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Year: 2012

New Treasures: At Empire’s End

New Treasures: At Empire’s End

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at-empires-end4Back in January Dark City Games announced the release of their latest solitaire fantasy adventure, Emerald Twilight, by Bret Winters. I seized the opportunity to order the handful of Dark City titles I didn’t have, including Oasis and At Empire’s End, both by George Dew.

They’ve all proved worth the money, but the one that has captured my imagination immediately is the science fiction adventure At Empire’s End. Here’s the blurb:

Growing up on the periphery is not easy. It’s a tough life, and to survive, you have to know how to deal with ruffians, swindlers and thieves. For excitement, and to pay the rent, you make your living as a bounty-hunter. The risks are great, but the payoff can be tremendous.

Your quarry this time is a dangerous pirate, armed and ruthless. Initially, his ventures were an irritation to the locals. But as his greed and daring grew, he garnered the watchful eye of the meagerly-equipped local authorities. Your mission, should you choose to accept, is to capture “The Duke” and bring him to justice. But you must hurry. The provisional government is weak, and with each of “The Duke’s” raids, society falls further into chaos.

You must find “The Duke” and neutralize him before it is too late.

At Empire’s End includes complete self-contained rules for solitaire play (the “Legends of Time and Space” rules), counters, a beautiful color map, and 302 programmed paragraphs. It is also fully suitable for one to four players, and can be run with a game master.

To promote the game Dark City Games created S.O.S, a short solitaire SF role-playing game, which we reprinted in its entirety here on the Black Gate blog in 2010. Check it out.

You can learn more about some of their earlier games on our summary page, and on this page of collected reviews. Or you can order At Empire’s End for $12.95 directly from Dark City.

David Soyka Reviews Journal of a UFO Investigator

David Soyka Reviews Journal of a UFO Investigator

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76377593Journal of a UFO Investigator
David Halperin
Viking (304 pp, $25.95, Hardcover February 2012)
Reviewed by David Soyka

The premise here is we’re reading a diary account of the titular UFO investigator who also happens to be a troubled teenager (though, arguably, “troubled teenager” is redundant).  What starts out as a geeky outlet for outcast middle schoolers to pretend to be something other than outcast middle schoolers metastasizes into a fantastic escapade involving a self-selective group of super smart teenagers seemingly without parental supervision, one of whom is particularly sexy with amorous leanings towards our narrator, a concoction of conspiracy theories, a grueling ordeal in outer space and a love child between our hero and insect-like aliens aliens that has something to do with peace in the Middle East.  In other words, just the kind of grandiose cracked thought process that leads a kid either to a life of lonely megalomaniacal rantings on Facebook or to develop the next on-line role playing game that makes him a fortune so he’s finally interesting enough to get laid.

Amidst all the Ufology is some contrasting harsh reality:

It was Tuesday, but I wasn’t in school. A freak snowstorm the day before had forced the schools to close and put my father into an even nastier mood than usual.

He’s come into my room about eleven the night before, complaining about the racket I was making, typing up UFO sightings on file cards. I promised I’d do something else that didn’t make noise. But he sat down on my bed to talk, starting out calm, reasonable. The way his inquisitions usually do.

He just wanted to understand, he said. How was it a bright kid like me could piss  away my life on this UFO garbage?

You should be able to figure out where this is all heading even without reading the book blurb that gives it away.  While this shall be a spoiler-free review, suffice it to say the fun here isn’t the outcome, but the ride chock-full of allusions to just about every B-movie SF  trope and mystical imaginings about visitors from other worlds that take you there.

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Bargain Fantasy at Amazon.com

Bargain Fantasy at Amazon.com

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imagerI can’t be the only reader out there who laments the decline of the remainder.

You know what I’m talking about. Those big tables near the front of Barnes & Noble, covered with aging hardcovers for $5.98, and about a metric ton of leftover Valentine merchandise. Yeah, those remainders.

It’s not that remainders are gone. But with the loss of Borders, and the slow evaporation of bookstores in general, I don’t get to browse as many aisles of cheap books as I used to. Bummer. Remainders were a great way to try out new authors on the cheap, and pick up a discount Star Trek calender in mid-January (and get Ali a late Valentine’s card, to be truthful, but that’s not really my point.)

What is my point? This is the age of the Internet! And remainders aren’t dead; they’ve just moved online. Booksellers like Amazon.com routinely offer 60 – 80% discounts on close-out books of all kinds, including best-selling science fiction and fantasy, and a diligent search usually turns up hundreds.

Here’s some of the best bargains I found this week on my regular search for discounted SF & Fantasy in Amazon’s Under-20-bucks list:

Now, just like the old days, qualities for most of these titles are limited at these prices, so you have to act fast. Shipping is extra, but for US readers, Amazon will ship free if your total is above $25.

Good hunting, fellow bargain hunters!

The 2012 Sword & Sorcery Mega Panel

The 2012 Sword & Sorcery Mega Panel

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adventures_of_sword_and_sorcery-6John DeNardo and his team at SF Signal know when they have a good thing going.

