Tag: Gahan Wilson

A Night in the Lonesome October —
All is not what it seems…

In the murky London gloom, a knife-wielding gentleman named Jack prowls the midnight streets with his faithful watchdog Snuff – gathering together the grisly ingredients they will need for an upcoming ancient and unearthly rite. For soon after the death of the moon, black magic will summon the Elder Gods back into the world. And all manner of Players, both human and undead, are preparing to participate.

Some have come to open the gates. Some have come to slam them shut.

And now the dread night approaches – so let the Game begin.

Author: Roger Zelazny
Illustrator: Gahan Wilson
Genre: Fantasy, Horror, Gaslamp
Publisher: Avon Books
Publication Date: September 1, 1994
Pages: 280

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October 11th

A short but pertinent chapter today. Snuff is out on his rounds and meets the Dour Detective and his companion near the Good Doctor’s place. They recognize him from their meeting in London, and make some sweeping generalizations about Snuff based on his appearance. Snuff does his ‘good dog’ shtick then leads them astray when they ask him to lead them to his home. Instead he takes them to the occultists’ place and leaves them there.

While travelling between the occultists’ and the Count’s residences Snuff notes something interesting happening in his mental map, something that gets more interesting when he adds in a trip back to where the Good Doctor works. We’re not told what exactly is interesting but we can surmise it’s something to do with Snuff’s ‘magic tracking’ system and the finding of the center where the events of Halloween will take place.

Snuff is showing himself to be a doughty companion, and possibly even a player in the game in his own right? I’ve read this book before of course, but following it on a day by day experience like this gives me more time to mull over the questions of each day as they come up before proceeding. It’s less of a headlong rush this time through, and more of a growing respect for how Zelazny has put this extravaganza together so seamlessly and entertainingly.

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Boo-graphy:
William Meikle is a Scottish writer, now living in Canada, with more than thirty novels published in the genre press and over 300 short story credits in thirteen countries.

He has books available from a variety of publishers including Dark Regions Press, Crossroad Press and Severed Press, and his work has appeared in a number of professional anthologies and magazines.

He lives in Newfoundland with whales, bald eagles and icebergs for company.

When he’s not writing he drinks beer, plays guitar, and dreams of fortune and glory.

Website

• 

• 

The Green & the Black —
A small group of industrial archaeologists head into the center of Newfoundland, investigating a rumor of a lost prospecting team of Irish miners in the late Nineteenth century.

They find the remains of a mining operation, and a journal and papers detailing the extent of the miners’ activities. But there is something else on the site, something older than the miners, as old as the rock itself.

Soon the archaeologists are coming under assault, from a strange infection that spreads like wildfire through mind and body, one that doctors seem powerless to define let alone control.

The survivors only have one option. They must return to the mine, and face what waits for them, down in the deep dark places, where the green meets the black.

William’s Halloween Giveaway

A Night in the Lonesome October —
All is not what it seems…

In the murky London gloom, a knife-wielding gentleman named Jack prowls the midnight streets with his faithful watchdog Snuff – gathering together the grisly ingredients they will need for an upcoming ancient and unearthly rite. For soon after the death of the moon, black magic will summon the Elder Gods back into the world. And all manner of Players, both human and undead, are preparing to participate.

Some have come to open the gates. Some have come to slam them shut.

And now the dread night approaches – so let the Game begin.

Author: Roger Zelazny
Illustrator: Gahan Wilson
Genre: Fantasy, Horror, Gaslamp
Publisher: Avon Books
Publication Date: September 1, 1994
Pages: 280

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October 10th

A rainy day means that Snuff’s exterior rounds are delayed, but that proves to be a blessing in disguise as a leak threatens to break the seals that hold the ‘thing’ in the basement. Snuff saves the day by the simple expedient of rolling in the leaking water to soak it up, much to the disgust of the ‘thing’.

