Long title? I'll explain everything.This is the time that I give a status report on me and talk about what I've read. Work brought no shortage of stress, but here I am in one piece. This was by far the most productive year for Monte House Books, participating in numerous events and signings in Utah. We also published 6 books! Count 'em:
Medusa by E.H. Visiak (yes, the one beloved by Karl Edward Wagner.) https://a.co/d/h9JzOxW
The Headless Leper by Frederick Cowles (collecting his two horror story collections from the 30's into one volume. I promised myself I would do this, so I dove in.) https://a.co/d/cHkwpd4
A Weird Treasury (a collection of some of my favorite stories from Weird Tales that I compiled.) https://a.co/d/6bt3oD0
The Withered Heart and Other Tales of the Occult by G.G. Pendarves (a collection I assembled of her works from Weird Tales. I felt that S.T. Joshi was cornering the market with his collections by Weird Tales writers, so I beat him to this one). https://a.co/d/hI3EUSw
A Thousand Deaths and Other Tales of Survival by Jack London (science fiction, survival horror, and westerns that I collected). https://a.co/d/fIgI6Rt
Lastly, Agonies of a Bookman by Nicholas A. Montelongo A.K.A. Me, is a collection of articles I wrote for the Horror Drive-in, but given another edit and I corrected some errors of fact.
https://a.co/d/j6LWO0H
I can't help feeling a little burned out and some of these titles haven't found an audience yet, but I'm still chugging along. These books are an important part of me. They are my children (aside from my flesh and blood ones and one cranky tuxedo cat.)
I estimate by the end of this month that I will have read 200 books for the year. I started off with some works by Nigel Kneale and his collection Tomato Cain. Razorfist's gothic western graphic novel Ghost of the Badlands fired me up into reading a few dozen western novels this year including A Noose for the Desperado by Clifton Adams, Flint by Louis L'amour, The Searchers by Alan LaMay, and The Red Sabbath by Lewis Patten. I've become a big fan of Patten and other excellent books by him include A Killing in Kiowa, The Killer from Yuma, and Five Rode West. I discovered how awesome Clint Eastwood's westerns are and read Forrest Carter's The Outlaw Josey Wales on the strength of the film. Both the book and movie are great.
I jumped back into horror reading stories by numerous Weird Tales writers including Harold Ward, Oscar Schisgall, Henry Kutter, and others while researching for material for some of this year's collections and the next. In the meantime, I read several pulps including The Shadow and Captain Future before jumping back to horror. Some of the best horror books I've read this year includes A Different Darkness by Luigi Musolino, and Charles Grant 's Universe of Horror Trilogy. To cap off the year, I returned to westerns with Clair Huffaker's excellent The Cowboy and the Cossack.
Feeling dizzy yet? I am. I've also been working on a literary theory lately. I'm not sure if this idea has made the rounds, but I call it The Reconstructed Hero. Stories of heroes have been told for thousands of years, but the deconstructed hero (either inverting the hero's values, exposing his fallacies and flaws) is more of a modern invention. It can be a useful exercise in looking at something in a different light, or it can be used by more cynical people to tear something down.
For example, we used to have a Batman who fought crime because he had an unshakable determination to avenge his parents. In recent years, we've been treated to a Batman who's so morally conflicted that he bemoans he no longer understands criminals because he is "white privileged." This is despite the fact he used his wealth to understand crime better than criminals, to outwit supervillains, saved Gotham more times than it deserves, and paid an enormous emotional and physical toll as a result. He never really enjoys being rich and isn't a happy person, at least most of the time.
Watchmen deconstructed superheroes to the point of near uselessness with it's self-righteous villain going unpunished (he also happens to be an Austrian guy who thinks he will benefit the world by wiping out millions of people. Stop me if you heard this one before.) This emasculating of heroism is widespread, especially in movies and comics.
People are tired of seeing their heroes torn down, whether it's in godawful rehashings of superheroes or seeing their heroes castrated into depressed broken-down old men (like Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, James Bond, Indiana Jones, Willow, Rocky Balboa, and Jean Luc Picard) and often take a backseat to some spunky new person to put him in his place. There is also the black and white paradigm of the hero and the deconstructed hero, a duality that is too simplistic to me. I don't think deconstruction should be where our view of the hero ends.
I propose there is another side that should be acknowledged: the Reconstructed Hero, in which we have a hero who is brought down by his flaws and mistakes, or is exposed so we see him as something less than a hero, but finds the strength to rebuild himself and regain his honor, to become a hero again but more complete. A better version of himself. The strength has to come from within; he doesn't need to be shown up by his spunky younger co-star to spark his inner fire. True change comes from the self.
I've been using this vision with two of my own fictional characters that I created without knowing it. One is a warrior who brings destruction to his people because of his hubris and a misguided effort to protect them, but redeems himself by using his newfound immortality to defend the world. The other is a gunslinger, who was once a brave soldier and becomes a bank robber. Mortally wounded, he makes a deal with the devil to save his life by forfeiting his soul. He spends the rest of his life pursuing justice and fighting evil until he finds salvation. Maybe what I'm trying to say with these characters and with this Reconstructed Hero idea is that we, as people, are all flawed works in progress, but if we keep trying to be better then we aren't failures.
