26 June 2009
Today’s Tabbloid
PERSONAL NEWS FOR riorio2@rogue-games.net
ROGUE FEED
Interview: Kevin Hendryx (Part
I)
JUN 26, 2009 12:01A.M.
The late 70s and early 80s were a time of massive growth at TSR, not just
in terms of the company’s output but also in terms of the staff it needed
in order to create all these new products. During that period, TSR hired a
number of talented young writers, editors, and designers, many of whom
were involved in the production of some of the most beloved gaming
products of the late Golden Age. One such designer was Kevin Hendryx,
whose lengthy answers to my questions about his time with TSR proved
both interesting and informative. Consequently, I have split up this
interview into two parts, with the second part appearing tomorrow.
1. How did you become involved in the hobby of roleplaying?
As an outgrowth of my wargaming pursuits (board and historical
miniatures). I was an avid player of Risk and other strategy games as a
kid and used to create my own pseudo-boardgames (the WWII Eastern
Front and the Peloponnesian War come to mind) based on hand-drawn
maps divided into squares and unit counters that moved like chess or
Stratego pieces. They were very crude and unsophisticated. Then I
discovered Avalon Hill’s classic wargames in a department store display
near the end of 1972, in Cincinnati, and my world was blown away.
My middle school cronies and I fell head over heels in love with this new
hobby; Strategy & Tactics magazine and SPI games soon followed. One
of my original gaming buddies was John Winkler, who later was a key
figure at Ral Partha (his high school D&D wizard became the company
namesake). Then my vagabond family moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, in
1973 and I was cut off from the gaming mainstream for a long time. I had
a handful of boardgaming pals, and discovered military miniatures
during this time via H.G. Wells’s Little Wars book and the old
Wargamer’s Digest magazine (which published my first professional
writings), but there was no organized group I was aware of and I felt very
isolated.
When I went to college (UT-Austin) in 1976 I finally encountered active
gaming groups, played a lot of boardgames in particular, and was
introduced to the original white box Dungeons & Dragons through my
roommate Edward Sollers (later to also work for TSR Hobbies) and
mutual friends. RPGs were still primarily an avocation of university
nerds at that time. I found the entire concept breathtaking in its
potential, even though we rarely created or played in anything more than
a hack ‘n’ slash, Monty Haul sort of milieu. Despite having the Temple of
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the Frog at our fingertips.
2. How did you come to be hired by TSR?
In early 1979 I answered an ad in the college newspaper from someone
who turned out to be Howard Thompson, president of Metagaming
Concepts, an Austin-based wargame publisher, who was looking for
experienced gamers to playtest and evaluate game designs being
submitted to his company for publication as MicroGames. He took me
on as a freelancer; I would pick up a couple of game prototypes every few
months, read the rules and try to play them (some were so raw this was
difficult), and submit a report detailing the good and bad points along
with recommendations for improvement.
I don’t remember any of the designs I evaluated ever being bought. Then
as now, 90% of what was received unsolicited was not publishable.
Occasionally I would be given a more polished design, something already
accepted for publication and only requiring development and rules
tweaking, like Ram Speed. In late 1979/early 1980, at Thompson’s
suggestion, I designed an original historical MicroGame called The Fury
of the Norsemen that Metagaming purchased.
During this period, D&D and its AD&D offspring were growing ever
more popular. I continued to play the game and collect the new books
and I began to write some short articles for Dragon magazine. In early
1980, I desperately needed a real job and began to consider the prospects
of working full-time in the game industry; TSR and SPI were actively
looking for designers and I applied at each. I never heard back from SPI
after my initial inquiries and application (which included
revising/rewriting the rules of an Avalon Hill classic in SPI format; SPI
were undergoing a lot of business problems then anyway, I later learned)
but I received encouraging notes from Gary Gygax and Kim Mohan from
TSR and then a telephone conference call/interview from Lake Geneva
with Lawrence Schick, Mike Carr, and Al Hammack, if memory serves.
They liked that I had experience with boardgames/wargames, since TSR
was interested in getting more involved in these fields, and that I was
already evaluating outside submissions and working with unpolished
designs, since they were planning to establish a Development Section
within their Product Development division to fulfill these functions. So I
was in. I took the $500 Thompson paid me for Fury of the Norsemen — I
dunned him for it on acceptance rather than on publication — hired a U-
Haul trailer, and in April 1980 my wife, Mary, and I ponderously hit the
trail to southern Wisconsin (where coincidentally I had lived before, in
Waukesha from 1970-71).
3. The majority of your credits while working for TSR are for
editing and development. What were your specific
responsibilities at the company?
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR riorio2@rogue-games.net 26 June 2009

