Dark And Gritty Realism

The picture above is a screenshot from the game “Undead Horde” which this blog post is not about. But it’s a nice way to illustrate the point I’m trying to make, so bear with me.

In the game, you play as an undead necromancer who has come back to free his former realm from the pesky living plague and his way of doing that - the game being a strategy game - is to summon his undead minions and replenish his army on the battlefield by raising his dead enemies to fight for him now.

With a different take on the graphics and the storytelling, this game could be dark and gritty and gory. After all, the player is raising the dead and making them fight against the living. If the graphics were all realistic, the game would be gritty and dark. The way they are, comic-style and with a relatively light palette, considering the theme, the game is fun to play and rather addictive.

For a lot of stories, people take the other direction. Instead of making a story light-weight and fun, they make it dark, gritty, and their version of ‘realistic.’ Or grim-dark, as some people refer to it. There is, of course, nothing wrong with grim or dark stories, with stories which come from the darker sides of our reality and are full of murder, pain, and suffering. It is, however, not the way to save your otherwise weak story from being mediocre or bad. It’s also not some kind of fashion everyone has to follow.

During the last few years, the DCEU has proven that making something grim-dark is no guarantee for success. Following the example of the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy, they produced a number of comic-book movies which were all gritty and dark. And failed. Funnily enough, the two lighter entries to the DCEU, “Wonder Woman” and “Aquaman,” have been much more successful than their grim-dark colleagues. Overall, the MCU, which has not put as much gravitas into its movies, unless they deemed it necessary, has been much more successful.

That is food for thought, is it not?

The big problem is not that dark themes exist in literature (and other media). Dark themes have always existed - the original versions of modern fairy tales have been very dark overall themselves. Horror is a strong genre, if often underestimated. Danger and death play a big role in action movies. Thriller or crime stories wouldn’t exist without the grim and the dark (safe for cosy mysteries, perhaps, but even those have dead bodies).

The big problem is thinking that dark and gritty and edgy are a way to easily make a story more appealing for the general audience. And that it always works.

In media, a lot of things come in cycles. Horror has a cycle for specific monsters (vampires come and go). Certain genres come and go and come again. Others, like action, are always there, but the themes shift over time.

Another big cycle is how dark and gritty stories come and go. This cycle, however, is bound to how the real world looks. To put it short (although I’ll explain it a bit later), the darker the real world is, the lighter the stories are and vice versa.

The 1930s, with WWII coming up and the Great Depression at its worst, saw a large number of musical movies and light stories. Heroes who fought the evil always triumphed (which is one reason for the 1930s being the golden age of pulp) and they were good on the whole.

Anti-heroes came later, in the 1950s, when the noir genre took up much speed. At that time, WWII was over, the world was recovering, and most people lived relatively well, due to the New Deal and the general boost of economy after the war. The noir genre, as the name says (‘noir’ is French for black), is defined by its darkness, by the anti-heroes, by the betrayal, by the choice between two evils. Heroes are no longer without fail, they are no longer triumphant. They can’t really win - they can choose not to lose too much.

So whenever the world around them is dark and their lives are hard, humans want to listen to light stories where the good triumph, the bad are slain, and the world is a good place. Whenever the world around them is friendly and live is good, humans want to listen to dark stories where the good fight an uphill battle, the bad are powerful, and the world is full of dangers. Essentially, people want fantasies which are polar opposites to their own situation. It makes sense, too - if the world is horrible, you want to hear about someplace nice, if the world is easy to navigate, a much darker world provides the tension and thrill you won’t have in real life.

What does that mean for the success or missing success of the DCEU and other recent movies and other media?

Well, it’s not that easy. One aspect of why dark and gritty might work or not work is the current situation of the world. If the world is dark and grim, then stories of that kind will not work. Another aspect is the story as a such. Some stories can be turned grim-dark and will still work. Others can’t.

