The Heroic Fantasy of C.L. Moore

The Heroic Fantasy of C.L. Moore

Comments 0 Comment
Jirel of Joiry (Ace Books, November 1982). Cover by Stephen Hickman

While Edmond Hamilton introduced me to Space Opera, his wife, Leigh Brackett, and another woman writer, Catherine Lucille Moore (1911 – 1987), showed me the kind of emotional power these stories could wield. Moore was an influence on Brackett, and both of these writers wrote beautiful and poetic prose, which is something I always look for in the books I take home with me, although it’s not something I often find. (Robert E. Howard was another writer who could create that kind of prose, and both Moore and Brackett acknowledged him as an influence.)

Moore is known today for two genres that she did stellar work in. Neither of those is Sword and Planet, but one of them is Sword & Sorcery. Her Jirel of Joiry stories are exotic and luminescent. Jirel is one of the earliest flame-tressed female warriors in fantasy fiction. Depending on how far afield I eventually travel with this series, we may well come back to Jirel.

…

Read More Read More

From Traveller to Tantalizing Fiction: Torchship by Karl K. Gallagher

From Traveller to Tantalizing Fiction: Torchship by Karl K. Gallagher

Comments 0 Comment


Torchship by Karl K. Gallagher (Kelt Haven Press, December 9, 2015). Cover by Stephanie G. Folse

In the introduction to his first collection of short fiction, Unmitigated Acts (the title comes from Rudyard Kipling’s poem “The Female of the Species”), Karl Gallagher reflects on the history of the series: “I have a fondness for ‘rag tag crew on ramshackle ship’ stories” (p. 5). His first book, Torchship, published in 2015, is exactly that kind of story. Its setting is a nostalgic one: A starship, the Fives Full, navigated with paper charts and slide rules, like something from a Heinlein juvenile!

But there’s more to this than nostalgia. Gallagher’s interstellar future has a history, one in which artificial intelligence has come to be seen as an existential threat. How to deal with this threat is a central political issue that drives much of the plot. It’s more or less in the background in this first volume; in the sequels (Torchship Pilot and Torchship Captain), the entire plot emerges from it.

…

Read More Read More

Writing Advice: Creating Character (Red Sneaker Writers)

Writing Advice: Creating Character (Red Sneaker Writers)

Comments 0 Comment

It’s been a year, so let’s look at another volume of William Bernhardt’s awesome Red Sneaker Writers books. These things are absolute treasures.

I started reading William Bernhardt’s Ben Kincaid books back in the mid-nineties. I seem to recall I went on a ‘lawyer’ kick and read him, Steve Martini, and Robert K. Tannenbaum, all around the same time. But years later, Bernhardt made a bigger impact on me with his Red Sneaker Writers series. These slim volumes with the brightly attractive colors are jam-packed with great writing advice. The first book I read was on story structure, and I think it’s still my favorite. Though every one has been both interesting to read and thought-provoking. If I ever get my act together, I’ll add “taught me a lot.”

I’ve read through a couple of them more than once, making notes on paper (I CANNOT highlight a physical book. I’m incapable of it). Last year, I decided to be a little more systematic and I went through EVERY title, be it Theme, Plot, Character – all of them: and I outlined the key points in each chapter. I printed them all out and have a very cool binder. Which, if I ever actually sit down and write a novel, will be of great use.

I sent one of the outlines to him, telling him that I’d like to include it in a Black Gate post, promoting the series. He kindly granted his permission. Today, it’s the third outline in this series.

I’m fortunate that many actual, real, Writers (note the capital ‘W’) with books you can buy on Amazon, or at bookstores (if you can find one that is still in business), are friends of mine. And they are FAR more qualified than I am to talk abut writing advice. I think I hold my own as a Black Gate blogger, and there are worse Sherlock Holmes short stories out there than mine (And certainly better ones!). But my unfinished novel is just a bunch of words strung together, until I finish it.

…

Read More Read More

Red Shoes Go Rogue! Read All About It in Rouge by Mona Awad

Red Shoes Go Rogue! Read All About It in Rouge by Mona Awad

Comments 1 comment


Rouge by Mona Awad (Simon & Schuster, August 1, 2024). Cover uncredited

Red footwear is a powerful metaphor in folklore and fantasy. Dorothy clicked her red slippers to go home. (Yeah, I know, the slippers were silver in the Baum book, and only became red as a better fit with new Technicolor filming, but stay with me here.)

Let’s go back to the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale The Red Shoes in which Karen is given a pair of red shoes as (it turns out) an inappropriate confirmation present; the shoes stay stuck to her feet and force her to dance incessantly to the point where the only remedy is to cut off her feet.  The story forms the basis of the British film, also called The Red Shoes, in which a ballerina dancing in red shoes commits suicide. The film inspired the Kate Bush song (you guessed it) The Red Shoes.

…

Read More Read More

The Weyland-Yutaniverse, Part I

The Weyland-Yutaniverse, Part I

Comments 8 comments

In celebration of the recent streaming series Alien: Earth (whether you enjoyed it or not), I have created a new list of films that most certainly exist in the Weyland-Yutani universe, and if not certainly, then enjoy an unbelievably tenuous link to it.

This will be an ordered list of sixteen films, four a week, in reverse order, and is guaranteed to enrage you. The Alien and Predator films, and all those in between, are beloved by some, held sacred by a few, and the subjects of intense debate. My opinions will most certainly not align with yours, but I hope to keep you guessing as to my top four!

