The Story So Far

Theseus, known as Captain Firebrand the infamous Greek pirate, has landed ashore on the island of Crete, at the time the most powerful empire in the world despite its small size. Separated from Cyron, his right-hand man, along with the rest of his crew, Theseus now stands alone except for a crafty but “minor” Babylonian wizard named Snish. Every nine years games are held in Knossos, the capital palace of Crete, to see if anyone is worthy to succeed Minos as the ruler of the island—and to take his beautiful daughter Ariadne as their bride. Things seem to be going well until Theseus’s disguise breaks at the worst possible moment and he gets taken into prison, to be thrown into the labyrinth and meet his death at the hands of the dreaded Minotaur, known to Cretans as the Dark One.

With Snish’s help once again, Theseus hatches a plan to break out of prison and into Ariadne’s bedchamber, where, for reasons unfathomable to both Our Hero™ and the reader, Ariadne admits her intense love for the Greek pirate and they almost agree to escape the island together—only Theseus still has a job to do. The plan is foiled and Theseus is caught once again, and this time is thrown straight into the labyrinth, naked and weaponless, although not bitchless, as Ariadne still helps him in the few ways she can. Reunited with his beloved sword, Theseus thinks he might stand a chance against the Minotaur, only to be blind-sided by what feels like a horn grazing his side. The Greek pirate seems to be in quite the pickle!

Enhancing Image

Good news: it’s a fake-out. The “horn” belongs to Cyron, who was also tossed into the labyrinth and left to be either killed or die from the elements. The two recognize each other and it’s a sweet reunion—only problem being that they’re still trapped in a maze with no obvious way out. It’s here, however, that we’re given what is perhaps the biggest twist in the narrative, which is that despite a statue of the Minotaur being constructed in the labyrinth, the Minotaur himself seems to be nonexistent—an elaborate ruse devised by Minos centuries ago to keep the Cretans in line. Those trapped in the labyrinth either kill each other, themselves, or die presumably from starvation, for hitherto nobody has escaped to tell of the big lie that has haunted the island for so many years.

This has to be coincidental, but I couldn’t help but think if maybe John W. Campbell had a certain theme in mind, as The Reign of Wizardry was serialized back-to-back against Robert Heinlein’s If This Goes On—, which also covers religious fear and tyrants using the people’s faith to rule over them with an iron fist. In the case of the Heinlein novella there’s a conspicuous aside where we’re told that Christianity is totally fine actually, and that the villains of the story are using a religion similar to Christianity but actually something different. The Abrahamic God also gets off pretty easy in Williamson’s story, but in fariness it takes place in pre-Christian times, so it’s only natural that the religion of evil has nothing to do with what some reader at the time would’ve believed.

The Minotaur turning out to be a fabrication is inherently disappointing, since it deprives the narrative of what could’ve been a gripping cosmic element, but in the context of a work written specifically for Unknown I begrudgingly admit it makes sense. Works published in Unknown generally try to urbanize the creatures of myth, such that they become either as ordinary in the context of the story’s world as a real-life animal, or they turn out to be something that can be easily rationalized. The result is that there’s very little cosmic horror to be found in Unknown, and I think this is compounded by Williamson being such a rational storyteller, although his fast-paced pulp action style of writing at this point in his career can make this rationalism not so obvious. That the Minotaur does not exist in this rendition of the Theseus-Minotaur myth is only fitting for something published in a “rational fantasy” magazine.

What’s not so easy to rationalize is Ariadne’s cooperating with Theseus in overthrowing her father, which only becomes harder to swallow as a couple more twists come our way. I’ve said this before, but I wanna stress that Ariadne is a far worse-written leading lady than either of the female leads in The Legion of Time, which who were not exactly deeply realized themselves but who served clear purposes in the narrative. Ariadne’s seems split between her loyalty for her father and her newfound passion for Theseus—the problem being we have no reason to believe Theseus and Ariadne would love each other. It’s one of those inexplicable romance plots that plagues old-school pulp writing, only here it’s more conspicuous because Williamson is going for something a little more high-concept. Sure, it’s a somewhat neat premise, but the characters are still lacking in psychology; we’re not allowed to understand the why of anything.

