Tais Teng
BornThijs van Ebbenhorst Tengbergen
1952 (age 70–71)
The Hague, Netherlands
OccupationWriter, sculptor, illustrator, writing coach
NationalityDutch
EducationStudied biology in Utrecht University
Genrefantasy fiction, detective, historical fiction, horror, middle grade fiction, Young Adult Fiction and science fiction
Notable awardsPaul Harland Prize (x4) Archeon Oeuvre Prijs
Website
taisteng.atspace.com

Tais Teng (born 1952 in The Hague) is the pen name of a Dutch writer of fantasy fiction, hardboiled detective, children's books, and science fiction. Additionally, Teng works as an illustrator, sculptor, and writing coach. His real name is Thijs van Ebbenhorst Tengbergen, which he had to shorten (as revealed in his interview with Mad Scientist Journal) due to spacing issues on the covers of his books. Other pen names he has used are Eban Hourst and Ben Bergen, which reflect his search for a pseudonym that was pronounceable in languages other than Dutch.

Tais Teng has written more than a hundred novels both for adults and children in the Dutch language. He has won the Paul Harland Prize four times. His books have been translated into German, Finnish, French, and English, with Teng himself being a Dutch and English bilingual writer.

He has co-authored short stories and novels with Paul Harland, Eddy C. Bertin, Bies van Ede, Roderick Leeuwenhart, Roelof Goudriaan, and Jaap Boekestein.

Griezelgenootschap

In the Netherlands, Tais Teng is best known as a member of the Griezelgenootschap, a group of Dutch horror writers who published yearbooks of horror stories and gave performances and signing sessions for interested fans from 1994 to 2003. Paul van Loon was the chairman of the organization.

Tais Teng wrote the three-novel series Duisterlingen (Darklings) with Eddy C. Bertin and Bies van Ede about three children with special powers who can travel into the nightmarish dreamland Yldorgei. As a member, Tais Teng produced two dozen more horror novels, ranging from Middle Grade to Young Adult. His most popular series was the Griezelklas (Monsterclass) for very special children. The plot included a long-suffering teacher who has to keep order in a class with vampire sisters, a man-eating kelpie, a witch, a hot-tempered dwarf with a sledgehammer, and half a dozen more dangerous pupils.

Literary influences

Homegrown Dutch science fiction

When Tais Teng started reading, fantasy was almost nonexistent in the Netherlands. However, science fiction flourished, with most of it being homegrown. He grew up with the idea that the Dutch engineering know-how would put them on the Moon and Mars first. Monus, de Man van de Maan (Monus, the Man from the Moon) by A.D. Hildebrandt was an extremely popular audio play that was aired every week. Teng decided that he wanted to be a writer after reading De Kristallen Tiran (The Crystal Tyrant) by Wim van der Gaag, a tale about a war between an earthly computer system and a vegetative brain of Mars. It was partly due to the highly information-dense style: the revelation that one could tell so many original things on a single page. It is a style he still enjoys using for any of his Hard science fiction stories.[1]

English SF and fantasy

When Teng started writing, Jack Vance was the most influential writer for fledgling Dutch sci-fi writers at the time, more so than Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov. Teng wanted to write like him, but realized that imitating a style wasn't enough: he still had to have a good story. Several of Tais Teng's first stories were Jack Vance imitations.
In 2019, he wrote the novel Phaedra: Alastor 824, an authorized sequel to the Alastor Cluster novels of Jack Vance.[1] It was published by Spatterlight Press as part of the Paladins of Vance imprint. Several older fantasy writers inspired him, most notably Lord Dunsany with The Gods of Pegana These very short stories are from an early example of Flash stories.
The same is the case of several stories set in The Night Land of William Hope Hodgson and the Zothique tales inspired by Clark Ashton Smith. With Paul Harland, he co-wrote Computer Code Cthulhu, a Cthulhu Mythos novel set in the near future. The horror writer H. P. Lovecraft remains a strong influence on his horror stories with Teng naming his first English collection Lovecraft, My Love.

The Dutch Ziltpunk movement

Tais Teng is one of the founders of Ziltpunk, a literary movement that seeks to counter the apathetic dismay of many Dystopian novels. The Ziltpunk stories belong to climate fiction, which looks for solutions to the climate crisis. It is also the Dutch equivalent of solarpunk. The rising sea level is an urgent problem for the Dutch, with half their land below sea level.
Ziltpunk describes massive geoengineering projects which writers consider the only way to counter climate change. Sixty-meter-high dikes, mangrove islands planted in the sea to counter flood waves, or even raising the land itself by injecting the underlying chalk layers with hydrogen sulfide are some key examples in the text.
The stories seldom describe a rosy utopia. In it, survival with some joie de vivre is enough. The focus of the Ziltpunk stories is mainly set in the Netherlands, with a mentality reminiscent of the Golden Age Science Fiction.
Part of the ziltpunk future described in Teng's works is already here. The Dutch are building higher dunes along the coast and movable dykes like the Maeslantkering to control both the sea and rivers.
To date, the ziltpunk movement has published three novels and some two dozen stories. Roderick Leeuwenhart and Johan Klein Haneveld recently joined and wrote their own stories and novels.
Several ziltpunk stories have been published in English. Examples include Any House in the Storm, Tidal Treasures or Growing Up Along the Mile-High Dyke, Buitendyks, and Where the Night-Gulls Yodel.[2]

Bibliography

(English works only, see the Dutch Wikipedia version for novels in that language)

