THE ICE PICK

The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits, by Rosemary Ellen Guiley. 2nd ed. N.Y.: Checkmark Books, 2000. Illus. 430 p. $19.95. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8160-4086-9.

This is a comprehensive look at the world of ghost lore and the paranormal, and for those of you, especially, who write horror, it is a treasure house of goodies.

It is arranged in alphabetical order, and many of the entries have lists of books for further reading.

Specific locations believed to be haunted are included along with details on how and when ghosts are said to appear and what the manifestations look and feel like. These places include the well-known "haunts," like London’s Adelphi Theatre and the less famous, like the Decatur House in Washington, D.C.

Societies and organizations of ghost investigators and paranormal debunkers are discussed along with biographies of mediums and psychic researchers. And there are entries for famous people who experienced the paranormal, like Abraham Lincoln, and ghosts themselves, like Chicago’s Resurrection Mary.

Notorious frauds like 18th-century-London’s Cock Lane Ghost and the Schneider Brothers are fully explained, from the motivations to the sentences of the perpetrators, if any.

Guiley has included phenomena and lore from many different cultures around the world.

If you seek information about a specific thing, such as the acheri of India, the Jewish dybbuk, the Japanese gashadokuro, or Yorkshire’s Jack-in-Irons, you may find it here.

Or if you need an idea for a story, you can browse the encyclopedia and be inspired by things like the Arab afrit demon, Brazil’s Jabuticabal Poltergeist, or the more commonly known Voodoo zombie. Some of the entries are brief, others, like the zombie entry, are very extensive.

Guiley has also included discussions of spiritual things like afterlife, near-death experience, and angels.

Necromancy, possession and other broad topics, as well as specific kinds of phenomena, such as orbs and poltergeists, are explained in detail.

Superstitions concerning objects like mirrors, meteors, and the Moon are also covered.

This second edition has been expanded by about one hundred entries over the first edition, and there seem to be more illustrations. I’m not sure if that justifies purchasing this newer edition if you own the older one. Also, the print on this new edition is a bit smaller to read, although not by much. Personally, I would say the first edition is still adequate.

All-in-all, I found the book fascinating and fun to read, and if you do not have the first edition, I recommend it very highly.

{Published in SF and Fantasy Workshop Newsletter, Oct. 2002.}

THE ICE PICK

The Labyrinth: Resources for Medieval Studies. www.georgetown.edu/labyrinth/labyrinth-home.html ("old" site) or labyrinth.georgetown.edu (new "improved" site)

This website, sponsored by Georgetown University, is a real heartbreaker. The site comes up quickly, and is easy to navigate. And there is so much fascinating and useful information here, but a plethora of broken links make it one of the most frustrating websites I’ve ever tried to work with. So, I quickly went to their "new and improved" site. In my opinion, the old one is much better, broken links and all. If you know precisely what to ask for, (e.g. "Wharram Percy") or exact terms in a title (e.g. "Medieval village") the new site may help you, but I was unable to find anything useful.

On the old site, the "Labyrinth Library" lists Medieval books and articles from French, Iberian, Italian, Latin, Middle English, or Old English literature, as well as modern articles.

"National Cultures" lists Anglo-Saxon, Byzantium, Celtic, England 1066-1500, France, Germany, Iberia, and Italy. But I must warn you that this is where the problems start.

Seeking information on daily life that I might be able to use in a story, I began with "Anglo-Saxon" and was impressed. It has Manuscripts; Art and Archaeology; Living History; Teaching Resources; links to organizations, journals, and to ORB---the Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies.

If you want to set a story in a Medieval village, "Wharram Percy: A Lost Medieval Village" is a wonderful resource. A description of the valley and the people who lived there, the church, the peasant and manor houses, and a bibliography is accompanied by illustrations and a map showing the land and what the village looked like, plus floor-plans and descriptions of the church, century by century, and an drawing of the interior of a peasant house. It is almost like a pre-fabricated setting, to which you can add your own characters and story.

In "Living History", the "Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Recipes" worked fine. "Clothing" required a short detour. Most of the other links are broken.

"Teaching Resources" had interesting material and may be worth exploring.

The rest of "National Cultures" was disappointing. The link to "Byzantium" was broken. Nor could I find anything for it on the new site. "Celtic" was okay, but all the links within it were broken, as were many under "England 1066-1500."

The link to Wales, however, was wonderful. (Never mind that, technically, Wales isn’t England.) If you’re interested in setting your story in Wales or a Welsh-like world, do check out this link. When I tried "Wales" on the new site, I got nothing.

Most of the links for France, Germany, Iberia, and Italy were either broken or mostly general discussions of those countries in the Middle Ages, but Iberia, for example, on the new site turned up only copies of historical documents.

