April 13, 2013

From “Death’s Door” by Altos Wexan

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“If I regret anything,” coughed Grandpa, “it’s that I didn’t use the keys that God and circumstance handed me. There were plenty of doors to open, but I never turned their locks.”

“What do you mean?”

I knew there were vikings in the old barn…I could hear them rattling around in the hayloft on windy nights. But I never opened that door, never went in to see for myself. I knew that the typewriter on my desk had worlds inside of it for me to unlock; I could see them. But I never turned those keys. If I’d pushed for it, I might have got a better job than the cannery. But it kept you and your mother well enough, and I was comfortable there, so I never pushed for it.”

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April 7, 2013

From “Cinema Favorité” by Altos Wexan

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Many film critics preface their lists of notable cinema with the term “the best.” The best movies of the year, the best movie of all time. It makes for dramatic copy, but it’s also highly inaccurate. It would be better for them to simply say that the list contains their favorite films of the year, but that makes less attention-grabbing reading and removes the gloss obscuring the fact that all moviegoers, even critics, are subjective viewers. Only through consensus over time can anything have a claim to be “the best.” Everything else is just “my favorite.”

This explains why occasionally you’ll see a moviegoer or critic defend their love of a particular film (as the late Roger Ebert notoriously did with Burt Reynolds’ Rent-a-Cop) despite the fact that it’s nowhere near perfect cinema. A favorite movie is like a favorite car or a favorite pair of jeans–you love it for what it is, warts and all.

I recently realized that my favorite movie, at least insofar as I can name one, is 1993’s Jurassic Park, an assessment reinforced by its recent reappearance on the big screen.

Jurassic Park is in many ways a synthesis of other things in its director’s oeuvre. It combines the broad optimism evident in E.T. and the unrelenting horror from Jaws into something that’s its own beast, apart from the book and the many, many creature feature imitators that followed. There’s action, adventure, laughs (mostly courtesy of Jeff Goldblum, much more effective as a scene-stealer than a lead in the sequel), and a real human element as well.

That’s one criticism that “serious” critics leveled at the film that I never agreed with–that the special effects are great but that the characters are cardboard. I don’t think anyone was robbed at Oscar time, but Grant and Hammond have significant character arcs. Grant, the curmudgeonly character who hates kids, is forced to come to terms with his parental side by guiding the kids through the park; willing to scare a kid to death for insulting a dinosaur at the beginning, he’s ready to give up his life to protect one by the end.

And Hammond (a much different and more sympathetic character than in the book) has his idealism and showmanship tempered by harsh reality. Not only the controller who’s lost control, but an old man faced with the sobering reality that his dream may have cost the lives of the people he loves. My favorite scene in the film doesn’t involve any dinosaurs or special effects, but rather Richard Attenborough musing quietly on his life of showmanship over bowls of melting ice cream.

I’d be the first to agree that Jurassic Park isn’t a perfect movie. Several subplots from the book are shoehorned in and left dangling, most notably the mystery of the sick triceratops and the “lysine contingency.” Despite its screen time we never learn that the triceratops was becoming sick by eating West Indian Lilac as a crop stone, and the throwaway mention of the lysine contingency adds nothing to the picture other than a hurdle for future sequels to grapple with or ignore. The conceit that all the park workers except the main characters leave the island due to the storm (or perhaps daily, it’s not clear) strains credulity.

But still, I find myself as thrilled and engaged by Jurassic Park now as I was in 1993. Even a few notes of John Williams’ magnificent score are enough to make me want to pop in the DVD. It’s not a perfect movie, but it’s perhaps my favorite.

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March 22, 2013

From “The Level 30 Librarian” by Altos Wexan

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Sourced from the Ruins & Rogues Adventurer’s Guidebook, 2nd Edition

Librarian Sub-Classes

At level 30 librarians earn their usual 1 skill point but also gain 100 hit points and an extra equipment slot. At this point they may also choose one of the following sub-classes:

Booksassin
Stealthy and deadly, the Booksassin moves as silently as a turned page and strikes as deeply and unexpectedly as a papercut. This sub-class focuses on speed, surprise, and damage at the expense of durability, legibility, and archival quality. Booksassins may use the Tome Travel ability once per day to travel through bookshelves as if casting a teleport spell of equivalent level and do automatic quintuple damage upon emerging from one.