It is night before the rain stops and Snuff is able to be about his rounds. He visits Owen, the druid, who has been busy making many wicker baskets, and the Good Doctor who is busy creating lightning in a laboratory where something big twitches under a sheet. Larry Talbot is tending, most intently, to strange plants in a hothouse and at the same place Snuff finds another strange paw print. The last visit of the night is to check on the Count, where Snuff is discovered as a great bat returns from its own nightly forays…and turns into a caped, aristocratic, man with a heavy foreign accent. Snuff gives him his best lost puppy act then flees, disconcerted by the Count’s shapeshifting abilities.

So the players all seem to be busy in one way or another, busy preparing in their own ways. There’s a pattern, of sorts, here. We’re just not seeing the whole picture yet as Zelazny skillfully moves the pieces around and around a slowly forming center.

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Boo-graphy:
William Meikle is a Scottish writer, now living in Canada, with more than thirty novels published in the genre press and over 300 short story credits in thirteen countries.

He has books available from a variety of publishers including Dark Regions Press, Crossroad Press and Severed Press, and his work has appeared in a number of professional anthologies and magazines.

He lives in Newfoundland with whales, bald eagles and icebergs for company.

When he’s not writing he drinks beer, plays guitar, and dreams of fortune and glory.

Website

• 

• 

The Green & the Black —
A small group of industrial archaeologists head into the center of Newfoundland, investigating a rumor of a lost prospecting team of Irish miners in the late Nineteenth century.

They find the remains of a mining operation, and a journal and papers detailing the extent of the miners’ activities. But there is something else on the site, something older than the miners, as old as the rock itself.

Soon the archaeologists are coming under assault, from a strange infection that spreads like wildfire through mind and body, one that doctors seem powerless to define let alone control.

The survivors only have one option. They must return to the mine, and face what waits for them, down in the deep dark places, where the green meets the black.

William’s Halloween Giveaway

A Night in the Lonesome October —
All is not what it seems…

In the murky London gloom, a knife-wielding gentleman named Jack prowls the midnight streets with his faithful watchdog Snuff – gathering together the grisly ingredients they will need for an upcoming ancient and unearthly rite. For soon after the death of the moon, black magic will summon the Elder Gods back into the world. And all manner of Players, both human and undead, are preparing to participate.

Some have come to open the gates. Some have come to slam them shut.

And now the dread night approaches – so let the Game begin.

Author: Roger Zelazny
Illustrator: Gahan Wilson
Genre: Fantasy, Horror, Gaslamp
Publisher: Avon Books
Publication Date: September 1, 1994
Pages: 280

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October 9th

Snuff and Jack are back in the city again, with Jack still on the hunt for ‘materials’. They have a successful hunt, but on the way home are approached by the great detective finally showing himself in the game, on the trail of that night’s murderer. Holmes makes sure that Jack knows he is being watched. Snuff senses something almost canine-like in the doggedness shown by this new man, and resolves to keep a close eye on him.

Larry Talbot has also been in the city and has also been approached by the detective and his rotund companion, who was making cryptic comments about ‘hounds’. Talbot reveals that he has a chequered history with Count Dracula and believes Dracula to be an ‘opener’. This conversation reminds Snuff that earlier in the day he visited the Count’s hideout with Greymalk, who crept into the crypt under the ruined church and returned with tales of a swanky coffin and a sleeping inhabitant. As a reward for information Snuff took Greymalk to see the ‘slithering things’ in Jack’s mirror. The things do indeed ‘slither’.

Snuff’s relationship with Greymalk is quickly turning into a mutually beneficial friendship and is rather sweet, a lightness and sureness of touch that’s typical of Zelazny even while he piles on the growing sense of dread as the time of a full moon gets closer and Jack keeps an eye on the newcomer, Mr. ‘call me Larry’ Talbot.

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Boo-graphy:
William Meikle is a Scottish writer, now living in Canada, with more than thirty novels published in the genre press and over 300 short story credits in thirteen countries.

