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The Fantastic Soul
I was planning to write an editorial for this issue about the idea of the
soul, and how it is used in fantasy fiction. I’ve found myself receiving a lot
of submissions lately that concerned souls, in one way or another (both for
this publication and for Dark Horizons). One of those stories was, in fact, up
until the point where the point where the soul came into play, one of the best
stories that has ever been submitted to this magazine, but I ended up
rejecting it.
I began to wonder: at what point does a bugbear become a bigotry?
I’m an atheist, a rationalist and a humanist. I have a bit of a problem
with stories about souls. Soul collectors. Souls wandering the earth. Souls
going to heaven. Lost souls. They all bug me. I can’t get behind the Cartesian
idea of the soul as a separate entity that can fly off to new adventures once
the body has gone. It doesn’t make any sense. For example, in rejecting a very
decent piece of writing recently I asked: "how does [the ghost] see without
eyes, hear without ears, taste without a mouth, breathe without lungs, or
think without a brain? I wouldn’t be able to do any of those things!"
Is that criticism at all relevant to a piece of fantasy writing?
Cartesian duality may be a hopelessly outdated idea, but then surely so are
things like vampires, zombies, werewolves, gods and witches. Why do I object
to souls and not those other things?
Part of it, I think, is that I believe I have a responsibility as a writer
and editor, and sometimes I might take it a little bit too seriously. (I’m not
serious about many things, so I hope you’ll allow me this one peccadillo.)
If I publish a story about vampires or werewolves, few people are going to
be reinforced in a potentially dangerous worldview. The soul, on the other
hand, stands somewhat apart from those other fantasy staples: it’s an
old-fashioned idea, that doesn’t have any place in current scientific
thinking, but is still fixed in the popular imagination, encouraging all sorts
of odd beliefs: spiritualism, heaven and hell, astral projection,
reincarnation, possession, and so on. It’s very much a part of the mainstream,
and one whose influence I think is rather unfortunate. Imagine if women were
being drowned for witchcraft: would responsible editors publish stories about
evil witches? Probably not – and children have died in modern Britain as a
result of their parents believing them possessed.
As an example of what I would call irresponsible writing, one line in the
recent pilot of Fringe made me cringe: about to take a huge dose of LSD and
have a spike shoved into her head by a mad scientist, the FBI agent is asked,
"What makes you think this will work?" She replies, "What makes you think it
won’t?"
To me that seems a hugely irresponsible attitude, one likely to encourage
the desperate to hand their money over to hucksters and charlatans. What makes
you think this crazy get-healthy-rich-pregnant-quick scheme will work? What
makes you think it won’t? It’s the responsibility of the person making crazy
claims to prove them, not the responsibility of sensible people to disprove
them.
I do think the makers of Fringe are responsible – to a degree – for what
principles people may draw from their stories. However, their first
responsibility is to tell a good story. The story would have come to a
standstill if the FBI agent had shook her head and said, "This is crazy – I’m
going back to my desk."
In the early days of The X-Files I had a huge problem in this regard. Every
time Mulder opened his mouth to profess belief in some ridiculous hoax I felt
like throwing something at the television. But in the long term I couldn’t let
that get in the way of enjoying some superb and terrifying drama. In the end,
after all, Mulder was right. In his world, all of those things really do
exist. In his world, there is evidence, and Scully is the irrational one.
Anyway, I decided against writing that editorial – though clearly I now
have! I didn’t think there was much mileage it it, and my ideas (as you can
see above) were rather vague and contradictory. What prompted the change of
heart?
Well, I’ve been reading recently about an editor who allowed his bigotry to
show through when rejecting stories, and that got me worrying about my own
prejudices all over again.
A writer, Luke Jackson, posted on a blog a rejection email he had received
from William Sanders, senior editor of Helix (an online zine), on a blog,
asking for advice on interpreting it. Readers of the blog were rather more
interested in Sanders’ obiter comments about Muslims and Arabs.
The story was that of a would-be terrorist. If, when Sanders referred to
"the worm-brained mentality of those people", he meant terrorists and
fundamentalists, it would be easy to agree with him. But then he went on to
say that "he’s being mendacious (like all his kind, he’s incapable of
honesty)" and that "most of the SF magazines are very leery of publishing
anything that might offend the sheet heads". Which puts it in a rather
different light.
