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Month: November 2012

Kevin O’Donnell Jr, November 29, 1950 – November 7, 2012

Kevin O’Donnell Jr, November 29, 1950 – November 7, 2012

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mayflies-smallAmerican science fiction writer Kevin O’Donnell Jr., who added “Jr.” to his byline to distinguish himself from his famous father Kevin O’Donnell, director of the Peace Corps, died this week.

O’Donnell graduated Yale University in 1972; his first short story “The Hand Is Quicker” appeared a year later in Analog. He published more than 70 short stories in a variety of genre publications, including Galaxy, Galileo, Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Amazing/Fantastic, and Omni.

His first novel, Bander Snatch, appeared in paperback from Bantam Books in 1979. He published a total of ten over the next eleven years, including Mayflies (Berkley, 1979), War of Omission (Bantam, 1982), and ORA:CLE (Berkley, 1984).

Most of O’Donnell’s fiction was standalone, with the notable exception of his four-book series The Journeys of McGill Feighan for Berkley Books: Caverns (April 1981), Reefs (October 1981), Lava (April 1982), and Cliffs (February 1986).

His last novel was Fire on the Border from Roc Books, published in September 1990; he retired from writing fiction after his last short story, “The Boys from Bethlehem” (written with Denise Lee) appeared in the anthology The Darkness and the Fire in August, 1998.

O’Donnell was very active in the Science Fiction Writers of America, serving as chairman of the Nebula Award Novel Jury in 1990 and 1991, and chairing the Nebula Award Committee 1990-1998. He was the Business Manager of the quarterly SFWA Bulletin from 1994-1998, and in April 2005 he received the Service to SFWA Award.

Steampunk Spotlight – Japanese Edition: Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff

Steampunk Spotlight – Japanese Edition: Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff

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stormdancer1In his debut novel, author Jay Kristoff creates a rich fantasy steampunk setting based upon Japanese feudal culture, complete with griffins, samurai warriors, demons, airships, an evil mechanized religious order, and a ruthless dictator. Really, I think that list should be enough to get you interested in reading Stormdancer (Amazon, B&N), but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

To date, steampunk has largely been confined to Victorian England settings, with the occasional foray into the wild west. Even the anime and manga steampunk tales have tended to lean on these more traditional interpretations of the genre. Kristoff boldly takes the genre in a new direction, infusing it with new vigor.

The central character in Stormdancer is Yukiko, daughter of the Shogun’s master hunter, Masaru. They are members of one of the four prominent clans, theirs based around Kitsune, the fox, the trickster god in their religious pantheon. When the Shogun hears rumors of a surviving “thunder tiger” (or arashitora, this culture’s name for a griffin), he has a prophetic dream that he will become a stormdancer, riding the great beast into battle and vanquishing all of his enemies. But first, he needs to get his hands on one, so he orders Masaru (along with his team, including Yukiko) off to capture it. Needless to say, things do not go entirely as expected (otherwise it would be a very boring book).

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The Return of Dr. Mabuse

The Return of Dr. Mabuse

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42654401Norbert Jacques’s criminal mastermind was immortalized in three classic Fritz Lang films made between 1922 and 1960. As in the original bestselling novel, the title character in Lang’s epic 5-hour silent film, Dr. Mabuse der Spieler, served as the incarnation of post-war German decadence.

A decade later, Lang returned to the character in the classic The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, imbuing the character with an occult influence as Dr. Baum becomes obsessed with the institutionalized Mabuse to the point where he believes he is possessed by his recently-deceased patient’s spirit. Fleeing Germany shortly after the film’s completion, the Jewish Lang proudly noted that in this film, Mabuse served as a critique of the Nazi Party that had recently risen to prominence.

At the end of his career, Lang returned to the character for The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse, but the mesmerizing criminal genius was now awash with Cold War paranoia amidst a tale that painted the inexplicably reborn Mabuse as the personification of the Big Brother-style East German communist government forever spying on the people it seeks to control.

