Category: Books and Literature

The Strange Case of Randolph Peterson

Recently my local pizzeria – a place I buy far too many dinners from – underwent a major renovation. As part of this they got rid of the plastic outdoor furniture that was doing service as a place to wait for one’s order and installed a couple of luxurious dining booths, upholstered in funky vinyl decorated with a pattern of reproduced newspaper articles and Cuban postage stamps (yes, you read that right – Cuban postage stamps).

One of these articles has been catching my eye each time I’ve visited, and I here reproduce what parts of it are visible beneath other articles and stamps commemorating Columbus’s voyage to the new world…

MYSTERIOUS DISPARITION [sic]

Randolph Peterson, citizen of Boston that was living at the 138 Lane Street, is said disapeared [sic] since November 18. Randolph Peterson lived in Boston during his young times. At the age of 12 he contracted a strange and very severe illness that grag [sic] him in the coma for one full year. At the age of 13 he waked [sic] up from his coma, the illness was miraculously gone but he suffered of amnesia and had difficulty to readapt [sic] himself to a normal life. This ilness [sic] also left […] Some years ago he went to Africa to pursue some studies on pagan cults and living habits in some Afri- […]of still […] he […]u  ive[…] an inspect […] up soon to atr[…] him by the local authorities. If you have any information about where Randol-

What initially attracted my notice to this rather fragmentary account was the combination of extremely Lovecraftian elements, to wit a strange disappearance, New England, the name ‘Randolph’, a mysterious illness, amnesia and pagan cults. It almost read like a retread of The Shadow Out of Time! So I hurried home (once I had my pizza and garlic bread) and started Googling, confident that I would soon uncover whatever piece of sub-Derleth fan fiction the article derived from…

But… nothing….

I have been entirely unable to find any instance of Randolph Peterson and his mysterious vanishing anywhere online.

So, where did it come from?

Assuming that it wasn’t thrown together by some graphic designer on a Cthulhu binge I rather suspect that it may be a genuine article collected from an African newspaper. The rest of the articles used on the pattern appear genuine, and although I’m no linguist the slightly eccentric English has – to me – a distinctly African feeling to it, constructions such as “readapt himself” and “suffered of amnesia” . Randolph Peterson does not appear to exist anywhere on the internet, so I imagine it’s a fairly old article, even though some of the others appear quite recent (one concerns online music teaching).

So there the mystery must rest. Was Randolph Peterson ever real, and if so, what happened to him?

We may never know.

On Oil Guzzling Spiders

Sometimes while wandering the lanes and byways of the internet one comes across information too fascinating to be ignored – even if it is of dubious immediate utility.

For instance, consider this extract from Volume 88 of the Edinburgh Magazine and Literary Miscellany (1821)

The sexton of the church of St Eustace, at Paris, amazed to find frequently a particular lamp extinct early, and yet the oil consumed only, sat up several nights to perceive the cause. At length he detected that a spider of surprising size came down the cord to drink the oil. A still more extraordinary instance of the same kind occurred during the year 1751, in the Cathedral of Milan. A vast spider was observed there, which fed on the oil of the lamps. M. Morland, of the Academy of Sciences, has described this spider, and furnished a drawing of it. It weighed four pounds, and was sent to the Emperor of Austria, and is now in the Imperial Museum at Vienna.

What, I ask, is to be done about that?

Kim Newman’s Vampire Romance – Annotations

Update: Thank you Mr Newman for taking an interest in this project, and supplying a few tips! I am not worthy! ;D

One of my favourite things about Kim Newman’s Anno Dracula series is reading the annotations – both those Mr Newman provides himself, and the ones various people have put together online.

Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find any annotations for the highly entertaining novella Vampire Romance. So I figured, why not produce some myself?

Now, when it comes to scholarship I am a dilettante at best. I’m not going to be searching through dusty tomes to track down every single reference. I shall instead mostly be throwing names and terms at Professor Google and seeing what comes back. And I’m not going to be spending huge slabs of time – I’ll just do a chapter here and there. It’s a long (or at least prolonged) project to which I shall be making occasional updates. So don’t expect the whole thing to be complete any time soon! But do check back now and then.

So without any further ado, here we go…

Chapter 1: Genevieve Bobs Her Hair

The chapter title is take from Bernice Bobs Her Hair, a 1920 short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Genevieve is of course Mr Newman’s original vampire character  Geneviève Dieudonné – specifically Geneviève Sandrine d’Isle Dieudonné, as opposed to her other versions (or “trans-continual cousins”) from Newman’s other series.

…Her appointment at M. Eugene was for just after sunset…

M Eugene is Eugene Suter, a Swiss immigrant who along with Isidoro Calvete popularised the perm in post WWI London.

…The salon was Cox and Box…

“Cox and Box”, meaning “to take turns” derives from a comedic play Box and Cox – A Romance of Real Life in One Act by John Maddison Morton, first produced in 1847. It concerns two boarders unknowingly sharing a room, one during the day and one at night and the chaos that ensues when they discover each other. It was adapted into a comic opera Cox and Box by F. C. Burnand and Arthur Sullivan in 1866.

