The Blackwood Connection

In my first series, the infamous Blackwood family from New Orleans pulls the strings of a shadowy organization created for the sole purpose of eradicating creatures from the dark side.

Download now:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/395092

The Franklin Expedition in Popular Culture

Fanfiction

http://m.fanfiction.net/s/6708032/1/

Fiction

1. Across Frozen Seas - John Wilson (YA)

2. North with Franklin - John Wilson (novel)

3. Lament The Night - Kassandra Alvarado (short fiction)

4. Solomon Gursky was Here - Mordecai Richler (novel)

5. The Discovery of Slowness - Sten Nadolny (novel)

6. Arctic Drift - Clive Cussler (novel)

7. On the Proper use of Stars - Dominique Fortier (novel)

8. Wanting - Richard Flanagan (novel)

9. Journeys and Adventures of Captain Hatteras - Jules Verne

10. The White Passage - Kassandra Alvarado (novel)

11. The Rifles - William T. Vollman (novel)

12. The Ice Child - Elizabeth McGregor (novel)

13. The Terror - Dan Simmons
14. Time and Tide - Alexandra Crane (short fiction) 

Fiction Mentions

Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

Inukshuk - Gregory Spatz

Late Nights on Air - Elizabeth Hay

Comic Books

Alpha Flight issues .36 to ?

Comic Strips

Hark! A Vagrant - Kate Beaton = http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=24

Sir John Franklin Lost in the Arctic! (1940s newspaper)

Poetic Treatment

1. Lady Franklin’s Man - Sheenagh Pugh

2. Envying Owen Beattie - Sheenagh Pugh

3. Franklin’s Passage - David Solway

4. The Death of Sir John Franklin - Algernon Charles Swinburne

5. FOR JOHN TORRINGTON RESURRECTED FROM THE ICE - Jennifer Footman

Plays

The Frozen Deep - Wilkie Collins

Francis and Sophy a Polar Romance (indie)

Music

Northwest Passage - Stan Rogers

Franklin’s Letters - Tom Hooper (rare)

Lady Franklin’s Lament (sometimes known as Lord Franklin) - covered by multiple artists

I’m already there - Fairport Convention

Frozen Man - James Taylor

Radio

Arctic Rescue - Escape = http://www.escape-suspense.com/2012/12/suspense-arctic-rescue.html

Erebus and Terror - CBC Radio (no link available)

Franklin Expedition Rewind - CBC = http://www.cbc.ca/player/Radio/Rewind/2012/ID/2277575168/

Games

http://www.athropolis.com/popup/gl-frank.htm

Painted Horror

Paintings in fictional horror are fairly numerous such as Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Edward Randolph's Portrait; Montague Rhodes James’s excellent The Mezzotint; and H. P. Lovecraft’s horror-inducing Pickman's Model; to name a few. Recently posted to this canon of haunted imagery, my own The Painted Smile, part of the new Dancing in Darkness series.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Out of the pages of fiction, there exist many stories of real-life stories of haunted paintings and hoaxes. Among my favorites: http://whofortedblog.com/2013/05/27/mail-bag-update-spooky-anguished-man-haunted-painting/

http://paranormal.about.com/od/trueghoststories/a/The-Haunted-Painting.htm

Hoax...or not? http://www.castleofspirits.com/hauntedpainting.html

Today is the 168th anniversary of the Franklin Expedition's sailing. Requiescat in Pace.

As the first post in this blog, I thought to explain its creation as a place for my themed posts centered around my short fiction and novels. 















For today’s posting of https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/304317  I’ve chosen Parry’s Third Voyage of Discovery, the very same narrowly thwarted by brain-seeking zombies.

It was often said that had William Parry’s third voyage have been his first, he would never have had a second. Leaving in May of 1824, Parry commanded HMS Hecla a bomber vessel of 377 tons, accompanied by consort vessel HMS Fury 372 tons, under Henry Hoppner as second in command.

In Baffin Bay, the unpredictable ice conditions to which the arctic is infamous for, made themselves known. The pack ice was wider than expected that year, navigating it with the heavy, ponderous bomber ships, they sought to reach Lancaster Sound, only doing so by early September, losing precious time in the short sailing season.

On September 13, both ships were caught in the ice barely twenty one miles from Prince Regent Inlet. Parry consulted with Hoppner as to whether or not a retreat was in order. A move both soon decided against, certain it would be viewed as cowardice by fastidious John Barrow at the Admiralty. A strong westerly gale soon split the seas, releasing the ships they were swept back toward Lancaster Sound, then with a change in wind direction were returned, sailing down fifty miles to a place Parry called Point Bowen to overwinter in polar darkness.

It was during this period of inactivity that Henry Hoppner is credited with the ‘bals masqués.’ Masquerade balls held once a month during the winter months instead of amateur theatricals to fight off stultifying boredom from polar confinement.

The ships were finally freed July 20 1825, reaching a distance of sixty miles before Hecla and Fury were driven toward the shores of Somerset Island. Hecla eventually extricated herself, but the hapless Fury wasn’t as fortunate. Thrown against shore ice, her crew was rendered helpless as their ship was broken apart by icebergs.

Around the clock, Hoppner’s men worked, unloading Fury’s stores on the strip of land that would bear their foundered ship’s name: Fury Beach. Repairs were attempted to achieve a seaworthy vessel, but none held and Fury’s wreck had to be left behind while her crew boarded Hecla for the return voyage home.