Holy Water and Other Stories

Intro – a good friend of mine just published his first book, and it is my pleasure to review it for him and you of course. I actually helped him quite a bit with the writing of these stories, I had read and notated earlier drafts of most of the stories here, with a few acceptations. Josh is a writer who is highly influenced by and attempting to recapture the spirit of fiction steeped in the golden era of pulp. A lot of the stories here were writing as though they were to be submitted to pulp magazines that haven’t existed for 70-80 years. Even though all the stories are self-contained, and you can pick any of them up and read them without being too lost, they are (for the most part) parts of different series, and personally, I am looking forward to reading the next adventure in just about all of them. Here’s a brief take away from each story.

Hungry Like the Wolf – well I love the title, it’s my favorite Duran Duran song, and I like that Josh named one of the characters in the story Duran. The story, however, is not heavily based on the song, but rather the story of Little Red Riding Hood. This is a series he is calling “Spicy Fairytales” spicy being an old pulp term for “mildly erotic.” These are revisionist fairy tales, and this particular story is still available in full on the website last time I checked, and I would recommend reading it, whether or not you pick up the book. Though I do recommend picking up the book of course.

The Great Stall – the first of two Dustin Powerman stories in this collection. These stories take place in an alternative 1960s in which America has lost all its power, electricity, fossil fuel, etc. Even horses won’t carry people anymore, and the only form of transportation available needs to be powered by humans. This story does an admirable job setting up the world, while the main character goes around slaying monsters that are causing the power outage. Josh refers to this genre as “Manpunk.” Kind of the way Dieselpunk and Steampunk use diesel and steam engines respectively. It also fits snugly into the categories of Alternate History and Weird Western. Not my absolute favorite story or series of his, but not my least favorite by any means (not that I have a least favorite in this collection).

Hell Hath No Fury Like a Melting Fjord – this is the first of what I hope are many Jan Trollhammer stories, a pagan barbarian fighting against Christians in Scandinavia and Finland Circa 1000 ad. The oldest of the stories in the collection (w/r/t plot) not counting the timeless fairytales. A story like this would have been geared toward Weird Tales, I would assume. Being a lover of the snow and the north and the taiga, this is probably my favorite in the collection, though that’s not to say there aren’t other great stories or close contenders for the accolade of best in the book.

The Whip of Abdul-Zajai – this one is kind of the opposite of the previous story. Instead of taking place in the frozen north it takes place in the scorched desert. The story features Oran Teal, a white desert traveler on a fantastic adventure with a flying carpet. It has sort of an Aladdin/Indiana Jones feel to it, though spicier (see my review of the first story), and clearly written for the magazine Oriental Stories. I know a fair amount about pulp as well, and Oriental Stories had the best covers. I am looking forward to more Oran Teal adventures for sure.

Holy Water – and we get to the title story, and the first of 6 stories (I think, I may be wrong) to be published in this collection for the first time, the others were published on Josh’s website, or in our anthologies over the last 2 years. What could it be? Spicy fairytale? Barbarian adventure? No… but it is something Pulpy. This is a hard-boiled mystery, a la Philip Marlowe, Sam Spade et. Al. It is noir to the bone. The story is about the body of a priest turning up in a flooded quarry and trying to find who dun it. Aside from all the hard-boiled terms, the story uses a fair amount of Yiddish slang as well. The story might have benefited from a glossary of terms at the end, but I knew most of them anyway. Can’t wait to see more adventures from Morton McKnight, the narrator of this story.

Enjoran of Many Names and Many More to Come – this is an interesting story which builds the world of Avalay. However this story, more so then the others in this collection, is atypical of a pulp story. It’s one part Sword and Sorcery and another part epistolary war story. The narrator of the opening and closing segments (Henry Olivander) is writing letters to someone back home (in England) named “Dearheart” from the trenches of World War I. The old pulp stories never used devices like flashbacks and metafiction in their stories. I’m not knocking the story though, it’s good, in my opinion, it’s two for the price of one, and I can’t wait to see more from this world… and I don’t have to wait too long because there are three and a half more to come in the collection, we’ll get into the half in a minute.

