It’s not all chocolates and kittens you know : The FS Book of Love

The book of love is nearly with us and before we launch we thought we would tease you with the contents.

‘These are probably not the love stories you are looking for…..

 

…. but they should be.’

Decomposing Corpses: A Love Story by Douglas J. Ogurek
The Holy Waters  by Dolly Garland
Jixxa, My Love  by Alec McQuay
End Times in Paris by James Bennett
Love in The Age Of… by David Tallerman
The First Day of Khirshi-Da by Joyce Chng
By Blade And Bloom by Xan van Rooyen
The Fine Art of Fortune-Telling by Michelle Ann King
A Curse That’s Not For Breaking by Lawrence Harding
A True Wish by Charlotte Bond
Notes on a Haunting by Kit West
Subatomic for ‘It Must be Love’ by Emma K. Leadley
The Twelfth Day by Ro Smith
The Wind’s Son by K.C. Shaw
Salt Ocean by Lisa Shea
Enchanted Garden by K.A. Laity
Rapture on the Lonely Shore by Jenny Barber
The Whale and the Moon by G. Clark Hellery

Dyslexic Friendly Books – Kickstarter

I’m delighted to see the kickstarter is doing really well and you can find it here 

THE PITCH

The idea that when you become an adult there are no dyslexic accessible printed books to read, bluntly said is ridiculous. BOTH Press, which aims to fill this gap, is a project from Book on the Hill, which is dyslexic friendly independent bookshop set in Clevedon, North Somerset. We are passionate about helping people who have dyslexia, or have any difficulty with reading, to access the joy of good fiction.

We aim to make exciting good quality fiction accessible to those not currently
provided for by today’s traditional mass book market. We are working with talented and award winning authors to achieve this.
With your help through the whole process of the Kickstarter, we aim to publish
and print 8 titles of dyslexic friendly books for adults. Our long term goal is to
continue publishing good quality adult fiction to produce a wide range of books for people who have challenges when reading.

Our initial target is 6 titles. With another two following immediately with your help via the stretch goals . Of course we want to do more and if by your support we really go over over our target, we will produce yet more stunning books with great authors.

Steven Savile is a bestselling British fantasy, horror and thriller writer. He lives just outside Stockholm, Sweden having emigrated in 1997. His published works include The Memory Man, Coldfall Wood, Glass Town, One Man’s War, Parallel Lines, and numerous short stories in magazines and anthologies. He has written for Games Workshop, Primeval, Stargate and Doctor Who. Steven was a runner-up for the British Fantasy Award in 2000 and again in 2010. He has been published in a dozen languages and sold more than half a million copies of his novels and stories worldwide.
Previous titles: The Memory Man, Parallel Lines, Glass Town, One Man’s War,
Coldfall Wood. And more…

The Blurb
Under the pretext of opening a school of detectives, Sherlock and Watson are
summoned by the Swedish royalty. The Great Detective must solve a seemingly unsolvable riddle – how can the king be in three places at once? Why is it happening? And how does this tie in to a string of crimes that seem hound the King’s footsteps?
Watson seemingly alone, lectures at the The Bernadotte Chambers in Stockholm, speaking to his carefully chosen audience how this crimes of murder and mummery had come to pass. All the while waiting for Sherlock to appear and present the final reveal.

Stan Nicholls is the author of more than thirty books and was shortlisted for the 2001 British Fantasy Award. His Orcs: First Blood trilogy is a worldwide bestseller, with over a million copies sold to date. Both Orcs trilogies made the New York Times bestseller list. Stan’s books have been published in more than 20 countries.
He was the first manager of Forbidden Planet’s original London store and helped establish and run the New York branch. He received the Le’Fantastique Lifetime Achievement Award for Contributions to Literature (2007)
Previous titles: Orcs: Omnibus Edition, Orcs Bad Blood: Second Omnibus Edition, Shake Me to Wake Me: The Best of Stan Nicholls, Quicksilver Rising. And more…

The Blurb
The village of Catterby is beholden to no lord or lady. No one believes Lord Salex Nacandro, a warlord and sorcerer, who’s homeland was far to the north, would be a threat.
They are wrong.
Kye Beven a reluctant member of the ‘Band’, the elite protectors of the village,
lacks confidence. Everyone except Dyan Varike, the best archer in the band,
believes he should never have been selected. When Catterby is menaced by Eskail Gudreen the Emissary of Nacandro, Kye reaches for his bow and steps up to the mark.