…the pre-broken ‘Transylvanian’ crenelations of Tower Bridge…

Tower Bridge was constructed between 1886 and 1894 in a Victorian Gothic style. Prince Consort Dracula obviously had more influence on its design – and perhaps sped up the construction – in the AD universe.

…the ugly bat frescoes of the Sir Francis Varney Memorial…

Sir Francis Varney (from Varney the Vampire; or, the Feast of Blood, published as a serial between 1845 and 1847) was Governor of India under Dracula and came to a rather nasty end during the Prince Consort’s overthrow. The timeline doesn’t work out, but I can’t help but wonder if the Varney Memorial takes the place of our universe’s Albert Memorial.

…She loitered over a thimble of mouse-blood in the Maison Lyons on Shaftsbury Avenue…

J. Lyons and Co. was a restaurant, hotel and food manufacturing company founded in 1884 and eventually shutting down in 1981. In addition to a chain of tea shops they ran a number of more upmarket art deco ‘corner houses’ including the Maison Lyonses at Marble Arch and on Shaftsbury Avenue.

…Now, it was cocktails at the Criterion and a rag at the Troc…

The Criterion is the Criterion Restaurant at Picadilly Circus. The “Troc” is the Trocadero, another restaurant operated by J. Lyons and Co.

…the warm English comedian was ‘the Little Vamp’…

Charlie Chaplin’s ‘Little Vamp’ character is of course our universe’s ‘Little Tramp’.

…In the two-reeler One P.M…

One P.M. replaces One A.M. a 1916 comedy in which Chaplin depicts a drunk encountering various mishaps stumbling his way to bed (and eventually falling asleep in the bath!).

…posters advertising Oxo concentrated blood cubes, ‘Nutrax for Nerves’ and NetherBeast gramaphones…

Oxo cubes are concentrated beef stock, first produced in 1910 and still available today. Nutrax is a nerve tonic that features in the Dorothy Sayers Lord Peter Wimsey mystery novel Murder Must Advertise. NetherBeast is a reference to the 2007 office comedy movie Netherbeast Incorporated, which is based around a telephone company staffed by the undead.

…Kink-limbed and -backed stick-figure men followed a leader…

The Crook’s cypher would appear to be a reference to the Sherlock Holmes story The Adventure of the Dancing Men. As Holmes exists in the AD universe it is not out of the question that the Crook was inspired to create his cypher by the one in Holmes’s case (or vice-versa given the Crook’s extended history).

…even scientific thinkers like Edmond Cordery…

Edmund Cordery is from The Empire of Fear by Brian Stableford. He researches the scientific causes of vampirism in an alternate 17th century ruled by vampires (it does not end well for him).

…Max Planck’s Black Blood Refractive Postulate of 1902…

In our universe physicist Max Planck investigated black body radiation. In the AD universe his research was obviously a bit more esoteric.

…straightening curls with terrifying Heath Robinson contraptions…

William Heath Robinson (1872-1944) was an English cartoonist who became famous for illustrations of elaborate and ridiculous contraptions – similar to the American Rube Goldberg. He is mentioned as designing armaments for the British in The Bloody Red Baron – presumably he did his cartoons on the side.

…The warm blonde girl – Miss Bunting, according to her nametag…

Miss Bunting is Daisy Bunting, played by June Tripp in the 1927 silent Alfred Hitchcock film The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog. The movie (and the novel it is based on) are centered on the hunt for a Jack the Ripper style serial killer.

…back numbers of  The Tatler somewhat surprisingly piled in Charles Beauregard’s Chelsea house…

The Tatler is a magazine focusing on high society and politics first published in 1901. Charles Beauregard is of course Mr Newman’s original character who features in many of the Anno Dracula and Diogenes Club stories.

…recognised the daughter of the millionaire Percy Browne…

Percy Browne should not be confused with British politician of that name who was born in 1923 and would hence would be a few months old at best at the time of the story. He is instead the millionaire father of Polly Browne from the 1954 musical The Boy Friend. Polly was portrayed by the model Twiggy in the 1971 movie adaption.

…She’d personally battened on half the young the young bloods in the Drones…

The Drones can be presumed to be the Drones Club from the works of P. G. Wodehouse – the first of many Wodehouse references in this story.

…Ivor Novello was carrying on with the drag artiste Handel Fane…

Ivor Novello (1893-1951) was a Welsh composer and actor and one of the most popular British entertainers of the first half of the 20th century. In a nice touch he stared as the title character in the already mentioned Hitchcock film The Lodger. Handel Fane (played by Esme Percy) is the cross dressing actor and killer in the 1930 Hitchcock film Murder!

…the organist Anton Phibes…

Anton Phibes is the title character – portrayed by the great Vincent Price – from the 1971 horror comedy film The Abominable Doctor Phibes. In the movie he is believed to have died in a car crash in 1921 but secretly survived with horrific injuries. Perhaps in the AD universe he overcame these by turning?