The Seven Deadly Dwarfs – the second of the two Spicy Fairytales in this collection, and it’s really good: fun, entertaining and spicy; covering the stories of Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and a dash of Rumplestiltskin, and includes an epic tower fight. It’s long too, either the longest or second-longest in the collection… I don’t have the book in front of me to verify at the moment.

The Lineage – this story is going to be hard to read for a lot of people, it’s not so much written as a story as it is a speech. The idea here is this fantasy world called “The Thirteen Kingdoms” which is a high fantasy revision of American history, in which the presidents are all knights and the elections are replaced with tourneys. This is also the “half Avalay” story. It is not introduced by Henry Olivander the WWI soldier, like the other Avalay stories, are, and it does not take place on the continent of Avalay, but rather another continent. In this story, Avalay is a stand-in for the Afroeurasian landmass. Some may see this one as the worst in the collection, but I would recommend just reading it slowly and absorbing it.

Yukon Gold – This is yet another example of a different pulp genre, this time more on the obscure side. This is a Northern or a northwestern, which are like westerns but take place in the far north replacing cowboys and Sharifs with Mounties. This story and the planned series to follow is about a smuggler in the Canadian territories. Had Josh been around 75 years ago, these stories would have been submitted to North-Western Romances (this is a very different use of the word “romance” w/r/t the title of that periodical).

Gorgrynd if the Hellscape – Here we have another barbarian, and he has quite the barbarian name, Gorgrynd (pronounced “Gore Grind”). Gore Grind is a subgenre of Death Metal, and this story is based on a song by a metal band, though the particular song is far removed from the Gore Grind genre (and the metal genre itself really). Part of me wants to say what the song is, the other part doesn’t want to spoil the surprise, so I’ll just leave it at that. Unlike Enjoran, the barbarian of the fantasy world of Avalay, or Jan Trollhammer of the ancient frozen north, Gorgrynd exists in a post-apocalyptic distant future. Which might seem like an original idea, but there was a TV show from the ’80s called “Thundaar the Barbarian” which was also about a barbarian in a dystopian future. Still a good set up, and this story and what I’ve heard about the future stories in the series are quite different from Thundaar.

Catcher in the Sky – this is an odd little story about a Hobo, who jumps aboard a train only to learn after he wakes up that this particular train can fly. This story fits in what could be argued the Dieselpunk category, which is kind of interesting because Dieselpunk is a retrofuturist genre that dates to the golden era of pulp, the era that Josh is so firmly trying to capture in this collection… however Dieselpunk is not a pulp genre. I don’t know what else will come from this series, but honestly, it’s not my favorite in the collection… you can’t win them all.

Chi-Chi’s is Closed Forever – and here, well past the halfway point of this collection, we have the first of Josh’s “Standalone Stories” this is a time travel story, and it was published in our anthology, shortly after Josh had gotten back into writing. This one is a time travel story about a traveler taking his friend back in time to have dinner at a Chi-Chi’s. I know exactly which Chi-Chi’s this is in the story since I took him there for my birthday when we were much much younger. Had this story been written earlier I may have suggested he send it to “Fast-Forward Festival” which was a magazine I had 3 stories published in before it went defunct, unfortunately for both of us the website doesn’t even exist anymore. This is my favorite of the stand-alone stories, and close to my favorite in the book.

How About Them Apples – remember that for the most part, the stories in this collection are each part of a series, each series focuses on a main character and although it may have an end, it’s probably not coming any time soon. The Spicy Fairytales don’t really count since they are not continuations of something Mavis had previously started. Deep into the book, we have the second story in one of these series, the Weird Western Dustin Powerman stories. In this story Dustin finds himself in a large apple orchard, being sexually persuaded by the very attractive farmer’s daughter. It’s a good one, and one of the few in this collection that is published here for the first time.

The Black Tourney – here we have another story published here for the first time, and another Avalay story, this one does not have Enjoran as the main character. The story is about a jousting tournament held between Knights and Pale Knights (medieval biker gangs basically) its a fun story if you like jousting, heraldry and Biker Gang Patches, it’s also one of the longest in the collection.

Tendrils of Empire – this is another stand-alone, and the oldest story in the collection. And unlike any other story in the collection, it was published in an online magazine. It tells the story of an alien from a neutron star who joins the military and goes on his first adventure. Unfortunately, the website that published this story went defunct, so if you want to read it… you have to get the book.