Anyway, Theseus and Cyron lead a rebellion against the higher-ups of Crete on the basis that the Minotaur, the thing that supposedly lurked in the island’s depths, is not real, and therefore the power of the wizards is based on a falsehood. It goes pretty well! People are surprisingly quick to believe the guy who has been on the island for maybe three days. But there’s still work to be done. Minos goes down without much of a fight, although Theseus realizes that the old wizard might not be dead after all, as the doppelganger, upon dying, turns into “an old, old woman” whose real identity is unknown—for the moment. The real Minos must be hiding somewhere, but Theseus struggles to articulate this, and for now it looks like the day might be saved. Ariadne, who as it turns out is not much of a fighter, encourages Theseus to escape with her using a flying machine (what?) Daedalus had built, but Our Hero™ refuses. Something is not right.

It’s here at the novel’s climax (which also happens to be its ending, since the story ends right when the action does) that we get back-to-back twists, which I have some very mixed feelings about. The first is that impossibly old lady who died disguised as Minos turns out to be… Ariadne’s mother, who, mind you, was a non-presence up to this point; I honestly thought she was dead already, but apparently she chose to take Minos’s place by the time Theseus appeared on the island. I don’t get any emotional weight from this since we have no clue who Ariadne’s mom is as a character, and we barely even get a glimpse of how Ariadne’s feels about her own now-dead parent. It feeds into the other twist I’m about to give and it does explain “Minos’s” odd behavior before, but I honestly would’ve preferred if they just got some random person to stand in for Minos.

The other twist is that Snish, the real Minos, and Talos are all the same person. Let’s sit around a bonfire and ponder this. Snish and Talos—you know, the giant bronze statue, are both disguises for Minos. Theseus recalls, during this revelation, that he never saw Snish and Talos in the same place, and that Snish and Minos being together can be explained by “Minos” being a fake here. I will say, this is not, strictly speaking, a self-contradicting twist, and it’s also a twist I did not see coming, which would give it a point each—bringing its score to a total of two points. Yeah, otherwise it reads as fucking stupid to me; there’s really no other way for me to describe it, other than it feels dumb somehow. I figured Williamson would dish out a few twists in the name of subverting the myth, but he may have gone too far. It doesn’t help that through all this Ariadne is still a blank slate.

But due to the power of “love,” Ariadne gives Theseus the deus ex machina necessary to defeat her father and end the reign of wizardry on Crete for good. Personally if I was pining for Ariadne I would be concerned by the fact that she played a part in the deaths of both her parents, but Theseus is not so bothered by that detail. It ultimately doesn’t matter, though, as it’s implied that Ariadne dies from… something, going limp in her man’s arms. Maybe she’s just tired. I could take a nap myself. Theseus kisses his dead (or maybe just sleepy) girlfriend and the novel ends. Even if Ariadne is not dead at the end, the chemistry between the two is so inert that Theseus may as well be making out with a corpse.

A Step Farther Out

In a deliberate attempt to extinguish wonder, Williamson replaced it with something of very little substance. I have to think The Reign of Wizardry got a Retro Hugo nod because there wasn’t much competition that year. Jason and the Argonauts it ain’t. I suspect the reason it gets so little wordage in Williamson’s autobiography is because there was little he could say about it, other than that it was his first attempt at writing more “mature” fantasy and that it getting published technically made it a success. While it now only exists as a footnote in a pretty good writer’s oeuvre, it did do good in that it probably encouraged Williamson to write a much better and more unique fantasy story—that being “Darker Than You Think.”

See you next time.

The Story So Far

Theseus, in his quest to end the reign of wizardry in Crete, takes part in the games to see who might be worthy enough to succeed Minos as ruler of the island empire. Disguised as a viking with the help of the Babylonian sorcerer Snish, Theseus persists through the combat trials, going up against men and bulls as they symbolize the Minotaur, the half-man half-bull dark god who lurks in the labyrinth. Having survived the final test, that of “the gods,” Theseus is one step away from taking control of Crete and claiming Ariadne (Minos’s daughter) as his bride when his disguise evaporates at the worst possible moment. Revealed as Theseus, or Captain Firebrand, the Greek pirate with a bounty on his head in Crete, Theseus is thus thrown into jail, where he awaits his death at the hands of the Minotaur. How will he get out of trouble this time, eh?

Know that this review will be short and sweet, in accordance with the installment but also because certain real-life circumstances have made my laptop unavailable for the next couple days, or rather it has been available and I won’t get it back until tomorrow or Friday. Despite this inconvenience, you can’t keep a good dog down, and while I’ve had to write this post in less-than-ideal circumstances, the show must go on.

