Category: fiction

Whispers of Forever

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn beliefs, eternity, fiction4 Comments

We are immortal, and do not forget;
We are eternal; and to us the past
Is, as the future, present.
— Lord Byron, in “Manfred”

When one of the seven spirits makes this comment to Manfred in Byron’s dramatic poem composed in 1817, Manfred replies “Ye mock me.”

While most people are not tortured by unexplained guilt to the point of calling spirits (supernatural rather than liquid) to help them forget, I wonder if they believe in an eternal now. Looking at immortality, we can say that which we see confirms it or denies it.

I see it confirmed everywhere I look, from nature to myths to science to intuition. Perhaps I’m a “glass is half full” rather than a “glass is half empty person.” If I have a bias in my writing, it’s in favor of forever. In “The Sun Singer” and “Garden of Heaven,” the eternal now is a constant whisper deep within these adventures.

While earth ties us down to the concepts of space and time, the eternal now presupposes no time and no space. Seeing this possibility beyond the illusion of physical reality is, I think, part of the human quest. Fortunately, in writing fiction, I do not have to prove that immortality is real or even that it’s real for those who think it’s real. My imagination is my guide, so I am content to whisper about the probabilities on the pathways my characters are walking.

My challenge as a writer is casting a strong enough spell with my words to keep the listener from saying “ye mock me” when he hears my characters whispering about forever. I don’t expect to change minds, for I am a storyteller with entertaining yarns. However, when a reader considers that there truly is something else on the other side of the illusion, I am well pleased.

–Malcolm

Available in multiple e-book formats

Vila SpiderHawk’s Books Reflect a Love of the Natural World

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books, fiction, publishing10 Comments

Vila SpiderHawk is the author of three magical novels that follow the coming-of-age adventures of protagonist Judy Bauman in the disputed German-Polish border territories prior to and during World War II: Forest Song: Finding Home (2008), Forest Song: Little Mother (2009) and Forest Song: Letting Go (2010). Vila is also the author of the Forest Song Cookbook (2009), featuring recipes from the series, and Hidden Passages: Tales to Honor the Crones (2007), a collection of stories about old women and their celebration of life and wisdom. Vila and her husband live in a log house in the Pennsylvania forestland.

Malcolm: Welcome to Malcolm’s Round Table, Vila. You introduced readers to protagonist Judy Bauman in Forest Song: Finding Home set in 1929 to 1933 in territory claimed by both Germany and Poland on the eve of World War II. What attracted you to this time and place for your novel’s setting?

Vila: Thank you for your hospitality and thoughtful questions, Malcolm. It’s very kind of you to do this interview with me.

Why the World War II era in the Polish-German Corridor? I am of German descent and was born in 1945. I grew up in careful silence about the horror of the Holocaust. We didn’t even learn it in school, since it was still too new to be in the history books. It wasn’t until I went to high school that I got my introduction to the period, and that was very sketchy. Nonetheless, I have always felt a pull to the time and place. Call it racial guilt. Call it something else. Whatever it is, I needed to know what caused a people to do such terrible things. And so I studied the era in college.

However, I was never satisfied with the answers the books gave for that terrible time, and so I have carried this need around all these years. Therefore, when I met Judy and she turned out to have lived in that time, I invited her in to tell me her story.

You see, I do not create my characters. They come to me, fully formed and talkative. Judy is downright overbearing sometimes. In any case, I channeled her, since she, too, cares deeply about the “whys” of things.

But there is an additional reason. I worry that our country could become the Germany of the Holocaust. I worry about Guantanamo and the attitude we generally have about Muslims just now. While I am sure some Jews in Germany fit the Nazi stereotype, since all stereotypes have a glimmer of truth to them, I believe and indeed have found that most Jews were just hardworking people trying to live decently and to raise their children well while keeping the bills paid. And, while some Muslims fit the stereotype we have created for them, most, I believe, are like the majority of German Jews. All they want is to live decent lives, to raise moral and educated children, and to pay the bills. It’s not rocket science. People are people. Most are, at bottom, very conscientious.

Malcolm: As I read Forest Song: Finding Home, I discovered an interwoven mix of history, German and Polish life and culture, Craft traditions and rituals, and faerie magic. When prospective writers ask what you write about, how do you describe the Forest Song books’ genre and overarching themes?

