Iron Armour Heart

Recently, we’ve been clearing out a lot of older stuff as we prepare to move. It’s all been stuff that has just sort of accumulated over the years and now, as we realise our next place is probably going to be a bit smaller than this due to the fact that we’re moving back to civilisation, we’ve been attempting to clean out all the random junk that we haven’t looked at in three or four years and probably don’t need.

Whilst going through the cupboard under the stairs, I found, in amongst various Christmas decorations and paperwork relating to previous flats, several boxes of floppy disks. At first, I thought there was nothing really special about them. I don’t really know anyone who uses a disk drive for their PC anymore, in fact I thought the majority of PCs made nowadays don’t actually have disk drives. It wasn’t until I opened up the boxes and found that, in amongst various Commodore Amiga games and creatively titled back up disks named after Diamanda Galas lyrics, that some of these discs were host to creative works dating further back than Love Amongst Strangers.

History Lesson

Many of them appear to feature works relating to the second incarnation of the old Doctor Who fanzine, The Other, that Jonathan Hibberd and myself used to work on, one seems to have an early draft of Do Not Choose to Ask My Name from the days when I imagined the book would have more Heinlein-esque political wrangling about the ‘copyright’ of recorded angel song, but the first disc predates all of them and seems to include writing from long before I’d even left school. I can’t look at the files directly as I have suspicion that the disk is formatted for use on an Amiga but given the title and the shaky pre-teen writing, I’m given to think that what lies upon that disk is another Jonathan Hibberd associated production from sometime after 1988.

The Terrible Trio Rise Again!

In many ways, I’m kind of relieved to not be able to see inside that disk properly because I know that, if I could, I’d have to write an updated tale featuring said characters and I don’t think the world is ready for an army of semi-sentient Green Slimes led by a man with a soup ladle for a hand attempting to defeat three plucky pre-teen adventurers.

However, having completed a sequel to Love Amongst Strangers, I can’t say that the thought isn’t there. I can’t help but wonder if the lives of those three children and the world they existed in, populated by annoying robot sidekicks and semi-divine galactic architects forged from pure light, somehow took a different path from our own. I can’t help but wonder what happened to those children after they grew up.

Yet I’m also scared to find out as I can only assume that my own life and the standards I have settled for fall somehow short of the lofty ideals of children who dared to antagonise demi-gods.

Perhaps one day I’ll have a chance to meet those three kids again and, on that day, perhaps they’ll tell me all about what’s happened to them in the years we’ve been apart. Perhaps they’ll also enlighten me as to the whereabouts of Dinosaur Man and Doctor Dacarack, of Estella Calohan and Jennifer McLain also, and, who knows, perhaps I’ll still have a thing or two to learn from them.

Back to drinking strong, black coffee from the same old familiar Starbucks mug in the morning. I’ve been drinking a ‘green’ blend lately, which, I’m assured, is apparently good for me. It’s not as overtly sweet as green tea latte, but it’s not as sharp as my usual coffee. Musically, I’ve been listening to a lot of Arcade Fire, thanks to a friend’s recommendation, but it’s more the coffee than the musique that has influenced the shape and feeling of the new book.

This isn’t to say however that musique hasn’t played its fair share in inspiring the new book because, in many ways, it’s more about musique and pop culture than anything else I’ve thus far done.

If it sounds like I’m being vague, it’s because I am. The new book doesn’t have a title yet so I can’t properly tag this post and am somewhat loath to go into too many details about its narrative. Suffice to say it is something different, something I haven’t tried before.

Regarding things that I have tried before, it’s looking increasingly unlikely that the planned Artifice Comics novellas will not be happening any time soon. Initially, the plan was to craft four short books designed to deal with issues in AC continuity that I’d like to revisit – Millennium Man’s trip into space and his eventual return, an Artifice Albion ‘movie’ and a ‘year one’ type story dealing with a Bush43 reboot. Right now though, AC can’t really support such a plan and, if I’m honest, I don’t really have the time to commit to it. It’s a shame, but maybe one day the project will be resurrected (again).

