Brother Bones Review

 

I’ve reviewed several Airship 27 series already (see here, here, and here). This time, though, the series is not one from the golden age of pulp, but a new one: “Brother Bones,” The Undead Avenger.

As the ‘undead’ part of the title suggests, Brother Bones is indeed a horror title, the main character being a zombie. It’s also a title mainly written by one author, Ron Frontier himself (he owns Airship 27). Merely the second book and only full novel, “Six Days of the Dragon,” was not written by him. The other three books are filled with his stories. Because of this, the stories show a progression of the main characters, which include, in addition to Brother Bones, formerly Tommy Bonello, about half a dozen other characters, from his at first unwilling helper Bobby Crandall over Bobby’s love interest Paula Wozcheski to Lieutenant Detective Dan Rains and reporter Sally Paige. On the other side of the law, there’s people like Harry Beest and Alexis Wyld, who turn up every now and then, as does the mad Doctor Bugosi, at least until his demise in the fourth book.

As a matter of fact, the reader spends little time in Brother Bones’ head. Bones is undead, has come back from the limbo between heaven and hell for a chance to clean his soul of the many, many sins he committed in life. When he’s not out dealing out revenge and justice for the innocent dead, he is sitting in a chair in a dark bedroom and simply waiting for the next assignment. The other characters of the stories are much more interesting, because they still do have a life. Yet, it is Brother Bones who brings them together and who often brings about the conclusion of the story.

The first story of the first book, “The Bone Brothers,” tells the origin story of the Undead Avenger. Once he was one half of the most deadly, ruthless, and brutal pair of killers in the employ of Topper Wyld, one of the two major crime bosses of the fictional northwest harbour city of Cape Noir. Jack and Tommy Bonello were twins, looking so much like each other that it took the tattoos on their right hands to know one from the other. They had no conscience and enjoyed wreaking havoc and ending lives. Until, one night, one of their victims thanked Tommy for her death. He couldn’t forget the girl’s voice, saw her in his dreams every night, almost went mad with it. He disappeared and joined a monastery. His calm second life lasted for a few months, until his brother found him and killed not only Tommy, but also the other monks, before setting the monastery on fire. Tommy found himself in a limbo between heaven and hell and stayed there for a while, until the girl turned up as his spiritual guide and gave him a choice: return to the world of the living to make up for his sins or go straight to hell. Tommy chose atonement and was sent back. He materialized as a ghost in a warehouse, where his brother had just burned the second big boss of the city alive, ended Jack’s life, and took over his dead body. He forced the second victim of the night, Blackjack Bobby Crandall, the recently deceased boss’ driver, into his service, and had him drive them to the burned-down monastery, where he found a face mask looking like a skull (made by one of the other monks before their deaths) and took it for his work.

Brother Bones’ signature look are his skull mask, which hides his decaying face, a wide-brimmed Fedora, a more and more tattered black coat, and two silver-plated .45 automatic pistols, which he dual-wields like no living being ever could. Bones knows no fear and feels no pain, which makes him a frightening foe to fight. He is almost indestructible and can return to his body even after another ‘death’ after twenty-four hours (as demonstrated in “The Synthetic Man”). Only magic can truly endanger him.

Yet, he doesn’t choose his targets himself, they are chosen for him by the powers that be. And while he’s not worried about killing more crooks, if they are between him and his target, he will not kill or endanger the innocent.

Paula Wozcheski, however, might be the character which changes most throughout the stories. In “The Scales of Terror,” she is introduced as the wife of a harbour worker who works in the same casino as Bobby and thinks her husband is cheating on her. She finds out it’s much worse and only comes out alive due to Brother Bones’ intervention. Afterwards, now widowed, she gets closer and closer to Bobby, until they become an on-off couple. Then, in “The Bruiser from Bavaria,” she is turned into a vampire, but Bones doesn’t go after her. He gives her one rule, though: not to kill the innocent, but still her hunger on the criminals of Cape Noir, which are plentiful. Paula adheres to that rule and, over time, takes on the identity of ‘Sister Blood,’ turning herself into the guardian of the women of Cape Noir and going for men who mistreat them (justifying her identity as Sister Blood with ‘you started that’ when Bones asks her about it). More than once, she fights by Bones’ side and, after initially trying to push him away, she stays in a relationship with Bobby, who doesn’t mind a vampire for a girlfriend (although, to be fair, he’s been sharing his flat with a zombie for about three years already).