Vila: Oh boy it’s really difficult for me to place the Forest Song series into a tidy little box. I have classified it as historical fiction, since it has elements of that. I have also classified it as fantasy, since it has aspects that people like to call fantasy. But in truth, it doesn’t really fit tidily into any single category.

When people ask me what I write about, I usually tell them I write about life, in all its complexities. As is true of all of us, Judy’s is a creature of her culture and her era. Her spirituality is an important aspect of her attitudes as well, as it is with most of us. Sometimes she believes she’s going from point A to point B and she ends up at point H, as often happens in life. My stories are not straightforward, because life isn’t straightforward. This becomes more obvious in the later volumes of the Forest Song series but is already visible in Finding Home.

Malcolm: Fairy tales and myths frequently use the forest outside the city gates as a dangerous and/or magical realm of non-ordinary reality where characters go for heroes’ adventures and seekers’ coming of age stories with a strong focus on the protagonist’s transcendent or psychological “the inner journey.” Did a life-long appreciation of myths and folktales greatly influence your approach to Judy’s story and her drive to leave the claustrophobic and limiting world of her parents’ farm for the freedom of the forest?

Vila: Fairy tales are highly allegorical. The forest in fairy tales usually symbolizes the darkness and the space in which people reflect and learn, acquiring wisdom. Thus Persephone goes into the Underworld as a child and emerges with a woman’s wisdom and responsibilities. The forest is our Underworld.

Having said that, I did not grow up reading and loving fairy tales. That came later. But I have always felt the pull of the woods. I always felt I would not satisfy my destiny until I had escaped the clatter, stench, and hustle of the city and had moved into the green serenity of the trees. And, in truth, I didn’t. Though I have always written, it wasn’t until I had moved here and had explored my inner wisdom that I finally felt ready to write for publication.

Malcolm: I am amazed at the breadth and scope of the Forest Song books insofar as the author’s personal knowledge and research required for the plot and setting. How did you approach and organize the books’ details so that they fit hand in glove with recorded history, actual trees and plants available (and seasonally, when they bloomed) in the disputed territories, local customs, Craft traditions specific to Germany and Poland at that time, relevant folktales, and even kinds of clothing, furnishings and products available in a typical farm family’s house?

Vila: I don’t organize my books. My characters do that. They tell me their basic stories in bare bones language. Then it’s up to me to make art of their tales. Once I have the basic facts, I spend a great deal of time researching. One of the reasons I am such a slow writer is that I try to check every little detail to be sure it’s true. Judy opens herself up to me. She lays herself bare. That requires a great deal of trust. I need to be worthy of that trust. That means that I have to be sure that every detail I include in her story is true. I read many books before I sat down to write this series, and I have read many more along the way.

Malcolm: Your pseudonym combines “Vila,” a goddess, with “Spider” and “Hawk.” How did you choose this unique pseudonym and how does its meaning correlate with the intentions and perspectives behind your writing?

Vila: I chose Vila SpiderHawk very carefully. Vila is an eastern European Goddess of the woods. She is a shape shifter and the protector of the forest and all who live there. She heals with herbs. I identify with all that. She also dances hunters to death. There are times when I really identify with that as well, since I am a vegan. I chose the name long before I realized I’d be telling Judy’s story, though.

Spider is a contemplative creature. Spider spends her time between earth, the concrete, and air, inspiration. She chooses not to hunt. Instead she waits for food to come to her. She is patient. She knows that the Universe will provide her daily needs. She reminds us to see the importance of patience and spirituality. She reminds us to see the divine in all creatures, however small, however mundane.

Hawk, on the other hand, is aggressive. Her vision is sharp, and her reflexes are quick. She is a merciless hunter. She soars. She spreads her wings and touches the clouds. She is as free as it is possible to be in this life.

I am both Spider and Hawk. I am contemplative and introspective. I understand that the Universe will provide what I need as long as I have the wit to ask for it and the patience to accept that it will come in its own good time. But I am also Hawk. I can be aggressive and merciless. I tend to see sharply. And there are times when I positively soar. The Spider in me tempers the Hawk. The Hawk in me reminds me that sometimes it is necessary to be aggressive and to see sharply. And, while it’s wonderful to experience a meditative state, it is such a delight to soar.

