Lawman Versus Gunman

 While "Appaloosa" shared sets and locales with films like "3:10 To Yuma" and "Cowboys And Aliens," author Robert B Parker and director Ed Harris was more concerned with exploring the type of people who would try to settle an untamed land. Central to the story are the lawmen who keep the peace. Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch don't talk much. To Ed Harris, they're the type of men who could ride side-by-side all day, never say a word to each other, and be perfectly content with the nature of their camaraderie. In fact, Cole seems a stranger to words, a man who uses them when necessary, but sparingly, knowing they can inflict as much harm as the guns he wields. Cole frequently looks to Hitch to help him find the appropriate words in a given situation. But what he lacks in education, he makes up with determination, by reading noteworthy authors like Ralph Waldo Emerson, and attempting to embody the ideals he finds in their books.

"Everett, listen to this," Cole says one day, looking up briefly from his leather-bound volume of Emerson. "What I must do is all that concerns me," Cole reads slowly and haltingly, "not what the people think."

Everett Hitch regards his friend somberly, and nods in reply.

Later, when enforcing the law proves tricky in Appaloosa, sidekick Everitt Hitch suggests that they are gunmen first, then lawmen. If they know what's right, maybe it's okay to bend the law in this one instance, for the sake of the greater good. Virgil Cole's answer is straight-forward and immediate. He simply wouldn't know how to look at himself, if he saw himself as anything other than a lawman first.

As SF authors such as Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, and Allen Steele have suggested, it'll take strong, forceful characters to establish self-sufficient colonies on other worlds. People like Gerald Skibbow, Father Horst Elwes, and Quinn Dexter in Peter F Hamilton's novel The Reality Dysfunction will all attempt this in their own ways. But when the people of such a colony are looking for someone to establish the law and maintain the Peace, they could do much worse than employ someone Virgil Cole, and his loyal friend Everett Hitch.

Dragon Dave

Dalek Knitting Rules November 2013

As humans (and Daleks), we're always interested in what's popular.  The numbers below reflect which titles have shown up in other people's blogs, Twitter feeds, Facebook Home pages, and other places that drew new readers to  The Dragon's Cache last month.

 Top Ten Posts For November 2013

Post Name                                              Date Posted         Views
1. Pocket Dalek Knitting Pattern                 Feb. 18, 2013         34
2. The Cows of Seven Sisters                    Nov. 18, 2013         22
3. The TARDIS of Brighton Pier                  Nov. 15, 2013         22
4. Ray Bradbury Loves Dinosaurs               Oct. 8, 2013           19
5. Looking for Alec & Zoe Calendar: Pt. 1    Nov. 28, 2012         19
6. A Day in Brighton                                   Nov. 7, 2013          15
7. Eating Out in Brighton                            Nov. 21, 2013         15
8. Recovering From My Seven Sisters        Nov. 14, 2013         14
9. Visiting My Seven Sisters: Pt. 2             Nov. 12, 2013         13
10. Rex Dalek & K-9 Visit Krispy Kreme      Nov. 8, 2013          13

Two of October's Top Ten Posts remained on the list for November. While "Looking for Alec & Zoe Calendar: Part 1" fell from first to fifth, "Ray Bradbury Loves Dinosaurs" clung to its Fourth Place for a second month in a row.  The Daleks may have been shut out in October, but they surged back onto the list last month, with "Pocket Dalek Knitting Pattern" and "Rex Dalek & K-9 Visit Krispy Kreme."  Perhaps their resurgence was fueled by the Fiftieth Anniversary celebration of Doctor Who, given that my acquisition of the Doctor's time machine attracted readers to "The TARDIS of Brighton Pier."  And while travel blogs are usually popular, I couldn't help but notice that four of them--"A Day Out in Brighton," "Eating Out in Brighton," "Recovering From My Seven Sisters," and "Rex Dalek & K-9 Visit Krispy Kreme"--involved food. Mmm…Subway Tandoori Chicken Sandwiches, Cornish Pasties, Quavers, Fish & Chips, and Krispy Kreme Donuts.  Five essential English Food Groups!

K-9 & Rex visit Subway in Brighton

Two entries, "Pocket Dalek Knitting Pattern" and "Looking for Alec & Zoe Calendar: Part 1" climbed higher on my My Ten Most Popular Posts, which suggests that not only do readers love Daleks so much that they want them in their own homes, but also that they enjoy stories about the kindness of strangers.  While it's always nice to accomplish Great Deeds and Herculean Tasks, sometimes it's the smallest of our actions--those that may never be noted or commented upon or hailed by others--that can make a huge impact on a person's life.  I may not know that cabbie's name, but I'll never forget him, and I'll always be grateful to him.  Without his help, we might never have reached Pinner, where one of my favorite British comedies, "May To December," was filmed.  

