by Phil Lane

Hellborn, and like a Sioux,
every sunrise is a vice
to contend with,
a white man’s worst
enemies—alcohol,
tobacco, tents where no thieves
can break in, coyote runs
wild again, a child
grown so old, so
loveless, so thin,
on this postmodern frontier,
there is only one desk,
one chair. I escape and
trace a Marsh Hawk
above the water gap
where she turns a circle
and laughs
because a motel room
is a poor excuse for nature,
Budweiser, a poorer excuse
for whiskey, the tongue
does not burn, the heart
doesn’t jump,
it’s one thing to be lost
in the wild, but to be lost
at Exit 45 is neither heroic
nor romantic. Either way,
I am alone with my own blood,
carry my own history like a skull,
every past is symmetrical, intact,
ready for exposition,
even explication, if only
I had a brown-skinned woman
rather than a white-washed
imagination. Instead,
I fantasize where
a thousand others have before,
a cumcloud hung in the air
over the interstate.
When it all come down
to bones, to dust,
I hate to admit
that this is not Pocahontas,
and this is not Potomac,
this is the middle of nowhere
and it is now—

To listen to a spoken word version of this poem, click on the link below.

Hellborn

Phil Lane’s poems have been published in various small magazines over the past five years.  He lives in Northern New Jersey with his dog and teaches English for a tutoring company.

Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar – The Manga Edition
Adam Sexton and Hyeondo Park
Wiley Publishing
178 pages
$9.99

While some people may think the idea of blending Shakespeare with manga, a comic-form that’s gained rapid popularity amongst today’s youth, is something of a literary blasphemy, others may be willing to embrace this unusual art form as a teaching aid, which is indeed how Wiley Publishing’s “Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar – The Manga Edition” is marketing it as. Bearing this in mind, we delve into the pages with the mindset of an easily bored young teenager who really needs to score high on that next test.

The book itself can be looked at in three ways; the quality of its art, the faithfulness of the text, and the helpfulness it poses as a study aid.

As an artform, it rates poorly. Manga varies wildly in its art, from painstakingly detailed to roughed out to give a general idea of what’s going on. This book falls more towards the latter category. While this might leave much to be desired for a reader looking to be entertained by the pictures, it at least gets the job done well enough so you know where you’re at in the story and what’s going on. To the less imaginative reader who has a hard time puzzling out precisely what ancient Rome and her senators must have looked like, it does a passable job of filling in the blanks.

The text is kept pure; there’s no “dumbing down” of the language. In the form presented here, such a tactic would have been self-defeating at best. The goal is to get the reader to better infer what Shakespeare’s words meant by use of visual aid. If the reader seeks only for a basic plot they can glean from the pages quickly, they would be better off reading a summary off of SparkNotes. For this, a round of applause goes to Sexton and Park. Seeing Julius Caesar say, “Dude, you too Brutus?” would have just been weird anyway.

Taking these two crucial factors, we can determine whether or not it does its job as a study aid. In this, the art, while nothing to frame on your wall, does its work and the reader can better understand what’s going on. At times it can be difficult to keep the Senators apart, just as it is in the text, but they’re kept separate enough in appearance that it’s nothing a quick note jotted down wouldn’t fix. In fact, Sexton and Park go to all the trouble of doing this for you by providing a page where all the conspirators are lined up, unhooded, and their names rattled off as though in roll call. Where it is important, facial expressions are drawn with exaggerated care to set the mood of the speakers, adding further emphasis to the tone and drama of the piece.

All in all, this is a recommended book if you find yourself struggling with the story or are looking for an entertaining way to brush up on the text before class. It’s even an amusing addition for any Shakespeare enthusiast seeking a quirky new medium to get their fix.

Andrea Martin

The Laurentine Spy
Emily Gee
Solaris
410 pages
£7.99

Picture yourself surrounded by luxuries of one’s wildest dreams – the richest, finest foods, the most attentive servants, willing and lovely courtesans, a life free of most worry and care, save that at any moment you might be sniffed out for what you truly are – a spy for the enemy nation of Laurent.