Among the characters of the DCEU, Batman can be turned grim-dark. With his background, the trauma of seeing his parents die, the darkness which is inherent in Gotham City, Batman can be dark and grim (but also light and fun, as Adam West proved). Superman, on the other hand, is a very bad choice for grim-dark. There are some dark storylines in the DC comics, but on the whole, Superman is a very good person. He’s a boy scout, the All-American boy who isn’t even from Earth. Gritty and dark doesn’t suit him.

With the “Wonder Woman” and the “Aquaman” movie, the producers, directors, and script writers went in a different direction, making strong, powerful, and positive characters their leads. Which is strange, considering that Wonder Woman is the one most likely to actually kill (unlike Superman and Batman). However, the two movies were made on a much lighter note, if only because nobody expected a comic-book movie with a female lead or a movie about Aquaman, who is the butt of many jokes in the DC universe, to succeed. They have a better colour palette, they have a much lighter tone, they treat their characters better. They look much more like traditional comics than the other entries of the DCEU.

In other words: they are very much like the MCU has always been. The MCU is not without dark and deep themes, but they handle their movies with a much lighter hand. They bring a point across while at the same time they have a lighter colour palette, bits of humour, and good character interactions.

Gritty and dark can definitely be aspects of a story. They can be good and useful aspects. But they shouldn’t be used just ‘because everyone does’ or ‘because people want them right now.’ There has to be a better reason for them, a reason from within the story and its characters. Oh … and try “Undead Horde,” it’s a good game.

Moving Characters To New Places

There have always been stories in which characters were moved through space or time or both, in order to reinvent them or tell new stories with them. The BBC series “Sherlock” and the CBS series “Elementary” both bring Sherlock Holmes from his own time into the present, even though their premises and plots differ greatly. While “Sherlock” remains outright mystery, “Elementary” has strong elements of a police procedural about it. And just a little while ago, I read the novel “Bulldog Drummond: On Poisoned Grounds” (review here), which takes a character from the early 20th century a hundred years into the future for a new start. King Arthur and Robin Hood as two very old pieces of storytelling have been re-imagined more than once as well.

How and why does this work best? First of all, it seems to work much better for Sherlock Holmes (and Bulldog) than for King Arthur and Robin Hood. Why? Perhaps because King Arthur and Robin Hood were historical fiction already by the time their stories were written down for the first time - centuries after they supposedly lived. Sherlock Holmes, Bulldog Drummond, and many other pulp heroes have originally been written in their time. They weren’t supposed to be period pieces, they were simply pieces written in their authors’ time (the late 19th century for Sherlock Holmes, the 1920s for Bulldog Drummond). Because of that, they might be easier to pull out of their own time and put into another, be it earlier or later in history. Sherlock Holmes was pulled into the future early on, within the Basil Rathbone movies. Then, of course, it was a move to the future by decades, not by a century as today.

Personally, I could imagine a lot of ways to reinvent King Arthur or Robin Hood, too, but they seem to be much more rooted in their times (or the times the authors put them in), than the pulp heroes (and, yes, Sherlock Holmes, with the original publishing in a magazine, is pulp, too, to a degree).

One big question when you’re trying to pull a character into another time is, of course, if it’s possible. Will the character still work in another time? Are they compatible with a modern setting (or whatever setting you are looking for, I’ll stay with the modern one for this post)? With Sherlock Holmes, it’s easy enough. He is characterized by being the greatest detective. A detective will work in every setting, from Ancient Egypt to the far future. Of course, with his scientific inclination, he’s easier to settle in modern times (or the future) than in the distant past. Bulldog Drummond (who, surprisingly, was also pushed into the future) also works in a modern setting. He’s a former soldier dissatisfied with his civilian life, which can also happen today. Originally, the first novel was set right after WWI, which explained how so many relatively young men were discharged from the army. In the new novel, Bulldog and his team were Black OPs, which might explain their discharge. It also explains how they will still help their former commander - they’ve served together in some strange situations, they’re all friends, and they’re all still a little in the whole soldier mindset.