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World Fantasy 2012: Neither Hurricane, SuperStorm, Sleet, nor Hail Can Daunt Our Heroine If She Wears Enough Chain Mail…

World Fantasy 2012: Neither Hurricane, SuperStorm, Sleet, nor Hail Can Daunt Our Heroine If She Wears Enough Chain Mail…

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My ruby slippers by hurricane candlelight. Sigh.

Well, as Rabbie Burns would say, “The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley.”

I had all these wonderful, these glorious, these SUPREME plans to fly from Rhode Island to Chicago on Monday, October 29th, 2012 and spend a few days there among folks I hadn’t seen since I moved last November.

But a little storm named Sandy had other ideas. Oh, I won’t go into the details. They’re not gory enough; besides, it would sound like I’m complaining.

And really, I spent a very pleasant Monday in my attic apartment — which trembled — looking out the windows at sideways trees, contemplating putting on my ruby slippers in case the house fell on me, writing romantic letters by candlelight and reading Diana Wynne Jones’s Enchanted Glass. So that was all right.

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My desk. Where I wrote romantic hurricane letters.

But fly to Chicago? See family? Spend Halloween among friends, with soup and bonfire and creepy literature? Drive in caravan to Toronto(ish area) where the World Fantasy Convention was located?

CAPTAIN, IT’S A NO-GO. Halloween has been canceled, repeat, Halloween has been canceled.

However, my story does not end with the storm. No, it is just beginning.

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Where Life is Cheap and Secrets are Plentiful: Vox Day’s A Magic Broken

Where Life is Cheap and Secrets are Plentiful: Vox Day’s A Magic Broken

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A Magic BrokenDisclosure: I was provided a free copy of this novella for review.

You may be familiar with Theo Beale as a blogger at Black Gate. Some of his posts have been controversial, but whether you agree or not, they make for interesting reading. So I was looking forward to seeing how his ideas translated into fiction. He’s given me a chance with A Magic Broken, an e-book novella equivalent to about 50 pages, written under the name Vox Day. It is connected to Theo’s novel, A Throne of Bones, but as I haven’t read the novel yet, I can’t say exactly how they’re connected.

There will be minor spoilers in this review, but I’ll try not to give away the ending.

I was interested to see that the world Theo created had the “traditional” fantasy races of dwarves and elves, along with humans. When I first discovered fantasy in the eighties, it seemed that elves and dwarves were staples of the genre — if it was fantasy, it had at least these two demi-human races. In the last twenty years, fantasy has moved away from that, but I must admit that I have a soft spot for them, especially dwarves. So I was happy to see the dwarf, Lodi, as one of the heroes of this story.

The story follows Lodi and the human spy, Nicolas, as they go after the same prize — a kidnapped elven woman — for very different reasons. A great love of elves is not the motivation for either. The dwarves, in particular, have a grudge against elves for a betrayal that is never fully explained in the story. But elves pay a bounty for any of their own who are returned to them, and Lodi is looking for funds. That’s one reason why he’s taken on the task of freeing some dwarven slaves, on behalf of the father of one of them. The reader’s given the impression that Lodi at least feels some compassion for his fellow dwarves. Going after the elf is purely mercenary.

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Teaching and Fantasy Literature: Breaking and Entering in the House of John Gardner

Teaching and Fantasy Literature: Breaking and Entering in the House of John Gardner

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Here’s a classic set piece: a young writer of genre fiction arrives at college and finagles his way into a creative writing seminar, only to get stonewalled by the professor and most of his classmates because they’re allergic to genre fiction.

Any of several things can happen next. The student may find three likeminded young writers and a folding card table to meet at, and start her own seminar. The student may drop out of college, get a series of fascinating dead end jobs, and write his way to a workshop like Clarion or Odyssey. Maybe she gives up writing altogether. Maybe he stops showing his writing to others. Maybe she goes pro eventually despite it all, and has a chip on her shoulder about that confounded creative writing class for the rest of her days.

