2014 - a year in writing

Oddly for a year where I did a fair bit of writing the only thing published was "The Roads not Taken." in More Blood: A Sinanju Anthology - available in paperback now from Amazon!  Subtle Plug I know.  What's it about?  The basic idea is that while in Viet Nam, Remo first hears the legends of the Masters of Sinanju and what he thinks they are like.  I manage to include references to several other paperback vigilante series, TV shows and movies  I actually wrote this back in 2005 for the New Blood Anthology So it's interesting to see how much I've grown in the decade or so between then and now.

So what did I write this year?

For DREAMER'S SYNDROME: NEW WORLD NAVIGATION  edited by Mark Bousquet, I wrote "The Case of the Hooded Shark".  This is set in the same universe as Mark's DREAMER
S SYNDROME novels and short stories/  The basic premise is that God gave an order that everyone got to live out their dreams of what they wanted to be at ten years old.  Naturally Mark's stories only cover a small part of the world and this anthology opened up for other stories taking place around the world.  My starting point was at ten I was obsessed with teen detectives, The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, The Three Investigators, The Dana Girls and Trixie Belden, so I created a character who wanted to be a detective. I gave him a "Watson" an ex-military man, the idea for him was he had dreamt of being in the army at ten - joined at 18 served around the world and came back from Afghanistan with PTSD and found a new dream job.    Then the world changed and he finds himself back in the army.  I played with a lot of Holmesian tropes as well as the nature and perception of Australia. Part of my inspiration was the Taiwanese news coverage of The Buxom Bandit

 

 

The idea that she would ride a kangaroo to a robbery just made me laugh.

 

 

Next up was "The Adventure of the Empty Throne" for Chris Sequera's SHERLOCK HOLMES AND DR WHAT?  which had Sherlock Holmes working with a Doctor other than Watson.  I had Holmes working with Guy Boothby's Doctor Nikola to investigate a plot to destroy the British Empire.  I used another Boothby creation as the villain and referenced some EW Hornung.  Thankfully The Hooded Shark got the Study in Scarlet references out of my system and I was able to craft a different take on the Holmes/Nikola fused universe.  Nikola is a great character and I will return to him one day, as I will with  Sherlock Holmes.

 

I'm not sure if I can share Paul Mason's awesome and amazing artwork for the story. (but I got the original for Christmas and there's a picture on my Facebook page.

 

I also wrote "The Domino Lady's Triple Threat" for Airship 27 which looks like it will appear in Domino Lady volume 2.  Domino Lady versus the American-German Bund who are keen to kidnap an old friend of Ellen Patrick's father.  I took inspiration from the opening of the Sydney Harbour bridge in 1932.  I slipped a few classic and new pulp references into the story and some ancestors of my favourite characters.

 

 

 

 

That brings us to the final three and a bit stories which form my own shared universe that I call "Australis Incognito"  (Above is the awesome cover painting by Jeffrey Hayes a print can be bought here.

 

The first story that I wrote (mostly in 2013) was Risqué: Strip Poker which introduced my 1920s Sydney vigilante Risqué.  A lot of the inspiration for her and this story came from Underbelly: Razor true crime series that ran on the Nine Network here in Australia.  (I recommend watching if you get the chance, Sydney in the 20s feels so pulpy - it's also an odd time where the two big criminal gangs were run by women Kate Leigh and Tilly Devine.)  Think of this as a prequel to the main Australis Incognito series.  I subtly foreshadowed a couple of things that will become important in the main series.  This story will be published in POKER PULP by Pro Se Productions

 

(As an aside I also wrote a short comic story featuring Risque's daughter Jasmine who works as a spy in the 1960s under the code name Risqué Brent with her partner codenamed "Flynn" as a homage to Modesty Blaise.  I submitted the story to Ashcan, a Brisbane based comic book anthology but it didn't find an artist.)

 

The first contemporary Australis Incognito story I wrote was Bus Bait Blues starring The Question Mark.  The Question Mark is a young woman who investigates why a Russian mob boss would be in a bar picking up a girl fresh off the bus.  Of course she discovers a much larger criminal conspiracy.

 

The Second story "Thunderstruck" features the third generation Risqué facing against an opponent who can appear anywhere at will.  the only way you know you've been hit is the sound of thunder and a calling card that reads "You've been Thunderstruck".

 

 

The third Australis Incognito story "The Rusting Death" is currently being written.  The title came from the misreading of a Doc Savage adventure The Rustling Death.

 

These are part of Pro Se's Single Shot line of stories and will be published in the near future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



The Soldier Legacy's Strange Tales: Night of the Warrior (2013) Chris Sequera and Paul Mason Black House

This story originally appeared as a back up feature in Sherlock Holmes; Dark Detective issue 7-9.