Under "International Culture," "Archaeology and Cartography" holds the aforementioned "Wharram Percy," and "Arts and Architecture" has a neat "Visual Tour of the Deserted Medieval Armenian City of Ani." Most of the other links unfortunately seem to be broken, as were nearly all the links I tried under Medieval, Religious, and Social History.

"Science," with information on alchemy, falconry and hunting, medicine, etc., was more rewarding. When I searched for "science" on the new site I turned up only something on gargoyles. Nor could I find anything specific, e.g. leprosy.

In "Science," my favorite section was "Medieval Technology," which can help you set a scene, avoid anachronisms, and understand how things worked if you need or want to include them in your story. For example, under "Soap" and "Mirrors" you can find out where they were invented, how they were made, and who used them. Should your hero use liquid or hard soap--or none at all? Should your heroine’s mirror be polished bronze or lead-backed glass? Do you need a description of a Medieval rat trap or how wattle-and-daub was made? Although some of the pages were better than others, there were no broken links, and most of the descriptions, illustrations, and bibliographies for further information, were excellent. Again, I could find nothing comparable on the new site.

This old site has a lot to offer, as, I’m sure does the new site, if I could find any of it, but a major university like Georgetown can do a great deal better than this.

{Published in SF and Fantasy Workshop Newsletter, Aug. 2002.}

THE ICE PICK

The Writer’s Guide to Everyday Life in the Middle Ages, by Sherrilyn Kenyon. Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books, 1995. ISBN 0-89879-663-6. $17.99. 232 pages.

If you write medieval fantasy, this well-illustrated book is a treasure trove of fascinating facts and details which can save you hours of research, help keep you from anachronisms, and may spark all kinds of ideas for you.

Recipes, kinds of foods, and common dishes for kings and peasants are presented. Clothing items, hairstyles, and colors worn by men and women are laid out by period. Medical treatments and common remedies are explained. The economy is described, including tidbits like who used carts and when wagons became popular, coins and their values, and weights, measures, and containers. Family relationships and the varying roles of women are discussed. Saints’ days are listed, major annual festivals are explained in detail, and musical instruments and dances are described.

Chronological lists of monarchs for England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, France, and Norway are given. There are explanations of knighthood, tournaments, and heraldry, along with tips for creating your own coats of arms. The chapter on castles not only describes the castle but lists servants, from acrobats and mat weavers to the woodward, who oversaw the forest, and local offices--like the sheriff’s--often found there.

The place and power of the Church is discussed, including details like the minimum age of priests; lists of religious orders, popes, and heretical groups; a discussion of pilgrimages; and a chapter on the ultimate pilgrimage--the Crusades.

All of the chapters include lists of useful vocabulary, but that in the chapter about weapons and war is perhaps the most extensive, and covers items rarely mentioned in detail elsewhere.

The final chapters cover the Saxons and the Vikings, and give more information about France and Normandy, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland.

This is one of my favorite books, and I recommend it highly.

{Published in SF and Fantasy Workshop Newsletter, June 2002.}

THE ICE PICK

Viking Heritage, http://viking.hgo.se

Sponsored by Gotland University College in Sweden, this website has been set up "to encourage the preservation and enhanced understanding of the Viking period cultural heritage."

By searching their database, you can find information about Viking Age sites, reconstructions and excavations; museums, exhibitions, and events; re-enactment groups and academic projects; tours and travel routes; and even handicrafts for sale.
The website is frequently updated. L’Anse Aux Meadows had been updated 3/12/02, the very day I was searching. But this constant revision means that you may have to revisit the site to reach some things unavailable that day.

In searching, I found that the less detail I put in the better. For example, when I tried to find Peran’s Camp in Brittany, I failed until I tried simply "France," which brought up the Bayeux Tapestry and Peran’s Camp.

The Viking sites come up with a short description. For more detail, with photos and website links, click on the name.

Museums range from specialized on-site open air, ship, and archeological museums to national, city, or regional museums with significant Viking collections.

There is a "Chronology" of Viking history with links to people and places, and a "Who Is Who" with links to biographies of important Vikings and characters in Norse mythology and sagas.

The "Book Section on Vikings and the Viking Age" lists books with reviews of them and sometimes purchase information.

I found the "Academic Articles" section disappointing. Although they looked interesting, there were only two articles listed: "Political and Social Structures in Early Scandinavia" and "Yet Another Viking Archetype--the Medieval Urbanist."

The "Image Bank" was quite slow to download, as you would expect, but I found the pictures of reconstructions, sites, artifacts, and rune stones to be very interesting. The interior shots of reconstructed longhouses alone were fascinating and gave me some story ideas.

The English in the descriptions was a bit weird at times. "Harts" instead of "hearths" for example, but all in all I think the Swedes have done a fabulous job with this site.

They publish the Viking Heritage Magazine, but all prices were in Scandinavian currencies. It might be worth looking for if you have access to a large academic or public library.

