Cabal By Michael Jan Friedman - A Collection Of Stories That Just Didn't Want To Be Novels

Cabal And Other Unlikely Invocations Of The Muse by Michael Jan Friedman

I cannot remember when I received my autographed copy of Cabal, but I am pretty sure that I was in the middle of some thousand-page fantasy story that I had to read for the podcast I am on called The Orbital Sword. So, since my reading time is very limited during the school year, Cabal was, unfortunately set aside until I could get to it. Well, summer vacation arrived and I finally picked it up and read it, and in a word, wow!

Mike Friedman has, for the last few years, gone to self-publishing his books because the big publishers believe that some writer’s stuff is too niche to have a wide appeal and that the books won’t sell. I don’t know, maybe they’re right, or maybe they are just overlooking some really good stories. At any rate, Cabal and Other Unlikely Invocations of the Muse, or just Cabal to make it easier to type, is a collection of seven short stories that are each unique, fascinating, and very entertaining. Now, Mike is not generally known for being a short story writer, rather he is known for novels and comic books. He explains in the foreword to Cabal that he wanted to write a novel about a superhero who is not popular with a small segment of the population, and a few in that small segment decide that the superhero has to be taken out of the picture. But he goes on to say that this story didn’t want to be a novel, it wanted to be something shorter, more like a novella. So, quite “flummoxed” as Mike puts it, he just gave in and made the story a novella. Apparently there were other stories running through his mind that also didn’t want to be novels, so Mike decided to take these stories and put them into a single book.

What is inside the cover are seven stories that are about various people in some situations that are from Mike’s vivid imagination. The stories are…

• Aztlan: Speaker of Verse: A short prequel to Mike’s Aztlan novels, we enter a world in which the Aztecs have survived into modern times. The main character, Max Colhua, has just become a newly minted detective and while standing in a food vendor’s line, gets a call to work his first murder case. A very high profile case and his future will depend on getting it right.

• Behind Every Great Enhanced Being: We get to peak at the mail between the moms of a some superbeings. Things get a bit heated in this one.

• Floaters: An unscrupulous old curmudgeon gets a common condition where he sees spots, the reason he gets them is uncommon as he learns from a source that he consults out of desperation. Only a change will help him.

• Flame’s Hole: A man on a quest to destroy a ring that could cause a lot of problems finds that there are more problems beyond his mission.

• The Wall: “Yeah, that Wall” is about a look at things from another point of view. You’ll just have to read it to get it. Quite thought provoking.

• The Scales of Justice: A young, but very intelligent female lawyer argues a case to try to right an old wrong during a time when women aren’t supposed to be that smart.

• Cabal: A small contingent of people work to put an end to the life of a superhero that they see as a super-menace.

What Mike demonstrates in Cabal is the masterful ability to take one through a story while at the same time, develop fascinating characters as the story is in progress. By the time one gets to the and of a tale, one knows the character well enough to have some feelings for them, and it isn’t always positive feelings. I loved the “soccer-mom” like exchange between the characters in Behind Every Great Enhanced Being. You can feel the tension rising between the moms of the superbeings as accusations and counter accusations fly back and forth. Even in this format, we get to know the moms, and the children they are discussing in some pretty fine detail.

Another aspect that I enjoy in Cabal are the emotional outcomes that I felt as I read each story. In Floaters for instance, I did not like the main character very much. He is not a very nice man, he is very self centered and not at all caring about the important position he holds, other than what he can get out of it for himself. I felt some satisfaction knowing that he might get what he has coming to him, and I laughed when I read what had happened to others in his situation. In Flame’s Hole, I truly felt bad for the main character because all he wanted to do was finish his task and go home. Things just kept getting in the way and I wonder if he will ever be allowed to go.

I have to say though, that my favorite story in the book was Aztlan: Speaker of Verse. I have read both of the Aztlan books that are available and have enjoyed reading about the exploits of Max Colhua in the 20th Century Aztec world that Mike created. While there is some background on Max in the novels, Speaker of Verse gives us a glimpse of the character before he was allowed to work on his own. Max is a relentless gumshoe detective who plods along until he solves the case. He is right out of a film noir, and is fun to read. Perhaps it is because it is familiar ground that I enjoyed this story, only just slightly, above the others. But don’t misunderstand, everything in this volume is of the highest quality as far as stories and characters are concerned.

