Zackery Arbela

Every story has a beginning, a middle and an end. In the beginning you setup your hero (or heroine) and his story, then you throw something at him that is a great source of conflict and takes him into a whole heap of trouble. After facing many foes and overcoming various obstacles the hero saves the day and wins the girl.

If only writing a movie was that easy…

If only writing any story was that easy… READ THE REST HERE

For all you old…old… get-off-my-lawn Old School gamers out there, here is a walk down memory lane, courtesy of the Classid D&D Tumblr:

Old school wizards…take a note kiddies, this is how its done.

Old school looting…and the consequences.

Old school damsel in distress…these days gone out of fashion.

Old school winged helmets…accept no substitutes.

Old school orcs…or are they bugbears? Does it matter?

Old school fantasy tavern…brawl not included.

The lesson being, there ain’t no school like the old school!

Click here to see this most excellent Tumblr!

Radio on…

An ancient kingdom is in turmoil. A man of honor and integrity tried to stand his ground against a wicked King, and for his sins was publicly and horrifically executed. Soon after, the King himself perishes, and what follows is a long and convoluted chain of murders, infidelity and struggles for wealth and power that see his successors fall like dominoes, the end of a storied ruling family, and the ancient kingdom brought low and left to the mercy of its enemies.

It sounds like Game of Thrones, does it not? But in fact this is the story of Les Roi Maudits – The Accursed Kings – a series of French historical novels by Maurice Druon, that George RR Martin himself cites as an inspiration for A Song of Ice and Fire.

If anything, The Accursed Kings shows that history can be more bloody and interesting than anything fantasy can dream up. Set in 13th and 14th Century France, the plot begins with the destruction of the Knights Templar and the burning of their last Grand Master Jacques De Molay at the stake. For a history buff like yours truly, this is a fascinating period. The Templars were not just a elite military order, but also by this point the bankers of Europe, something originally meant to fund the efforts in the Crusades. But with their last strongholds in the Holy Land lost, what did this mean? The Papacy had fallen under the control of the French Kings, to the point that the Popes left Rome and resided in Avignon. And the King of France was running low on money, and need a new source of revenue beyond what his overtaxed subjects could provide…

Or so the story goes. Druon draws upon a wealth of legends and folklore along with history to weave this tale. As the last Grand Master of the Templars burns at the stake, he lays down a curse upon the King, his puppet Pope and his advisers unto the 13th Generation, which will ultimately see the end of the Capetian House that had ruled France for centuries, their replacement by the House of Valois, and beginning of the Hundred Years War between England and France. All kinds of legends have grown up around the Templars over the years, and by my reckoning this is one of the more interesting.

A miniseries based on the books was shown in France in 2005, starring by the looks of it almost very prominent French actor at the time (kind of like how Game of Thrones has every British thespian of note at least making an appearance, something that makes a good drinking game, by the way…) Gerard Depardieu as the doomed Molay, but also his son (who tragically died a few years later) and daughter play prominent roles (as a King and Queen respectively), not to mention the incomparable Jeanne Moreau as the Countess Mahaut, whose struggle with her cousil Robert over the lands they both claim drives so much of the narrative.

Have a look at the first episode below. History truly is stranger than fiction.

I want YOU to join my Advanced Readers Group! I love the fantasy genre, and I love to write. So writing fantasy novels is a perfect way to live. But I also need to pay the bills and buy coffee to fuel those marathon writing sessions.

So here’s the deal: for $1.99 per month you will receive every new novel I create as an ebook THREE MONTHS before it goes on sale to the general public, plus a complimentary ebook copy of GAEBREL’S GAMBLE, the first book of the Nine Suns.

And for $8.99 a month, you get the new books three months early, as well as a complimentary ebook copy of ACROSS THE EMPYREAN, the first volume of the Nine Suns, containing the first three books (Gaebrel’s Gamble, Storm Over Olysi, The Burning Mountain.)

Fantastickal sword and sorcery adventure across a vast, magical universe filled with wonders to behold. So what are you waiting for?

Click Here!