Malcolm: In addition to exciting stories, what memories, dreams and reflections do you hope your readers will carry away with them after reading the Forest Song novels?

Vila: What the reader takes away from my books is really up to the reader. Each person brings her own experience, her own baggage, her own spirituality, and her own longings to the books she reads. Each person will take away an individual package of dreams and reflections. I don’t feel I can dictate or even suggest the “right” hopes, the “right” insights for the reader. I simply hope that each book sings to each individual in a way that feeds her soul.

Malcolm: The use of the word “crone” in your Hidden Passages collection of stories straddles a paradox. In mainstream society, the seldom-used word is generally used to malign and discount older women in a patriarchal society. Yet, in historical matriarchal societies and in the Craft and goddess traditions, the word is used as a reverent term of endearment and respect. Did you have any second thoughts or concerns about using the word “crone” in your title or was it especially appropriate to the book’s theme and intent in spite of some mainstream connotations?

Vila: I was very adamant about using the word “Crone” in the title of Hidden Passages. I deeply resent the fact that we dismiss old women in particular but old men too as useless dead weight when, given their experience and wisdom, they have so very much to offer. I think we would be a better society if we actually respected more the feminine principle of giving and nurturing life and if we understood down to the marrow of our bones how very much we owe those wonderful women who raised us.

I grew up in the company of old women. I have always treasured them. And now that I am one, I value old women even more. I understand now that, while those wonderful women who raised me were old and wise and generous and dear, they still had all the eagerness and, yes, insecurities of youth. To me the word “Crone” encapsulates all that is woman—the maiden who is brash and flirty, fearless yet vulnerable; the mother who will sacrifice anything to give her child a better life, the woman who teaches and nurtures and worries and rejoices in and about her children; and the creature we see superficially as the Crone who knows pain, who has experienced death and loss and has endured anyway. The word Crone to me is not simply a title of respect. It is, in my opinion, the finest appellation anyone can call a woman.

Malcolm: Your characters use a lot of herbs found growing naturally in the woods where they live. If one chanced by your log cabin, would they find you out in the woods gathering and drying herbs, and then using them in the teas and meals you serve at your table?

Vila: Oh boy would they ever! Of course, I have an herb garden. Well, I wouldn’t exactly call it that. I’m not sure it’s organized enough to warrant the name “garden”. But I grow all kinds of culinary and other herbs as ground covers instead of grass. And I do cut from the herbs for cooking and other purposes during growing season. I dry herbs in autumn for winter use as well. My house smells like vegetable soup through the autumn with all the herbs drying. But I also harvest herbs from the woods. Mostly that’s just an excuse to go out into the trees and to feel the woodland energy all around me. But yes, herbs are very important to me. Not only do they make food taste fantastic, they have enormous healing power that many European countries still recognize. Hopefully, we’ll get back to more natural healing methods in this country too.

Malcolm: Thank you so much for stopping by and chatting today.

—Malcolm

NaNoWriMo: Sarabande begins to speak

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn fiction6 Comments

I am using National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) as an incentive to get out of the planning stage and into the writing stage for Sarabande, the sequel to my novel The Sun Singer.  Every year, NaNoWriMo participants attempt to write a 50,000-word rough draft of a new novel between November 1 and November 30.

To accomplish this goal, writers must average 1,667 words per day. At 1,938 words written so far, I am 1,396 words behind schedule. I have an excuse. The opening action scene of Sarabande must synchronize perfectly with a battle scene near the end of The Sun Singer. So, I’m having to refer to The Sun Singer a lot, and that’s slowing me down.

Prior to Sarabande’s first action scene, I began the novel with a paragraph that–like an overture for a musical composition–sets the stage for the book. Since the young woman, Sarabande, is going on a “lunar journey,” the introductory paragraph is exactly the opposite of the first words of The Sun Singer. In The Sun Singer, my protagonist was going on a “solar journey.”

