Occult messages in fact

I’ve just read an adapted article by Damien Lewis about his latest book, The Nazi Hunters: The Ultra Secret SAS Unit and the Quest for Hitler’s War Criminals (Quercus), and, despite the long title, I’ve concluded it certainly seems worth reading the book itself.

Lewis has had access to a lot of material that was not available last century.

There’s a fascinating passage that had me intrigued too.

At the war’s close, SAS Colonel Brian Franks and SAS Major Bill Barkworth wanted to hunt down those responsible for murdering a ‘few dozen’ of his unit’s men who were captured. They even had to fight their own top brass and the politicians, particularly as the SAS was officially disbanded.  In fact, Franks retained an ‘investigation team’ under the dark aegis of the investigation branch of the War Office, and effectively dodged official scrutiny. They still had to find eighteen bodies…

They were dogged in their search and at one point even set up a Ouija board. An upturned glass was placed in the middle of alphabet cards. The ‘message’ disclosed an airman’s name, where he and a crew member were shot down, captured and made to dig their own grave before being shot. The following day the team went to the defined area. Locals guided them to the unmarked grave site and they unearthed two bodies.  The Ouija session identified the German responsible for the shootings – a Gestapo man, who was subsequently arrested.

Needless to say, when the War Office learned about this occult detection, they were not pleased.

My spy novel The Prague Papers concerns psychic Tana Standish who works for a secret adjunct of MI6, Interprises. It’s set in 1975 and a section of the book also deals with a Ouija board:

Oxfordshire, England

Keith Tyson’s finger trembled but he was unaware of it. He’d heard that some scientists believed the Ouija glass is affected by the subconscious exerting subtle pressure on the sitter’s motor muscles without that person knowing. He didn’t know what to think. Tana reckoned he had psychic leanings, if only he let them out, but he wasn’t convinced.

“Bloody hell, it’s working!” young Wilf Ashley exclaimed, freckled face gaping.

“You’re not moving it, are you, laddie?” Jock McTaggart asked Tyson.

Keith Tyson shook his head. “No.”

“It’s uncanny,” said Alan Swann, the session’s fourth member.

Zigzagging, the glass seemed to be spelling out answers to their questions while Tyson faithfully jotted down the letters selected by the glass.

Then everything changed. The letters were gibberish and the glass didn’t answer any more of their questions.

Yet it was familiar. Tyson had come across that grouping recently.

“Well, that’s our lot for tonight, I reckon,” Alan remarked and took his hand away.

“No, wait!” Tyson snapped. Q-13-ZTL: Tana’s message-coded name. My God, it’s all in code! “Keep at it, for God’s sake!”

Though Tyson was senior to Alan both in age and rank in K-Section, he rarely bothered with such things. The urgency of his voice alone instilled immediate obedience.

Alan replaced his finger on the tumbler.

Again the glass slid over the table.

Tyson could hardly keep track of the letters so mysteriously indicated by the glass.

The tension mounted palpably.

Eventually, the glass slowed.

Finally, it stopped.

Releasing a long sigh, Tyson took his finger away and leaned back on the swivel chair. He threw down the pad. The wrist of his writing-hand ached. He rubbed his brow wearily, leaden eyes leveling on his three associates. “I think we’ve just received a message in our latest code.”

Wilf jumped up from his seat. “You can’t be serious!” Agitatedly, the twenty-four-year-old technician ran a hand through his red hair. “It’s just a lark, a game, isn’t it?” Nobody answered him.

Calmly, his cold blue eyes quite steady, Alan asked in his mellifluous voice, “Are you sure?”

“I’ll just check the ciphers.” Tyson crossed the room, opened the safe and pulled out a thick book. Scanning the plastic pages, Tyson began decoding the Ouija message.

He worked in total silence.

The telex clattered once then was still; nobody moved to consult it.

Their normally tedious weekend duty stint in the Fenner House Communications Centre had suddenly taken on a very weird aspect.

***

Alan Swann was twenty-nine last month and had been a Royal Navy rating and then a field agent for Interprises almost from the beginning and believed he’d seen it all.

As a young communications rating Swann was as reckless as any other able seaman. However, he quickly learned he had a facility for foreign languages. He picked up Malaysian and Indonesian while stationed in HMS Terror in the Far East.

Then the sheer chance of sharing a Mercedes taxi with Keith Tyson, all the way back from a Sembawang village brothel, changed his life. He got chatting with Tyson and they found they both had a strong interest in languages.

Tyson took him under his wing and they spent several evenings out on the town, down Bugis street, tasting the exotic foods on the street stalls and frequenting the girlie bars while avoiding the attentions of the convincing catamites and transvestites. A place with a heady atmosphere, spicy aromas and Tiger beer.

Some years later, Swann was interviewed by Admiral Sands who worked for the Director of Naval Security (DNSy); his responses and observations actually impressed the Admiral a great deal. And one of the referees he tendered was Keith Tyson.