I’ve spent the last week or so slowly working my way through Meet Me in the Bathroom, which goes into some detail the rock scene in New York during the late 90’s and early 2000’s (single sentence review: the Strokes were awesome.) To read this pages (virtual in this case, since I’m reading it on a Kindle) is to be transported back to a time when raw, stripped down garage rock mingled with weird electronic dance music to create a soundtrack to a movie of the mind, where sylph-like rockstars in waiting cavorted through streets with manic pixie dream chicks that, though grimy and dirty, were filled with wonder and adventure around every corner, while unsung genius’s labored in hidden lairs below abandoned buildings and warehouses, pulling out from the tortured corners of their souls new sounds and works of art that would change the culture forever…

Compare such a Golden Age to the degraded time in which we live today, and a man is ready to weep… At which point one should stop, pour cold water over his head and say a few Hail Mary’s. Because the Nostalgia Demon has you in his grip.

Meet Me in the Bathroom is a good read, and the author to her credit shows warty sides of that scene as well as the beautiful. But Nostalgia does not care about that. It is an act of curation that picks up the good memories and leaves aside the bad, thus giving the impression the good is all there was. In every time, in every place and moment, people live with the belief that the days that came before are better than the ones they live in now, even if they are living in a period that later generations will memorialize as the Greatest Ever. The Nostalgia Demon waves its claws, and filled the minds eye with sparkles.

After all, even the greatest of eras seemed so ordinary and unimportant to those who were there at the time. And their recollections of it might differ from ours.

Consider that the 70’s, which are ever a source of nostalgia for people who wish to live the New York Experience. CBGB’s! Punk! Studio 54! The Birth of Hip Hip. The City was grimy and edgy and dirt cheap to live in. Yet…speak to people who were actually there (and who were not artists or writers projecting an image) and a different picture emerges of a New York that was dying. It was grimy because the city was too broke to clean the streets, it was cheap because the buildings were falling apart and crime was through the roof. I used to work with a woman who was an office worker around Times Square in those days, back when it was sleaze central. “When five-thirty hit, you ran for the subway and you did not look back,” those were her exact words.

Consider the grunge scene in Seattle. Nirvana, Soundgarden, all those brilliant musicians, all that lifestyle, the dream of the 90’s as it was in the 90’s:

Except to people who were there at the time, it didn’t seem that exceptional. A buddy of mine who was going to school in Seattle at the time remembers it well, and for him it was just another local scene, filled with various punk and metal inspired bands that no one thought would go anywhere, until they did. An artistic awakening…or a triumph of marketing. Or both, they tend to be joined at the hip.

Hell, I was working in New York in late 90’s and early 2000’s, and I had no idea any of that awesome and cool stuff was going on – which isn’t surprising, since I’m generally considered the most boring person alive by those who know me well…but maybe if I’d known about this, headed down to the Lower East Side or Williamsburg, hung out in the right bars or right clubs or lofts, I too might have been sprinkled with that magical fairy dust and be remade as Coolness incarnate..,

Damn! That demon again.

The point is that nostalgia is, at the end of the day, an exercise in futility. The reality was never as good as the fantasy would have it be. Staring at the Glories of the past blinds you to the interesting things happening at the present, things that you could have a hand in creating. The Golden Age is Now, this very moment is as good as it will ever be, you will never have more opportunities to do something interesting than this very minute.

Make of that what you will. And beware the Nostalgia Demon. She’s a tricky one.

Here is an excerpt from the next book in the Nine Suns Series (no title yet, but I am working on it…)

Enjoy!

They were called the Bright Lands, a name with various meanings depending on who was asked. To cartographers, they were nothing more than an anomaly of the charts, a regions in the center of the Universe were two of the Nine Suns were so close to one another that they were practically side by side in Celestial terms.

To story tellers, spinning yarns by the tavern fire as they hoisted another round, they were a place of never-ending days free of winter and wonders beyond compare, the realm of that mysterious race known as the Valarei.

To merchants engaged in long distance trade, they were a place where great wealth might be gained, where a single cargo of precious Valarei-made goods, brought back to one’s home port across the Universe, would without question result in profit of at least two hundred percent, if not more.

But to Gaebrel Harrn the Bright Lands were a mystery to be unwrapped. Both Suns were lamps in the dark gray of the Boundless Empyrean – Maraea illuminating the stern of the Sparrow, Fhirial the prow. It was marginally brighter here than normal, but not to the point of dispersing the shadows that crept across the deck. The winds that blew across the deck still carried with them the unmistakable chill of the Empyrean, the space between worlds.

