I am thrilled to be hosting a spot
on the THE RUSH by Si Spurrier & Nathan C. Gooden Blog
Tour hosted by Rockstar
Book Tours. Check out my post and make sure to enter the giveaway!
About The Book:
Title: THE RUSH: This Hungry Earth Reddens Under
Snowclad Hills (The Rush #1-5)
Author: Si Spurrier, Addison Duke (Colorist), Nathan C.
Gooden (Illustrations), Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou (Letterer), Adrian F. Wassel
(Editor)
Pub. Date: August 9, 2022
Publisher: Vault Comics
Formats: Paperback, eBook
Pages: 136
Find it: Goodreads, Amazon, Kindle, B&N, iBooks, Kobo, TBD, Bookshop.org
Historical
horror that chills to the bone, The RUSH. is for fans of Dan
Simmons’, The Terror mined with a Northwestern Yukon gold rush
edge. Answer the call of the wild north and stampede to the Klondike…
ALL THAT GLITTERS IS NOT GOLD. ALL THAT HUNGERS IS NOT HOLY. ALL THAT LIVE
ARE NOT ALIVE.
This Hungry Earth Reddens Under Snowclad Hills.
1899, Yukon Territory. A frozen frontier, bloodied and bruised by the last
great Gold Rush. But in the lawless wastes to the North, something whispers in
the hindbrains of men, drawing them to a blighted valley, where giant
spidertracks mark the snow and impossible guns roar in the night.
To Brokehoof, where gold and blood are mined alike. Now, stumbling towards its
haunted forests comes a woman gripped not by greed -- but the snarling rage of
a mother in search of her child...
From Si Spurrier (Way of X, Hellblazer) and Nathan C. Gooden (Barbaric, Dark
One) comes THE RUSH, a dark, lyrical delve into the horror and madness of the
wild Yukon.
Collects the entire series. For fans of The Terror, Fortitude, Coda,
and Moonshine.
Reviews:
"The
book strikes a wealthy mixed vein of sophisticated psychological chills and
monstrous horror."― Publishers Weekly
"Gritty historical drama meets supernatural horror in this sumptuously
drawn tale set during the Yukon Gold Rush." ― PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"The Rush is a chilling bit of historical horror.
Rugged and raw and thoroughly researched. It's got such a wonderfully creepy
sense of menace but most of all it's the moving story of a mother searching for
her child, that's its beating heart. Wonderful work." -- Victor
Lavalle (best-selling and award-winning author of he anthology, Slapboxing
with Jesus and four novels, The Ecstatic, Big Machine, The
Devil in Silver, and The Changeling, the fantasy-horror novella The
Ballad of Black Tom, and the comics series Destroyer and Eve)
"The Rush is a splendidly savage tale of frontier scum
and the doom they’ve brought down upon themselves, and the innocents cursed to
suffer alongside them. I for one can’t wait to see more." -- Garth
Ennis (best-selling and award-winning writer, Preacher, and
writer/co-creator of The Boys)
Guest Post:
What are some of your favorite video
games?
Si: I’m very
much a narrative-first gamer. I want story.
To the
extent, in fact, that I get a bit wincey when I hear people say “I beat the
game!” No, you didn’t. If the designers wanted the game to be unbeatable they
could’ve made it that way. You persisted.
And yes, I get it, the phrase is a skeuomorphic relic from the days when games
were arcade-exclusive and completing one meant no more industrious sacrificing
of quarters. Hence: triumph. But I’m petty about things like this.
It’s a good
thing therefore that there are plenty of gamers unlike me whose primary
gratification is proving their skill,
overcoming obstacles, feeling victorious. Sports games, racing games, fighting
games. I want a bit of that, sure – challenge me, make me think, test my
reaction times – but only in as much as I’m constantly being rewarded by the
next partial unraveling of the story. And the very notion of competing with
other Actual Human Beings online? Gah! This is supposed to be leisure time -
don’t make me interact with people! That’s just cruel.
Thinking
with my typing-fingers, here: evidently I see videogames as a sort of
dimensional elongation of prose novels, with the carefully tooled illusion of
interactivity heightening the payoffs. I want to feel safely and expertly held
in the storytellers’ hands. I don’t want any danger of the bubbling chaos of my
own brain tripping up the experience of a well-told story. Don’t make me choose how this ends!