Enhancing Image

Theseus, if he were acting alone, would surely be toast by now; it’s a good thing he’s not, as Snish, for reasons unknown, continues to serve despite being mistreated. Despite claiming repeatedly to be only the most minor of wizards, Snish’s ability to cast disguises proves to be a life-saver once again, with Theseus this time luring Phaistro (the Creten admiral he had a run-in with earlier) into a trap and switching places with him. Phaistro buying into Theseus’s promise of hidden treasure was ill-advised and a more reasonable man would’ve smelled something fishy, but it turns out that Phaistro was desperate for that treasure. Disguising oneself as a prominent member of Crete’s navy sounds like a good idea until you realize said member also has a crippling gambling addiction.. with debts to pay.

There’s some irony at play here, and unlike the few attempts at humor in Part 1 it’s actually amusing, if in an exhale-through-the-nostrils sort of way. Theseus goes from having a target on his head to having a different kind of target, attributed to a different person (someone whom Theseus normally wouldn’t mind seeing punished) but now aimed at him. Out of the frying pan and all that. Phaistro owes a ton of money to a servant named Amur who apparently is at the end of his paience with the admiral, now offering one last chance for him to pay off his debt: by “making love” to Ariadne, sort of prostituting himself. I suspect that this is the archaic definition of the phrase, since “to make love” used to mean simply to court, which is probably (but I can’t guarantee it is) what Williamson intended, as opposed to the more modern definition. When exactly the definition changed in the English-speaking world I don’t know, but almost certainly the change happened by 1960. Anyway the idea is that Theseus-as-Phaistro will woo Ariadne, who, we need be reminded, is rather a cold bitch.

This seems like it’ll be the end for Theseus, since Snish’s disguise magic evaporates with a kiss, which was how Ariadne found him out in the first place. The good news is that Ariadne’s chamber will be darkly lit, so that with enough luck Theseus will be able to go in and pull a bit of a sleight of hand a la Anton Chekhov’s “The Kiss,” being a touch in the dark that’s nigh impossible to connect with a face. As should be expected, though, the ruse doesn’t fucking work, as at some point Ariadne figures out Phaistro is really Theseus in disguise… and then she goes along with it. It’s here that we get what has to be the most baffling plot development in the novel, which is that Ariadne actually oves Theseus, after seeing him in the games. Despite having known each other for all of two days and being enemies, Ariadne hopes that (so she says) Theseus will take her off the island where they can have a honeymoon in peace. Theseus, for his part, is skeptical about this, which is understandable given Ariadne’s sppsed affection for him makes no goddamn sense. Not that Williamson is a raging misogynist, but his struggle to write women convincingly is most apparent here.

Inevitably, because this is a novel and we still have at least another 45 magazine pages to go, Theseus gets caught yet again, this time courtesy of the real Phaistro; this time Snish is not here to save him. If you went into The Reign of Wizardry knowing it’s about Theseus and the Minotaur, you go in thinking we’ll get an epic fight sequence with them in the labyrinth; we’re not quite there yet, but the back end of Part 2 does see Theseus get thrown, naked and weaponless, into the labyrinth. Good thing modesty is no issue, or at least would be the least of Theseus’s problems. (Something I’ve noticed with the Campbell magazines is that sex rarely ever gets brought up, even implicitly, no doubt due to Campbell being a puritan and also his devoutly religious secretary scrubbing manuscripts of salty language in advance. However, male nudity, even described in some detail, seems to be fair, with there even being several male nudes as Astounding covers. What’s the meaning of this?) I’m getting distracted.

Being thrown into a deadly maze without a weapon or even clothes would drive most people to despair, but not Theseus, who like a true warrior makes the best of what he can… even using human bones as weapons. It’s here, as we approach our encounter with the Minotaur, that the horror of the so-called Dark God takes on an almost Lovecraftian aura, as Theseus sees a statue of the Minotaur and the creature’s voice without ever seeing the creature itself… and then, without seeing what hit him, there’s a horn digging into his side. Had Clark Ashton Smith written this we would’ve gotten more atmosphere and spookiness, especially with the towering idol of the Minotaur, but I’ll take what I can get. It’s fiiiiine.

A Step Farther Out

After the slog that was the first installment we’re on firmer ground, if only because Williamson has far less setup to worry about; could also be that at thirty pages (as opposed to the first installment’s fifty) there’s less room for suffering. Recently getting into Dark Souls again may have also gotten me into the right mindset for this and that I was being unfair to Part 1, but that’s probably not the case. As we approach the third act it’s become apparent to me that this is indeed a short novel, with hardly enough meat on its bones for what we would not consider a modern fantasy novel. I still wish Williamson would take more liberties with what is quite literally ancient source material, but we’ll see how he manages

See you next time.