The journey was short enough – three weeks with a good wind. Before long that crossed that invisible barrier that marked the edge of a system, crossed the border into the territory claimed by the Valarei. A slight course correction followed, and after another week a bright light in the distance becomes a red and gray world. Hasyarin, the ninth world circling Fhirial. And circling it a single moon, called Hathaj. The space around it was thick with shipping from across the universe, awaiting their turn to land on the one part of the Valarei’s vast realm where outsiders were (mostly) welcome.

  “Open it.” The Valarei customs officer spoke Halaric with only a slight accent, but was reluctant to use more words than absolutely necessary.

“As you wish.” Gaebrel gave the nod to Pohtoli, who grumbled, produced a knife and cut the cords binding the bundle of fur. Carefully he laid it out across a stack of crates, running a hand down the softy white hairs of the pelt.

“Is that not fine?” Gaebrel asked.

The customs official grunted, seemingly not impressed. “How many of these?”

“Ten,” Gaebrel answered, jerking a thumb at the others, stacked at the back of the hold.

“What else?”

“Spices, herbs…but the fur is the main thing.”

“Hmm.” The customs official tapped his chin for a moment. “Whats in those crates,” he asked.

Pohtoli pulled the fur away and picked up a crow bar. “Nothing of importance,” he replied innocently.

“Open it.”

“As you wish.” Pohtoli pried the top open.

The customs official peered in. “Scrap metal?” he asked, flicking a finger against a hunt of rusty iron, keeping away from the jagged edges.

“Someone will buy it,” Gaebrel said.

“Hmm.” The custom official said little more, though his opinion was clear. He gave them a figure for the import duty, which Gaebrel paid without complaint. Only when he left the ship did the small knot of tension gathering at the base of his jaw finally disperse. “That was easier than I expected.”

“I told you it would work.” Pohtoli slid the lid back over the crate. “No one is going to shove his hand into a box filled with sharp metal scraps.”

Gaebrel grinned, looking at the crates piled high in the hold, filling the space entirely, save for a small alcove in the front where Yasinnic kept his hammock. Twenty crates in all, each containing fifty to twenty bundles of highly valuable furs hidden under a false bottom, with scrap iron piled on top.

“It still chafes that we have to pay a tax on the ones were kept in sight,” Pohtoli said, rolling up the fur and tying it down with fresh lengths of twine.

“A necessary loss. If we showed up with nothing but boxes of rusty junk, he would have known we were up to something. What we paid now is nothing to what he would have charged.”

Gaebrel left the hold, headed through a door and into the narrow central passage that ran the length of the ship. The Sparrow began life as a pleasure yacht for a minor princeling before being ‘acquired’ by its current owners. Years of quick escapes, chases, landings on moonless nights and damage from cannon balls and gun shots, (not to mention various modifications by the crew, often done on the fly and under fire) erased much of this noble lineage, but the ships lean profile remained plain to all with eyes to see. She was a racer, the fastest vessel with sails found this side of the grave.

Which led to cramped quarters, among other things. Four small cabins lined the corridor, along with a small galley that was manned on a rotating basis – this week it was Pohtoli’s turn, which explained the sharp smell of spices permeating the air. Gaebrel’s cabin was towards the prow, and like the others was little more than a closet with a narrow bunk hailed to the wall and barely enough space for his chest. There was an actual stateroom to the stern, set in the back deck above the main cargo hold and below the rudder room, which was claimed by their ursuhli comrade Hurren, on the basis that it was the only space on the ship that would hold him. He’d since added a trap door that opened into the hold, and another door in the ceiling that that led to his post by the tiller, sparing him the need to squeeze down the hallway, to the inconvenience of his comrades.

Gaebrel heard faint thumps coming through the bulkheads, as Hurren shifted the tiller about, adjusting for the wind. He walked by the galley, paused a moment to look at the battered iron pot, sitting in a clay-lined pit filled with sand and hot coals. The lid lifted a bit, letting out a fleck of some greenish brown substance that smelled of garlic, pepper, and various other things that defied description. He pondered taking a taste, then thought better of it. Pohtoli had visited dozens of worlds across four different systems, but insisted on the recipes of his home world of Iyantua, where it seemed the locals competed in building bonfires in each others mouths.

