Do you know what a leitmotif is?

[Relique du Madde]

Jack 7, I agree with alot that you said however....

My personal opinion is never talk down to your audience. A novel is not a comic-book, is should be a work filled with "new ideas." Assume if you're audience doesn't know a thing, that they're smart enough to learn or to want to learn, and that one of your functions as an author is not just to entertain but also to inspire. Even to inspire one to learn what he doesn't already know.

I'd keep the term.
Exploit it even.

But there have been brilliant (literary) authors who wrote comic books. Don't be so elitist not to think that the comic book industry is devoid of brilliant authors, anything that resembles a prize winning literary work, and/or any inspiring works. Since Neil Gaiman would prove you wrong.

Sure the majority of the stories in comic books may be "simplistic" to the point of easily being recycled, however to say that all comic nooks are on original is a disservice to the creative works of the individuals involved in the industry, and to those respected authors who decided to write comic books because they felt that that was the best way to tell a story they wanted to write.

So yeah, comic books aren't novels but that's because novels are not a visual-literary art form, they are only a literary art form. So really, comparing the two is like comparing a apple to bread.

 

[Bullgrit]

RangerWickett, you really do need to completely rewrite that sentence. You should use theme song, not leitmotif. You should be coming to, not awakening. It should be rising crescendo, not opening notes. Wife's sister, not ex-girlfriend. The story should be set in an outpost on one of Jupiter's moons. In the future. An alternate future based on what if the Soviet Union didn't collapse. And the main characters are aliens, not humans. Alien vampires.

But otherwise, you've got a good start.

Bullgrit

 

[RangerWickett]

My comment looks truncated, so to clarify, Bullgrit, thanks for the idea for my next story. I lol'ed.

 

[Jack7]

I don't agree with the idea that authors should use archaic or obscure terms in some teacher-like manner to make readers learn new words. Authors should use the best word for the concept.

That does seem to be a particularly smug and pretentious reason to use an unusual word. I agree wholeheartedly.

Plus... any writer who forgets the audience for whom he's writing is a bad writer. Using words to "teach" the readers of your fantasy novel?

Good luck getting that sold.

I said expose. Bullgrit extrapolated a personal connotative interpretation of what I actually wrote, based upon what he thought I was implying. Which is fine, everyone does that on occasion. God knows I have. But then you also made an assumption about what I was actually saying based upon a faulty interpolation of what I actually said. You accepted his interpretation of my intent, as a third party, versus my intent. (I've done that too. I try to avoid it but I've certainly done it.) So let me clarify my actual meaning.

If you're assuming that I said a novel should be used for pedantic purposes or even overtly pedagogical purposes, generally speaking, I don't think that's the purpose of a novel (though pedantic and pedagogical novels do exist). That is, I don't think a novel is the best medium to teach in the sense of teaching non-fiction material, or the teaching of facts, or even of definitional vocabulary. Nor do I think that's the purpose of a novel. Rather it is to "interpret facts" (among other things) from a particular point of view, the author's point of view, which the author then hopes he can convince his audience is a point of view worth considering, or even acting upon. (In other words a novel is an individual effort at interpreting life and what that might imply, whereas non-fiction is a corporate effort at interpreting life and what it may mean. It is very loosely speaking, just to use a comparative analogy, the difference between the Mystic and the Scientist, or between the Psychologist and the Physicist, though of course there are natural points of overlap.) An author (a fiction author) often expresses terminology connotatively, not denotatively, for his point is not to teach a fixed definition, but to express a particular point of view. To do so however he uses the bets terminology and he does not fear to use the best, most concise, correct terminology. (Though he can also sue the most expansive terminology, phrasing, grammar, syntax, etc.) To my knowledge there is no direct counterpart to leitmotif in English. In other words exposing the reader to a potentially new term, assuming his audience does not already know the term being used, is an altogether different proposition than lecturing on it or denotatively defining it with precision. Denotative definition, and the teaching of terminology in this form, is a function of non-fiction, not of fiction. The job of fiction is to individually (and sometimes corporately, as an act between author and audience) interpret language and events and images and experiences in a symbolic or impressionistic way. This is why fiction is so full of metaphor. But for a metaphor to work the reader must have some idea of the general definition of the thing. And that is the function of exposure and why the author exposes the reader to new things. To expand both his and the reader's base of metaphorical experiences. Metaphors, similes, comparisons, even experiential imaging is not possible in the first place without an exposure to the basic terminology being used, and what it implies.

And English, especially, is full of terminology adopted directly from or borrowed wholesale from other languages. A large percentage of the overall vocabulary of English is imported directly from Latin, Greek, German (leitmotif), French, Spanish, and many other languages. Indeed to speak English is to be able to employ a substantial portion of Latin terminology and vocabulary (for just one example). Indeed the very term vocabulary is derived from the Latin term, vocabulum. We English speakers use much Latin even if we do so unawares on many occasions. And English is derived directly from Anglo-Saxon, and Old English and Middle English, Germanic tribal languages. So our very language is fundamentally based upon modified Germanic terminology and linguistic structures. You never forget your audience in my opinion by remembering the background out of which it developed, you pay homage to it by remembering that the language is full of both old and new terms borrowed directly from our past in order to better express what we desire to convey to one another. (Always also remembering the inherent limitations of language, for if language were not fundamentally imperfect then it would never be possible to misunderstand each other. As much as I love language, it is also naturally imperfect.) Leitmotif is a perfectly acceptable, precise term (as precise as language gets) from Middle and High German, the cousin tongue of our own language, and from whom we borrowed the term. It is no more foreign to English than vocabulary is foreign to English because it is borrowed from Latin. It may be obscure to some, but it is not alien in any way, nor a form of forgetting your audience. If anything it is a remembrance of how your own language developed. (Personally I think any time a language adopts a foreign or alien term, and incorporates it within itself, the term is no longer foreign or alien, and is acceptable for everyday use.)

Most good novels by the way are full of terms that teach. Not by lecture, but by subtle exposure to new ideas. And that is the difference between fiction and fact. Fact is full of information and precision, fiction is full of meaning and metaphor. Both can teach, they just go about it in different ways.

Sometimes an archaic or obscure word is the best. Sometimes a common or new word is best. If "leitmotif" is the best for your particular text, use it. If it is not the best word right there, don't use it just to expose your readers to a new word.

By the way I completely agree with this part of his statement and wouldn't argue against it at all. You use the best term to express the most perceive meaning. And sometimes you use the bets word, even if it is not precise, to express the fullest meaning. That is what poetry does a lot, trade precision for metaphor and fullness of meaning.

But there have been brilliant (literary) authors who wrote comic books. Don't be so elitist not to think that the comic book industry is devoid of brilliant authors, anything that resembles a prize winning literary work, and/or any inspiring works. Since Neil Gaiman would prove you wrong.

Sure the majority of the stories in comic books may be "simplistic" to the point of easily being recycled, however to say that all comic nooks are on original is a disservice to the creative works of the individuals involved in the industry, and to those respected authors who decided to write comic books because they felt that that was the best way to tell a story they wanted to write.

So yeah, comic books aren't novels but that's because novels are not a visual-literary art form, they are only a literary art form. So really, comparing the two is like comparing a apple to bread.

I wouldn't argue that at all either. That's why I said this.

P.S.: I'm not for writing most comic books on a third grade level either, that was just an easy, short-hand illustration of the point that you shouldn't write down to or talk down to your audience. Assume others are at least as capable as you are and you might just find this to be the case. And if they aren't as capable as you are, then in a free world, they certainly can become so if they so desire. It's not the author's job to limit the potential capabilities or imagination of the audience. That's what is wrong with too much modern media. The author should say what he needs to say and trust that his audience is smart enough to understand the point. The audience might not agree with the point, but you shouldn't talk down to them as if they cannot figure out the implications.

Maybe you didn't see it or didn't see what I was implying. But a really good comic, or as they are often called nowadays, Graphic Novels, should often be literate. The best are full of language which is well written, and often complex and literary. At least some are. I simply used comic as a short-hand, connotative example of what I was implying, imprecisely, because most people will understand the point. Comparing let's say the Odyssey to comics most people instinctively understand that the Odyssey is the greater and more valuable work. Does this mean comics have no literary value, even a great literary value? (I think some do indeed have both great literary and artistic value.) No, it's just a short hand way of making a comparison between what most people understand as high and low forms of a thing.

RangerWickett, you really do need to completely rewrite that sentence. You should use theme song, not leitmotif. You should be coming to, not awakening. It should be rising crescendo, not opening notes. Wife's sister, not ex-girlfriend. The story should be set in an outpost on one of Jupiter's moons. In the future. An alternate future based on what if the Soviet Union didn't collapse. And the main characters are aliens, not humans. Alien vampires.

But otherwise, you've got a good start.

RW, that made me laugh too. Have you considered a Soviet wife's sister vampire on Jupiter who speaks Esperanto? It could save you a lot of hassle when it comes to using vocabulary.

But more seriously I'd keep working on it. To me writing is 10% first draft, and 90% rewrite. By the way I wouldn't necessarily drop leitmotif, but I think Bullgrit has a point about possibly using another term or set of terms. To me the problem with the line is not the terminology used, but the construction of the phrasing. The first phrase clashes against the second. But that's not a terminology problem, it's a construction problem.

Then again it is just one line. It is very hard to read one line and know how it fits against a larger section from the work. It sounds awkward to me, and to me, because I like harmonious, or to use a musical term, consonant language, it seems awkward to me. But then again it is just one line. But I have nothing to critique it against.

I will say this. I disagree to a degree with Mark (assuming I'm reading him right), in the fact that I think terminology in fiction and poetry should be used to express multiple meanings, both metaphorical and denotative. So I have no problem with leitmotif being used to express both a symbolic and a musical value. After all, to me music is simply zymology in sound, and notes and phrases are simply metaphor in musical form. So I like the fact that leitmotif expresses two separate but parallel meanings.

But to me the phrasing just sounds clumsy. And that is my personal concern. (Mark and others might have other concerns of more import to them.) But as I said rewriting is often the difference (and sometimes the only difference) between mediocre writing and excellent writing.

On the other hand I don't know the broader context, the surrounding writing, and so it is difficult to fully judge. And it is after all your own work. I offered my own criticism, others their criticism, but in the end use what seems best to you in the broader context of the story.

Well, I'm gonna knock off and go watch SGU.
I wrote fast and I'm sure I made some mistakes.
But maybe you got the gist of it. Whether it helped or hurt, I don't know.

In any case good luck and Godspeed with it.

 

[Mark]

I will say this. I disagree to a degree with Mark (assuming I'm reading him right), in the fact that I think terminology in fiction and poetry should be used to express multiple meanings, both metaphorical and denotative. So I have no problem with leitmotif being used to express both a symbolic and a musical value.

My post above expresses that a figurative meaning is implied when two literal meanings are in use.

But to me the phrasing just sounds clumsy. And that is my personal concern. (Mark and others might have other concerns of more import to them.)

I was not ranking what I found problematic with the opening line and agree that it is also clumsy. Of further concern to me was the confusion created by labeling the source of music(?) as the narrator's "ex-girlfriend's speakers" which is also eexpressed in a previous post.

 

[Umbran]

Leit Motif? I think I knew him in high school.

 

[Jack7]

My post above expresses that a figurative meaning is implied when two literal meanings are in use.

Of further concern to me was the confusion created by labeling the source of music(?) as the narrator's "ex-girlfriend's speakers" which is also eexpressed in a previous post.

I think I may get that part of your criticism better now. My main concern with the line, and maybe this is the poet in me, is in the way the phrasing sounds in context and in proximity to one another.

If I'm reading you right your criticism is also along the lines of a confused set of meanings because the term is used to imply two separate meanings in two separate phrases. Almost as if the meanings are competing rather than harmonizing because of the way they are expressed and juxtaposed.

If that's what you mean, yeah, I can see that too.

Language is interesting in what it can do, no?
Not only in how it is expressed, but in how it is received.

Leit Motif?

I was thinking the guy sounded like he should be in a Chronicle, or maybe a Saga.

"Leit Motif, Thane of Hendiadys and the Gest, and Chief Raider of the Isle of Idiom... He terrified the inhabitants of hoary Hypallage and with swift sail made slaughter against the whole of the whale road of Elegiac. He won much glittered geld and a golden Crown of Sonnets from his foemen at bleak and stony Cadence, and died in glory and gore atop the rimey Eastern Edge of Denouement.

That was a gud Motif."

 

[dravot]

I couldn't remember what it was. You didn't have a poll response for that.

 

[Mark]

I think I may get that part of your criticism better now. My main concern with the line, and maybe this is the poet in me, is in the way the phrasing sounds in context and in proximity to one another.

If I'm reading you right your criticism is also along the lines of a confused set of meanings because the term is used to imply two separate meanings in two separate phrases. Almost as if the meanings are competing rather than harmonizing because of the way they are expressed and juxtaposed.

If that's what you mean, yeah, I can see that too.

Language is interesting in what it can do, no?
Not only in how it is expressed, but in how it is received.

More like accidental than competing, as if the narrator is trying to make a clever statement utilizing one literal meaning of the word then adding a second statement that accidentally alludes to a second literal meaning of the word. That's part of what makes it clumsy as if the narrator doesn't seem to really understand the two literal meanings of the word are in play. It is further complicated by the narrator thinking in terms of labels regarding his ex-girlfriend rather than simply thinking of her by her name. People don't think in terms of being clever (succesfully or not) for an audeince in their head nor do adjust how they think of other characters in an effort to explain to that audience their relationship with another person.

 

[RangerWickett]

Mark, I get what you're saying on the 'people don't think in labels merely for the benefit of an audience,' but I think you've got an inaccurate assumption of the narrator's voice. The narrator is consciously authorial, so in this case first person present tense is not 'the reader is in the narrator's head'; it's 'the narrator is telling you a story as it unfolds.'

I'm less clear on is what you mean by "accidentally alludes to a second literal meaning of the word."

I mean, I really am appreciating the feedback since it's making me re-examine my word choice throughout the novel, but I'd like to post the first few pages of the book to put things in context. (Also, I could use some harsher criticism; my local friends have been far too Paula on me, and not enough Simon.) But I figure you've already given me far more feedback than I expected, so feel free to ignore the upcoming massive chunk of text.

[sblock]

Chapter One​

I awake to the opening notes of my leitmotif playing on my ex-girlfriend’s TV. Chelsea watches this sh*t in surround sound.

I’ve carved out a nice warm patch on the living room floor, so I only peel open one eye to see what episode she’s watching. The title – Fleet of the Broken Cross – sears into a treasure map, and then the parchment burns away to reveal a scene I played two weeks past.

There I am, or at least my character: Captain Jonathan Bluff, clinging to the bottom of a leopard shark. In my teeth I clench a little shark-shaped voodoo doll, with which I aim my ride, cocking my head back and forth to swing us between the caravels and galleons of the Royal Fleet of Caribbea. Their moon-silhouetted hulls ripple the sea overhead, casting bottomless shadows to either side of my stealthy approach. I nudge the black magic carnivore I’m riding up to the surface so I can gulp air and get my bearings, then dive again.

In the real world, I, Jaime Adricks, glance over my shoulder at Chel. She sits on the couch, her feet inches away from the sleeping bag where I crashed after last night’s rehearsal dinner.

“Good mor-” I mumble.

She shushes me. “Just watch.”

I know I won’t be able to get back to sleep, so I lock my bleary eyes on the screen. It takes a moment for my half-asleep brain to register what event from my character’s history I’m watching. When I do, I blanch.

I sit up. “I really should get-.”

“Watch the show. You’ll like it. Do you want to upset a woman on her wedding day?”

I relent and lie back down, but only because arguing would force me to explain that I’ve been lying to her for two-and-a-half years.

On screen, the cuts come quickly. Red-coated sailors look forward as I – the ‘Captain Bluff’ I – sneak to the aft of their armada. The pirate fleet of Commodore Quindon Sabriel lurks a mile away, and all the soldiers, even all the bloated corps of officers and mercenaries logged in for the special event, expect another four or five minutes of dramatic build-up before the battle begins.

I – the I on the floor – remember the epic, let’s-go-to-war music that blared in the digital sea breeze every time I broke the surface, and how the game’s soundtrack would switch to a spooky voodoo death-is-coming-for-you blues-rock whenever I dove under the waves. But the editors who transferred the scene from video game to online machinima series opted for a new arrangement of my Bluff theme song. It feels like reopening a wound.

The me on the screen swims alongside the fleet’s battleship, and the camera lingers over the ship’s name, His Majesty’s Law. Salt water slides off my smile as I step off the back of my selachimorph steed and clamber up the shadowed side of the oversized warship. I tuck the fishy voodoo doll into my coat, its spot between my teeth replaced by my six-loa saber.

Climbing the beergut backside of a galleon would be impossible for anyone less famous than Captain Jonathan Bluff, but I do my best Spider-Man impression without alerting the hundred-man crew. I even manage to sneak a quick peek through the aft windows of the main cabin to make sure Admiral Jarvis hasn’t begun prowling the ship yet. But there he sits at a broad table. Thin, bewigged in white, and a total fabrication of video editing software, the admiral sips his wine and peruses a thick, ancient sea charts.

The camera teases, hovering over the words “Biblioteca Fratris Filipi” on one of those fictional maps. Then it cuts back to my hungry, narrowing eyes.

Next we see of me, I’ve climbed up behind a sailor on the aftcastle. Dozens more mill on the deck, slaving away at tending rigging, checking cannons, chatting mutely under the soundtrack, basically doing everything but looking at the back of their ship to see the pirate who’s about to ruin their night.

Hands free, sword in teeth, I whip out a weighted silk scarf and sling it around the neck of the nearest sailor. He gets out the slightest mutter of confusion before I grab both ends of the scarf and tug tight, strangling the words just short of his throat. He flails impressively for a few seconds as I build up the leverage to hurl him over the aft railing. Just as he splashes I duck into shadows so no one will see me, and while I hide I casually aim my voodoo-controlled shark buddy to make sure the night’s first victim doesn’t come back up to scream for help.

I creep forward to the ship’s wheel at the fore edge of the aftcastle, where a middle-aged woman mans the wheel. Having done this dozens of times before against other clueless helmsmen, I step up behind her and pull the pistol out of her belt. Instead of holding her hostage or shooting her in the back, though, I just press the gun into her hand.

“Captain,” she whispers back at me with a smile.

“Doctor Trines,” I say.

From the sofa, Chelsea giggles. She, like half the fans of this show on the internet, assumes Margaret Trines and I – that’s Captain Bluff I, not Jaime I – need to hook up. If Chelsea knew Bluff was me, I doubt she’d feel so adamant that my alter ego needs some loving.

Hiding in my disguised first mate’s shadow, I ask, “Where’s Lucius?”

“Belowdecks,” Margaret says, “waiting for our signal. He needs two minutes to rig the magazine to explode.”

I peek over her shoulder at all the people on the deck.

“Hm. The two of us against a hundred? That should take about two minutes.”

“As long as the rest of the fleet doesn’t get involved,” Margaret warns.

I smirk. “Will you do the honors?”

Margaret nods in the direction of a musket leaning against the ship’s wheel. I grab the longarm one-handed and then aim it without letting go of my sword. Margaret grabs the wheel and aims her own pistol. The music tenses, hums with bass, then explodes with screeching strings as Margaret slams the wheel and the ship lurches to starboard. The crew balks and turns to see us, and we fire.

My musket stills the heart of the sailor nearest the fore hatch, and he collapses atop the trap door, blocking one path belowdecks. Margaret goes for dynamism, and she gut-shoots a man in the rigging, sending him careening and caterwauling to land atop the aft hatch. His bones snap audibly, and his dead weight completes the two-part trick of sealing off the lower decks.

The sailors of His Majesty’s Law sound the alarm and draw swords, and Margaret and I lunge into battle.

I groan and crawl out of my sleeping bag.

“Jaime!” Chelsea yells. “Dammit! Out of the way!”

She rewinds so she doesn’t miss anything. I head to the bathroom, lock myself inside, and face my reflection. I don’t want to watch any more, to be reminded of why I quit the game. Or worse, to remember how much I loved playing it. But well, the damage is done. I shake my head at how silly I’m being. It was just a game, after all.

I come out of the bathroom, drying my hands on one of her fiancé George’s towels, just in time to see my internet alter ego thrust my six-loa saber into a sailor’s ribs. I use him as the axis of a whirling kick, stamping across the faces of a circle of seven other sailors who had tried to catch me. I jump off the final sailor’s nose, wrench my sword free of the first man’s chest, grab onto a belaying line, slash the rigging rope, and lift up to the mizzenmast crow’s nest, where I take out the look-out who has been firing down at us from the high ground. I leave my sword in his groaning body, snatch the musket out of his hands, then cling to the rigging line with my legs as I turn upside down. I shoot out the knee of the latest man trying to remove the dead weight covering the hatch to belowdecks.

I bend up, retrieve my sword, flip the musket to grip it by its barrel, and let go. I somersault as I drop, and a convenient pile of eight sailors breaks my fall.

Meanwhile, Margaret has cut down a score of sailors with her loa-loading pistol and various daggers and poisons. She leaps up the stairs to the forecastle, intent on clearing out the crew, but a huge longshoreman hidden behind a stack of rum casks steps out and grabs her. The towering man crushes her into his chest, and a fistful of sailors rush to strike her before she gets free.

“Margaret, eyes!” I shout.

She clenches her eyes shut, and I thrust out my saber toward the huge grappler. A corkscrewing cascade of shrieking voodoo spirits fly from my swordtip to the longshoreman’s face. He reels as a loa crawls through his eyes into his soul. Then he releases Margaret and turns his mighty fists upon the other sailors, shouting victorious African curses as he thumps them down. Margaret jumps away and slides down the banister to back me up, a flick from her knife opening the jugular of another sailor who tries to grab her.

Distracted by helping Margaret, I don’t notice the two officers moving to flank me. One actually slashes me across the back.

On the couch, Chelsea gasps. I take a seat on the couch’s arm.

The I on screen trips over a limp body, and I barely manage to dodge a pair of swords aimed for my neck. I can’t keep parrying both officers, but Margaret saves me the trouble when she jams a knife in one’s shoulder before planting her pistol into his spine and sending his heart out across the deck in a spray of moon-lit red mist.

The remaining officer waffles on which of us to attack, then decides to block my upswing with his jowls. He runs and cries in panic, and I let him go as he jumps off the side of the ship to save himself.

Blood attracts sharks, anyway.

I stop to get my bearings and call upon one of my blade’s loa to heal the gash on my back. Scores lie dead or wounded, and the few remaining sailors on deck either know better than to come after us, or are too busy being pounded into pulp by a possessed longshoreman.

I say, “What’s taking Lucius so long?”

A small tremor shakes the deck, and the fore hatch explodes upward in a shrapnel blast of wood slivers and sailor bits. Margaret and I wait, expecting Lucius to stride up through the black smoke. And up the stairs he does indeed come, a lit cigar tucked in his breast pocket and a sword at his throat. The soot-streaked Admiral Jarvis follows, holding Lucius hostage. Worse, a handful of distinctively-dressed officers limp up after them, sporting burns and splinter wounds, but still battle ready.

“Captain Jonathan Bluff?” the admiral scoffs. “Why the hell are you trying to blow up my ship?”

I lower my sword and swagger forward.

“Give me what I want,” I say, “and I won’t have to.”

Admiral Jarvis sneers. “Why should I bother negotiating? Every ship you’ve ever set foot on has sunk, Bluff.”

I smirk, both of me.

“Your fleet thinks it’s about to put an end to Sabriel’s pirate fleet,” I say, “but he’s hiding most of his ships. His armada outnumbers you two to one.”

“I don’t fear pirate flotsam. You stand no chance against us.”

“Excellent. Perfect. We’d both love it if Sabriel never sailed again. I want you to sail on and go broadsides with him. But, and correct me if I’m wrong here, you haven’t figured out how to kill the immortal bastard. I have an idea, but we’re going to have to work together to defeat him.”

Behind me, Margaret clears her throat. “Um, John, if you were going for the ‘let’s be friends’ approach, maybe we shouldn’t have started by killing half his crew.”

I glance around, feigning surprise.

“Oh, right,” I say. “Lucius, you left a skeleton crew?”

Lucius, unfazed by having a sword at his throat, says, “Like you asked, sir, most are just stunned.”

“Good job. Now Admiral, give me what I want, and you’ll live, and you can even keep your ship. Tell me where the Library of Brother Philip is.”

The officers around the admiral murmur in surprise.

Chelsea frowns. “Wait, did that quest get unlocked?”

“No,” I, Jaime, say.

I grit my teeth at my slip, but Chel is too engrossed in the show to have actually heard me.

“Even if I told you,” Jarvis chuckles, “you’d never have a chance to find it. You and your lawless friends will soon go down to feed Old Tomalley.”

“Ugh, arrogant longcoat fuc-” I sigh and shake my head. “Let’s ignore history, alright? Right now, without you in command, the R.F.C. doesn’t stand a chance, and if Sabriel sinks your fleet, he can take as long as he wants to find the library. My crew and I are your best bet to defeat him.”

The music has died, leaving a soundtrack of just wind and distant alarm bells ringing from the rest of the fleet, but now a new song arises, something I never heard in the actual game. Militant, modern, bombastic, ominous, electric, it rises as the admiral begins to laugh.

“I think not,” he says.

He throws his arm out toward starboard.

“We have reinforcements!”

We all turn to look, and there, in the white gleam of the moon, a steel shaft like a flagpole rises up from the sea. Higher it ascends, followed by a massive structure of metal like a shark fin. And then the electric floodlights filter up from beneath the surface as the deck of this industrial monster breaks the surface, illuminating the crimson square, white circle, and black swastika emblazoned on the side of the U-Boat’s tower.

“Kill them!” the admiral shouts, taking advantage of my perfectly reasonable confoundment at seeing a Nazi U-Boat in the middle of a 17th century Caribbean adventure game.

Three officers draw swords and charge, two draw pistols, and none of them make it to us. A black shape detaches from the night shadows, visible only for the hole its silhouette cuts in the scene, and for the shining silver arcs its katana cuts through the air. The five officers fall to pieces, their limbs and blood exploding ridiculously across the deck. Above them stands an angular figure clad head to foot in black, except for his milky, slanted eyes.

None of my crew move, uncertain of who to fight. Then, off to starboard, a white line that modern men would recognize as a torpedo contrail sprints underwater toward us. The admiral gasps and rushes to the railing, shaking in denial.

“What’s this?” Admiral Jarvis shouts. “Betrayal? But we- we are allies!”

The ninja – it pains me, but I cannot deny that that’s what has just stepped into my Caribbean world – turns to the admiral. With thickly accented English, and a mouthful of pulp genre conventions, the Japanese assassin delivers his pre-mortem one-liner.

“No, admiral. We are Axis.”

He hurls a red swastika shuriken, and it thunks into the admiral’s head with a wild crackle of electricity a half second before the torpedo strikes the hull.[/sblock]