I came across an old book today. A book which I have read religiously at least once a year since I was probably 15. I had been looking for a new book at the bookstore, and hadn't quite yet opened up to the possibility that there were more than two good authors in the world. I remember I was dispairing, and was resolving to just go home and re-read the books I knew I would love. It seemed every book I picked up was by an out of date, archaic author, or by some chick (women are generally not good writers, at least, in my opinion. Disagree with me if you like, and if you take it personally, my bad. It's my opinion, and I'm entitled to it).
At last, my dad walked up, picked up a random book (which by chance, happened to be a best seller), and handed it to me. "Read this. It looks good." He was right. There was a grey bearded old man the size of an ogre, wielding an enormous axe, cutting through a bunch of what could only be bad guys. It was written by a man I'd never heard of before, David Gemmell. It had a simple, straight forwardly ambiguous title: LEGEND. Fuck yeah, I bought it.
I went home and poured through that book faster than I think I've ever read a book on a first read. It was about an invincible army descending upon a mostly undefended fortress, and the men who fought to hold the walls. Every character that graced those pages was refreshingly real and unique...they were men with real emotions, real values, and real doubts about their own ability to look death in the eye.
There was Rek, the self-doubting and terrified rogue-turned-warrior, soon to be called "the Earl Bronze"(yes, that's awesome). There was Hogun, the Legion commander, the only officer who stayed with his men to try and fight for the fortress, knowing full well he was going to die doing so. And on the other end of the spectrum, there was the farmer Gilead, who fought for no other reason than it seemed like a good idea, and he hated farming. But above all of them...there was Druss. He stood eight feet off the page...he dominated every sentence and paragraph. I had never read anything like it...I'd never read about that kind of a hero before. The kind of fictional hero who would laugh at any guy Tolkien ever thought up in his head...the kind of guy who would have looked ridiculously too tough to possibly not survive the movie 300. To tough, so untouchable, with a straight forward code of ethics...oh yeah, and he was 60 years old. Half of the book you read about him cutting through a crowd of men, and then later, how bad he threw out his shoulder or knee in doing so. Druss was tough on a level I did not know existed (even fictionally).
So today, although I just read it last fall, I put it on my nightstand, and will probably spend the next four hours reading it tonight. The main reason being...David Gemmell. Over the past, what, ten years, I've read every one of his 30 something books, most of them repeatedly. Mostly because you just can't get much more word for word value out of a book. The man wrote barely 300 page novels which are always to the point, and they carry a similar plot line: a doubting young man gets pushed into a world of violence where death is almost certain, and along comes a grizzled, old, beaten down warrior to show him the ways of killing. The young man will meet a hot, crazy chick who likes killing too...and they take out some seriously bad dudes. Obviously I'm dumbing it down a bit...but when you get down to the core of what makes Gemmell's books so good...it's their simplicity. What makes them work, and what makes them so important to me...are all the different levels of morals and ethics which Gemmell thought to be important in terms of what it means to be a man. They are books that every young man should read in his defining years.
He died recently, a few years ago. I remember feeling like a true hero of mine had passed...as if Druss had really, finally died. I've always felt like the men in his stories are representations of himself...or at least, idealized versions. The men in his stories were what he thought a man should be: tough, uncrompromising, loyal, tough, infinitely faithful to the love of his life, tough, and did I mention...Tough. As. Fucking. Nails.
But perhaps the best story I've ever read by David Gemmell was an article he wrote for some random fiction magazine. In it, he told the story (in far more words than I'll use here) of a young boy who lived in London after WWII, whose single mother was what some people would call "loose" (which was probably akin to being the average 8th grade girl now days). Anyways, the kid was often teased and beaten up, was a huge wimp, and spent most nights terrified of the "vampires" that lived in the darkness.
Alas, one day, the kid got fed up with being bullied all the time, and punched one of his bullies in the face. The victim's dad decided to chase him down, corner him in an alley, and threaten to kick his ass...which probably would have happened...if not for a huge hand clamping down on the man's shirt. The huge newcomer picked up the other man easily, looked him in the eye, and said...
"Why are you pickng on that kid?"
"He...he was bulling my kid, B-B-Bill."
"Well, I was just on a walk with that boy's mom. How bout you get the fuck out of here and dont ever touch the boy again."
"Sure thing. Sorry, Bill."
Obviously, the kid in the story was David Gemmell. Thye man in the story was his step dad, Bill, whom Gemmell says used as the basis for Druss. A year or so later, while still kid, young David Gemmell woke up from a nightmare to find his step dad sitting next to him (probably looking tough as nails).
"What's wrong, son?"
"I'm scared of vampires. There was a vampire in here."
"Yeah, I know. But I broke that fucker's neck. I won't have vampires running around my house." (take that Twilight fans).
Gemmell says that after that night, he never stayed awake in fear of vampires again. In fact, he grew into a hell of a badas himself. He was 6'5, got kicked out of high school for starting a gambling ring, worked as a bouncer, and eventually ended up in journalism, where we worked until he got cancer and decided to write a book...Legend. Obviously he didn't die at that point, he was too tough. But getting back to why that story is my favorite, it's because it contains the line which I think best describes what kind of guy I want to be...and what kind of man Gemmell expected himself to be, and others as well.
He said that the world needs men like Bill. That there's always going to be the need for shepherds to tend the flock, to defend the world from wolves. They're men who are larger than life, won't back down to anything, and will defend what they believe in to the death. They're true heroes. They are, as he put it, Men who know how to deal with vampires.
Yeah, that's awesome.
I grew up with men of violence. I understand men of violence. It means that when I write action scenes and when I have violent characters, I have a very strong feel for it.
-David Gemmell
what a fantastic post. huge gemmell fan here too
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