: Dead Planet

Mothership: Dead Planet by Donn Stroud
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A few years back, I raved about the ingenious and innovative design of the role-playing supplement Vornheim. With Dead Planet , Fiona Maeve Geist, Donn Stroud, and Sean McCoy have taken those innovations and built (with cybernetic implants and a dash of sorcery, no doubt) what might be the best RPG supplement I have seen in ages, surely the best Science Fiction RPG supplement I've seen in many, many years. The judges of the 2019 ENnie Awards agree with me (or, perhaps, I agree with them?), awarding the supplement the Silver award for Best Adventure, right behind Chaosium's amazing Masks of Nyarlathotep (let's face it, no one was going to beat Masks this year).

How do I characterize Dead Planet? Take part Pandorum, part Alien and part Event Horizon and map the tropes not only on a ship, but on an entire planet (the Dead Planet) which is surrounded by orbiting derelict ships.

The first section gives an example ship, The Alexis, and a mini-adventure/exploration that would make a great one-shot (at least I hope so - I'm running a Traveller hack of this for my weekly gaming group next week!) or introduction to a Dark Planet campaign. Following this is a derelict ship generator that allows the Game Master (or "Warden" if you are playing the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG - also an ENnie winner - for which Dead Planet was written) to create as small or as large as of a ship as desired by throwing dice and consulting easy-to-use tables (yes, this includes generating a map on the fly, randomly, as well). Then, find the Moon Colony Bloodbath section - a mini-campaign packed into a zine, essentially. But without the usual "quirkiness" of zines (I know, I know, I've made my own, I know . . .) - no, this supplement is eminently usable at the table. Everything you need is here or can be generated on the fly quickly and efficiently by the Warden: facilities, planetary maps, NPCs, competing factions, monsters (some human), and more random charts than you will know what to do with, but which will all become useful in a mini-campaign. Dead Planet has it all! So put on your vacsuit, charge up that vibrachete, and get ready for action. Just remember, as the old saying goes: "In space, no one can hear you scream!"

View all my reviews __________

If you like my writing and want to lend your support, ko-fi me at https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre. Every little bit is seen and appreciated! Thank you!

The White Goddess

The White Goddess by Robert Graves
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I came for the witchcraft, I stayed for the poetics . . .

While I was on my one-day book-procurement trip to the "booktown" of Hay-on-Wye, Wales, I stopped at Richard Booth’s bookshop (among many others) and picked up Robert Graves’ The White Goddess. I knew, vaguely, that the book was about the witch cults of Great Britain and something about druids, and that’s about it. I had read several works that referenced Grave’s book, so I thought I’d cut to the source and see what all the fuss was about.

I had expected an erudite study of witchcraft and its antecedents, replete with thorough bibliography and oodles of footnotes.

Not so.

In fact, the book hardly mentions witches (by name, at least) at all and there is no bibliography. There are some footnotes, but they are sometimes even more cryptic and self-referential than the text itself. But I was far from disappointed.

The White Goddess is one of those books like Gödel, Escher, Bach or Hamlet’s Mill: a rumination, of sorts, that only a genius will fully understand on the first read through, a work rife with speculation and some arguably false jumps in logic, but a brilliant work, nonetheless. It is, above all, Grave’s (very well-informed) opinion. I’ve read other reviews panning the work, and I had my problems with it, but I don’t think that it should be rejected wholesale.It is a deep, deep well to draw the waters of knowledge from.

