A Kind Letter and a Progress Report
This is the second nicest letter a patron has every sent me. The first was too personal and too deeply moving to share, but the reader here (my boss, same as you) gave me permission to share this pat on the back.
Mr. Wright,
I have written you before in praise of your work, and you were kind enough to respond in like fashion (namely, the comment section of Vox Day’s website) that such acknowledgement has some significance to you. I am writing in a somewhat more direct fashion to again express my thanks, both in general for many an enjoyable hour reading your words, but in specific for your story “The Parliament of Beasts and Birds.”
As of the opening of this missive I have not even finished the story, but was already moved both to tears and a burning need to acknowledge a master’s work: in no author not named Tolkien, Wolfe, or Lewis, had I ever read something so moving! The story is written with the names and heritage of the West, of Eve, Cain, and Tubal-Cain, with the accents of Classical civilization and the sonorous diction of a craftsman who both knows and loves our great language: these alone would be enough to endear it to me. But I confess, when I reached the apotheosis of the animals (what else to call it when these loyal creatures become like unto us, which are as gods to them) and the angelic explanation, complete with the prayers of Sts. Roch and Eligius, I wept.
You see, I have an old dog whom I love. My wife used to remark that if he had opposable thumbs, he would not only be able to drive, but smarter than most of the human drivers on the road. We got him at her request, almost 12 years ago when we were little more than newlyweds.
And only now am I coming to understand that when he passes, I may well take it harder than she.
He has been our loyal companion and guarded our home through every one of my many absences: deployment, exercise, school, and university. Because he wards the house and guides the pack (we have other dogs, and they generally defer to him. It’s an odd dynamic), I have slept soundly for over a decade. He watched over my daughter when she was born and shared our concern as her development showed signs of going awry. I feel that he mourns her autism as much as or more than we, and believe he shares our joy at her ongoing healing in his own tired and aged way. When I reach my eternal reward and am issued my arms and Brasso kit (SOMEONE has to keep the Pearly Gates and His throne sparkling, and Marines are good for cleaning and polishing as well as guarding Heaven’s streets) and inquiring after my family, I will echo St. Roch’s prayer.
And while I know that irrational beasts are said to be soulless, I cannot but think that the Almighty, in all His mercy, would not forever sunder us from our closest companions.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, for putting these same thoughts into words and frame more eloquent than I could ever hope to achieve. May the Lord bless and keep you and yours, and may your muse be ever present!
With great respect and thanks,
[Name withheld]
P.S. On a side note, please don’t keep us waiting overlong on Nowhither: I’ve just finished my second read-through of Somewhither and am eager for more!
Saint Eligius is the patron of veterinarians; Saint Roche of dogs, as well as of the infirm generally.
Let me use this opportunity to give my progress report to my patrons and readers:
NOWITHER is my next project after I am done with my juvenile Knight-and-his-Dog-who-was-Thursday urban fantasy Arthuriania called GREEN KNIGHT’S SQUIRE, which is now two thirds written, and may be finished in a month or two.
Either I am a mad genius or a crazy person, so this book is either utterly brilliant or totally stupid. I write: you decide.
GREEN KNIGHT’S SQUIRE is the first of a quartet of books, each about one of four cousins getting training for a profession in a world haunted by elves and shadows only they can see.
The second is tentatively titled DARK AVENGER’S SIDEKICK; the third is MAD SCIENTIST’S INTERN; and final is GHOSTLY FATHER’S NOVICE. I leave you to guess from the titles what their chosen professions will be.
The cousins are named Gilberec Moth, Yumiko Moth, Thomas Rocket Moth, and Matthias Moth.
And, yes, they are all descended from Titania’s fairy servant from Shakespeare. The conceit is that Moth and his descendants intermarried with mermaids and giants, centaurs and satyrs, stars and demigods, jinn and divas and dryads, but also with humans, so that any member of the family has some fairy blood in him, and may have nearly any mythical figure for his second cousin. Titania’s other servants took another path, and Cobweb’s descendants interbred with vampires and werewolves and suchlike, and they bow to Chaos and Old Night.
They are all members of a secret police organization called the Last Crusade, fighting a deadly conspiracy called The Supreme Anarchists’ Council. The Seven Anarchists all have codenames are taken from the days of the week, and they contemplate a rebellion against nature herself, and nature’s God. Fortunately, some things are in the public domain, and I am as shameless as Homer when it comes to ripping off other sources, or, more to the point, as shameless as Virgil ripping off Homer.
The whole series is called ‘Moths and Cobwebs.’ I hope I can crank out one or two a year. The talking dog, Ruff, will appear in all of them.
My spooky metaphysical thriller, IRON CHAMBER OF MEMORY is my one attempt to be Charles Williams. It is sitting on the desk of my editor in Europe. It is about a man who does not remember he is in love with his one true love unless he and she step into an unearthly chamber called the Rose Lotus Room in his best friend’s haunted mansion on Sark Island in the English Channel. But he is his best friend’s best man. He cannot remember why there are bulletholes, spent shells, and bloodstains found here and there about the mansion, or why he has strange dreams about talking beasts and blood-drinking shadows.
Sark is an island where no lights are permitted to shine at night and no vehicles are permitted on the island’s road: it is also the last place ruled by a feudal lord in all of Europe (that is, up until 2008, when a millionaire newspaper magnate overthrew the government) — and those are the parts I did not make up.
The whole is an homage and a tip of the hat to David Lindsay’s deservedly forgotten A HAUNTED WOMAN, who also wrote A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS. He had an excellent metaphysical idea for a story, but no story to back it up. I claim it as abandoned property and will improve the lot.
My next two novels in my Eschaton Sequence VINDICATION OF MAN and COUNT TO INFINITY, which is some of the best stuff I have ever written, is sitting on the desk of my editor in New York. Since I blew up the universe at the end of the final book, I currently have no additional sequels planned.
I also blew up the universe at the end and/or beginning of NULL-A CONTINUUM, but despite this penchant for large scale catastrophe, I have not been given a nickname as cool as my hero ‘World-Wrecker’ Hamilton.