Lawrence Schick can probably correct any faulty memories or timelines, TSR after I left and reworked by other people.) Following the
but as I remember, the Development Section was formed in early 1980, reorganization and staff “purges” of April 1981, the Development section
originally led by Al Hammack and then by Brian Pitzer, to serve as a was abolished and its responsibilities folded into Design or Production. I
waystation between the Design and Production sections. For in-house moved into the Design section, where I remained until I left the company
projects, the idea was to have an assembly line approach to game in September 1981. My general duties didn’t change very much in this
products: the designers would craft the initial prototype or manuscript time; I continued to do a mix of editing/development and original
and minimally playtest it to some degree. When the rough design was design, such as the Remember the Alamo! minigame (a dreadful game
satisfactory, it went to Development for intensive playtesting and constricted by format limitations; I’m sorry about this!)
troubleshooting, revision or augmentation where necessary, and final
draft of the game rules or manuscript text. Then the final components
went to Production, for oversight of typesetting, layout, copyediting,
proofreading and blueline corrections, and supervision of the actual
printing stage of publication.
ROGUE FEED
A lot of contributions were made at each stage and there was not always
a clear division of labor. The amount of work required might vary R.I.P.
depending on the nature of the project, the completeness (or lack JUN 25, 2009 08:29P.M.
thereof) of the original design, and format requirements or other
marketing aspects. Development also helped to proofread bluelines when The King of Pop is Dead.
Production was swamped; and Design or Production would help
Development playtest when required. Everybody pitched in with less Long live the King.
formal playtest sessions in the off-hours. Sometimes Development would
have to create extra material to flesh out an incomplete design; I
remember Evan Robinson and I compiling the clerical reference charts at
the back of Deities & Demigods one Saturday afternoon. I designed the
town sections of AD&D module A3 for commercial release and Paul
Reiche largely rewrote the Gamma World: Legion of Gold module from
a Gygax early draft, including designing from scratch all the three mini-
adventures; I then extensively edited the whole from the separate raw
drafts. (My original edited ms. was sold to a collector on the West Coast
in 1998.)

Most projects involved a lot of collaboration, which I very much enjoyed.

Some designers turned over better prepared manuscripts than others —
Lawrence Schick and Dave Cook, for example, were (and still are) very
thorough and precise; their work required little editing or “repairing.”
Other contributors were less careful or accomplished. Our section also
received, catalogued, and reviewed all the outside game submissions that
were sent to TSR by hopeful game designers. This work had a lower
priority than work on in-house projects but we did have to keep up with
it. We got all sorts of rubbish (hundreds of chess or checkers variants, for
example), lots of things in violation of copyright (e.g., games using
Tarzan, for which we held no license, or Monopoly spinoffs) and just lots
of poorly conceived or badly written RPG modules. But you never knew
when you might strike a vein of gold, so we made the attempt to sift
Micael Jackson
through everything that seemed to offer possibilities.
1958-2009

We actually played a few very intriguing games — an very nice abstract

Posted in Life Tagged: thoughts
strategy boardgame named Epaminondas comes to mind, it had been
self-published by the designer and looked very professional already, not
like the usual typescripts and cardstock boards — and were able to offer
encouragement to a number of young designers, some of whom I believe
went on to work in the business. There are probably modules published
after my time that had their genesis in that office. (Not to mention the
concepts or outlines that I submitted as designer that were retained by