Talking of that "worm-brained mentality" Sanders said that "at the end we
still don’t really understand it, but then no one from the civilised world
ever can". If he was still talking about terrorists, and he said that no
civilised person could understand them, I would have been right there with
him. Apart from anything else, killing people indiscriminately to achieve a
political goal is just rude. Civilised people don’t do that – they write
pointed letters to the newspaper. But there are civilised people in every
country in the world who share each other’s bafflement at the horrors
inflicted by their more brutal cousins.
If you say that there is a "civilised world" it makes your belief in an
"uncivilised world" quite clear, and there’s no doubt here which part of
Sanders’ world is full of the worm-brained, mendacious sheetheads.
Ironically, Luke posted the email completely unaware of how people would
respond to it, and has now become one of the editor’s prime apologists in the
matter – two things that say quite a lot about him. So he seems to be
something of a blunderer, but if a more principled writer had done the same
thing with the intention of blowing the whistle on something similar I would
have supported them outright.
Unsurprisingly, lots of other writers and editors have had something to say
about all of this, although a lot of the initial discussion was focused on the
idea of whether rejection letters should be posted online at all, regardless
of content. Gardner Dozois, for example, was critical of Luke Jackson for
making the email public, but later said, "I like to think I’m not seething
with racial hatreds, but even if I were, I wouldn’t put any expression of them
into a rejection letter; that’s acting unprofessionally as well."
Tobias Buckell, on the other hand, said that he wouldn’t usually post
rejection letters, but he would "make an exception if a rejection contained a
racial epithet … because it would just blow my flipping mind if one ever did".
Jeff VanderMeer wondered "why there wasn’t an instant, complete, and
sincere apology from all involved from the very first moments of this coming
to light".
Few people accused of racism ever seem to say, "Yeah, you’re right. I just
don’t like brown people." Or even, "I went a bit too far and said more than I
mean. I’m sorry." There’s always an excuse. They’ve always been quoted out of
context. Racism is always redefined on their terms to mean precisely nothing.
The reaction is never to look in at oneself, but instead to complain about the
complainers.
In short, it’s easy to spot a racist: they’re the ones who say they aren’t
racist, not even one bit… Everyone else knows that we all come pre-loaded with
a thousand prejudices that we have to acknowledge and work against. Everyone
says off-colour things from time to time – whether it’s about race, gender
(which is where I tend to go wrong, despite my best feminist intentions), the
disabled, or people with ginger hair, or whatever – and we all get a bit
blustery and embarrassed when it’s pointed out. You shouldn’t apologise for
saying it in front of someone it offended, or get angry that it leaked out:
you shouldn’t have said it in the first place. You should either stand by what
you said or apologise for it.
Like Jimmy Carr says, if you have to look around before telling a joke, you
shouldn’t be telling it at all.
I don’t think I would get too angry if anyone posted my rejections online,
as long as they were posted in full. It would be a bit rude of someone to do
it without asking, or at least letting me know, and I would certainly be more
guarded with them in future, but I don’t say anything in email that I don’t
mean (though I can be terribly gossipy).
On the other hand, if it was posted with a comment from the author saying,
"Look at these comments – what a jerk this editor is", it would be a different
matter. I’ve sent a couple of rejections out which have made me think, "Hmm, I
can see this ending up on a forum under a Political Correctness Gone Mad!
heading." But as long as the criticism was posted in full anyone reading it
might be as likely to take my side as the other.
For example, someone who posts a response from an editor which says "this
gives the impression of an author full of hatred of women, which I’m sure is
inaccurate" (to paraphrase and conflate a couple of rejections I’ve given in
the past) would be unlikely to get many supporters – or at least not ones
about whose opinions I would care (although it always hurts when people are
unkind).
That brings me back to my rejections, and whether I need to change my ways.
Do I let my anti-religion/pseudoscience/new age bigotry show through in my
editing?
It can’t help but come through, I think. If I think angels, souls,
reincarnation, heaven, hell, ghosts, and what have you are daft in real life,
I can’t help but think them daft in stories.