Along with that, I gotta say that I sailed through this book wanting to read on and on. One thing I noted as I read was how the text flowed so easily along. It is seldom I read something where there is a point that I have to stop, reread, and comprehend before I move on to the next idea. There were no such places in Cabal. It is a smooth read.

I will tell you that I did contribute to the KickStarter for this book and that when Mike announces his next project, I will be on board. So Mike, what’s next?

Well, there it is…

Qapla’!

Pangaea - An Anthology To Watch For - Huge Book, Great Authors, Now Funding On Kickstarter

Pangaea - A Kickstarter Project By Mike Friedman And A Pantheon Of Excellent Authors

Mike Friedman is at it again, another Kickstarter project, but this time he is not alone.

It wasn’t too long ago that well known author Michael Jan Friedman was dropping little cryptic hints on Facebook of something that he had in the works. I asked him what was up and he just told me to keep my eyes open for something big. Well he wasn’t kidding. This new project is an anthology of stories that will explore how the world might appear if, instead of the seven continents we know, that if all of the land masses were to have remained joined as one giant supercontinent called Pangaea. Here is the video that explains the project...

Students of natural history probably already know that this was once the case in the past, but according to Mike, his research tells that the land masses of the Earth have been all joined together on at least four occasions, but this has never happened during the course of known human history.

On the Visionary Trek podcast known as The Captain’s Table, Mike was interviewed and talked about how he loves to speculate on the “unexplored corners” of history in his books. Fans of Mike Friedman are probably aware of two novels that imagine what it might be like if Cortez had never conquered the Aztec civilization (see my blog post on Aztlan HERE).

Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, Mike is not alone on this project.  Pangaea will be an anthology of stories by Mike, as well as his fellow Crazy 8 authors, and Dayton Ward, Kevin Dilmore just to mention a few.  To see a complete list of writers involved, follow this LINK to the Kickstarter page where you will find a better description of the projects, the investment levels and the perks that go with them.

As always, I do not promote projects such as this unless I have contributed.

Well, there it is…

Q’aplaH!

Aztlan: Michael Jan Friedman's View Of A Modern Aztec Society

Imagine for a minute what it might be like if a long dead civilization had actually survived to modern times.  Say, for instance, the Aztecs.  What would it be like if the Conquistadors under Cortez had never arrived in ancient Mexico, or if they had what would it be like if the Aztecs had successfully defended themselves against the Spanish conquerors?

Michael Jan Friedman of Star Trek novel fame as well as numerous other projects put his imagination to work and came up with two independently published novellas that take a look at criminal activity in the Aztec city of Atzlan.

The first of the two works, Aztlan: The Last Sun (and Mike recommends that you read them in order because there are spoilers in the second book that point events in the first), introduces us to Maxtla Colhua, an investigator for the Aztec Empire that stretches across a large part of the Americas.  Maxtla is a former athlete that played an often brutal game that seemed to be a mix between American football and basketball.  

While enjoying a meal with his aunt, Maxtla is called to the scene of a murder that is much like those from ancient times.  It is up to him to determine who is responsible for that murder and a series of murders that all follow the same pattern.  His investigation reveals numerous distractions and misdirection to stop him from finding the truth.  But his keen senses keep him on track as he discovers corruption in his own department, as well as problems at the highest levels.

In the second of the two novellas currently available, Aztlan: The Courts of Heaven, We once again follow the adventures of Maxtla as he learns more about his department’s corruption, and investigates the murder of the greatest athlete to play the game.  Maxtla has to find the answers again as he is lead through a confusing trail of leads that go nowhere, and with the most popular player of the game turning up dead, he has to get it done before the devoted fans rip the city to shreds.