Our visit to Pinner, England, two years ago.
After eating our sandwiches in the town square behind us,
we dug out our maps,
tried to figure out where we'd gone wrong,
and how to get where we needed to go.
If only we'd had a Dalek back then to guide us!

Finally, last month The Dragon's Cache enjoyed 1,589 page views. That's one hundred more than the previous all-time high, and nearly three hundred more than the average for the past three months.  So people are reading the blog, and hopefully, in some way, it beneficially impacts their lives.

You know, just like the mere mention of dinosaurs made Ray Bradbury smile.

Dragon Dave     

Iron Dalek Vs. Triceratops

Oh, hey, you caught me a little early today.  Okay, I know I'm late, don't rub it in.  But I suppose I can talk while I put the last finishing touches on my picture.

People have asked me why I've chosen to draw two pictures involving Daleks and Dinosaurs.  Well, as a beginning artist, I tend to draw what I know, and my friends and I have visited a lot of planets.  Some were clearly at prehistoric periods, and we met (and occasionally fought) some amazing and fearsome monsters.  My Master and Mistress also love Doctor Who (Okay, he's on the Daleks' Most Wanted List, but they like him), and one of their favorite stories is "Invasion of the Dinosaurs." Also, I recently finished the Ray Bradbury collection Dinosaur Tales, so perhaps I've drawn inspiration from stories and illustrations in that volume.  But why a artist does something isn't always clear.  Believe it or not, sometimes we just put our pencils to paper, with a vague idea of what we'd like to create, and we're as surprised by the end result as everyone else.  

Phew!  There we go.  Finished!  (Finally).  It's not a perfect picture, but I suppose every creative venture we undertake is a learning process. Occasionally someone like da Vinci or J.R.R. Tolkien will devote a decade or more to a painting or story.  For me, as a beginning artist, I'm just trying to master the basics in each drawing, and then moving on to the next.  At any rate, I'm glad I finished this drawing, and got to share it with you.  I hope you like it, and that my work (of greatness) inspires you to pick up your own pencils, and draw a picture of your own.  

Maybe even a picture involving Daleks and Dinosaurs?

May your day be filled with discoveries and adventures!

The Dalek Artist

Ray Bradbury on Ray Harryhausen

Ray Bradbury and Ray Harryhausen bonded over their mutual love of dinosaurs, and remained lifelong friends.  When Harryhausen took charge of special effects for “The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms,” he told the producers about “The Fog Horn,” a Bradbury story that contained similar plot elements to those in their movie.  So the producers paid Bradbury for the rights to film his story, and both men could say that, in a way, they had worked together.  In his Foreward to Dinosaur Tales, Ray Harryhausen writes, “Hopefully the Fates have in store another subject, yet unborn, that will bring us together professionally once again.”

Most of us have an idealized view of Ray Harryhausen.  With our near instant-access to information and movies, we can easily recognize the superiority of Harryhausen’s stop-motion animation, and judge how well it holds up against contemporary techniques.  But before the Internet and the Home Video market, it wasn’t always so easy to learn about those who worked behind the camera.  Harryhausen often locked himself away in his one-man studio for weeks at a time, and still had to oversee scripts and the director’s working methods to ensure that his animated creations would seamlessly intercut with live action.  Despite such high level involvement in the production process, it was still the film’s director who got the name recognition.  Ray Harryhausen was just one of many listed in the credits. 

While some recognized his brilliance, in his era Sci-fi films were usually geared toward children.  Thus, he was rarely assigned to an A-list film.  Instead, he worked on B-movies, with smaller budgets and (usually) a no-name cast.  His films would be paired with the bigger-budget, star-vehicle A-movies for release in first-run cinemas, or distributed directly to second-run theaters.  Several of his movies, such as “The Three Worlds of Gulliver,” “Mysterious Island,” “Jason and the Argonauts,” and “First Men in the Moon” were box office disappointments.  Despite the commercial success of 1981’s “Clash of the Titans,” the studios decided the overwhelming success of newer special effects techniques, such as those used by the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises, represented the future, and refused to back any more of his films.

The artist Moebius brings to life cantankerous
film producer Joe Clarence,
and the dinosaur model he criticizes and covets,
in "Tyrannosaurus Rex."

