Guns or Butter? Race for the Galaxy by Tom Lehmann

Guns or Butter? Race for the Galaxy by Tom Lehmann

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Race For the Galaxy, Revised 2nd Edition, by Tom Lehmann (Rio Grande Games, 2007)

As I mentioned in my review of Terraforming Mars, Race for the Galaxy is one of my long-time favorite games. Its play models the expansion of up to four interstellar civilizations, each from one of five possible starting points: Old Earth, Epsilon Eridani, Alpha Centauri, New Sparta, and Earth’s Lost Colony. Development is represented abstractly, with nothing that represents physical variables, population, or any other real quantity; the idea is to come up with the right combinations of capabilities.

This is a card game, not a board game. There’s no predefined space for play to happen in. Rather, each player creates their own space by the play of their cards into a “tableau.”

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A Swashbuckling Anthology: Swordsmen and Supermen, edited by Donald M. Grant

A Swashbuckling Anthology: Swordsmen and Supermen, edited by Donald M. Grant

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Swordsmen and Supermen (Centaur Press, February 1972). Cover by Virgil Finlay

Swordsmen and Supermen 1972, subtitled “Swashbuckling Fantastic Anthology.” From Centaur Press, edited by Donald M. Grant. Cover from Virgil Finlay. This was linked to Centaur Press’s Time-Lost series of books but I’m not sure it quite fit that or the “swashbuckling” subtitle. It’s a strange mishmash of material, including three old reprints and two new stories (from ’72).

It starts off with a Robert E. Howard story, but it’s one of his humorous westerns featuring Breckinridge Elkins called “Meet Cap’n Kidd.” It’s a funny tale but not really the type of fantasy one associates with Swordsmen.

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Kingdom of Heaven: A Perfect Film About an Imperfect Knight

Kingdom of Heaven: A Perfect Film About an Imperfect Knight

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Kingdom of Heaven Director’s Cut (20th Century Fox, December 23, 2005)

Kingdom of Heaven (Director’s Cut) (194 minutes; 2005)

Written by William Monahan. Directed by Ridley Scott.

(There is a shorter theatrical cut, which should be avoided at all costs, like the plague it is.)

What is it?

Ridley Scott’s epic saga of the Crusades, as seen through the eyes of a simple French blacksmith who travels to Jerusalem in an attempt to save the soul of his late wife, and ends up as the defender of the city against the massive army of Saladin.

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Big Damn Heroes? Shiny!!! – Firefly Attempting Animated Reboot

Big Damn Heroes? Shiny!!! – Firefly Attempting Animated Reboot

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Firefly

For a show that hardly anybody watched (it was reportedly 98th in the Nielsen Ratings for 2002-2003. The TV Guide Ratings page has it at 125th, and Fox’s lowest-ranked show), that one word carries a lot of weight 23 years later.

Fox famously aired the double-length pilot, which set the show up, as episode eleven, and then canceled the show, leaving three episodes unaired. It was also placed in the legendary Friday Night Death slot (where they also buried the far-more deserving The Adventures of Brisco County Jr).

The crew got to reunite and wrap things up two years later in the movie Serenity (which killed off two cast members). There were hopes to do more movies, but even after cutting the budget from $100 million to $39 million, it lost money in the US (98th) and barely broke even worldwide (111th). And  the Serenity (which is the ship: Firefly is its class) was grounded for good.

But over the years, Firefly came to be the definitive ‘cult classic,’ and the cast became fan convention staples. You can find all kinds of Firefly info on the web. And both streaming on Hulu, and Prime, the episodes are in order, which I HIGHLY recommend for viewing. Novels, board games, graphic novels — interest remained alive in more Firefly ‘stuff.’

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Avon Fantasy Reader, edited by Donald A. Wollheim

Avon Fantasy Reader, edited by Donald A. Wollheim

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A complete set (18 issues) of Avon Fantasy Reader, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and published 1947-1952

Donald A. Wollheim edited a magazine between the years 1947 to 1952 called Avon Fantasy Reader for Avon Publishers. There were 18 issues, publishing mostly reprints.

Erik Mona reviewed the first issue of Avon Fantasy Reader for Black Gate back in 2023.

I’ve never seen a copy of any of these, but in the late 1960s, George Ernsberger selected some of the best stories from the magazine for two paperback volumes. I believe there were only two. Here are some quick looks at the paperbacks, which I own and have read.

