Tales and Time Capsules5 Out of 5 Stars
There was a time when there was no Facebook, AOL or even Drummer Classified. You couldn't pop on your I-Phone and do a locater for the closest hook-up, soul mate, or buddy. Not even a hankie-code. You had to depend on your instincts. The tell-tale clues. The direct questions posed to you by men who had learned through experience what to look for in you as you prowled the bars and streets, looking for something you just couldn't quite define, but felt burning in your heart.
"Sir, why was I brought here?
"You Willed it. It was yourself who brought you here, we merely took you in."
"The Slave Journals: And Other Tales of The Old Guard" is Thom Magistar's terrific collection of stories about The Centurions, a mythical leather club that has existed since the late 40's and continues recruitment into the present day. While the stories are fiction, it is easy to feel the heat of each coal of truth that the stories themselves contain. The seventeen Masters who recount their lives and times show how The Old Guard, as it were, began as men in need of a safe place to bond and be themselves. No pretense, no sense that they were doing something that would eventually become embellished legend. Just being the men they knew they were.
Self-awareness is key in many of these stories, even if The Centurions continuously emphasize honor, trust, dignity, loyalty and discipline. The integrity never changes, even as the years roll by and the world changes. The men, the club, they all change as well, but not that set of key elements. The stories are hot in the hard-handed reading division, yet a message that kinship can be a virtue that overrides lust is the message brought home throughout Magistar's writing. Seekers will always seek, it is what they find and ultimately keep - and then give back - that makes a club, group, tribe or family worth belonging to.
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