In my pantheon of literary greats,
David Gemmell stands alone. I read his first book, Legend, when I was
fourteen and knew even then that I had found the kind of writer I wanted
to be. Like Julius Caesar himself, Gemmell wrote with a spare elegance,
racing along with characters and events until I found it was dawn and I
had to get up for work. Gemmell is the only writer who ever stole my
nights in such a way.
I read Ghost King when I was in university. I was
studying Arthurian literature at the time and somehow missed the
references to Gian Avur and the Lancelord. It’s
difficult to recall a last line
of any book that was more of a shock to me than that one. Gemmell was
superb at endings. Some of them were so powerful that I could only stare
at the ceiling with tears in my eyes.
As no one else, Gemmell could explore fear and
courage in men and women under extreme stress. The bravery he describes
is uplifting and made real because it is set against panic and despair.
For someone like me, who grew up with his father’s
stories of
Bomber Command in WW2, the grim humour and dark moments all ring true.
When Beltzer gives his life to save the others in
Quest for Lost Heroes, it aches because he truly doesn’t
want
to, but finds something in himself and stands.
I think that is why I’ve
always loved these books. Gemmell could create intricate plots
and he wrote dialogue with the simple force of poetry. When I think of
the way Jon Shannow quoted the Old Testament, it sends a shiver through
me even now.
Beyond that though, Gemmell wrote the sort of
stories that used to be told round fires right back to the caves.
Humanity has a few instincts, but our culture has to be passed on by
stories. I grew up with classic myths and legends as well as inspiring
tales of real courage. I still remember how moved I was when I first
heard the tale of the Spartan Boy, who was forbidden to keep a fox cub
and hid it in his coat. When his father caught him outside, the boy held
the cub too tightly and it bit and burrowed into his chest. He showed no
sign of his growing agony. As his father lectured him, he grew paler and
paler until at last, he fell dead.
It doesn’t
matter whether it really happened or not. Making the
boy a hero shows how much the Spartans valued self-discipline. Some
ancient storyteller knew tales of courage help men to stand when they
are frightened, or to let women and children go first into the Titanic’s
boats while the band
played on. Stories are culture and Gemmell almost single-handedly
brought back that sort of tale. If you’ve
read Legend and known how afraid Regnak was, well
it might just be a little easier to stand when you know you really,
really should.
The thing about his best work is that it all
rings true. When I’ve
learned something in my own life about fear
and courage, I hear it in his characters as they face impossible odds
and know there will be no one to save them. How they act then can be
inspiring or shameful, but in Gemmell’s
books, they rise
up and meet their fate with their eyes open.
In The King Beyond the Gate, there is a scene
where Tenaka Khan is seeking to gather his people into one nation, very
much as Genghis Khan once did. In the middle of a very tense sequence of
chapters, with danger on every side, Tenaka comes across a man buried
alive, left to die with only his head above ground.
He squats next to the buried man and says,”We
are seeking the
tents of the Wolves.”
The man spits an ant from his mouth and replies,
“Good
for you!
Why tell me? You think I have been left here as a signpost?”
Those words made me laugh until my stomach hurt.
I’d
grown up with that sort of resigned, grim humour from my father’s
memories of seeing friends die around him. Gemmell captured it better than anyone
else I’ve
ever read. His warriors banter and
laugh at the appalling situations in which they find themselves - yet
there is never any cruelty in it. Gemmell’s
heroes are admirable, flawed and very, very
human.
Most writers owe a debt to the authors they have
read. We’re
all voracious readers first and we learn to recognise what hits us hard, what
works. I’m
sure I wouldn’t have written
historical fiction if I hadn’t
read “Lion of Macedon” a retelling of the
Alexander story more powerful than any history. Without characters like
Parmenion, I’d
never have known where to go with a young Julius Caesar. I
probably wouldn’t
have chosen to write about Genghis Khan without Gemmell’s
Nadir. That’s
the debt I will always owe: he put me on the path I still
walk today.
When I first heard he was beginning a series on
Troy, I relished the news. I didn’t
know then that it would be the end
of an era. There simply isn’t
anyone else who can write a scene like Helikaon
standing on the rock, or the old pirate Sekundus giving his life to save
Penelope.
Of his own work, Gemmell once said: “All
my books contain the same message, but I don't preach about it. The
message is for those with the
eyes to
see and the ears to hear. If any reader
doesn't understand the message, no amount of lecturing from me will
bring it home.”
Though the author passed on too soon, his people:
Jon Shannow, Helikaon, Waylander, Regnak, Bane, Tenaka Khan, Parmenion,
Druss, Connavar and all the others live and remain.
Gemmell wrote about real heroes and in doing so,
made me want to be one. That’s
good writing.
Conn Iggulden
October 2007
"Never violate a woman, nor harm a
child. Do not lie, cheat or steal.