At the end of his time in the Andrew, Swann was head-hunted by Sir Gerald Hazzard, a friend of Admiral Sands.

Obviously, there were still surprises to be had, Swann thought as he scoured the Comcen room’s shadows. At the opposite end stood the formidable network console, its various indicator-lights flashing routinely, keeping track of their agents throughout the globe. He forced an amused ironic grin.

When Keith invited them in to relieve the boredom, he’d been struck by the absurdity of holding a Ouija session right here in the heart of the Interprises Comcen.

To start with, they’d self-consciously asked questions. What was his grandfather’s middle name? Where were Jock’s brother and sister born? That sort of thing. And, alarmingly, the glass had spelled out some answers correctly. Then the gibberish started.

But, in the final analysis, it didn’t seem to be gibberish.

***

By the time Keith Tyson deciphered the first paragraph, he felt sick inside. It was about eight years since they’d been lovers, but they were still close, passion replaced by respect, comradeship and something indefinable. He wondered if that quality had anything to do with his receiving Tana’s message.

He wasn’t sure how Alan would handle the news, either. Only a few in the Section had noticed that Alan Swann was hopelessly in love with Tana and had been since their assignment in Elba. Hopelessly, because she didn’t want that kind of commitment. Keith understood that, but Alan wouldn’t or couldn’t.

Unsmiling narrow mouth beneath a salt-and-pepper moustache, Jock stubbed out half-smoked cigarettes repeatedly. He was a bag of nerves since his last mission. It was plain on his face that he knew this astral message was very bad.

At last Tyson put down the pencil and raised his grey eyes. His expression was solemn. “It’s from Tana,” he said. “They’ve got her.”

Alan Swann’s face lost most of its colour as he leaned forward. He queried softly, “Where?”

“Czechoslovakia.”

 *

The Prague Papers –an e-book from Crooked Cat Publishing.

 
From Amazon UK here

From Amazon COM here

Kobo here

Smashwords here

Apple here

Portend evil – or a cure…

Today – or what is left of it – is Tuesday the 13^th and in Spain that is the equivalent of the UK’s Friday the 13^th, bringing with it the usual superstition of imminent bad luck.

The Spanish regard Tuesday 13^th with particular wariness.

The exact origins of fear towards either day remain unclear but there are several theories.

Tuesdays were seen as being dominated by the influence of Mars, the god of war, as etymologically the Spanish for Tuesday, martes stems from his name. For some, this superstition was strengthened by historical events such as the fall of Constantinople to the Fourth Crusade on Tuesday April 13 1204 and its fall to the Ottomans on Tuesday May 29 1453. Of course, they conveniently forget all the other fateful events that don’t happen on that day and date.

There is a saying that goes ‘en Martes ni te cases ni te embarques ni de tu casa te apartes’, meaning ‘Don’t marry, go on a boat, or leave your house on Tuesday’.

Just as reoccurring patterns have this day of the week unpopular, the same has happened with the number 13. The Oxford Dictionary of Superstitions (1989) lists such concerns as ‘beginning anything on a Friday’ – you’ll not finish it; beginning a journey on that day as it ‘bodes ill luck’; never put Friday laid eggs into a child’s christening cake; never court on that day – ‘or you’ll never meet again’; it is unlucky to start a new job on Friday 13^th (few jobs begin on Fridays, however, usually Mondays (phew!); being born on that day (though no ill luck will follow the child if it’s born on God Friday the 13^th!)

Here in the Western world we commonly regard the number 13 as an unlucky one. Hotels often omit it from room doors and floor numbers while some airlines do the same with aisle numbers. I’ve certainly been in a hotel without a thirteenth floor!

There were 13 guests invited to dinner in Valhalla and Loki, seen as the Viking god mischief and chaos or as the god of evil and spirit of death (depending on which scholar you read), was its 13^th guest. And of course this parallels Jesus Christ’s last supper in which Judas was the 13^th guest and was responsible for betraying Christ, enabling his crucifixion – on a Friday.

For some it goes beyond superstition and becomes a real phobia called ‘Trezidavomartiofobia’ (fear of Tuesday the 13^th), which leads to an uncontrollable fear that causes the sufferer to attempt to spend the day at home and avoid contact with others. (Any excuse to avoid work, probably!) The English version is Triskaidekaphobia, fear of thirteen.

Superstition stems from folklore and coincidence, harking back in many cases to a time when people lived in closer proximity with nature than now, and believed in an ‘anima mundi’. In those days the sun and moon, fire and water, flora and fauna were accorded religious respect. (It’s always possible that a little more respect for nature would alleviate some of the world’s modern ills…)

 
Most of us are surprised by coincidences and may even look back at a fortunate chain of events to consider that they were intended, assigned by Fate. Some beliefs are characterised by a direct symbolism: for example, a new-born baby was carried upstairs to signify that he would rise in the world. Jung remarked, ‘Who can doubt that the Flanders poppies are more than local flora?’ To this day, it seems that red and white flowers in hospitals signify blood and bandages.
 