Novels and collections

  • The Emerald Boy (YA novel), Miyu Magic stones, ISBN 978-90-810858-2-3
  • With Musket and Ducat (novella), XIII Stories of Transformation
  • Embrace the Night (novella set in the Nightland of Willam Hope Hodgson), nightland.website
  • Lovecraft, my love (collection)
  • Embrace the night and other stories (collection)
  • Phaedra: Alastor 824 (novel, in the Alastor Cluster series), Spatterlight Press
  • When the Night-gaunt Knows your Name (Children's book)

Short stories

  • "Slow as glaciers and their swords all aflame," Aurelia Lion
  • "Praying to Thasaidon," Cirsova (set in Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique)
  • "Riders on the storm," Dimension Six
  • "Walking the thrice-blessed road," Stories for the Thoughtful Young
  • "The shipwright's Lover," Longshot Island 9 (set in Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique)
  • "True silk," Unreal 4
  • "Make the second shot count," Low life Journal
  • "Slow-boat inspector," Daily science fiction
  • "Playing stalker in the night," Itty Bitty writing space
  • "Ice words and fire fonts," Mad scientist Journal
  • "A perfect day with the dead men shrieking and the sky filled with northern light," Red Sun magazine (Cthulhu Mythos)
  • "Why we are standing on a broken wall, clutching swords too rusty to take an edge," Battling in all her finery
  • "You should have seen their faces," Daily Science Fiction
  • "The story of Mynheer Reynaerde and the purloined tails," The Worlds of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror
  • "Assassin's Scroll," Black cat magazine
  • "In her fingerless hands she holds the ice and all the oceans," Unfit Magazine
  • "Tidal Treasure, or Growing up along the Mile-high Dyke," Future science fiction digest
  • "Watching the Space-stations Rise," Write Ahead, volume 2
  • "The Magician's Left Hand," Switchblade #6
  • "Doch das Messer sieht man nicht," Switchblade #4
  • "The cowboy who loved lady Liberty," Albedo One #47
  • "America first," More Alternative truths
  • "Dancing for Azathoth," The Worlds of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror (Cthulhu Mythos)
  • "For the greater good of all," Singular Irregularity
  • "Growing up with your dead sister," Pulp Literature #8
  • "Tokyo Nights," Tokyo Yakuza: Issues #1 - #24
  • "Any house in the storm," Crossed Genres
  • "An Overview of the Infernal Regions," Hell II: Citizens
  • "Al-Adrian and the magic lamp," Faery wicked tales
  • "The art of losing wars gracefully," The end is the beginning
  • "The further adventures of Jesus: The First seal: Conquest"
  • "And the sky is filled with eyes," nightland.website (set in William Hope Hodgson's Night Land)
  • "Respect of Headwaiters," Perihelion Science Fiction (12-AUG-2014)
  • "Expiating ancestral sins," Albedo One #31 (2006)
  • "Crowned by Lightning," Albedo One #18 (1998)
  • "A Girl Like Tiadi," Pandora #21 (1988)
  • "Green-ache," Amazing (Nov. 1989)
  • "Worthy enemy," Hardboiled #10
  • "What Avails a Psalm in the Cinders of Gehenna?," SF International #2 (1987)
  • "Palimpsests," Dragon
  • "Disslish the Aquamancer," Terra sf

Essays

Art

Tais Teng began selling his artwork in 1981, the same year he wrote his first children's book and published an SF collection for adults.
He got his start by making B & W interior illustrations for Atlan, a spin-off of the German SF series Perry Rhodan. This was Space Opera: he had to draw a lot of exploding starships, robots, and aliens.
At the same time he got a commission to paint the SF covers for CentriPress, most notably the Jerry Cornelius novels by Michael Moorcock.
He used oils and acrylic paint, and while oil paint looked better, it also took a fortnight to dry, which proved to be a problem when working for demanding publishers.
He soon switched to Airbrushing. The technique was perfect for painting the surreal, Salvador Dalí inspired twilight skies often seen in science fiction. Regardless, the painting was easily spoiled when the flow of paint started spattering. For each part of the picture, Teng also had to cut out plastic stencils to preserve earlier parts.
When Photoshop came around, he embraced digital painting.
Nowadays, Tais Teng makes use of computer-generated Fractals and kaleidoscopic mandalas to construct his landscapes.[3] An avid photographer, he has an extensive databank of figures and objects. For his Black & White illustrations, he often uses Scraperboard or digital etchings. He also paints murals and background decors for plays, for which he had trained as a decor painter at the art academy Artibus in Utrecht.[4]

Pulp Literature Press

  • Pulp Literature, Issue 3, 2014
  • Pulp Literature, Issue 6, 2015
  • Pulp Literature, Issue 9, 2016
  • Pulp Literature, Issue 19, 2018

Sculpture

Tais Teng mainly works in marl, a rather soft stone that was used by medieval artisans to decorate cathedrals with saints and gargoyles. Being a horror writer, he prefers making gargoyles. For smaller pieces, he also uses Springstone, a hard material often used in African art.
The marl statues come in a block of 20-20-60 centimeters. They are stacked with the lower piece forming a decorated plinth. He often uses these statues as part of a cover image, integrating them with the rest of the picture.[5][6]

Trivia

Tais Teng often uses lengthy titles to tell their own mini-tales for his short stories. Two of his most extreme samples include: "Why we are standing on a broken wall, clutching swords too rusty to take an edge" and "A perfect day with the dead men shrieking and the sky filled with northern light."[7]

When asked what his most heartfelt wish was, he answered it as a sculptor: "A Star Wars laser cannon to carve mountains on one of Jupiter's moons."

Further reading and sources

Tais Teng

References

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