Zerzura

Obtained from here

Last New Year's Day, Thoul's Paradise enjoyed its first guest post.  Your humble host thought he might start a tradition of guest posts at the start of each year.  For today's post, I asked James Hutchings to supply commentary on a topic of his choosing. He asked if it needed to be exclusive and I replied that it did not.

Zerzura, or the City of Little Birds, is a city supposed to exist in the Sahara. It may have been first mentioned in Herodotus, who describes it as dedicated to Dionysus. Despite this association with the god of wine and revelry, the inhabitants of the city are supposed to be ascetic and stoic in character. Some sources say that the city was founded by Roman legionaries. Other sources claim that the founders were knights returning from the Crusades. The Kitab al Kanuz, or Book of Hidden Treasures, states that the city is guarded by black giants, who prevent anyone from entering or leaving.

In 1481, a camel driver named Hamid Keila reported to the emir of Benghazi (now in Libya), that he had gotten lost in the desert, after the rest of his party was killed in a sandstorm. Keila stated that he was found by a group of fair men, who wore straight swords rather than scimitars. They took him to a city of white marble, filled with palms, springs, and pools. The main entrance to the city was crowned by a carving of a strange bird. The inhabitants of Zerzura, who called themselves 'El Suri', spoke a form of Arabic.

The emir asked Keila how he had come to Benghazi. The latter became uncomfortable with the questioning, and said that he had escaped one night. The emir asked why it was necessary for him to escape from a city where he had been treated kindly. Receiving no satisfactory answer, the emir had Keila searched by his guards, who found that he carried a large ruby set in a gold ring. Keila could not explain how he came by the ruby. Deciding that he must have stolen the ruby from Zerzura, the emir had Keila taken to the desert and his hands cut off.

The emir later mounted an expedition to search for Zerzura, but was unable to find it.

The repeated failure of expeditions over many centuries to find the city suggests to me that it does not lie in our world at all. It seems to me that Zerzura is most likely a distorted account of the City of the Amazons. The martial nature of the Amazons could explain the association with Romans or crusaders. The 'black giants' may refer to the Amazons' god, Daba, who guards the city in a metaphorical sense. Herodotus seems more likely to be referring to another isolated settlement, that of the Mountain of the Father of Wine.

Free Stuff

Last year, your humble host reviewed James Hutchings' The New Death and others.  For those of you who were driven off by the steep price tag (US$ 0.99), this is your lucky week!  For a limited time, you can download this electronic book for free.  Nada.  Bupkis.  Xjen.  Inget.  Zilch.  Nihil.

This offer is available from Amazon.

Book Review: The New Death and others

Even though this blog has been in existence for less than a month, I have been asked to write a book review. Naturally, I feel it is my duty to apprise my cherished readership about RPG related products they may find of use. The New Death and others * is not a set of rules, or a module, or a game supplement per se, but the author asked that I provide “either a normal book review, or a review of its suitability as gaming inspiration.” Well, 'gaming inspiration' certainly falls within the purview of this blog. Also, why write a blog and turn down free swag? (If Raggi is reading this, my sensibilities would not be offended by a complementary copy of Carcosa.) Thus I present my humble commentary.

The New Death and others (hereinafter 'New Death') is an e-book that collects short stories, poems, and vignettes by James Hutchings. This is the same James Hutchings who is responsible for the 'Age of Fable' website. (For the record, 'Age of Fable' earned a place on my Links page before Hutchings contacted me about New Death.) The short stories are indeed short; I think the longest runs no more than six pages. Make no mistake, I consider this a good thing. As the Bard said, “Brevity is the soul of wit.” I would think that someone traveling for the holidays might appreciate this format since it allows the reader to frequently start and stop without having to consider a given piece within the context of a longer narrative.

Among the poems, there are some that are based on stories by Howard, Lovecraft, Smith, and Dunsany. The influence of these staples of fantasy literature extends beyond Hutchings' poems and into his prose. (Perhaps I am mistaken, but there seems to be a hint of Borges as well.) I'm afraid that my appreciation of poetry is not what it could be. I make this disclaimer because my lack of praise for the poetry should not be interpreted necessarily as a deficit of merit, but as a deficit of my ability to evaluate such.

In “Everlasting Fire,” mention is made that making puns is the Eighth Deadly Sin. If this were indeed so, Hutchings would be on death row right now. Some of his stories (such as “The New God”) turn on a pun while others (such as “The Adventure of the Murdered Philanthropist”) are infested with them. If puns are to the reader's taste, then the reader is in store for a feast. Personally, I prefer them in small doses if they must be included in my literary diet at all.

All in all, there is a respectable variety of stories and there is little conceptual repetition. Some stories are cute and some are clever. With certain exceptions, New Death supplies as much gaming inspiration as any work of imaginative fiction. In my opinion, these exceptions are what sets New Death apart from 'any work' and permits me to add this book to the 'thoul approved' reading list. These exceptions are the stories (and one poem) that regard Telelee.

Telelee is Hutchings' outstanding setting that incorporates the city of Telelee and the wider world beyond. “How the Isle of Cats Got Its Name” provides the following description of the city:

...Telelee is as the sea into which all rivers flow, or the market where all gather, or as some moralists have it, the lowest point in all the world, to which all base matter must descend.

A story set in Telelee will have protagonists, but Telelee is always the star. This is where Hutchings' creativeness shines and if gaming inspiration is to be found anywhere in the book, it will be found here. Outside of New Death, Hutchings has a blog devoted to Telelee, although the blog refers to it as Teleleli. I don't know the reason for the difference. If Hutchings wants to provide gaming inspiration, I suggest that he cull his blog, excise the puns, organize the information, and publish Telelee / Teleleli as an actual setting – perhaps system neutral – for role-playing games. (He should then find some outlet for his puns and whatever other inner demons he might have.) Regardless, even without Telelee, New Death is suitable for gaming inspiration; with Telelee, such inspiration is almost guaranteed.

New Death is available for download from either Amazon or Smashwords for a low, low price of ninety-nine cents. Most people spend more than that on a cup of coffee. New Death is more valuable than a cup of coffee (and lasts longer), so the buyer is getting a real bargain here.

* From what I can tell, the 'o' in 'others' is not capitalized.