Two Winters.

It's a time of pale shadows, when the world resembles Winter and is equally troublesome.  No updates this week or the next, but be ready for more updates coming next year.  I may even have some good news to share.

New Winters

So it's been a while since I posted.  Other projects and all that.  But now, now I want to come back to the Riddle.  To that end I've started a Facebook page for the series, which I encourage everyone to like, follow, whatever.  Next week the stories continue.  In the mean time check out the past of A Crown of Many Skulls to see what has been happening.

The Stranger Lives

My good friend Justin M. Lewis has just finished a new piece of art concerning the Fencer and the Trumpeter and I greatly like the result.  Soon this will be the banner for a new facet of Winter's Riddle, details posted here soon.

Regular readers may have noticed a lack of updates recently.  This is because I am working to make the next chapter and the close of A Crown of Many Skulls into something worthy of attention.  Also there is work commencing on a re-release of the first books in the series, with new cover art and better editing.  

Travels continue through all difficulty, ice and danger.

On Riddles

There is a thing which is expressed but unsaid, an uncaring ethos driven by the cold wind over ice and body alike.  I speak of course of that last strange telling, Winter’s Riddle.  Having done a survey of existing traditions, and modeling the future according to current enigmatic trends, I feel it is time to frame this great mystery.  Along the way I will provide examples of the various facets which comprise the Riddle, for, as we will see, the telling goes beyond one voice.

From early days, beyond memory and perhaps time, the Riddle of Winter has been known, told, understood and ignored by generations living through our icebound world.  It imparts the notion of cruelty, meaninglessness, savagery and wonton behavior in the smallness of things.  What is most tantalizing about this is the promise that there was another world before, one warmer, teeming with life, abundant with pleasure and possibility.  Sages and wizards speak of this verdant past, but Winter is cruel to the learned and much information is cloistered by myth and legend, the entropy of time.  What is most telling is that no magicians survive from this elder place, or if any do they are too far gone into their philosophies to share their memory.  

This brings me to a more formal point on the nature of riddles.  As a form of oral storytelling and a mixture of play riddles represent a form of cultural memory, a trait greatly lacking on the savage tundra.  These spoken artifacts classically take two forms: psychoma, which are word puzzles couched in metaphor and allegory, and somata, more playful games of language set with puns which must be unraveled in order to come to a solution.  Our prime Riddle seems to belong to the psychoma classification, though there is a strong argument from the somata camp.  In either event this conundrum often invades the place of other traditions, dominating minds and dousing spirits, and as we will see it is not content to abide classification.    

Little time or effort has gone into cataloguing our collective enigmas.  The reasons for this are varied from barbarism to the alien hubris of the magically inclined to the vast barriers which lie between cultures fighting for survival on the endless ice.  Despite this trouble some examples persist in certain texts and histories and these examples I have provided.

What is most striking about these riddles is the breadth of experience implied.  These are beings of all statures and comportment, sex, inclination, and even type.  Some are inhuman, while others are simple people who managed to have their puzzles caught upon the written page, saved for future arcane researchers to discover.  There are mind games from the ice-chewers of Ka’an Atul and death-curses from the duelists of An’bi, victory rhymes by Jassal tribesmen upon the taking of a finger from a live opponent to freeze-songs sung by the pale women of Xet.  All different voices, different tellings. 

Canny readers will realize that the solutions to the riddles presented are vexing.  I can partially illustrate this.  While the subject of each is the notion of Winter’s Riddle, the answers involved are not the Answer.  The larger resolution is absent in each telling, which are personal, specific, bounded by contexts which are obscured, hidden or entirely missing to us distant readers.  It is as if I burned a stick of incense and then asked where the lighting match was made.  Yet answers do persist, even in the face of such adversity.

What is being told here is the struggle of a single being, a survivor of our riddled world.  There lies the answer, not in the huge and numinous, but in the specific and personal.  The character described is the answer, as they are asking about themselves, in most cases.  To engage in these requires one to go out into their story and experience their otherness.  Even this writer couldn’t help but add his note to the list.

That is the howl of Winter’s Riddle, the many, disparate and heedless of each other.  Cast through time, across brittle continents and frozen seas, speckled across cultures according to the law of stories.  Each interacts with the Riddle in their own way, their answers riddles unto themselves, in sequence and recursion.  

That is the great trouble with discovering the Answer: we are not sure of the Riddle itself.  It has many variations and versions, translations, mistranslations, errors, mistakes, all part of some great and unknowable whole.  It is perhaps insoluble, despite how greatly this pains the inquisitive mind.  So then how might it be solved?

The Riddle is everything.  Every moment and frost, every sword and barbarian, even unto the house of magicians, the great continent of Summer floating on its gilded impossibility.  If one were to have the whole of all information, past, present and future, only then might one have the full telling of the Riddle.  I can only imagine that the Answer must be forged through means yet undiscovered, or so sublime that it escapes the educated mind.  

