Kentucky is the Shire

I'm not a Kentucky native, so I believe I have a little objectivity on this. Anyway, I finally got around to watching The Hobbit movie - or at least the first half hour for now - after a couple of glasses of wine to provide insight. In the opening of the movie (or semi-opening, after the unnecessarily blunt background exposition about the dragon), during the panorama of the Shire and first exposure the Bag-End, it occurred to me how much the Shire resembles my adopted Commonwealth of Kentucky.

It has the green rolling hills. It has the chubby parochial population with a fondness for comfort. It has the convoluted kindred relationships, the fondness for inebriation, and the hospitality contrasted with small-mindedness.

Example - the most Kentuckian video I can think of:

It is a nice place to visit, but not exciting. It is a good place to set off on adventures from.

Defining Sword & Sorcery - Leiber's Letter to ANCALAGON

There is some debate about the definition of "Sword and Sorcery" as a literary genre. The first appearance of the term was in the magazine ANCALAGON in April 1961, where author Fritz Leiber coined the term in a letter to the editor. Here is that letter in it's entirety:

     ANCALAGON looks nice, especially the cover (where the art seems nicely gaged to the method of reproduction) and the article on fantasy adventure-- a field which I feel more certain than ever should be called the sword-and-sorcery story. This accurately describes the points of culture-level and supernatural element and also immediately distinguishes it from the cloak-and-sword (historical adventure) story---and (quite incidentally) from the cloak-and-dagger (international espionage) story too! The word sorcery implies something more and other than historical human witchcraft, so even the element of an alien-yet-human world background is hinted at.

     At any rate I'll use sword-and-sorcery as a good popular catchphrase for the field. It won't interfere with the use of a more formal designation of the field (such as the "non-historical fantasy adventure" which Sprague once suggested in a review of Smith Abominations of Yondro in AMRA) when one comes along or is finally settled on.

     Of course there will always be wide fringes of border-land around a story-area like this, and too-carefull efforts at placing any single story or sets of stories may result in a sort of nonsense. For instance Burrough's John Carter stories have so much the feel of sword-and-sorcery (rather than science fiction) that one immediately wants at least a new category for them-- sword-and-superscience? To me, Burroughs' Mars stories are Atlantis-on-Mars and no more science fictin that Smith's / Clark Ashton/ stories of Atlantis-- or no less science fiction... Ah well.

   About my own stories. The one you're missing is "When the Sea King's Away" from the May 1960 Fantastic. And the short novel Adept's Gambit from my Arkham House book, Night's Black Agents--- though that tale rouses all sorts of problems, as Fafhrd and the Mouser are presented most anachronistically in Asia of the Seleucid Dynasty. Perhaps I'll someday transfer that tale to Lankhmar or (more likely) provide a time-travel link to justify it.

     But the best news (I certainly think) is that the May Fantastic, out in a month, will carry a 23,500-word novelet of the Twain called "Scylla's Daughter".  The story is laid in Nehwon and Lankhmar, I hasten to say, and yet the classical allusion of the title is fully justified. This is a story I've been meaning to write for 25 years and it's good to have it done-- or rather begun, as there'll be room for sequels.  If people really like it I'm hoping a few of them will drop Fantastic a line to that effect, as editors are influenced by mail they get and it's good (nay, rather, amazing) to have a magazine once more interested in this sort of story.

FRITZ LEIBER
833 Ocean Ave.
Santa Monica, Calif.

Oz The Great and Powerful

Just saw Oz the Great and Powerful with the family.

 I now see why it only got a 61% score on Rotten Tomatoes 

...because 39% of movie reviewers are a-holes. I thought it was great.

However, I am biased, since I was already a big Oz fan. Not as much a fan of the old Wizard of Oz movie, though it is great too. I'm a fan of the books by L. Frank Baum, which the movie(s) is(are) based on. They are all public domain now. I've read several, but not all of them. I think I'll go read some more now. There is some great shit in the Oz books. Like the Hungry Tiger, who first appears in Ozma of Oz...

But let me introduce to you a new friend of mine, the Hungry Tiger."

"Oh! Are you hungry?" she asked, turning to the other beast, who was just then yawning so widely that he displayed two rows of terrible teeth and a mouth big enough to startle anyone. "Dreadfully hungry," answered the Tiger, snapping his jaws together with a fierce click. 

"Then why don't you eat something?" she asked. "It's no use," said the Tiger sadly. "I've tried that, but I always get hungry again."

"Why, it is the same with me," said Dorothy. "Yet I keep on eating."

"But you eat harmless things, so it doesn't matter," replied the Tiger. "For my part, I'm a savage beast, and have an appetite for all sorts of poor little living creatures, from a chipmunk to fat babies."

"How dreadful!" said Dorothy.

"Isn't it, though?" returned the Hungry Tiger, licking his lips with his long red tongue. "Fat babies! Don't they sound delicious? But I've never eaten any, because my conscience tells me it is wrong. If I had no conscience I would probably eat the babies and then get hungry again, which would mean that I had sacrificed the poor babies for nothing. No; hungry I was born, and hungry I shall die. But I'll not have any cruel deeds on my conscience to be sorry for."

So the hungry tiger is always fantasizing about delicious fat babies and how much he wishes he could eat one, but then reminds himself about his conscience and barely keeps himself in check. It's sort of a twisted running joke. Not too many kid's stories nowadays have running jokes about eating babies. I don't know if L Frank Baum was ever in the army, but he seems to be making a point in his description of the army of Oz:

"Why, they seem to be all officers."

"They are, all except one," answered the Tin Woodman. "I have in my Army eight Generals, six Colonels, seven Majors and five Captains, besides one private for them to command.

Military veteran readers may appreciate how the army of Oz fights:

"No!" returned Ozma, boldly answering the King. Then she said to her army: "Forward, my brave soldiers, and fight for your Ruler and yourselves, unto death!"

"Pardon me, Most Royal Ozma," replied one of her generals; "but I find that I and my brother officers all suffer from heart disease, and the slightest excitement might kill us. If we fight we may get excited. Would it not be well for us to avoid this grave danger?" 

"Soldiers should not have heart disease," said Ozma. 

"Private soldiers are not, I believe, afflicted that way," declared another general, twirling his moustache thoughtfully. "If your Royal Highness desires, we will order our private to attack yonder warriors." 

"Do so," replied Ozma. 

"For-ward--march!" cried all the generals, with one voice. "For-ward--march!" yelled the colonels. "For-ward--march!" shouted the majors. "For-ward--march!" commanded the captains. And at that the private leveled his spear and dashed furiously upon the foe.

Some great ideas in the Oz books to inspire a Game Master. Scoodlers in The Road to Oz, which throw their own heads as missile weapons. Invisible Bears in Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz. Invisible fucking bears.

As the little Wizard turned to follow them he felt a hot breath against his cheek and heard a low, fierce growl. At once he began stabbing at the air with his sword, and he knew that he had struck some substance because when he drew back the blade it was dripping with blood. The third time that he thrust out the weapon there was a loud roar and a fall, and suddenly at his feet appeared the form of a great red bear, which was nearly as big as the horse and much stronger and fiercer. The beast was quite dead from the sword thrusts, and after a glance at its terrible claws and sharp teeth the little man turned in a panic and rushed out upon the water, for other menacing growls told him more bears were near.

When your invisible creatures are also a weird color, that's attention to detail. Sadly, these quotes are from other Oz stories, not in the current movie. But the movie was still pretty good, and maybe if it does well we will get a whole series of Oz movies. I hope so anyway.

New Tale of Zatoichi, from 1963. Eleven great minutes from a movie you've probably never seen before.