Haber’s Anxiethrax – this was a story in our anthology last year and a good one too include. It’s another Henry Olivander/Avalay/Manorland story, like “The Black Tourney.” This one starts out with Henry discussing the gas attacks in the trenches and going into a story about a mysterious plague and the princesses’ efforts to help her kingdom. The theme of last year’s anthology was “Paint by Letter” And the “painting” (actually a sketch) that inspired this story was Theadore Kittlesen’s “The Pauper.”

Broken Dreams BLVD – another story from the same anthology. This is a Morton McKnight Hard-Boiled Mystery, like the title story. Someone’s been passing around counterfeit money at the local diner, and Morton is hired to investigate. Again the theme of last year’s anthology was stories based on paintings, and the painting for this story is the very very famous “Nighthawks” by Edward Hopper… you know the painting if not by the name, trust me.

Melting the Stone Cheese – another Avalay story, opened and closed by Henry Olivander, however this is not an Enjoran story or a Manorlands Story, this is another sub-series known as the “Great Cheese War” which is a retelling of the Hundred Year’s War, as though it were fought by Tyromancers (wizards who use cheese to cast there spells). It kind of feels Similar to the Mistborn series, not sure if this was Josh’s intent or not. Also not one of my favorites in the collection, it’s fine, but I’m not nearly as looking forward to reading more of the Great Cheese War stories as I am with other series that Josh has set up here.

Ragout Fin – Josh’s real debut into the writing scene was this story, included in our 2017 anthology “Fun in the Sun and the Madness of the Moon” a sun and moon themed anthology. This is a post-global warming dystopian story, not sure how many works there are of this sub-genre, this is the only one that I know of, but I’m sure there are more. I liked this story a lot too, and with the word “Fin” being French for “End” it has a good place as the last story in the collection.

In conclusion, I’m going to make this easy… get the book. If the 15$ price tag on it is a bit steep, I hear there is a Kindle edition coming soon, that will be a lot cheaper. Don’t worry, I’ll let you know when that hits.

Mega DVD Marathon – Episode 7 “The F’s”

Family Guy: Blue Harvest – the F’s are going to take some time, 13 DVDs 7 of them are TV shows and one is a 6 season box. Up first is one of several Family Guy DVDs. You may think I would start with the regular seasons but they are listed as volumes so they will be later on. Blue Harvest, which is the parody of Star Wars a New Hope. As readers of this blog may already know, I am not a Star Wars fan, but I do enjoy the parodies of Star Wars, and this one is quite good. There are ample Star Wars references in the show proper, but in this “short movie” there are way more. By the time I actually saw Star Wars for the first time I already knew the story quite well, and I’ll admit I did like it, I didn’t love it, it’s popularity is still a mystery to me, but that’s just my opinion… try not to hate me for it. If I picked this DVD up at full price I may have been pissed off by the lack of content, but I believe I got it at a library sale for 1$, in that case it was well worth the price.

Family Guy: It’s a Trap – the third of the Family Guy Star Wars Trilogy. There is a lot of references to the movie being the worst of the three (I assume they are right, but I wouldn’t know), but it is the funnier of the two episodes I’ve seen. Carter Pewterschmit as the emperor is funny and the anti-Seth Green comments throughout, and especially the “Dig your own grave” sequence. The episode (and series) was summed up nicely at the end with the cast digging in on Seth McFarland after having laid into Green throughout the entire episode. Nicely done, it’s always good when someone can laugh at themselves.

The Family Guy Movie: Stewie Griffin the Untold Story – this is a great “movie” and I put that in quotation marks because it’s not a movie but three episodes strung together in a loose arc. The first episode has little to do with the other two except for the ending. The whole movie is bookended with segments showing the Family Guy stable attending the release of the movie proper and the after-party. This is one of the best examples I know of a TV show made into a movie, usually, they attempt to make something more substantial and break the mold of the show itself, this movie does not in any way do that. It takes what made the show work, did it three times, and bookended it to make the movie, that’s it, that’s all that needed to be done and it made a pretty good movie, just what the audience would want.