He went up a narrow stair to the fore deck. Hathaj lay to port, a broad green and gray face that blacked any sight of the larger world beyond. At least a hundred other ships floated in the space around him, ranging from small skipsails that worked the intrasystem trade to four-masted merchantmen with as many side sails that looked set to sail across the universe ten times over if not more. A hulking warship ambled along in the distance, made from some white wood that reflected the light of the moon below, its gun ports firmly shut, some red flag fluttering from the stern.

To starboard was the customs station, a round structure of wood and stone place in stationary orbit above the moon, with several spindly piers poking out at all angles. The cutter carrying the customs officer pulled towards one, rotating as it went so that from Gaebrel’s vantage point it looked like it was upside down. Which was true only as far as his perspective was concerned; in the Empyrean, up and down were relative concepts that did not matter once a body had escaped the gravity of his own ship.

Gerel was working one of the side sails, and gave Gaebrel a wave as he passed. Morrec was on the back deck, keeping an eye on the wind tassel fixed to a pole on the back railing, and calling down adjustments to the tiller room through a grate on the deck.

“Any problems?” Morrec called out, catching sight of Gaebrel.

“None at all. Get down to the rod room, we’ll be dropping soon.”

“Aye Captain.” Morrec came down from the back deck. He paused a moment as he passed by Gaebrel. “Yasinnic is in his perch. Should I speak with him or…”

“No. I’ll handle it.”

“Right.” Obviously relieved, Morrec went down below, headed to the ascension locker in the prow.

Gaebrel turned to the main mast, hooking his fingers around the rope netting wrapped around the side and hauling himself up. The effort was not si great as it would have been wer ethen on planet side – any object in the Empyrean larger than a chair or chest generated its own gravity (Gaebrel once asked an arcanist why this was so. The answer that came back was long, convoluted, and stuffed with words that to his ears sounded made up. Which suggested that the arcanist did not know himself and was making it all up, or did know but did not understand himself. “A mystery of the Aethyr” was the short version of the answer that Gaebrel went away with.)

The main sail was reefed for now, and he noted with some concern the sloppiness of the knots binding the sheet. He resolved to have a word with Gerel about that as he went on, headed to the basket perched at the top. Yasinnic was there, as he always was, looking out on a non-existent horizon.

Keep a lookouts perch on top of the tallest mast was a holdover from days long past when ships were bound to the sea, and where putting someone fifty feet up so they might see the horizon better was a sensible thing to do. There was no horizon in the Empyrean though, but still the custom went on. Gaebrel figured it was a way to keep the crows nest watch out from under the rest of the crews feet. Yasinnic treated any suggestion that he move his post to a point on the stern with a cool disdain. Gaebrel reckoned he preferring the peace and quiet.

“Captain.” Yasinnic glanced at him. He squatted on a stool kept in the basket. One of his rifles leaned against his shoulder. His coppery skin seemed to glow in the light reflected from the moon.

“Keeping out of the way?” Gaebrel asked. Yasinnic said nothing. He was not a talkative man by nature. But a twitch of his pointed ears suggested much more happening beneath the surface.

“We’re headed down in a bit,” Gaebrel said. “Likely will be on a shipfield by dinnertime. This is a Valarei world.”

Yasinnic glanced at him. “I am aware,” he said, his face a mask that said volumes by its sheer unreadability.

“Getting here was a trial, you know this. I know how you feel about Valarei, and I can guess what they will think of you.”

“You don’t have to worry about me.” Yasinnic kept his eyes on the Empyrean. “None will have trouble with me, unless they come looking for it.”

That’s what I’m afraid of. Gaebrel kept his thoughts to himself. “Right. Prepare for descent.” He climbed out of the crows nest. As he went down, he glanced at the rifle, and noted the way Yasinnic’s hand gripped the stock, finger close to the trigger, ready to shoot at the earliest opportunity.

“This won’t end well,” he muttered to himself as he went back down to the deck.

It’s been a while since my last update, but rest assured you haven’t been forgotten.