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Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR riorio2@rogue-games.net
ROGUE FEED
The Dangers of Imitation
JUN 25, 2009 11:23A.M.
I’m in the midst of re-reading S.T. Joshi’s excellent The Rise and Fall of
the Cthulhu Mythos, a survey of the writings of both Lovecraft and his
successors, which advances a well-argued and (largely) convincing thesis
about which stories hold most true to Lovecraft’s esthetic and
philosophical visions. In his epilogue to the book, Joshi states the
following:
In the youthful writer, sedulous imitation can serve as a
valuable stepping-stone to the development of literary skills
that can be put to better use elsewhere; for the experienced
writer who seeks to mine Lovecraftian conceptions in a work
purporting to have independent aesthetic value, the exercise
can result in an augmentation of power and distinctiveness if
those conceptions are used within the framework of the
author’s own aesthetic vision. Samuel Johnson’s blunt axiom,
“No man ever became great by imitation,” remains true more
than two centuries after its utterance. But those writers who
do something more than mere imitation of Lovecraft have a
chance to produce work that will live, and deserve to live.
This quote struck a chord with me, because, in the old school movement,
the shadow of Gygax (and, to a lesser extent, Arneson) looms every bit as
large as does that of Lovecraft in the realm of cosmic horror fiction. The
shadow of TSR itself is similarly impressive and rightly so. In all of these
cases, there’s good reason that we look to the past for inspiration.
Goodness knows I do it all the time and one of the pillars on which this
blog is built is that the hobby needs to know more about its own history.
At the same time, as I’ve said before, I see a danger in the way many old
school products use past products as explicit models, right down to the
trade dress, typeface, and layout. I am nostalgic about the look of
products from 1979 too, but I worry that the fixation a lot of us have with
a very specific look only serves to lend ammunition to those who’d
dismiss the entire old school movement as nothing more than nostalgia
run amok. I would hate to see that happen any more than it already does,
which is why I’d much prefer to see less imitation and more inspiration.
The same holds true not just for presentation but for content. Joshi
quotes from an article by David E. Schulz called, “Who Needs the
‘Cthulhu Mythos’?” and there’s again some relevance for the old school
renaissance:
... the pseudomythological elements to which Lovecraft
referred were only part of the fictional background of his
stories. They were never the subject of his stories, but rather
part of the background against which the main action
occurred. That is to say, Lovecraft did not write about
Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth, the Necronomicon, or any of the other
places or creatures or books in his stories. The subjects of his
stories was typically the small place that man occupies in the
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26 June 2009
uncaring cosmos, and his fictional creatures were only part of
the means by which he sought to demonstrate that.
That’s the other danger inherent in imitation: the conflation of elements
intended to support content with the content itself. That’s why I am
(generally) much happier with material that has its own integrity and
doesn’t depend too much on what came before to provide context. Again,
I find myself guilty on this score, so I don’t mean to single anyone out
here. I know all too well the desire to pay homage to one’s personal
gaming past by recreating it in some form.
Lately, though, I’m finding that unsatisfactory, or at least insufficiently
satisfactory, which is why I’ve been much more interested in blazing my
own trails through the wilderness rather than merely walking the same
well-trodden paths of my youth. Dwimmermount, for example, was
never intended to be a recreation of “the way things were” back in 1974,
even if I did begin the campaign by trying to start off in a similar place.
But, having read a great deal about the way those early campaigns were
run, I am pretty sure I wouldn’t have enjoyed them as much as I’ve
enjoyed Dwimmermount and that’s in large part because I’m doing
things my way and that way was formed not by a meticulous adherence
to what Gary or Dave did back in the day but by what I am doing right
now.
Don’t misunderstand me: there’s certainly nothing wrong with covering
the same ground as others have already done and there’s genuine value
in the tried, true, and familiar. By the same token, there’s much to be
gained by striking out on one’s own and I really do want to see more of
that. I can guarantee you’ll be seeing more of it from me in the days and
weeks to come. There’s a difference between knowing and honoring the
past and being forever cast in darkness by its shadow.
ROGUE FEED
First from the iPhone
JUN 25, 2009 10:47A.M.
So I got my iPhone last night. You know what this means? Yeah me
either. Here is a picture of my co-worker. He does nothing but hang
around.
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR riorio2@rogue-games.net 26 June 2009