Thana Niveau is a horror and science fiction writer. She is the author of the short story collections Octoberland, Unquiet Waters, and From Hell to Eternity, as well as the novel House of Frozen Screams. She has been shortlisted three times for the British Fantasy Awards – for Octoberland and From Hell to Eternity, and for her short story Death Walks En Pointe. She shares her life with fellow writer John Llewellyn Probert, in a crumbling gothic tower filled with arcane books and curiosities. And toy dinosaurs.
Previous titles: Octoberland, Unquiet Waters, From Hell to Eternity, House of
Frozen Screams. 

The Blurb
Molly Landor had always imagined having kids someday, though she had hoped it would be by choice and not by accident. After double checking the test was positive, there’s no doubt about it.
Something strange begins to occur and Molly announces that she will go ahead with the pregnancy. Friends and acquaintances become alarmed her behaviour becomes erratic and Molly announces details of her baby that no one could know, even refusing to go to the hospital to check the baby.
Is it just normal pregnancy mania or is something more unnatural arising?

Joel Cornah is an author, journalist, and blogger. His novels, The Sea-Stone Sword and The Sky Slayer, were published BFS Award-winning publisher, Grimbold books. He is an editor for The Science-Fiction and Fantasy Network, which has featured authors such as Brandon Sanderson and Kameron Hurley, as well as TV stars. He is outspoken about his dyslexia, supporting efforts to spread awareness through talks, articles, and books. He runs The Campaign Trail podcast, which has featured critically acclaimed authors, such as Anna Smith Spark alongside its regular players.
Previous titles: The Sea-Stone Sword, The Sky Slayer, The Storm-Forged Throne

The Blurb
The planet Wanda V has been abandoned for some time. The Gates had collapsed generations ago. It was called a waste of time, but the lone scientist, Hala, sets forth to investigate. While Hala collects data on the planet, legends and mythologies that surround these ruins become all too real.
Can Hala escape a god? And what does this self-proclaimed deity want?

Adrian Tchaikovsky is an award-winning British fantasy and science fiction
author. He is a keen live role-player, occasional amateur actor, and has
trained in stage-fighting. He has written over 20 novels and won the 2016
Arthur C. Clarke Award for Children of Time and the 2017 British Fantasy
Award — Best Fantasy Novel for The Tiger and the Wolf.
Previous titles: Children of Time, Children of Ruin, Cage of Souls, The Tales
of Catt & Fisher: The Art of the Steal, The Doors of Eden.

The Blurb
Doctor Hendry, a known pseudo-historian has gone missing. His employers want answers.
Michael is offered a job that pays ten times what he would get standing outside a club, knocking people over. On reaching the London office of the law firm, Branmer & Stokes, four other professionals are waiting. Two mercenaries, Shaw and Kelling, with broad minds and little scruples. Cohen, a paranormal investigator and Doctor Furrisky from the University of East Anglia’s department of history. Together they are given one job. Find Doctor Hendry in his home on the remote clifftop. They find more than they bargained for or even comprehend.

Steven Poore co-produced the Sheffield theatre premiere of Terry Pratchett’s Wyrd Sisters. He is a founder member of the Sheffield SF&F Writers’. His novel, Heir To The North, was shortlisted for Best Newcomer at the British Fantasy Awards in 2017.
He has featured in a number of anthologies with the BFS Award-winning publisher Fox Spirit Books.
Previous titles: Hair to the North, The High Kings Vengence, Art of War: Anthology for Charity, Legends 3: Stories in Honour of David Gemmell. 

Blurb
It is 1958 in an alternate Marrakesh. The cold war still wages on and Sputnik has launched, gazing down of earth. Seemingly Russia is conquering space at last.
An uncover agent needs to be extradited and the British expects Marrakesh to
facilitate this. Saif, a local boy has an important mission, to pick up a British spy unnoticed and bring him to the Deputy Security directorate. Saif escapes surveillance in a borrowed Grand taxi, but the pick-up doesn’t go to plan, as the British agent, known as the lighting rod, is the one man guaranteed to make a hard situation, harder.
The race is on to escape the Russian secret service, advanced technology and
bring the undercover agent into British hands.

