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Month: May 2011

Saladin Ahmed on Black Gate

Saladin Ahmed on Black Gate

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saladin-ahmedOver at Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist, guest blogger Saladin Ahmed had this to say about the modern landscape for heroic fantasy:

In recent years I’ve also discovered that there is a wealth of short-form heroic fantasy out there… Anthologies like the excellent Swords and Dark Magic feature some of the top names in the field (Erikson, Lynch, Abercrombie, Moorcock, Nix, Cook). And writers like Peter V. Brett have produced collections of short works set in their bestselling worlds (The Great Bazaar and Other Stories, Brayan’s Gold). But there are also some great short story ezines out there publishing the next generation of heroic fantasy writers: Heroic Fantasy Quarterly has made it their mission to bring back the pulp era with unabashedly larger-than-life adventures. Black Gate (the magazine where James Enge’s awesome Morlock Ambrosius got his start) is also working hard to revive the sense of wonder that heroes like Conan and John Carter of Mars used to evoke in readers. And Beneath Ceaseless Skies specializes in what the editor calls ‘literary adventure fantasy’ – stories that combine excellent prose and psychological depth with fantasy elements like alchemists, samurai, werewolves, and talking swords.

Thanks for the shout-out, Saladin! For our part we’re looking forward to your upcoming novel, Throne of the Crescent Moon.

Two Reviews

Two Reviews

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hfNo doubt somewhere someone is writing a vampire series based on Hamlet (there is, alas, a Romeo and Juliet and Vampires novel) but, for now, they are separate categories for two of my reviews posted on the current (mid-May) SF Site.

The first is Orson Scott Card’s retelling of Hamlet, which pretty much follows the play’s plot, but with a twist at the end I suspect the original author no more would have thought of than, well, making Hamlet a vampire.

bs4The second is Cherie Priest’s kickoff of an “urban fantasy” (a term which I take to mean “vampires who live and suck blood in cities”) called Bloodshot, featuring Raylene Pendle (aka Cheshire Red), and thief for hire who also happens to be a slightly neurotic vampire.

It’s not Shakespeare, but it is fun.

Larry Tritten, 1939 – 2011

Larry Tritten, 1939 – 2011

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black_gate_9-2771Black Gate lost one of its own last month with the passing of noted short story writer Larry Tritten.

Larry began his lengthy career in 1968 with the story “West is West,” in Worlds of If magazine. He appeared in dozens of magazines such as The New Yorker, Fantasy and Science Fiction, Asimov’s, Twilight Zone, and many others. In 2005 his story “It’s a Wonderful Con,” featuring a man who cons Santa Claus out of $200, appeared in Black Gate 9.

As much as I enjoyed his fiction, I was even more charmed with Larry’s letters, which related fascinating details of a writing life. I got his permission to include a few of those anecdotes in a sidebar that accompanied the story, and got more mail about that than about his fiction. The sidebar read, in part:

I was in the Mammoth Book of Future Cops a while back, with a Chandler parody set in future San Francisco, and not long ago I was the lone male (heterosexual) writer in the British anthology Va-Va-Voom – Red Hot Lesbian Erotica.  Just me and 32 Lesbian writers. I try to cover all territories.  Had a piece in Minnesota Parent a while back, though I am not a parent and have never been to Minnesota (except to change planes).  Had one in Range (but am not a cattle grower).  And so on.

The count is about 1500 pieces since the sixties, so I’ve had time to get around.  I’m probably one of the few writers to have published in both Hustler and The New Yorker.  I’m often astonishing younger writers with memories of the those early days.  For example, in December 1978 I made four or five sales (one to The New Yorker for, I think, about $1250), and the money added up to close to $5,000.  I was living in an apartment where the rent was $185 per month.  Rent for two years!  Hard to believe such times ever existed.  Today my rent and bills are about ten times what they were then, and just the next month’s rent always looms like the sword of Damocles.

F&SF editor Gordon van Gelder wrote:

He was a smart, talented, and funny writer. He was also the sort of professional writer that seems to be disappearing, the kind of professional who never met a market he didn’t like and had the versatility to tailor almost any work to meet the needs of any market.

He contributed a lot of funny stuff to F&SF over the years.

Larry died in April, 2011. A more complete obituary appears in the May issue of Locus.

Blogging Marvel’s The Tomb of Dracula, Part Two

Blogging Marvel’s The Tomb of Dracula, Part Two

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tomb-of-dracula-7tomb-of-dracula-8Marv Wolfman took over scripting duties on Marvel’s The Tomb of Dracula with Issue 7. Despite the name, Wolfman was an unlikely choice for a horror title as he had never been much of a horror fan and had limited exposure to the character outside of Stoker’s original novel. Nonetheless, the decision to pair Wolfman with artist Gene Colan and inker Tom Palmer elevated the series to classic status and insured its reputation for decades to come.

Issue 7 quickly sets the stage with the introduction of Quincy Harker and his daughter Edith. Quincy is the son of Jonathan and Mina Harker born at the end of Stoker’s novel. Here he is a nearly blind old man confined to a wheelchair with his daughter and faithful dog Saint as his constant companions. He functions as a mentor to Rachel Van Helsing and Taj Nital and has welcomed Frank Drake into the fold. Quincy is an amateur inventor whose vampire hunting gadgets give the story a Bondian edge that works very well. Wolfman’s sense of history and character instantly deepens the story and gives the reader a reason to empathize beyond the immediate sense of good vs. evil.

His innate understanding of people as an amalgamation of family history, mistakes, joys, and tragedies is Wolfman’s greatest strength as an author. Even his Dracula, for all of his cruelty and savagery, is imbued with such humanity and dignity that one can’t help hoping all of them can find peace. Wolfman may be the first writer since Stoker to successfully treat the characters as real people that readers recognize as something other than stereotypes. Finding the key to that empathy is what elevates his take on the property above so many others.