…a skirmish with Countess Verdel…

Countess Verdel (AKA ‘Ejacula’) was portrayed by Patricia Kennedy in the porn films Ejacula, la vampira and Ejacula 2, both from 1992 (thanks Mr Newman!).

…reading the latest number of British Pluck…

I can’t find anything specific for British Pluck either, although a collection of articles from The Boys Own Paper titled The Best of British Pluck was published in 1977 – perhaps suggesting that’s the name of the publication in the AD universe.

…Next up was a floppy haired male dandy…

I strongly suspect that this is Dorian Grey. Oscar Wilde of course appears in Anno Dracula, but Grey is too good a character to leave out on that kind of technicality!

…Bywaters had gone to the gallows… …Thompson was hanged too…

Frederick Bywaters and Edith Thompson were executed in January 1923 for the murder of Thompson’s husband Percy. They had been having an affair and exchanged letters in which Edith encouraged Bywaters to “so something desperate” to free her from Percy. Despite Thompson carrying out the deed by himself – and a petition for mercy signed by almost a million people – they were both convicted and hanged.

…The dreadful Dr Sheppard, guilty of the Ackroyd murder...

Dr Sheppard is from Agatha Christie’s third Hercule Poirot novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, published in 1926.

…Caroline Reboux must do a roaring trade…

Caroline Reboux (1837-1927), the “Queen of the Milliners” was a French milliner and fashion designer.

…figure-flattening Eulalie Soeurs slips…

Eulalie Soeurs is the name of the lingerie shop owned by would be fascist dictator Roderick Spode in P. G. Wodehouse’s works. There will be more about him later.

…Garrard & Co. carried strings of all-black pearls…

Garrad & Co. are a famous London jewellery manufacturer founded in 1735.

…He stood near the door, waiting for her…

The man by the door is Edwin Winthrop, another of Mr Newman’s recurrent characters. He first appeared and is a major character in The Bloody Red Baron.

That’s it for Chapter 1!

Chapter 2: Mildew Manor

I am unable to find a specific reference for Mildew Manor, although it seems a somewhat common phrase on certain hotel review websites.

…bloody Aunt Agatha…

Aunt Agatha is Agatha Gregson, Bertie Wooster’s fearsome and least favourite aunt in P. G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster stories. Bertie claims that she “kills rats with her teeth” and “is strongly suspected of turning into a werewolf at the time of the full moon”. In the AD universe either or both may be literally true!

…to vampire eyes, human veins throbbing red and blue in the moonlight…

If it wasn’t for the fact that the movie came out two years after the publication of Vampire Romance I’d suspect this description of vampiric sight was taken from the rather dull 2014 movie Dracula Untold.

…She’d heard that from Cousin Bertie…

Bertie Wooster himself, requiring ‘someone’ to take him firmly in hand.

…Miss Carlotta Francis, éditrice of The Dark Flame…

Carlotta Francis is taken from an episode of Law and Order: Criminal Intent. She wrote a series of vampire novels (featuring a ‘Lord Fantomas’) in the 1950s before committing suicide. There seems to be a remarkable level of interest in her online with people searching for her (entirely fictional) books.

…Rudolf Valentino as Magnus in The Count, the film of the famous novel by Elinor Glyn…

Rudolph Valentino (1895-1926) was one of the first movie idols, who was already a sensation before his untimely death at age 31 sent his female fans into hysteria. One of his most popular films was 1921’s The Sheik – based on the novel by Edith Maude Hull – in which he played an imperious Arab who abducts a headstrong white woman (who then naturally falls in love with him). The Count is clearly the AD universe’s version of the film – the plot described is an amalgam of The Sheik and elements from classic vampire and mummy films.

The name ‘Count Magnus’ may be taken from the M. R. James story of the same name, featuring the undead (or something) Swedish Count Magnus de la Gardie. Or it may refer to the vampire lord Count Magnus Lee from the Japanese manga series Vampire Hunter D.

Elinor Glyn (1864 – 1943) was a British novelist and screenwriter who popularised the concept of It (in terms of charisma and sexual magnetism). She wrote a series of romantic novels that scandalised polite society and then moved on to screenplays in 1919. Valentino starred alongside Gloria Swanson in the film version of her novel Beyond the Rocks in 1922.

…Lady Diana, played by the kohl-eyed Norma Desmond…

Norma Desmond is the eccentric/insane washed-up silent movie star portrayed by Gloria Swanson in Billy Wilder’s classic 1950 film Sunset Boulevard. Mr Newman is clearly having a ball with his references here.

…The Dark Flame hinted the Italian actor had turned in secret for the role…

Given the unpredictable effects of vampirism on mirrors and film in the AD universe this would be an incredibly risky move for an actor!

..rat-ears, wolf-fangs, enlarged and almost hairless skulls, talons and long, long faces…

A fine description of Max Schreck as Count Orlok in the 1922 Dracula rip-off Nosferatu. I guess this makes The Count the AD version of The Sheik, On the Rocks, and Nosferatu all at once!

Orlok himself of course appears in Anno Dracula and The Bloody Red Baron.

