Tag Archives: tusk

The Echo of Midnight, and a Tusk to the FACE.

Hey folks, just a quick spot of pimpage. Issue #8 of Midnight Echo is now available for pre-order, and it’s got an absolutely STUNNING line-up. Do yourself a favour and grab the hard-copy, it promises to be a ripping read.

http://midnightechomagazine.com/midnight-echo-issue-8/

Also, over at review site Thirteen O’ Clock, Andrew McKiernan discusses the inaugural issue of Terra Magazine. The latest foray from Black House Comics is just plain fun (think early 2000AD), and I’m lucky enough to have the first chapter of my serialised novel “Tusk” therein. Of Tusk, Andrew says:

“Still in keeping with the serialised nature of the magazine, “Tusk” plumbs the Golden Age of genre fiction with something that could have come right out of an early 70s issue of Analog. “Tusk” is straight prose — with a few Rhys James illustrations sprinkled throughout — of the sort that Mr Fischer has become well known for: tight, well written, original and more than a little bit gonzo. “Tusk” is The Planet of the Pachyderms with a healthy dash of Robert E Howard thrown in. A post-apocalyptic world run by a civilisation of war-like elephants. Talking warrior elephants, no less. Who enslave humans. And they wear ‘swords’ on their tusks! Count me in! Not only are the battle scenes tremendous, but there are hints of a much deeper story developing here. I very much look forward to reading more of “Tusk” in future issues.”

Thanks Andrew! You could say that “Tusk” is the ultimate trunk story 🙂 the rest of his review can be read here: http://www.thirteenoclock.com.au/review-terra-magazine-issue-1/

The resurrection of “Tusk” – ANNOUNCING TERRA MAGAZINE

Sometimes, the best anecdotes involve those things that didn’t quite work out. In writing circles, we’ve all got that project that crashed and burned, the one that got away, the thing that for whatever reason lost its mojo, usually after a lot of effort, time, and heartache.

One of my favourite failure anecdotes was to talk about Tusk. This was a novel I wrote in 2004, the product of the Colin Thiele Literature Scholarship that I received from the SA Youth Arts Board. I was fortunate enough to be mentored by local fantasy author Tony Shillitoe, and over the course of 18 months or so I wrote this novel to the best of my abilities.

The tagline for Tusk is this: telepathic elephants enslave mankind. Planet of the Elephants, or as Tony called it “Gladiator in Grey”. So I spent a large chunk of time/money writing this book, sent it to one place, got a rejection, buried it in a drawer and it physically pained me to look at this MS forever afterwards. Again, we’re talking the journeyman stage of my career, where the sting of rejection is a brutal thing.

This was 2005 me. 2011 me is much older, much wiser, and much more ruthless. Especially when it comes to editing. So, after many years of fermenting, Tusk has once more seen the light of day, and has been polished to within an inch of its life. Even better than that, it’s already found a really awesome home.

Which brings me to the next part of this announcement. Black Glass Press have teamed up with the folks at Black House Comics to come up with a new regular anthology comic, called Terra Magazine. There are some brilliant (nay, award-winning) folks from comic circles involved with this project, and there’s a bit of everything in this book. It’s a bit like 2000AD, in that there are ongoing serial stories, you will soon find it on the shelves in your local newsagent, and there’s never a dull moment.

This book has got samurai, detectives, freaks in space, sorcery, yakuza, and cyborg lunatics. Terra Magazine is also the new home for Tusk, which will now be released as a serial story, illustrated prose much like Gaiman’s original stardust. It’s the only non-comic instalment, and will appear in each issue.

There’s some more info about Terra Magazine here:

http://www.terramagazine.com.au/

and a press release here:

http://www.blackglasspress.com/component/content/article/58-terra-magazine.html

If it’s good enough for Tolkien, it’s good enough for me.

I recently shared a bunch of old maps from my journeyman days, and briefly made mention of Tusk, the infamous “telepathic elephants enslave mankind” novel.  The ultimate trunk-story, as it were.  Poking around in these old folders, I also found an old amateur moment, shared here for your amusement.  Yes, I invented a language for my elephant race.  Not only that, a complex numeric system, and methods and devices for them to write, trunks being less nimble than human fingers.  From memory, I spent WEEKS on this.  Again, a great example of how too much time down the rabbit-hole of Research is not necessarily a good thing. 

This sort of thing is best left to the experts.  Namely, professors in Language and Literature.  If Tolkien saw the following attempt at inventing a written fantasy language, he’d probably roll around in his grave: Continue reading