Family Guy Vol 1 – This DVD consists of both seasons 1 and 2, 4 disks, 28 episodes. If I remember my history correctly, Family Guy was canceled and somewhat forgotten until it was released on DVD. The DVD was so popular that it wrenched the show back into existence to be the behemoth that it is today, and this is that DVD. I’ve always found the early episodes to seem longer than they actually were, in a good way. It’s a sitcom and the first situation would lead into the second situation. For example, the first episode sees peter losing his job, then he goes on welfare and becomes rich thanks to a typo, to me this is two episodes. By the second season, for the most part, the stories are more congealed into one. I also notice just how far the envelope has been pushed since the first season, back then it parodied the old family sitcoms of the 80’s so much that it nearly became an 80’s family sitcom. The show is far more edgier and darker then it’s inception. Better than or now? I’d probably lean towards the ladder, but these early pieces are still worth watching, 100%.

Family Guy Vol 2 – More good Family Guy material. This DVD covers the entirety of the third season, just before the show’s cancellation. More funny stuff in this one but you can see where the show gets slightly more serious… slightly. Some personal favorites from this set: Lethal Weapons, Mr. Saturday Knight, a Fish Out of Water (with a brief voice cameo by Brian Doyal Murray), To Love and Die in Dixie (always great to see the south getting stomped on), Road to Europe (the road episodes rarely disappoint), and Family Guy Viewer Mail #1 (probably my favorite). The set also features the infamous “When You Wish Upon a Winesteen” which was the first episode to be pulled, but it’s fairly tame compared to other pulled episodes from the series.

Family Guy Vol. 4 – this volume starts in the middle of Season 4 with the very funny episode “PTV,” (the episode that takes on extreme censorship) and ends with the “Griffin Family History” (where the Griffin’s home is invaded and they wait it out in a panic room while Peter tells them the story of his ancestors), aside from those two episodes… just about all the rest of them are great too. “Father Son and the Holy Fonz” which takes on religion is probably my favorite, but it’s rather hard to choose amongst the selection.

Farce of the Penguins – As anyone may already know I am a big fan of penguins, my wife and I both, but I won’t go into detail about that. I knew of this movie back when it came out in 2007 and was glad to pick up a copy at a library sale when I saw it. Unfortunately, it’s not all that good, very low brow toilet humor that can be funny in small doses but an hour and a half of it go a long way. It does have Lewis Black (my personal favorite comedian), Bob Saget, and a bevy of other comedians doing voices, plus the photography of Antarctica make it tolerable, but just nearly. It is an important piece in my collection, but probably not one I see myself ever watching again.

Fun and Fancy Free – after a month’s hiatus to watch only 80’s things we return to the Mega DVD Marathon, and now we have our first Disney animated feature. This is from my favorite (and not well regarded/remembered) Disney era, the anthologies. With WWII and everything, Disney was struggling a bit, so rather than using the resources it would take to make a full animated feature, they packaged together some of their shorts into a film. I don’t have a whole lot of Disney Movies on DVD, but… I have everyone from this era, all 6 of them. This movie is probably the best known of the era, it is a good friend of mine’s favorite Disney movie, but it is not mine for a few reasons. This movie only has two featurettes, and it is overall a sad movie. It starts out with the frame narrative with Jimminy Cricket talking to two sad toys, goes into a sad story about a circus bear who escapes and finds difficulty coping in the wild (Bongo) and then goes into the starving farmers of “Mickey’s Beanstalk,” which is the best part of the whole movie, and the reason I picked it up. But still, though, there’s nothing funny about being hungry (which a lot of writers fail to see for some reason, and as we see even Walt Disney himself is guilty of this). The music is a little blasé for my particular tastes. So overall not one of my favorites. On the plus side, there is Edgar Bergman in the movie to lighten the mood a little bit, and the use of the uncommon word “phantasmagoria” (I can’t believe I spelled it right, first try). Also “Mickey’s Beanstalk” (hunger sequence notwithstanding) is a pretty good cartoon, it actually combines a little of “Puss in Boots” into the primary story of “Jack and the Beanstalk” which is pretty much my favorite fairytale, and done quite well by a fairytale master. I should mention where this DVD came from. In 2001-2002 or thereabouts I signed up with the Disney Movie Club. They sent an option of 3 DVD’s to you every month at a significant discount, and you had to buy I think 6 in a year to stay a member. This is where I got almost all of my Disney DVDs from. I’m not sure how many of any of these types of mail-order clubs exist anymore, But they were rampant in the ’80s, the best known of them was Columbia House. They have kind of been replaced these days with Mystery Box services.