…and is English-born to boot…

Valentino’s Sheik turns out to be respectably English as well, rather than a nasty foreigner.

…whereas Madame Glyn writes that the Count impatiently tears off her nightie altogether…

The movie version of The Sheik attracted some criticism from fans of the novel for omitting a rape scene.

…the (drippy, if appealingly floppy-haired) violin virtuoso Ralph Levé…

I can’t track down anything regarding this student of Paganini. I have an inkling I’m missing something extremely obvious…

…George Valentin as Rupert of Hentzau in The Vampyres of Zenda…

Anthony Hope’s popular 1894 adventure novel The Prisoner of Zenda invented the Mitteleuropean kingdom of Ruritania, from whence hail several characters in the AD universe (including Rupert himself who turns up in Anno Dracula). Versions were filmed in 1913, 1915 and 1922, the latter presumably the version referenced here. One wonders if the AD version of the story is at least semi-historically accurate.

George Valentin is a silent movie start who encounters problems moving to sound in the 2011 film The Artist. Jean Dujardin won the Best Actor award at the 2012 Oscars for the role.

…stiff Lord Godalming (Lewis Stone)…

Lord Godalming is of course from Dracula and one of the major characters in Anno Dracula. Given that he was framed for the Silver Knife/Jack the Ripper murders it seems a bit strange to have him appear as a movie hero – perhaps Sherlock Holmes spread word of his innocence after the events of The Bloody Red Baron?

Lewis Stone (1879-1953) played the title role (Rudolf Rassendyll) in the 1922 version of The Prisoner of Zenda.

…to begin serialising Son of the Count…

The Son of the Sheik was the 1925 sequel to The Sheik written by Edith Maude Hull. Presumably Elinor Glyn got her sequel written a bit faster. It was filmed in 1926 with Rudolph Valentino reprising his role, as well as taking on the title character. It was Valentino’s last film – he collapsed and died while on a promotional tour two weeks before its premiere.

…Otterbourne’s Nitelite Saga…

Salome Otterbourne is a romance novelist from Agatha Christie’s 1937 Hercule Poirot novel Death on the Nile. Her saga full of glittering vampires and swooning heroines can only be the AD version of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight Saga (as such it’s a shame Jacqueline de Bellefort didn’t shoot her a couple of decade earlier…).

…Banks’s Mal de Mer mysteries…

Rosie M. Banks is a romance novelist from the Jeeves and Wooster stories of P. G. Wodehouse. Her habit giving characters names like ‘Snookie’ and ‘Lurlene’ suggests her works are the AD version of Charlaine Harris’s Southern Vampire Mysteries, (featuring Sookie Stackhouse) which have been adapted into the HBO television series True Blood.

…Vanes’s Vampyrrhic Chronicles…

Harriet Vane is a mystery writer and later wife of Lord Peter Wimsey in the works of Dorothy L. Sayers. Her books written from the vampire’s point of view and full of long lectures on ancient history and Roman Catholicism must be Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles. One wonders if Lestat de Lioncourt – who has a cameo in Anno Dracula – features.

…Bram Stoker’s what-might-have-been novel…

Dracula of course!

…articles by Dione Fortune or Luna Bartendale…

Dione Fortune (1890-1946) was one of the most significant and influential occultists of the 20th century. She wrote a vast number of articles and books on occult and magical themes, and several occult novels.

Luna Bartendale is an occult detective created by Jessie Douglas Kerruish. She appeared in 1936’s The Undying Monster where she displays a number of psychic powers.

And that’s chapter 2!

Chapter 3: ‘Tell Tom Tildrum that Tim Toldrum’s Dead…’

The chapter title is from the traditional English folk tale The King of the Cats. In the story – first recorded in 1553 – a traveler hears a mysterious voice say “Tell Tom Tildrum that Tim Toldrum’s Dead”. On arrival at his destination he recounts this to his hosts, at which point their cat leaps up, says “Then I am King of the Cats!”, and vanishes up the chimney never to be seen again.

…’Sergeant Dravot,’ she acknowledged…

Sergeant Daniel Dravot is from Rudyard Kipling’s 1888 short story The Man Who Would be King. In the tale he and an associate carve out a small kingdom in remote Afghanistan by posing as gods, but their scheme is undone when Dravot is bitten by a local girl, revealing through his bleeding that he is merely a man. He is executed by being thrown into a gorge (it is tempting to suspect that in the AD universe the girl was a vampire, and Dravot  revived as one of the undead after making the plunge).

Dravot was portrayed by Sean Connery in the 1975 movie of the story.

As an employee of the Diogenes Club Dravot has a recurring role in AD works.

…How long had the Diogenes Club been keeping this eye on her?…

The Diogenes Club was introduced by Arthur Conan Doyle in the 1893 Sherlock Holmes story The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter. In the Holmes stories it is merely a (somewhat unusual) gentleman’s club, however many writers have re-interpreted it as a front for British Intelligence due to its connections with Sherlock’s older brother Mycroft.

In addition to including the club in the Anno Dracula universe Mr Newman has written a series of other works focusing on it, featuring alternative versions of many AD characters.