Pulp heroes in general, above every other skill, have the skill to cope. They can and will make the best out of any given situation. Putting them into another setting isn’t inherently difficult, as long as you get your reasons right - or don’t give any. The new Sherlock Holmes series and the new Bulldog Drummond novel never give a reason, for them, the main characters simply live in modern times. Other stories use suitable reasons (such as time travel or magic) to explain how a character happens to be out of their own time.

With other characters, it’s more difficult. There are ways to reconstruct their situation in time, in a fantasy setting, in a sci-fi setting, even in a modern one. While I can’t really think of how to bring King Arthur into the modern time, Robin Hood would lend itself well to a heist story - let him bring in all his merry men, pit him against a modern version of Prince John and the Sheriff of Nottingham. It is doable, but needs a lot of careful work when deconstructing and reconstructing the world.

There are other considerations, too. Like the availability of a known character. Sherlock Holmes has been out of copyright for a while (although it might depend on where you are and where you wish to publish) and the Doyle estate seems to care little for the use of the character these days. Bulldog Drummond fell out of copyright in 2012, 70 years after the death of the original author. Other properties will drop out soon (with the end of the prolonged copyright phase in the US, many properties dropped out of copyright there last year). Of course, old characters like King Arthur or Robin Hood have no copyright whatsoever on them.

The next consideration is whether you want to actually shift the character and what you might gain from doing so. A lot of material on Sherlock Holmes produced today is firmly settled in the original period, pastiches and period movies with varying levels of success. Most of Airship 27’s catalogue is set in the original time period of the material (even modern characters like Brother Bones are set at the high time of pulp), but their release of “On Poisoned Ground” shows it’s not a necessity with the publisher.

The movie versions of “Fu Manchu” and “Fantomas” which are among the most well-known (Christopher Lee as Fu Manchu and Jean Marais as Fantomas/Fandor) are set several decades after the original stories, which doesn’t much hurt the movies (although “Fantomas” doesn’t retain its original mood, which is mostly due to employing a comedian for one of the main characters).

Again, it comes down to distilling the core of the character and see how it can be transported to another time. Fu Manchu is always an evil mastermind, no matter the time he’s in, and Fantomas will always be a criminal mastermind, no matter the time he’s in (for the difference between those masterminds, see this post).

Moving characters to new places and into new situations can be very interesting and a good way to bring about a change. It can be a lot of fun to write and to read.

The Eighth House Review

So far, as far as I can remember, I have only reviewed male/male erotica on this blog, but that doesn’t meant that I only read male/male stuff myself. I just haven’t thought about reviewing any of the regular erotica here so far. But then I stumbled over “The Eighth House: Hades and Persephone” by Eris Adderly and thought I should review this one after finishing it.

In modern times, Hades, Lord of the Underworld (everything below ground, as it were), has often been cast as a villain, most prominently in Disney’s “Hercules.” This is, however, an undeserved bad name, because among the gods of Mt. Olympus, Hades is the most relaxed and least active in Greek Mythology (admittedly, he doesn’t live on Mt. Olympus, so there’s that). The most well-known story about Hades is the one where he tricks his niece into marrying him - which is also the basis of “The Eighth House.”

First, a little information about relationships in the Greek pantheon. Zeus and his five siblings, two brothers and three sisters, are the children of Kronos, who thought he could prevent them from rising up against him by eating them right after birth - a strategy which the youngest one, Zeus himself, finally broke through with the help of his mother Gaia. The six siblings in question are Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Hera, Demeter, and Hestia. The three sons split the world up between them: Zeus got the land, Poseidon the seas, and Hades the underworld (as mentioned, all below ground). Zeus decided to marry his own sister Hera, but neither Demeter nor Hestia ever got married. Demeter, however, had a little fling with Zeus which brought about Persephone, the second half of this strange couple (which, for all we can say from Greek mythology, had a much calmer marriage than many others).

