Lancelot Schaubert — Hey there Benjamin Chandler.

When was the first time you imagined another world or the implications of a new tech?

Benjamin Chandler — Oh, I’m sure it was during childhood, setting up plastic dinosaurs in the garden or playing with toy monsters and spaceships. It wasn’t until high school, though, that I tried to put something on paper.

Lancelot Schaubert — Any oral traditions prior? Or fan zines or obsessive memorizing of other fandoms?

Benjamin Chandler — I loved Star Wars and the like as a kid and could recite those movies by heart. I also adored Ray Harryhausen films and any movie with a giant Japanese monster. My family did not have a VCR, so I was limited to enjoying those when they’d air on TV. I’d scour the monthly cable guide to see if a Sinbad or Godzilla film would show on a Saturday. Around the age of 12 I discovered the novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs. I inhaled Pellucidar and Mars and any of his books that involved dinosaurs or monsters. I became one of the youngest memebers of the Burroughs Bibliophiles and made friends with George McWhorter, the editor of their publication. When I was a bit older, he asked me to write reviews of Tarzan comics for the Burroughs Bulletin. That was probably my first “fandom”.

Lancelot Schaubert — Oh wild. Do you still have copies of those reviews? I’d love to see some stills if so.

Benjamin Chandler — When I moved to Europe, I left most of those fanzines at my parents’ house, but there are some pdf issues on the Internet Archive. Let me see if any of the ones with my reviews are on there.

LS — Oh that would be awesome

Did you write for any others?

BC — I found one in the attic. I’ve scanned a page and sent it to your email.

LS — YO!

Benjamin coming through clutch.

That thing is amazing.

BC — I didn’t know I packed a few issues in a random box.

You’re kind.

LS — That’s wonderful.

I’m serious, it was a special time. Those things don’t really exist like they used to. That’s where William Atheling did his criticism.

What did you learn writing fan zines?

BC — Were you involved an any zines? It is a pity that era is over.

The internet killed ’em.

LS — As a reader

BC — Heck, the internet even killed blogging.

LS — It’s coming back

Substack made it viable again

BC — Ah! I guess you’re right. I hadn’t thought of that.

LS — Honestly as a writer, I had this deeeeeep how dare you voice in myself. I didn’t submit anything anywhere until the very end of college

Well, not necessarily nowhere, but almost

I honestly grew up so poor I didn’t think I was allowed to.

BC — Aw!

LS — There’s a lot of stuff I’ve been shocked to find out literally anyone can do.

Like oh. That’s just money and an email address that did that.

Shocks me more often than I care to say.

BC — True.

LS — Probably why I try stuff and fail all the time.

What are some of your favorite stories? Influences?

BC — That takes courage, though, not just money and an email.

LS — True. (I should get you together with Teel, Tarzan was his fave…)

Once I knew that’s all it took, I was off to the races throwing myself to the wind.

The… wind… races.

That’s the metaphor there, sure

BC — It works. I can visualise a wind race.

LS — Avatar.

BC — I never saw that—the cartoon or the blue movie—so I’ll take your word for it.

LS — The cartoon. It was a racial joke. Wind race.

BC — I guess that wind went right over my head.

LS — It was funnier in my head. You read The Name of the Wind?

BC — Hmm. No.

LS — What works you like?

BC — I was thinking of something else when you asked that. Some other book with wind or a name in the title.

LS — Name of the Rose and Wind in the Willows? Name of the Wind is basically a love child of those two. That’s not true, but it feels true.

BC — I like both Name of the Rose and Wind in the Willows, so maybe Name of the Wind is up my alley after all. It’s so thick, though…

BC — More modern authors? Oh, I liked …

(turning around to look at bookshelf for the names’ spelling)

Susanna Clarke and Madeline Miller. Actually, I read Miller’s Greek myth books after I wrote and sent my story to you and I thought, “Oh no, they’ll think I was just riffing on her…”

I also really liked a newish book called “Milkman” by Anna Burns, though that’s not speculative fiction.

LS — No big. First volume Of Gods and Globes Juliette basically riffed of The Book Thief. Anne Greenwood Browne basically subverted all of her own novels

What do you look for in specfic?