But I hope that when presented with a story that makes something good out
of them, I can see through my prejudices to recognise how good it is. A good
story can be built on any premise. I’ll never be a Christian, but I love The
Omen II and The Exorcist III. My dislike of all that soul business is as
stated above, but Buffy the Vampire Slayer is one of my all-time favourite
programmes, and that’s full to the brim of people turning evil once their
souls are missing. So are a hundred other fantasy films, tv shows, comics and
books.
On the flipside, Uncanny X-Men is the world’s most misleading guide to
evolution, but is still fab. (You and I might know that the sudden evolution
of mutants in the Marvel universe results largely from the tinkering of cosmic
beings, and vibranium, and whatnot, but anyone watching the movies or the
cartoons would deduce that evolution means going to bed a fish, and waking up
an amphibian…)
What I have to look out for is saying, "This story is rubbish because the
idea that we have a soul is rubbish." That is missing the point, and taking
the time to push my own views when I should be talking about the story – a
story, of course, that like The X-Files, doesn’t necessarily take place in our
world, or in our universe, or in our dimension. In the next dimension along,
maybe humans do have souls. (I’d imagine them as little Mr Mind type creatures
who live inside our heads, and when we die they move on to the next host.)
Whether the concept of a soul or a vampire or a ghost holds water or not
isn’t always what matters in a fantasy story: it’s how they allow for good
fiction, whether they lead to drama, whether they are dealt with consistently
within that story. It’s the integrity of the story that matters, not the
integrity of the idea.
And I’ll try to remind myself of that as I deal with the next batch of
submissions...
As a postscript to last issue’s editorial, Ralan’s Specfic Webstravaganza
has now listed Horror Literature Quarterly as a dead market (though on
Duotrope it’s just said to be closed to submissions). I hope it’s the latter.
And sadly, Apex Digest, which I used last time as an example of a new
magazine making a real effort to one day be commercial, has stopped publishing
– on paper, at least.
They’re now going to pay pro rates and publish online for people to read
for free. Good luck to them; presumably they’ve worked out that it’ll cost
less overall than it does to pay semi-pro rates plus printers plus
distribution. I hope it’ll thrive online. I imagine they’ve worked out how
much they’re willing to spend on the first year or so and they’ll keep their
fingers crossed re advertising and referrals.
Apex (in print) was a very well put together magazine – Jason was kind
enough to send me review copies, and I was very impressed. I really admired
his ambition. The covers were exceptional (apologies to P.S. Gifford and his
TQF-submission-guidelines-plagiarising Glutenlump’s Chilling Tales, but Apex
was shamefully robbed in that category of the Preditors & Editors awards) and
what I got around to reading of the fiction was of a very high quality. I feel
rather bad for not having done my part by reviewing the issues properly...
Launching a commercial fiction magazine is clearly a very difficult
proposition. Launching an uncommercial one, on the other hand, has never been
easier. The question is just how uncommercial you want to make it!
Anyway,
so here we go again: another issue of Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction… Don’t think
for a moment that my enthusiasm for this marvellous magazine has waned at all.
Oh no, far from it. But upon this issue a heavy obligation falls. I’ve tried
to put it off for as long as I could, but the time is up, the bill is due, and
the debt must be paid. I speak of course of the publication of the latest
novel by Howard Phillips, our long-term contributor, erstwhile marketer and
sometime editorialist.
Why continue to publish his asinine rubbish, you might ask, when TQF gets
so many other wonderful contributions nowadays?
Well, the novels of Howard’s Saturation Point Saga were one of the
foundations of this magazine in its early years, and if there’s one thing I
know about construction, it’s that if you take away the foundations the
building falls down. Plus, I know for a fact that Howard will be here, year
after year, plugging away with his novels, long after all the other writers we
publish have moved on to greener pastures. He’s my cow. I can keep on milking
him as long as I want. The milk might be sour, but once it’s in the bottle who
will know? One day, if he keeps on trying, perhaps he’ll make some milk worth
drinking, but "it hasn’t happened yet", as wonderful William Shatner would
say.
It’s a shame that this issue’s other contributors have to share the space
with Howard – let’s hope that the stink of his shed does not attach itself to
them.