Yes, Graves jumps from god to goddess, from tree-species to alphabetic characters, from stag cults to bull cults, then from the masculine bull-cult to the feminine partridge-cult, implicating everyone from Achilles to Christ in the process, and ends with a horribly trite last couple of chapters about politics and religion that could (and should) have just been abandoned. Graves isn’t apologetic about his promulgation of his own opinions and the fact that he is openly exploring the subject as he writes, either. I find it commendable, actually, that, at one point, he openly admits that some of the answers to the questions he was exploring came to him as he was meditating, as in doing a formal meditative practice. He’s not beholden to the sometimes-stultifying idea that ideas need to come in some sort of controlled laboratory environment. In fact, Graves shows a certain disdain toward formal academia, especially as it dulls the poetic senses:

. . . there are no poetic secrets now, except of course the sort which the common people are debarred by their lack of poetic perception from understanding, and by their anti-poetic education (unless perhaps in wild Wales) from respecting. Such secrets, even the Work of the Chariot, may be safely revealed in any crowded restaurant or café without fear of the avenging lightning-stroke: the noise of the orchestra, the clatter of plates and the buzz of a hundred unrelated conversations will effectively drown the words – and, in any case, nobody will be listening.

I wonder, somewhat, though, whether or not Graves was trying to inoculate himself against arguments from the outside that perhaps the rigor of his research was lacking? While I feel sympathy and agreement with Grave’s anti-University tirades (he has a couple in the book, both reflective of some of the feelings I had and have about graduate school), I also fear that populist anti-intellectuals might use his arguments as justification for their own (usually racist and/or misogynistic) goals. Though Graves only really argues against the problems of formal college education, his sentiments could easily be twisted into anti-intellectual arguments, the sort of which feed reactionary movements. But, since he takes a secularized view of Christianity (and, in fact, pushes for a further split between the views of the Historical Jesus and the Mystical Christ), such reactionary movements are likely to become very confused by Graves’ work. Besides, the gaps in Graves' arguments regarding early Christianity are big enough to drive a semi through. Still, I like his chutzpah and the fact that he's willing to play the provocateur, as he forces the reader to think about exactly why he's wrong. It's almost like he's taunting his audience into reacting.

As a result of all this deconstruction and reweaving of myth, it is very difficult to pin down Graves theses. One thesis is that of the poetic continuity of the worship of The White Goddess in ancient times through the Irish and Welsh poetic traditions (by way of the Greeks, mainly the Dannites, if I understood correctly) and even further through the cult of Mary and Jesus. Much of the last half of the book is dedicated to these arguments. I found them somewhat convincing, but I still have strong doubts about a few of his inferences regarding some sects of Christianity and the Jewish tradition from which they stemmed.

Another thesis that I find of great interest is that the true language of the goddess is traceable through the correlating of evidences in the Ogham alphabet relating to certain trees, which correspond, in turn, with positions on a dolmen, which correspond with calendrical events, which correspond with the fingers and palms of the hand, which correspond with certain animals, which . . . Yes, it gets exhausting, at times. My interest waned and was about to leave me altogether when the book posits that specific positions on the fingers and palms of the human hand correspond with specific letters in the Ogham alphabet. When I read this and the example given, it clicked! This was Thieves’ Cant, or a mystical, esoteric equivalent: Hidden coded messages couched in a poetic language of signs! Of course, this was 300 pages in, but well worth the wait.

Though there are many other sub-theses that I will not address, the third thesis that I found to be of most interest was probably more incidental than central. I also found it to be the most poignant. It has to do with methodology and echoes with some of the same laments as the earlier-quoted paragraph. Graves says:

What interests me most in conducting this argument is the difference that is constantly appearing between the poetic and prosaic methods of thought. The prosaic method was invented by the Greeks of the Classical age as an insurance against the swamping of reason by mythographic fancy. It has now become the only legitimate means of transmitting useful knowledge. And in England, as in most other mercantile countries, the current popular view is that ‘music’ and old-fashioned diction are the only characteristics of poetry which distinguish it from the prose; that ever poem has, or should have, a precise single-strand prose equivalent. As a result, the poetic faculty is atrophied in every educated person who does not privately struggle to cultivate it: very much as the faculty of understanding pictures is atrophied in the Bedouin Arab. (T.E. Lawrence once showed a coloured crayon sketch of an Arab Sheikh to the Sheikh’s own clansmen. They passed it from hand to hand, but the nearest guess as to what it represented came from a man who took the sheikh’s foot to be the horn of a buffalo.) And from the inability to think poetically – to resolve speech into its original images and rhythms and re-combine them on several simultaneous levels of thought into a multiple sense – derives the failure to think clearly in prose. In prose one thinks on only one level at a time, and no combination of words needs to contain more than a single sense; nevertheless the images resident in words must be securely related if the passage is to have any bite. This simple need is forgotten, what passes for simple prose nowadays is a mechanical stringing together of stereotyped word-groups, without regard for the images contained in the. The mechanical style, which began in the counting-house, has now infiltrated into the university, some of its most zombiesque instances occurring in the works of eminent scholars and divines.