I have some excellent news to report – it took a few months longer than I’d hoped, but the next book in the Nine Suns series finally has a completed first draft. I’m still finishing up some last minute line editing, but should have that done soon. No title as of yet, oddly enough I find that the hardest part of the process…writing the book is easy. Naming it is something entirely.

Those of you who’ve signed up to my advanced readers should expect to receive an advance pdf copy within the next month or so. And if you haven’t signed up, then now is your chance to do so by clicking the link below:

CLICK HERE TO JOIN THE ADVANCED READERS GROUP

Enjoy your day!

Zackery Arbela

A classic of 80’s scifi weirdness:

The film takes place in a distant future where water is so scarce and rationed that it is considered an immensely valuable substance, both as a commodity and as a currency in ice cubes. The Templars of Mithra control the water and they destroyed worlds that had natural water leaving the galaxy virtually dry. Pirates dedicate their lives to raiding ships and looting the ice from the cargo holds to make a living.

They just don’t make ’em like they used too…

Good old article about a great band:

It’s easy to sit behind a keyboard — or, for that matter, in front of an amplifier — and lament what could have been. “Oh man, if only the world had taken notice of this or that band, everything would be different.” Well no shit. So wait a second, what you mean to say is if things weren’t the same, they’d be unlike they are now? Guess that tautology major finally paid off!

If this the only reality we have to choose from (and so far it is), I think maybe it’s fortunate an act like Kansas City, Missouri’s JPT Scare Band remained obscure for the decades they’ve been playing together. Think of the still-performing heavy rock acts you know: Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, The Who, Kiss, and so forth. How many still have their original lineup? JPT Scare Band does. How many still have the passion that started them playing in the first place? JPT Scare Band does.

Read the rest HERE.

We live in a golden age of genre fiction. We are also living in the Golden Age of TV. Yet for some reason, fantasy and the visual medium are very hard to put together in a way that isn’t cringe-inducing, eye rolling or just ridiculous.

Budgets matter, of course, everyone points to the Lord of the Rings trilogy as a way to to do it right. And if you had a few hundred million dollars to play around with, and a director who really knows what he is doing, then a lot of rough edges can be sanded off.

But then move into smaller productions with smaller budgets on smaller screens, where fantasy, straight up and without irony or snark, becomes a lot harder to pull off. In the 90’s, we had Sam Raimi’s Hercules and Xena, plus a whole bunch of other forgettable shows, a few of which starred Bruce Campbell. Watching them today is strictly an exercise in nostalgia dripping in cheese. If you really like your fromage thick to the point of suffocating, jump back a decade earlier to the glorious days of Willow, Hawk the Slayer, Gor…Beastmaster. Not to say those aren’t enjoyable, but only with a heavy dose of that most modern of sins, irony.

Why is fantasy so hard to get right on the screen? Lets move on to today. People will point to Game of Thrones as an example of the genre done right…but I would add some heavy caveats. A lot of the fantasical elements are toned down (although that changed a lot in the last season) and what we often end up with is a very grimdark pseudo-historical drama with a heavy side order of gratuitous sex and rape. Others might point to the Magicians, now in its second season, but that seems more like a standard Millennials-dealing-with-angsty-millennial problems show with a fantastic gloss…GIRLS in magical drag.

Consider the Shannara Chronicles on MTV. Now…I liked this show, but there were a number of cringe-worthy moments in it that made me look away. Elf-ears look good in the imagination and on the comic book page…not so much when glued onto the side of an actresses head. The wondrous landscapes and great quests that drive fantasy so hard looked better in the imagination than when visualized as special effects. And how do people spend weeks romping through the woods of the Four Lands without looking more than a bit smudged?

Which I think gets to the crux of the matter. Fantasy at its purest is an exercise in imagination. No CGI landscape will every compare to the one conjured up in your head. No actor will be as handsome, no leading lady as glorious, as the ones interpreted by your mind. Compared to that, the visual images just seems…well, less. Successful fantasy shows are ones that anchor the fantastical elements in real-word settings, because it means the mind doesn’t have to work as hard. True Blood, for example, placed vampires, witches, werewolves and fairies in a recognizable southern setting. The Magicians alternates between modern-day New York and Fillory, with characters who, aside from the ability to cast spells, could be your old college roommates.

There is no picture so beautiful as the ones that exist purely in your head…