Winter’s Riddle is neither psychoma nor somata for the reason that there seems to be no Answer, no dedication to form, any such certainly has escaped this lone chronicler, as all I can do is add my voice to the others in telling.  I propose a new classification for the Riddle: nousa, as it pertains directly to the realm of unreality which some call magic.  Yet, if even the archmasters are helpless in determining the unknown, then what can any icebound hope to discover?   

 

           

              

A Year of Winter

Strange days mark the passage of two years of Winter's Riddle.  Though the official anniversary lies on December 12th the calendar’s end is the true terminus.  Instead of the usual update, late as you can see, I wanted to post a little retrospective for my pulp fantasy serial.  There will be art and a slight drawing of the curtain on the storied process.  I want to make a habit of this, both for my sanity, and to break up the pace of the storytelling.  Two years is a lot.

-In all its glory-

There it is, Winter's Riddle.  When I set out to publish my first ebook I had little clue as to what I was doing.  I understood writing well enough, but there is so much that goes on into the presentement of a work, such as the cover.  With only myself and the bare resources of the old family pc known as the Admiral I created the bare minimalism seen above.  I won't tell you which program I used but it involves the word "pain."

Much love went into this first almost-novella.  Chapter one seemed to flow out of the keys, as if I had been waiting to write this story for some time, and I had, as anyone who reads the introduction included in this volume will know.  There are also many errors, still evident after a year.  Though the version in Echoes of Nightmare and Song is cleaner something endearing remains with this rough start.

-As the words fall so falls the giant-

Chambers of the Heart, my second book, was an ambitious child.  I imagine some time passing for the Fencer and the Trumpeter.  They have gained in their troubles and met the icy civilization scattered across the southern continent of Barant, with violent results.  Growing comfortable with the project I added many more characters, asides, and depth.  Here we meet Yogo and Clea, Icle and Lord Vael, elements which inform the future, an incomplete and open road.  

This second cover is much like the first.  I'm inspired by minimalist design as well as the surreal covers of new wave SF pulps from the 50's, 60's and 70's.  Looking back this one reminds me too much of Christmas.  Still, this work was a great victory in meeting my daily writing goals consistently. 

-Dreams ascend the mountain of words towards the pinnacle-

If time passed from Winter's Riddle to Chambers of the Heart then time jumped between that second serial and The IceMummies of Haga Ephos.  I wanted to leave open space in the tales and confine events with only a loose chronology.  I would make use of this in the coming months but for some 25 weeks of 2011 I lived and breathed mummy dust from the magic mountain.  Here I was leaving the comforts of the frame I set for myself to venture on with the Fencer and the Trumpeter into the unknown north.  My first full novel seemed like it would never end but end it did, high up in the concepts which I hope mark this series of strange magic and desperate action.

On display is the last of my minimalist covers and the beginning of new and better things.  Though the title bears the same design scheme I had a new picture to show.  Buried deep in the weekly chapters was the first piece of Winter's Riddle art created by Justin M. Lewis, of a lemur-man, fittingly.  For a time I wanted to include a picture with each chapter, complete with a slightly incorrect text box below, just like in certain copies of A Princess of Mars or other pulps.

-They came hopping in the night, eye aglow, eager for death-

By April the project was in full swing, my goal so very possible.  At the start of the publishing process, back in January, I resolved to publish one ebook a month.  Not all were full novels in length and I felt, as I still do, that the e-reader format works well with shorter works.  By early estimates I could see no problem getting something out each month.  At this point I had two novellas waiting to be released but decided to produce something different.

Echoes of Nightmare and Song combines the first three Winter’s Riddle stories in pursuit of the Stranger, the blue youth of chaos tying the narrative together.  I took this opportunity to re-edit the stories, with the help of some friends who read my work and offered input, something I encourage.  Also, this collection was the first to feature a real cover: the very portrait of a lemur-man which had secreted within the course of The Ice Mummies of Haga Ephos.

Yet I wanted to do something more than just cobble together a collection.  A new story was added, one written for that very volume.  “Syzygy” is a tale outside the realm of the Trumpeter and the Fencer, a story of the Uplifting, when magic was brought to heel by a magician known as the red demon.  The story has its roots in a writing exercise I did as part of the Lincoln Fantasy and Science Fiction club writers group.  It is a strange thing, one of radiant inhuman beings, and human otherness.  Of all my works this one remains the most mysterious and a fine way to herald in the coming month.

-Eager in its lusts, the all-consuming eye drinks in the world-

May bloomed warm.  At a whim I decided to finish another writing project as part of Winter’s Riddle.  This became Shaperof Souls, a story of Summer.  The project had its start upon the floating continent and here I wanted to delve back into that realm, to expand the horizon of Winter.  Elu, the androgynous magician of inconstant heart, formed the basis for this tale of mindscapes and war games.

This book featured the first cover by Justin M. Lewis designed specifically for that title.  To this day the giant eye remains a favorite, watching Elu’s journey into the workings of a false world.