The change which the characters show is a nice difference to Airship 27’s other publications which, due to their many authors, leave the characters more or less untouched by any events which unfold. Because there’s (almost) only one author writing the stories, Brother Bones and the others are allowed to grow.

Another nice touch are the female main characters of the story. Neither Sally, nor Paula, nor Alexis are likely to be easily threatened. Paula gets damselled twice: once in “The Scales of Terror” and once in “The Bruiser from Bavaria,” but comes out stronger after both encounters (a lot stronger after the second one, since she is turned into a vampire). Sally holds herself rather well, even in dangerous situations, and Alexis is no less cold-blooded or ruthless than her father, as she proves several times throughout the stories, too.

The stories themselves are what you might expect from a horror pulp about a zombie avenger. There’s the classic horror creatures such as werewolves (“Shield & Claw”), vampires (“The Bruiser from Bavaria”), zombies (“See Spot Kill”), Lovecraftian horrors (“The Scales of Terror”), man-made monsters (“The Synthetic Man” or “The Plastic Army”), human monsters (“The Butcher’s Festival”) and much more.

The only negative aspect of the stories is the editing, I’m afraid. I’ve not read the stories with my editor’s eye on, but easily spotted many errors which should have been found and corrected before the stories were released. While it’s easy enough to ignore them, because the stories are interesting to read and well-written on the whole, it’s something which a professional publishing house should have been able to catch. I do catch most errors, even while I’m just doing my own editing, yet if I could employ another editor for a second pair of eyes, I certainly would do so.

Editing notwithstanding, I can only recommend the series. The stories are well-written, the quality is good to excellent, the characters are engaging and allowed to grow, and the setting is one to quickly get comfortable in. A trip to Cape Noir can be a lot of fun, even with the black-clad avenger who calls himself “Brother Bones.”

About Mystery

After watching this video by Just Write today, I have been thinking back to the post about the 20 Rules I wrote ages ago for this blog and decided a few more words on the topic of mystery stories might be in order.

But before we dive into the mystery story, a few basics should be cleared up.

I’m referring to the mystery story as a story where a mystery needs to be solved. It’s not necessarily a crime story (although all crime stories are mystery stories at heart).

There must be someone who sets out to solve the mystery. I will call this person the detective, even if they’re not one by profession and don’t consider themselves one.

And I will refer to the person consuming the story as the reader, even though mystery stories can be found in almost all forms of media.

With that out of the way, on to the thoughts. The first rule S.S. van Dine put out was that the mystery must be fair. The reader must have the same chance to solve the mystery as the detective. This means all clues must be in the story. It doesn’t mean they need to have a little neon sign close to them or have to wave a red flag at the reader. They are supposed to be hidden and not in plain view. They are supposed to be disguised by means as discussed in the Just Write video:

• Occasionally Vague: subtle hints are dropped, often by the absence of something. Instead of outright saying ‘this is important,’ the reader gets to realize that this is missing and should be there. Or the clue is a reference to something, a quick remark upon the victim’s past, for instance.
• Mute Culprits: the culprit stays in the background by not talking much. They’re usually seen around - they need to be visible for the reader -, but they are just that, they’re around. They might turn up under suspicious circumstances, they might mope or show other signs of discomfort or anger, but they will not voice them.
• Buried Clues: the clues appear, but the reader’s attention is directed elsewhere. Clues are mentioned in lists of things which are there or in half-sentences where the other half of the sentence seems more important.
• Signature Descriptions: a specific person or object is always described with the same words, so the reader knows it’s meant, even if no direct name is involved. Like this, specific objects or characters are firmly rooted in the reader’s mind - and those are normally important for the story and, in a mystery, for the solution.

