I’m e rathke, the author of a number of books. Learn more about what you signed up for here. Go here to manage your email notifications.
This Week’s Posts
Tuesday: Wong Kar Wai - Fallen Angels - I discuss Fallen Angels by Wong Kar Wai in my continued series on his filmography. More information here on the series.
Wednesday: Paying subscribers received Chapter Eight of Emrys the Fool and free subscribers received Chapter Six. If you received neither, there are instructions here on how to get these in your email.
Thursday: I interviewed Sujan Sundareswaran.
Saturday: I wrote this over a decade ago and it’s one of the few stories I’ve read aloud to a crowd at one of the very few public readings I’ve ever given in my life. After, someone asked me if it was true, which I found very funny.
This is a lecture in defense of Otto Bertolini and the books he wrote after he died.
I’ve always liked this story and meant to keep writing things like this. But you get new ideas and wander off. It’s sort of me miming Roberto Bolano miming Jorge Luis Borges.
From the Archives
Since Iron Wolf is coming out at the end of the month, I thought I’d remind everyone where and how this series began. You can catch up by reading Howl and you can listen to me talk more about it back in December on the Agitator podcast.
Paying subscribers already received Iron Wolf and some have already read it, which is pretty neat.
Listening
One of my favorite songs performed by the masked cowboy who has been growing on me quite a bit.
Reading
Finished Cormac McCarthy’s The Passenger, which I think is mostly not very good. It’s acclaim, I think, comes from the name of the author attached. If this were published by someone not named Cormac McCarthy, it would be treated as an interesting oddity.
Reread Speaker for the Dead for the first time in twenty years. I will have a lot to say about this in the future, possibly at some other website.
There’s a wild energy to
that I’ve come to enjoy quite a bit. This is a good example of what you can expect from him. launched a new magazine on Substack and it’s pretty neat. I think it’s only been around for about a month, but if you like short stories that are a bit longer than what’s usually published in a magazine, this is a place to keep your eyes on.The Broken River gang is coming up with a similar project. More on this later, but we’ll be bringing this to life most likely through Kickstarter to try to get funding to pay Pro-rates for short stories.
Watching
Watched David Lynch’s Dune, which is wacky and hilarious. I loved it. Also, this video on wrestling:
I haven’t watched wrestling since I was twelve or so and so I have no real interest in it, but I quite like Super Eyepatch Wolf and his enthusiasm for wrestling makes me wish I had never stopped watching.
The way he finds the power of storytelling in this very silly medium is really a celebration of serialized narratives that happen in real time, bending and flexing and contracting in response to the audience. Since wrestling happens over the course of decades, a lot of story can be told in fascinating ways.
What Else?
My coauthor Kyle Muntz and I successfully completed Episode Seven of The Shattered Stars, which is sort of True Grit in space, which is as fun as it sounds. You should be reading that next September. It reached such an emotional peak from such an unlikely source that I wish I could just give it to all of you right now.
Starting on Friday, I’ll begin releasing my serialized audionovel about a young boy named Carrot who wants to become a pirate. This is the story I’ve been telling my son each night and which I began recording for his Yoto Player. And since I’ve already recorded them, I thought I might as well share them with you wonderful people.
I’ve decided to make July a month of game reviews and essays, so you have that to look forward to!
Also, I’ll be home watching my kids this upcoming week because our childcare has told us on short notice they’ll be on vacation. So, uh, pray for me or something.
In the meantime, read my books that are currently out. Then review them.
Thank you.
My novels:
Glossolalia - A Le Guinian fantasy novel about an anarchic community dealing with a disaster
Sing, Behemoth, Sing - Deadwood meets Neon Genesis Evangelion
Howl - Vampire Hunter D meets The Book of the New Sun in this lofi cyberpunk/solarpunk monster hunting adventure
Colony Collapse - Star Trek meets Firefly in the opening episode of this space opera
The Blood Dancers - The standalone sequel to Colony Collapse.
Iron Wolf - Sequel to Howl. Coming 7/25/2023
Some free books for your trouble:
Wolf.
Howl.