much information tending to prove that Arnold was not alone in the
conspiracy, but that among others, a major-general, whose name was not
concealed, was as guilty as Arnold himself. It was for the purpose of
forming a plan to ascertain the truth of these suggestions, as well as for
the capture of Arnold, that Washington had summoned Lee, and the
project was known to them alone. ” It is my desire,” said Washington, ”
to probe to the bottom the intelligence contained in the papers you have
just read ; to seize Arnold, and by securing him, to render it possible for
me to restore the amiable and unfortunate Andre to his friends. Have
you, in your legion, a person capable and willing to undertake a delicate
and dangerous project? Who ever comes forward, will lay me under great
personal obligations, and in behalf of the nation I will reward him.” Lee
suggested a sergeant of the cavalry as one in all respects qualified for the
adventurous scheme, ” being a man of tried courage and inflexible per
severance, and as likely to reject an overture coupled with ignominy as
any officer in the corps.” The general was delighted to find that a non-
commissioned officer was capable of carrying out*his views, and Lee
returned to camp with his instructions to confer with Champe, as it was
the design he should set off that night. After a long consultation, Champe
was prevailed upon to undertake the enterprise. The instructions were
read to him, and from them he prepared notes so disguised as to be
understood only by himself. Arnold was upon no account to be injured,
but to be allowed to escape rather than to be killed in preventing such an
event. It was the desire of Washington to make a public example of him.

No time was lost. Champe immediately prepared himself and his horse
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged: thoughts for the journey, and a little before midnight, mounted to pursue his way
to Paulus Hook. Within half an hour Captain Carnes, officer of the day,
repaired to the quarters of Major Lee, and told him that the guard had
fallen in with a dragoon, who, upon being questioned, put spurs to his
ROGUE FEED horse and escaped; at the same time requesting orders for the pursuit.
The major, who had assured Champe, that, in the event of his desertion
A little hero being discovered before morning, he would delay the pursuit as long as
JUN 25, 2009 10:37A.M. possible, tried every device to accomplish it. He complained of the
disturbance of his sleep, and suggested the probability of its being a
A little hero. countryman on his way home, or some soldier gone out on a tour of
personal plea sure. Captain Carnes then returned to his quarters,
This was Capt. Carnes, officer of the day, who communicated the fact of paraded the troops and found one sergeant missing, of which he hastily
Champe’s desertion to Major Lee. informed Major Lee. Some delay was occasioned by these movements.
Champe had been gone but an hour, when the troopers, under the
command of a cornet, set off on the chase. A shower of rain had fallen
soon after the sergeant s departure, which enabled the dragoons to take
ROGUE FEED his trail. On they spurred, stopping occasionally during the darkness of
the night, to examine the foot-prints of the fugitive’s horse.* When
And listen to the story morning broke, no longer forced to halt, they passed on rapidly.
JUN 25, 2009 10:36A.M. Ascending the summit of a bill, a few miles north of the village of Bergen,
they descried Champe, not more than half a mile in front. He at the same
And listen to the story. time discovering them, put spurs to his horse, determined they should
not overtake him The cornet now put his horses to the top of their speed,
The following is taken from Lee’s Memoirs: arid recollecting a short route through the woods, sent a party off that
way, to intercept the road at a bridge below Bergen, while he with the
General Washington, on his return to the army, immediately sent for remainder followed Champe. Being so closely pursued, Champe
Major Lee. This officer, on repairing to head-quarters, found the general relinquished his intention of going to Paulus Hook, and sought refuge in
alone in his marquee busily engaged in writing. As soon as he entered, a some British galleys, that had for a long time occupied a station a few
bundle of papers was laid before him for perusal, in which he found miles west of Bergen. On his entering the village he disguised his track by

