The Waters are Dark and Full of Horrors! (also, I use also a lot): The Oceans Edition

(The idea for this post came as kayaking season got started this year and everything I read took place on the water, then noticed that there is some freaky stuff in novels, games, and movies that take place on water.  I wrote two posts, then decided that rather than fill what is supposed to be a western blog with nautical horror I would just start a Tumblr of short notes on books and movie... hmm, sounds like how I started this one.  I'm posting the original two this week, and if you like what you see you can read more as it develops over at The Seas are Dark and Full of Horror.)

Take a walk along a New England sea shore.  Go ahead, I dare you, especially if you can do it in a tidal marsh.  You’ll find legs of strange creatures, bits of shell, half-devoured horseshoe crabs, and tentacles off of… something… from the deep.  And that’s just the stuff that washes up, much less what actually survives out there.  No wonder H.P. Lovecraft feared the horrid fishy stench of the unknown depths and turned it into Cthulhu mythology.  (Actually I think it was being raised by a hated pair of spinster aunts and being terrified of their lady parts, plus a mix of standard early 20^th century anti-immigrant xenophobia as well).  None the less, the seas are crazy, and home to terrible sea stories to rival last week’s river tales.

Sunless Sea (Failbetter Games): London has fallen into Hell, which is actually a sunless ocean of eldritch abominations and infernal bureaucracy (and I suspect the inside of the enormous skull of some ancient god, a la No-Space from Guardians of the Galaxy).  Kind of like the Sid Meirs Pirates! games, but resource management includes managing terror and the possibility of eating your crew.  Also, the Mongols got there first and are pissed that London fell on top of Xanadu.  The kind of video game that you would get if you put Verne, Coleridge, Conrad, Lovecraft, and Melville in a room full of programmers and absinthe. 

The Terror (Dan Simmons):  What happened to Arctic exploration vessels that go missing in the long dark nights?  Brilliant writing, that’s what.  Well researched, totally believable, even with the HORRIBLE UNKNOWABLE THING out on the ice (and maybe there is a HORRIBLE UNKNOWABLE THING out on the ice, how do I know? Have YOU ever been on the Arctic ice shelf?  Didn’t think so).  Also, why the fuck would you name an Arctic exploration vessel “The Terror”?  That’s just asking for trouble.  Okay, it's named after a mountain in Antarctica, but it's still a terrible idea.

Black Tide Rising series (John Ringo):  After the Max Brook’s Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie Wars books (very different from the movie), The Walking Dead comics and series, and a million “vet from the Sandbox pops caps into Z’s” novels, how do you make zombie apocalypse tales fresh? By shipping the whole plot out into the ocean!  In Ringo’s four book series the surest way to survive is to take to the sea, and even there people with the zombie virus can turn.  Most survivors are found in groups, locked in sealed compartment after weeks or months at sea.  Also, most of the women who come out of the compartments are pregnant.  What happens in the compartment stays in the compartment.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Jules Verne):  I haven’t read it since I read the children’s version as a wee youth, but Mrs. Slap just read it and says it’s awesome.  Also, always trust Mrs. Slap.

The Waters are Dark and Full of Horrors! (also, I use also a lot): The Rivers Edition

(I started writing so many notes about kayaking, oceans, horrors from the depths, and pirates that I decided to just start a tumblr for that writing.  Here are the ideas that got me heading in that direction; you can read more at The Seas are Dark and Full of Terror.)

"Fuck.  You don't get a chance to know what the fuck you are in some factory in Ohio."- Apocalypse Now

Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad):  The Horror!  The Horror!  Generally, people suck.  Also, interesting discussion of rivers as the real places of exploration of the self and humanity (which as a river kayaker I completely understand).

Fevre Dream (George R. R. Martin):  The tale of a tired riverboat captain reaching for a last chance at riches and glory on the antebellum Mississippi… but his business partner is a fucking vampire!  In the middle of a vampire war!  Also, Martin later went on to write a little known series called A Song of Ice and Fire, starting with an obscure book called Game of Thrones.