Dewey Deathimal
The Dewey Deathimal classifies and shelves hard-hitting magical and quasi-magical attacks, casting them over a wide area like a shush quiets an unruly mob. This sub-class focuses on intelligence-based area of effect attack spells at the expense of granularity, adaptability, and clarity. Once per day, the Dewey Deathimal may use Books to Bats, which causes all nearby tomes to animate, flap through the air, and descend on all targets in a designated area bringing death from a thousand papercuts.

Bibliothief
As punishing as an overdue library book and as well-stocked as a private college library, the Bibliothief focuses on collection development at all costs. This grants major bonuses to the Acquisitions and Prestidigitation skills at the cost of Cataloging and Circulation. Bibliothieves can use the Bookwalk ability to walk across the tops of shelves and gain a bonus to all Book Acquisition rolls (which the sub-class can apply to any item with words on it, not just books).

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February 20, 2013

Happy Three-Year Blogiversary, EFNB (Part 2)

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In this, part two of our third blogiversary celebration, the editors at EFNB would like to recognize out long-term contributors who have continued to submit over the past year. While many of the “old guard” have had less productive years in terms of submissions, we have considerable pull with these imaginary authors, and requests for additional submissions by any of them will be honored. Whether the author in question likes it or not!

Mark Amiton
Bar to Ashes, The Most Permeable of the Permeable

Mark has continued to work on his magnum opus, a tale of a place where certain people can reshape reality with the power of their minds. “It’s kind of like Dubai, only with mental power instead of rapacious oil wealth as the driving force,” he says.

Eric Cummings Jr.
Dumpee, Dumper, and Dumpest, The Worrying of ECJ, The Paper Reel, The Bottom of the Night IM, A Conversation, To Delerue Hall, Pursuit by the Numbers

Beginning work in earnest on his autobiographical “college graduate student slacker novel” this year, Eric submitted most of his excerpts from “in the zone.” He confirms that as of this writing he is “out of the zone” but hoped to have a draft of his text finished by July.

Sonya G. Goldman-Haines
Slaying the Mondragon

After a long silence, Ms. Goldman-Haines has rejoined our ranks with a second tale from her forthcoming collection about a psychic gunsmith who ascertains the various and sundry stories behind the rare firearms that cross her desk.

Kenny Idlewild
Only Further Truth

Philosophy professor Dr. Kenneth Idlewild is not a prolific writer, but his second submission after a long drought is taken from his well-reviewed text The Philosophie of Being.

Sandra Cooke Jameson
The Birdsong Code, The Stephens Island Wren, The Counsel of Vultures

Expanding her repertoire of avian stories outside of her beloved sparrows, Ms. Jameson favored us with excerpts from her forthcoming book of short stories and novellas, Stories Borne on a Fair Wing. She has also added 27 birds to her life list in the past 18 months,

Bernard S. Roberts
Of the Vyaeh Conscripted Races, Of Vyaeh Counterfeits

“Most of what I’ve shared with you guys is from my private world building notes,” writes Roberts, “rather than any finished work. I’m still getting the foundations set for a lot of thing, and making sure to expunge all traces of their former life as video game design notes.”

Nokin Kobayashi and Irene York
The Mountain Shrine

Mr. Kobayashi and his paramour Ms. York have spent much of the past year on an extensive lecture tour, which has notable decreased his literary output and her translation efforts. Kobayashi’s self titled, self-translated “777 Magical Raccoon Cats” tour may soon be coming to a city near you.