…But also Katharine Reed…

Journalist Katherine Reed was created by Bram Stoker for Dracula, but later cut. Mr Newman resurrected her in Anno Dracula and she has featured in his AD works ever since.

…Jennifer Chevalier… Grace Ki, the Ghost Lantern Girl… Lady Jane Ainsley…

I have not had much luck tracking down Jennifer Chevalier – it’s apparently a very common name in the real world! A Jennifer Knight appears in the 1980s classic Knight Rider but this could simply be coincidence.

Grace Ki, the Ghost Lantern Girl appears to be Mr Newman original and is mentioned as a former student in The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange.

Lady Jane Ainsley is portrayed by Frieda Inescort in 1943’s The Return of the Vampire – an unofficial Dracula sequel starring Bela Lugosi as Armand Tesla (who shows up elsewhere in the AD universe). The first part of the film is set around 1920 and sees Lady Jane defeat Tesla – presumably this incident bought her to the attention of the Diogenes Club.

…If Harold Lloyd does it they give him the key to the city…

Harold Clayton Lloyd, Sr. (1893-1971) was a famous comedy actor and stunt performer. He is best remembered today for the iconic clock dangling scene in 1923’s Safety Last! Genevieve’s comment may simply be referencing the movie, but it’s equally possible that in the AD universe Lloyd climbed buildings in real life rather than just on film.

…my friend Catriona Kaye…

Catriona Kaye is one of Mr Newman’s original characters, first mentioned as Winthrop’s fiance in The Bloody Red Baron. Winthrop may be being coy by calling her his “friend” or his experiences during the way may have altered their relationship.

…the Cult of Saamri…

Saamri is a black magician who rises from the dead to take revenge on his murderers in the 1985 Bollywood horror film 3D Saamri. He was played by Anirudh Agarwal who also portrayed the similarly named undead monster Samri in the previous year’s Purana Mandir. The later is perhaps more likely to be the entity worshiped by the cult.

== To be continued! ==

Books they Made Me Read at High School

Macbeth by William Shakespeare (Pretty good!)

The Legends of King Arthur by someone who I can’t quite remember  (Plenty of fun to be had here)

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin (Two words – Kick. Arse!)

The Collected Poems of Bruce Dawe (Moving along…)

Hamlet by William Shakespeare (Awesome!)

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (OK, but a bit long winded)

Tess of the D’Urbevilles by Thomas Hardy (Not bad)

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams (The Simpsons did it better)

The Go Between by L. P. Hartley (The past is a foreign country. They write fucking terrible novels there.)

Audio Ghosts

I’ve spent a fair bit of time this weekend figuring out how to properly edit audio with Audacity. Which means the first episode of my and Rebecca’s podcast should be out soon!

(What is the correct grammar for collective personal ownership? Rebecca and my’s? Rebecca’s and mine? My education is failing me!)

In the meantime here’s a new shot of one of my other projects, building Lego minifigures of characters from Dan Abnett’s Gaunt’s Ghosts novels. This group shot contains the first glimpse of two new minifigs – Inquisitor Golesh Constantine Pheppos Heldane (who also appears in the Eisenhorn novels) and Lady Ulrike Serepa fon Eyl from Blood Pact. Heldane is one of the oldest minifigs in the project, but I’ve never been 100% happy with him. Lady Eyl is the newest, and isn’t 100% done yet. But I decided to have them join the party anyway.

Gaunt's Ghosts
Click for Bigness

That’s all I got to say for now!

Stalingrad Tank Trap

Happy new year one and all! Let’s hope this year is somewhat less vicious when it comes to beloved celebrities and musicians.

Anyway, back in 2000 a Russian DJ by the name of Oleg Kvasha had a hit in Russia with a fairly generic dance track titled зеленоградское такси. For those of you unable to read Cyrillic (what are you doing with your life?) that’s Zelenogradskoe Taksi or Green City Taxi – although it often seems to be referred to as Zelenoglazoe Taksi instead which means Green-Eyed Taxi. Here it is…

Not long afterwards musician and TV presenter Aleksandr Pushnoy re-recorded a bunch of popular Russian pop  and dance songs in the style of scary German Neue Deutsche Härte band Rammstein – including of course Zelenoglazoe Taksi. And the result is glorious! 😀

The video – despite fitting so well – isn’t original to the song. It’s the intro from a 1994 computer game, the Doom clone Quarantine. In this game you play a post-apocalyptic taxi driver picking up and delivering passengers around the crazed streets of Kemo City, shooting up and running down attacking psychopaths with a variety of vehicle mounted weapons all the while. You know, good old fashioned fun.

Jumping forwards to 2007, the Austrian group Global Deejays released their own remix of the song, titled Zelenoglazoe Taxi…

What’s interesting about this is that I strongly suspect it’s the inspiration for Stalingrad Tank Trap, a track mentioned in Ben Aaronovitch’s Peter Grant novel Whispers Underground…

I put my ear against the cold metal of the nearest door – the bass rumble was enough for me to identify the track.