I was…what is the genre equivalent of ambidextrous? Ambigenrous will have to do for now. I snuck back into the creative writing seminars as a poet, and most people forgot I had wanted to write fantasy. For a while, I forgot it myself.

A fantasist can find useful tools in a creative writing classroom, even an inhospitable one. But since nobody wants to do time in an inhospitable classroom, and really nobody should have to, I’m going to write a few posts over the next few weeks about books on writing that I’ve found helpful in re-reinventing myself as a fantasy writer.

Back in 2005, when I was just starting my personal blog, Ask Dr. Pretentious, and had maybe six readers in the whole world, I wrote an essay on The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers by John Gardner that has held up so well, I’m giving it another chance at life here. Gardner was surprisingly hostile to fantastic fiction, considering that he was the guy who wrote that first-person retelling of Beowulf from the point of view of the monster. Why would I urge writers of genre fiction to devote many hours to learning from Gardner when he regards genre fiction as trash? Read on.

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Goth Chick News: Leonardo’s Next Stop; The Twilight Zone… Maybe

Goth Chick News: Leonardo’s Next Stop; The Twilight Zone… Maybe

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The epic of this film’s development is definitely beginning to look like a journey not of sight or sound, but only of mind.

Leonardo DiCaprio and his company, Appian Way Productions, have been developing a Twilight Zone movie since 2007. The script has been through a series of rewrites, with Joby Harold (All You Need is Kill, Tom Cruise’s latest film) being the latest scribe. There have also been numerous directors attached, with things looking up recently when Matt Reeves (Let Me In and Cloverfield) got onboard… until he dropped out shortly after, reportedly to head 20th Century Fox’s upcoming sequel, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.

Bummer.

We were never actually told what the new Twilight Zone film was about, except that it would combine several episodes from the original Twilight Zone show. But today, we have a one-sentence plot summary that states:

The film follows a test pilot who winds up breaking the speed of light; when he puts down his craft, he discovers that he’s landed a bit late for supper – 96 years late.

Not a huge amount to go on then, although it’s nice to see a nod to The Twilight Zone’s favorite themes, namely space and time travel. It’s also not clear which of the episodes the movie will draw from.

But one thing is certain, there will be a twist at the end.

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The Top 40 Black Gate Posts in September

The Top 40 Black Gate Posts in September

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robotechThey told us you can’t fill up the Internet, but in September, we thought we’d give it a shot. And so Scott Taylor wrote about his lifetime love of giant robots, Mark Rigney examined the genre ghetto, and Bradley Beaulieu told us about his surprise date with Amber Benson, Mary Robinette Kowal, Pat Rothfuss, and Terry Brooks.

Howard Andrew Jones commented on the World Science Fiction convention and Death and the Book Deal, Sarah Avery told us how to use our proud geek heritage to survive The Scarlet Letter, and Jason Thummel invited you to Self-Publishing 101. And that’s just the top seven articles.

Here the complete list of the Top 40 September blog entries at Black Gate according to you, our readers.

  1. Art of the Genre: The art of Robotech and a lifelong affair with Giant Robots
  2. Genre 2012: The Ghetto Remains the Same
  3. My surprise date with Amber Benson, Mary Robinette Kowal, Pat Rothfuss, and Terry Brooks
  4. Worldcon Wrap-up
  5. Teaching and fantasy literature: How to use your Proud Geek Heritage to Survive the Scarlet Letter
  6. Death and the book deal
  7. Self-publishing 101
  8. Boxed set of the year: American Science Fiction: Nine Classic Novels of the 1950s
  9. Dredd Movie Review
  10. John Myers Myers Silverlock and the Commonwealth of Letters
  11. Teaching and Fantasy Literature: Meeting them Halfway
  12. Dave Sim Announces He’s Ending Glamourpuss and Leaving Comics
  13. Genevieve Valentine Comments on Readercon Harassment in Things you Should Know About the Fallout
  14. Teaching and Fantasy Literature
  15. Black Gate to Publish Online Fiction Starting Sunday September 28