C. Alton Parker
Gambler’s Prosperity, Eschatology of the Ide, The Prosperity Ambush, The Prosperity Spoonerism, The Prosperity Alarm Clock, The Prosperity Ride, The Prosperity Pueblo<

Ms. Parker has expressed to our editors that 2013 will be “the year” for her long-in-gestation epic Western. Her previous declarations that 2010, 2011, and 2012 were “the year” have been set aside for the time being.

Jordan Iverson Peers
The Halfling Tuesday, The Gorgon Evryali

Jordan Peers returns to the critically acclaimed “Weird Manhattan” universe that won a Pluto Award (now known as the Eris Award). These recent excerpts are from a short story detailing the life and misadventures of a wannabe hardboiled detective who also happens to be a hobbit.

Phil “Stonewall” Pixa
The Review Page

Phil Pixa has been writing for The Hopewell Review, a literary journal out of Southern Michigan University Press, of late. In addition to serving as under-editor, he has written reviews, criticism, and recycled a few of his more highbrow stories in its pages. The Hopewell Review is currently the most widely-read literary journal in Michigan, with well over 25 subscribers.

T. W. Reyauld
Taarin’s Tale

Still plugging away at his massive fantasy opus, Mr. Reyauld has also been serving as a consultant, uncredited polish writer, and fifteenth unit director for the acclaimed HMC series Rage of Tenmosh. Due to its unprecedented success, he has been making more getting coffee for the actors than in his acclaimed career as a fantasy writer.

P. Elizabeth Smalley
The Squirrel Lama

“Avatar of Aquerna” has long been one of EFNB’s most popular posts, so after much cajoling and pleading, Ms. Smalley deigned to provide another piece of writing relating to squirrels, though she declines to indicate whether it is connected or in continuity with her previous submission.

Jeanne Welch
Locke’s Revenent

“It’s been slow going on my story about love, social media, and modern life,” says Welch. “But I feel like I’ve turned a corner.” By the editors’ count, this marks the 37th corner Ms. Welch has turned. She is averaging approximately 12.3 corners turned per submission at this point.

Altos Wexan
Beneath Metromart #832, Mutt of Ice and Fire, Petting the Beyond, Across an Age, A Muse’s Unvarnished Perspective, A Poem for my Grandmother, Why I Don’t Celebrate Mardi Gras

As always, Mr. Wexan continues to dominate in terms of sheer number of submissions. His esoteric output has run toward the maudlin of late, largely a reflection of circumstances in his personal life. I think you’ll all be willing to join the editors of EFNB in wishing Mr. Wexan a very lucky 2013.

 

February 12, 2013

From “Why I Don’t Celebrate Mardi Gras” by Altos Wexan

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The concept of Fat Tuesday is inexorably tied to that of Lent, specifically the Lenten fast. It’s a tradition of eating very well before a long fast that begins the next day, which later on expanded into having a lot of colorful fun (the “carnival season”) before a period of Lenten solemnity culminating in Easter.

It’s a contrast between the plenty of a large meal and a lengthy fast and a wild party before a time of asceticism and devotion, and it’s in that contrast that the power of the holiday is gained or lost. What does it mean to pig out if that’s what you do every day, before and after? What does it mean to throw a wild party if that’s the extent of your usual weekend plans?

Fact is, we live in a society of excess, of plenty, where gluttony and partying are expected if not celebrated (and the “we” I refer to isn’t just the USA but the entire developed world). That’s one of the reasons that Mardi Gras, traditionally a very Catholic and very Latinate holiday, has made massive inroads into other groups: it’s become little more than a flimsy excuse to get smashed. Or, in the case of people for whom getting smashed is a weekly occurrence, getting really smashed.

You see that same impulse in the adoption of many holidays that, important as they may have been in other cultures, were obscure to the Western population at large. Chinese New Year, Cinco de Mayo, St. Patrick’s Day…all observances with long and proud traditions that have been reduced to the status of Budweiser Holidays. In every case the underlying event–the lunar new year, the Battle of Puebla, the Catholic faith–has been rendered obscure by the haze of excess.