Perhaps it’s not the most ideal life, but surely this life of luxury makes up for what danger there is? The heroes of The Laurentine Spy, Saliel and Athan, might beg to differ. Both come from a land of gaiety and laughter, brightness and cheer, to one filled with stiff formality and peering, suspicious eyes. Food turns to ash in one’s mouth at the slightest thought of having been sniffed out, for the punishment of spies is torture. With that Damocles’ Sword hanging overhead, it becomes hard for our heroes to enjoy the life they’ve been thrust into.

One of the most delightful aspects of the story is Emily Gee’s profound ability to deliver a great deal of information with very little exposition. When we watch Saliel travelling in the catacombs where “the brush of her gloved fingertips over the cold stone made a faint whisper of sound” and “the dark was too dense, too absolute,” we can understand perfectly well the choking, claustrophobic sensation that the spy must be feeling; no long and winding passages of how the strata of rock sits or a detailed history of the passage is necessary here!

Possibly it is because of this secretive lifestyle of our heroes that they find a strange and intangible romance – for none of the spies are aware of one another’s identities, in order to keep them all safe should one be caught. Athan and Soleil, known to each other only as One and Three, cling to the illusion of each other and let their hearts fall for figures that they’ve never even seen the face of.

As the romance progresses, with all its little twists and turns, I heard my inner reader chortling softly but scornfully, for what had potential, seemed to fall flat. The strange tale of love between the heroes had a distinctly sitcom feel to it, which drained its interest somewhat. Luckily, the action provided early on in these pages is more than enough to keep the interest of the reader.

The point that may make or break the book for some readers is how a story of suspense and trickery laced with love becomes a story of romance laced with some deception at some point. This reversal is not terribly subtle; the reader will probably catch the point at which one genre ends and the other begins with ease. Although this love affair is unconventional when held against the “storybook” romance, some of the usual tropes are still present. It’s enough to sate the appetite of casual romance though readers hunting for something new and innovative will find it wanting. Gee seems to take a setting that could demand the upheaval of her created world and narrows it down to two people, with the scope never widening again. True, the personal worlds of Athan and Saliel are intriguing, the reversal of genres seems to make all else a background noise to this lackluster love story.

An interesting effect that Gee produces for her readers is the source of dual entertainment and frustration. There is a decided lack of information with regards to the homeland of our heroes, Laurent, and their current residence, Corhona. Admittedly, all one needs to know is that they dislike each other enough for there to be a need of espionage, but like spies ourselves we must watch carefully for the hints that are scattered throughout the tale; a mention of fashion here, a memory of childhood there, all add up to paint a somewhat incomplete, but adequate picture of the world being navigated.

While The Laurentine Spy may struggle against more inventive tales, it contains moments of breath-holding suspense, piqued curiosities, and lip-biting concern that makes this book worth looking at regardless.

Andrea Martin

We’re excited to announce our first Straylight podcast, which includes an interview with the amazing science fiction author, Cory Doctorow. The entire interview runs about an hour, and we’ve broken it into three sections: Makers-related discussion, a short bit on writing craft, and finally a riveting discussion of the future of publishing in the digital era.

Doctorow Interview.

Section 1. Makers.
Section 2. The craft of writing.
Section 3. Publishing and copyright.

We recommend that you check out Cory Doctorow’s novels. All of them are available to download under creative commons.

You can also follow Doctorow’s work on Boing Boing, which he co-edits.

Look for our podcasts at the end of each month. Anyone interested in the state of small press publishing, the craft of writing, what’s new and cool in print, and/or all things geeky and literary should keep their browsers pointed to www.straylightmag.com.

The Roman Bridge on the Vidourle
for Chuck Svitavsky

The Mediterranean sun has bleached
the face of this ancient bridge,
making of stones the weavings
of a blank tapestry.

Where are the gods whose statues
blessed the alcoves of these spandrels?
Where are the lions of war
roaring at the sun and rain?

Where are the lovers seeking darkness?

There are no stories here, no memory.
Those who drowned beneath these arches
are mourned no longer. The murdered
infants have long since drifted away.

Uncounted stargazers are nameless,
like the builders of these arches,
which, mirrored in the water, make egg-shaped ovals
that encircle, but do not elucidate,

the quiet river as it gently passes.
Patrick McGuire
____________________________________________________________________

“The Roman Bridge on the Vidourle” was inspired by the bridge of the same name seen below.

The poem was taken from a series that McGuire has written on bridges.