This list is as complete as I could make it, as I’m only including films I have seen, and I am sure there are one or two other movies out there that have a sneaky W-Y easter-egg buried in the background. Also note the absence of 2022’s Prey, which is indeed a Predator flick (and would have ranked very high on my list), but Weyland-Yutani didn’t exist in its time period, so I’m not including it. Are these rules flawed? Probably. I’m making them up as I go along.

I am limiting this list to sixteen films. There are plenty of TV shows that have snuck in a Weyland-Yutani reference; Firefly, Angel (essentially anything created by Joss Whedon), the V remake, even Dr. Who, and of course the recent show, Alien: Earth. I won’t be discussing any of these, but for the record I really enjoyed Alien: Earth, so there.

…

Read More Read More

Tor Doubles #26: John Varley’s Press Enter and Robert Silverberg’s Hawksbill Station

Tor Doubles #26: John Varley’s Press Enter and Robert Silverberg’s Hawksbill Station

Comments 1 comment
Cover for Fugue State by Wayne Barlowe
Cover for The Death of Doctor Island by Ron Walotsky

Tor Double #26, originally published in October 1990, contains the fifth and final story by Robert Silverberg. It also contains the second of three stories by John Varley.

Hawksbill Station was originally published in Galaxy in August, 1967. It was nominated for the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award. Set in the Cambrian period, before land animals or plants have evolved, it focuses on the titular prison, sent back in time from the twenty-first century to house political dissidents.

…

Read More Read More

Masters of Horror: The Essential Horror of Joe R. Lansdale

Masters of Horror: The Essential Horror of Joe R. Lansdale

Comments 0 Comment
The Essential Horror of Joe R. Lansdale (Tachyon Publications, October 7, 2025). Cover artist uncredited

Lansdale is the well known, prolific author both of mysteries (Hap and Leonard series) and of famous horror stories, which made him the recipient of multiple Bram Stoker awards.

The present collection does not include new stories but assembles a bunch of his best horror tales, making the book a real treat for horror fan. His narrative output is so huge that even a confirmed horror lover like myself has found here a few tales I was not familiar with.

…

Read More Read More

The Sword & Planet of Edmond Hamilton, Part II

The Sword & Planet of Edmond Hamilton, Part II

Comments 2 comments


The Star Kings by Edmond Hamilton (Paperback Library, November 1970). Cover artist unknown

See Part I of The Sword & Planet of Edmond Hamilton here.

Edmond Hamilton’s Kaldar tales seem very much an homage to ERB’s Barsoom stories. An Earthman adventurer named Stuart Merrick is sent to Kaldar by a group of scientists. He finds himself a princess to love and becomes that world’s greatest warrior, and at the end of the first tale is drawn back toEearth by those same scientists. When asked what he found, he says, “My world.”

…

Read More Read More

We Are Not Commodities (Modern Marketing Scares Me)

We Are Not Commodities (Modern Marketing Scares Me)

Comments 8 comments
An old woman standing in an empty dorm points a shotgun at the viewer. On the wall behind her is scrawled the words “We are not things”
A still from Mad Max: Fury Road

Good afterevenmorn, Readers!

You’ll have to excuse me as I’m currently on holidays, and the absence of the routine of heading into the office daily has thrown off my brain a little. Today, I wanted to muse about something quite personal to me. I had, for  quite a while, taken myself off most social media — I was still on Facebook a very little, and continued to watch YouTube videos — but the rest of them were used only to post a link to my blog post (such as BlueSky), or not at all (TikTok, looking at you). But I have since returned, albeit slowly and distantly.

…

Read More Read More

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Will Murray asks, ‘Do Lost Raymond Chandler Stories Exist?’

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Will Murray asks, ‘Do Lost Raymond Chandler Stories Exist?’

Comments 1 comment

“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.
– Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep
(Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun)

Will Murray makes a return to A (Black) Gat in the Hand. Last month, Strand Magazine (who I wrote DVD reviews for in a prior century) published a lost Raymond Chandler story. Which got Will to thinking…

The recent discovery of a previously unknown and unpublished short story by Raymond Chandler reminded me of a question that’s lingered in my mind for a very long time.

How did Chandler in the early years the Depression support himself and his wife writing for Black Mask and other titles when he only sold a two or three stories a year?

Black Mask was then paying only a penny or a penny and a half a word for fiction to any but their top writers. Chandler was writing stories that were roughly 12 to 18,000 words long. He received $180.00 for his first sale, “Blackmailers Don’t Shoot.“ Even considering what a penny could buy in 1933, when a loaf of sliced bread cost 3 cents, Chandler wouldn’t have been able to survive solely writing for Black Mask.

It wasn’t until 1935 that he broke into Munsey’s Detective Fiction Weekly, which probably paid him two cents a word, and possibly more. A considerable raise, but still far short of what was required for subsistence living. And he only sold one story to DFW, “Noon Street Nemesis.“

Since Chandler had been a well-paid oil company executive until he lost his job in 1932, conceivably his savings carried him for some period. But according to Chandler biographer Tom Hiney, by the time he started working on “Blackmailers,“ Chandler’s savings had been all but exhausted. The story took him five months to write. Add another month or so until he received the acceptance check. So that’s $30.00 a month for six months toil, paid at the end of the six-month period. At his old executive position, Chandler’s salary had approached $10,000 a year.

…

Read More Read More