Sarabande, Opening Paragraph

Fiery order of day and exuberant sun, young primroses drenched in the light of a long afternoon await like phantoms seeking night, any shade. She traverses a limestone ledge, hears marmots whistle, smells ferns, close, supported into the sky by rock, feels blue bird’s chatter—sweet and dear up from the green mountain valley. Whispers scrape her aura overhead. Scoop throw: like a Judo master, dulled light flings her away. She fights for Mother Earth, would sell her heart for her, and hears, is hearing, “There are numerous ways to live, little girl.” Warm blooded, that voice is the sister of chaos.

The Sun Singer, Opening Paragraph

Cold chaos of night and strangled moon, the great old trees drenched in sap’s perfume rise up like gaunt fingers out of the valley gloom seeking stars, any light. He shoves through tangled vines, hears small creatures running away in the dark, smells bones, close, crushed beneath the weight of eyes, feels owl’s call—sharp and true down off the black mountain’s ridge—hoooo hoo-oooo, hoo hoo, tear through his veins as mocking ice. A twig snaps beneath his boot. Choke hold. Shadows drag him down. He fights for breath, would sell his soul for it, and hears, is hearing, “There are numerous ways to die, little boy.” Cold blooded, that voice is mother of snakes.

Now, Back to Work!

As you can see from these openings, these are very different books. Solar and lunar journeys, in the sense used here, refer to what’s happening within the mind and body of an individual while on an adventure of some kind.

For more information about solar journeys, take a look at Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With a Thousand Faces, where he describes the “hero’s journey” structure found in many myths as well as movies and novels.

For more information about lunar journeys, refer to Maureen Murdock’s The Heroine’s Journey, Sylvia Brinton Perera’s Descent to the Goddess: A Way of Initiation for Women, and Demetra George’s Mysteries of the Dark Moon.

Now that I’ve procrastinated for a few more minutes by writing this post, it’s time to get back to chapter one of Sarabande.

—Malcolm

E-Book Available for $4.99 until November 16th!

Novel excerpts Copyright (c) 2004 and 2010 by Malcolm R. Campbell. Moon artwork Copyright (c) 2010 by Jupiter Images.

Hearing voices and writing stuff down

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn fiction4 Comments

Stewart
While waiting for my first appointment with psychiatrist Dr Henry Jekyll, I couldn’t help but notice one wall in the waiting room was plastered with inspirational signs.

PAYMENT IS EXPECTED WHEN SERVICE IS RENDERED

IF I CAN’T CURE YOU, YOU BELONG IN AN ASYLUM

PRIMAL SCREAMS, $150 EACH, TWO FOR $275

IT’S LATER THAN YOU THINK, DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR DREAMS ARE?

I was about to tell the receptionist, a nurse Ratched look-alike that I had to go see a shaman about an evil spirit, when the cuckoo clock above the door to the inner sanctum squawked high noon and a pale little man came out and said “Mr. Campbell, please follow me.”

He sat in the comfy chair next to a bottle of Jim Beam and I sat in the straight-back chair next to a dirty glass of tap water. Before he said anything, I counted 13 mangled sock puppets on the shelf next to his collection of Freud bobble-head dolls.

“First things first,” he said. “Did you bring the money.”

I slid a briefcase of sorted, well-laundered $100 bills across the glossy hardwood floor. He counted the money, moving his lips as he did so.

“Second things second,” he said. “Are you here for our primal scream therapy or do you want to pursue a 15-year Freudian analysis.”

“I scream at home for free,” I said.

He nodded sagely, with a hint of oregano on his breath. “You shouldn’t self-medicate,” he said. “Be that as it may, I understand from Nurse Wretched’s pre-therapy interview with you that you hear voices. Are they mean and nasty or are they sweat and vapid?”

“The last voice I heard was yours,” I said, “and so far it sounds rather expedient. But far be it from me to judge, I hear what I hear and write the stuff down.”

“How do you feel about that?” Jekyll asks.

“Humorous,” I said, “because I know that at night you turn into Mr. Hyde and careen about the neighborhood doing vile acts that drive people so crazy they have to come here and gnaw on sock puppets.”

He maintained a dour expression and wrote something down on a yellow pad. “Not counting my voice or my nurse’s voice or any other real voices like Bob who runs the parking deck, what other voices have you heard?”

“Jock Stewart’s voice.”

“Who is he?”

“The protagonist in my satirical novel.”

“So, you’re a writer?”

“Yes.”