‘”Stalingrad Tank Trap”,’ I said. ‘By Various Artiz.’

I like a bit of drum and bass to dance to, but Various Artiz were notorious for cranking out one identikit track after another – they were as close to mainstream as you could get on the club circuit without turning up on a Radio Two playlist.

My logic is as follows.The original name of the track referenced the Russian city of Zelenograd, hence “Zelenograd” = “Stalingrad”. “Tank Trap” sounds suspiciously similar to “Taxi”. Naming your group “Global Deejays” is only slightly less inane and generic than “Various Artiz”, and from what I can gather the general opinion of Global Deejays is pretty much as Peter narrates in the extract above. Quod Erat Demonstrandum!

Maybe I should tweet Mr Aaronovitch about it? Or maybe not 🙂

To quote the Propellerheads – that is all!

Campbell Country

Of late, thanks to an absolutely insane game of Arkham Horror we played up at Fabes’ place using every expansion, I’ve been renewing my familiarity with the Cthulhu Mythos works of English horror writer Ramsey Campbell.

Campbell is interesting because he started out as a teenager writing awful imitations of Lovecraft, which he had the guts (or naivete) to send to August Derleth for publication. Derleth sent them back telling him to knock it off with the ridiculous language and to set his stories in England rather than try to set them in Lovecraft’s  Massachusetts. Campbell did this and Derleth subsequently accepted some of them for his anthologies. This led to the publication of the short story collection The Inhabitant of the Lake and Other Less Welcome Tenants in 1964 when Campbell was just 18.

Campbell continued to write Lovecraftian tales while gradually developing his own voice, one heavily influenced by the devastated post-war urban landscape he’d grown up with in Liverpool. For a period he turned against Lovecraft, penning a essay condemning his work, although he was later to note that he was really condemning his own reliance on it. But he returned to the Cthulhian fold after a few years, writing new stories in his now fully developed and distinctive personal style.

Reading through his Mythos works it’s fascinating to watch this style develop. The early stories – such as The Room in the Castle – are straight up pastiches, but as you progress along the timeline you start to detect a change in the tone. By the time you get to The Franklyn Paragraphs and Before the Storm you’re reading something very different and when you finally arrive at The Faces at Pine Dunes or The Voice of the Beach it’s had to believe it’s the same author.

But anyway, I didn’t come to talk about the progression of Campbell’s style – fascinating though it is. I came to talk about Campbell Country.

August Derleth advised Campbell not to use the New England setting of Lovecraft’s stories (nowdays often referred to as ‘Lovecraft Country’) but to set his stories in England. Campbell took this advice and created his own little patch of cosmic horror and ancient secrets along the east side of Severn river in Gloucestershire, the area now known to Mythos fans as ‘Campbell Country’.

This area – centered around the fictional university city of Brichester – has everything a Mythos aficionado could want. Ancient ruins, tombs and temples, crumbling towns with dark secrets, blasphemous alien sites, strange inbred locals, the whole Lovecraftian shebang.

But, there’s a problem. In the space between the Severn river and the Cotswold escarpment there simply isn’t room for all the desolate landscapes and isolated places Campbell placed there.

I figured this out back in the 90’s when I compared the map provided in the Chaosium Made in Goatswood anthology with Ordnance Survey maps of the area. There’s really no way to make it all fit without a horde of Tomb Herds to warp the dimensions. Nonetheless I decided – with all the resources of the 21st century (ie: Google Earth) – to take a shot at mapping Campbell Country anyway.

I’m ignoring the spacing problem. To make it work I think you need to double all the distances, so make of that what you will. Instead I’ve simply figured out where to place the various settlements based on the original map from The Inhabitant of the Lake, the revised one from Made in Goatswood and various ones from the Call of Cthulhu role playing game. My conclusions are as follows,

Brichester: The great (and – in parts – greatly decayed) city of Brichester is at the heart of Campbell Country, and at the heart of its geographic problems. Campbell’s stories make it clear that Brichester is a major population centre – comparable to Gloucester – but there simply isn’t room for it! If you transplanted Gloucester to the location of Brichester there’d be nothing but houses from the Severn to the Cotswolds, with no room left for the isolated lakes, dark forests and strange villages that make up Campbells’s oeuvre.

But no matter. The maps allow us to place the centre of Brichester in the vicinity of Breadstone, close to where the A38 crosses the Sharpness/Gloucester rail line. The Lake of Glaaki, the Devil’s Steps and the Plain of Sound would all be located to the north within the triangle formed between the A38, the canal and Riddle Street.

Camside: The location of Camside is slightly problematic. The maps place it more or less on top of Stinchcombe, but this a good two kilometres away from the river Cam. Some of them deal with this by running a tributary of the Cam (named the Cambrook) through the town, but to my mind the easiest solution is to remove the real world conglomeration of Cam, Dursley and Woodfield and drop the much smaller Camside in their place.

Clotton: Clotton is actually quite easy to place. The maps put it slap bang on top of  the real world village of Claypits, just off the A38. We just need to add the river Ton (flowing from the vicinity of Temphill), down to the Severn,  and we’re done.