John Llewellyn Probert was the winner of the 2013 British Fantasy Award for best novella with Nine Deaths of Dr Valentine. He won the Dracula Society’s Children of the Night Award for his first book, The Faculty of Terror, in 2006. Since then he has published fifteen volumes of horror fiction, including six short story collections. His non-fiction publications include a book on his favourite film, Theatre of Blood (Electric Dreamhouse) and he regularly writes about new movie releases at his online review site, House of Mortal Cinema. He lives in a gothic mansion in deepest Somerset with his wife, the author Thana Niveau. He doesn’t sleep much because there’s just too much scary fun to be had.
Previous titles: Nine Deaths of Dr Valentine, The Lovecraft Squad, The Last
Temptations of Dr Valentine, The Complete Valentine, Theatre of Blood. 

Lynda is having second thoughts about joining Dr Sampson choir, but she really needed to get out of the house. Too long she has spent putting herself into boxes for others benefits, but really was a choir in a psychiatric hospital the right way to find something for herself?
Of course it had to be one of those Victorian gothic monstrosities, and of course it had a dubious past, so really it’s just her imagination setting her on edge right. The weather isn’t helping nor is the fact that suddenly she is a prisoner and something does not want her to leave.

What is Dyslexia?
Dyslexia is a learning difference that primarily affects reading and writing skills. The NHS estimates that up to 1 in every 10 people in the UK have some form of dyslexia, while other dyslexic organisations believe 1 in 5 and more than 2 million people in the UK are severely affected.
Dyslexia does not stop someone from achieving. There are many individuals who are successful and are dyslexic. Famous actors, such as Orlando Bloom;
Entrepreneurs like Theo Paphitis, and many, many more, including myself. All of who believe dyslexia has helped them to be where they are now. Dyslexia, though, as I can attest to, does not go away. You don’t grow out of it, and so we are acknowledging that and creating a selection of books that will be friendly to people who deal with dyslexia every day, without being patronising.

What Do We Mean By Dyslexic Friendly?
• Cream paper rather than white.

• A sans-serif font, or a specific dyslexic friendly one.

• Extended spacing between paragraphs, sentences and words

Our Shop Experience
Since we started the project in 2019, Books on the Hill have had many adults
customers with dyslexia come in shop the asking for something accessible to
read. For example, one customer asked if we stocked well known novels in a
dyslexic friendly format. Unfortunately we had to say no, as they just don’t exist.
We have had many adults come in to the shop with dyslexia, who do not read or struggle to read and they believe dyslexic friendly books would have real impact on their reading for pleasure.
We have been so lucky that many great authors have agreed to participating in this project. Not least the great friend of mine, Stan Nicholls who has supported me since my university days examining archaeology and fantasy and writing fictional narratives for my PhD.

Joining Stan in this project is Steven Savile, another bestsellling author, who’s
father lives in Clevedon and is a customer of the bookshop. Then we have the
horror duo that is Thana Niveau and John Llewellyn Probert, both well established and engaging authors, who also happen to live in Clevedon, and be customers of the shop.

The Arthur Clark Award wining author Adrian Tchaikovsky joins us, who I have
known for many years at Conventions across the country. This introduction is the same with Steven Poore, who I met on my first fantasy convention in Scarborough.

We finish the Magnificent Seven with Joel Cornah, who also has dyslexia, and
joined us on our on podcast on dyslexia for the Clevedon Literature ‘Festival in the Clouds’.

Monster Blog : Haralambi Markov

Haralambi is an old friend of Fox Spirit and I was delighted when i saw his name among the list for this volume, because this last year, more than ever it is nice to remember the connections we have. – Sentimental Aunty fox.

Lessons in Shapeshifting – A hala, a Podcast and a Questioning Protagonist.

by Haralambi Markov

I feel incredibly delighted and privileged to have been invited to Eurasian Monsters as I believe the work Fox Spirit Books has done with this series of coffee table anthologies is important. Who gets to talk about monsters and how they shape our understanding of legends and folklore, plus we all like a good creature feature. Popular culture has its favorite monsters, which I’m not here to mock or dismiss, because I have been greatly influenced by vampires, zombies and mermaids when coming up as a writer.

At the same time, human imagination has concocted some really insane monsters that are lesser known in wider circles. That’s why Margrét Helgadóttir’s work on this anthology series is essential – here you’ve a small registry of stories based on regional creatures written by people from within, so you get to see intimate reinterpretations of their history and how it’s contextualized. Also, it’s a lot of fun to examine your cultural legacy (I’ve been doing more of this work in recent years) and see how it fits with the present. Or doesn’t.

For me at least, there’s a definite disconnect between the lives we lead in Bulgaria and the folklore we once created. Much similar to how deforestation and lawless construction in national parks have severely impacted local ecosystems and endangered native species – our cultural ecosystem hasn’t been welcoming to its own cryptids. Where would these creatures go, if they existed today, and how would we view them?

This was the starting point of my story “Nine Tongues Tells Of”, which describes the relationship and the long conversations between my protagonist and a newly-emerged hala (a shapeshifting spirit of hail storms). The story is as much a commentary on how we commodify every aspect of our lives (the conversations are released as a podcast) as it is a questioning of what we have forgotten. Just as my protagonist is clueless about the hala, so was I initially, apart from its apparent connection to hail. My research was fueled by the intention to do it right; represent the hala correctly. The definitive hala, if you will.

In consulting with the big compendium of folkloric knowledge about the zmey, zmeitsa, lamya and hala, I discovered how rich and decentralized the understanding of what the hala is and what it could be. A reminder that oral knowledge easily differs from place to place and ultimately encourages the freedom to retell. It’s very fitting that stories and beliefs about the hala are as varied and changing since the hala herself is a shapeshifter.

My hala is one of many. Far from definitive, yet still true to her nature.

 

Monster Blog : Vlad Arenev

About the story “Rapunzel”

by Vlad Arenev

They may die, but they do not disappear; but rather transform into something completely different. The garden gnomes. Figure candles. A beer brand, a movie character, a print on a t-shirt.

They continue to exist through their own shadows.

This transformation did not begin yesterday: At some point, the realization set in that simple concepts are clearer, while memory is fleeting and fading away, always liable to be replaced by a colorful movie scene, a children’s book, a popular encyclopedia, or a computer game. ‘Plus five to strength at night, hypersensitive to silver, inhabits cemeteries.’

A kind old domovyk, a beautiful and dangerous rusalka, a stern lisovyk… All of them became part of a “folk culture” in their simplified equivalents. But the real stories – the ones that our great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers believed in – they are forgotten. Stories where dead ancestors are close to the world of the living: they can punish bad behavior, but they are also capable of assisting or saving a person from trouble.

When I started thinking about how our actual ancestors would react to everything their descendants have to face in the 20th century… then the story I wanted to write, fell into place. At first I thought of writing about the Great Hunger, but circumstances changed, and the story of Holodomor became something bigger and greater, something that I will still continue to write about.

“Rapunzel” is another part of the story about our world, where the mythical creatures of folk tales live not only on pages of children’s books but in reality as well. I’m grateful to Margret for the opportunity to have this tale made available in English, and I hope that I will soon get a chance to tell other stories about this universe – and to bring them, the real ones, back to life, to reality.

Translation by Mike Olivson.

***

Vlad Arenev is a science fiction and fantasy award winning writer, editor and screenwriter from Ukraine. This Kievite author has published more than 30 books and over 250 short stories — they can be found in numerous magazines and collections, and in languages such as Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, English, French, German, Estonian, and Lithuanian, to name a few. The most popular of Vlad’s books are his books for teenagers and his YA work. Soulhold (2014), Dragonbone Powder (2015), Doghead’s Child (2018), and Sapienses (2019) have been awarded various literary awards, including ESFS Awards (Best Creator of Children’s Science Fiction or Fantasy Books, Dublin 2014), New Horizons (Moscow 2014), and Barabooka (Best Fantasy Novel for YA, 2018), and have also been nominated for awards, like the BBC Book of the Year (Best Book for Children, 2019). Find out more on Vlad’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/volodymyr.arenev

 

 

FS Book of Love : Cover

Those of you who subscribe to Alasdair Stuart’s the Full Lid got a preview of this, those who don’t well it’s here  and we highly recommend it.

Created by C.A. Yates, Paul Yates and Vincent Holland-Keen the book of love cover is here!

Love. That many-splendoured thing. It can move mountains and make
fools of us all, but what is it? Does it come courtesy of a cherub’s bow? Is it a
battlefield? Endless? Crazy? Only available on a Friday? Well, the answer
might be between these covers. Inside you’ll find stories from fantastical
worlds to fairy tales, from dark places to virtual reality, tales of transformation,
hope, and despair. Above all else, each one is, at heart, about love.