“That tells me a lot. It tells me you probably belong in an asylum. It tells me you’re probably incurable. It tells me you’re going to be here for years and that I’m going to make a boat load of money writing up your case for HarperCollins weird psychology series.”

“You are wise beyond your years,” I said. “Jock tells me that he likes you.”

Jekyll looked around the room with alarm as though he expected to see ghosts. “Is he here now?”

“Sure.”

Jekyll’s face went white. Of course, it already was white, but suddenly it had a bleached out look.

“What does he want.”

“He wants you to continue acting in a way that invites satire,” I said. “He’s a master at it. He talks, I write it down, and then I send it to the publisher.”

“Holy superego, Stewart doesn’t use real names, does he?”

“But of course.”

“Then he’s crazier than you are, and you are definitely certifiable.”

“Thank you.”

“If I were to slide this suitcase of money back over to you, would Mr. Stewart see his way clear not to use my real name?” asked the quivering shrink.

“Perhaps.”

“Oh thank you. Here’s an extra $150. I really do need to scream now.”

And he did, like a banshee in heat, like a blind man falling into a volcano, like a woman looking out an open window in an old movie seeing a killer trying to get inside while she sits at her dressing table.

I felt cured, I really did. And so did Jock.
–

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of the comedy satire, “Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire,” a novel you can find in multiple e-book formats for only $5.99 at Smashwords and Kindle.

“Armed with a sharp wit and a (secretly) soft heart, Jock sets out to investigate the theft of the mayor’s missing horse, Sea of Fire. For readers, arriving at the solution to the crime is secondary to simply enjoying as the colorful (and aptly named) characters become embroiled in a multitude of small-town hi-jinks.” — Nancy Whitney-Reiter, “Unplugged: How to Disconnect from the Rat Race, Have an Existential Crisis, and Find Meaning and Fulfillment “

Book Review: ‘The Last Templar’

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn beliefs, books, fiction3 Comments

The Last TemplarThe Last Templar by Raymond Khoury
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Raymond Khoury’s “The Last Templar” (2006) is part of a deluge of novels and nonfiction to step outside mainstream history to explore the real, prospective and imagined secrets about alchemy, the Knights Templar, and the origins of Christianity.

One cannot help but think of Katherine Neville’s “The Eight” (1997) which focused on present-day people fighting over and/or guarding the secrets of the Philosopher’s Stone and Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code” (2003) which speculated about the true meaning of the Holy Grail and the bloodline of Christ. Many of Neville’s, Brown’s and Khoury’s fans were also attracted to such nonfiction as “Holy Blood, Holy Grail” (Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln, 1982) and Lynn Picknett’s “The Templar Revelation” (1997).

It is difficult to read, much less discuss, Neville, Brown and Khoury without acknowledging the fact that fact that they are part of a rather unique genre of spiritual conspiracy fiction that seemed to fill a need in the public psyche for truths thought to be missing from the tenets of Catholic and Protestant theology.

Neville’s “The Eight” was, perhaps, the first to popularize this “genre’s” style and focus: hidden wisdom, long-time conspiracies, compelling present-day mystery/thriller action, and numerous (and lengthy) history lessons. Since her focus was alchemy, Neville’s “The Eight” didn’t ignite the kind of controversy generated by Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code” which, some might say, hit us where we lived if not where we worshipped.

Like Neville, Khoury tells his story with a modern-day and a historical timeline. “The Last Templar” begins with what Booklist called “one of the most gripping opening scenes among recent thrillers.” Four horsemen dressed in Knights Templar regalia steal artifacts from a Metropolitan Museum of Art show of Vatican treasures, including a “decoder.” The other story line focuses on the last days of the Knights Templar as the Holy Land is “lost” with the fall of Acre in 1291 and the subsequent pilgrimage of a few surviving knights to safeguard the Templars’ treasure.

Publisher’s Weekly was less kind than Booklist, saying that the “war between the Catholic Church and the Gnostic insurgency drags on in this ponderous ‘Da Vinci Code’ knockoff.” Many readers criticized Dan Brown in “The Da Vinci Code” for constantly stopping the otherwise full-speed action of the book while one character filled in another character about the secrets of Mary Magdalene, the Grail, the actions of the Catholic Church, and Jesus’ bloodline.