With “Tyrannosaurus Rex,” the final story in Dinosaur Tales, Ray Bradbury introduces us to Terwilliger, a man who animates dinosaurs for feature films.  Terwilliger never gets enough money to pay for his equipment, let alone to enjoy a life anywhere near as glamorous as that of the producers who hire him.  After his latest boss forces him to work at a loss, he nags Terwilliger to let him have his model dinosaur when the production finishes.  He also forces the man to repeatedly change the dinosaur’s features, dragging him further behind schedule each time, and thereby consigning his former work to the trash.  Despite all the abuse, Terwilliger carries on, because he loves his dinosaurs, and he loves his work.  Ray Bradbury claims he wrote the story because of how one producer treated his friend, so perhaps it sheds more light on a man whose fame continues to spread, and whose work we appreciate more and more, because he didn’t care about things like money or fame.  He loved his creatures, and stories they allowed him to tell.  For him, that was enough.

After "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms," Ray Harryhausen animated dinosaurs in two more films: “One Million Years B.C.” and “The Valley of Gwanji.”  Still, I can’t help but wonder what might have been, had "the Fates" smiled on Harryhausen and Bradbury, and allowed them to really make a movie together.

Dragon Dave

Related Dragon Cache entries
Five Essential Ray Harryhausen Films

Related Internet Links

The artist called Moebius

Ray Bradbury on Art

Kenneth Smith introduces us to
Bradbury's Dinosaur celebration

In his introduction to Dinosaur Tales, Ray Bradbury likens most of 20th century art to a Chinese dinner.  An hour after leaving the museum, he was hungry again.

When Bradbury visited art galleries, he found that he enjoyed Pre-Raphaelite paintings, a 19^th Century movement that celebrated heart-felt affection for subjects, rather than defining art in clinical and mechanistic terms.  “I was satisfied by nothing less than story, symbol, metaphor as found in all [Pre-Raphaelite] works…I raced backward through London and Paris, with Gustave Dore and Grandville, to knock heads with John Martin and try to replan the morals of Gin Lane and Fleet Street with Hogarth, or frolic in Louis’ court with Callot.  Goya drove me to war, sat with me at bullfights, rode me on witch-brooms, and I was never the same.” 

William Stout's Illustration for
"A Sound of Thunder"

Pre-Raphaelite art clearly resonated with Bradbury, which makes his approval of the artists who illustrated Dinosaur Tales all the more significant.  “When this book’s editor showed me illustrated samples of these glorious beasts, I could not resist.  The ghost of Harold Foster, who drew Tarzan for six years back in the early 1930s spoke to me.  It said: Remember my dinosaurs that trudged your midnight bed and flew your ceiling skies!  The ghosts of the creators of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon said just about the same thing.  My comic-collections, still gathered and waiting in my basement, fifty years later, reminded me of my first, art-oriented passions.  [Edmund] Dulac, [Gustaf] Tenggren, and [Arthur] Rackham raised this child from the crib on.”  (The latter three illustrated books children’s books and Fairy Tale collections that Bradbury grew up reading).

Overton Loyd's imagery dances above
"Lo, the Dear, Daft Dinosaurs!"

What Dinosaur Tales lacks in text-length, it makes up for with single- and double-page Black & White illustrations.  In addition to the cover art, William Stout energizes and deepens the mood of the classic Time Travel story “A Sound of Thunder.”  Steranko helps us feel for the sea monster that confuses the lighthouse for another of its kind in “The Fog Horn.”  Moebius illustrates “Tyrannosaurus Rex,” a story in which Bradbury pays homage to his life-long friend Ray Harryhausen.  Overton Loyd and Gahan Wilson add whimsy to two light-hearted poems: “Lo, the Dear, Daft Dinosaurs!” and “What if I Said: The Dinosaur’s Not Dead.”  My favorite story in the book, “Besides a Dinosaur, Whatta Ya Wanna Be When You Grow Up?” also contains my favorite artwork.  It’s hard to not compare David Wiesner’s lavish illustrations to those old Pre-Rafaelite masters.  Lastly, Kenneth Smith enlivens the parts of the book we might otherwise skim through to get to the good stuff: the title page, the table of contents, Ray Harryhausen’s Foreward, and Ray Bradbury’s Introduction.    

Alongside Bradbury, David Wiesner asks
"Besides a Dinosaur, Whatta Ya Wanna Be When You Grow Up?"

Ray Bradbury sounds like a man ever hungry for new learning experiences.  He found those, to a certain extent, in art galleries and museums.  But he also never forgot the illustrators he loved as a child, who breathed life into the stories he read, and inspired him to spend his life telling stories to all of us.  Dinosaur Tales reminds us that we should never feel ashamed, or too grown up, to enjoy the simpler forms of literature, such as children’s stories and comic books.