My favorite parts of the website are the "Brief Introduction to the Viking Age," "Link of the Week," and "Topic of the Week."

The "Brief Introduction" had fascinating articles on the Viking homelands, expansion, trade, houses, death/burial/gods, runes, art, and defenses.

The "Link of the Week" has links to things like an article in Scientific American on Viking longships.

In the first ten weeks of this year, the "Topic of the Week" has had: farming, Thorrablot, seasons of the year, houses, hairstyles, mirrors, traveling by land, beds, thralls, and honor. Last year they covered: hawking; hemp; transportation; bronze casting; the Domesday Book; colors; Poland; berserk mead (including the recipe); Berserks; bread and baking; Ile de Groix, Brittany; conservation; the art of healing; ghosts; children; dogs; Bergen, Norway; the Rok Stone; the spread of Christianity; combs; Glima; coin inscriptions; Thor’s hammer amulets; Greek fire; skis and skiing; buttons; Wiskiauten, Poland; the Winchester Style; stirrups; beard styles; Gardar, Greenland; poles to the seat of honor; Thingvellir and Althing; Stargard, Germany; the Dnieper River; and fireplaces.

All these are accessible and printable and are full of information that is difficult to obtain elsewhere.
If you are working on a story set in the Viking Age, or a similar epoch or culture, this is an excellent site to explore for information and story ideas.

{Published in SF and Fantasy Workshop Newsletter, May 2002.}

THE ICE PICK

Ralan’s Specfic & Humor Webstravaganza, www.ralan.com.

Ralan Conley performs a marvelous service for all of us in speculative fiction with this well-designed, award-winning website. Primarily a marketing tool, the site offers much more.

The pages load quickly, and the site deposits no cookies. The navigation bar on the side stays with you as you scroll down the home page, allowing you to access what you want easily.

On this website you will find Ralan’s showcase for his own fiction as well as his personal response time log for markets he submits to. You can use this time log to estimate how long it will be before you hear back on your own submissions.

But the heart of this site is in the market lists for adult and juvenile books, anthologies, magazines, and webzines, all of which he maintains and updates regularly.

He lists "Pro," "Paying," and "4theLuv" markets. "Pro" markets are those paying 3 cents or more a word. "Paying" markets pay up to 2.9 cents a word. And "4theLuv" markets pay only in copies or "exposure." The Humor section includes story, article, and greeting card markets, as well as contests.

In these sections, Ralan gives the latest news and highlights new markets. Deadlines and market notes, like "Dead market, DO NOT SUBMIT" or "no unsolicited subs" give you fair warning. And if you click on the name of a market, you will get that publisher’s guidelines. An alphabetical finder helps you locate known markets quickly.

Accessible through the markets pages, but not shown on the navigation bar, you will find lists of contests, dead markets, and abbreviations, plus information on proper manuscript format, etc. I would put a caveat on his recommendation to include your Social Security number on all your manuscripts. A victim of identity theft myself, I was warned that you should not do this unless specifically asked for it in the guidelines. If the publisher is going to pay you, they usually send a contract and ask for your number anyway.

In addition, Ralan includes links to: agents, articles, artists, associations, authors, beware, book stores, chat, contests, copyright, courses, dictionaries, editors, events, film/TV, fun, genre, grammar, groups, help, hired help, jobs, libraries, links, magazines, markets, names, newsletters, promotion, publishers/publishing, reference, resources, service, free software, songwriting, and writing for and by youth.

Do you need to design an alien planet? Try the "reference" links, where you will also find C.J. Cherryh’s list of words commonly used before 1900 (which comes to thirty-five printed pages) and www.bartleby.com, which contains links to the Columbia Encyclopedia and Gazeteer, American Heritage Dictionary and Book of English Usage, Roget’s Thesaurus, the King James Bible, Simpson’s Contemporary Quotations, Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, and Columbia World Quotations, the World Factbook, Strunk’s Elements of Style, Gray’s Anatomy, the Oxford Shakespeare, and much, much more.

If you want to start your own zine, try the "resource" section, which has links to all kinds of writing articles as well as links to groups like our own workshop.

The "service" section includes postal information.

The sheer volume of information here is overwhelming, and Ralan is to be very highly commended for providing all of this for us for free! You owe it to yourself to take a look at this fabulous website. (I like his little animated monster, too!)

{Published in the SF and Fantasy Workshop Newsletter, Jan. 2002.}

THE ICE PICK

Tha Engliscan Gesithas. http://www.tha-engliscan-gesithas.org.uk/index.html. "The home of Tha Engliscan Gesithas, the society for people interested in all aspects of Anglo-Saxon language and culture."

Claiming to be "the only major historical society devoted to the Anglo-Saxon period . . . the society does not follow any particular interpretation of history, and maintains a strictly neutral line on political and religious matters."