In my view, “The Last Templar” carries such backstory diversions to an extreme. Picture, if you will, whether it’s plausible that FBI operatives investigating the raid on the museum, the stolen treasurers, and the continuing deaths would spend hours discussing Templar history in great detail.

The greatest fault with “The Eight,” “The Da Vinci Code,” and “The Last Templar,” is the fact that some characters must provide other characters with long-winded and unrealistic diversions into history, philosophy and theology because general readers are not likely to know the facts and the latest theories involved. The authors have felt that without these history lessons, the plots wouldn’t make sense.

I liked “The Last Templar” better than Publisher’s Weekly, but not as much as Booklist. The history was interesting, though I’d seen it all before. The plot was imaginative and included some page-turner action scenes involving the church, the thieves, the FBI and protagonist Tess Chaykin, an archeologist who witnesses the raid. The ending, while not wholly unreasonable was, I think, unsatisfactory, especially for those readers who not only want to know what the Templars’ secret but are angry that a real or a fictionalized church would deem it necessary to suppress the truth at all costs.

The romantic feelings between Tess and the head FBI agent add a variety of complications to the story, some of which lead into exciting action scenes even though the relationship within the book is rather forced and tedious.

For readers who have enjoyed the fiction and nonfiction in this wave of spiritual conspiracy books, “The Last Templar” is interesting escapist reading even though those who have seen it all before may speed-read through some of the Templar history.

View all my reviews

Heave Out and Trice Up

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn fiction, writing2 Comments

When a sailor reports aboard Navy ship right out of boot camp, s/he will have four immediate concerns: (1) Not being fooled by old salts into searching the boat from stem to stern for pieces of equipment that don’t exist, (2) Getting lost, (3) Following the proper General Quarters “traffic pattern,” and (4) learning Navy phraseology.

1MC Speaker

The Navy insists upon standard phraseology in its deck logs, phone talker communications, reports and 1-MC (ship-wide public address system) announcements. 1-MC announcements are accompanied by boatswain’s pipe calls which all sound the same at first.

While I was working on a novel about the sea, I remembered what it was like being transferred to the aircraft carrier USS Ranger (CVA-61) right out of boot camp. Compared to boot camp, the ship was much better duty, but there was still a lot to learn.

When I reported aboard, I was informed that I had been assigned to a floating city with an airport where the residents spoke a foreign language. Soon, I would have to learn what was supposed to happen when we “set condition zebra” (a readiness condition with certain hatches and fittings closed); and that a “shot line” didn’t refer glassware on a bar but to a small-diameter line fired over an alongside ship prior to an underway replenishment (UNREP).

Reveille throughout the city came a lot earlier than one expected even though the chief petty officers in charge of our boot camp companies at Great Lakes had brainwashed us that squared-away sailors loved getting up early. But they didn’t tell us that aboard ship a BMOW (Boatswain’s Mate of the Watch) would announce over the 1-MC to “Heave out and Trice Up.”

My first thought was that everyone aboard ship was being asked to vomit on command in the head. I was wrong. The phrase means get up. If you’re sleeping in a hammock, tie it up. If you’re sleeping in a rack (bunk) tilt it up against the bulkhead (wall). This makes it possible for the sweepers or compartment cleaners to sweep the deck (floor) underneath it. In the old days, a trice hook held the rack/hammock to the bulkhead.

The Public Affairs Officer as the Lone Ranger
The Public Affairs Officer as the Lone Ranger

Planning to join the Navy and–as we always said–let the world see you? Be ready to learn fast. When it’s time to get up, you won’t have time to study your Bluejacket’s Manual for instructions. But one way or the other, you’ll need to know the difference between heave, heave in, heave around, heave out, heave to, and heaving line.

Scuttlebutt (gossip) isn’t always “the straight skinny” (accurate facts) especially when it comes from the fabled all-knowing (and mythical) “port butter cutter.” With luck, the old salts will soon tire of sending you off to find fictional left-handed crescent wrenches, cans of relative bearing grease, buckets of prop wash, or of asking you stand “mail buoy” (huh?) watch on the bow. Then they’ll remind you (if you need reminding) that all stairs on ships are called ladders and doors are called hatches and dogs are what keep them closed.