Take for example the genre-defining 2010 Sword & Sorcery Panel Podcast, recorded at the World Fantasy Convention in Columbus, Ohio and featuring the official brain trust of modern S&S: Howard Andrew Jones , Ryan Harvey, Bill Ward, James Enge, Jason M. Waltz, Sam Sykes, John R. Fultz, Alex Bledsoe, Matthew Wuertz, and the ever-humble John O’Neill.

How do you top that? I know — impossible, right?

Well, all credit to Patrick Hester and Jaym Gates at SF Signal for making a terrific effort. In episode 108 of the SF Signal Podcast they’ve assembled a knock-out line-up of heavy hitters to discuss Sword and Sorcery for the modern reader. Including:

  • Lou Anders — publisher and editor of mega-publisher Pyr
  • Violette Malan — author of The Mirror Prince and many others
  • James L. Sutter — Paizo editor and author of Pathfinder Tales: Death’s Heretic
  • Scott H. Andrews — author, and editor of the splendid Beneath Ceaseless Skies

The podcast features original music by John Anealio. Part One is now available here.

STURGES TOPS THE TOPPER WITH SHORTCUT MAN 2

STURGES TOPS THE TOPPER WITH SHORTCUT MAN 2

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ap-book-review-shortcut-man-17944457jpg102452072The late Leo McCarey is remembered by most film buffs today for his imitation Capra-corn, The Bells of St. Mary’s and Going My Way starring everyone’s favorite likeable cad, Bing Crosby as the sort of priest you’d find in a parish where the nuns looked like Ingrid Bergman. Turn back the clock a few more decades and McCarey was the finest comedy director in Hollywood capturing the very best performances from Laurel & Hardy, an aging Harold Lloyd, and the Marx Brothers in their prime (when Zeppo was still part of the act). McCarey patented the chain reaction gag which tasked the comedy filmmaker with finding a way to consistently “top the topper.”

That was no mean feat. Once you get your biggest belly-laugh from the audience and then set out to find an even bigger laugh, you’re laying the groundwork for disappointment. Quite simply, no one can be that funny all the time. Yet McCarey managed it time and again and so did several other comedy directors who followed in his wake like Howard Hawks, a young Frank Capra (before sentimentality robbed him of his comic timing), Preston Sturges, and Billy Wilder. Very few others have managed to scale those same dizzying heights since Hollywood’s Golden Age and the lost art of the chain reaction gag is one of the measures by which one may easily separate modern and classic comedy. Comedy, in its purest form, allows us to break the pain barrier and laugh.

Such ruminations on the art of comedy are entirely appropriate when discussing P. G. Sturges, a new talent who arrived on the literary scene last year with The Shortcut Man. It was easily my favorite book of 2011. It had everything going for it: a hardboiled mystery mixed with high farce, a keen ear for dialogue, and an even sharper wit in laying bare personal and cultural failings in modern society. Any book that makes the reader think, consistently laugh, and still keeps them riveted to discover the next twist the story will take is exceptional.

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Maid(en) For Me: Gods Of Metal Back On Tour With Maiden England

Maid(en) For Me: Gods Of Metal Back On Tour With Maiden England

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That's a lot of hair!
That's a lot of hair!

What does a mid to late 30-something (closing in on 40, if I’m being honest) consumer of books like Styrbiorn the Strong,  Dune, and World War 2 military history do in between bouts of reading and writing posts for Black Gate? Why, listen to Iron Maiden, of course! I can blast “Invaders” and vicariously experience a Viking raid, play “To Tame a Land” and hear bassist Steve Harris’ take on Frank Herbert’s classic SF novel, and fire up “The Longest Day” for a stirring rendition of the events of D-Day and Omaha Beach.

Iron Maiden has always been a favorite of mine. I personally consider them the best heavy metal band of all time, edging out the likes of Judas Priest (on whom Maiden holds an edge by virtue of a more consistent catalog—Priest has more dud albums) and even heavy metal originators Black Sabbath (whom they beat due to longevity—Black Sabbath spent decades residing in the “where are they now” file, living off past glories). Maiden is to heavy metal what The Lord of the Rings is to fantasy—not the first on the scene, but the best. In my opinion of course, and your mileage may vary.

I’ve always thought of Iron Maiden as the heavy metal band that catered to the nerdy crowd. If you were smart, you liked history and science fiction/fantasy, and of course you liked Iron Maiden. They were and are the antidote for those critics who sneered at metal, labeling it as mindless noise, the stuff of “sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll.” Faux-metal hair bands like Poison and Warrant gave metal a bad reputation, but Iron Maiden elevated this much-maligned genre of music into an art form.

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Goth Chick News: Another Priceless Tidbit from Ridley Scott

Goth Chick News: Another Priceless Tidbit from Ridley Scott

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image0021This very nearly made me scream like a 14-year-old girl attending a Justin Bieber concert with Robert Pattinson.