Shaper of Souls was also my first foray into the realm of KDP Select, an Amazon program which allows a work certain promotional deals at the cost of a more restrictive publishing agreement.  Downloads were minimal but still in the hundreds.  I had much hope for this.

-A strange sister watching the flow of poison-

By high summer a certain momentum had built.  Supported by friends and the extra visibility that three hundred downloads brought into my mind I set out on the second Winter’s Riddle arc.  Taking place between Chambers of the Heart and The Ice Mummies of Haga Ephos, it was to be a series titled “A Gathering Beauty” and would detail the adventures of the Fencer and the Trumpeter as they sought to regain Clea’s legacy by tracking down numerous wondrous items she had left hidden across the land.

Now, I always envisioned Winter’s Riddle to be a free and open setting for the telling of weird fantasy, that the process could be whimsical, non-linear and unfettered.  I thought that The Ice Mummies of Haga Ephos had grown too long and that I was losing sight of the dreamy world I pondered over the course of many years.  At the same time I didn’t want to disregard my previous work, so the whole arc would meander to the magic mountain of Haga Ephos.  A theme developed, one of memory.  Thus framed I began my June story.

The first novella in this series, The Bodies, tells the story of a hideous despot titled the Slavemaster.  He has something the Fencer and the Trumpeter want and that something turns out to be a someone.  In this madman’s palace they discover decadence and cruelty as only Winter can provide.

This story was great fun to write and managed to finish up in only eight installments.  As a shift I told the tale from the point of view of a third character, a slave freed by the Fencer and the Trumpeter.  Within the palace they discover that almost anyone can be corrupted.  To date this remains one of my favorite stories.

-There are ghosts of what we are and ghost of what we fear we will become-

Following the blood and poison of June I brought Winter back to the cold with TheSmoke Monster.  It was my stab at the amnesiac story, one which fit well with the memory theme of “A Gathering Beauty.”  Complete with an eerie cover it is one of the most solid Winter’s Riddle offerings.

A thing to remember about this whole project is that I am writing these stories eight weeks before they go to the blog, and then there could be months, even a whole year, before they are published.  But as I looked towards August I realized I had a problem: I had caught up to myself.

After writing The Smoke Monster I began a story which ended up going and going.  It was great to write another novel but it completely disrupted my goal of publishing a book a month through 2012.  Faced with this prospect I began making plans for the future.  Again I would have to write entire novellas in a month, start to finish, along with my usual writing.  I did it in May, why not all the time?

-Though the dead my be troublesome it is the mechanics of dead men which haunt us-

Pale Blank Skin again told its story from the viewpoint of a third party, this time Lumnos the Wordseller.  Marching through the words in this one proved increasingly difficult.  In it I attempted to redeem undead from the dullness they had gained in the general media while playing with notions of textuality and other aspects of narration.  Over time I’ve grown more fond of this story of the ruined city whose name was taken by magic and inky workings of the underground, but while I was in the thick of it there seemed to be no end in sight.  

-To the true immortals there are no limits-

 

September began my work on what became known as TheRefracted Man.  Like Shaper of Souls this would be a tale outside the main story arcs, but unlike “Shaper” this would feature the Fencer and the Trumpeter.

The goal was to finish a full novella in a month.  Work went well as I fleshed out the character of the Smyth of Glass and the Isle of Lanz, but with time things spiraled out of control.

It was a matter of the story needing more room to breathe.  The Smyth, the demon, the setting, all were good enough that a longer story felt necessary.  So, with the deadline looming I decided to split the work into two releases.  Together they would eventually form a single novel, but for now TheRefracted Man, Part I would do.

Of special note is the cover.  It’s not every day that you get to have someone fishing for a giant mutant leviathan with an immortal sorcerer’s severed head. 

-Nothing comes at us directly, we live amongst slanted light-

That was September.  October was hectic.  Events outside of writing took their toll on my time and the story just wasn’t ready for the end of the month.  So began a long chain of delays and push-backs.  Not all was lost though.

The work which was getting done was heady, strange, the very essence of what I wanted to do with Winter’s Riddle.  Science Fiction bloomed in the mix and I realized something very important.  It wasn’t necessary to finish my arbitrary publishing goal at the cost of a good story.  So all though November and December work has continued on The Refracted Man.  The cover that is waiting for its completion is amazing, the best of the whole series.

The year closes in ashes.  I have not met my goal.  But I have learned much in the passing of time.  Now I can make an ebook which looks how I wish and I have a nice backlog of stories which will flesh out the coming year.  This includes the novella Bright Eye Infinity, revised versions of my first three books, editions for Smashwords and other sites, and the conclusion to The Refracted Man.

Another goal involves the future of Winter’s Riddle.  I’d like to see the next novel taking place after The Ice Mummies of Haga Ephos be published in a more traditional format.  That novel will be called The Fire Worshippers, and in it is the future, and in it waits the dreams of so much strange joy.  The Stranger awaits and I hope you all are there to discover the secret of Summer’s Puzzle.  If you are new to the blog, the stories, the Riddle, then there is no better place to start than here.