I have always had a fascination with ancient civilizations, which is why I decided to read these two stories.  I thought I would give the first one a try and found myself hooked within the first few pages and couldn’t stop reading until I had finished both stories, finding myself wanting more.  Maxtla is a very interesting character that cares a great deal about the traditions of his department.  He is a patient, plodding detective that can use his wits to get to the bottom of a case, no matter what deceptions are thrown in his way.  He takes a lot of punishment in these two stories, but is like a devoted bloodhound, able to glean the truth and make sense of nonsense.  He is not a larger than life hero, just a man doing his job for the Empire.  He has a great sense of humor that manifests itself in the form of a dry wit.  If I had to compare these stories with another idea, I would have to say that it is much like NYPD Blue set in a world with a very different culture than what we know today.

I was able to contact Mike before writing this post to ask him a few questions about Aztlan.  He graciously responded to my questions, for which I extend my sincere thanks…

Q: Would you consider the Aztlan stories Science Fiction, Alternate Reality, or perhaps Speculative Fiction?  None of the above?

Mike: “Great question. I once described the Aztlan series to an editor at Random House. She said she loved the idea but she could never buy it because no chain book store buyer would know where to put it in his stores. It's certainly an alternate reality, but not what you might call an alternate history in that the point of divergence--the failure of Cortes to conquer the Aztecs--is hundreds of years in the past as compared to when the stories take place.”

Q.:What possessed you to resurrect a long dead civilization?

Mike: “I've always been fascinated by the Aztecs, I guess. As the end of the Mesoamerican calendar caught the public's imagination with its end-of-days flavor, I started thinking more and more about what that end would look like if the Aztecs were still a thriving civilization today--an isolationist empire that stretched from what we call Baffin Bay to what we call Tierra Del Fuego. The concept just grew from that point on.”

Q: Obviously, you were well researched in the culture of the Aztecs, what was involved with that?

Mike: “As I say, I'd been interested in the Aztecs for some time so I wasn't starting my research from scratch. Still, I took out books from the library, surfed the net, and so on until I felt comfortable in the world I was creating. Believe me, there's a lot of research that will never make it into the stories but you always have to know more than you'll tell the reader if you want to create a believable setting.”

Q: Can we Expect future installments of Aztlan?

Mike: “I've got more stories in mind, sure, but a couple of other projects are a somewhat higher priority right now--one of them being my new young-adult superhero novel I Am The Salamander, which was the subject of a successful Kickstarter and will be out in June.”

Q:   If every character is a part of you, which part is Imperial Investigator Maxtla Colhua, the protagonist in the Aztlan stories?

 Mike: “Maxtla is like me in a lot of ways. He's devoted to his work, he has a sense of humor, and he's a romantic. Of course, he's also a political conservative, as I was when I was very young, but he's learning more about the world around him and is becoming more open-minded as a result. He's growing in a way that I think is very plausible and very exciting, sort of like the Jack Nicholson character in Chinatown.”

Mike is part of an independent publishing company called Crazy 8 Press; a group of authors that that, along with Mike, includes such names as Robert Greenberger, and Peter David and many others.  While many of the authors are part of mainstream publishing, especially many of the Star Trek novels, they needed an outlet for their other works that the mainstream may not wish to take chances on, or as Mike explains it:

“The publisher of the Aztlan tales, Crazy 8 Press, which I co-founded, is dedicated to getting quirky stuff like the Aztlan stories out to readers. These are tales traditional publishers can't afford to take a chance on because they're suited more to the discerning reader than to the masses. However, we at Crazy 8 Press don't have to sell tens of thousands of copies to make the effort worth our while. All we need to reach is that consumer who has seen the same story a dozen times and wants something different for a change.”

Those of you that read this blog on a regular basis know that it is by and for fans of science fiction, but every now and again, I find that I have a need to read something that is outside of the strict scifi realm; I just need a break once in a while.  I came upon the Aztlan books through posts on Facebook from Mike promoting these stories, and found them to fit the bill of a diversion perfectly.  Both books are under 150 pages each and can easily be read in one sitting giving a complete story in each.  If you, like me, need a break from your usual fare, I highly recommend Aztlan to broaden your horizons a little.

Well, there it is…

 QaplaH’!