Close, but not quite.

Apparently Ridley Scott is engaging in a little viral marketing for his upcoming Alien prequel, Prometheus; “viral” in that he’s trusting people like us to find this stuff and circulate it like the lunatic fan boys / girls we are.

Far be it from me to not live up to Mr. Scott’s expectations, so here it is.

TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to “Ideas Worth Spreading.” It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design (“TED,” get it?).

Since then TED has grown in leaps and bounds. Along with two annual conferences, TED includes the award-winning “TEDTalks” video site, the Open Translation Project and TED Conversations.

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Thomas M. MacKay Reviews The Enchantment Emporium

Thomas M. MacKay Reviews The Enchantment Emporium

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the-enchantment-emporium-coverThe Enchantment Emporium
Tanya Huff
DAW (473 pp, $7.99, June 2010)
Reviewed by Thomas M. MacKay

Canadian writer Tanya Huff has well-established credentials in the speculative fiction world, having written a number of respected novels, spanning the range from traditional epic fantasy, to contemporary fantasy, to full-on science fiction. Certain common themes tend to appear in her work, though handled gracefully and without detracting from the story. Ms. Huff’s work commonly challenges any cultural bias toward inequality – whether among races, genders, or for any other reason – and questions the validity of sexual inhibitions, while never denying the real and powerful impact that love imposes.

In the Gale family, “charming” preserves its original meaning, as the Gales still follow the old ways of the Goddess and the Wild God. Twenty-four year old Allie Gale grew up learning how to cast charms and mix potions, taking her place in the third circle among her many cousins, and trying to avoid crossing the Aunties – because Gale power grows as you age, and the oldest generation of women together possess the power to change the world. But magic still can’t give you purpose, and Allie is back home trying to figure out what to do with her heart and her life after losing her job as a research assistant at the Ontario Museum and still struggling to get over her gay ex-boyfriend. When Allie’s wild grandmother, the one Gale Auntie that lives apart from the family, doesn’t come home for the May Day ritual, Allie’s restlessness grows. The next day comes word that Allie’s Gran has died and left Allie an esoteric little store in Calgary. The Aunties don’t really believe their sister is dead, but they send Allie off anyway to figure out what her Gran is up to.

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The Best in Fantasy Manga

The Best in Fantasy Manga

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fairy-tail-1When I was invited to write a guest post, I immediately turned to manga. To my knowledge, Black Gate has never had a post dedicated to Japanese comics before, and I think that absence needs to be rectified.

The series I am about to recommend to you are as good, as dramatic, and as entertaining as any American comic book or even fantasy and science fiction novel.

What follows is a list of some of my personal favorites, as well as those that are must reads. At the end, I will list some of the series that I have not gotten to yet, but am looking forward to.

Fairy Tail by Hiro Mashima

Ongoing. Kodansha has released 17 volumes in translation with vol. 18 due in March.

Lucy Heartfilia, a celestial spirit wizard, and Natsu Dragneel, a fire dragon slayer, form the nucleus of Team Natsu. Stealing a book from a corrupt noble and crushing dark guilds are just some of the adventures that Team Natsu and their friends find themselves in as they ensure Fairy Tail’s reputation as the strongest and most infamous wizard guild in Fiore.

Though the series starts out with a heavy does of comedy, the series has steadily gotten darker and more serious with each succeeding story arc yet still maintains an upbeat feel. Indeed, the series really starts to pick up with the Galuna Island arc. The great thing about Fairy Tail is that Mashima does not neglect minor characters. They all have moments in the spotlight. I personally find the series fun and enthralling, and it is without question my favorite series.

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Art of the Genre: Review of the Inner Sea World Guide

Art of the Genre: Review of the Inner Sea World Guide

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pzo9226_500My very first campaign setting, as probably the bulk of old time gamers would also claim, was The World of Greyhawk. I still have great nostalgia for that world, and the classic adventure modules set in it, but sometimes you just need to upgrade, you know? I mean, Greyhawk is over thirty years old, and has gone through a number of facelifts, but still it’s always nice to try on something new.

And speaking of new! How about Paizo’s Pathfinder Campaign Setting The Inner Sea World Guide. I mean the name alone is worth the price! I’m not sure when the first time I saw this book, but I know when I did I WANTED IT!

Pathfinder is already an outstanding supplemental system, with a massive amount of core books, adventure paths, and gazetteers, but if you’re looking for a new age setting or simply want to steal some quality ideas for your own world, this book is an incredible resource.

As I delved into the pages it was like opening a Pandora’s Box of fantasy grandeur. The book begins with a nice expansion of the races of The Inner Sea, and like Iron Kingdoms did some years back for their setting, Paizo defines twelve different human races before delivering a nice history on the usual suspects like elves, dwarves, and the like.

I was intrigued by this kind of detail, and as I flipped through the different races I couldn’t help by smile at those chosen and the great adventures that could be set in a country populated by these individuals.

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