With stories from Douglas J. Ogurek, Dolly Garland, Alec McQuay,
James Bennett, David Tallerman, Joyce Chng, Xan van Rooyen, Michelle Ann
King, Lawrence Harding, Charlotte Bond, Kit West, Emma K. Leadley, Ro
Smith, Lisa Shea, K.A. Laity, Jenny Barber, and G. Clark Hellery.

Monster Blog : Kat Hutchson

The Horrors of Childhood – What Inspired “The Housekeeper”

by Kat Hutchson

In my first draft of this blog post, I wanted to write that there were few things that terrified me during my childhood but then I had to reconsider. There was the domovoy, the toilet monster from the X files, the fear of being kidnaped, the instability of a looming war with Chechnya on the borders of Caucasus – although it was a mere nervous feeling that crept into the mind of everyone, even children that were not quite ready to grasp the actual impact. It was a ghost, another monster that hid under your bed.

Although most of this fear faded away and with it the physical memory, some parts are still not quite vivid. I find it impressive how events that might look more traumatic to the outside eye only left behind a movie scene without a clear emotional response while other less striking events still feel more close to home.

My story “The Housekeeper” was inspired by a saying that had terrified me most of my childhood and had effectively stopped me from begging my parents to ever go home early. If you asked your parents to go home, you received the answer that there is a domovoy who is drying his legs and will strangle you.

Photo by cottonbro from Pexels

The Russian version of this sounds far more poetic due the rhyme sushit – dries-  and sadushit – strangles – at the end of the sentence. Although the poetic aspect doesn’t make it less terrifying if you ask me. 

In my research I wanted to explore the origins of the proverb but unfortunately I was unable to find any clue. I know that it was passed on from my grandmother to my mother – and that it hadn’t terrified her as much as it had me. Some sources mention that it was part of a children’s song and that there might be a version where the domovoy dries his shoes instead of his legs.

The concept of the story draws from the definition of the Fantastic as a state where the reader as well as the protagonist are uncertain if the events actually happened. There is no way of telling if the protagonist purely imagined them or if something supernatural took place. Based on Tzvetan Todorov’s definition of the Fantastic in Introduction à la littérature fantastique there are two ways to interpret such events: as the fantastic uncanny or fantastic marvelous. While the uncanny has a rational explanation such as an illusion, the marvelous defines the events as real.

Photo by Paige Cody on Unsplash

In case of “The Housekeeper” the Fantastic is tied to the traumatic. The divorce of the protagonist’s parents, separation from the father, moving to a new environment could all be considered as the culprit for his physical symptoms and experiences. The subjectivity of the events, the passing of time and the memories of a child do not allow for a simple decision if the Fantastic is marvelous or uncanny. They seem real to the protagonist but his visits to the psychiatrist suggest a rational explanation. To confirm one or the other would negate the state of the Fantastic.

I guess, you’ll have to read for yourself and form your own opinion. 

***

Kat Hutchson was born in Kislovodsk, a Russian spa city located between the Black and Caspian Seas. As a child she fell into the fountain of the Narzan Gallery and started writing shortly after. The magic powers of the Narzan contributed to her trying various forms of writing including slam poetry, academic publishing and poetry, and led to her finally finding her current home in the weird and the fantastic. Kat holds two master’s degrees (in Comparative Literature and Scandinavian Studies) from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich, Germany, where she currently lives. Follow Kat on Twitter where she is @HutchsonKat or check out her blog www.KatHutchson.wordpress.com

 

Photo Credits with links

 Photo by Paige Cody on Unsplash  
 Photo by cottonbro from Pexels

The Fox Spirit Book Of Love TOC

Well my fair foxes, it’s Valentine’s Day and admit all the chocolate and flowers and hastily purchased garage cards we thought this was the perfect time to announce the contents of our forthcoming FS Book of Love edited by the fabulous C. A. Yates