I've spoken before about The Soldier Legacy on this blog and how much I love that series.  This back up really opens up the universe of that series.

This story is set in 1887 before the events of the first Nikola book A Bid for Fortune.  in this story Nikola is hunting for a green opal set in a ring. It turns out that the man in possession of the ring, Jack Smeight, is responsible for the death of a friend of the current Soldier Legacy and we see Nikola and The Soldier Legacy battle over the ring's bearer.

It turns out that the ring has mystical properties - it is the Lifestone of Cantong and when Smeight kills a man it makes him stronger and he is able to overpower Nikola and Soldier Legacy.

In the end, Smeight is defeated and Nikola hands the ring over to Soldier Legacy for sale to benefit the family of Smeight's original victim. Nikola rejects the ring while it may prolong the life it steals the intellect.

Sequeria and Mason give us a Nikola who is an honourable man with hypnotic abilities, in a story that foreshadows many of the events in the Nikola books.  I read this before reading the Nikola books and I enjoyed it but rereading it after the Nikola books the story is that much richer as I picked up on the small hints that the pair dropped.

Mason's artwork is top notch and the 1887 Soldier Legacy is clearly similar to the designs seen in the WW2 and modern day Soldier Legacies seen in Mason's book yet is unique enough that this is a different man (unlike the various incarnations of Shi from that comic series)   I really like his Doctor Nikola drawings)

Doc Savage: The Doom Dynasty (1992) Story Terry Collins Art Mike Wieringo Covers Brian Stelfreese

  

The next appearance of Doctor Nikola was this two part miniseries pitting Doc Savage against Dr Nikola. 

Set in 1939, Doc is contacted by an old friend of his father's, Hikara.  He wants to warn Doc about something but before he can tell Doc anything he is bitten by a monkey and infected with a deadly plague.  His dying words lead Doc to another friend Dr Plympton, who runs a clinic in Africa.

Doc arrives too late.  The clinic has been ransacked and  Plympton is dying of the same plague but he tells Doc the location of Clark Savage Snr's Journal from 1897.  The journal records Doc's grandfather Richard Henry Savage meeting with Dr Nikola in that year. Richard Henry provides to Nikola (which would be just after Lust For Hate) with funding for a scientific project.

Doc's reading is interrupted by the arrival of his aides: Renny, Monk and Ham who captured by Nikola and his men.  Part 1 ends with the three men in danger.

Part 2 has Doc trying to rescue his men but getting captured.  Nikola tells Doc that he knew Richard Henry Savage and that the elder Savage had discovered that Nikola had been using his money to create a deadly plague.  With assistance from Nikola's female assistant Li, Richard Savage escapes and burns down the laboratory and steals the only copy of the formula.  Nikola is treated with a regenerative serum based on Siliphilium (That's the spelling from the comic - in the Doc Savage novel Fear Cay it was Silphilium) 

Now after forty years, Nikola has recreated his plague formula and is trying to remove Doc who would be the only one able to  stop him.  I won't reveal the ending but  it's no surprise that Nikola is thwarted.  Although I was surprised to discover that Nikola took Li as a lover and his current assistant Kao is his daughter.

I was a little disappointed that the back matter didn't include an article on Dr Nikola.  There is an article by Will Murray about the real Richard Henry Savage in part 1 and letter column in part 2.  (There was a letter giving more information in the next Doc Savage Miniseries - Devil's Thoughts)

I enjoyed this story when I first read it and I enjoyed the recent reread after reading the original Nikola stories.  I was nice to see Nikola against foes who might be considered his equals. 

It appears Doom Dynasty takes its cues from A Lust for Hate and is a portrayal I'm not adverse to but it makes Nikola far less likable than his appearances in the other four Nikola books.

Farewell Nikola (1901) by Guy Boothby

With this I finish up the five Dr Nikola books by Guy Boothby.  In many ways Boothby has taken us back to the first book A Bid for Fortune.  Richard Hatteras is traveling with his wife Phyllis and his friend The Marquis of Beckenham who all appeared in the first book. The trio and Phyllis' companion Gertrude Trevor are visiting Venice when they encounter Nikola on the streets of Venice.

Nikola is certainly holding no ill will towards his opponents from five years before and they don't seem to hold anything against him, frequently joining him on social events.

We discover much of Nikola's history as he reveals to his new friend about the South American governor who wooed his mother and then abandoned her.  After the death of his mother, the Governor unknowingly adopted Nikola as the companion for his son.  The son was encouraged to mistreat Nikola and Nikola still bears scars from his mistreatment.

As luck would have it the son, using the name Don Jose de Martinos, happens to be in Venice fleeing from his misdeeds in Central America.  Nikola is taking advantage of this to get his revenge by turning the Don into a beast man.