Maybe they’ll tell you the handy general quarters acronym FUSDAP so that in the three-minute rush to get to your duty station you’re moving with traffic rather than against it. Forward and up on the starboard side, down and aft on the port side is very handy to know.I hope they don’t have to tell you not to head for the flight deck looking for a Quidditch game when the BMOW comes on the 1MC and says “sweepers sweepers man your brooms.”

On the other hand, our ship really did have a horse, fiberglass, that is, so if the chief sent you to give it a bucket of oats, it was best to disappear for a while until everyone else in the compartment was done laughing at the joke.
–

Update: Since this post was written, the USS Ranger was sold for scrap because in all the years it was available to be purchased by a group willing to turn it into a museum, no viable plan was submitted to the navy. Movie stars spend more on their houses than was needed to preserve this ship and all the history it contained. Screwed up priorities, I guess.

Malcolm


AtSeaBookCoverMalcolm R. Campbell is the author of the Vietnam War-era novel set on board an aircraft carrier, “At Sea.” For David Ward, going in harm’s way seems to apply more toward the people back home than life in the sailor towns and the ship.

Odysseys – multiple adventures

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books, fiction, heropath

We can’t see the word odyssey without thinking of the epic Greek poem attributed to Homer that begins (in Robert Fagles’ translation):

Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns
driven time and again off course, once he had plundered
the hallowed heights of Troy.

Indeed, the word stems from Odysseus’ trip, meaning a long and wandering physical or spiritual quest with multiple adventures and changes of fortune.

My novel Garden of Heaven is subtitled “an Odyssey” because protagonist David Ward ends up in many places with many people before returning to the Montana ranch where he grew up.

The novel has multiple locations: Glacier National Park, the Florida Panhandle, Chicago, Hawai’i, the Philippines, the Netherlands, central Illinois, Pakistan, and the Gulf of Tonkin. In each place, new problems and adventures occur.

But there are some common themes. One is his first lover’s relentless quest for revenge which is caused by a problem of which David is unaware. Another is David’s spiritual journey which begins on a vision quest in Glacier National Park and then haunts and inspires him from one end of his odyssey to the other. And, like Homer’s Odysseus, David also has a way with words, though it remains to be seen whether this is more of a blessing than a curse.

Untangling the lies and truths strewn throughout his journey will take David quite a few years. In the process, he will serve aboard an aircraft carrier, climb one of the most difficult mountains in the world, work as a professor at a small college, and consort with horses, eagles and ravens. Garden of Heaven is not one adventure, it’s many. And, as in “real life,” David’s good fortune often looks like bad fortune, and vice versa.
–

Garden of Heaven is available as an e-book from OmniLit for $5.99.

For more information about Garden of Heaven, see my August 3, 2010 interview on BookBuzzr.

Jock learns Race Ready not meant for real men

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books, fiction2 Comments

from Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire, a comedy/thriller about horses, horse thieves, girl friends and murderers. In the following excerpt, he’s on the trail of whoever stole Mayor Clark Trail’s race horse Sea of Fire.

Coral Snake Smith needed two omelets to loosen his tongue. For an informed source who made his living trading information for food, one might think Smith would have picked up some table manners along with the details of everyone else’s life. Jock drank half a cup of cold, gritty coffee and tried not to watch. Smith’s pig-in-a-trough noise was bad enough.

Jock’s dear old daddy always said, “Jock, take my word for it. Sloppy people are all going to hell.” He also said, “If a man smells like a whore house, he’s going to hell.” Smith had two strikes against him today and it wasn’t even noon yet.

“What did Lucinda Trail have to say?” asked Jock while Smith was licking his plate like an all day sucker.

Smith almost dropped the plate.

“Are your people following me around?”

Jock shrugged. “That, plus you’re wearing her perfume.”

“We were together, but not in the Biblical sense,” said Smith, and he grinned like it was something he spent a fair amount of time contemplating. “A man can do worse.”

“Word is, Clark has.”

Smith did a spit take with the remains of his coffee.

“So has your boss, but none of this is what Lucinda asked me about. She wanted to know why Monique Starnes bought two sacks of Race Ready.”