Further monster blogs and news of other 2021 releases coming soon

Todd & Reynard on Valentines
art by Jenny Haines
  1. DECOMPOSING CORPSES – Douglas J. Ogurek
  2. THE HOLY WATERS – Dolly Garland
  3. JIXXA, MY LOVE – Alec McQuay
  4. END TIMES IN PARIS – James Bennett
  5. LOVE IN THE AGE OF… – David Tallerman
  6. THE FIRST DAY OF KHIRSHI-DA – Joyce Chng
  7. BY BLADE AND BLOOM – Xan van Rooyen
  8. THE FINE ART OF FORTUNE-TELLING – Michelle Ann King
  9. A CURSE THAT’S NOT FOR BREAKING – Lawrence Harding
  10. A TRUE WISH – Charlotte Bond
  11. NOTES ON A HAUNTING – Kit West
  12. SUBATOMIC FOR ‘IT MUST BE LOVE’ – Emma K. Leadley
  13. THE TWELFTH DAY – Ro Smith
  14. THE WIND’S SON – K.C. Shaw
  15. SALT OCEAN – Lisa Shea
  16. ENCHANTED GARDEN – K.A. Laity
  17. RAPTURE ON THE LONELY SHORE – Jenny Barber
  18. THE WHALE AND THE MOON – G. Clark Hellery

A note from the Editor:

I don’t think anyone really knows what love is or where it comes from, but so many of us feel such an extraordinary connection to another person at least once in our lives that it can make us feel and do the most incredible things. I’m not talking about romance, all that hearts and flowers business. There are many people who don’t feel romantic attraction at all, but they experience love. Some people love more than one person at a time; some truly love only one person their entire life. For some, love is platonic, while for others it has to be sexual. There are those for who one glance, one moment, can connect them so deeply to another person they are never quite the same again.

So why create an anthology based on such an unknowable yet ubiquitous creature? Well, I believe love is a power for good. Of course it has its ups and downs; it can be a comfort or a wild ride; it can mean sacrifice or abundance; it can taste of the ripest, sweetest strawberries or turn as rotten as a certain something in the state of Denmark. Whatever it is, I believe it can change the world. Or, at least, it can change yours forever.

 

Monster Blog – Kieran Walsh

Illustrating Fox Spirit Books of Monsters

By Kieran Walsh

Self Portrait

When I was approached at the beginning to illustrate a series about monsters from all over the globe, the first thing I thought was “Wow – what an opportunity!”. As a child, my visits to the local library in the Irish small town of Kells in County Meath, were always a chance to scour the shelves for any kind of monster or folklore-related books I could get my hands on. These books often contained stories translated from other languages and depicted tales of creatures that were both thrilling and horrifying in equal measures. The illustrations were sometimes few and far between but the ones that were there were definitely something I’d never forget.

Growing up, my tastes moved more towards comics and graphic novels, particularly the likes of 2000AD and other British and American publications. I was always drawn to the darker sides of these comics and in particular the work of some incredible artists who have since gone on to achieve worldwide recognition. While I could never aspire to their level, I always felt that some of these artists influenced my own creative style and certainly provided inspiration for a lot of the darker elements of my own artwork. Around this time, I also became interested in adventure game publications such as D&D-themed Fighting Fantasy books, and the now-forgotten Proteus magazine, which also contained amazing illustrations of ghosts, demons and monsters that were beautifully rendered in ink and pencil. These creatures are often depicted in amazing 3D detail in modern video games but in the mid 1980’s, comics and board games were really pushing the boundaries of what could be achieved in fantasy art.

Being asked to illustrate the Monster series felt like I had come full circle – here was my opportunity to actually be involved in producing something that I loved as a child, while also collaborating with other amazing artists and authors. There was no way I could say no. I’m proud to say that my illustrations featured in all of the books in the series, and in the process I discovered new creatures and tales that I had never even imagined. My young self would have definitely approved…

***

Kieran Walsh is an Irish artist living and working in the UK. Based in Leicester, he has worked for over fifteen years delivering community-based arts programmes in disadvantaged areas. Kieran works in a broad range of media, from digital art to sculpture, as well as more traditional crafts including knifemaking. Kieran has illustrated stories in all the seven monster volumes from Fox Spirit Books.

 

Monster Blog – Maria Galina

We really appreciate the extra effort some of our authors go to in providing these blogs and this would have made an excellent New Year Eve post, so my apologies to Maria for the lack of timing on this one.


 

Ded Moroz

by Maria Galina

Ded Moroz (The Old Father Frost) is a personification of deadly winter cold, and (presumably) an old chthonic god of Slavic tribes confronting deadly continental winter in their poor huts. In Russian fairy tales he still bears relic features – for he may be generous and reward the meek and obedient, but be deadly to those who is obstinate and greedy (and he is still the same in the children’s Soviet film “Morozko”).

During the period of Modern with its inevitable revival of “the Russian national spirit”, Moroz became an object of both poems and plays – where he was still presented as the incarnation of the terrible Russian winter.