These things are for lesser men.
Protect the weak against the evil strong.
And never allow thoughts of gain to lead you into the pursuit of evil.
Never back away from an enemy. Either fight or surrender.
It is not enough to say I will not be evil. Evil must be fought wherever
it is found."
---The "Iron Code" of Druss
David Andrew Gemmell, fantasy novelist,
born August 1 1948; died July 28 2006
When David died on Friday, I felt as many fans have done that our safety
net in a chaotic world had disappeared. A man who made sense of
everything in a world where everything was confusion. David was a man
who brought the Heroic Epic back for a new generation, and I for one am
amongst many have judged our own
life trials against those within his
work for the past 22 years.
Perhaps the greatest testimony to David is not his amazing output or the
sheer scale of the tales he told, but the way in which he affected his
readers. So many tributes have poured in for the “big
man” and everyone spoke of the personal way in which his work
affected them. Everything from giving their lives a moral code to judge
themselves by through to direct action against what "violated the code"
such as the fan who after finishing one of David's books, ran to the aid
of a woman being attacked by two men.
This to me was David's essence, he never thought that he was anything
other than a regular guy with his own beliefs and principles taking time
out to listen to what others thought and aid people where he could. A
fact that was pretty obvious to all who attended one of his signings.
Every signing he would begin by saying that "This isn't a book reading"
he didn't believe in things like that, he wanted to meet the fans and
always took the time to do so, it didn't matter which of his books you
went there for, it was never about the sale, it was purely the chance to
meet the fans that he loved. The outcry at his passing is something I
think would have shocked David, never expecting to see how many lives he
has touched with his work and for me is a testimony to the talent that
the world has lost.
Gareth Wilson
The
London Times - Written by Stan Nicholls, (appeared 08/01/06)
David Gemmell, who has died following heart bypass surgery, produced
thirty bestselling novels, and is widely regarded as this country’s
most accomplished author in the heroic fantasy
genre. He grew up in a tough West London neighbourhood where survival
depended on being handy with your fists, the ability to run fast, or
possessing a tongue glib enough to talk your way out of trouble.
Although he employed all three at various times, the latter became the
most finely honed weapon in his armoury; and in later years his talent
as a raconteur and teller of anecdotes characterised his many personal
appearances at signings and literary events.
Expelled from school at sixteen for gambling, Gemmell entered the world
of work with little in the way of vocational skills and drifted through
a number of casual jobs. These included labourer, lorry driver's mate
and nightclub bouncer, a profession well suited to his robust six foot,
four inch frame.
His mother, despairing at this waste of potential and recognising an
embryonic talent in her son he wasn't aware of himself, arranged for him
to be interviewed for a vacancy with a local newspaper. He wasn't keen
and went just to please her. The fact that he was one of a hundred
applicants, and almost certainly the least qualified, virtually
guaranteed he wouldn't be picked. To be absolutely sure, he behaved
arrogantly during the interview. This was mistaken for self-confidence
and he was hired. He eventually rose to Editor-in-Chief of five South
Coast newspapers and became a stringer for several nationals.
In the late
70’s
Gemmell turned his
hand to writing a thriller. But The Man From Miami, a novel about an
assassin, failed to find a publisher.
It was so
bad it could curdle milk at fifty paces,
he admitted.
The circumstances surrounding the publication of his first novel were
extraordinary. He developed an illness that had him passing blood,
suffering from exhaustion and losing two stone in weight; symptoms
indicating a cancerous growth. His doctor ordered tests and the
prognosis looked grim. Convinced he had little time left, Gemmell
decided to tackle the novel he had long had at the back of his mind. He
turned out The Siege of Dros Delnoch in two weeks. No one wanted to
publish it. In the event, the growth had been misdiagnosed; he didn't
have cancer. The book was forgotten.
A friend visiting his home a couple of years later chanced upon the
manuscript and read it. Fortunately this friend had an incisive eye, and
pointed out the novel's strengths and weaknesses. Enthusiasm rekindled,
Gemmell made one last attempt at getting it right. Retitled Legend, it
was published in 1984 and has never been out of print.
Considered a classic in the fantasy adventure field, Legend is set in
the dying days of the mighty Drenai empire. Its rulers, steeped in
complacency and incompetence, fail to respond decisively when the
warrior tribes of the Nadir unite against them. In seeking to appease
charismatic Nadir leader Ulric, the Drenai succeed only in conveying
their weakness and encouraging his ambitions. All that stands between
the Nadir hordes and the heart of empire is Delnoch Pass. This is
protected by a massive dros, or fortress, but its vastly outnumbered
defenders are plagued by hopelessness and shambolic leadership. It's
left to a disparate assembly of individuals, not all immediately
recognisable as heroic, to hold the pass and deny chaos its triumph.