Who Goes There?

Jack Williamson was the second author to be made an SFWA Grand Master, after Robert Heinlein, and yet he is little read nowadays. Actually, past the first decade of his career, I’m not sure when Williamson would’ve been “popular.” That’s not a knock. This man right here is one of the most respectable old-timey SF writers, never quite reaching the heights of Heinlein, true, but also never sinking nearly to such lows as latter day Heinlein. Remarkably, unlike most writers of his generation, Williamson caught a second wind at such a late point in his career, putting out some pretty good work in the ’90s and 2000s—so, ya know, when he was in his 80s and 90s. He remains, by a good margin, the oldest person to have won a Hugo in any of the fiction categories.

I recently read Williamson’s autobiography, Wonder’s Child (which also won him a Hugo), and I’ve somehow gained an even greater respect for the man. He discusses, to some degree, all the fiction he wrote up to 1980 he thought worth mentioning, although of course the book is more about his life and how he tried balancing that (various jobs, romantic/sexual false starts) with trying to make it as a pulp writer. Curiously, today’s novel only got a single paragraph to itself, and Williamson says little about it even within that space. The Reign of Wizardry was his first published work in Unknown, the fantasy sister magazine to Astounding Science Fiction, and for both readers and Williamson himself it does not hold the esteem of his subsequent Unknown effort, “Darker Than You Think.”

There may be a reason for this.

Placing Coordinates

Started serialization in the March 1940 issue of Unknown, which is on the Archive. It has an e-book edition, wooo. For print versions your best bet would be either the Phantasia Press hardcover (out of print) or the Williamson collection Gateway to Paradise (also out of print). Yeah it’s a novel, but it’s apparently short enough to fit in the latter.

Enhancing Image

The prologue is a curious one, in that while the story to come is unabashedly fantasy, Williamson takes the effort to root it in actual science: in this case archaeology. Crete is an island, still existing today with its own people, off the coast of Greece, but what in modern times (i.e., the 19th century onward) archaeologists uncovered what must’ve been as advanced a civilization as ancient Egypt, during a time when Greece itself would not have been so prosperous. For centuries there were only hints, combined with legends, as to the workings of ancient Crete, whose golden age came to an abrupt end before being occupied by several empires over the centuries. The narrator proposes that the myth of the minotaur and the labyrinth, and the Greek hero Theseus, may have some historical legitimacy in explaining the golden age of ancient Crete coming to an end.

Now we’re on the high seas, with Our Hero™, whom to us is known as Theseus but to other characters as Captain Firebrand—a redheaded pirate who patrols the waters between Greece and Crete. One day, upon raiding a Cretan ship, Theseus and his right-hand man Cyron take in what appears to be a woman of incredible beauty as part of the loot, but who turns out to be an impish Babylonian wizard named Snish; this character, at least so far, seems to be Williamson’s biggest contribution to the myth. Snish is a low-level wizard who, for all his physical weakness, can get through trouble by disguising himself, although the illusion is an audio-visual one that will evaporate if touched and especially if kissed. Curiously the narrator refers to Snish as a “she” when in his female disguise. Anyway, Theseus considers killing the little man, but Snish convinces the crew he’d be of more use in infiltrating the island empire of Crete, at that point the most powerful nation in the Mediterranean—and host to evil wizardry.

While obviously not historically sound, we’re led to believe that Crete is such a powerful nation at this point in history because it is ruled with an iron fist by Minos, the most powerful wizard in the known world. Minos, who apparently is immortal, has ruled Crete for a thousand years, but there is at least theoretically a chance that such a tyrant can be overthrown. We’re told that every nine years (why not ten is beyond me) games are held to test the finest warriors in the land, to see if any survive the trials. “And if any man wins the contests, the old Minos must give up his life, and go down into the dread Labyrinth of the Dark One.” The Dark One being the minotaur—one part bull, one part man, one part god. Being a pirate, Theseus hates authority, and especially authority with magic powers. The games are set to begin in a couple days. If he could get to the shores of Crete, and into Knossos, that magical palace just in time to participate…

I might not be making it obvious, but the first half of this installment (which is really the first quarter of the novel) is messy. The goal is simple: Get Theseus from point A to point B, i.e., from off the island to on the island. Sounds simple, right? But this is a 50,000-word novel and said novel is frontloaded with lore, a few characters who will not matter later, and a couple action scenes that lack the pulpy zest of Williamson’s earlier writing. This was his attempt at writing a “serious” fantasy tale, and I also think there’s a reason why he would only show up in Unknown two more times; in fairness, the second of these three appearances was “Darker Than You Think,” which really is one of the standout fantasy narratives of the ’40s. But whereas that novella captivates with its grimness and psychological implications, The Reign of Wizardry starts out as too convoluted for people not already familiar with what its retelling and yet too shallowly written to be considered a demanding-but-it’s-worth-it reexamination of old material. It’s a remix of a song that barely stands on its own.

