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Year: 2012

Gary Con IV Report

Gary Con IV Report

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gary-con2Yesterday I drove up to Lake Geneva, the birthplace of Dungeons and Dragons, for Gary Con IV, the annual gathering in honor of Gary Gygax, the father of role-playing games.

I really enjoy Gary Con. In both locale and tone it’s very much what I imagine the earliest GenCon gaming conventions — which took place in Lake Geneva over thirty years ago — were like.

Just like the early GenCons it’s small and very friendly, with a focus on vintage gaming and first edition D&D/AD&D, with many early TSR employees and industry giants from that era in attendance.

Just a few of the distinguished guests this year included Basic D&D boxed set author Frank  Mentzer; Knights of the Dinner Table creator Jolly Blackburn; author and Dragonlance co-creator Margaret Weis; long-time TSR employee Mike Carr, author of In Search of the Unknown and many others; Troll Lord Games CEO Stephen Chenault; classic AD&D artists Jeff Easley and Jeff Dee; founding Dragon editor Tim Kask; KenzerCo chief David Kenzer; Metamorphosis Alpha creator Jame M. Ward;  Snit’s Revenge creator Tom Wham; Dungeons & Dragons 3.0 co-creator Skip Williams, and many others.

One of the marvelous things about small conventions, of course, is that it’s possible to talk to the guests — unlike big cons where they are usually mobbed.

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Art of the Genre: Why and how I build a Kickstarter

Art of the Genre: Why and how I build a Kickstarter

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lyssa-lobby-card-kickstart-lockwood-serpent-2Yes, yes, I’m trying to keep up with my Kickstarter theme each Saturday, but as I’m releasing a new Kickstarter myself, and its progress will be tracked right here on Black Gate at the bottom of my posts, I thought I’d show you what I was thinking as I did it. Keep on sharing the knowledge, you know, because the more people I can help get onto this platform, the better it is for all those already using it. So, here is a run down of what goes on in my head as I start one of these projects.

First, I go back into my ‘nostalgia archives’ and find something I loved. In this case it was the old-school shared anthology. Considering what it would mean to bring something like this back, especially since I work for a short fiction publisher in Black Gate Magazine, I couldn’t resist the temptation.

To do this, however, I needed authors that filled the bill, so I promptly went out and got some, eight to be precise. With these creative folk in the fold, I then created a website to host as a kind of creative sand box for all the authors to help build a world in. I decided we’d start small, inside a single city, and work our way out from there as success allowed.

However, you know me, I couldn’t do this without art, so I got an artist to start doing conceptual work on the world using the ideas of the authors and myself. Then, once concept art was in play I found a cover artist who had no peer in the fantasy genre, and signed him on as well. [Note: You would be surprised how much creative people love the thought of working freely on stuff like this, especially after spending the bulk of their time doing what others want instead of what their own creative mind is telling them.]

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Clarkesworld Issue #66

Clarkesworld Issue #66

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cw_66_300The March  issue of Clarkesworld is currently online. Featured fiction: “Sunlight Society” by Margaret Ronald, “The Bells of Subsidence” by Michale John Grist and “From Their Paws, We Shall Inherit” by Gary Kloster.  Non fiction by E.C. Ambrose, Jeremy L.C. Jones and Neil Clarke.  The cover art is by Sergio Diaz.

All of this is available online for free; there’s even an audio podcast version of all three stories read by Kate Baker. However, nothing is really free. The magazine is supported by “Clarkesworld Citizens” who donate $10 or more.

We last covered Clarkesworld with issue #64.

New Treasures: The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction

New Treasures: The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction

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wesleyan-anthologyWow. This may be the finest SF anthology I’ve ever seen. It’s certainly the best I’ve come across in many years.

Editing an anthology — especially a reprint anthology — is a delicate balancing act. You want to include the very finest stories you can, of course. But you’d prefer not to fill your book with tales your readers have seen a dozen times over.

I’m not sure I’ve seen a book that manages this as well as The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction. Starting with Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Rappaccini’s Daughter” (published 1844) and ending with Ted Chiang’s “Exhalation” (2008) it spans 164 years of science fiction publishing, including some of the finest SF stories ever written — Edmond Hamilton’s “The Man Who Evolved” (1931), James Patrick Kelly’s “Think Like a Dinosaur” (1995) — alongside dozens I’ve never read. Virtually every major SF and fantasy short fiction writer of the last 164 years is represented, from H. G. Wells, C.L. Moore and Stanley Weinbaum to Samuel R. Delany, Philip K. Dick, Gene Wolfe and Charles Stross.