Dragon Dave

Related Internet Links
More Kenneth Smith artwork
William Stout's website
Fan Page for Overton Loyd
David Wiesner's website

Ray Bradbury Loves Dinosaurs

If there’s one thing I share with Ray Bradbury, it’s a love of dinosaurs.  In his introduction to Dinosaur Tales, he states that it’s his All Time Favorite Subject.  Bradbury admits he doesn’t know why seeing “King Kong” in the cinema awakened a lifetime love of the extinct creatures.  But he credits Dinosaurs with much of his later success as an author, and two stories in particular helped make his name in both Science Fiction literature and Hollywood. 

As Bradbury says, “I accept the fact, and proclaim it quietly, that without dinosaurs my life would have been nothing at all.  Dinosaurs started me on the track to becoming a writer.  Dinosaurs helped push me along that track to acceptance.  And a dinosaur who fell in love with the sound of a lighthouse foghorn in a story called “The Fog Horn,” which I wrote and published in 1950, changed my life, my income, and my way of writing forever.” 

This seems rather a sweeping statement, and perhaps a little inaccurate, as a quick review of Bradbury’s short fiction Bibliography shows that he sold a great many stories before he wrote “The Fog Horn.”  But then, in regard to the other great 1950s Dinosaur story for which he is known, “A Sound of Thunder,” he describes the process of writing it as an experiment. 

“I simply sat down to my typewriter one morning, with no idea where I would wind up, and hammered together a Time Machine, and shot my hunters back a few million years to see what would happen.  Three hours later, after a butterfly had been stepped on, making it one of the first, and unconscious, ecology stories, the tale was done, the beast slain, and all political history changed forever.”  

So perhaps “A Sound of Thunder” influenced the way he approached writing.  Today, the latter story is regarded as one of the All Time Great Time Travel Stories.  But it is the former, “The Fog Horn,” that influenced the 1953 movie “The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms,” and drew the interest of movie director John Huston, who hired Bradbury to write the script for his 1956 adaptation of “Moby Dick.” 

Ray Bradbury became a highly respected Science Fiction author, with hundreds of stories published.  He would go on to forge a significant career in Hollywood.  He's become a pop culture icon: most people recognize his name, and smile when they hear it.  So perhaps Bradbury’s statement isn’t so sweeping after all.  Perhaps Dinosaurs were primarily responsible for all his later successes as an author.  But it was only when he found a way to write about the subject he knew and loved best that people recognized that love, that enthusiasm, and responded to it.  If only each of us, myself included, could understand what we care about most of all, and find a way to channel that love to make others’ lives better.   But then, Bradbury began writing stories in the late 1930s.  His two career-changing Dinosaur stories wouldn’t arrive until the early 1950s.  His example suggests that the process of discovering one’s true love, and unlocking the means of expressing it, is no easy task, or the work of a moment.

Dragon Dave

Dinosaur Tales includes those two classic stories, two poems, two later stories, and wealth of Dinosaur illustrations.  

Related Internet Links

Ray Bradbury Bibliography

Of Ayrton Senna and Ray Bradbury

In 1994, during the San Marino Grand Prix, Ayrton Senna lost his life when his Williams F1 race car swerved off at the Tamburello corner and plowed into a concrete barrier.  His close friend and fellow racer, Gerhard Berger, later complained about many of the tributes paid to Senna by people who had never met the Brazilian.  He disliked how they spoke, often with tear-streaked faces, about how much Senna had meant to them.  To Gerhard Berger, such outpourings of grief seemed inappropriate. 

At the time, I didn’t know how to react to his statement.  Although I had only started watching Formula One two years previously, Senna had become a demigod to me.  He seemed immortal and impervious to harm, a superior being capable of feats mere mortals could only dream of accomplishing.  His death left me shattered.  (Or, as the English would say, gutted).  Obviously, I never knew or even met the man.  Perhaps his death should not have affected me thus.  Yet it did.

Last week, Ray Bradbury passed away.  He was a popular and award-winning author chiefly known for his short stories, although he had written influential novels and worked with filmmakers.  While I read several of his books in my youth, I'm not sure that he was ever a primary influence in my life.  Yet for many, his work proved influential, even monumental.

In previous posts, I’ve mentioned the impact that Edgar Rice Burroughs, Frank Herbert, and Roger Zelazny made in my youth. (There were many, many others).  In the past decade, authors such as Kevin J. Anderson, Kim Stanley Robinson, Dan Simmons, Robert Silverberg, and Terry Pratchett often entertained me and stirred my soul.  Janet Evanovich offered numerous moments of undemanding delight.  A quick glance at my reading list for the past year-and-a-half suggests that Gregory Benford, E. F. Benson, James Herriot, and Steven Brust have recently proven important.  Each, in his or her way, has contributed in a positive manner to my life.