Demeter’s area of expertise is agriculture with all its facets and Persephone is the goddess of all things growing - a spring goddess, if you want to put it like that. If it seems weird to you that she, of all people, should be married to the god of death, look at it this way: Persephone and Hades are a full circle of life. In spring, she leaves the underworld and brings growth back to the world. In autumn, she returns below ground and takes the growth away. Everything from the birth of new plants to their death. That Persephone leaves the underworld every spring and returns in autumn is due to a temper tantrum of her mother Demeter after Persephone had vanished from the face of earth. That she is connected to the Lord of the Dead, on the other hand, is due to a few pomegranate seeds she ate in the underworld - which means she has an everlasting connection to Hades and can’t stay away from him unlimited. (This is the trickery I referred to at the beginning, by eating something in the realm of Hades, Persephone became connected to him.)

“The Eighth House” makes good use of the basic story as told above, but changes quite a few aspects. Despite having been a maiden goddess in mythology before her marriage to Hades, Persephone is not a maiden any longer by the beginning of the novel (which is quite some time before she meets Hades). Being kept away from the male gods on Olympus by her mother, Persephone has been seeking sexual thrills from mortal men. A similar thing can be said about Hades who, not often visiting his youngest brother, has kept away from the other gods and every now and then also been with a mortal woman. Neither of them is satisfied with things as they are and neither of them expects for their situation to change soon. That is until Aphrodite, meddler extraordinaire when it comes to all things of lust and love, demands of Hades to court and, eventually, marry Persephone, so the gods whose heads the younger goddess has involuntarily turned will turn their heads and thoughts back to Aphrodite. She hints at him finding his match in Persephone, too, which he brushes aside. Yet, she helped him create an immensely powerful artefact (which he mostly uses for sexual pleasures) and now demands the favour he promised in return.

Hades agrees in the end and captures Persephone - only to find that the maiden goddess is a match for him, experienced in sex, and the submissive to his dominant tendencies. It takes a while for them to grow close and Hades fights with himself about how to keep Persephone - knowing her mother will move heaven and earth to get her back. After all, Demeter is Hades’ sister as well as Zeus’.

There is a lot of sex in the novel, which is good, since this is, after all, an erotic novel and supposed to have a lot of sex scenes. They’re also written very well and a pleasure (of both kinds) to read.

But it’s also a novel which does take an old myth and makes it better. It gives Persephone agency she has been denied in the classic mythology, making her an accomplice to Hades’ eventual plan to keep her. Yes, the pomegranate seeds play a role, but not the one a person familiar with the myth might expect.

It’s also a novel which gives Hades his real character back, not casting him as a villain - despite his behaviour towards Persephone at the beginning -, but a god who is fully devoted to his job, to the underworld. He has a hands-on approach, takes care of things personally instead of only relying on his personnel.

He’s also depicted as not perfectly beautiful and attractive at the beginning - Hades’ skin is pale at the torso and the upper parts of his limbs, but grows darker and darker down the limbs. He gives Persephone an explanation for this during the novel, so I won’t spoil it, but it makes him appear in a much better light than ‘ugly one among the gods who does well to hide in the underworld.’ Hades is despised and feared by quite some immortals, but it’s undeserved and the author makes sure the readers learn about it together with Persephone.

If you like reading erotica and enjoy stories about gods and goddesses, then “The Eighth House: Hades and Persephone” is a very good addition to your collection. The writing is good, the pacing is as well. The novel is a good read and the story is engaging. It’s a good story to have fun with.

Bulldog Drummond Review

At first I want to state that this is a review of the new novel “Bulldog Drummond: On Poisoned Grounds” by I.A. Watson, which has been published by Airship 27. The original novels and shorts featuring Bulldog Drummond and starting in 1920 are available as a Mega-Pack, too, but not part of this review.

