Len Berry's Blog

I always strive to do more, get my work out there, be a success with writing. To do that, I’ve realized I need to see where I am. Come with me for a few minutes.

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My current Work In Progress is Ashes Of War. Epic fantasy and long in development. This also has four sequels I need to write.

Less than a year ago, I wrote Infinity. Now I’m editing it. There are at least two sequels, the content of which all needs to be determined.

The Golden Hollow, my beloved series of modern telepaths, action, lost technology, and political intrigue. Biopunk.  Mind & Machine needs to be redrafted. Again. The sequel, Dual Identities, needs to be edited or flat redrafted. The remaining 4-8 books need to be planned. The whole series needs to tell a story and I need to figure out where that story ends.

The Night Lands is still running on Patreon, though I have gotten stalled twice. Several stories are already done. “Rascal” is the current entry that needs to be finished along with at least two more shorts. Then I can set it aside for a little while.

The Fanged Circle has a complete serial! “Scars Of Shadow” wrapped up earlier in 2018. I need to write up a few more Tales of the Cursed. Also, the next two serials need to be planned out, one taking place in a fortress, the other dealing with the mythological Dark Princess Iriyatha.

The first book of the Saga of the Elagabal, The Honor of Severus, needs an edit. The next two books need to be written also. Just as soon as I plan them out.

Tesseract. It needs an agent, some light revision, and some love. I’m close on that front.

Blanc Noir needs an agent, which means I need to send more query letters for it.

Vitamin F has been out in the world for several years now. I need to talk about it, link it, give it some promotional love.

The next step in all this is to schedule everything you just read. It’s a step I’ll take another day.

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I’ve been working on an outline for a speech. Sure, my strength lies in the written word, but I’ve been known to BS my way through things.

*cough*Likeperformingaweddingceremony*cough*

I’ll have 18 minutes to discuss a topic that relates to writers in the early stages of their career. You know, that place where I’ve lived for a very long time. So, want an idea of what I’m up to so far? Sure you do…

Eighteen minutes isn’t a ton of time in the speech world. Just try limiting yourself to a topic for five minutes and you’ll go crazy just with that. Having talked through the elements I’d like to discuss twice now, I have a clearer picture in view.

Titles matter. In this case, I’ll be explaining the Dark Souls community motto: “Don’t Go Hollow.” That means keep going, don’t give up, you can do it. A hollow is one who has totally quit, decided things are too hard, and no longer cares about the hope of any reward or victory.
I’ll tell three stories. The first is Solaire, because he might start off saying “Praise The Sun,” but he ends up in a dark cave, depressed, alone, and with only two choices–one leads him astray, one inspires him. The other two are real people toiling in the real world, fighting stagnation and grief. Neither has gone hollow.
This speech talks about writing, but it’s really about personal determination. If we can’t make ourselves go on, no one else can. The road will be hard and we can still ask for help. Still, it is up to us to take that next step.

Add a few notes to tie these elements together and that’s more than eighteen minutes. So I’ll have to outline it, though that’s what I have to turn in by July 30. Fun, right?

And on that note, I’m off to write again!

Yes, I like X-Men. I have ever since I was seven. My first exposure to the X-Men was an issue of Classic X-Men where the X-Men took on the Shi’Ar Imperial Guard. I really liked the leader guy, Cyclops; he could shoot laser beams from his eyes and the pretty red-haired lady was his girlfriend.

I read another Classic X-Men where the X-Men had to fight the pretty red-haired lady–Dark Phoenix–and they won because Cyclops loved her.

Between those issues, my primal, childhood mind was already geared toward these two characters. The others were fun also, but it was always going to be Scott & Jean Forever for me.

OK, that’s not Cable. We’re getting there.

In the early 1990s, I watched and adored X-Men: The Animated Series. It sowed much of my love of comics, shifting me from a person who had comic books to a regular comic book reader.

One of the major steps on that journey for me was getting three regular issues of X-Men in a short time frame. Everything was building to Scott & Jean getting married, which had my full fan approval. On the cartoon, a newer character showed up and appealed to every part of me that adored Arnold Schwarzenegger movies. This gun-toting superhero (how is such a thing possible?) was called Cable and he was more capable than all the X-Men combined.

I started learning about Cable. He was a time-traveler, he’s not a cyborg, but a man with a science fiction disease that turns his body into metal and circuits. His name is Nathan.