It’s not all doom and gloom though. lecteur de tarot’s cover is almost complete, which means that the project will be well and truly out of my hands soon. We’re working hard to get this done before we move back to more civilised areas of the country, after which point I’ll keep you updated on when you can expect the book to hit the shops.

I’m also working on something for September – more on this later.

Until then, please look forward to both the new book and to lecteur de tarot.

And so January draws to a close, paving the way for February, and eventually the changing of the seasons. As I write this, there remains but one hour of the first month of the year, which means that by the time you read this, the last chance to download Cultivating Howlers will probably have passed.

Thank you all, both downloading and reading, and expect word of new projects and old projects nearing completion soon.

Fukubukuro is a tradition amongst Japanese retailers of bagging up old stock in random, assorted bags and selling them as grab bags for a small amount. It’s a way for shops to clear their stockrooms of old goods and a chance for diligent shoppers to obtain sometimes expensive products for the discounted price of the fukubukuro bag. The catch is, of course, that whatever is in the bag is entirely random, therefore you might indeed get that much sought after Sega Dreamcast title, but you might also just find yourself with yet another copy of ChuChu Rocket!. As an example of this sort of lucky bag policy being implemented outside of Japan, the notable and highly mentionable natural cosmetics company Lush offered similar lucky bags in their stores during New Year 2009.

In the spirit of New Year festivities and with a mind to clearing out some of my own random backlog of stories, I thought I’d put together my own fukubukuro.

Cultivating Howlers is a collection of assorted stories ranging from 1999 to 2009 and available for free download from the 1st of this month right up until the 31st. After the 31st, I’ll be taking it down and laying to rest the older pieces, which means that this may be the only time I offer them for your attention, dear reader. Other pieces are intended as previews for projects currently awaiting publication whilst others still are an attempt to persuade you to part with your pennies for previously published work.

Yet just because I will be ceasing distribution of this work at the end of January, it doesn’t mean you have to. The collection is made available under a Creative Commons license, which means you have the right to re-publish, adapt and fashion sequels featuring the characters involved here as long as it remains on a purely non-commercial level.

As a last note, for those of you with a long memory, you may also be pleased to note the ‘publisher’ mentioned by name on page 4.

Please enjoy this mixed bag of New Year’s festivity and, if you should find it worthy of merit, please pass either the link, the file or your own re-published version of it on to anyone you think might be interested.

Thank you very much in advance.

Now that chestnuts have roasted by open fires, presents have been opened and mummers and wrenboys alike have had their merriment, in order to preserve the sense of festivity and absurdity, I have mutilated Wizards of the Coast’s d20 system on your behalf. This is something akin to giving a guitar to someone with no musical skill whatsoever and then ushering them onto a stage in front of a crowd expecting some minor celebrity.

I won’t pretend to understand the d20 system or its ancestor, the equally celebrated and maligned Dungeons & Dragons, and having failed to come to terms with some of the more complicated aspects of the rules – I have thus thrown them out of the window in favour of references to the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon and Final Fantasy. This isn’t to say that I have some particular dislike for the rules… but I am a simpleton. Therefore, in the name of fun you may find some aspects of the rules and monster statistics skewed in favour of simplicity. This of course means that the entire project will appeal to neither people well versed in pen-and-paper role playing games or to people who are oblivious to the rules. I, however, am more than content with this, having spent three days merrily scribbling notes and looking up profiles of various different monsters. So obsessive was I about said monsters, that I even managed to borrow some festive Final Fantasy derived sketches my wife made as part of a friend’s Christmas present.

Therefore, if you can put up with simplified rules, my godawful handwriting on a poor scan of the ‘map’ and various other handicaps, then I welcome you, one and all, to the Hall of the Owlbear King.

http://jacobmilnestein.co.uk/omake.htm

Once again, it’s that time of year. Mulled wine warms on the stove and mince pies await nothing but a dash of cream for the adventurous. For those of you far from both home and such simple comforts, this year’s Christmas story is a discussion taking place in a dank and festering pit in an unknown field in France, circa early 1915.