I may not agree with the vociferousness of Grave’s obvious rancor, but I agree with the premise. We have lost the mindset of poetics, having surrendered to a stiff logic that doesn’t allow for the breadth of poetic expression and, in fact mocks it as an obfuscation of clarity. But this obfuscation was intentional, meant to keep the secrets of the mystical cults of the past, to hide the mysteries of life and the universe to all but the initiated. The initiated have been suppressed, in the modern age. As a result, the skill of poetic interpretation has died on the vine, and we may never be able to bring it back. However, I feel that there will always be a poetic underground that does the work necessary to carry on the essential esoteric tradition of the bards. I hold a hidden hope.

*****

Update 11/5/2020: I just learned that Graves grew up in Wales. I should have known that. I picked up this book in Wales when we visited Hay-on-Wye in 2019.

There is a fantastic interview of Graves here.

View all my reviews

________________________

If you like my writing and want to help out, ko-fi me at https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre. Every little bit is seen and appreciated! Thank you!

Abyssinia

Abyssinia by Damian Murphy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Esoteric, by its very definition, dictates that only those "in the know" are "in the know". Consider Abyssinia an esoteric work on two levels: 1) It is a work about the esoteric and 2) until you read it, you cannot know it's depth, meaningfulness, and beauty. I cannot relate it to you. I don't have the words.

Still, I must venture an attempt. "Sublime" is the first word to come to mind, and in the Kantian philosophical sense of something so immense and grandiose as to be beyond an individual's comprehension. I cannot enumerate the feelings inside me as I read Damian Murphy's offering. Nor can I quantify "how much" I enjoyed it. It is beyond all that.

"Delightful" is not a word I use often. I suppose it's because I think of fairies and old English grandmothers using the word to describe a flower or a cup of tea. I'm using the word to describe a lightness of soul that I felt as I got to know the characters and understand their motivations.

I might have thought, had I not been so submerged in my love of the characters, that Abyssinia was about the hidden heart of the Hotel Argentum. Though The Constitution and Bylaws of the Hotel Argentum ". . . elucidated a doctrine of sedition and dissent," it was in the thoughts, feelings, and actions of the characters, particularly Petra, that I saw the laws enacted. And though I had a particularly fond place in my heart and mind for Petra - I related to her on a number of levels, but particularly on her penchant for finding the hidden and trespassing in sacred spaces - I fell in love with every character in the hotel. Petra, Dominik, Celia, Karl Reginald, the Colonel, the Apostate, his sister/wife, even the hotel manager. Their interactions are what make this book deep and beautiful. Infuse A Room with a View with mystical philosophies and a hit of absurdism, and you begin to get the idea.

But just begin.

Not until you delve in, abandoning yourself to the void, I am afraid, will you truly understand. This story, this book, this initiation, is precious. The art by Jose Gabriel Alegria Sabogal is a fitting robe for the beautiful body of this work - resplendent and shimmering, from cover to cover. It is an artifact, a totem, really, to the freedom of spirit and the spirit of freedom, carefully hidden, except to those who know not only where, but how, to find it.

View all my reviews

________________________

If you like my writing and want to help out, ko-fi me at https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre. Every little bit is seen and appreciated! Thank you!