Some of the comics leading up to Cyclops and Phoenix getting married talked about Scott having given up his son to save the baby from a sci-fi illness. The son’s name was Nathan.

My teenage brain thought Could Cable be the son of Cyclops?

The last issue of Uncanny X-Men before Cyclops got married featured Cable coming without guns to confront Cyclops, his father.

My teenage fan theory was validated. I was hooked.

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I started reading the solo series Cable close to the time when Jeph Loeb started writing. As of this writing, Loeb is in charge of Marvel’s TV division. In the 1980s, he wrote the Schwarzenegger movie Commando. Loeb has written many of the key Batman and Superman stories people have adored in the past few decades.

In Jeph Loeb’s Cable, Nathan Dayspring Summers is a soldier from the future who is trying to be something more than than what he has been. Cable found ways to use his powers to do more than hold his sickness at bay. He tried to be more than a fighter, he tried to be a hero.

Here was a man who’d lived by the code “In order to save the village we had to burn the village.” But he wanted to help people. Sure, Cable had his guns, but he also got a Jedi-like mentor and a weapon to help him channel his powers (the psimitar).

At the start of Jeph Loeb’s run, Cable was a soldier with a sci-fi disease. By the end of Loeb’s run, Cable was an emerging hero who could fight with guns and warfare, but he could also use his mutant powers, his psimitar, and his own personal perseverance.

For me, Cable would never be just a soldier. Cable is a soldier, a friend, a son, a student, a mentor, a man fighting a disease.

Cable is a superhero–my favorite superhero, in fact.

Thanks to Professor Tolkien, the majority of fantasy books have a map somewhere in their pages. It’s often at the front, though some have it in the back. The Belgariad has maps throughout, highlighting the next major location.

[image error]So, the title question: Do we really need a map?

Many see it as a given or a necessary resource. Does a story really need this device? Shouldn’t the prose be enough?

Absolutely, the needs of a particular story determine what the answer would be. What’s your answer?

Friends, readers, fantasy fans, lend me your eyes.

I have posted a new short story, “Mighty Wings,” on my Patreon. For free.

Read, enjoy, share the link with your friends.

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Yes, you can read “Mighty Wings” for free. FREE.

 

Big surprise, I love writing. More than that, I love when people read what I’ve written.

One of my friends said that I come up with the most unique and imaginative settings. Right now, I’m posting short stories from THE NIGHT LANDS on Patreon.

[image error]I could try and give you a hard sell on THE NIGHT LANDS, but I’m going to skip ahead to the fun part. On April 1, 2018, I’m sharing a story for free. Drop in, download a copy, and enjoy!

However–this is the selling part–you can get more for one dollar.

The previous story, “The Tale of the Throat Slasher,” will still be available. There’s also the complete dark fantasy serial Scars Of Shadow.

That’s what I have for you. Come for a battle of dragon riders, stay for more wild fantasy goodness!

Over the past few years, all things SoulsBorne have steered my creative direction. If it weren’t for Jonathan introducing me to Demon’s Souls years ago, I don’t know where my ideas on fantasy would be at the moment.

So, in a flurry of sadness and joy, I turned the game on again for the last two hours the servers would ever be active.

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I got hooked on this moody, medieval game before Dark Souls was a thing. Fighting through the opening castle was grueling and demanded a level of conviction that most video games didn’t have.

There was no “Prepare To Die” campaign. There was only the understanding that you would lose, that you would have experience points/currency that you would be lucky to ever spend, that there was an entire world against you and no clear path to success.

It seems funny how much Souls games can act as a metaphor for the world. Yet, here we are.

Demon’s Souls was never about the online multiplayer for me. I enjoy having that ability, but I took more from the random phantoms and the notes left by other players. That’s right, all the notes are gone now too.

Can you imagine the end of Anor Londo without someone writing on the ground “Amazing Chest Ahead”? That’s what’s happened with Demon’s Souls.

What sticks with me is how many people have written notes with the simple message of “Farewell.” It’s a note that has ceased to exist, but it was thrown into the world as a gesture of goodwill for a complete stranger. I admit, I wrote such a message less than an hour before the server closed down for good.