He has books available from a variety of publishers including Dark Regions Press, Crossroad Press and Severed Press, and his work has appeared in a number of professional anthologies and magazines.

He lives in Newfoundland with whales, bald eagles and icebergs for company.

When he’s not writing he drinks beer, plays guitar, and dreams of fortune and glory.

Website

• 

• 

The Green & the Black —
A small group of industrial archaeologists head into the center of Newfoundland, investigating a rumor of a lost prospecting team of Irish miners in the late Nineteenth century.

They find the remains of a mining operation, and a journal and papers detailing the extent of the miners’ activities. But there is something else on the site, something older than the miners, as old as the rock itself.

Soon the archaeologists are coming under assault, from a strange infection that spreads like wildfire through mind and body, one that doctors seem powerless to define let alone control.

The survivors only have one option. They must return to the mine, and face what waits for them, down in the deep dark places, where the green meets the black.

William’s Halloween Giveaway

A Night in the Lonesome October —
All is not what it seems…

In the murky London gloom, a knife-wielding gentleman named Jack prowls the midnight streets with his faithful watchdog Snuff – gathering together the grisly ingredients they will need for an upcoming ancient and unearthly rite. For soon after the death of the moon, black magic will summon the Elder Gods back into the world. And all manner of Players, both human and undead, are preparing to participate.

Some have come to open the gates. Some have come to slam them shut.

And now the dread night approaches – so let the Game begin.

Author: Roger Zelazny
Illustrator: Gahan Wilson
Genre: Fantasy, Horror, Gaslamp
Publisher: Avon Books
Publication Date: September 1, 1994
Pages: 280

---

October 8th

Snuff and Jack have a visitor, a large dark-haired man by the name of Larry Talbot who introduces himself as a new neighbor. He seems polite and well-mannered but there’s a strange scent about him that Snuff can’t identify. While Jack and the new man chat over tea Snuff has to scurry upstairs as the ‘thing’ in the wardrobe is making an escape. We learn it has leathery wings, reinforcing my earlier thought that the ‘thing’s are trapped demons. Snuff manages to battle it back into its pen but, being a dog, has trouble latching the door. Jack arrives in the nick of time to close it in. Talbot remarks on how Snuff is a good ‘closer of doors’, and drops a none- too-subtle hint that he himself is a closer, and that he believes that he and Jack are on the same side. That might be true, but nobody is really showing their hand yet and there is no indication of what needs to be opened or closed, or why.

When Talbot leaves, Snuff follows and adds the man’s house to his mental map which is coming along nicely now that he also knows the location of the Count. He is prevented from adding more detail to it by news that the two occultists have broken the unsaid rules of the game and have made an attempt on the life of Greymalk. Snuff rushes to save her from the well into which she’d been thrown, and is thanked for his help. Is this the beginning of an alliance? Time will tell.

So already we have Jack the Ripper, the Wolfman, Dracula, Doctor Frankenstein, Rasputin, Holmes and Watson and various occultists, witches and familiars, all congregated in a small patch of countryside, all preparing for what is obviously a ritual at Halloween, and all apparently aligned as either openers or closers. Who else will be along to do the Monster Mash?

Today there was also one of the best lines in the book. When asking questions about Talbot, one of the other familiars says to Snuff “Perhaps he’s his own best friend.” A lovely joke just thrown in among many witticisms and knowing references to older works. This book is a marvel.

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Boo-graphy:
William Meikle is a Scottish writer, now living in Canada, with more than thirty novels published in the genre press and over 300 short story credits in thirteen countries.

He has books available from a variety of publishers including Dark Regions Press, Crossroad Press and Severed Press, and his work has appeared in a number of professional anthologies and magazines.

He lives in Newfoundland with whales, bald eagles and icebergs for company.

When he’s not writing he drinks beer, plays guitar, and dreams of fortune and glory.

Website

• 

• 

The Green & the Black —
A small group of industrial archaeologists head into the center of Newfoundland, investigating a rumor of a lost prospecting team of Irish miners in the late Nineteenth century.