And, much as I’m loathe to admit it, I’m a participant in that milieu. I have never had the spiritual strength to give up anything for Lent, or to fast even in the midst of plenty. Even if I were Catholic and part of the tradition, the necessary duality between feast and famine, joy and solemnity, wouldn’t be there.

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February 6, 2013

From “A Poem for my Grandmother” by Altos Wexan

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The truest way to measure years
Is not in hours but in tears
We weep for others when part we must
For friends, for family, for those we trust
With joy-stained faces eye to eye
With bitter dregs when saying goodbye
No one’s lived who hasn’t wept
For the memories, the souls, the covenants we’ve kept

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November 30, 2012

From “A Muse’s Unvarnished Perspective” by Altos Wexan

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“Another year, another novel that hasn’t quite been finished but has the requisite number of words.” My muse, a blatant appropriation of Stephen King’s concept thereof as expressed in On Writing, cracks open the fridge and retrieves a cold beer. I keep it on hand for guests, being a de facto teetotaler myself; I don’t know where he got the Cuban cigar that billows smoke all over my single-room downstairs.

Since my muse is an insubstantial personification of my creative drive, albeit one ever so slightly ripped off from a more successful author, I don’t suppose it really matters.

“It’s not just the number of words,” I say. “I’ve takes one of the stories I wanted to tell and given it a good start. It barely existed before and now it’s 300k on my hard drive.”

“300 unfinished k, you mean.” My muse emerges from the fridge with beer and leftover barbecue chicken strips. “Don’t you think it’s about time you finished the others?”

“What others?” I bristle. “There’s only the project at hand, nothing else.”

I mean it as a metaphor, but it’s taken literally. “The story about those kids finding alternate dimensions with giant landsquid for one,” my muse says. “Don’t forget the unfinished noir detective novel about a librarian, and the comic wish-fulfillment tale of the assassin and the accountant.”

“I’ll get to them in time,” I say, a little defensive. “It doesn’t matter if they’re finished. What matters is that I wrote something that didn’t exist before. It’s good even if it’s a little rough.”

The muse sits down heavily on my couch and fires up the Xbox. “What about the one from 2008, where you tried to stretch that 500-word short story into a tale ten times its length, and wound up so desperate for wordcount that you undid all your contractions a half-hour before midnight on the last day?”

“Don’t bring that one up,” I snap. “It was an election year and I had a new job. Too many distractions!”

“Whoa there, killer,” my muse says without looking up from the first-person shooter he’s working away at. “Did I touch a nerve? Don’t forget that it was a failure for me too. Or do you think part of a novel each year and a blog post a day is nothing for me?”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “It’s a stressful time even without the novel.”

“But you’re glad you did it again this year?”

“Yeah.”

“Well then,” my muse says, wreathed in smoke and barbecue beer fumes. “That’s all that matters.”

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November 5, 2012

From “The Review Page” by Phil “Stonewall” Pixa

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This post is part of the October 2012 Blog Chain at Absolute Write. This month’s prompt is “NaMoReMo (National Mock Review Month)”.

The Accountant and the Assassin
Altos Wexan
421 pages, hardcover
First Edition (August 21, 20XX)
ISBN-10: 223405857-X
ISBN-13: 942-449758221-X
Retrograde Triton Press (domestic printing)
Kyoto Processed Ricepaper Concerns Press (international printings)

There’s definitely no false advertising in this yarn, out earlier this year from Retrograde Triton. Wexan’s book dutifully serves up the collision between a staid accountant and a high-stakes assassin in an Manhattan-in-all-but-name metropolis. One might feel from such a title that the broad outlines of such a tale are obvious, but Wexan is able to lob a few inventive curveballs.

His accountant, for example, is a sunshiny eternal optimist to the point that his oily, more accountant-like cohorts call him “Pollyanna” to his face and heap their worst clients (like a young Paris Hilton soundalike) on his desk. The collision between this bumbling, upbeat character and the dour world of professional contract killing provides the majority of the book’s humor (which is frequent enough, especially near the beginning, that the book could almost be called a comedy).