At the end, I was fighting alongside another player, mirfi, as we tried to get past a stairwell full of archers and knights, hoping to dash past a dragon and some officials, all in an effort to kill an old king. That old king still lives, but I did fight him with allies, something most players haven’t been able to try.

More than anything else, I want to share how I feel, the sadness and the joy. There’s an area on the top floor of The Nexus (the game’s hub area) that is useless now, since it won’t list community records. There’s one piece of gear that requires a player to participate in a specific online duel to get–that’s gone too. Community World Tendency, an overall alignment system has no impact now, as there is not a game-supported network for the community.

This is a foundational root of gaming culture that has closed off a big part of its identity. Something that’s gone now despite wide calls for its return.

For now, I can only end with my favorite line from Demon’s Souls. The inventory keeper, Stockpile Thomas closes most interactions saying, “You’ve got a heart of gold. Don’t let them take it from you.”

If you’re following me on Instagram, you already know my latest anime binge has been Gasaraki, a 1998 mecha series from Sunrise.

[image error]The most important element about Gasaraki compared to other mecha series is how subtle it is. Most mecha shows are known for their action sequences, outgoing characters, and bold musical themes.

In Gasaraki, action must be earned (US grain exports become an important late-series plot point), the characters are often quiet (especially the leads Yushiro and Miharu), and music sometimes isn’t used at all, making the themes punch stronger.

The fact that this series was set 15 years in the future isn’t readily revealed. Gasaraki was released in Japan in late 1998. One in-world photo has a date stamp of 2014. That time difference isn’t a huge issue, since the technology in Gasaraki is near-future. Bipedal weapons are supposed to be a way to take tank technology into more confined urban settings, though there is a plot about desert warfare early on.

When Gasaraki was first released in the US, I loved and adored it. I was first discovering anime and appreciated how intelligent and spiritual a series could be. (Noh dancing is one of the most important elements in determining who the ace mecha pilots are.) Gasaraki is one of the many experiments in original programming in post-Evangelion anime.

I’ve been digging in to mecha a lot lately. The impact of Evangelion made an impression on how everything was received starting with Escaflowne. You think it’s time for me to start watching the epic battle against the Angels again?

That’s right my friends, The Night Lands is back.

On March 1, 2018, I’ll be posting the first in a series of short tales on my Patreon page.

[image error]The first installment is a character piece I’m calling “The Tale of the Throat Slasher.” (Such a happy title!) Yes, there are sun- and death-worshiping Asurians, but there’s the promise of more. We’ll be able to chat about the Dancers of the Spire and their fall from grace. We’ll see the dark nature of magic in a world saturated by light. I may even take you to that mythical place, The Night Lands.

I have no doubt that dragons will appear.

If you must have a taste right now, “The Mirror of Tila” is the headlining story in the fantasy villain anthology The Rogue’s Gallery. (There are some great stories in that book, well worth reading!)

In the modern age of simul-dubs and Crunchyroll streaming, anime fans like myself are being lured to the idea that “new is always better.”

That being said, there are some real treasures in my DVD collection. One of them is The Vision of Escaflowne.

[image error]For those not familiar with Escaflowne, it’s a 26-episode fantasy series from Sunrise. It’s also a mech show, which isn’t something that typically happens as a fantasy series. There are also themes of fate and destiny, often portrayed with Tarot cards. Hitomi, the main character, is a high school student and a member of the track squad. She’s played by Maaya Sakamoto in both her second voice role and first musical team-up with Yoko Kanno.

So, what are the big takeaways from watching Escaflowne in the span of a week?

A Mech Show Doesn’t Have To Follow A Mech Pilot. Hitomi is not a pilot. She does function as a mystic at times, but she’s our eyes and ears most of all. It’s through her that we see the horrors of war and the growing threat of the technologically advanced Zaibach Empire.
Genres Can Clash. Gaia is a fantasy world that can see “the mystic moon” (modern-day Earth). The Zaibach Empire is a science fiction nation. Hitomi is a shojo protagonist. Every element is treated like an essential part of the story, never treating anything like it doesn’t fit in the narrative.
Smaller Arcs Can Work. Often there are arcs that cross three or four episodes at a time. Several overlap to make a wider story web–and these are all the secondary plots.

That’s my fast look at the series. I’m thinking about rewatching Outlaw Star or Neon Genesis Evangelion next. Are you watching anything fun?