They find the remains of a mining operation, and a journal and papers detailing the extent of the miners’ activities. But there is something else on the site, something older than the miners, as old as the rock itself.

Soon the archaeologists are coming under assault, from a strange infection that spreads like wildfire through mind and body, one that doctors seem powerless to define let alone control.

The survivors only have one option. They must return to the mine, and face what waits for them, down in the deep dark places, where the green meets the black.

William’s Halloween Giveaway

A Night in the Lonesome October —
All is not what it seems…

In the murky London gloom, a knife-wielding gentleman named Jack prowls the midnight streets with his faithful watchdog Snuff – gathering together the grisly ingredients they will need for an upcoming ancient and unearthly rite. For soon after the death of the moon, black magic will summon the Elder Gods back into the world. And all manner of Players, both human and undead, are preparing to participate.

Some have come to open the gates. Some have come to slam them shut.

And now the dread night approaches – so let the Game begin.

Author: Roger Zelazny
Illustrator: Gahan Wilson
Genre: Fantasy, Horror, Gaslamp
Publisher: Avon Books
Publication Date: September 1, 1994
Pages: 280

---

October 7th

The day begins early with Jack and Snuff on a foray into the city for ‘materials’. It’s bloody work again, but Jack announces himself pleased with the prize of a piece of green material from the clothes of a redhead, a necessary piece of a spell. Once again they are pursued by the dour detective and his rotund friend, the latter of which is still hampered by a limp so much that Jack and Snuff can get clear away. Did Snuff cause the limp, or is it the rotund chap’s old war wound playing up? Inquiring minds need to know.

In the morning Snuff’s rounds turn up an intruder! He finds a rat, sitting staring at the ‘things’ in the mirror. Snuff’s first instinct is to dispose of it outright, but the rat talks, announcing itself as Bobo, a familiar of “The Good Doctor”. After a bit of trading Snuff spares the rat in return for the location of the Count. Together they visit a ruined church. The rat tells Snuff that the Count is down in the crypt, sleeping. Snuff, sensing trouble, takes his word for it. In return for the rat’s help he shares his info on the locations of the other players.

At the close of the day we learn that, as the bells chime for midnight, Snuff can talk to Jack. They have a conversation about the day’s findings, in the course of which we discover that they have been together for some time, having played at least one previous great game in Dijon. They chat about the other players, the witch and the cat in particular, both seeming to be interested in them and in ascertaining whether they are friend or foe. Snuff finally settles down to sleep, seeking the advice of someone called Growler in his dreams.

Beneath the seemingly easy-going conversations of the day there’s been a lot going on. Zelazny is a master of foreshadowing and there’s a lot of it here, more than enough to quicken the interest and get us turning pages. I had to force myself to stop at the end of the day. I’m playing by rules here too.

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Boo-graphy:
William Meikle is a Scottish writer, now living in Canada, with more than thirty novels published in the genre press and over 300 short story credits in thirteen countries.

He has books available from a variety of publishers including Dark Regions Press, Crossroad Press and Severed Press, and his work has appeared in a number of professional anthologies and magazines.

He lives in Newfoundland with whales, bald eagles and icebergs for company.

When he’s not writing he drinks beer, plays guitar, and dreams of fortune and glory.

Website

• 

• 

The Green & the Black —
A small group of industrial archaeologists head into the center of Newfoundland, investigating a rumor of a lost prospecting team of Irish miners in the late Nineteenth century.

They find the remains of a mining operation, and a journal and papers detailing the extent of the miners’ activities. But there is something else on the site, something older than the miners, as old as the rock itself.

Soon the archaeologists are coming under assault, from a strange infection that spreads like wildfire through mind and body, one that doctors seem powerless to define let alone control.

The survivors only have one option. They must return to the mine, and face what waits for them, down in the deep dark places, where the green meets the black.

William’s Halloween Giveaway