BC — In a book to read?

LS — Yeah. Like why do you return to the genre over and again?

LS — Oh I need something that’ll stop a bullet at the airport. It’s a function thing. Not just the words, you know.

BC — Like soldiers having Bibles and diaries in their pockets in WWII.

LS — Exactly. A collective epic. And a personal fantasy. Really one of the CLUE weapons should be an epic fantasy.

BC — Haha!

I have been reading not fantasy for a few months now, actually. I read my first western and that was fun.

But I like the escape of fantasy.

I like the otherness of the world.

My sons are really into the cartoon “Hilda” right now and that scratches the itch.

(when I watch it with them)

LS — Let’s talk Westerns: how are westerns fantastic?

BC — And I’m so far removed from the “Western” era/world, that almost feels like fantasy, too.

LS — Pratchett has this thing about how all fiction is fantasy.

Yeah that. Talk about that.

BC — Well, for one thing, the technology is similar to an AD&D-like fantasy world. People ride horses and use wagons. There’s no phones or stuff like that. The lansdscape is usually exaggerated into a savage desert. And there’s often a treasure hidden in some cave or abandoned mine.

The monsters are gone, but there’s snakes and scoundrels. That almost makes up for it.

LS — Yeah man, where are the frigging Illinois westerns?

I want a western in the Shawnee forest.

Are all the monsters gone?

BC —Right? Gunsligners meeting in forests at noon.

LS — Like what on earth is a buffalo.

Have you seen a bison?

It looks like someone carved that thing straight out of Permafrosts-R-Us®

BC —Fair point. I was just talking about when I saw a bison at the age of 5 the other day. I don’t remember much aside from it was big and shaggy.

LS — It looks like it’s saying, “Go on. Punch me in the face. Get it over with so I can take my turn.”

The worst monsters to aggro are always the quiet ones. Wrath of a gentle man and all.

BC — This is true. I guess I best find me a bison-punching western.

Surely one’s out there.

LS — I mean there’s always GUY ON A BUFFALO, but it’s not set in Illinois.

BC — I’d have to agree with that line that all fiction is fantasy. Strictly speaking.

LS — Or Illinois. Why’s that?

BC — Having lived in Chicago for 10 years, yeah, a lot of Illinois is fantasy.

LS — I was just talking to FC Shultz, another contributor about this. Why do you think so?

Or was that a Chicago dunking on the southern half of the state joke?

BC — A bit of a dunk, yeah. I mean, I didn’t want to use the “flatlanders” slur or anything… I have some decorum.

LS — Welcome to Southern Illinois.

Went to the Garden of the Gods in southern Illinois. Totally worth it
byu/chillen67 insolareclipse

BC — WOAH

That’s fantastic. Did you take that photo?

LS — No.

BC — Were you there when it happened?

LS — Nah, had a bunch of buddies there.

BC — That’s awesome.

LS — That’s Garden of the Gods in the Shawnee forest.

BC — Well, I sit corrected. Illinois beyond Chicago’s borders has more to offer than cornfields and … Metropolis?

LS — So I meant a little something different when I said it was fantasy closer to Memphis. 88,000 miles of rivers on its borders and through its lands.

Nashville’s closer to my hometown than Chicago. I still like Chicago.

That’s what Bell Hammers is about, but anyways. You were saying about rules and invention in fantasy and fiction

BC — Where was home, can I ask?

LS — Sure. Bell hammer

BC — [long pause]

That’s a joke. It was Salem, I made Bellhammer up. I think I made it up? Lines get blurred.

BC — I was just about to look it up. You had me going.

Salem, Mass?

LS — I should have let you. Salem, Illinois

BC — Ah, okay. I’m origianlly from the Milwaukee area, so still in the Great Lakes region.

Midwest childhoods.

LS — Gotcha.

BC — I don’t know much more about rules and fiction and fantasy. It was just the germ of an idea.

LS — Wisconsin. Rothfuss Territory again. I think that’s two strikes, third one you have to read Name of the Wind.

You know the word fishtab?

BC — I tried to convince a friend a few months ago that there was no real distinction between fantasy and sci-fi, but he didn’t buy it.

