'The Gothic Touch' – Karl Edward Wagner


Even though I have grand plans about what I want to read this month, I thought I'd go a little easier on myself and kick March off with a short story that I've been wanting to read for a long time. I've been a fan of Moorcock's 'Elric' since high school (even though I don't find his books the easiest to read...) and a fan of Karl Edward Wagner's 'Kane' for almost as long. 'The Gothic Touch' is Wagner taking the chance to combine the two in a story of his own. You'll find 'The Gothic Touch' in both 'Tales of the White Wolf' (the 'Elric' Anthology) and the Karl Edward Wagner collection 'Exorcisms and Ecstasies'. Actually, having said that, given how much a second hand copy of 'Exorcisms and Ecstasies' goes for (if Amazon is anything to go by), you're more likely to find it in a copy of 'Tales of the White Wolf' which is a lot more affordable. Either way, I finally got to read 'The Gothic Touch' yesterday and it was...

Elric and Moonglum are on the run and a supposedly haunted castle might just provide shelter or at the very least, a place to make a final stand. They're certainly not expecting to find an unexpected ally who rescues them, only to trick them into a scheme of his own. But that is exactly what they find in Kane...

I've been trying to work out how best to convey the sense of 'did I really just read that?' that I got when reading 'The Gothic Touch'. Because as much as I enjoyed it, I couldn't help but think, 'Really Mr Wagner? Really...?' It comes down to this...

You're a fantasy author who has been asked to contribute a story to 'Tales of the White Wolf'; a pretty big deal given that Moorcock hadn't been too keen on letting other people write 'Elric' stories (at the time, he didn't think there was an awful lot left to say about the character). Do you...

A) Play it safe and send Elric on another quest in the Young Kingdoms, presumably one where you have to kill a wizard or something like that.

B) Take advantage of the whole multiverse setting and go for something completely different, throwing Elric into the middle of it all and seeing what he does.

C) Have your own hero metaphorically compare penis sizes with Elric... And emerge the winner!

If you picked option C) then you are clearly Karl Edward Wagner (which gives rise to some awkward questions that I'm not going into here, you know what I mean though) and I've got to say again, 'seriously?'

'The Gothic Touch' is full of Kane just being better at everything than Elric is; he's stronger, faster, more intelligent, wittier... You name it. And poor Elric not only notices all of it, he's very thoroughly put in his place to the point where at the end of the tale, Elric says to Moonglum that he hopes they never bump into Kane again. I'd say the same thing in Elric's place.

What initially looks like an interesting concept then... Well, it swiftly becomes a bit of a 'dick swinging' contest and when it's that obvious, you have to ask why. And that's the thing, not only is Elric put in his place but so is the entire plot and that's a shame as the intersecting of Elric and Kane's worlds has potential that there just isn't the time to explore. What you do get to see is fine but you don't get the chance to see enough of it and that's a problem.

Maybe Wagner just really wanted Kane to take centre stage, maybe some concepts are just not meant to work together. It could be either, it could be neither in this case, I'm not sure. What I do know is that while I'm glad I finally got to read 'The Gothic Touch', I'm disappointed that two very cool anti-heroes didn't spark off the story that perhaps they should have been able to. Oh well... I'm hoping for better things from the Tad Williams tale...

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