The Wesleyan Anthology has a grand total of six editors, which tells you right off the bat it’s an academic endeavor targeted at libraries and school curriculum. All six are editors for Science Fiction Studies, DePauw University’s long-running critical journal, and they do a fine job of introducing the tales. Now, academic anthologies like this usually don’t appeal to me. They typically devote a considerable page count to proto-SF of the late 1800s or early 1900s, and that stuff puts my feet to sleep.

Not this time.  By the fifth tale we’re already into the 1930s, and the editors pay proper respect to both the Golden Age of SF — the Campbell authors of the 1940s like Asimov and Simak — and the earlier pulp writers of the mid-30s such as Hamilton and Leslie F. Stone. They’ve even plucked some tales from the pulps that I’ve never heard of, and that takes some effort.

I first laid eyes on The Wesleyan Anthology at Wiscon last year when SF author Richard Chwedyk showed me his copy with some wonder and amazement. Alice bought me my copy for Christmas, and I’ve been slowly (very slowly) making my way through it. The Wesleyan Anthology is $39.95 for 787 pages in trade paperback, and is published by Wesleyan University Press. Do yourself a favor and check it out.

The Big Barbarian Theory

The Big Barbarian Theory

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the-sorcerers-shadowConan, King Kull, Cormac, Bran Mak Morn — characters often imitated, never duplicated. These creations of Robert E. Howard started the sword-and-sorcery boom of the 1960s and early 1970s.

Then there are the barbarian warriors inspired by Howard — Clonans, as one writer recently referred to these sword-slinging, muscle-bound characters.

A fair observation, but in some cases, not so true.

We prefer to think of these tales of wandering barbarian heroes as “Solo Sword and Sorcery” because the majority of these characters are lone wolves, without sidekicks or even recurring companions. This is a big part of their appeal, in fact.

We’ve read many, if not most, of the Conan pastiches, including the novels based on Howard’s other creations. Karl Edward Wagner’s, Poul Anderson’s, and Andy Offutt’s portrayals of the Cimmerian come within a sword’s stroke of Howard’s vision.

L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter, in commodifying the character, arranged the long, informal saga of Conan in chronological order and, by extenuating these adventures with dozens more, made of Howard’s original vision a long-form series similar to the episodic success of a television show on a prolonged run of diminishing returns.

For some readers, however, the advantage of this development is that it provided a sort of character arc as Conan grows from a youth to an older man.

That said, however, it is better to read the Conan tales in the order in which Howard wrote them.

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Lost Classics of Pulp: Guy Boothby’s Dr. Nikola and Pharos the Egyptian

Lost Classics of Pulp: Guy Boothby’s Dr. Nikola and Pharos the Egyptian

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nikolapharos-book-first-editionOne doesn’t have to dig very far to discover my devotion to the works of Sax Rohmer. Peter Haining was, I believe, the first commentator to propose that Australian writer Guy Boothby’s works were a likely influence on Rohmer in the excellent survey, The Art of Mystery and Detective Stories. I first stumbled upon Boothby’s name and that of his most famous creation, Dr. Nikola courtesy of Larry Knapp’s brilliant Page of Fu Manchu website. Finally, it was a very informative piece written by that eminent Sherlockian, Charles Prepolec that convinced me I had to read the Nikola series for myself.

Five Nikola books were published between 1895 and 1901. The best editions available today are in the two-volume The Complete Dr. Nikola published by Leonaur Press. Dr. Nikola is a criminal mastermind with an occult twist. Think Conan Doyle’s Professor Moriarty (introduced only one year before Nikola) eerily anticipating Aleister Crowley and you have a pretty good idea of Boothby’s ambitions.

Like much fantastic fiction of the Victorian era, the books are more about how others fall into Nikola’s web than they are about the sinister doctor himself. This was the same approach taken by Bram Stoker with Dracula and Rohmer with his Fu Manchu series. The Nikola books are also globe-trotting adventures that move rapidly from Australia to Europe to Egypt to London to Africa to Tibet. The sense of mystery that pervades these exotic settings in those imperialist days of empire-building is part of the books’ nostalgic appeal today.

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Goth Chick News: Full Length Trailers for Shadows and Prometheus: It’s Getting Interesting…

Goth Chick News: Full Length Trailers for Shadows and Prometheus: It’s Getting Interesting…

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image004This week saw all sorts of new goodies being released to moisten your pallet for what will surely be two of the upcoming summer movie season’s biggest box office draws.

Let’s start with Dark Shadows and my assertion that if Barnabas Collins were really in his grave somewhere, he’d probably be spinning like a rotisserie ham.