This very attractively laid out website is loaded with scholarly information and is easy to navigate. Navigation buttons run down the side of the homepage so you can either click on one of them or on one of the subjects listed there.

Information about the Gesithas and what they do is the first thing listed and includes details on their newsletters, quarterly magazine, and membership if you are interested in joining. However, the e-mail address for their U.S. branch did not work when I tried it.

The site offers information about the birds of Anglo-Saxon England. Climate and environment are discussed, and there is a list of all the birds with bibliographic citations for each. The modern species which were present in Anglo-Saxon times, as well as the ones which weren’t, are discussed, so you can avoid anachronisms. Also discussed are: the birds of Roman Britain, falconry, literary references to Anglo-Saxon birds, birds named in medicinal recipes, and the naming of birds in Anglo-Saxon with modern interpretations.

A brief discussion of Old English poetry plus an audio reading is offered for "Deor," "The Funeral of Scyld Scefing," and "The Battle of Brunanburh." The poems are written out in both Old and Modern English.

The Firsby Saxon village reconstruction project in Lincolnshire is discussed with photos from the site.

There is a selected bibliography for Anglo-Saxon studies. In addition to the expected scholarly publications, the list includes fiction, plays, poems, and music. Children’s nonfiction books, which are often more accessible to the non-expert than scholarly works, are listed along with novels.

"First Steps in Old English" provides an interactive "introduction to an absolute beginner’s course in Old English." I found this fun to do, and in fact became intrigued with the language. A correspondence course is offered with a book and cassette, or you can order the text and study on your own.

Runes are defined, and runelore is discussed, with links to sites from which you can download font files for Windows. I was interested to learn, for example, that "a rune is a secret, a mystery, and the characters used for writing were called runstafas ‘rune-staves’ in Old English. The characters are not themselves runes but mere ciphers or symbols pointing to or marking out the mysteries proper." The origin, patterns, and matrices of runes are explained along with maybe more than you ever wanted to know about runes. Or, rune-staves, that is!

The Anglo-Saxon calendar is discussed in detail, including both the heathen calendar and the Venerable Bede’s calendar.

And finally, there is an Anglo-Saxon Ring site with links to Viking sites and all kinds of interesting early British history.

This is a wonderful website if you are interested in writing anything about early Britain or in using ideas from early Britain to create your own culture in your fantasy or science fiction.

{Published in SF & Fantasy Workshop Newsletter, July 2001.}

THE ICE PICK

The Writer’s Essential Desk Reference. Cincinnati, Writer’s Digest Books. ISBN 0-89879-759-4. $24.99.

This is a book for serious writers. By serious, I mean those who either are, or want to become, professionals. These are people who don’t write just for themselves, friends, and family, but who want to be published authors.

It includes information on "Living as a Writer," e.g. health insurance, contracts and literary rights, dealing with agents, setting up a freelance business, bookkeeping, home office expenses, taxes, whether you should incorporate or not, and how to judge whether a publication is apt to stiff you for payment (as Pulphouse’s The Report did me when I was starting out--not a fun experience for a new writer).

Lists of professional associations, retreats, conferences, fellowships, university writing programs, and correspondence schools are provided, along with advice and caveats and the relative advantages and disadvantages of different programs. Information about evaluating writers’ groups or creating your own is also included.

The rest of the book involves the actual production of your writing from research through selling it.

The chapter on research explains interlibrary loan; online researching; getting permission to use others’ copyrighted material; as well as obtaining U.S. government documents, scientific reports from the National Technical Information Service, and specific facts from individual government agencies.

There is also a section on some of the special needs of researching for fiction.

Desktop and self-publishing, and working with artists, collaborators, grammar services, graphic designers, illustrators, indexers, printers, proofreaders, translators, and typesetters are covered in the chapter on producing and polishing your manuscript. I was a bit disappointed that they didn’t give any information about traditional publishing, but the book is billed as a companion to Writer’s Market http://www.writersmarket.com, and they probably assumed that submitting to publishers is adequately covered there.

The chapter on selling your work includes in-depth analyses of freelancing for newspapers, radio and television, advertising, and technical writing.

Also included is a section called "Promoting Yourself," which discusses the pros and cons of advertising and book reviews, public speaking, TV and radio publicity, and hiring a publicist, as well as dealing with bookstores.

The final chapter deals with writing for Canadian markets, researching Canadian subjects, and selling in Canada.

Throughout the book are lists of further sources and resources on all the topics discussed. And these are all nicely indexed. There is, in addition, an excellent subject index.

Most of the book is aimed at nonfiction writers, but there is plenty here for fiction writers as well. If you are a serious author, you should at least take a look at what this book offers.

{Published in GPIC, the Oklahoma Science Fiction Writers Newsletter. Feb. 1999. Reprinted in SF & Fantasy Workshop Newsletter, June 2000.}