Linked with superstition is magic – for good or evil. For example, knots tied on a length of string by a witch could be a spell to hinder a birth or cure a sprained wrist! A black cat can portend evil or its blood could cure all manner of diseases. Either way, the poor black cat is the loser, it seems. Sadly, even to this day it seems that black cats are not as popular as cats of other hues – as if ancient superstition still lingered, even subliminally.

The study of superstition and witchcraft is a fascinating subject, and most certainly ideal material for countless story ideas. I used some in my out-of-print novel Death is Another Life – and I hope to return to the subject in the future, touch wood.

I'v been visiting UK...

We flew out of Alicante to Newcastle upon Tyne on 30 September and just returned this evening 12 October... So normal service will be resumed soon!

Writing – Lee Child - dubious advice

‘We’re not story showers, we’re story tellers.’

That catchy little snippet comes from the latest issue (November) of Writing Magazine, a quotation from bestselling author Lee Child. According to the article by Tony Rossiter, Child ‘believes that reading is the only essential training for a writer.’ Apparently, Child eschews the ‘show, don’t tell’ principle, adding, ‘There is nothing wrong with just telling the story. So liberate yourself from that rule.’

Who am I to disagree with someone whose books sell in their millions?

However, if this quotation is accurate, then it’s nonsense.

Whether he knows it or not, he ‘shows’ in his writing – through character point of view, description and emotional content.

‘Show’ puts the reader into the scene and into the protagonist’s mind. That, to a large extent, is what makes the Jack Reacher books popular: character. You can’t have ‘character’ without ‘show’.

There is a place for ‘tell’ in narrative – to move the story forward a little faster, to skim over some boring life bits. But if you want reader involvement, you need to ‘show.’

As for reading, I totally agree if you want to be a writer then you must read – ideally, widely, both fiction and non-fiction; a little poetry wouldn’t go amiss, either.

So, if you want to try the hard way to find a publisher, follow his advice... but don't hold your breath.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

 

 

Make a Date – 9, 14 and 26 October

Some time ago I published a regular monthly column linking a set selection of dates in history. The series was popular. I'm busy coordinating the articles into book form. As today is 9 October, here are a number of linked events for that date plus two other October dates. To avoid repetition, I've simply indicated the relevant date in brackets. The three dates for this article are:

9, 14 and 26 October

This month (26) saw the British military occupation of Iraq end – in 1946. Obviously, governments don’t refer to history these days! Peace in the Middle East has been an elusive dream for a long time, and seems to be further away than ever. As far as this month goes, because he had made peace with Israel (and gained a Nobel Prize for his efforts), the President of Egypt was assassinated by members of the Islamic Jihad in 1981 and one week later President Hosni Mubarak was elected (14) President.

On the same day in 1994 Palestine leader Yasser Arafat, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (14). Twelve days later, Jordan and Israel signed a peace treaty (26).

A year later to the day, Israeli secret service agents from Mossad assassinated the Islamic Jihad leader Fathi Shikaki in his hotel in Malta (26).

And still people die in the Middle East – and elsewhere in the world – because of the politics and religion affecting that region’s instability.

Politicians tinkered with the House of Lords and in 1999 the Lords voted to end the right of hereditary peers to vote in the upper chamber of Parliament, bringing to a close hundreds of years of tradition (26).

Lord Home of Hirsel (Sir Alec Douglas-Home), the ex-Prime Minister, died (9) in 1995. He was a keen cricketer and played against Argentina for three of his first-class games for the MCC during their South American tour in the 1920s. On retiring as PM, he became the president of the MCC in 1966.

Cricketer Charlie Parker was born (14) in 1882 and is the third highest wicket taker in the history of first class cricket, behind only Wilfred Rhodes and Tich Freeman. During his career with England he took 3,278 wickets and scored 7,951 runs.

Running of a different type is the 1,500 metres race – which was first run under 3 minutes 30 seconds by Steve Cram, who was born (14) in 1960. At one time he seemed unbeatable, gaining world records for the 1,500, 2,000 metre races and the mile, all within nineteen days in 1985. His record for the mile stood for eight years.

Sportsman Matthew le Tissier, who played soccer for Southampton and England, was born (14) in Guernsey in 1968. A little over a hundred years earlier, in 1863, the Football Association was formed (26).

 
An association of a different kind was cemented by the marriage (9) of Louis XII of France and Mary Tudor, the daughter of our own Henry VII in 1514, striving to get a male heir. They were not successful and he died the following year. The Salic Law did not permit either of his two daughters by an earlier marriage to succeed to his throne so his cousin succeeded him instead to become King of France.
 
The Royal Charter, a steam clipper, was wrecked (26) by a severe hurricane off Anglesey in 1859. Over 450 souls died.

Sixty years earlier, HMS Lutine was transporting over a million pounds of bullion to the Hamburg banks when she encountered heavy gales and off the Dutch coast she became a total loss, with all but one of over 240 passengers and crew dying.