In "The Brass Menagerie", Aaron Polson asks how much our happiness depends
upon our ability to ignore the unhappiness of others.
In "The Hungry Apples" Lyon and Offutt describe a terrible duel beneath
deadly apples! It’s a story with an exceptional sense of place, and deadly
apples! What more do stories need?
And John Greenwood brings more Newton Braddell. By this point you probably
know what to expect, and, yes, it’s more of the same. That is to say: twists,
turns, surprises, character development, hilarity and death!
Lest readers be amazed by the sudden improvement in my art, I should admit
that I’ve been helped in the production of this issue by my four-year-old
daughter. I didn’t have time to do my own illustrations, so she has stepped in
on my behalf. I’m sure you’ll agree that she has done a bang-up job! I’ll
offer a few notes to help you enjoy them to their fullest extent.
In the picture on this page she shows me being assaulted by two monsters.
One of them is hitting me with a bat, while the other is hitting me with
scrambled eggs. That, of course, is why I am bleeding. The most terrifying
thing is the way they smile while hitting me. For page forty-nine I asked her
to draw a moon with blood on it, and she obliged, before going on to add a
"scary man from the shadows". The picture on page fifty-six is not as abstract
as you might think: she has drawn a city (complete with inhabitant) and the
mountain beneath which it sits. If you are having trouble connecting the
picture on page sixty-four to the story it accompanies, it’s because my
sweetie decided to draw some camels and eggs, rather than the lovestruck robot
for which I asked. Perhaps I should have gone back to Aaron and asked him to
work more camels and eggs into his story… My favourite illustration is that on
page sixty, showing the protagonists in combat beneath the threat of the
titular hungry apples.
Contents
Editorial
- The Fantastic Soul, by Stephen Theaker
- Contributors
News & Comment
- New from Telos Publishing
- Riveting Reads of Fantasy
- Raw Edge – Final Issue
- Sad News from Ralan and Rimbaud
- Shatner in the Royal Institution
Science Fantasy
- The Day the Moon Wept Blood, by Howard Phillips
Science Fiction
- Newton Braddell and His Inconclusive Researches into the Unknown: You
Can’t Beat City Hall, by John Greenwood
Fantasy
- The Hungry Apples: a Tale of Tiana, by Richard K Lyon & Andrew J Offutt
Horror
- The Brass Menagerie, by Aaron A Polson
The Quarterly Review
Books
- The Art of Warhammer
- The Black Veil & Other Tales of Supernatural Sleuths
- The Cosmic Ordering Service
- Doctor Who: Earthworld
- Dracula’s Guest & Other Tales
- Earthworks
- Enemies of the System
- The Homecoming
- The Paladin Mandates
- Shadows Over Baker Street: New Tales of Terror!
- Sherlock Holmes and the Plague of Dracula
- The Tangled Skein
- Thorns
Comics
- Aliens Omnibus Volume 1
- Battle of the Planets: Trial By Fire
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer Omnibus, Vol. 3
- DC Universe: The Stories of Alan Moore
- Ex Machina, Vol. 2: Tag
- Ex Machina, Vol. 3: Fact v. Fiction
- Ex Machina, Vol. 6: Power Down
- Lucifer, Vol. 1: Devil in the Gateway
- Modesty Blaise: The Iron God
- Modesty Blaise: Mister Sun
- Modesty Blaise: Uncle Happy
- Star Wars Omnibus: X-Wing Rogue Squadron Vol. 1
- Showcase Presents Teen Titans, Volume 1
Magazines
- McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern #13
Movies
Contributors
Let’s see who was tricked into eating our magical artichokes of submission
this time around…
Aaron Polson
is a high school English teacher and freelance writer who dreams in black and
white with Rod Serling narration. He currently resides in Lawrence, Kansas
with his wife, two sons, and a rather sturdy – almost supernatural – tropical
fish. His short fiction has appeared in various places, including Reflection’s
Edge, GlassFire Magazine, Big Pulp, Johnny America and Permuted Press’s
upcoming Giant Creatures Anthology. You can visit him on the web at
www.frozenrobot.com. To this issue of TQF he contributes "The Brass
Menagerie".
