It’s Edgar Allan Poe’s 215th birthday! In memory of this great writer of science fiction, fantasy, and mystery, I’m offering my observations about Poe’s creepiest tales, the ones that deal with the ultimate terror of human existence — being buried alive.
My tribute to Poe, “The Premature Burial,” is featured in the latest post at the DMR Books blog.
On Spec Magazine has just released its Winter 2023 issue, and I am pleased to announce it includes my short story “Due Diligence.”
Lucille Moon is not your ordinary realtor. Born with the ability to sense the presence of ghosts, she specializes in finding haunted houses for her buyers, mostly rap singers and movie stars looking for the ultimate thrill. However, Grayson and Eve Sterling have their own reasons for moving in with a ghost, which they hide from their realtor. Lucille can’t read the minds of the living, but the ghost haunting the mansion the Sterlings want to buy can. And deceit makes this ghost angry.
A frequent winner of the Aurora Award, On Spec prides itself for being more of a literary magazine than the typical science fiction and fantasy magazine. It is Canada’s longest-running, and, according to Hugo-winning author Robert J. Sawyer, most successful speculative fiction magazine. Since their goal is to highlight mostly Canadian writers, it’s a special honor to have my work appear here.
Two of my beta readers told me this was the saddest tale I’ve ever written. Maybe so, but it ends with a promise of hope and healing. The loss of a loved one is an unending emotional ache, something we cannot conquer or ignore. All we can do is deal with it the best way we can. Writing this story was my way.
Click here to buy On Spec #126 (and support your favorite author).
From July 19th to August 10th, you can snag The Explore Sci-Fi Worlds Bundle, an outstanding selection of ebooks from independent and small press fantasy writers — and support war victims in Ukraine. This incredible offer includes my story A Tree Amid the Wood, as well as bonus volumes for donations of $20 or more, including:
It’s a great opportunity to support a worthy cause and find new authors to love. Or rekindle your love for an old one. Remember, this offer ends August 10. Gift cards are available at Story Bundle.
I was intrigued by this story in Nature:
“A 25-year science wager has come to an end. In 1998, neuroscientist Christof Koch bet philosopher David Chalmers that the mechanism by which the brain’s neurons produce consciousness would be discovered by 2023. Both scientists agreed publicly on 23 June, at the annual meeting of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness (ASSC) in New York City, that it is an ongoing quest — and declared Chalmers the winner.”
Koch made the bet on his confidence that science would pinpoint the exact location in the brain that produced consciousness because of the advances in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which reveals changes in blood flow associated with brain activity. The wager, a case of wine, added incentive in addition to both bragging rights and the lure of discovery.
So the game was on!
As the Nature article concludes, the researchers confirmed “areas in the posterior cortex do contain information in a sustained manner,” and that “some aspects of consciousness, but not all of them, could be identified in the prefrontal cortex.” Koch admits his theories were not totally proven, and, being a scientist of his word, paid up.
Who says science isn’t entertaining?
What’s distressing, however, is how proponents of dualism are using this story as some kind of vindication. The notion that humans are unique assemblages of mind and matter and therefore outside of and superior to nature goes back to Plato, the Vedic writers, and that notorious rascal Rene Descartes. One commenter claimed Koch’s failure to prove his hypothesis as vindication that we are truly “ghosts in the machine.”
Interesting they used that term, which was coined by philosopher Gilbert Ryle in his argument against dualism. He deemed the position as a gigantic category mistake. I love his illustration: A visitor to a university may see classrooms, libraries, and other parts of the campus, but at the end of the tour, asks, “But where is the university?” not realizing the term refers to all of its components working as a unit. Similarly, the various sections of the brain handle their own functions, and we use the term “consciousness” to refer to all those functions working in harmony.
Why is this important? If our supposedly supernatural minds make us superior, all of nature is dumb matter good for nothing but exploitation. This not only imperils nature but alienates us from the world in which we live. The next step is contempt for our own bodies. A philosophy that leads to ecological ruin and rootlessness is an evil that must be exposed for what it is. And just as Koch and Chalmers could entertain and enlighten us with their little joust for science, we can enjoy stories that both inspire and force us to consider where we’re going and where we could end up.
Earlier this month, Julie and I took a 15-mile e-bike journey across the Sonoran Desert north of Phoenix. Our guide knew the area well. He informed us that broken pottery littered the area. The Hohokom people who lived here for thousands of years believed shattering old pots would release the spirit of the departed artists who made them. While we searched for shards, our guide cautioned us to keep our eyes open for rattlesnakes, Sonoran toads, and spiny lizards. A pack of coyotes shadowed us for much of the journey, yipping to each other as they slinked just out of sight behind the brittle bush and ironwood trees.