The 20 Rules do not list those devices, they’re more concerned with what is allowed and what is not. Some of the views are outdated by now, such as ‘no romance’ or ‘servants shouldn’t turn out to be the culprit.’ But the basics are still there. A mystery story must be fair. A mystery story needs a detective. The culprit must play a major role. The mystery must be solvable by scientific means (so no supernatural or invented means). The mystery must not be solved by accident or coincidence. There must be a murder (read: high stakes) and the mystery can’t turn out to be an accident of sorts (or suicide, in case of a dead body).

What else is there to say? Well, quite a bit.

Mystery stories are meant to challenge the reader, to make them try to solve the mystery just as well as the detective. Hence the rule of fairness. All clues must be out there to see, if you look closely enough. If you look back at the story or reread it after you know the solution, you must be able to find all the clues, even if you didn’t see them all the first time.

And there must be a detective who pits their mind against the culprit. The reader, essentially, works against both, the culprit and the detective. Whether the culprit is caught, is not important - that is very much down to taste. In some cases, the culprit might escape, because they’re faster, because they’re influential, or because they have some form of immunity (think of diplomats or royalty). But there always must be a detective who uncovers the mystery. The usual ‘and I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for those…’ rant is not mandatory, either, but can be a nice touch.

While a mastermind who pulls the strings behind the curtains is interesting, a culprit in a mystery must be visible. They must be around, they must be introduced to the reader. Of course, they shouldn’t come in twirling their moustache and billowing their black cloak, that would be far too obvious. But they should be around, the reader should be as aware of them as they are of the others. Having a group of suspects doesn’t only challenge the detective, it also gives the culprit a place to hide in plain sight.

The mystery itself must be based on scientific means. There must not be magic involved or a poison never seen or heard of before. The detective and the reader must be able to put the case together from what they can see, hear, feel, smell, or otherwise detect. That is why murder methods like stabbing, shooting, or strangling are still common in mystery stories - they are easy to detect.

And the mystery must be solved through detecting. The culprit is not allowed to suddenly come clean, because their nerves are giving. The culprit can’t be unveiled through a coincidence or an accident. Cheating isn’t allowed (such as holding a false séance to draw the culprit out), the detective (and the reader) must solve the mystery through honest work.

What do all of these things tell us about mysteries? They are hard to write, especially if, like me, you’re a discovery writer. I usually write as the story develops in my head. It’s very hard to write a suitable mystery like this. If you prefer planning everything first, writing mysteries is much easier, I imagine. Of course, you can also do an outrageous amount of editing to get everything straight afterwards, but I’m pretty sure I don’t want to do that.

Yet, my John Stanton stories (first volume to be published in May) include mysteries. John is an investigator first and foremost, going in and looking for clues where others can’t (or where he already happens to be). And I have to admit I know who did it from the beginning in those stories, so I don’t have it too hard to write them.

On the other hand, they’re novellas, not novels, and much shorter. When John is bringing down a modern Bluebeard, chasing a socialite who is pretty alive for being dead, and hunting for a fish which has long been extinct, he is applying the methods of a detective. He is diving into mysteries, but the stories are no full-fledged crime stories as a such.

I was aiming for a bit of pulp much more than for a true crime or mystery story with them. Although, crime and pulp are not juxtapose to each other. John, a nobleman himself, is working with a former professional killer in a Steampunk environment. For me, that sounds like a nice pulp setting. He’s facing people who have plotted their crimes well and have their own motives for what they do. And he’s maintaining the harmless face of the young, bookish fifth son in public, too.

Mystery stories are fun to read and might be fun to write, if you like to plan them out first. If you want to try it, keep the techniques and the rules in mind, then you should end up with something truly interesting.