One
exception to the rule: the utterly exquisite Disco Elysium, about which I cannot rant enough. Here the
interactive elements, the decisions and choices, can often feel maddeningly
painful – maddeningly real in the
sense that you simply can’t predict how things will spin out – and yet the
writing (and voice acting) is so deftly handled that one always feels confident
in a satisfying resolution, irrespective of what forks in the path are taken
along the way. That’s an extraordinary level of genius at work, and actively
invites replays. If you haven’t played it, you must.
I guess
partly my approach (cf: my neurosis?)
to all this speaks to media territorialism: I don’t have much time at the end
of the working day to unwind, so if it’s not a game it’s gonna be a TV show. We
live in a golden age of television – I can pretty much guarantee that within a
45 minute slot I will be moved and surprised and emotionally manipulated with
expert grace – so games have gotta work pretty hard to compete for my
story-addicted hindbrain. In short: I want passivity masquerading as
proactivity.
Luckily some
of the best writing I’ve recently encountered has been in games. I think that owes something to the unique
mechanism behind the journey the player takes. Investment, effort, reward. All
writers understand that if they can make an audience work a little bit – whether it’s subconscious effort, sacrifice of
time, memorisation, puzzling, whatever – then the emotional beats, when they
come, hit harder and deeper. (Oddly enough this is also a very good working
definition for ceremonial magic. You sacrifice something – usually time and
effort – and in return you feel or think something. Interesting.)
But… make
the journey too difficult or the reward too slight? People quit. It’s an
exquisitely precise balancing act, made all the more complicated because
everyone has a different tolerance. For me the best games are the ones which
walk the tightrope without a single teeter, irrespective of the bells and
whistles. The reassuring presence of the storyteller. This is all meant to happen this way. I’m not interested in beating
the game. I’m interested in it holding my hand while we jump off ledges
together.
To give an
interesting example, I find the Hidetaka Miyazaki games almost tailor-made to
infuriate me. The setup is so compelling, the worldbuilding is chock full of
hooks and draws, the worlds are so beautifully realized and welcoming to the
explorer – I want in. And yet the
(notorious) difficulty of the gameplay plus the deliberate thinness of the
unraveling plot, bumps the balancing scales of my Effort/Reward equilibrium
waaaay too far towards the former. But I know very well that a lot of people
love this stuff with a passion. Nobody’s right, nobody’s wrong.
In general
I’d rather be transported into someone else’s head and thoughts. I want to
experience the West as John Marston, or Arthur Morgan (Red Dead Redemption & RDR2) - with all their flaws and history
and baggage and tragedy - than be invited to impose myself upon the role.
Red Dead Redemption, in fact – which I’ll talk about a
little more in a moment – was one of the defining narratives of my 20s. Along
with Deadwood it seeded, watered and
shaped my obsession with the deep and mythic themes lurking behind the Western
genre. Transition, tragedy, the loss of entire paradigms. The Wild West only
becomes truly compelling when there’s a sense the era is about to end. So many
of the best Westerns feature a character who is overtly Of The Old World, often
fighting to protect the brave new world that’s coming, even though he or she
has no place in it.
I mention
all this here because my most recent graphic novel, The Rush, is very much a long-brew product of many years of
pondering these things. It’s a Western – well, a North Western – in which the tragedy and mortality of the time is
muddled with folkloric horror and the driving purity of a parent’s love. I
think it may be the best thing I’ve ever written, and a deep dive into its DNA
would absolutely stumble across Red Dead
Redemption (and its zombie-centric DLC!).
Anyway, back
to videogames. Back to the tyranny of a clear narrative. Personally I’d far
rather submit to a story than attempt to insert myself solipsistically into it.
I’d rather explore a fantastical continent as Geralt of Rivia (a la The Witcher series) than create a tabula
rasa character to do the same (eg - The
Elder Scrolls series). That’s probably the novelist in me talking again.
I’m tyrannical about stories having their perfect pitch. I want to know the
writer is in control of every element, steering things towards the most
satisfying payoff possible. I want elements of interactivity and choice to be
carefully curated so they don’t trip up the story.
Some recent
joys, then – having set out my stall – to join the ones I mentioned already.