On the Hill of Roses

On the Hill of Roses by Stefan Grabiński
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Just today I read a short, tweeted lament by author Laird Barron regarding the lack of opportunity for short story collections to be published because they "don't sell". As those of you who read my reviews can tell, I love reading (and writing) short fiction. Yes, I read novels, as well, but a good short story can dig into my brain and, sometimes, into my heart and leave an impression that stays deep-seated. lodged in there, for some time. And, I'll be honest, I'd rather take the time to read short stories and novellas because, frankly, I don't want to spend hours reading a novel that comes out as a disappointment. If I waste an hour on a short story, oh well. But if I waste several hours on a novel. Well, I'm not too happy about that. So, give me a collection of short stories any day. I love them, especially when they are as good as Grabinski's On the Hill of Roses.

The title story puts the "decay" back in "decadence". I figured out the central conceit very early on (which is, admittedly, one of the dangers of reading a lot of short fiction), but the journey to get there was delightfully atmospheric and horrifically rewarding. Well worth the read, even if you guess what's going to happen in the end. Five stars.

"The Frenzied Farmhouse" was, like the first story in this volume, predictable, but the perverse joy of the journey more than makes up for having foreseen the destination. As Deep Purple used to say "It's not the kill, it's the thrill of the chase". Five stars.

I need to read the last 1/3rd of "On a Tangent" again! It's a brilliant unraveling of sanity and reality. Something very Roland Topor-esque about this story. Literary and manic at the same time, with the redolent smell of science fiction. I will note that there are a LOT of typos here that spell-check would not pick up, but a good editorial run would have. Despite the shoddy editorial work, five stars.

The line between psychological dysfunction and the Changeling or Skin Walker is blurred in "Strabismus". Or, if you will, it is a story about a doppelganger that is not, but is the one who sees it, like a rabbit re-absorbing its young, only the young is itself. If this is not making sense to you, perhaps you should just read the story. Four stars to this enigmatic, swirling tale of borderline personality disorder(?).

Now, while I enjoy tapping the deep parts of my brain while reading - this is my "entrance" into the labyrinth of reading - I am delighted when a story goes beyond just teasing my brain and sets its hooks in my heart. The next story did just that. I have three sons. I have a hard time imagining them ever being at odds with each other for too long. So, the story-behind-the-story in "Shadows" saddened me a great deal. It's a tale of two brothers who find themselves on the opposite . . . wait, now, you didn't really think I was going to spoil that, did you? An emotional gut-punch of a tale with a touch of the strange. Five stars.

I had a hard time with "At the Villa by the Sea," at first. There was a lot, too much, of explication and info-dumping in the beginning. Thankfully, the first stretch of the tale (and it was a long one) was subsumed in the overall tale. By the end, the story unfolded like a gothic lotus, dark, dreamlike, and with it's own intoxicating odor. I started out disliking it and ended up liking it very much. Five stars, in the long run.

The recipe for the last story in the collection, "Projections": Mix one part The Stone Tapes, one part True Detective (season one, of course), and three parts ancient cultist ghost of a nun driving a man, a rather M.R. Jamesian or Robert Aickmanesque protagonist, insane. Despite the comparisons, this story (created well before TV even existed) is a compelling whole with a nasty ending that I wasn't quite expecting. Five stars!

Grabinski's writing style reminds me very much of Brian Evenson's (which I love), with anachronistic back-echoes of Roland Topor (whose name I often accidentally spell "T-o-r-p-o-r" - I wonder why) and, has been mentioned, James and Aickman. As I also pointed out, there are lots of typos in this book, which is a disappointment, but not enough of a reason to drop my overall enjoyment of the volume. It is a beautiful little hardcover, published by Hieroglyphic Press, with stunning cover art by Eleni Tsami, the sort of gorgeous artifact that only the small press seems to be doing nowadays. As long as they are putting out collections of this quality (sans typos, please), I will continue to be a champion of both short stories and the small press boutique publishers. Long live the written word.

View all my reviews

________________________

If you like my writing and want to help out, ko-fi me at https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre. Every little bit is seen and appreciated! Thank you!