Sequels, Prequels, and Whatever

You can bet that if anything sells well, be it a movie, a novel, or another kind of storytelling, someone will sooner or later try to cash in on it again. They’ll try to make a sequel or turn it into a series. I’m a little guilty of that myself, but I realized there was going to be more than one story about Jane or Inez or John while I was still in the early stages, so I set them up to work as characters for a series from the get-go. There was no ‘sold well, let’s make another’ involved.

There is a definite difference between writing a series from the beginning (or from early stages, when you can still go back and change things) and coming back later to work with the same material again. There’s also different ways to do that.

Sequels are an obvious way. You just take all the characters people loved and put them through another adventure. But sequels are difficult - much more difficult than most people think. Only few of them really work and most do by avoiding the most obvious way of creating a sequel: telling the same story again. Two good examples for sequels which did it right are “Kung Fu Panda 2” and “Despicable Me 2.” None of them told the same story again.

“Kung Fu Panda 2” switched from ‘lovable, but absolutely unfit main character becoming a Kung Fu master’ to ‘lovable and surprisingly agile panda learning about where he came from.’ They had an ideal pairing for the hero and the villain (as did the first one), they raised the ante well (from merely ‘former student coming back to claim what he thinks is his’ to ‘a threat for all of Kung Fu and all of China’), and they balanced out the fun, the drama, the background, and the actual happenings very well. The fact that the first movie already established that Po was an orphan (since the goose who raised him definitely isn’t his biological father) worked in favour of the second movie.

“Despicable Me 2” didn’t try to do the same story again, either. It told what happened after the end of the first movie. Gru has adopted his girls and he’s trying to go legal, but is still struggling. As a former villain of renown, he is drafted by the anti-villain league to help with a worrying crime clearly committed by an experienced villain. The movie added another layer by having Gru fall in love - which went well with the girls, especially the youngest one, missing a mother. “Despicable Me 3” also did its work well, but I’ve already written a post about that.

What did both do well? They didn’t try to rehash the story of the first movie. That is the main problem with sequels - they’re often doing the same thing over and over again. And that is why they fail. That is why they are not as successful as the original. So if you decide to write a sequel with the characters you used before, make sure it’s a new story which could happen to them.

Prequels (here an old post from my other blog) are less obvious as a choice, but often necessary, when important or popular characters die in the story you want to do cash in on again. In a prequel, everyone is still alive. That’s the good side. The bad side - at least for the kind of story where half of the characters don’t get to see the end of it - is that you can’t kill any of the characters who need to be alive in the original story. In addition, the ending is already determined from the beginning.

Star Wars did a spectacularly bad job of making the prequels - but I already wrote a longish post about how to do it better in my other blog - while doing an amazing job with a prequel series in the original extended universe. “Knights of the Old Republic” (KOTOR for shorter) includes a series of comics and two RPGs for the computer (done wonderfully well by Bioware) and is set 4,000 years before the original trilogy, which means none of the characters you know from the movies makes an appearance (even Yoda is a good deal younger than that, after all). That gave KOTOR a huge freedom - and the stories found their way into the extended universe of Star Wars, when a villain from the KOTOR series was use (in spirit form) in a trilogy and another story set after the original movies (I refer to the Jedi Academy Trilogy and the novel “I, Jedi”).

Extended universes allow for a lot of additional material, by the way. Instead of only making direct sequels or prequels, you can put new characters into the setting, expand side characters in their own stories, and flesh out the universe you created even more. Some series work on the extended universe principle (Discworld, for instance, has several main characters and also stories build around characters turning up only once or twice), others do not.

If more than one person works on a series, extended universe or not, then you will need some kind of reference. Pre-Disney Star Wars did that by insisting all novels (from the Thrawn Trilogy onwards, that is) should run along the same main timeline. Discontinuity could be explained by what the characters knew or thought they knew, as long as it wasn’t too severe.