“What is that, some kind of Viagra knockoff?” asked Jock, recalling that while his Scotch tasted funny last night his performance had been better than usual.

Smith sat there with his mouth open, for once empty of anything approaching food. He looked like he’d seen a dunce.

“Race Ready is a brand of horse feed,” Smith said, with a fair amount of exasperation and condescension. “Martin and Brian Bentley over at the seed and feed stock it especially for Clark Trail. A new employee who didn’t know the feed had been set aside for Sea of Fire sold one sack to Ms. Starnes at seven AM and another sack at seven thirty-two AM. Brian called Lucinda and apologized for being out of stock.”

Since the waitress had temporarily lost interest in her job, Jock went to her station, selected a pot of coffee with the least amount of sludge in the bottom, and refilled Smith’s cup as well as his own. Doing this gave him time to collect his thoughts such as they were. Out of the universe of probabilities, one begged him to allow it to come to mind. But he wasn’t ready to think that way. So Jock temporarily dodged that line of thought by considering why Lucinda came to the Purple Platter.

“What was a woman like Lucinda doing in a place like this?”

“We keep in touch on a daily basis,” said Smith. “She facilitates that by sitting where you’re sitting now. She’s not exactly eye candy, but she trumps your sourpuss look without having to bat an eyelash or shove a shoe up a man’s trouser leg under the table.”

“Fine.”

So far, Smith had slung four sugar cubes into his cup. Now, he seemed to be studying the sugar bowl as though, what with the rain and all, Monday was turning into a five-cube day. He tasted his coffee, and then he dropped in another cube.

“Lucinda came in this morning dressed to the nines even though it was only eight thirty. Her face was blanched out more than her hair. She was disappointed when she learned that my network of quasi-ubiquitous sources knew nothing about the two sacks of Race Ready.”

“You’re not a seed and feed kind of guy,” observed Jock.

“Hardly.”

–

Copyright (c) 2009 by Malcolm R. Campbell

COMING SOON

An interview with Smoky Trudeau, author of “Observations of an Earth Mage.”

‘Notes in a Mirror’ author coming Dec 8

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books, fiction2 Comments

I’m looking forward to interviewing Helen Macie Osterman, author of the new thriller “Notes in a Mirror” on December 8.

This compelling book, released November 15th by Weaving Dreams Publishing, is set in a grim, 1950s mental institution where the treatments are as archaic as the dark. cold buildings.

The author worked as a nurse for 45 years. During her training, her rotation took her to such a hospital for three months where she witnessed hydrotherapy, Insulin coma therapy and electroshock. These were once accepted treatments for the mentally ill, and they are part of the world protagonist Mary Lou Hammond and Kate Stephens are plunged into at the fictional Hillside State Mental Hospital.

But there’s more. Somebody is trying to contact the sensitive Mary Lou. Is it her imagination, a former patient, or perhaps the mad house is driving her mad. This 213-page mystery will keep you guessing while making you thankful you were never committed to Hillside–or the real-life institutions on which it is based.

As the Osterman writes in her introduction, “The treatments provided were primitive and sometimes dangerous, but at the time, considered state of the art.” The author’s experience as a student nurse in such an institution gives her the knowledge to make this an accurate and chilling novel.

—Malcolm, author of “Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire” and “The Sun Singer”

Another Novel Makes the Rounds

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books, fiction2 Comments

I knew when I completed GARDEN OF HEAVEN in March, 2008, that a 240,000-word novel by a relative unknown would be a hard sell. Nonetheless, I will continue trying to sell it.

However, I’m turning my immediate attention on a 60,000-word novel called JOCK STEWART AND THE MISSING SEA OF FIRE that began making the rounds this week. Those of you who have chanced by my Morning Satirical News weblog have already met the main character: he bills himself as a hard-boiled reporter for the Junction City Star-Gazer of the kind seen in Hollywood’s noir movies of the 1940s and 1950s.

Whereas “Morning Satirical News” takes a gallows-humor look at real issues, the novel finds Jock–and some of the recurring fictional characters from the blog–trying to track down who stole the Mayor’s prized racehorse Sea of Fire and who killed the Star-Gazer publisher’s prized girl friend Bambi Hill.

I’m classifying the book as humor. Now, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that a prospective publisher also thinks it’s funny.