The comedic pratfalls, including a daft inversion of the usual action movie car chase, are where the book is at its best. Attempts to wring tension out of the basic setup, as in an apartment standoff involving multiple identities and double-crosses, fall flat and are enough of a tonal mismatch that the book at times seems schizophrenic. The titular assassin, a few mild twists aside, is a stock character and despite some teases she and the accountant never seem to click. The villain, a psychotic assassin “competitor,” is written with gusto but seems to lack any real motivation.

Wexan has succeeded in writing a yarn that satisfies some of the old action cliches and inverts or plays with others. But his inability to reconcile the disparate characters and tones keeps the book from being anything more than a well-executed, enjoyable beach read. Recommended, but with reservations.

-Phil “Stonewall” Pixa, The Hopewell Review.

Check out this month’s other bloggers, all of whom have posted or will post their own responses:
Ralph Pines
bmadsen
dolores haze
SRHowen
Angyl78
writingismypassion
meowzbark
pyrosama
randi.lee
wonderactivist

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October 1, 2012

From “Across an Age” by Altos Wexan

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We forget, sometimes, the full width and breadth of what a life can encompass. Especially one that’s been long and fruitful.

The oldest people you’re likely to see today, in their late 80s and early 90s, would have been born during or just after the First World War. That’s a useful reference point if only to drive home the enormity of that span: 65 million people fought and 16 million died in that conflict, and there isn’t a single veteran alive today. The last official veteran died this year and the last combat veteran a year ago.

That world had electricity, automobiles, and telephones but still how unspeakably alien it would have been to someone from today raised on wireless networks and instant global communications? And yet it all coexists with living links to the past, people whose earliest memories predate the Wall Street crash and the Roosevelt presidency.

And yet, almost more so than the great events and wars that serve as mileposts of our history, there was the day-to-day, the mundane business of existing. Too often, that’s forgotten. Anyone can talk about a war, but who can tell us what breakfast was like in 1925? History book remember the market crash, but who remembers what was being taught in school that day?

That’s the greatest gift and the greatest tragedy that a long full life brings. It’s a window to the past, but once it is closed there is so much that is lost forever.

When I think of my grandmother, who was born in June 1918 and died this morning 9 months short of 95 years later, I think of all those little moments of the past–the family past, the historic past, the mundane past–now lost forever.

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August 7, 2012

From “Petting the Beyond” by Altos Wexan

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I’ve known many people who’ve lost a pet, but due to the circles that I find myself in most of those people are atheists or not religious. As such, I don’t have many antecedents, many examples, to help lead me through where I find myself now. I suppose a large part of that is the fact that I haven’t lost a pet since 1998, and I haven’t lost a family member who I knew well since 1996. That’s a long time without any kind of major grief.

As such, I find myself at a crossroads about what to believe happens…afterwards. A little research has, if anything, muddled the question. My strict religious relatives would probably argue that animals don’t have souls, and they’d probably be on more doctrinally solid ground than I (to say nothing of what to think about my food as an avowed carnivore under those circumstances). The New Age concept of a “Rainbow Bridge” that links a “green meadow located this side of Heaven” with the hereafter where departed pets wait for their masters to join them isn’t satisfying either. It seems like a trite 1970s flower-power storybook; the fact that the people I know who cleave to it are also largely irreligious also has a galling quality to it.

In short, I don’t know what to believe. I don’t know that I ever will, honestly. So what’s left to me, in the face of the loss and the need to do or to feel something about it?

I think the only avenue that I can fully embrace is something I’ve already begun to do. In the face of uncertainty, take the steps you know will lead to remembrance and existence, even if only in an abstract fashion, after the sorrows of the world have been rolled back. So I’m left with art: creative writing, journal entries, photographs, and paintings. Taking pictures and collecting those from happier times. Spelling out how I feel with words and images. Incorporating what I can of the lost into a painting: a pawprint here, a pinch of fur mixed with the acrylics there.

Soul or not, heaven or not, Rainbow Bridge or not, those things will be a lasting remembrance as long as I or others are around to see them.

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