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Infinity, January 1958: A Retro-Review

Infinity, January 1958: A Retro-Review

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infinity-january-1958-smallThis is the fifth installment in Rich Horton’s retro-reviews of science fiction and fantasy digest magazines from the mid-20th Century. The first four were the February 1966 Analog, the December 1965 Galaxy, the January 1966 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and If, October 1957.

Click the images for larger versions.

The last magazine I reviewed came from October 1957, the month Sputnik was launched. This one is dated January 1958, and presumably appeared on stands a month or so after Sputnik, but was editorially complete just prior to the launch. And I’ve got another October 1957 issue coming.

So — these are, I would argue, three examples of SF magazines on the very cusp of the Space Age.

Infinity lasted from the end of 1955 through 1958, a total of 20 issues. It was published irregularly but roughly bimonthly. The editor throughout was Larry Shaw, and his work was justly very well regarded. The most famous story he published was Arthur C. Clarke’s “The Star” in the very first issue.

Shaw also edited the companion magazine, Science Fiction Adventures, which became the John Carnell-edited UK magazine by the same name (Carnell’s magazine started as a reprint edition of the US magazine, but continued with original stories after the US version folded). An earlier US magazine of that name was edited by Lester Del Rey pseudonymously, and the title was used again later for one of Sol Cohen’s horrid reprint magazines.

This issue had a cover by Ed Emshwiller, illustrating Richard Wilson’s serial “And Then the Town Took Off”, and interior illustrations by Emsh, Bill Bowman, Richard Kluga, and John Schoenherr. The only ads are the ubiquitous SFBC on the back cover (inside and out), and on the inside front cover an inhouse ad urging the reader to subscribe to Infinity and Science Fiction Adventures.

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New Treasures: The Enterprise of Death by Jesse Bullington

New Treasures: The Enterprise of Death by Jesse Bullington

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the-enterprise-of-death-smallJesse Bullington received a lot of attention for his first novel, the exceptionally dark fantasy The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart, about which Booklist said, “Modeled after the grimmest of the Grimm tales, Bullington’s debut… [is] aiming instead at gross-out horror fans.”

That one seemed a bit too grim and gruesome for me. But Bullington’s second novel, The Enterprise of Death, looks more my speed.

As the witch-pyres of the Spanish Inquisition blanket Renaissance Europe in a moral haze, a young African slave finds herself the unwilling apprentice of an ancient necromancer. Unfortunately, quitting his company proves even more hazardous than remaining his pupil when she is afflicted with a terrible curse. Yet salvation may lie in a mysterious tome her tutor has hidden somewhere on the war-torn continent.

She sets out on a seemingly impossible journey to find the book, never suspecting her fate is tied to three strangers: the artist Niklaus Manuel Deutsch, the alchemist Dr. Paracelsus, and a gun-slinging Dutch mercenary. As Manuel paints her macabre story on canvas, plank, and church wall, the young apprentice becomes increasingly aware that death might be the least of her concerns.

I’ve been watching the reviews, and they are very impressive indeed. The Wall Street Journal called it “Macabre, gruesome, foul-mouthed and much more complex than the usual vampire-and-zombie routine,” and SF Revu said it was

Darkly comic… Bullington is one of those rare writers who come along once every so often with a truly original vision… this is an author capable of great and profound insight, often conveyed via his equally finely tuned sense of the ridiculous… Highly recommended.

The Enterprise of Death was published by Orbit in March, 2011. It is 464 pages in trade paperback, priced at $14.99 ($9.99 for the digital version). I bought my copy from Amazon as a bargain title for just six bucks.