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Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR riorio2@rogue-games.net
taking the beaten streets, and after passing through it, took the road
leading to Elizabethtown. Meanwhile the cornet s party had readied the
bridge, and found, with sore disappointment, the sergeant had slipped
through their fingers. Returning up the road, they inquired whether a
dragoon had been seen in the village, but could get no intelligence as to
the road he had taken. The troops soon spread over the village, and in a
short time again struck the trail. The chase was renewed with greater
vigor, arid Champe was soon discovered. He, apprehending the event,
had prepared himself for it, as he now had come abreast the galleys.
Leaving his horse, and lashing his valise to his shoulders, he threw
himself into the river and called out to the galleys for aid. This was
quickly given. The British fired on the cornet s party, and sent a boat to
meet Champe, who was taken on board and conveyed to New York, with
a letter from the captain relating the facts of the case. The cornet
returned to camp in the afternoon, when the soldiers, seeing the
sergeant’s horse in his possession, exclaimed, ” The scoundrel is killed
and the honor of our corps vindicated.”
When Champe arrived at New York, he delivered the letter from the
captain of the gallay to the commandant, and was soon sent to Sir Henry
Clinton. He detained him more than an hour, questioning him in
reference to the state of the army since the desertion of Arnold, the
probable fate of Andre, and the popularity of Washington, all of which he
answered warily. Placing two guineas in his hand, he advised Champe to
visit Arnold. On seeing him, the traitor expressed great satisfaction, and
pressed him to join a new legion he was raising. After some delay,
Champe enlisted, for the purpose of securing the freedom of Arnold s
house, which would further the plans of taking him when the time should
arrive.
He now turned his attention to the delivery of letters he had brought, to
the agents of Washington. On the following night he delivered one, but it
was not until five days after he saw the person to whom the other was
addressed, and who was to aid him in the capture of Arnold. While these
things were transpiring, Andre was hung. Nothing now remained but to
seize and deliver Arnol ! safely to Major Lee, who at an appointed time,
was to be ready on the Jersey shore to receive him. Champe, from his
enlistment, had every opportunity to notice the habits of Arnold. He
discovered it was his custom to visit the garden on his return home every
night. During this visit he was to be seized, gagged and carried into an
adjoining alley, where Champe s friends were to receive and bear him to
a boat in the North river.
On the night appointed, Major Lee left camp, with a body of cavalry and
three led horses, one for Arnold, one for Champe, and a third for his
friend ; never doubting the success of the adventure. The party reached
Hoboken about midnight, and concealed them selves in an adjoining
wood. Lee, with three dragoons, went down to the bank of the river. The
night passed away, and no boat approached, when Lee returned to camp,
much chagrined and disappointed at the issue of the project.
Soon after, Lee received a letter from the friend of Champe, informing
him that on the very night appointed for the execution of the plot, Arnold
had removed his quarters to another part of the town, to superintend the
embarkation of troops, and the corps to which Champe belonged had
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26 June 2009
already gone oa board the transports. Thus it happened that Sergeant
Champe, instead of crossing the Hudson with his prisoner, was quietly
placed on board a British transport, which he never departed from until
the troops under Arnold landed in Virginia.
On the junction with Cornwallis, Champe deserted, passing into North
Carolina and keeping within the friendly districts of that State, safely
joined the American army, near the Congaree river. His old comrades
were surprised to see a deserter so affectionately received by Major Lee,
but after his story was told, cheer upon cheer went up for “the intrepid
and gallant sergeant.”
• The shoes of the horses were all made in the same form; which,
with a private mark annexed to the fore shoe, and known to the
troopers, pointed out the trail of the dragoons to each other, which
was often very useful.
ROGUE FEED
SERGEANT CHAMPE
JUN 25, 2009 09:51A.M.
Sergeant John Champe
“(A) native of London county, in Virginia, rather above the ordinary size,
full of physical power, with a countenance grave and thoughtful.” He
enlisted in the Continental army at the age of nineteen, where he served
with honor to himself and the corps to which he belonged. He was
honorably discharged from service, by Gen. Washington, on the
conclusion of his hazardous adventure, lest he might be taken by the
enemy and hung ; and soon after retired to his home in London county.
In 1798 he removed to Kentucky, where he remained until the time of his
death.
ROGUE FEED
Sergeant Champe, 1780
JUN 25, 2009 09:50A.M.
The adventure of this gallant officer, commemorated in the subjoined
ballad, is connected with the conspiracy of Arnold. The authorship of the
song is unknown, as is the case of very many of the finest productions of
the Revolutionary period. It was adapted to the air of Barbara Allen, and
sung very generally, at home and in the camp, during the last years of the
Revolution.
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR riorio2@rogue-games.net 26 June 2009