But after the October Revolution (1917) an interesting transformation took place. Bolsheviks aiming to substitute religious feasts with the “new” and “atheistic” dates, considered X-mas and even (from 1927 to 1935) the New Year’s Day as “bourgeois” and “ideologically inimical”. When returning New Year’s Day, it was appointed to be a substitution of X-mas and subsequently it was purified from all Christian connotations. Even the Star on the top of a Christmas tree was now the Bolshevik symbol. The problem was: who would substitute Saint Nicolaus, children’s favorite personage? And so Ded Moroz (just an ideologically harmless frost, not a dangerous Saint) was chosen for the role.

And thus it happened – the old and cruel chthonic god became a bearded jolly old man in the red or blue caftan visiting children with gifts on the New Year’s Eve. But of course, it is only a mask, we ourselves know who he really is, and if not – read my short story.

***

Maria Galina is the author of several fiction books, including several novels and the three short story collections Red Wolves, Red Gees (“Krasnye volky, Krasnye gusy”), Chicken God (“Kuriny Bog”) and Not Looking Back (“Ne Oglyadyvayas”). Several of Maria’s novels (Iramifications, Autochthones and Malaya Glusha) and short stories are translated to many languages such as English, French, Ukrainian and Polish. Her short stories can be found in anthologies like Glas New Russian writing, Moscow tales: stories, and Racconti russi al femminile. She’s also awarded for her work in the speculative fiction field and has received many awards, including Personal Boris Strugatsky Award (Saint-Petersburg, Russia), Portal award (International SF Convent, Kyiv, Ukraine), and Readers’ award (Big Book Award, Moscow, Russia). Maria is also a prize-winning poet and a translator of English poetry and SF—she for instance translated Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti into Russian. Maria was born in one of the oldest Mid-Russian town—Tver, and lives and works in Moscow. Find more information about her at https://fantlab.ru/autor1342 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Galina

 

Monster Blog – Shawn Basey

A question on nationality

by Shawn Basey

It is an odd trend to only see regression in today’s world. We look at the last 18 centuries as a reversal of some sort, as though the pagan era were an idyllic time of matriarchy and peace, when neither were remotely true. Perhaps triggering this mindset was Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael, but here he’s referring to a time even before that, a pre-agricultural revolution time. But always this looking back to a mythical yesteryear, of better times – it is persistent throughout modern Western culture, whether looking only a few years back or millennia. This looking back is a political tool, of course, to inspire revanchism, to pass the blame game around and build up an active base of support. It is part of saying it’s their fault when the fault is not in everyone else, but in ourselves.

It is a point I bring up in my latest short story for the Fox Spirit Eurasian Monsters anthology, “Lysa Hora”, which takes place in Tbilisi, Georgia, my home. In Georgia, currently, they have long been undergoing a process of national identification. Ever since the latest unification of the country – the liberating of each half from the Ottoman and Persian yokes – there has been an ongoing struggle of the definition of “Georgian”. So much so, that the most respected writer of the time, Ilya Chavchavadze, concerned himself with the question of “Georgianness” throughout his years. The question was delayed by the Russian and Soviet occupations, only to be reignited after the fall of the latter.

It seems a settled question now: Georgian Language, Georgian Orthodoxy, and Georgian citizenship. But in a historically multicultural society – and one that remains so to a large extent – these are flailing definitions at best. Among native Georgian speakers, we find Orthodox and Catholic Christians (among others), Jews, and Muslims. There are four distinct languages within the Kartvelian (Georgian) language family, and one of those exists only outside of Georgia’s borders in Turkey. Among Georgian citizens and those who have lived here for centuries, we find not just Georgians, but Azeris, Armenians, Os, Abkhaz, Russians, and so on – a larger percent of minorities than all the other countries in the Caucasus region combined. Finally, there’s an ever-growing Georgian diaspora, many of whom have broken many of their ties with Georgia fearing it’s not civilized, wealthy, or modern enough for them.

Be that as it may, Orthodox Christianity is what many latched onto as the defining agency of “Georgianness” after the fall of the Soviet Union. And now many are looking towards Europe and identifying it with some brand of secular, even atheism, which casts a growing doubt in their Church. This sentiment, not shared throughout the population, is creating a growing unease about their role with the European West.