I believe in heroism and that heroes can be good people too, or better than they once were.That's it for now. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and best wishes to all.
Written by Nick Montelongo
Medusa by E.H. Visiak (yes, the one beloved by Karl Edward Wagner.) https://a.co/d/h9JzOxW
The Headless Leper by Frederick Cowles (collecting his two horror story collections from the 30's into one volume. I promised myself I would do this, so I dove in.) https://a.co/d/cHkwpd4
A Weird Treasury (a collection of some of my favorite stories from Weird Tales that I compiled.) https://a.co/d/6bt3oD0
The Withered Heart and Other Tales of the Occult by G.G. Pendarves (a collection I assembled of her works from Weird Tales. I felt that S.T. Joshi was cornering the market with his collections by Weird Tales writers, so I beat him to this one). https://a.co/d/hI3EUSw
A Thousand Deaths and Other Tales of Survival by Jack London (science fiction, survival horror, and westerns that I collected). https://a.co/d/fIgI6Rt
Lastly, Agonies of a Bookman by Nicholas A. Montelongo A.K.A. Me, is a collection of articles I wrote for the Horror Drive-in, but given another edit and I corrected some errors of fact.
https://a.co/d/j6LWO0H
I can't help feeling a little burned out and some of these titles haven't found an audience yet, but I'm still chugging along. These books are an important part of me. They are my children (aside from my flesh and blood ones and one cranky tuxedo cat.)
I estimate by the end of this month that I will have read 200 books for the year. I started off with some works by Nigel Kneale and his collection Tomato Cain. Razorfist's gothic western graphic novel Ghost of the Badlands fired me up into reading a few dozen western novels this year including A Noose for the Desperado by Clifton Adams, Flint by Louis L'amour, The Searchers by Alan LaMay, and The Red Sabbath by Lewis Patten. I've become a big fan of Patten and other excellent books by him include A Killing in Kiowa, The Killer from Yuma, and Five Rode West. I discovered how awesome Clint Eastwood's westerns are and read Forrest Carter's The Outlaw Josey Wales on the strength of the film. Both the book and movie are great.
I jumped back into horror reading stories by numerous Weird Tales writers including Harold Ward, Oscar Schisgall, Henry Kutter, and others while researching for material for some of this year's collections and the next. In the meantime, I read several pulps including The Shadow and Captain Future before jumping back to horror. Some of the best horror books I've read this year includes A Different Darkness by Luigi Musolino, and Charles Grant 's Universe of Horror Trilogy. To cap off the year, I returned to westerns with Clair Huffaker's excellent The Cowboy and the Cossack.
Feeling dizzy yet? I am. I've also been working on a literary theory lately. I'm not sure if this idea has made the rounds, but I call it The Reconstructed Hero. Stories of heroes have been told for thousands of years, but the deconstructed hero (either inverting the hero's values, exposing his fallacies and flaws) is more of a modern invention. It can be a useful exercise in looking at something in a different light, or it can be used by more cynical people to tear something down.
For example, we used to have a Batman who fought crime because he had an unshakable determination to avenge his parents. In recent years, we've been treated to a Batman who's so morally conflicted that he bemoans he no longer understands criminals because he is "white privileged." This is despite the fact he used his wealth to understand crime better than criminals, to outwit supervillains, saved Gotham more times than it deserves, and paid an enormous emotional and physical toll as a result. He never really enjoys being rich and isn't a happy person, at least most of the time.
Watchmen deconstructed superheroes to the point of near uselessness with it's self-righteous villain going unpunished (he also happens to be an Austrian guy who thinks he will benefit the world by wiping out millions of people. Stop me if you heard this one before.) This emasculating of heroism is widespread, especially in movies and comics.
People are tired of seeing their heroes torn down, whether it's in godawful rehashings of superheroes or seeing their heroes castrated into depressed broken-down old men (like Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, James Bond, Indiana Jones, Willow, Rocky Balboa, and Jean Luc Picard) and often take a backseat to some spunky new person to put him in his place. There is also the black and white paradigm of the hero and the deconstructed hero, a duality that is too simplistic to me. I don't think deconstruction should be where our view of the hero ends.
I propose there is another side that should be acknowledged: the Reconstructed Hero, in which we have a hero who is brought down by his flaws and mistakes, or is exposed so we see him as something less than a hero, but finds the strength to rebuild himself and regain his honor, to become a hero again but more complete. A better version of himself. The strength has to come from within; he doesn't need to be shown up by his spunky younger co-star to spark his inner fire. True change comes from the self.
I've been using this vision with two of my own fictional characters that I created without knowing it. One is a warrior who brings destruction to his people because of his hubris and a misguided effort to protect them, but redeems himself by using his newfound immortality to defend the world. The other is a gunslinger, who was once a brave soldier and becomes a bank robber. Mortally wounded, he makes a deal with the devil to save his life by forfeiting his soul. He spends the rest of his life pursuing justice and fighting evil until he finds salvation. Maybe what I'm trying to say with these characters and with this Reconstructed Hero idea is that we, as people, are all flawed works in progress, but if we keep trying to be better then we aren't failures.
I believe in heroism and that heroes can be good people too, or better than they once were.That's it for now. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and best wishes to all.
Written by Nick Montelongo
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