John Greenwood has made
contributions to most issues of TQF following his return from a
round-the-world trip, and was ultimately made co-editor in recognition of his
efforts. To this issue he contributes a further episode in the life of the
universe’s least favourite peripathetic astronaut, Newton Braddell.
Richard K
Lyon is a semi-retired research scientist/inventor whose hobbies include
collecting pulp SF magazines and writing. He has also published numerous short
stories and novelettes. A collection of the latter, Tales From The Lyonheart,
is available from Barnes and Noble, etc. In collaboration with Andrew J
Offutt, famed author of My Lord Barbarian, he wrote the Tiana trilogy (Demon
in the Mirror, The Eyes of Sarsis and Web of the Spider), and Rails Across the
Galaxy for Analog. To our magazine they have contributed "The Iron Mercenary"
(TQF#19), "Arachnis" (TQF#22), "Devil on My Stomach" (TQF#23), and, this
issue, "The Hungry Apples". This story previously appeared in Flashing Swords
1.4.
Stephen Theaker is
the eponymous editor of Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction, and this issue’s cover
artist. (This issue’s illustrations are by his four-year-old daughter.) He
wrote most of this issue’s reviews. He is also the editor of Dark Horizons,
the journal of the British Fantasy Society. Some of his current favourite
musicians are Foals, Sebastien Tellier (ever since his appearance on the
Eurovision Song Contest) and Los Campesinos. He likes to dance to the current
single by N*E*R*D, Everybody Nose, and to Lose Control by Missy Elliott. He
has recently read excellent books by Brian Aldiss and Frederik Pohl & C.M.
Kornbluth. Some of his favourite movies are The Voyage Home: Star Trek IV, The
Wedding Singer, The Matrix Reloaded and The Darjeeling Limited.
Howard Phillips was once a
promising science fiction poet, but unfortunately he fell into a downward
spiral of drink and self-hatred, the horrid fate of all too many versifiers.
Being given the job of marketing manager with Silver Age Books in the late
nineties did much to put him back on an even keel. He still had good days and
bad days, but he achieved some level of stability in his personal life. His
efforts at writing poetry and fiction during this period proved unsuccessful
(a succession of novels were announced; none were written), but he achieved a
level of musical success with his band, The Sound of Howard Phillips. In 2005,
having left the band to fend for themselves, and in the midst of a second
nervous crisis, everything changed forever: a vision set him off on a quest to
assemble the world’s greatest band. He has chronicled that quest in a series
of novels, all of which have been serialised in Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction.
"My Rise and Fall", the first part of the as yet incomplete first novel, The
Ghastly Mountain, appeared in TQF#8. His Nerves Extruded (2006) appeared in
TQF#9 thru 11. The Doom That Came to Sea Base Delta (2007) appeared in TQF#16
and 17. In this issue we present in its entirety the fourth novel in the
sequence, The Day the Moon Wept Blood.
Rafe McGregor
is a crime fiction author who spends far too much of his time rereading the
work of H.P. Lovecraft and M.R. James. He lives with his wife in a village
near York. More details can be found on his website (www.rafemcgregor.co.uk).
To this issue he contributes several book reviews.
The first two stories here, “Rogue Leader” and “The Rebel Opposition”, are a bit average. It was a bit of a struggle to get through them. The third, though, “The Phantom Affair”, is a huge improvement in every regard – plot, script, art, lettering, the works! All those things combine to leave it looking more like a French album than a mid-nineties Dark Horse comic.
, Haden Blackman et al, Dark Horse, tpb, 296pp.
This book collects three stories: “Mister Sun”, “The Mind of Mrs Drake” and “Uncle Happy”. All three are highly enjoyable action thrillers, though for me “The Mind of Mrs Drake” was compromised somewhat by the title character being an actual psychic. (Moments like that always make me think of Magnum meeting a ghost, or of the JAG lawyer who had premonitions.) But there was a lot of it about in the 1960s, and the character is treated seriously. I suppose it’s not much of a departure from Willie Garvin’s tingling ears of trouble. Mister Sun is a drug lord with whom Modesty tangles; the trail takes her to wartime Vietnam. Uncle Happy is a philanthropist who raises Modesty’s suspicions by staring at her current lover in a Vegas bar.