It’s because the original vampire Collins wasn’t particularly heartthrob material (and proper vampires really shouldn’t be) that I didn’t mind some of the initial low-quality stills that came from Tim Burton and Johnny Depp’s rewind of the 1960’s TV cult classic.

Depp had his hair plastered down and was sporting a seriously pasty complexion.

Okay, fair enough. I did fret ever so slightly about the borderline comical nature of his look but, well, that’s just Burton and Depp.

Then on March 16th we finally get the goods: a series of character portraits and a full length trailer of Dark Shadows to hold us over the 55 or so days until its release on May 11th.

Oh joy, oh rapture, oh…. seriously?

A comedy?

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Black Gate Interviews Nathan Long, Part Two

Black Gate Interviews Nathan Long, Part Two

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ulrika-bloodforged-nathan-longThis week Black Gate picks up where we left off in Part One of our interview with fantasy and science fiction author Nathan Long.

Last week we talked about your latest novel, Jane Carver of Waar. But most readers are more familiar with the work you’ve done in the Warhammer world, where you’ve published 11 novels to date. How familiar were you with Warhammer and Games Workshop before you began writing for them?

I had worked in a game store in the 80s, just when the first Warhammer Fantasy Role Play rulebook came out, and I had read it cover to cover, though I never played it, so I was pretty familiar with the setting and the mood of the game and the world. I still had a lot of homework to do once they hired me, however. I ended up owning and reading all the army books, all the supplements, etc. Homework should always be that fun.

Tell us a bit about the differences between working in an existing world, versus one entirely of your own creation.

In one way, it’s easier, as all your world building has been done for you. It’s like being hired to write for a TV show or a long-running comic book. Quite a lot of the world and sometimes the characters have been established, so all you have to worry about is the plot and character. I never really found this limiting. There are an infinite number of stories that can be told in any world, and it was a fun challenge to come up with ideas that fit the feel of the Warhammer setting.

It can be harder when you’re asked to put specific bits of the world into specific novels. For instance, when I wrote Tainted Blood, the third Blackhearts novel, my editors wanted it set in a specific city, because they wanted it to tie into a gaming supplement that was coming out for that city. That took a little more work, but it was still fun. Every challenge is an excuse to come up with a cool solution, and I have always loved that kind of game.

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INVADING FANTASY

INVADING FANTASY

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CONQUER THIS

Lebor Gabála Érenn — it just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? Literally: “The Book of the Taking of Ireland” or, as it’s usually rendered in English: “The Book of Invasions”, or even, “The Book of Conquests”. It’s a medieval history in case you hadn’t guessed. A full and not very frank account of every event that ever happened on the island of my birth.

Jim Fitzpatrick did some amazing illustrations for his version of the story.
Jim Fitzpatrick did some amazing illustrations for his version of the story.

People love to visit Ireland, apparently, and it’s even more fun when you bring an army with you. They’ve all done it, every horde and its crazy gods: Patholonians, Fomorians, Nemedians, Belly Men, The People of the Goddess Danú (who later fled underground to become the Sidhe) and *finally* — drum roll — The Gaels.

I say “finally”, because that’s where The Book of Invasions ends, but just as WWI didn’t quite live up to “the War to end all wars”, and the unification of Germany failed utterly to “end history”… well, Ireland’s attraction for blood-thirsty tourists only got stronger after that.

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Rolling Cities and Ship Building: A Talk with Frederic S. Durbin

Rolling Cities and Ship Building: A Talk with Frederic S. Durbin

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Philippe de Champaigne's Vanitas Still Life with Skull
Philippe de Champaigne's Vanitas Still Life with Skull

In a Frederic S. Durbin story, you’re as likely to get a chattering, boxed skull secreted away on an enormous mobile city as you are to get an ominous underground world directly beneath a funeral parlor. Durbin writes dark stories with a light touch. His detailed settings come close to becoming characters themselves. Though his audience is mainly a younger crowd, his fantasy novels can be enjoyed by all. All, meaning me. I like his books. You should too. Don’t even get me started on his short stories. I might squeal all over you.

Durbin was born in Illinois, taught English and creative writing in Japan for twenty years and now resides in Pittsburgh, PA. His most recent novel, The Star Shard, was released in February.

Black Gate had a sit down and discovered the secrets of Frederic S. Durbin’s soul. Ish. OK. That’s a lie. More so we booktalked, but if you ask him nicely on his GoodReads or blog, “Mr. Durbin, what secret(s) does your soul hold?”… he might tell you. And if he does, report it back to the big BG so we get the scoop first. In the meantime, here’s Black Gate’s talk with Frederic S. Durbin.

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