The Horizon: Zero etc etc games have both
been a wonderful diversion. Some slightly odd narrative choices and
occasionally repetitive gameplay, but more than redeemed by the expertly paced uncoiling
of the broader conspiracies. And who doesn’t want to spend as much time as
possible in an apocalyptic tribal wilderness populated by robot megafauna?
Sometimes the world is the story, and
– as long as it’s a good one – that’s fine.
Control was a revelation. A totally
unexpected gem weaving character, play and story with some huuuuge,
mind-bending ideas. Highly recommended.
I have a
sort of Ur-Moment I talk about sometimes, which established (and still defines)
my enduring love for games. I suppose it’s a great example of the ways that
smart storytellers can manipulate the ludonarrative balance. It’s a moment in Red Dead Redemption, which I mentioned
earlier. The sequel is undoubtedly the more technically brilliant and immersive
game (and also features some very clever storytelling) but this particular
moment I’m about to elaborate was my first experience of a storytelling tool unique to the medium. It marked me like
a scar. For those who don’t know, RDR
is the story of a former criminal in the dying days of the Wild West
(transitional eras being inevitably soaked in tragedy and therefore
automatically fertile ground for stories). Our ex-outlaw is trying to go
straight – trying to run a little farm with his wife and son – but some
assholes have kidnapped his family and are forcing him to go round-up the
members of his old gang. As you’d expect, there ensues a lot of riding around,
shooting bad guys, lassoing killers and so forth. In gamer terms: fun.
But then
eventually there comes a moment when you think
you’ve completed the game. (Don’t worry - this isn’t much of a spoiler. There’s
still plenty more game to go.) You’ve got your family back, you’re home on the
farm, all seems well. And suddenly the sorts of missions you’re being given by
the game switch from (eg) go kill some guy, go burn down some gang’s hideout,
go mow down legions of bandits with a gatling gun… to (eg) please scare the
birds off the crops, please round up the cows, please fix the grainstore…
It’s boring. But it’s deliberately boring.
Because the game has manipulated you, the gamer, into feeling something which
the main character – who is nothing like
you in the real world – is also feeling. To whit: life was better when I was an outlaw and killer. I don’t want to be a
farmer after all.
That’s
brilliant storytelling.
Nathan: HALO! I LOVE a challenge when I want to compete against
other gamers. I have to agree with Si, Red DEAD Redemption is something
special. It transports you to another time and place.
For THE
RUSH, the game Hunt really inspired me, it is a horror story set in the west
during the gold rush. Great designs and premise. It really set the stage for me
to work with SI.
Jaime: Want to try any of the awesome games
they’ve mentioned? They talk about a few of mine here (The Witcher, The Red
Dead Games, The Witcher) so it made me happy!
About Si Spurrier:
His work in the latter field stretches from award winning
creator-owned books such as Numbercruncher, Six-Gun
Gorilla and The Spire to projects in the
U.S. mainstream like Hellblazer, The
Dreaming, and X-Men. It all began with a series
of twist-in-the-tail stories for the UK’s beloved 2000AD, which
ignited an enduring love for genre fiction. His latest book, Coda,
is being published by Boom! Studios at present.
His prose
works range from the beatnik neurosis-noir of Contract to
the occult whodunnit A Serpent Uncoiled via
various franchise and genre-transgressing titles. In 2016 he took a foray into
experimental fiction with the e-novella Unusual Concentrations:
a tale of coffee, crime and overhead conversations.
He lives in Margate, regards sushi as part of the plotting process, and
has the fluffiest of cats.
Website | Twitter |
Instagram | Goodreads
About Nathan C. Gooden:
An
award-winning illustrator and sequential artist, Nathan C. Gooden is
Art Director at Vault Comics. Nathan studied animation at the Pratt Institute
in Brooklyn, and worked in film production, before co-founding Vault Comics.
Nathan’s previous works include Brandon Sanderson’s Dark One (Vault), Barbaric
(Vault), Zojaqan (Vault), and Killbox (from
American Gothic Press). He lives in Southern California, where he plays a lot
of basketball and hikes constantly with his wife.
Website | Instagram | Goodreads
Giveaway Details:
2 winners
will receive a finished copy of THE RUSH, US Only.
Ends August
23rd, midnight EST.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Tour Schedule:
Week One:
Week Two:
Week Three:
Week Four:
