The later Kane stories

I had an exchange of comment posts following a blog entry I made earlier about Karl Edward Wagner and my fondness for his character Kane. A couple of people responded less than enthusiastically about the small handful of Kane stories set in the modern world -- particularly, "Lacunae" and "Deep in the Depths of the Acme Warehouse" (though most agreed "At First Just Ghostly" is pretty great.)

Anyway, I landed a copy of MIDNIGHT SUN via Interlibrary Loan, the complete Kane short stories, and ... um ... well, guys, you were right.

"Deep in the Depths of the Acme Warehouse" was written for an Elvis anthology, which explains (?) the Elvis penis angle, but as with "Lacunae," I think ... Wagner worked with Kane. Kane was his guy. So when he decided to write these horror stories, he went w/ Kane as the protag. He could have as easily done without and it wouldn't have changed the stories much. Or maybe he just wanted to mess with people's heads, using the character that way. I'm not enough of a KEW scholar to know.

"At First Just Ghostly" is a different case. Horror too, but w/ Kane and his daughter filling in for John Steed and Emma Peel from the Avengers. I rather dug that a lot.

I will say this, too, and possibly it's an unfair comment for me to make, but, okay: when I've been drinking a lot and writing a lot, the characters tend to drink a lot too. I've written entire stories about beer. And I don't think I could've kept up with Cody Lennox in "At First Just Ghostly," though as a creepy story it worked just fine. Likewise the references to Kane's "uber-cocaine" in these stories (and references to "ground coca leaves" made in some of the historical tales: coke's not my drug of choice, but you write about what you know, and given the time period the stories were written, I find that aspect of them very much Of Their Time.

I think the historical Kane tales stand well on their own and the modern ones might best be considered experiments at best, though de gustibus non disputandem est.