Every Thursday, Nathan (over at Fantasy Review Barn) leads the gang in touring the mystical countryside, looking for fun and adventure. His Tough Traveling feature picks one of the most common tropes in fantasy each week, as seen in The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynn Jones, and invites us to join in the adventure. All are invited to take part, so if you're joining the journey late, no worries . . . we'll save you a spot in the caravan.

This week’s tour topic is: DEAD GODS

Let's get straight to the good stuff, shall we? It's one thing to invent a mythology, populate it with fantastical gods, and then kill them off one-by-one. Cool, yes, but perhaps a little too easy. It's another thing entirely to take a known mythology, set your cross-hairs on its figurehead, and kill off somebody billions of people believe in. Yet, that's precisely what a few well-known authors have done.

There are two gentlemen who have killed 'God' for laughs (or, at least, for satirical purposes), and they are James Morrow and Douglas Adams. In Towing Jehova, Morrow actually begins his tale with the discovery of God's naked, two-mile-long corpse, floating serenely in the Atlantic Ocean. The Vatican wants it buried in an iceberg, while atheists want it destroyed. In Blameless in Abaddon, Morrow continues the story, this time with God not quite dead, but a comatose centerpiece of a Florida theme park - at least until he's put on trial in The Hague for crimes against humanity. The third book, The Eternal Footman, deals a plague of death awareness, with God's skull a in orbit above as a blasphemous sort of new moon.

In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Adams offs God in a bizarrely comic, ridiculously ironic puff of logic. It's a rather convoluted series of circumstances, all based on the impossible existence of the Babel fish - a symbiotic alien that that burrows into your ear and translates any language in the universe. The existence of such an impossible, yet useful, creature both proves and disproves the existence of God, based on the conflict between evidence and belief. In the last of the original books, Arthur traveled to the end of the universe to witness God's final message to creation. That message? The brilliantly comic, "We Apologize for the Inconvenience" which has more irony and blasphemy in its grammar than should be possible.

The Pantheon series from James Lovegrove, beginning with Age of Ra, takes a broader, more imaginative death-stroke to established mythologies - both contemporary and historical. Just imagine a world in which ALL of the gods who have ever been are real, in which they've gone to war, and in which the gods of the ancient Egyptians have defeated all others. Odin, Zeus, Allah, Jesus . . . all of them are dead and gone, leaving a modern world where men, women, and gods all walk the Earth. Here you have soldiers armed with ancient weapons (flails, maces, and sickles), modern weapons (guns, tanks, and planes), and magical weapons (god-powered staves and bombs), fighting alongside armies of mummies resurrected from the battlefield.

Getting back to invented mythologies and imaginative fantasists, Robert Jackson Bennett does a number on an entire pantheon of gods in City of Stairs. The story opens with a tale of conquest that extends so far as to have seen the conquerors murder the gods who once watched over the land of Bulikov, reshaping the landscape through the chaos of a catastrophic, anti-miraculous event known as The Blink. It killed the gods and destroyed their miraculous works, but there's still a lingering question as to the fate of the gods, especially with their miraculous items hidden away in a mysterious warehouse that puts Area 51 to shame.

Finally, we come to No Return (and it's upcoming sequel, Shower of Stones) by Zachary Jernigan. This is a story set in a world where the gods are real, and where Adrash, the last god standing, remains floating among the stars, bored, depressed, and idly contemplating the destruction of the world below. He has crafted a series of metal moon-sized spheres, the orbit and rotation of which he shifts ever-so-slightly to keep his worshipers anxious and uneasy. He's already caused two cataclysms by dropping individual spheres upon the planet, but the next (should it come) will be the big one. The first book involves a plan to appease Adrash and bring peace to the planet, while the second calls for revolt against him.

Every Thursday, Nathan (over at Fantasy Review Barn) leads the gang in touring the mystical countryside, looking for fun and adventure. His Tough Traveling feature picks one of the most common tropes in fantasy each week, as seen in The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynn Jones, and invites us to join in the adventure. All are invited to take part, so if you're joining the journey late, no worries . . . we'll save you a spot in the caravan.

This week’s tour topic is: TRAVELLING FOLK

The first group that comes to mind are the The Tuatha'an ofThe Wheel of Time, also known as the Traveling People or simply Tinkers. They hold to the Way of the Leaf, vowing to do no violence, regardless the cause or provocation, going so far as to be vegetarians. Given their unfair reputation as thieves and kidnappers, they avoid the cities, sticking largely to the Aiel Waste. As for why they travel, they are searching for The Song that was lost to them long ago.




Another that comes immediately to mind is the Tsingani of Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel novels. Stereotypical Eastern European traveler, they're known as much for their bright clothes and dancing as for stealing and breeding champion horses. Hyacinthe, a half-Tsingani boy who befriends Phédre in the first book, spends most of his time soliciting business for his mother's fortune-telling, He works along side Phédre to discover the truth about her past, although his mother warns them both that they'll regret it.



One of the more unusual depictions I can remember of travelling folk is the Gypsy Nation that Elric encounters inRevenge of the Rose. They are enormous caravan of travelers who live in (quite literally) a traveling wooden village, circling the world on a mile-wide pathway that is constantly repaved by the trash they leave behind and then roll over on their next pass. I remember them as much for their insistence that life is about either moving or dying as I do for that globe-spanning road of trash.



Finally, it's not fantasy, but how can you talk about stereotypes of the traveling folk and not mention Stephen King's Thinner? Here you have a fat, arrogant bastard who has just escaped a vehicular manslaughter charge when, on his way home, he gets distracted by his wife's handjob and runs down an old Gypsy woman. When he uses his legal connections to get the case dismissed, the old woman's father lays a Gypsy curse on him, caressing his cheek and whispering the word "Thinner." Billy tracks down the old man, following him to the dirty, chaotic, colorful traveling gypsy village you'd expect, but a cure doesn't come easily.

Every Thursday, Nathan (over at Fantasy Review Barn) leads the gang in touring the mystical countryside, looking for fun and adventure. His Tough Traveling feature picks one of the most common tropes in fantasy each week, as seen in The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynn Jones, and invites us to join in the adventure. All are invited to take part, so if you're joining the journey late, no worries . . . we'll save you a spot in the caravan.

This week’s tour topic is: DRUGS

Okay, how can you talk drugs and not bring up melange (aka spice) from Frank Herbert's Dune. Taken in small doses, the bitter cinnamon flavored drug bestows longevity and increased awareness (and turns your eyes blue). Taken in larger does, it can bestow psychic abilities on the user, but it also leads to monstrous mutations.. It's not just recreational, however, it's also used to make interstellar travel possible, allowing spice-addicted navigators to safely find their way through space-time. Of course, getting it is just a tad more dangerous than harvesting a few weeds and seeds - you have to battle massive alien sandworms (with teeth) for their larva.


To borrow another example from the science fiction shelves, the very basis of William Shatner's Tekwarseries was a drug called Tek. Explored in both the books and the television series, Tek was a mind-altering digital drug that bestows a virtual reality high that makes its users euphoric, and which makes their wildest fantasies seem tangible and real, but pretty much leaves them catatonic and useless until it wears off. As you might expect, it's a cyberpunk sort of take on his T.J. Hooker TV series, with the main character a cop who, having been framed for Tek dealing, is awakened from suspended animation to fight the Teklords.


Okay, it seems we're just going to stick with the science fiction theme for a while, and talk about the ketracel-white ofStar Trek: Deep Space Nine. With the Jem’Hadar soldiers of the Dominion genetically bred with an addiction for it, the drug is prominent on both the television show and the extended universe novels. It's often subtle, with the reptilian storm troopers injecting the capsules into their uniforms and then inhaling the white substance, but the show also dealt with the consequences of addition and the pain of withdrawal. Basically, they're super obedient and fearless when high, but rage-fueled suicide squads when deprived.

Since we're sticking with the science fiction theme, let's stick with idea of extended universes as well. Next up is the seemingly innocuous (and gross) curdled milk that gets the Newcomers from Alien Nation so seriously drunk. Of course, you can forgive a little fermented drunkenness once you realize the lower class workers on the Tenctonese ships were kept in line through a drug called jabroka, which was a powerful, highly addictive narcotic that caused brief euphoria. While an overdose of sour milk might leave the Newcomers with a headache, overdoses of jabroka caused monstrous mutations.


Finally, in the one instance played largely for laughs, we have the drug Bliss, which was featured in the expanded universeRed Dwarf novel Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers. It's a brown powder so potent that it can cause addition simply by looking at it (and, yes, they do make the requisite jokes about how hard that made it to police!). Those who take it become convinced that they are all-powerful gods, but are completely incapable of walking or tying their shoes for the 20 or so minutes that they're high. As for the side-effects? Nothing short of severe, incurable depression lasting not just minutes, but years . . . 25 years, in fact.

Every Thursday, Nathan (over at Fantasy Review Barn) leads the gang in touring the mystical countryside, looking for fun and adventure. His Tough Traveling feature picks one of the most common tropes in fantasy each week, as seen in The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynn Jones, and invites us to join in the adventure. All are invited to take part, so if you're joining the journey late, no worries . . . we'll save you a spot in the caravan.

This week’s tour topic is: HIGH PRIESTS

From the imagination of Steven Erikson, first debuting inDeadhouse Gates, we have Iskaral Pust, High Priest of Shadow. He's a bearded old man with a hawk-nose and tattoos covering his skull. Completely mad, he likes to speak his thoughts aloud . . .  all the time . . . even when he's thinking the worst of the other people in the room. He has a strange fetish for keeping his cavernous temple free of spiders, which makes a lot of sense once you discover that his wife is a witch who likes to transform herself into spiders . . . and who is just as mad as he is.



Terry Pratchett brings us High Priest Dios, one of his darker characters, from Pyramids (an early Discworld novel). Most of his priests are silly characters who believe religious-ness is just a tiresome part of the job, but here they have a natural tendency to be evil. "It's a fact as immutable as the Third Law of Sod that there is no such thing as a good Grand Vizier. A predilection to cackle and plot is apparently part of the job spec . . . most high priests have been serious, pious and conscientious men who have done their best to interpret the wishes of the gods, sometimes disembowelling or flaying alive hundreds of people in a day in order to make sure they're getting it absolutely right."


Although Andy Remic made her as much of a General as a Priestess, there's no doubt that Orlana the Changer was a large part of what made The Iron Wolves so much fun. The very embodiment of supernatural evil, she clawed her way back up from the underworld to become something of an evil Priest-Queen, worshiped by the unholy hordes she creates. Just check out the way in which she's introduced: "It was death. It was birth. It was fire. It was rape. It was exquisite murder. It was cheerful suicide. It was acid in her veins. Poison in her heart. Sulphur in her soul. A sincere abortion. A child’s coffin. An army of necrotic lovers. A giggling genocide. All of those things, and yet none."


More recently we have Uinian IV, Chief Priest of Intarra, from The Emperor's Blades by Brian Staveley. Accused of the murder of Emperor Sanlitun, he's a man who has gradually been building his forces for more than a decade. To make matters even more complicated, the goddess he serves (Intarra) is the patron goddess of the royal family, making Uinian IV an even more obvious suspect in the assassination. I'll avoid any spoilers here, but there's a dark secret to the man, and a reason he's so eager to demand his trial by fire.

Every Thursday, Nathan (over at Fantasy Review Barn) leads the gang in touring the mystical countryside, looking for fun and adventure. His Tough Traveling feature picks one of the most common tropes in fantasy each week, as seen in The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynn Jones, and invites us to join in the adventure. All are invited to take part, so if you're joining the journey late, no worries . . . we'll save you a spot in the caravan.