Lutine bell, Lloyd's - Wikipedia commons

 

Several attempts were made in succeeding years to recover the gold but most of it remains unsalved to this day. The ship’s bell was found almost sixty years later and was placed in the Underwriting Room at Lloyd’s. Traditionally, the bell was struck once when a ship was lost and twice when an overdue ship returned. A crack has developed so the bell is only rung to commemorate disasters, such as the atrocities of 11 September 2001, the Asian Tsunami, the London terrorist bombings and annually at the end of the Armistice Day silence.
 
HMS Royal Oak was sunk (14) by German U-boat U-47 in 1939, six years to the day after Germany withdrew from The League of Nations (14).

German businessman Oskar Schindler has been immortalised in the 1982 book Schindler’s Ark by Thomas Keneally, filmed by Steven Spielberg as Schindler’s List. He saved over 1100 Jews from the concentration camps and died (9) in 1974.

 
Jewish-born Hannah Arendt fled her home in Germany in 1933 and lived in France until she had to elude the Nazis again in 1940, this time with her husband and mother. She was helped by American diplomat Hiram Bingham IV, who illegally issued US visas to her and about 2,500 other Jewish refugees. She was born (14) in 1906 and brought her considerable intellect to bear on the philosophical conundrums posed by the twentieth century and attended several US universities.

The Commission of National Education was the first recorded ministry of education and was formed (14) in Poland in 1773.

Education and intelligence could be the death of you in Pol Pot’s regime in the 1970s; ‘intellectuals’ – if you could write, you fell into that category! - were massacred in their thousands. The Khmer Republic was proclaimed (9) in Cambodia in 1970 and civil war was waged until 1975 when Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were victorious, renaming the country Democratic Kampuchea. His guerilla fighters and later his government were responsible for the deaths of over two million Cambodians in the Killing Fields.

 
Guerilla fighter Che Guevara was captured in 1967 in Bolivia and the day afterwards he was executed without trial (9). Guevara is variously a socialist revolutionary icon or a terrorist and butcher. He was in at the beginning with Castro and founded Cuba’s labour camps and state-endorsed executions and mismanaged the Cuban economy, overseeing the near-collapse of sugar production, the failure of industrialization, and the introduction of rationing—all this in what had been one of Latin America’s four most economically successful countries. Many Cuban exiles have said that their country could not afford another Che Guevara. The Left still idolise him, however.
 
Cuban musician Chucho Valdés was born (9) in 1941 and in 1967 co-founded Orquesta de Música Moderna with his compatriots guitarist Carlos Emilio Morales, reedsman Paquito D’Rivera, trumpeter Arturo Sandoval and singer-percussionist Oscar Valdés. In 1973 eight members of that orchestra formed Irakere, which in 1978 became the first Castro-era Cuban ensemble to obtain a contract with an American-based record label. Irakere's debut on Columbia was a Grammy winner.
 
The Cuban Missile crisis began in 1962 when a U-2 flight (14) over Cuba took photographs of Soviet nuclear weapons being installed on the island. These definitely were Weapons of Mass Destruction, no doubt about it, and the world teetered on the brink of war.

U2 plane on USS America - Wikipedia commons

Another momentous flight was that of the Bell X-1 which Chuck Yeager flew faster than the speed of sound (14), the first man to do so in level flight in 1947.

Eleven years later, in 1958, Pan Am made the first commercial flight of the Boeing 707 from New York to Paris (26). [The Pan Am airline collapsed in 1991.]

In 2001 internal US Delta Flight 458 was an early symptom of terrorist paranoia which we’re still seeing today, some years later. The aircraft was diverted (14) and passengers were taken off while officials investigated a report that two ‘Middle Eastern men’ were making threats in a foreign language. The two were actually Orthodox Jews praying... Not a suicide bomber in sight.

In 1984 there was one strange suicide when John D McCollum shot himself after spending a day listening to Ozzy Osbourne records (26); a law-suit was later filed by his parents over the song ‘Suicide Solution’ but the case was thrown out.

 
Osbourne’s wife Sharon was born (9) in 1952, the same year as the poet Andrew Motion (26).

American poet e.e. cummings was born (14) in 1894. Fellow American writer Harold Robbins, author of The Carpetbaggers (1961) and A Stone for Danny Fisher (1952), seemed to invent the modern blockbuster with its sex and violence; he died (14) in 1997. In complete contrast was the author A.A. Milne’s book Winnie-the-Pooh, which was first published (14) in 1926. An Italian author who wrote political works as well as stories for children, Carlo Collodi died (26) at the age of sixty-four in 1890. Collodi created Pinocchio, the puppet without any strings.

 
Someone who has had a string of popular hit singles is Cliff Richard, who was born (14) in 1940, the same day and year (14) as actor Christopher Timothy, the actor best known for his portrayal of the vet, James Herriot.
 