Fraggle Rock Season 2 – I vaguely remember this show as a kid, very vaguely, I remember it mostly from their cameo appearance in a Muppet Family Christmas. The show was basically brand new to me at this viewing, and it was quite good. Jim Henson does not disappoint. It’s kind of a midpoint between the juvenalia of Sesame Street and the postmodern adult humor of the Muppets. The show is definitely meant for a younger audience however it has an interesting method of storytelling: each episode opens and closes with Doc and Sprocket setting up and concluding a theme that the Fraggles usually illustrate, while the Doozers or the Gorgs illustrate as well. Some episodes have three levels of storytelling and there is even the possibility of 4 levels (though I don’t think this ever comes up). While watching the last disk (which was all special features) I listened to my new “Best of Fragile Rock” vinyl, it’s a nice production: half red and half yellow and semi-translucent. It has the theme song on it (which is great) but it also has “Pass It On” which is a pseudo-Christmas song and “Yes We Can” which is a very upbeat doozers song. I actually broke a vinyl rule when listening to the album and listening to those two songs while in the midsts of listening to the album.

Frasier Seasons 1-6 – This is one of the longest DVDs in my collection, surpassed only by the complete series of Wings (8 seasons in one box) and this has so far taken the longest to get through. Typically, since I haven’t seen most of these episodes in 20 years or more, I gave them my full attention, and the show warrants it in spades. Toward the end of the box, I started curling up with my laptop at night watching it, which has helped me through some difficult times (of which I will not be going into here). As for the show, what can I say, it’s hilarious. I understand a lot more of the show now than when I first watched it, though there were still a handful of words I had to look up (such a “profiterole” – you probably had to look it up too). Some of the most iconic episodes are on this DVD box: “The Show Where Sam Shows Up” (hearkening back to the parent show Cheers – I remember having that episode tapped and watching it on a Sunday morning while playing Metroid on GameBoy), “Travel’s with Martin,” “The Good Son” (the pilot episode which I’ve seen far more than any other episode because it is on one of my treasured tapes), “The Innkeepers,” “The Club” (my personal favorite episode, which has lead to my recent interests in Gentleman’s Clubs, and an idea for a story to possibly be written soon), and perhaps the best of all the episodes… “The Ski Lodge.” I’ve spent many years of my life quoting Seinfeld where appropriate, over the past few months (it took some time to get through this box) I’ve been doing the same with Frasier. I don’t know exactly where the show goes after season 6… but I guess now I have to find out.

Fritz the Cat – I’m not going to get into what it took to get this movie or the following one. As those animation buffs out there probably already know, Fritz the Cat, directed by Ralf Bakshi, is the first animated movie to be rated X (back before X was replaced by the less conspicuous “NC-17” rating). I’ve been asked in the past “is it really X rated by today’s standards?” And the answer is yes, perhaps even more so. Forget Disney era casual racism implying the crows in dumbo were black, the crows in Fritz are black, and the pigs are cops, a heroin addict hiding in a trash can shoots up to the beat of the background music, and the first 20 minutes of the movie is an orgy scene. The movie depicts 60’s era politics, and collegiate hedonism vividly. This is a must-see for film and/or cartoon buffs, there is no way around it, but good luck trying to get a copy. This is only the second time I’ve seen it, on the first viewing I watched it like a hawk, judging and approving of the surreal psychedelic choices made in the animation, and enjoying the novelty and historic importance of the film. Upon second viewing the movie really turns into what it is supposed to be, an over the top (way over) screwball comedy, with some social commentary thrown into the mix. I’d like to make this movie part of the annual viewing list, but I don’t know a good time of year to watch it yet… well it’s covered for this year at least.