And though I don’t disagree with the direction they are looking, I do disagree that the Church – and the Christian Churches of Western Europe – are necessarily the catalysts of all that is evil in history. In fact, it is this viewpoint that is being driven by many in Europe and here, that’s being picked up and waved about as a sword by Russian propagandists. But let’s not go further with that. Let’s go further on why I don’t think Christianity was such a bad influence. Namely in regards to one single story: the Georgian creation myth.

Not much is known about the religion before Christianity. We know some of the primary figures of the pantheon, we know that both Zoroastrianism and the Greek pantheon were big here, and some of the larger myths, and that it has many influences from the Hittites. Most of the myths we know, like those of Amirani and others, have passed along into Christian stories, with the tales of Christian saints often having been transferred from pagan deities before them. The pagan myths held the strongest in the mountain regions, which were the last to Christianize and to this day still hold a great slew of pagan beliefs and practices, from mass sheep sacrifices to a loosely Christianized shrine practice.

In the ancient days, the world was split up into three planes: Zeskneli, Shuaskneli, and Kveskneli. Zeskneli being the home of the gods and the upper plane, Shuaskneli being our plane, and Kveskneli the home of demonic creatures. Shuaskneli is in mythology more of the battlefield between the two planes.

It is from the mountain people, the Khevsurs, that we get what is left of the story of Morige Ghmerti, the chief god, and his sister. Morige Ghmerti so hated his sister that he banished her from Zeskneli, and she was bent on revenge ever since. For every good creation he made, she made an equal, opposite evil creation. He made gods, she made demons; he made men, she made women. Inhabiting as they all did Shuaskneli at that time, it’s said that the gods finally got tired of battling the demons and left for Zeskneli, leaving behind men. Demigods persisted in banishing the demons from Shuaskneli, leaving behind women.

The situation being, all the bad in the world remaining was from women. The beings of Morige Ghmerti were civilized, social, divine. Those of his sister: wild, chaotic, demonic.

It is perhaps the only religious system in the world that has such a bizarre differentiation between men and women. We do get ideas of the subservience of women to men from other cornerse, but never the idea that women are inferior in such an absolute moral sense from the moment of Creation itself.

We have now in fashion this kind of pagan revivalism, which is made ironic in that it’s coming from the left. In the 19th century Europe, we had such a neo-folk movement, but that from the right, molding into the pseudo-mythology of the Nazi elite. Indeed, the right wing volkists still hold such beliefs today. You can find White Nationalists sprinkled all throughout the folk metal and other folklore communities. You find a rise of pagan symbolism as well, with the Slavic sun wheel, Nordic runes, Georgian Borjgali, and others being coopted by nativist/volkist groups.

The interesting trend in Georgia though – and indeed in many circles throughout the collapsed Soviet Union – is that instead of the neo-pagan revival, we see a neo-Christian revival. Looking back to a Christian utopia that never was.

What I’ve attempted to do in “Lysa Hora” is to turn these ideas around. We have the main character, Otar, a simple-minded taxi driver who is drawn in by the poisonous narrative “Georgia for Georgians”. He’s a hard-core Orthodox believer because that is the definition of Georgia that’s given to him. He rejects all things Western, and sees only the “gayropa” that’s being sold down the propaganda mills. Then there’s his sister, Tinatin, who he assumes is “perverted” by her Westernism. But actually, all that he sees in her as evil is innately Georgian, and the actual old Georgian mythos, with its heart devouring kudiani, is much more horrific than the liberal West. Indeed, Christianity itself is an alien religion, brought from the outside.

But it also echoes that question of national identity. “What is Georgian?” Is it Orthodox Christianity? Is it the paganism before it? Is it something current, something new? And I think we can replace this question of national identity with any nationality, not just Georgian. This period of globalization is a huge stress on identities. National, individual, and so on. It is of course, too hard to cast all those off and be the “New Human”, or a “globalist”. We as humans, need positive definitions by others, so we fall back into these accepted classifications. We find safety and reassurance, and that’s what we really need in this changing world.

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Shawn Basey is originally from Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA, and he first came to Georgia in 2009 as a volunteer with the Peace Corps. It was then he fell in love with the country and decided to stay. He is now married and has a son named after the founder of Tbilisi, the city which they call home. He works freelance as a writer, teacher, and editor and enjoys traveling the world with his half-Georgian family. He keeps up a regular blog at www.saintfacetious.com and has published the novel How It Ends and the short story collection Hunger, both available on Amazon. He’s currently working on a novel about Georgia during World War II with strong Georgian, Azeri, and Kazakh folklore elements.