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R. Scott Bakker: Not the Anti-Tolkien, After All

R. Scott Bakker: Not the Anti-Tolkien, After All

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lord-of-the-ringsAre you a Tolkien imitator? A riffer? A rejector? One way or the other, if you’re writing epic fantasy, the Oxford professor is sitting on your shoulder, sniggering and blowing dirty pipe smoke up your nose.

It doesn’t matter that you’ve never read Lord of the Rings; declaring Conan the Cimmerian to be your only true love won’t save you. The man with two “R”s didn’t invent the field, but he dominates it to the extent that we all write in his shadow.

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Goth Chick News: Outpost 13 – A Very Early Peek at a New Film from Pirate Pictures

Goth Chick News: Outpost 13 – A Very Early Peek at a New Film from Pirate Pictures

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image010Welcome to the Cool Kids Club; you’ve officially arrived.

How do I know?

Because uber-edgy indy film maker Wyatt Weed (Pirate Pictures) has decided that Black Gate is where he wants to leak a little insider information about his upcoming sci-fi release, Outpost 13.

I’ve seen an amazing secret clip which I can’t share just yet, but allow me to assure you that snotty posers would never be allowed this kind of access.

I begged, pleaded and finally promised Wyatt that I’d send him my personal copy of Black Gate 15 (hey John, you’re not going to charge me for a replacement copy are you?) and he agreed to sneak us a little information about the project, along with some production stills.

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This Page is Half Empty: The Five Horsemen of Literary Apocalypse

This Page is Half Empty: The Five Horsemen of Literary Apocalypse

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428px-durer_revelation_four_riders1Right now, as I type this — and as you read it — I’ve got a new manuscript half done. For a writer, this is sort of like me saying that at this very moment I’m not wearing anything under all of my clothing. Well, duh, most people are thinking, while trying to not involuntarily imagine me naked. For writers, the thought continues, there’s always the current project.

The process of forging the first draft is much like any other relationship between the mind and the will. Romance, for instance. There’s the initial flare of interest, the slower “getting to know you” stage, and a much longer “I know you, now” period. These are all easy to navigate, because they are exciting and interesting. They are effortless, and writers know the feeling of a Work-In-Progress crush.

But this infatuation period cannot last. While in it, there’s always the potential that your feelings are mercurial, diaphanous dream-fluff that make no sense when you try to go deeper. To your shock, you realize that perhaps your burning love isn’t the stuff of ages, but mere puppy love. Your ardor has brought you no glamour, but instead made those around you somewhat uncomfortable, hoping, for your sake, that it will all end soon without you getting hurt too badly.

Am I just a puppy-lover? you find yourself asking.

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On NPR: Howard Andrew Jones on Pulp Fiction

On NPR: Howard Andrew Jones on Pulp Fiction

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pulp-cover---planet-stories-summer-1946-lorelei-of-the-red-mists-1Black Gate Managing Editor Howard Andrew Jones had his turn in the national spotlight last week, with a feature article on National Public Radio’s website titled Rich Tales In Cheap Print: Three Pulp Fiction Finds.

Howard used his fifteen minutes of fame to shine a spotlight on neglected pulp masters:

The pulps have a well-earned reputation for purple prose, but there was gold among the dross.

Fine adventure stories from other genres were printed in pulps like Adventure, Weird Tales and Planet Stories, but unfortunately, many of these authors remain neglected or marginalized. Today’s readers might expect to find nothing but legions of square-jawed heroes, wilting damsels and tentacled monsters in the old magazines, but there were also skilled, inventive writers plying their trade, evoking thrills and chills without formulaic plotting.

Howard calls out three modern reprints of some of the very best fantasy from the pulp era, returned to print by publishers who have worked hard to preserve pulp fiction and present it to a modern audience:

  1. Lorelei Of The Red Mist, Leigh Brackett (Haffner Press)
  2. Who Fears The Devil, Manly Wade Wellman (Paizo Publishing)
  3. The Best Of Robert E. Howard Volume 2: Grim Lands, Robert E. Howard (Del Rey)

All these publishers deserve your support — and you deserve to read these stories. As Howard says in his final line, “Some of the tales are dark, many are brooding, but though they be decades old, each beguiles with a siren call to strange lands to witness heroic deeds.”

Read the complete article here.

A Review of The Sorcerer’s Plague

A Review of The Sorcerer’s Plague

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the-sorcerers-plague-coeThe Sorcerers’ Plague
David B. Coe
Tor (496 pages, $7.99, February 2009 (originally December 2007))
Reviewed by Bill Ward

The Sorcerer’s Plague from David B. Coe is the first book in a planned trilogy entitled The Blood of the Southlands, which takes place in a different section of a world already established in Coe’s previous series, The Winds of the Forelands. While some characters and basic information is carried over from Coe’s previous series, familiarity with these elements is not necessary to the enjoyment of The Sorcerer’s Plague.

The Southlands are divided along racial and clan lines, and much of the back-story of this book goes into describing the various divisions and antagonisms between its competing peoples. No love is lost between the Qirsi, white-haired and pale-eyed sorcerers, and the Eandi, dark-haired people incapable of magic. Between these two racial groups are the Mettai and the Y’Qatt, people that inhabit the Companion Lakes Region in which most of the book’s action takes place. These two groups blur the distinction between the races as the Y’Qatt are Qirsi who refuse, for religious reasons, to use any magic, and the Mettai are Eandi who are actually powerful magicians — only the Mettai use earth and blood magic rather than the Qirsi’s channeling of their life essence for purposes of sorcery. The competing abilities and philosophies of these groups are fertile ground for the plot.

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