Goatswood and Temphill: Goatswood and Temphill are usually depicted as fairly close to each other, so they might as well be considered together. The maps tend to place them in the vicinity of Far Green, but this poses problems. Goatswood (as the name suggests) is supposed to be surrounded by dense woods, and both towns are usually described as being in the Cotswolds. There are no suitable woods anywhere near Far Green, and while it sits close to the Cotswold escarpment it’s not within the Cotswolds proper.

My suggested solution would be to move the towns slightly further east, placing Goatswood between Uley and Owlpen, and Temphill at Nympsfield. The town of Uley would need to be extirpated and its valley filled with woods, but this would at least place Goatswood’s Roman constructions in context with the real world Roman temple complex at West Hill.

The cone of the insects from Shaggai could be put literally anywhere in the valley. I’d suggest in one of the vales below Temphill.

Severnford: Severnford (and Old Severnford on the far side of the river) could happily be placed in one of three locations. It might be the Campbell Country version of Sharpness – which would make sense given the mention of docks and warehouses – in which case we can simply change the name and be done with it. Some maps however place it slightly north of Sharpness – which could make it an extension of the town and its maritime facilities.

Alternatively (my preferred option) it could replace Purton, which has the advantage that west bank Purton could stand for Old Severnford and the east bank Severnford proper.

(The Made in Goatswood map places Severnford north of Purton, but that’s clearly madness!)

Warrendown: Warrendown is one of the most recent additions to Campbell Country, appearing for the first time in Campbell’s slightly tongue in cheek The Horror Under Warrendown – his contribution to the 1995 Made in Goatswood anthology. The maps that feature it appear to place it in the vicinity of Oxlynch – although – given the nature of its inhabitants – it’s tempting to instead place it at nearby Haresfield 🙂

So there you go. My best guess at making sense of Campbell Country. If you get lost now you’ve only got yourself (or that Tomb Herd under Temphill) to blame!

Stand Still, Stay Silent

Stumbled over a new webcomic this week. Well, not strictly speaking new, it’s been going since 2013, but it’s new to me, which is what matters in my small, self-centered world.

Titled Stand Still, Stay Silent it’s set 90 years after a plague wiped out most of the world’s population and transformed almost all mammals into hideous abominations. Civilisation survives in Iceland and a few pockets of Scandinavia and Finland – the rest of the planet is left alone as “The Silent World”. The survivors have turned back to their ancient traditions and belief systems while still maintaining as much technology as possible, so it’s a world of tanks, trains and assault rifles paired with runes and spells – except for those crazy Swedes and Danes who don’t believe in magic. And cats. Cats are important.

Here’s a map

The story is that of the first expedition out into the Silent World. The first badly funded and under-trained mission, whose real job isn’t actually to explore, it’s to make money or (more likely) die trying.

The plot is interesting, the setting is fascinating and the art is top notch. So go check it out! The prologue (set in the current day when the plague emerges) starts here, and the main plot here. You could probably skip the prologue if you really want to but there’s good background info in there, so don’t.

So check it out, and enjoy!

The Marble Paradise

As I have often commented on this blog, I am insane. Not “come at you with a tomahawk” insane, but certainly “do very strange and ill advised things” insane. Like attempting to rewrite Hamlet into rhyming couplets, or inventing the cheese shot. Well, I’ve started on another insane project – this time I’m aiming to learn more about the world created by Dmitry Glucovsky in his post-nuclear Metro 2033 series and teach myself German at the same time by re-translating the German translation of Sergey Kuznetsov’s мраморный раи into English.

Now I’m not going to do anything as crass as take a German course. That’s for sane people. No, I’m teaching myself the language by squinting at Google translate, beating myself around the head with Barron’s German-English Pocket Dictionary and occasionally sending begging emails to my friend Matt.

It’s slow progress, but it does actually seem to be working. I’m starting to recognise words and I’m sometimes able to figure out the general gist of a sentence. It’s going to be a long time before I’m singing along at Oktoberfest, but at least it’s giving me something to do and will probably have some kind of long term neurological benefit. Or something.

In any case, I thought I’d post my translation of the book’s introduction. So strap yourself in for a slightly-awkwardly-phrased journey through the harsh streets of post-nuclear Russia in Sergey Kuznetsov’s The Marble Paradise…

THE MARBLE PARADISE

by Sergey Kuznetsov
Translated from the Russian by Anja Freckman
Translated from the German by Denys the Purple Wyrm

The author dedicates this book to the shining memory of his father

Prologue

A long time ago, many years ago, there was a city here.

It was an ordinary, not particularly large provincial town. The inhabitants were simple people, some educated, some less so. They led orderly, peaceful lives, had times both good and bad, watched their children do the chores, and had a drink from time to time. They managed their lives and their city as best as they could. Some found work in the town, others commuted many hours to Moscow and back and cursed the travel time and crowded railway carriages.