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The Literary Sorcerer’s Toolkit: Arcane Arts & Cold Steel by David C. Smith

The Literary Sorcerer’s Toolkit: Arcane Arts & Cold Steel by David C. Smith

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Arcane Arts and Cold Steel (Pulp Hero Press, December 24, 2025)

David C. Smith is a name that speaks to lovers of sword & sorcery, if not with the power of a Karl Edward Wagner, then not far behind, and if you love the genre but don’t know Dave’s name…1) Shame on you; 2) Let me get you up to speed.

A powerful writer of the genre’s last great flowering in the late 70s, Dave’s Tales of Attluma — a sunken lost continent — have spanned five decades, chronicling multiple eras in the lost land’s history — including its destruction — beginning with the epic saga of Oron and most recently, the Unforgiven-esque Sometime Lofty Towers, which I will go on record as calling the best s&s novel since the Elric-fixups, and with more emotional punch.

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Forgotten Authors: Nat Schachner

Forgotten Authors: Nat Schachner

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Nat Schachner

Nat Schachner was born on January 16, 1895 in New York. He earned a Bachelor of Science in chemistry from City College in 1915. He served in the U.S. Army during World War I in the chemical warfare service from 1917 to 1918 and, when he returned to New York he earned a Doctor of Jurisprudence from New York University in 1919, the same year he married Helen Lichtenstein. The couple would have a daughter.  He worked as an attorney until 1933 when he became a freelance writer.

On April 4, 1930, Schachner, along with G. Edward Pendray, David Lasser, and Laurence Manning, founded the American Interplanetary Society, which would be renamed the American Rocket Society four years later. The organization designed and launched liquid fueled rockets and in 1936 the organization was awarded the Prix a’Astronautique by the Société astronomique de France.

1930 also saw the start of his career as an author with the publication of “The Tower of Evil,” which he co-wrote with Arthur Leo Zagat. The two men collaborated on eleven stories published in 1931 before both turning to their solo careers as authors.

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Dark Muse News: New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine, Issues #8, 9, & 10

Dark Muse News: New Edge Sword & Sorcery Magazine, Issues #8, 9, & 10

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Cover Artists Cover #8 – Jimmy Makepeace  Cover #9 – Plastiboo  Cover #10 – Matej Kollár

Black Gate has been tracking the inception and growth of New Edge Sword & Sorcery (NESS) mgazine, starting with Micheal Harrington’s 2022 interview with Oliver Brackenbury (champion and editor of NESS), through 2023 with NESS’s first two magazine releases (also Greg Mele’s review of #1), and then into 2024 with NESS’s first book “Beating Heart and Battle Axes and its two-novella combo book Double-Edged Sword & Sorcery, and then in 2025 we covered NESS‘s publication of a NEW Jirel of Joiry tale! (2025) and we interviewed one of their key New Edge authors, Bryn Hammond.

Now in 2026, NESS brings us more with promises of Issues 8, 9, and 10!

The campaign to fund and expand them ends just days after this posting (March 14th )!  Hurry now to Backerkit to get some exclusives like a poster featuring live models in full S&S costume, discounted back issues, and a cover art postcard; also, backing unlocks more interior art and bumps author payments. If you miss out, or want some of the prior rewards from previous crowdfunding, get back issues and other NESS offerings in their shop, noting that print copies often have limited print runs.

So what is in the next three issues? We asked Oliver Brackenbury that, and his answer is below. And we had a feeling Jirel of Joiry would return, and we asked Molly Tanzer to provide a bit of perspective on the heroine.

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The Sword & Sorcery of John Jakes: Brak the Barbarian

The Sword & Sorcery of John Jakes: Brak the Barbarian

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Brak the Barbarian paperbacks by John Jakes

When you mention John Jakes (1932 – 2023) to the average reader, they’ll probably come back with, “The Kent Family Chronicles guy?” or “the guy who wrote that North and South trilogy they made that mini-series from?”

I have some of those books but I’ve never read them. I know John Jakes, and probably most of you do, from Brak the Barbarian. There are 5 books.

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It’s a Scam. It’s All a Scam.

It’s a Scam. It’s All a Scam.

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Good afterevenmorn, Readers!

I’ve been receiving a great many emails of late, of a kind that I’m sure many authors are getting, and I think I should probably talk about it, because it’s all such a scam. There are several flavours of scam emails that are circulating at present, of which I have personally experienced two, so let’s talk about them. …

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