I don’t know much more about rules and fiction and fantasy. It was just the germ of an idea.

LS — I like the germ though. What was your argument?

BC — Fishtab? No.

It wasn’t even an argument, I just said it and he went “Uh huh. Hm,” and then changed the topic.

LS — Fishtab’s a Wisconsin slur for Illinois folk, specifically Chicago.

BC — Oddly, I never heard it. Only “flatlanders”. And F.I.B.s

LS — FIB is a shorter version yeah

BC — Fishtab is a 7 letter acronym?

LS — Yes.

BC — I don’t even want to know. I never had much hate for Illini folks. Never understood it.

LS — I mean it’s probably a bit like the suburbs here and NYC.

Resource, population consolodation, culture clashes, etc.

BC — Arbitrary tribalism.

That’d be a good punk band name.

LS — With tribal tats everywhere.

BC — Right?

They’d start every show by berating the “others” in the audience.

LS — THIS GOES OUT TO ALL YOU F***ING ILLINOIS SH*THEADS TOWING A BOAT!

BC — LOL

LS — That sort of thing?

BC — “Slow-moving traffic stays to the right! Learn to drive!”

LS — For a second I was looking for the ten letter acronym. Perhaps FISHTAB are the seven words to make a woman love you and SMTSTTRLTD are the ten to bind a strong man’s will?

First time I heard FISHTAB, I was like, “My dude, my dad was a poor fisherman who did semi pro bass stuff.”

Then realized they were talking about Lake Michigan. And that feels very alien to me.

BC — Did you fish with him?

LS — Yeah man.

So much it hurts.

BC — Like a good hurt?

LS — Oh yeah. Like Seinsucht for it to happen again.

He died at 65 of Covid and cancer couple years back.

BC — Oh, I’m so sorry.

LS — Last time with him was fishing and getting the crap beaten out of me on the tube.

You, me, him, us glorious Fishtabs.

FC too.

BC — Summers were spent at my grandparents’ cottage by a small lake in central WI. They’re probably my favorite childhood memories, so I know how wonderful family and water goes together.

LS — Oh that’s awesome

They own property there?

Lake life is just different from coastal.

BC — They did. They’ve passed away and my cousin owns it now. Last time I was there he had changed a lot. it wasn’t the same, so I’ve never gone back.

LS — Aw man that’s hard

BC — I had dreams of buying a lake house with my sisters, but now that I’m pretty much permanently in Europe, that ain’t gonna happen.

LS — Woah, I didn’t realize that. Where are you based?

BC — I’m in Slovakia.

LS — Yo!

Tell me about Slovakian authors.

And landscape.

BC — Haha! There’s virtally none for fiction, at least historically. Lots of poets, though. SK was very agrarian, so not much by way of visual arts or fiction. Music, though, they got lots of.

LS — Woah, really? No ficiton?

BC — The landscape where I live is within a horseshoe of mountains.

LS — That’s amazing

Any pics of that?

And what about music samples? Especially with spec fic lyrics?

BC — Well, not enough fiction that Slovaks bandy it about proudly.

Mostly the folksongs are of lonely shepherds.

LS — Ah yes, keep all that fiction under the mattress and in the 10c theaters where they belong. Need some lonely shepherd saber wars or something.

BC — I can send some pics. Photos or landscapes I’ve drawn.

I don’t want it to sound like SK is still in 1850 culturally…

LS — Oh it’d be a selling point for me if it were. But I don’t take it that way.

BC — The one piece of Slovak fiction I recall is about drunk guys in the winter arguing about a cow.

LS — Who won?

Probably the cow.

BC — I’m looking it up. I think the angry wives won.

LS — Oh man yeah if angry wives get involved they totally are the trump card in that situation.

I’m moving my money from cow to angry wives and doubling down.

I’m down for fave lonely shepherd songs too.

BC — Rysavá jalovica! I had to ask my Slovak wife.

LS — We did it team. We’re going to the ‘ship.

BC — Huzzah!

LS — I’m assuming she wasn’t angry, but she still wins

I’ll just take my money back, split the pot.

BC — She wasn’t too mad. But did pronounce the title sternly when I didn’t catch it the first time she said it.

LS — 20% bonus for me.