Also born (9) in the same year was John Lennon, musician and songwriter. The term ‘Beatlemania’ was coined (14) in 1963 to describe the scenes at the previous night’s performance of The Beatles on the TV show Val Parnell’s Sunday Night at the London Palladium. In early 1964 The Beatles appeared at the Palladium with Alma Cogan, the singer who had ‘a laugh in her voice’. Tragically, cancer killed her (26) in 1966 at the age of thirty-four; she was also known for wearing amazing dresses.

Alma Cogan

American fashion designer Ralph Lauren was born (14) in 1939. One wonders what he would have thought of the sumptuary law passed (14) in 1651 in Massachusetts forbidding poor people from adopting excessive styles of dress - the law-makers were filled with ‘utter detestation’ concerning those people of ‘mean condition’ who disported themselves as ladies and gentlemen by ‘wearing gold or silver lace and silk or tiffany hoods’. What a silly law!
 
What would PM David Cameron make of that law? He was born (9) in 1966, fifty years after Francois Mitterrand, President of France, who was born (26) in 1916 (he died in January 1996). Full circle again, we started with politics so we might as well end on that subject!

[PS - yes, I know, 14 October was included in the 1, 14 and 31 October item too! Well, a lot happened on that day in history!]

Writing – competition - Twisted Tales

Twisted Tales is a competition from Create50, looking for 50 scary stories for a new horror anthology.

Length – 2,000 words

Deadline – 30 November, 2015

Fee - £5 per story (You can enter an unlimited amount of stories, and indeed should submit a minimum of two)

Prizes

1^st Place for best Writing £250 cash // Android Tablet // Scrivener Writing Software // Mystery prize TBC

2^nd Place £100 cash // Scrivener Writing Software // Mystery prize TBC

3^rd Place Scrivener Writing Software // Place Mystery prize TBC

Anyone can enter, from any country, though stories must be written in English.

NOTE: For each story you submit you MUST read and feedback on three other stories.

All stories must include a title page with the name of the story and author. Please do not add your contact details on this page.

All stories must be submitted in the format: 12-point Times New Roman, and double space text.

All stories must be submitted in Microsoft Word or basic RTF format (Rich Text Format) or PDF format. No other word processor files will be accepted. Note that most word processors will allow you to save your file in Rich Text Format if you do not have MS Word or cannot convert to PDF.

Please name your file with the title, draft number and your name - example My-Script-Draft-2-By-Jane-Jones.doc or My-Script-Draft-2-By-Jane-Jones.rtf

All stories must be original works.

The website contains the full rules and also a lot of advice, so do check it out:

http://twisted-vol1.create50.com/twisted-vol1

Submit at least two stories. The one you think is a great spooky tale, and the one that scares you to write.

The world in your story should be ‘today’, so no Victorian Gothic stories or Sci-Fi creatures in space. Your ghosts, creatures and monsters need to exist in our world and environment.

 

Good luck!

Make a Date – 4, 17 and 23 October

Some time ago I published a regular monthly column linking a set selection of dates in history. The series was popular. I'm busy coordinating the articles into book form. As today is 4 October, here are a number of linked events for that date plus two other October dates. To avoid repetition, I've simply indicated the relevant date in brackets. The three dates for this article are:

4, 17 and 23 October

This series about linking dates and happenings in history inevitably shows religion cropping up from time to time. October is no exception.

One of the greatest and certainly the first complete English language Bible was printed (4) in 1535, with translations by Tyndale and Coverdale. Many everyday phrases come from this version, as do several allusions made by Shakespeare.

On the same day (4) forty-seven years later Pope Gregory XIII implemented the Gregorian Calendar. This meant that this day was followed by 15 October in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain.

And on this day (4) too the Roman Catholic Church celebrates two feast days, for Saint Francis of Assisi (died 1226, the same day as the Spanish Saint Teresa of Avila, in 1582) and the Egyptian hermit, Saint Amun.

Avilla, home of St Teresa

A modern-day female saint was Mother Teresa, who was awarded (17) the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. She died in September, 1997.

Nobel Prize-winner Albert Einstein fled Nazi Germany on the same day (17) in 1933, taking up residence in the United States, while on the same day in 1947 the 1918 Nobel laureate and German physicist Max Planck died. Planck was the formulator of the quantum theory which revolutionised physics.

Vitaly Ginzburg is a Russian physicist and also a 2003 Nobel laureate, who worked on the Soviet hydrogen bombs but now works on superconductivity: he was born (4) two years before Planck was awarded his prize. Ginzburg died in November 2009.

Prizes of a different kind are those gained in sport. In 1860 the first British Golf Open tournament was held (17) and on the same day in 1969 Ernie Els, the accomplished South African golfer was born.

In 1895 the first US Open Men’s Golf Championships were held (4) on a nine-hole course in Newport, Rhode Island. And golfer Chi Chi Rodriguez was born (23) forty years later.

Another major sport is cricket. Razor Smith was born (4) in 1877 and proved to be a good bowler. He was discovered by W.G. Grace and recommended for the Surrey team in the late 1890s. When the pitch was right, Smith was formidable. In 1909 he took 95 wickets for under thirteen runs in that summer season and the following year took 247 wickets. Smith’s nickname derived from his extreme thinness and he tended to suffer from serious injuries so that after the war he retired to a bat-making firm where he stayed till he died in 1946.

W G Grace, 1883 - Wikipedia commons

October could be construed as a cricketing month. W.G. Grace is synonymous with modern cricket. A six-foot-two giant of a man, he excelled in every aspect of the game, achieving 124 scores in excess of a century, the most notable being 278. Grace died (23) in 1915 on the same day as cricketer Steve Harrison was born in 1978. Twenty years earlier (17), cricketer Charlie Townsend died and a year after that was born (4) snooker champion Tony Meo who plays a game with a lot of balls.

But the most popular ball-game is probably soccer and the greatest exponent of the “beautiful game” celebrates his birthday this month. Brazilian Pele was born (23) in 1940.

These days if you’re a keen follower of sport, it’s likely you’ll have to travel far and wide to support your favourites. And you’d probably take along a travel guide too; Karl Baedeker was a German author and publisher whose Baedeker Guides are still used worldwide today: he died (4) in 1859.

If you’re travelling to follow sport it is doubtful that you would use the Orient Express, however, which first ran (4) in 1883. You can’t beat a nice leisurely train ride, pampered and well fed and watered, I suppose.

 
Though Scots speed-merchant Richard Noble might beg to differ. Self-taught, he built his first Thrust car in his garage in the 1970s. And in 1983 in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada he took the land speed record (4) in his Thrust 2 vehicle, attaining a speed of 633.46mph. [Since then ThrustSSC driven by Andy Green has attained 763.03mph, the first supersonic land speed record (October 15, 1997).]
 
Another man who liked to travel fast - and spectacularly - was Evel Knievel, the American daredevil motor-cyclist. He was born (17) in 1938 and died November 2007.

A lot of thrust is required to break away from Earth’s gravitational pull and that’s what was achieved by the first artificial satellite to orbit our planet, Sputnik I, which was launched (4) way back in 1957.

Sputnik-1 - Wikipedia commons

 

This flight achievement was a far cry from the first use of aircraft in war when an Italian pilot took off from Libya (23) to survey the Turkish lines during the Turco-Italian war in 1911. It was another six years before the first British bombing of Germany occurred in the First World War (17). As a result of this “war to end all wars” the world map was redrawn.

Exploration and conflict have always changed the known map of the world. In 1830 the state of Belgium was created after its separation (4) from the Netherlands. (As an aside, we know there aren’t many famous Belgians, but apart from the creator of Tintin, Hergé (Georges Rémi) there’s another one-name cartoonist of note, Peyo who introduced (23) The Smurfs in 1958.)

 
And the beginning of the United States of America was probably not 1776 since the American Revolutionary war was still being waged against our British troops; that is until General Cornwallis surrendered (17) to the American revolutionaries at Yorktown, Virginia in 1781. [Indeed, Yorktown was not the final conflict in the Revolutionary War…]
 
A bit closer to home for us here in Spain is the date 1469 when Ferdinand II of Aragon married (17) Isabella of Castile which actually led to the unification of their two kingdoms into a single country, Spain. During their reign the papal bull of 1478 authorised the state-controlled Castilian tribunal, later known as the Spanish Inquisition, which had originally been intended to enforce the uniformity of religious practice. Yet at the hands of inquisitors like Torquemada, it was politicised and claimed thousands of lives on flimsy evidence, often for no other reason than spite.
 
Ferdinand and Isabella were also responsible for reviving after two hundred years the Reconquest of Spain from the Moors, finally evicting them in 1492, which also happens to be the year that Christopher Columbus made his momentous voyage, which was authorised by these two monarchs. [Columbus Day is 12 October.]
 
A year later, Pope Alexander VI formally approved the division of the unexplored world between Spain and Portugal. The Treaty of Tordesillas, which Spain and Portugal signed, moved the line of division westward and allowed Portugal to claim Brazil, which also explains the division of the two Iberian languages in South America.

Portugal became (4) a republic in 1910 when King Manuel II fled to the UK. Another republic created on this day (4) was Mexico, in 1824. Spain and Britain were at war during the period 1739-1741 due to commercial rivalry.

 
Earlier, in 1731, the master of the ship Rebecca, Robert Jenkins had his ear cut off by Spanish coast guards who resented English smuggling. Some years later Jenkins’ story in the House of Commons, reinforced by the carefully preserved ear, forced the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, to declare war on Spain (23). [The War of Jenkins’ Ear (Guerra del Asiento in Spanish] lasted from 1739-1748.]
 
Commercial rivalry was still alive and well in the next century when in 1813 the Pacific Fur Company trading post in Astoria, Oregon was turned over (23) to the rival British North West Company.
 
And then there was that first inkling of what was to come regarding oil trading and price hikes in 1973 when OPEC started (17) an oil embargo against many western countries who had purportedly helped Israel fight against Syria.
 