Apocalypse Now Redux (Francis Ford Coppola):  You probably already know all about the original film, but after the “behind the scenes” documentary Hearts of Darkness came out a revised edition that included cut material shown in the documentary was released.  The stopover at the French plantation, which may be a literal ghost town, is one of the best scenes in any version.  Also, Apocalypse Now Redux is my 2^nd favorite reimagining of Heart of Darkness after the misunderstood (and terribly named) console game Spec Ops: The Line by 2K Games.

Call Down Thunder (Kerry Newcomb)

My favorite book ever, which separates the man Mike Fink from the legend of Mike Fink by making them two different characters, who frequently come into conflict.  Perhaps not as creepy as everything else on this list, except for the Shawnee torture practices, the really detailed romp with a serving wench, and Fink's constantly speaking to the Mississippi, Ohio, and Monongahela like they were lovers.  Also, you may not have any idea who Mike Fink is, but once upon a time he was as legendary as Davy Crockett and had his own ride at Disney.

Calendar Troubles

As astute readers may have noticed by now I am a fan of pirates as well as westerns.  For several years now I have purchased the Hot Pirate Babes calendar from photographer Tiger Lee as my at home (ie to dirty to have a work) calendar.  His calendar is full of pinups of women in pirate costumes with great Photoshopped backgrounds, with plenty of interesting pirate facts to keep me entertained throughout the year.  Alas, Mr. Lee announced recently that due to an increase in work he would not be able to put out a calendar for 2013.

Left to find cheesy entertainment outside of pirate land, I looked for an appropriately western themed calendar.  The best that I could do is a “Farmer’s Daughters” calendar by Johnny Crosslin, with images that look like this…

Sadly, this may be too porny for even this cowpoke to hang on the back room wall. 

On Stranger Tides: The Pirate - Cowboy Connection

As I write this post I feel as though I have aged forty years in the last month.  My heart, which has kept beating for 36 year despite a significant birth defect, is slowly giving up the ghost.  I groan when I move, I shuffle when I walk, and my body is a strange pattern of odd and random pains.  I write all this knowing that the miracles of modern medicine will make this all better in a matter of weeks, and that I will shortly be heading into a scientific Fountain of Youth.  Thus, today’s topic is the pirate fantasy novel, On Stranger Tides.

Pirates?  Isn’t this a blog about westerns?  Very astute, good reader, yes it is.  But the core of a good western and a good pirate novel are the same.  The best take a wayward and emotionally lost easterner, set them adrift in a frontier wilderness where they meet violent outcasts, engage in quasi-mystical adventure, and reinvent themselves.  Thus Boone Caudill’s journey from Kentucky to the mountains and back in The Big Sky, Dick Summer’s wagon train from Missouri to Oregon in The Way West, Alice Munro’s journey with Hawkeye in Last of the Mohicans, and Josey Wales’ vengeance trail in The Outlaw Josey Wales, and Mattie Ross’ search for her father’s killer in the Territories in True Grit.  In the same vein, we have On Stranger Tides

WARNING:  HERE THERE BE SPOILERS

John Chandagnac is an 18^th century puppeteer who makes his living as a wandering performer in Europe.  When tragedy strikes, John makes his way to the Caribbean seeking a new life, but to continual misfortune falls in with pirates.  In their company he learns that while the Old World of Europe has run out of magic, the New World is still a place of mystery where almost anything is possible.  John is reinvented as Jack Shandy, and learns that a new appreciation for the possibilities of magic and talent as a puppeteer are a powerful combination in a world of zombie pirates. 

What ensues is a struggle between rival voodoo pirate captains in search of the Fountain of Youth.  If this all sounds familiar, that could be because On Stranger Tides was the inspiration for the Monkey Island video game series as well as the Pirates of the Caribbean movies (the fourth movie coming out in 2011 will be explicitly based on the novel).

I came across On Stranger Tides at a time where every novel I read was a disappointment.  This novel reminded me that genre novels could be weird, brilliant, and moving.  On Stranger Tides also reinforced the core messages that I love in westerns- the world is large and wilder than you can know, and everyone has the potential to reinvent themselves into the hero they always wanted to be.