The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat – The sequel (filed under “F” for “Fritz”) this time rated R and more tame and with a much looser plot essentially made of up daydreams. There are quite a few interesting characters in the movie such as Hitler (a lion with one testicle), Lucifer (who’s very gay), an Indian guru (who dwells in the sewer looking for recruits), the president of a black splinter nation (New Jersey), and even God (a homeless alcoholic dog). With a cast of characters like that, they could have really made something interesting, but the dialogue is often drowned out by sound effects. The various gags are not all that funny, and the commentary that the original film makes is virtually nonexistent in this film. It ranks lower compared to a lot of other movies in my collection, but still worth watching if you enjoyed the original.

Futurama Vol. 1 – Yes this letter features not one but two great Fox Animated Sitcoms: Family Guy and Futurama, which one is better? Well, I have to go with Family Guy, because it has both good stories and a plethora of nonsequiturs that can be enjoyed on their own. As far as the stories go themselves, well I got to side with Futurama on that, especially later in the series, but even in the short 13 episode first volume there are some gems: a parody of Titanic, a parody of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (the last episode of the DVD and probably my favorite), a parody of Animal House. There are some great and fairly unique characters in the show, Fry (the dumb almost savant main character), Turanga Lila (the lonely cyclops alien/mutant, I’ll get into the significance of her name in a bit), Bender (the foul-mouthed, alcoholic, egocentric, yet sensitive and lovable robot), Professor Farnsworth (brilliant but senile), Zoidberg (the incompetent and also very Jewish lobster based alien doctor), Hermes (the Rastafarian accountant… “tally me banana”), etc. etc. ad (almost) Infinitum. Multiple viewings are required as Easter eggs and hidden references are peppered throughout each episode. If you like science fiction, action, comedy, horror, and drama, this is the show for you. As for me, there is another season and a movie to come.

Futurama Vol. 4 – this is actually one of my wife’s DVDs that I have absconded for my own collection. Strangely she liked this show a lot, even though it is far from her typical fair… though the show itself is far from anything else as is. This was the last volume of episodes before the show was canceled the first time, and there are some heavier episodes here. Lila finds out that she is not an orphaned alien but a mutant, which comes up in a few episodes, Fry wipes the universe out of existence and then saves it, and this volume contains the episode Dino Mutt which I absolutely refuse to ever watch again or discuss here (if your really interested you can look for it on your own, I am not even going to link anything to it). There are also some gems in this volume, the very surreal Bee Sting episode (which I thought would have made a good last episode), and the last episode in which Fry switches his hands for the Robot Devil’s so he can play the holophone, the Farnsworth Parabox, and many more. This seems like a good place to mention Lila’s full name. Turangalila is loosely translated from Sanskrit meaning “Love Song” or “Hymn of Joy” it is the title of a lengthy symphony, composed by Olivier Messian for a full orchestra with a Piano and an early synthesizer called an Ondes Martenot (which sounds kind of like a theremin). Using that as the name of one of the characters is one of hundreds of subtle nods and obscure references, some of which I don’t know if I will ever truly realize, and that’s what makes this show so great.

Futurama: Bender’s Big Score – Well I was right about this letter taking some time to get through, and it sure did. Even after starting the practice of watching DVDs on my laptop before bed some nights. This letter took just about a year to get through, and a lot of things happened in that time, things which are in no way appropriate to share on this blog. Regardless, a year later, I’ve finally finished the letter and hopefully, no other letter will take nearly as long. That’s enough of that, onto the movie. Yes this is a movie, in the time between the show being canceled, gaining a new popularity via adult swim, and being purchased by Comedy Central for a few more seasons (I think it has since been canceled or ended again) the team at Futurama had made 4 movies, this is the first of them. The storyline is about 3 nude alien scammers that end up stealing earth with the help (kind of) the Planet Express crew. They brought back just about all of the characters from the show, even the minor ones like Al Gore (who does his own voice), the Harlem Globetrotters, Hypnotoad, Elzar, And even Seymour (fry’s dog… which I won’t go into). The plotline is an odd one which involves time travel and a split storyline. The story is also a little on the heavy side. I haven’t seen any of the other movies yet, and I’m not sure if I will, though I am a little more then intrigued with the title of the second movie “The Beast with a Billion Backs” I don’t know, maybe one day. For now… on to the G’s.

Mega DVD Marathon – Episode 8 – the G’s