Several years ago, after reading an interview in which Robert Silverberg asserted the eternal importance of The Martian Chronicles, I dug out my old, battered Scholastic edition and reread it.  At the fellowship following an Easter Vigil service, I fell into conversation with the associate priest.  I mentioned how something in his sermon reminded me of a story in The Martian Chronicles.  This older gentleman always struck me as someone better versed in Bible-related and spiritual works than the offerings of popular culture.  Looking back now, it seems strange to me that I can no longer remember any of the sermons he preached, and few of our conversations. Yet our talk that night, in which he shared how one of Bradbury’s stories had served as a minor metaphor for his life, still shines like a beacon in my mind. 

In 2009, my wife and I traveled to San Jose, California, to attend the World Fantasy Convention.  At an evening event, we filled our plates with goodies, and looked for a place to enjoy them.  As all the tables were full, one couple invited us to join them.  Unlike most World Fantasy attendees, he and his wife were not working- or aspiring-writers, but merely readers.  (Not that there’s anything ordinary about someone who regularly reads SF and Fantasy!)  His favorite author was Ray Bradbury.  With glowing eyes and a wide smile, he spoke of meeting the author, and how he would forever cherish the books Bradbury had signed for him. 

In the past week, I’ve read a number of glowing tributes to Ray Bradbury.  Most came from people who only met him a couple times, if at all.  Yet they speak of a man whose fiction loomed large in their lives.  Perhaps Gerhard Berger is right: perhaps it’s inappropriate to speak of what a person you’ve never really known means to you.  But as for how an author’s fiction has helped form the paradigm of your life, or how it enabled you achieve your own works of greatness, or even how it provided pleasant moments of connection between yourself and others...it seems to me that such contributions should not only be mentioned, but shouted from the highest mountains.

Rest well, Ray Bradbury.  You shall be well-remembered.

In respectful tribute,

Dragon Dave

Related Internet Links

Death of Ayrton Senna

A Testimonial from Kevin J. Anderson

One Adventure Ends, and Another Begins

Our Peugeot outside our hotel in Thirsk

This year’s vacation in England offered us many unique experiences, and I’ve tried to share the most memorable ones with you.  Inevitably, I fell behind in my recording of important events.  By the time I finished extolling the wonders of Holmfirth, we were packing up and leaving Thirsk.  Our rented Peugeot took us all over Yorkshire and North Wales before we returned it to Manchester Airport. 

In the process, we explored five National Parks: the Peak District, North York Moors, the Yorkshire Dales, the Lake District, and Snowdonia National Park.  We visited Askrigg, where the building used for Skeldale House was shot for the TV show “All Creatures Great and Small,” and Portmeirion, where much of “The Prisoner” was filmed.  We visited an important building from Beatrix Potter’s life, and climbed up and down the numerous winding stairways of a thirteenth century castle. 

We visit beautiful and remote Askrigg.

Throughout our journeys, we ate some amazing food, and brought home cookies and candy to savor in the coming months. 

Then there was the long journey home.  It consisted of arriving early for our flight to Heathrow, a long layover, and an even longer flight back to San Diego.  During the latter, I watched three movies, read the second half of a Time Travel novel by Stephen Fry, and ate a chicken salad sandwich while being shaken by turbulence. 

Although I tried several times to drift off, I got no sleep.  Still, I’m always wishing I could cram more hours into each day: that one I got an extra eight!

We saw lots of horses in England.
Some larger than others.

My sleep patterns are slowly settling down.  More importantly, I’ve dived back into my dragon novel.  Refreshed and renewed, I’m working at it harder than ever, and once again enjoying the process of creating and fleshing-out my fictional world.

While I’ve enjoyed blogging exclusively about our travels over the past couple weeks, now it’s time for that aspect of my life to return to normalcy as well.  While I'll continue writing about our time in England, there are also so many books I want to write about.  By delving into what I’ve read, I remind myself of what made each story special, and am able to share that experience with you.  Of course, there are also the TV shows and movies I look forward to discussing, and important events (such as the recent passing of Ray Bradbury) to cover, but my primary aim has always been to primarily discuss the fiction I’ve read.  Those stories enriched my life in so many ways, in addition to inspiring me to attempt some of my own, and I yearn to share my affection for them with you.

No matter how wondrous, each adventure must end,
if only to make way for another.

I hope you’ve enjoyed our journey together, and that you’ll continue alongside me into the future.  I cannot foresee all that we will discover, but I promise to make those adventures as interesting and fun as I can. 

Thanks for being my travel partner,

Dragon Dave