, Peter O’Donnell et al, Titan Books, tpb, 112pp.
Any book that contains “Whatever Happened to the Man of Steel?” has to get five stars, straight off the bat. It’s one of the greatest comics ever written, and the finest send-off a character could have (it relates the final story of the original Superman, prior to the John Byrne reboot). Since this also includes “For the Man Who Has Everything” and The Killing Joke, this is one of those times when five stars aren’t nearly enough.
, Alan Moore, DC Comics, tpb, 304pp.
It says a lot about this book that while the artists of each poster page and alternative cover are carefully noted, nowhere is anyone credited as the writer. Five names are listed on the cover, including Alex Ross (only credited for covers inside), Munier Sharrieff and Dreamer Design (neither credited at all inside). Inside each issue is credited to Wilson Tortosa, Rhyse Yorke and Shane Law, with Edwin David also credited for issue one, though there’s no sign what precise role any of them played.
, Alex Ross et al, Titan, tpb, 80pp.
These stories follow on from the second film, Aliens. The first two stories, Outbreak and Nightmare Asylum, tell the ongoing adventures of Newt and Hicks, while Ripley turns up for the third main story, Female War.
, Mark Verheiden et al, Dark Horse, tpb, 384pp.
New bands, stuck on a promotional treadmill after the release of their first album, often look back to the way the Beatles would release a couple of albums a year in the 1960s. (I admire the Arctic Monkeys for getting their second album out so quickly, where other bands have been prevented from doing so.) How much more stunning is it to look at the examples of these science fiction writers of the same period, who would often release four or five books a year, a remarkable achievement, even allowing for some of them being reprints of earlier magazine work? In 1967 (according to Science Fiction: the Illustrated Encyclopedia), as well as Thorns (my copy is a later reprint), Silverberg put out The Gate of Worlds, Those Who Watch, To Open the Sky, The Time-Hoppers and Planet of Death. I don’t know if current-day authors, working away at huge trilogies (and receiving much better payment than their predecessors did, to be fair to their masters), chafe at the bit as much as bands do, but it’s interesting to think of what might have resulted from some of them writing twelve different short novels, instead of just the one trilogy. One thing’s for sure, lazy readers like me would have read more of their work.
, Robert Silverberg, NEL, pb, 160pp (1977).
Possibly the most gleefully stupid book I’ve ever read in my life. Full of the utmost idiocy, the book’s entire content simply adds up to this: good things will happen if you hope for them. It’s really just a book on praying adapted for tastes of new age readers. Instead of praying to some god when you’re sad, you should just pray to the universe. Because, you know, the universe cares about you. Forget that on a universal scale you are indistinguishable from the bacteria that live inside your gut: the universe cares about what you want and will help you get it.
, Barbel Mohr, Hodder & Stoughton, pb, 112pp.
I’m tempted to say that these were the most diabolically bad comics I’ve ever read, but I’ve a feeling that in a different mood, or maybe just in smaller quantities, I might have thought that they were the best! In context they make sense: this is a teenage version of the Batman tv show, with all the corny dialogue and goofy villains that that would make you expect. Out of context it’s appalling stuff: the dialogue is excruciating, the villains idiotic, and the whole thing intensely embarrassing.
, Bob Haney et al, DC, tpb, 528pp.
A stunning book, created and produced with immense skill and care. If, towards the end, I started to get a bit tired of reading about failed and struggling relationships, that’s probably just because I read the book out of order and left those ones till the end. The book only deals with one narrow area of comics – independents created by writer/artists – but since that’s an area that’s often hard to notice behind the glare and pizazz of mainstream comics that’s easy to forgive.
, ed. Chris Ware, McSweeney’s, hb, 264pp.
This is a hard film to review, because I can’t be sure whether I actually saw it. Surely something so strange and out of the ordinary must have been a dream? But then I felt the same way about Donnie Darko, by the same director, and I’ve heard other people talking about that movie, so I think that there’s a good chance that these films really do exist – however unlikely that seems.
movie might look like, this is a good place to start.
, Richard Kelly (dir.), US, 145 mins.