But it’s not all bad. A shipwreck puts Theseus on the shores of Crete but separates him from both Cyron and Snish, and this is where the plot goes from a series of random events to something more cohesive. Snish is not exactly Williamson’s best attempt at humor, being the closest we have to a comic relief character, so him being absent for most of the latter half of this installment is no loss. It’s here that we meet Talos, the living statue who serves Minos’s will, although sadly unlike his depiction in Jason and the Argonauts he’s not the size of a goddamn building, just a twelve-foot-tall man with an odd skin condition. He also talks. Then there’s Ariadne, Minos’s daughter, who serves the role of the single female character of any significance. (There’s also a haggard old woman who is implied to be a prostitute, but that’s the closest this novel gets to acknowledging sexuality thus far.) It took a while to get started, but once we’ve met all the key players, including Daedalus, Minos’s right-hand man, it’s time to (quite literally) let the games begin. Took long enough.

There Be Spoilers Here

Entering the games at Knossos under the disguise of a “Northman” (a viking) named Gothung, since apparently Minos was expecting Captain Firebrand to participate, the plot gets funneled into a series of action scenes wherein Theseus proves his might against a series of opponents, first bulls and then other men. This ties into the nature of the minotaur, which as said is part bull and part man, and of course there will be the final trial: judgment by the dark god himself. This section of the novel is the strongest part, but even so the action is not as grippingly written as it would be in a Robert E. Howard or Fritz Leiber fantasy adventure. There’s a bit of gore, but surprisingly it’s not as violent as the back end of the other Williamson novel I’ve covered, The Legion of Time, despite Williamson giving himself the perfect pretext for blood and guts. It could be that in an attempt to write something more dignified he wrote something that’s not as fun.

You may be thinking, “Brian, what are you saying? Violence isn’t fun!” And in the context of real life I agree. Violence, in the real world, is usually horrific and completely unnecessary. As Asimov said, violence is the last refuge of the incompetent—and there are a lot of incompetent people out there. But in fiction, especially when it’s a couple degrees removed from reality, violence can be immensely satisfying. Unfortunately that level of carnage was reserved for the “pulpy trash” of Weird Tales, which John W. Campbell wanted to counter. As such, even in this opening installment’s most gripping moments, it seems underwritten—like it’s afraid to go all out.

Anyway, Theseus succeeds in his trials, and a little too easily at that. This skepticism turns out to be justified as Minos, Daedalus, and the bitchy Ariadne pull a fast one on him and reveal his true identity. It’s implied that Minos knew Theseus would come to Crete in disguise well in advance, and just as it looks like Theseus will take to the throne as the new ruler of Crete, the rug gets pulled out from under him. We know that something like this had to happen, because this is the first part of a three-part serial, but we also know, and are all but told at the beginning, that Theseus will ultimately succeed in ending the Cretan empire’s reign of wizardry (get it?). It’s possible Williamson has a few tricks up his sleeve, but I have to wonder how much he can change given that ultimately he has to abide the trajectory of the myth. Or does he? We’ll have to wait and see… and hope.

A Step Farther Out

Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…

At first I wasn’t feeling it, and even by the end of this first installment I wouldn’t say I was onboard. Something is wrong here. It could be that I need to catch up on my Greek mythology, but this seems like a straightforward retelling of a myth that would’ve probably been common knowledge for readers in 1940. That Theseus starts out as a pirate and mostly uses his wits instead of his brawn to get the job done can only go so far. The thing about much of the material published in Unknown is that while a lot of it would now be called urban fantasy, the stuff that wasn’t still had a sense of humor—you could say a lust for life—that defined the magazine. Yet at least so far Williamson’s retelling of the minotaur-and-labryinth routine is humorless, and Williamson is not one for straight-faced action—pulpy action, sure, but not something trying to be this serious.

See you next time.