I was familiar with Mr. Drummond (given name Hugh) from the aforementioned Mega-Pack, but a little surprised to see a modernized version, since Airship 27 has been reviving many old series in their original settings, even though the stories are new. “On Poisoned Grounds” is set in 2018, which is pretty much the most recent which is possible, given the book needed to be written and edited and prepared for publishing first. Yet, a few lines in, I already knew I had to get this book and I would be entertained by it. Knowing the novel was written by I.A. Watson, who is quickly climbing on the list of my favourite authors, only made me buy the e-book even quicker.

The novel starts out with action - with Bulldog and an assassin falling out of the second storey of a Parisian restaurant, to be more precise. Now, Bulldog in his original incarnation was already a man of action, so I was expecting some, but few books start in the middle of the action without setting anything up. Yet, the close viewpoint made it easy to get into Bulldog’s mindset and into the story as a such.

I.A. Watson has made updates to the basic material, to Bulldog as well as to his friends and employees. His arch-enemy, whom we get to meet in this book as well, has also be discreetly updated. The new group of friends around Bulldog (former military colleagues from the unit he led while still a soldier) is a bit more diverse than before and the women are a little less passive, which is a good thing.

Yet, the basic background of Bulldog as a former soldier bored with civilian life and looking for adventure through a very unusual personal ad in the Times is easy enough to pull into the 21st century. With his updated circle of friends, which now includes a hacker as well, he’s well-suited for tackling whatever the world - or Mr. Peterson, his nemesis - can throw at him.

I have to admit that I could have done with a little less technical detail on the weapons, vehicles, and other machinery, since those are not my main focus in a story, but it makes sense that a former soldier would be up to date on that kind of data himself, so I can live with it. Bulldog’s womanizing has been reduced some and it’s very clear that the woman he ends up in bed with - a woman who is not who she seems to be - is absolute happy with it herself, so there’s nothing wrong with it. His tendency to hit everything and everyone in his path has not been reduced - but that is alright, it’s one of his biggest selling points that he is not easily cowed and heroic to a fault. Yes, he’s violent and so are his friends in the right circumstances, but they’re former special Ops, so there’s not much of a surprise there.

On the whole, the book is very entertaining and a lot of fun to read. I’m a big fan of I.A. Watson’s style in general and it works well with the story and the setting he has applied it to this time. Since this novel, unlike many others by Airship 27, is set in modern times, there’s no getting into the setting first. “On Poisoned Grounds” is a great thriller which brings back a couple of characters from the original first story about Bulldog, but often gives them a slightly different job. It has a great hero who at the same time fits with modern times and seems a little misplaced (heroic types like Bulldog are rare these days). It has a ruthless and highly dangerous villain who is always at least two steps ahead, if not more. It has a host of entertaining and at times surprising characters (shout-out to Mrs. Denny for having hidden depths aplenty!). It has twists and turns and turns backwards. It brings its hero to his very limits and does so convincingly. It doesn’t make the mistake of making the villain sympathetic. I’m sure Carl Peterson (who was already Bulldog’s nemesis in the original stories) has his reasons for what he does, but they might very well be ‘making the world burn and sit back to watch.’ And there’s nothing wrong with that when designing a pulp villain. In short: it takes the reader for an entertaining ride, which is what you can expect from any good pulp novel.

Are there negative sides, too? Well, that is pretty much down to taste, I imagine. I already mentioned the many technical details which I’m not all that hot on. There’s a lot of partially rather visual violence as well, such as people being squashed under falling cars, someone blowing themselves up, and quite some broken bones. Yet, considering what is at stake here, all of this is somewhat relative. On the whole, the few things I didn’t like about the novel have not kept me from enjoying the rest, so while there’s things I could do without, they’re not ruining the story for me.

“On Poisoned Grounds” has a lot going for itself. It has a good story, many interesting characters (like the unflappable DCI Mary McIver I haven’t mentioned so far), and twists and turns aplenty. It’s a very good novel which I can only suggest to everyone looking for a nice, modern thriller to read - as long as you like pulp material as well.