A light rain dampened our little trek, but quickly blew east in time to catch the last rays of the setting sun and give us this little arc of a rainbow on the distant horizon. A line from H. R. Wakefield’s “He Cometh and He Passeth By” echoed in memory:
“Arizona is a moon-dim region, very lovely in its way, and stark and old, an ancient, lonely land. One is brought up against the vast enigmas of time and space and eternity.”
I felt that.
I was pleasantly surprised and honored when D.M. Ritzlin of DMR Books asked if he could interview me as part of his series of author profiles. We covered my writing background, the literary and philosophical influences on my fiction, and works in progress.
It’s now online at Independent Author Spotlight: M.C. Tuggle.
I’m thrilled to announce that Quarter Press has released the second volume of The Quarter(ly) Journal. It offers fantastical poetry, fiction, comics, and art by award-winning authors and artists, and includes my story “An Alignment of Wood and Water.”
Zach Benson is a master carpenter who builds special projects for special clients along the North Carolina coast. He returns to a client’s house to handle a complaint, something he absolutely dreads having to do. The disgruntled client is a newcomer to the area who lives in an isolated bungalow on Pamlico Sound. She’s a novice witch who claims Zach did not make a witching floor according to her specifications.
As Zach inspects the floor’s enchanted shapes of ash, oak, and cedar, a mysterious figure shows up outside. It takes Zach a while to get his nerve up, but he decides to confront the intruder.
It’s a scary/fun story featuring a creepy familiar, a dreamy shoreline, blue-collar stoicism, and a magical showdown. It also includes my thoughts on malignant do-gooderism. Please check it out! Quarter(ly) Journal is now available at Amazon.
“A fantasy is a journey. It is a journey into the unconscious mind, just as psychoanalysis is. Like psychoanalysis, it can be dangerous; and it will change you.”
Ursula Le Guin, from her magnificent essay From Elfland to Poughkeepsie
So I’m on the back porch, chasing down the muse. Pen and pad in hand, I’m absorbed in my latest wip, when the wind suddenly rises through swaying trees. An updraft lifts a swarm of whirling maple seeds, and they come toward me like the helicopters in Apocalypse Now.
Nothing to fear. Just a “Fresh Breeze” on the Beaufort Scale.
Admiral Beaufort’s guide enabled British sailors to estimate wind speed from the sight, sound, and feel of the wind, but it’s also useful on land. A “Calm” wind with a speed of 0-1 is “like a mirror” at sea, while on land, “smoke rises vertically.” But if the sea shows “moderate waves with many white horses,” or if “small trees sway” on land, then it’s a “Fresh Breeze,” and the wind speed will be 19-24 miles per hour or 17-21 knots.
What makes the Beaufort Scale useful is that, like good writing, it uses sensory impressions to convey ideas. Cognitive scientists will tell you that abstractions are rooted in bodily sensations, but it’s still a challenge to present ideas in an engaging and entertaining way.
Horace Walpole, in a famous essay on his supernatural novel The Castle of Otranto, wrote:
“It was an attempt to blend the two kinds of romance, the ancient and the modern. In the former, all was imagination and improbability: in the latter, nature is always intended to be, and sometimes has been, copied with success. Invention has not been wanting; but the great resources of fancy have been dammed up, by a strict adherence to common life.”
The goal is to make the fantastic and improbable palpable and realistic. It’s not easy, but that’s the heart of the craft of writing, something you never really master, as Ernest Hemingway once observed. Of course, as the Stoics taught, life itself is a never-ending learning experience.
Henry Rider Haggard died in 1925 on this date at the age of 68. It’s a crime his name is not better known, even though his inventive imagination spawned many famous works and characters.
My tribute to this founder of modern-day adventure and fantasy fiction is featured in the latest guest post over at DMR Books. Its title is one I think Haggard would like: “Keep Calm and Swashbuckle On: The Legacy of H. Rider Haggard“
H. Rider Haggard died ninety-six years ago, but his impact on speculative fiction remains substantial. Not only did he inspire authors such as Robert E. Howard, H. P. Lovecraft, and Edgar Rice Burroughs, but the example he set for aspiring writers all over the world is one we can still look to for inspiration.
And his stories still have the power to enchant and transport. If you haven’t experienced his classic tales, this is the perfect time to check them out.
M.C. Tuggle, Writer 