The novel’s
central protagonist, Druss the Axeman, is nearing
the end of his active life. A legendary figure - the book's title partly
refers to him - he bears an awesome martial reputation. Now in his
sixties, and subject to the ailments encroaching age brings, he has to
put as much effort into mustering his own declining powers as commanding
the defence. For him, time is as big an enemy as the Nadir. Druss is
considerably more rounded and believable than the average fantasy hero,
and there is an audacity in presenting an old man as the hero in this
kind of story. But it works perfectly in engaging the reader's empathy.
Gemmell based Druss on his strong, independently minded stepfather, Bill
Woodford. Characterisation is acknowledged as one of Gemmell’s
major skills, and he attributed this to the fact that he frequently
drew from real life. 'I grew up with men of violence,
he explained on one occasion.
I
understand men of violence. It means that when
I write action scenes and when I have violent characters, I have a very
strong feel for it. But his practice of basing characters on actual
people got him into trouble. He used his journalist colleagues as the
cast for his third novel, Waylander, published in 1986, and lost his job
over it.
The
managing director regarded it as a poisonous attack on his
integrity,
he recalled. This prompted Gemmell to
turn to novel writing full-time, but he always credited the disciplines
of journalism as laying the foundations for his pacey, concise prose
style.
Legend instigated themes that remained pivotal to his work - the lone
hero, often tortured by loss or doubt; the battle against advancing
dotage; the pursuit of seemingly lost causes; complex villains, and the
inclusion of elite, usually mystical, groups. A consistent thread in
Gemmell’s
fiction, and one which reflected his Christian
beliefs, was the conviction that redemption was possible for even the
most corrupt.
The success of Legend led to a string of bestselling fantasy novels,
some standalone, many in multipart volumes, including the Drenai,
Rigante, Sipstrassi and Hawk Queen series. His Macedon sequence, Lion of
Macedon (1990) and Dark Prince (1991), set in the Greece of an alternate
world, tells the story of military genius Parmenion and his protege
the young Alexander, future ruler of the ancient world's greatest
empire.
Gemmell wrote one book under a pseudonym. Published in 1993 as by
Ross
Harding, White Knight, Black Swan is a gritty crime thriller.
It was his only novel not to achieve bestselling status. At the time of
his death he was writing the third in a trilogy retelling the legend of
the siege of Troy. The first volume, Lord of the Silver Bow, was
published in 2005. The second, Shield of Thunder, is due to appear this
September.
Some critics labelled his novels macho. He always insisted that they
were missing the point. 'There is no gratuitous violence in my books,
he stated. I tend to concentrate on
courage, loyalty, love and redemption. I believe in these things. If
there's anything I'd like my books to achieve, it would be to increase
the desire of people to do good.'
This sense that moral choices have to be made is at the heart of his
work. It gives his stories direction and forms his characters. In
knowing that David Gemmell's books are suffused with a basic decency,
that his characters strive to act honourably and do the right thing no
matter how the odds are stacked, one knows the essence of the man.
He is survived by his second wife, Stella, and two children, Kate and
Luke.
David Andrew Gemmell, fantasy novelist, born August 1 1948; died July 28
2006
His first novel was Legend published in
1984. His books were written in the following order
Legend (1984) Drenai novels
The King beyond the Gate (1985) Drenai novels
Waylander (1986) Drenai novels
Wolf in Shadow (1987) Stones of Power series / Shannow trilogy
Ghost King (1988) Stones of Power series
Last Sword of Power (1988) Stones of Power series
Knights of Dark Renown (1989)
The Last Guardian (1989) Stones of Power series / Shannow trilogy
Quest for Lost Heroes (1990) Drenai novels
Lion of Macedon (1990) Parmenion Strategos in Sparta
Dark Prince (1991) Alexander and Parmenion
Morningstar (1992)
The
Realm of the Wolf Waylander II (1992) Drenai novels
The First Chronicles of Druss the Legend (1993) Drenai novels
Bloodstone (1994) Stones of Power series / Shannow trilogy
Ironhand's Daughter (1995) The Hawk Queen
The Hawk Eternal (1995) The Hawk Queen
The Legend of Deathwalker (1996) Drenai novels
Dark Moon (1996)
Winter Warriors (1997) Drenai novels
Echoes of the Great Song (1997)
Sword in the Storm (1998) The Rigante Saga
Midnight Falcon (1999) The Rigante Saga
Hero in Shadows (2000) Drenai novels
Ravenheart (2001) The Rigante Saga
Stormrider (2002) The Rigante Saga
White Wolf (2003) Drenai novels
The Swords of Night and Day (2004) Drenai novels
Troy - Lord of the Silver Bow (2005) Troy Trilogy
Troy - Shield of Thunder (2006) Troy Trilogy
Troy - Fall
of Kings (2007) Troy Trilogy