SERGEANT CHAMPE To catch the rambling sergeant.

COME sheathe your swords ! my gallant boys, Then forty troopers, more or less,
And listen to the story, Set off across the meader ;
How Sergeant Champe, one gloomy night, ‘Bout thirty-nine went jogging on
Set off to catch the tory. A-following their leader.

You see the general had got mad, At early morn, adown a hill
To think his plans were thwarted, They saw the sergeant sliding;
And swore by all, both good- and bad, So fast he went, it was not ken’t.
That Arnold should be carted. Whether he s rode, or riding.

So unto Lee he sent a line, None looked back, but on they spurr’d,
And told him all his sorrow, A-gaining every minute.
And said that he must start the hunt, To see them go, ‘twould done you good,
Before the coming morrow. You’d thought old Satan in it.

Lee found a sergeant in his camp, The sergeant miss’d ‘em, by good luck,
Made up of bone and muscle, And took another tracing,
Who ne’er knew fear, and many a year He turn’d his horse from Paulus Hook,
With tories had a tussle. Elizabethtown facing.

Bold Champe, when mounted on old Kip, It was the custom of Sir Hal
All button’d up from weather, To send his galleys cruising,
Sang out, “good bye!” crack d off his whip, And so it happened just then,
And soon was in the heather. That two were at Van Deusen’s.

He gallop’d on towards Paulus Hook, Strait unto these the sergeant went,
Improving every instant — And left old Rip, all standing,
Until a patrol, wide awake, A waiting for the blown cornet,
Descried him in the distance. At Squire Yan Deusen s landing.

On coming up, the guard call’d out The troopers didn’t gallop home,
And ask’d him where he’s going But rested from their labors ;
To which he answer’d with his spur, And some ‘tis said took gingerbread
And left him in the mowing. And cider from the neighbors.

The bushes pass’d him like the wind, Twas just at eve the troopers reach’d
And pebbles flew asunder. The camp they left that morning.
The guard was left far, far behind, Champe’s empty saddle, unto Lee,
All mix’d with mud and wonder. Gave an unwelcome warning.

Lee’s troops paraded, all alive, “If Champe has suffered, ‘tis my fault;”
Although ‘twas one the morning, So thought the generous major :
And counting o’er a dozen or more, “I would not have his garment touch’d,
One sergeant is found wanting. For millions on a wager!”

A little hero, full of spunk, “The cornet told him all he knew,
But not so full of judgment, Excepting of the cider.
Press’d Major Lee to let him go, The troopers, all, spurr’d very well
With the bravest of his reg’ment. But Champe was the best rider!”

Lee summon’d cornet Middleton, And so it happen’d that brave Champe

Expressed what was urgent, Unto Sir Hal deserted,
And gave him orders how to go Deceiving him, and you, and me,

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Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR riorio2@rogue-games.net 26 June 2009

And into York was flirted.

He saw base Arnold in his camp,

Surrounded by the legion,
And told him of the recent prank
That threw him in that region.

Then Arnold grinu’d, and rubb’d his hands,

And e’enmost chok’d with pleasure,
Not thinking Champe was all the while
A “taking of his measure.”