Their city drowned in greenery and its squares, parks and well tended gardens were a welcoming sight. It was especially beautiful in the Indian summer when it was wreathed in every conceivable shade of yellow and red. In late autumn and in winter it was gray and monotonous, yet it still radiated its own particular warmth and coziness. On the long winter evenings the lights burnt in the homes, on the streets the lamps shone one by one in long garlands, and from the air the town looked like a giant, fully lit Christmas tree.

Now…

Now there was no longer a city. All that remained were meaningless, jumbled boxes of abandoned homes with smashed windows, torn-off doors, and power lines hanging limply between crooked, semi-collapsed power poles. Steel rods poked from the torn walls of ruined buildings like exposed bone. Across all was smeared lichen and the green-brown stain of moss. Through the cracked asphalt grass and bushes poked, and the playgrounds were overgrown with high weeds. The summer dressed rusted cars and buses in a cloak of dusty reddish green. That that could rot, decay or dissolve had – over the years – rotted, decayed and dissolved.

On this day the houses were covered by a thin layer of fresh snow, which had fallen overnight for the first time this year. It was a strange snow, light blue-gray. But not even the snow could conceal the aberrance of this world. In the dead city terrifying new residents had emerged. People had not lived here for a long time. Except…

Through the dead town staggered a man, swaying like a drunk. His dark blue radiation suit was badly torn – three deep, bloody furrows ran across the back from shoulder to waist, as if three sharpened blades had sliced in one stroke through the rubberized cloth, the fur jacket and sweater beneath and into the man’s flesh. His chest and left shoulder showed other injuries and his right arm was soaked purple with blood – although it was perhaps not his own. Only the sturdy plastic helmet on his head and the expensive foreign respirator mask strapped across his face seemed intact.

The man was breathing heavily and awkwardly dragged himself in a strange zigzag path – any observer would have thought he was wandering aimlessly. But he had one goal – to escape as soon as possible from this terrible place and reach the Military Academy. Because – he had heard – the basement levels of that facility housed a few other survivors. That would be his salvation, his only salvation. If he managed to reach it…

The man tried to concentrate, to remember: Who had attacked him? Who had he fought?

Something gigantic and grim-faced had attacked in a flash with tremendous force. The creature had pounced on him from behind, slashed him with those claws right through the suit, his clothes and – damn how his back was burning! He was losing blood and there was no way he could reach the wounds to patch them up. What if the beast had venomous claws? The second creature had knocked the gun out of his hands and would probably have demolished him with its next blow if he hadn’t had his army knife.

He’d driven the blade – a serrated-back Spetsnaz knife slightly smaller than a machete – forcefully into the monster’s gut and twisted. Both beasts seemed to lose interest and they… fled?

What happened next?

He couldn’t remember. His thoughts were confused. How had he entered the city? When? And what for?

The man couldn’t answer these questions. He remembered the battle, but tried in vain to recall the appearance of the creatures. Helpless, he gritted his teeth. Had the beasts thought he was dead? Why hadn’t they devoured him? After they’d left he must have lain unconscious for a while. He’d only come back to himself when he was already wandering through the city.

He collapsed repeatedly from exhaustion, lying on the ground, trying to get up again, but every time he staggered painfully to his feet he found that he’d lost more strength than the brief rest had granted him.

Twilight settled over the city. He looked around in alarm.

He slid his right hand in its torn glove under the protective suit to the handle of the knife, which hung in a short sheath on the belt of his jacket. He heard – or did he imagine? – sounds that made the blood in his veins falter: howls, yelps, growls, and sometimes a smack and a short angry roar, as if unknown predators were fighting for prey.

He glanced around startled, but couldn’t see anything living.

The wind came up and it started to snow again. With each step, his strength waned, but he knew that he could no longer spare the time to rest, not even for a few seconds – he had to hurry. An hour ago he could ignore the pain in his back, but now the wounds were burning like crazy. It almost felt like insects were crawling in them. He grunted and shrugged. The temperature had dropped considerably with nightfall and the cold was creeping into him through the slits in the suit.

The ruined buildings swam before his eyes, and his vision doubled as his sight dimmed. He laboriously set one foot after another, his legs were like wood and barely obeyed him. Suddenly he clearly heard a voice. Mechanically he turned towards the speaker only to find there was not a soul there.

But the twilight hissed around him, shouted, howled, and the sounds were getting closer…

He had almost left the city behind him.

It was dark.

His hand clasped the grip of the army knife.

His foot caught on a piece of broken asphalt. He tripped, and fell hard onto his back. The noises all around fell silent for a moment, and in that silence he heard, rather than felt, a sickening crunch from his left arm. When the pain arrived a few seconds later it was dull and grey.

His energy was spent. He tried rolling over onto his front like a beetle but a few attempts exhausted his last pitiful power reserves. They also knocked his knife loose and out of reach, which raised a small spark of anger in him – he would have liked to take at least one of the creatures with him into death.

As everything around him slowly sank into a fog, he realised just how carefully a large grey animal was slinking out of the nearby bushes, snuffling up his scent with its half-rat half-wolf snout, teeth bared and growling.

Then he lost consciousness.

Want to know what happens next? Learn German! 🙂

Close Bitnami banner
Bitnami