Through the intervention of  Gertrude, Nikola is persuaded to abandon his revenge and he retires to a Buddhist temple in Tibet.  It is implied that Nikola will try his immortality experiments one more time and that he will age prematurely.

In the first two books Nikola gets away with what he wants.  In the third book, he is thwarted and in each successive volume this seems to keep happening.  I have a fondness for Nikola and even if I disagreed with his methods it was interesting to follow his quest for immortality. 

The first book was the one I liked best of the series but Dr Nikola's Experiment was interesting to finally see what Nikola's long term plan was. Nikola has since appeared a few times since this book Doc Savage: Doom Dynasty and The Soldier Legacy's Strange Tales and Sherlock Holmes Dark Detective.  Kim Newman makes a very quick mention of Nikola in Anno Dracula.

Dr Nikola's Experiment (1899) by Guy Boothby

In hindsight my review of the previous Dr Nikola novel A Lust For Hate might have been a bit harsh as it establishes Nikola's manservant Ah Sing.  It's a fine adventure story with plenty of excitement. And it offers a different view of Nikola.

However Dr Nikola's Experiment is a full Doctor Nikola novel and is a follow up to the novel Doctor Nikola, in that novel Dr Nikola infiltrated a Chinese Society to steal their secrets and ends up being hunted by their enforcer with one ear, Quong Ma.

In this story, Nikola hires a down on his luck Doctor Ingelby to assist in an experiment.  It appears that not only did Nikola steal the anaesthetic he used in A Lust for Hate but a process for  reversing aging.  Nikola is using the process to experiment on a very aged Don Miguel de Morano.  The experiment is successful physically but what is the mental cost? 

Making things harder is the fact that Quong Ma has finally caught up with Doctor Nikola and causing problems at Allerdyne Castle including killing Ah Sing and releasing Nikola's menagerie of biological freaks (last seen in A Bid for Fortune - the first novel)

It's interesting that in the first two novels Nikola was ultimately successful in his quests, these last two novels have had Nikola thwarted in his plans.  This novel finally reveals Nikola's long game - immortality for himself.

I can't wait to see what Farewell Nikola, the final Nikola novel by Guy Boothby brings us. (After that I'll be reviewing Doc Savage The Doom Dynasty a comic book miniseries pitting Doc Savage against Dr Nikola and The Soldier Legacy's Strange Tales which I've mentioned earlier).

The Great Comic Re-read; The Soldier Legacy by Paul Mason

Back in 2010, I went into Comics Etc in Brisbane and saw this:

 

I was intrigued and interested enough  to grab a copy.

 

What we get is not one but two stories. The first story features the 1940's WWII adventures of the masked Digger known as The Soldier in New Guinea.  The back up story is set in contemporary Brisbane and features the grandson of The Soldier fighting crime in the same mask.

 

I went back a few months later to find issue 2 which I quickly grabbed and then issue 3.

 

Much to my great joy I saw that Paul Mason was going to be at Gold Coast Supernova and I have grabbed issues 4 & 5 as well as the spinoff - The Soldier Legacy's Strange Tales at various conventions since then.

 

This is a great series.  The WWII Soldier wears a mask in honour of a young soldier Kirby who saved The Soldier's life and Mason has created an interesting character who acts outside the traditional army chain of command to rescue POWs and stop the Japanese.

 

The modern Soldier similarly works outside the system and is trying to expose the various gangs causing havoc in Brisbane.

 

Each issue adds more to what we know about both men, with the revelation in issue 5, that the mask was intended for young Kirby and that Kirby was one of a long line of Soldiers dating back to the early militias.  Part of The Soldier's mission is to pass the mask onto Kirby's brother Chris.  Chris Kirby appears at the end of issue 5.

 

This addition to the back story allows for tales of past Soldiers and Strange Tales reprints the three part Doctor Nikola/Soldier Legacy crossover set in 1887 by Mason and Chris Sequeira which appeared as a back up in Sherlock Holmes: Dark Detective issues 7-9.  This Soldier serves in the Victorian Mounted Riflemen (as can be seen by the VMR on his epaulets) which was the first to wear the slouch hat. (I will talk more about this story later as I finish the original Nikola stories)

 

This is a series that is worth supporting - even YOUI insurance thought so when they ran this ad

 

YOUI Insurance Ad   This was a national campaign filmed in King's Comics in Sydney.

 

If you live in Australia get your local comic shop to order these from Black House Comics.

 

Internationally they can be ordered through www.blackboox.net

 

Mason is a good illustrator with his work appearing in the new Human Fly comic.  His style is slightly cartoon and would work well in an animated format.  He wears his influences proudly Kirby, Ditko, Everett, Buscema, Heck and Romita are all referenced in the first issue. As much as I enjoy his artwork I've found that his writing is just as good.

 

I look forward to seeing where the two stories go from here and how the Legacy continues.