“Come now,” says he, “my bold soldier,

As you’re within our borders,
Let’s drink our fill, old care to kill,
To-morrow you ll have orders.”

Full soon the British fleet set sail !

Say ! wasn’t that a pity?
For thus it was brave Sergeant Champe
Was taken from the city.

To southern climes the shipping flew.

And anchored in Virginia,
When Champe escaped and join’d his friends
Among the picininni. Those who know me, know that Moorcock is perhaps my favorite writer.
He ranks higher than Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Ellison, and Flannery
Base Arnold’s head, by luck, was sav’d, O’Connor. The reason for this is due to the volume of styles and genres
Poor Andre was gibbeted, Moorcock touches and writes in. A lot of these stories found in this book
Arnold s to blame for Andre s fame, I have read and have in my library, but a few of them were new to me.
And Andre s to be pitied. For me this is one of those books that I am glad I own and have read, and
the reason is that it reminds me why I love his writing. I think the reason
I love this collection is that other than one short story, none of the
Eternal Champions are here. What is here, is some truly great pieces.

ROGUE FEED Behold the Man is one of my favorite novellas. I have an edition which

Two collections from two great was collected and revised back in the late 90’s, but in this collection the
original version is reprinted. I never read the original version prior to

writers
JUN 25, 2009 06:45A.M.
Over the past few weeks I have been reading two books, which are short
story collections. Both books could not be any more different, and one
author was new to me. What books were I reading? The Best of Michael
Moorcock by the aforementioned Michael Moorcock, and The Midnight
Sun: The Complete Stories of Kane, but Karl Edward Wagner.
this collection, and I am glad I did. Tighter, crisp, the message and action
is direct and personally more powerful. London Bone, which was new to
me, is another one that hit me and is a story I have reread at least twice
already. The reason is the concept and the pacing, and I enjoyed the
twists this took. Also included in this collection is one of my favorite
stories, and one that has a lot of meaning to me A Winter General.
I have been through a lot over the past nine years. Loved ones have died,
friends who became brothers or sisters to me have died, and I have taken
a lot of hits. A Winter General is a story that I have read a lot over the
years and it has given me hope. What stands out about this story is that it
is not fantastical or genre. It is a mundane character portrait and for me
is powerful. It is this story, more than any of his others, which marks
Moorcock as a great writer. Fans of Moorcock should have this book,
readers curios as to what Moorcock is like as a writer should read this
book. You will never see a better collection spanning the life of a writer

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Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR riorio2@rogue-games.net 26 June 2009

as good as this one. Two great reads, two great books, and two I plan on reading again and
again.

Posted in books, thoughts Tagged: review — books, thoughts, writing

I have never read any Wagner. I have copies of both of Night Shade
Books‘ collection of his writings, but they were buried on the shelves in
my library, and between the three moves Ariana and I had, just got
pushed to the side. With James and I working on a new game, I have
been reading a lot of Howard, Lovecraft and others, and it was during a
phone conversation with James that I asked him a simple question:
“Should I read Wagner?” The response was an enthusiastic yes, quickly
followed by some envy that I had both Night Shade Books, which
according to James are rare and hard to come by.

Anyway, since I was in a short story frame of mind, I tackled the short
story collection (I have just started the collected novels) and quickly
learned why James was so enthusiastic about my reading Wagner. He is
good. Really good. I am not much of a genre fan. I read very little fantasy
and even few Sci-Fi. Partly because work in genres, but
mostly because after awhile it all reads the same. Though my bias is
known, I read as much Howard, Lovecraft, Leiber, Smith and whatever
else James recommends.

I dig Wagner and I dig Kane. These stories (Lacunae, Deep in the
Depths of the Acme Warehouse and At First Just Ghostly I just did not
like) really clicked with me. I love the tone, and the sense of decay.
Kane’s world is a bleak one, and though there might be periods of
pleasure, for the most part, life is a slog. Wagner is a good writer,
sometimes as in Undertow, he is a really great writer. it is rare as a
reader that you “discover” a writer for yourself, and in the case of
Wagner I am glad I did.