Other stories (such as the new pulps by Airship 27, which are based around the main characters) keep a ‘bible’ which includes the main points about characters and worlds, so every writer knows what is set in stone and needs to be obeyed (since it would be very bad, if one made the Black Bat drop his ‘I’m blind’ act in public, for example) and what can be toyed with. There will always be discontinuity in a series written by more than one person, but both an extended universe and a character-based series can be shared, if people are a bit careful with the base material.

Sometimes, TV series get turned into movies (as with “Firefly” or “X Files”). Sometimes, movies get turned into a TV series (as with “Buffy” or “The Librarians”). In both cases, there might be problems.

Closing off a series which ended too soon, like “Firefly,” with a movie might be a very good idea. You can finish the story and give the audience closure. Or you can overdo it, of course, and end up with an ending which nobody wants - making the audience wish they could just go and ignore the movie (which they can on a personal level, of course). On the other hand, movies usually have a higher budget, so you can invest in a bigger story.

Movies which later on spark a TV series often come with a different set of problems, though. In most cases, the same cast won’t be available for the TV series. In most cases, you have much less budget and have to find a good reason to move everything somewhere else. In most cases, you need to severely expand the basics to keep a series running for a season or more. “The Librarians” did that extremely well, by the way. The movies came first, showing us one librarian and his daily work for the Library. When the series rolled around, they expanded the universe (see above), and introduced three ‘junior librarians’ who were brought in to learn the ropes (since librarians don’t grow old on the job) and their handler (see the ‘don’t grown old’ part). Then they destroyed the Library, making the librarians go to a branch office with a highly-experienced administrator. Since the main lead from the movies turns up every now and then in the episodes (often in the season finales), there is continuity. At the same time, the focus now is on the five new main characters (three librarians, one handler, one experienced administrator).

As I said, most problems arise when people try to turn a single story created as a such into something longer, like a series, a sequel, or a prequel. If you plan a story out for several books (adding an over-reaching story arc) or plan your characters so you can use them for several stories, you will not face the same problems.

What you should keep in mind, if you want to expand on a story later, is if your characters and/or universe will hold up for more than the original concept. You will have to get down a new story (best would be something completely different, as the shift from the training of Po to the danger to Kung Fu in the first two “Kung Fu Panda” movies). You will have to open up the universe, show new sides of your characters. Optimally, they will grow and become better and stronger than they were before. You also have to decide whether you want some kind of timeline or whether you just want to tell new stories without stating when in the characters’ lives they are set.

Not all prequels are as horrible as the Star Wars ones. Not all sequels are inherently bad. But before you expand on an existing story, you should think about what you want to do and whether you’re trying ‘same old’ or something new. Even if the first story was highly successful, ‘same old’ rarely is a good choice.

A few more Thoughts about Damsels

After a discussion I got into online recently, because someone argued the ‘Damsel in Distress’ trope wasn’t ready for retirement, since it still works, I’ve come up with a few more thoughts about the trope and how to use it well - if you feel the need to use it.

Something which really grated on my nerves about his arguments was that the damsel was a reward for the hero - because, apparently, saving the world isn’t enough of a reward and the governments were fresh out of cash, titles, and money. I have nothing as a such against the hero and the heroine (or, more neutral, the male lead and the female lead) ending up together at the end of the story. Sometimes, a damsel also is known to the hero beforehand and they might have a history (which reminds me of the ‘oh, this is your first time … as bait’ scene from “Girl Reporter”). What I balk at is the idea that the damsel should be the hero’s whatever (but the word ‘property’ comes to mind) just because he saved the world. That she has no say in it and no interest in having some. Think of the classic fairy tales - in most, the princess and the prince who saves her have hardly, if ever, met before. The only reason why they live happily ever after is that he saved her from some ‘fate worse than death’ or something similar.

Of course, fairy tales actually predate the notion of romantic love and marriage. Love has always existed, but the idea that you marry out of love is relatively new - thank the romantic movement in literature for it. For the fairy-tale princess, the idea to marry her saviour probably didn’t differ much from the idea to marry someone for political or financial reasons - the main reasons why marriages usually were arranged.