This week’s tour topic is: BUGS

It's one of the longer series on my TBR pile, but Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Shadows of the Apt caught my eye precisely because of its insectile component (particularly the Wasp Empire). If, like me, you've yet to dive into the series, just check out this excerpt from the secret histories of the Moths - “An age ago, before all records, before metal was smelted, before writing began, the great insects came . . . There were those amongst the people of that time who reached out, until they could touch the essence of the insects, the perfection and the ideal that shaped them. They stole the merest spark of that power, and took it within themselves, and spoke to the insects in their own language. This was the first Art. These were the first Kinden. All others despaired and died.”

It's been a long while since I read it, but I'm pretty sure it was A Man Rides Through (Book 2 of Mordant's Need) byStephen R. Donaldson that had some epic insect horror. There's a scene in the book where a very creepy, very unsettling sort of assassination attempt takes place, orchestrated by zombie corpses reanimated and controlled by a horde of cockroaches squirming around inside. The plan is, once they've found their target, they erupt from the zombie corpse like a volcano of six-legged insanity, overwhelm their victim, and literally consume them. I don't remember a lot about the series, but that scene most definitely sticks with me.

The original Riftwar Saga from Raymond E. Feist had a very interesting insect aspect. The cho'ja were a hive-mind alien species from the Tsurunuanni Empire, on the other side of the Rift, who followed the commands of their Queen into battle with the inhabitants of Midkemia. They were warriors with shiny black exoskeletons, segmented bodies, and multi-jointed limbs that could wield tools and weapons, and which had the added protection of razor-sharp ridges running along the edge of each arm. Their eyes were multifaceted, like an insect, but their faces were largely human. While they're portrayed as monstrous killing machines during the Riftwar, we see a more civilized side of them later on in The Empire Trilogy with Janny Wurts.

Another selection from the towering TBR pile is China Miéville's Perdido Street Station and The Scar (a standalone sequel). What caught my attention in the former is the Slake Moth, a giant moth that feeds on human consciousness, leaving its victims mindless husks. Apparently, they're also the source for an addictive drug, which is the only reason anybody could be stupid enough to bring them into the city. In the latter, it's the island of sentient, intelligent humanoid mosquitoes known as the Anophelii that intrigues me. The men, apparently, are relatively harmless, gentle souls who flit around feeding only on nectar and pollen. The women, however, have been described as voracious, ravenous blood-eaters who can suck you dry in the blink of an eye.

Next we have the Priest-Kings of Gor from John Norman. The Gor novels are too often dismissed as nothing more than bondage-fueled fantasies, but they're actually quite clever and imaginative. Something of a hybrid between the pulp fantasy of Robert E. Howard and the sci-fi adventure of Edgar Rice Burroughs, their contribution to today's trope is the giant, hyper-intelligent insectile race that's responsible for bringing Tarl Cabot (and other various humans) to the planet of Gor (Counter-Earth), and for keeping Gor primitive by monitoring and eradicating any attempt to advance weaponry or technology. The Priest-Kings are an ant-like race, communicating by scent, with a single Queen standing apart from an all-male race.

Finally, we have one of my absolute favorites, the leaches from Brian Lumley's Vampire World trilogy (an epic fantasy offshoot of his Necroscope saga). In his world, vampires are men and women infected with a symbiotic leech-like parasite that puts great demands on the host in terms of feeding on blood, but bestows inhuman strength, speed, mental control, and mind-boggling metamorphic abilities. Each leech produces a single egg in its lifetime, with its human recipient becoming one of the most powerful (and dangerous) Wamphyri around. The leeches themselves lack intelligence on their own, but have an instinctive drive to seek out and bond with a host. All but immortal, these symbiotic beings known as Wamphyri are the most monstrous, most malevolent vampires I've ever encountered in literature.