Initially, having removed the older stories from the omake page earlier this month, I wanted to attempt to provide an introduction to lecteur de tarot. This story is not said introduction. Instead there is a touch of Sophistry and a further examination of Mononoke theological themes first mentioned in The Winter House last year. I want to tell you that you can read this without prior knowledge of the Mononoke or of lecteur de tarot, but I’m increasingly feeling that the only person who understands how these ideas fit together is now typing you this missive and needs to learn to express his thoughts in a clearer fashion.

Which isn’t to say I’m trying to dissuade you from reading, but I wanted to warn you all in advance.

Yet fear not! If the warning puts you off, I promise I have a few more aces up my sleeve for this holiday season. All tastes will be catered for!

…

Well, perhaps not, but certainly this is far from the last of my seasonal posts for the month.

So, now that everything has been explained in as awkward a manner as possible, it only remains for me to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Thank you once again for reading.

"Once we are close to St. Paul’s, we shall await nightfall."

On Saturday, my wife and I took a short walk around St. Paul’s in order to take a few photos for the cover of the ‘remastered’ edition of A Nation of Shadows.

Walking back along Ludgate Hill, I tried to suggest that in order to sell more copies of Sophistry, she should dress up as an old lady whilst I dressed up as a bear and we could walk up and down between Ludgate Circus and St. Paul’s Churchyard, yet she seemed oddly resistant to this idea.

And so December in England begins with a downpour, a torrent of rain that leaves a residue of mud on cracked paving stones that the council declines to fix, having already squandered the money on pointless pursuits and cheap fairy lights for the town centre.

There’s a saying in this godforsaken part of the country that it’s ‘too cold for snow’, certainly right now it’s too wet for it, but we can at least bring everything else required for the beginning of Christmas festivities, commencing with a trip to the unedited highlights of last year’s Christmas story languishes still on the jacobmilnestein omake page.

I made a recent decision to remove the years prior as they need a bit of editing and they somewhat ruin the surprise of the forthcoming lecteur de tarot novel (due next year, I have been told). If they had still been there, then I would have recommended them as a perfect entry into the lecteur de tarot story… but it would have been an entry into the deep end, so you might be better off waiting until next year when you are assured a physical copy of the central text to leaf through.

If you’re looking for something more current then I can confess to being hard at work on this year’s Christmas story and that the opening word of the tale is ‘The‘. That’s all I’m going to say on the matter until later on in the month.

In other news, a copy of Mister Watts’ Guardian Force Roboman v1: Let’s Go Robo! arrived here last month with something of a surprise inside. You shouldn’t need me to tell you about it as the contents of Mister Watts’ story speak well enough without need of me trying to sell it. Head over to amazon and take a look inside the book, certainly it’s a title deserving of a place on the shelves of any tokusatsu fan.

Last but not least, the elventh part of The Black Iron Prison is available within the pages of Artifice Comics’ Obento #2. As promised, the series is set in a world where it would be impossible for any of the established Artifice heroes to come into existence. It is a world of cruelty and vindictiveness, a world presided over by the ethics of the four libertines who once holed themselves up in the Château de Silling. The story will unfold over twelve installments presented out of sequence.

I won’t ask you to enjoy it but, if you do read it, I will ask you to understand that this is a cautionary tale with no morals. Their world, extreme and absurd as it may seem, is not far removed from our own.

As a coda to last month’s Hallowe’en tale, the haunted knight and his youthful companion return once more for a brief foray into the wilderness of the Home Counties on the fifth of November.

This brief little tale, no more than 900-odd words, is available on fauxnoir.

One of the traditions of [fauxnoir] as a mailing list has been to produce a Hallowe’en story and a Christmas story every year.

This year’s festive fright is the tale of a former knight and a funeral procession, the tale of a lost London and an oni with a dark gift.

This year’s tale, boys and ghouls, is called Pumpkin Night and can be read at leisure in your inbox or at the mailing list’s homepage.

Happy Hallowe’en!