Modern stories can’t use the same excuse. If the manly hero of the action movie of your choice in the end gets the attractive woman whom he rescued before (directly or indirectly), she’s nothing more or less than an object - a reward, as the commenter rightfully put it. The difference is he (I assume that from the username he chose) saw this as perfectly okay. I don’t. And romantic movies with their ‘if you harass the woman long enough, she’ll fall in love with you’ approach aren’t much better, but that’s a different trope.

So, let’s dive again into the principles of the damsel.

Not all damsels are created equally. New pulp, for instance, has its host of damsels, too, but most of them have an agenda of some sort, some turn out to be villains in disguise, and quite often they do not end up in the hero’s bed (if only because the hero is the type who will not settle down until evil is vanquished - in other words: never).

Not every woman who needs saving at some point is a damsel. Princess Leia would be an excellent example for that. The moment she is out of her cell (and the powerful, if evil Empire surely has enough manpower to keep everyone put), she takes control of the ill-planned rescue mission. She has a personality, she has her own agenda, and she is anything but helpless and in constant need of help.

To be a true damsel in distress, the damsel needs to be threatened in some way (by the villain of the story or his/her henches) and the hero needs to save her. Quite often, he’s also the reason why she’s threatened. Which is why “Girl Reporter,” to come back to this story for a moment, can also make a male superhero a damsel for a little while.

Some damsels stumble into trouble trying to help the hero (it’s the classic ‘plucky reporter’ approach to damsels, as pulps and comics often have it). Some damsels get into trouble because of other characters (as with the daughters and wives of scientists etc. who get kidnapped to put pressure on their relatives). Some damsels just are in the wrong place at the wrong time (they get kidnapped because the villain on the run needs a hostage, for instance). What they all have in common is a hero saving them. Traditionally, that hero is a man - but that shouldn’t keep you from any kind of pairing you can think of. There’s no law against the damsel being male - it’s just very rare (cough The Dark cough).

If you want to use this trope, there’s some things you should ask yourself at the beginning (or at editing, if not earlier).

Does my female lead/heroine/damsel have a personality and an agenda of her own? Does she get into trouble through her own volition or while doing her thing? Or is she just sleeping in her tower and waiting to marry the next guy who kisses her? Damsels with their own agenda give you more to work with and are less traditional - and thus not quite as done to death.

Does she have another reason to exist in the story than just ‘the hero needs someone to warm his bed?’ Is she necessary to drive part of the story? Does she make something important happen or does she have information the hero will need? Is there any other use to her story-wise? If the story wouldn’t change much without the damsel, make her a vase or a nice monetary reward. With enough money, the hero can spent a lot of time in a good brothel and will have all the sex he wants - and with as many women as he wants, too.

Is she just there for titillation? Is she only in the story so you can have the villain threaten her sexually/rape her/murder her in front of the hero? Does she merely exist to drive up tension or the hero’s motivation? Then you might want to rethink her, because ‘fridging the girlfriend/wife’ is just as overused a trope. You should have a good reason to torture a character just for another character’s motivation (that includes rape and murder, too). Torturing a character for their own motivation is a different question.

If you want to revert the trope and make the damsel a member of the villain’s team, you should also ask yourself those questions. Even the devoted assistant of the villain should have some motivation of her own, an agenda of why she’s by his side and working for him. She needs to be there for more than just reward as well - although, with the ‘false damsel’ that usually is the case. And she shouldn’t get killed in a horrible way just so the hero is more motivated or the villain can be painted in a darker light - buddy, you’re trying to take over the world and henches don’t grow on trees. You’ll need them at least until you’re firmly settled as the Supreme Ruler of Everything. Then you can start executing people for fun.

Keep those questions in mind and your damsel, if you choose to use one, will be much more interesting.

The Damsel in Distress deserves to be retired - or at least to be used less often. And she deserves to be more than just a reward for the hero. There’s lots of other rewards to be had.