Oil of a different kind - paint. The famous Dutch painter Rembrandt died (4) in 1669 and was a master of light and shade, exemplified in his ‘The Anatomy Lecture’ and ‘The Night Watch’. A painter who was born on this day (4) in 1861 was Frederic Remington. He captured a time and place, his colourful pictures of the Old West often action-filled and vital.

Rembrandt  Wikipedia commons

Western writer Zane Grey’s stories are well-researched and moral books. He was trained as a dentist and practised his profession while writing stories. Eventually he was so successful that he took up writing full time. He died (23) in 1939, having had sixty novels published and about that same number have been printed posthumously.

Several of film-star Charlton Heston’s earliest movies were westerns. Heston was born (4) in 1924. Of course he went on to become Mr Epic with movies like Ben Hur and El Cid. One of his many forays into science fiction was The Omega Man, based on the novel I am Legend by Richard Matheson. Unlike the movie, this gripping book is about vampires.
 
And vampires made author Anne Rice famous too with her  novel Interview with the Vampire. She was born in 1941 on the same day (4) five years earlier than Susan Sarandon who played a vampire in Hunger.
 
A vamp of a different sort was Rita Hayworth, born (17) in 1918. “Vamp” means a flirt or seductress and she played this type of character often.
 
An actress who virtually seduced Christopher Reeve off the screen was Margot Kidder, playing Lois Lane in the Superman films. She was born in 1948 on the same day (17) as the co-creator of Superman, Jerry Siegel who was born thirty-four years earlier.
 
Must fly, as that’s all for today.

Saturday Fiction – ‘a strong element of authenticity…’

It’s really satisfying when a book reviewer ‘gets it’. We all want readers to enjoy our books; obviously, we cannot appeal to all tastes, but occasionally the story connects with a reader.

Just such a reader is Nigel Robert Wilson, reviewing Wings of the Overlord in the British Fantasy Society website in June this year. The full review is here

I’d like to quote a snippet from the review:

… Such twists and turns in the presentation of the plot expand the telling of the tale and there are many duly woven into the pattern to enrich and excite the reader. The journey through the Sonalume Mountains has a strong element of authenticity to it, concentrating on the treacherous ice and snow coupled to an intense bitter cold. This seems to derive from an actual experience that must have been quite wretched at the time.

The final denouement by which our now familiar heroes, at great personal risk and cost overthrow the hideous king, Yip nef-Dom … is recounted intensely and is quite a page-turner. The body count is high and contains images of great cruelty.

This is quite clearly the first volume of what is intended to be an entire sequence of stories about the world of Floreskand, a very cultivated creation. Enough links have been established within this tale onto which further adventures, deeds and characters can be connected at later times. It is a well-worked story involving swords and sorcery which will have a very direct appeal to those who admire heroism, but who also like to wade through buckets of blood and gore combined with a dash of mystical sentiment added to provide a degree of sweetness to finish off the feast.

Thank you, Mr Wilson!

And, yes, I was able to call upon some experience when writing about the ice-bound Sonalume Mountains. Here’s an excerpt:

First Dloin of Darous. And it dawned with the sky filled by mares’ tails, drawn out and wispy.
“Winds to mandunron,” said Ulran and rolled up his blanket.
       Breakfast consisted of an apple and a square of honey-loaf each.
       They must have spent a warm night, Fhord realised, as her hair was barely damp, the hoar-frost having thawed. Alomar’s drooping moustache looked bedraggled: the warrior and innman still shaved themselves each morn with their honed poniards.
       But the intense cold and knifelike winds soon froze every breath from their mouths upon their furs and facial hair.
       They descended the snow-scree, plunging legs knee-deep at times, jarring those selfsame knees repeatedly till they constantly gave way when weight was applied.
       At last they came to the hog’s-back, winding towards Glacier Peak, the spine of the formation about a half-mark in width.
       Ulran led with Fhord, Rakcra and Alomar following in that order.
       Winds pummelled and battered them as they walked. Heads down, they constantly watched their feet and, blinking against the flurries of upswept snow, braced as frequent but unexpected gusts lambasted them.
       And yet on they trod, never halting in case they baulked and lost balance and were pitched over the side: there was a steep slope on each side of the narrow crest, falling off to dizzying grey depths.
       Snow-glare inflamed Fhord’s eyes, and her lips were becoming dry and cracked with the insidious cold. She knew she must close her eyes before she was blinded and jeopardised their mission.
       She only hoped her faculties were not reluctant in answering. Eyes shut, she concentrated on listening beyond her own footsteps and the haunting wind-whistle, reaching out for the crisp crunch of Ulran’s foot-falls. And as she did so she threw out mental feelers, and was rewarded before fear forced her to open her eyes: vaguely, she detected the bulk of the innman, just ahead.
       Rakcra too was in a bad way and stumbled on two separate occasions. Before panic hurled him off the hog’s-back, Alomar was there, steadying, his big hands lifting the Devastator up, urging him on.
       But the incident had instilled Alomar with the feathering of alarm. “Ulran!” he called. “Ulran!” And as the innman stopped and turned, with Fhord following suit, Alomar added, “Can we rope together? It may prove safer!”
       Ulran agreed whilst inwardly wondering why he had let such an elementary precaution slip his mind.
       To make matters worse, the snow was not firm, so every footstep could precipitate a fall. Ulran slipped once, near the end of the spine, but neatly corrected his balance and went on. Nobody else felt as much as a tug on the line.
       They reached a crescent shape of stagnant ice, earthy material and boulders: the dead ice at the snout of the glacier. The terminal moraine gaped where a small runnel showed. A stream of melt-water gushed down into the depths to Ulran’s left.
       “Keep to the right,” urged the innman as they joined him.
       The sun had reached zenith.
       Snakelike, the glacier wound down towards them, its source firn hidden from view high up near the peak. Up each side showed irregular bands of discoloration of the lateral moraines, formed by rock debris on the glacier’s surface. Down the centre, the medial moraine, over which melt-water streamed and glistened. The left-hand side was impassable, scattered with jagged ice-pinnacles and loosely packed snow that crumbled at the touch of a breeze. Across the immense breadth of the glacier too were great gaping cracks – crevasses.
       Ulran hoped they could cross the glacier further up, near the source, and thus skirt the peak. He mentally shook himself: his head felt bloated, eyes puffy. They had been standing here at the snout of the glacier too long: time to move!
       The right-hand side of the glacier was negotiable but proved difficult.
       Twice they came upon gullies about three marks deep, which they descended then climbed the opposite side, using swords to cut foot-holds.
       Wind howled intermittently; the sound whistled about their ears. Eyebrows and other facial hair were matted white by now, numbing lips and foreheads.
       Heads bowed, they trudged higher till Ulran halted on the lip of an ice and rock overhang, under which the glacier had cut its ancient path. From here he swung his sword, pointing higher along the glacier’s length, where it widened further up.
       “Ice-fall,” the innman said, sneezing. “Beyond that, I believe the glacier spreads out a bit.”
       Fhord thought the innman’s voice sounded nasal, half-choked. Ulran seemed to blink more than usual too. A hot clammy fear clutched the base of her spine and sweat collected there, damp and uncomfortable.
       At the foot of the ice-fall was a labyrinth of deep clefts and ice-pinnacles, with crevasses intersecting. Above this, the glacier steepened, like an ice-wall. A few pinnacles jutted out from this wall, casting long shadows.
       Without any warning, one of these pinnacles broke away from the shoulder of the glacier and plunged down the ice-fall. Fhord was speechless. At least the size of a Lornwater mansion, the pinnacle crashed down, tearing with it huge ice-columns from the fall itself. The thunderous sound was awesome.
       Stopped in their tracks as the plumes of snow and ice-particles billowed above the ice-fall’s base, they exchanged glances.
       “I don’t like it,” murmured Alomar. “That could have set up a chain-reac–”
       At that instant a shattering, tumultuous roar reached them, unmistakably coming from above, to their right.
       Fhord saw billows of powdery snow in the air above the next slope.
       “Avalanche!” yelled Ulran, walking towards it.
       Fhord stumbled after him. “No – don’t –!”
       “We must swim through it, come on!” Ulran called over his shoulder.
       Then huge powdery airborne blasts roared down into the innman, cutting him off from sight.
       Snow rode over Ulran’s head. He tried swimming against the deluge, using breast-stroke, dog-paddle, anything to stay on top. Pounding filled his ears. He couldn’t breathe. His eyes ached with constant buffeting and he couldn’t see.
       Alomar, who had been ten paces behind Ulran when the avalanche hit, was as swiftly engulfed, his world abruptly dark and cold. He reached out blindly and hit a rock, grazing his hands to no avail. He tumbled backwards, head over heels and felt the line snap. And behind him, Fhord was swamped also. The time under the black cold weight stretched to a lifetime as she tumbled upon her nightmarish descent.
       Rakcra had been beside Fhord when the sight of the avalanche stunned him into immobility; he was hurled pell-mell down the track they had painstakingly made. The snow not only obliterated their tracks, but also him.
       A sudden, eerie silence settled as the last remnants of the avalanche tumbled down over the hog’s-back, down to the mauve depths.
       Ulran was buried up to his waist. As he craned his neck round to look down the mountainside, he proceeded to use his hands to dig his way free.
       Fifty marks below, Alomar was shaking snow off himself and his shield. Miraculously, his helmet was just visible a couple of paces away: the crestless dome glinted in the after-morning sunlight.
       The rest of the mountain was devoid of life.

***

Wings of the Overlord – hardback

Knox Robinson publishing here

Amazon COM here

Amazon UK here

Make a Date reprise - October 1, 14 and 31

Welcome to a new month - October.  Here's an earlier blog about dates in October (1, 14 and 31):

http://nik-writealot.blogspot.com.es/2013/10/make-date-1-14-and-31-october.html

which may be of interest!