Stern wife won.

BC — LOL. She usually does.

LS — Nostalgia plays a role in all of this, everything we’ve talked about, good and bad. Do you think fantasy plays with nostalgia? Did you read some Bradbury early on? Is nostalgia a frequent in Slovakian art?

BC — Oh, nostalgia is one of the best reasons to read or write, i sometimes think. Yes to Bradbury.

In fact…

Last night I started rereading a book of his I read when I was about 17 or so. I’ve held onto it all these years and miles later.

LS — which one?

BC — “Green Shadows, White Whale”

LS — woah. I know not this, what’s it about?

BC — It’s sort of a fictionalized memoir of when he moved to Ireland to write the “Moby Dick” script for John Huston.

And little fantasies are intersperced in the memoirs. I think there’s a banshee story in it.

LS — Awesome

BC — I recall little as I read it thirty-some years ago.

LS — I’ll be sure to tell FC about it.

BC — I have bad news. I have to put my kids to bed.

LS — That’s good news for them. We can pick this back up.

AN INDETERMINATE TIME PASSES…

BC — So, the kids are in bed, asleep, and I’m thinking of nostalgia and its draw. I think, for better or for worse, nostalgia plays into feelings of safety. Nostalgia is not only familair, but there’s an affection to it. I don’t think people get nostalgic over anxiety or fear or fury. Nostalgia is familair and warm and close. It’s a bit like a mirror that shows you only the best parts. It’s romanticising to a certain extent. Maybe fantasy’s reltionship with it draws into that. As much as people may (or may not, in my case) revel in the modern world, many folks long for “simpler times”. Maybe that’s the draw of some fantasy. Certainly is the draw for me reading those westerns the other week. The world changes and it can’t go back. Genies, good and bad, never go back in the bottle once released. But with nostalgia, you can go to that time or feeling or security and just be there for a while. Bradbury, since you mentioned him, I think taps into that for many of his more famous works—Dandelion Wine, Farenheit 451—they both yearn for/praise “a simpler life”.

I was writing a story about some folks who (spoiler) leave the city for a lake house, and a friend of mine read it and said he knew a number of people who had abandoned their city life to start goat farms in the middle of nowhere. So, there’s clearly a desire in some people to escape today and be yesterday, whether that’s at a goat farm or a used paperback.

Well, I wanted to get all that down before I had to go to bed myself. More later.

LS — Yes indeed. That’s so true. What inspired your story?

BC — I think the story has two parents. One being the aforementioned affection for all things Harryhausen, “Clash of the Titans” and all that. I have a love for myth and old fairy tales, too, which is the main source of fantasy that I read these days. The emotional parent of the story is the isolation that comes with being an expat. I spend a lot of time in my head, for better or for worse. I have some friends here in Slovakia, but certainly not the pool of camaraderie I had cultivated in the States. So, that lonliness butting against service is an everyday thing. Maybe I wasn’t even conscious of it when I was writing it, but it was clear when the story’s first draft was done.

LS — What are your favorite myths?

Do you speak the language?

BC — Do I speak Slovak? Badly. Enough to get by at the grocery store and be polite to my mother-in-law. I could never talk politics or philosophy. I’ve learned that I am not one of those people who can learn 2nd tongues easily.

Any myths with monsters are tops. I am a creature-lover since childhood. So Persus fighting gorgons and sea monsters, or Thor fishing the Midgard Serpent (briefly) out of the ocean, or the thousands of Japanese yokai—those kinds of stories are my jam. There’s a legendary froggy-guy in Slavic legends that the Slovaks call the vodnik who I am pretty partial to.

What was your inspiration for the God & Globes book series?

LS — The original inspiration was Lewis’s space trilogy mostly and The Book Thief, but then I learned a ton about alternative constellations or planet names and those almost always dovetail with myths and legends. Seems fertile ground. I think it still will be long into the future

Anything else I should have asked?

BC — Even though I read that space trilogy 20-some years ago, I still think of it often. I haven’t read The Book Thief. I used to do a lot of collages with old star charts. (I was really just riffing off of Joseph Cornell.) Some of them had alternative constellations on them. Wild to see those other names, if they were in an alphabet I could read, that is.

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