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Year: 2013

Blogging Arak 9: Adventure on the High Seas

Blogging Arak 9: Adventure on the High Seas

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ARAK9CWith the return of Roy Thomas to the scripting helm, Arak issue 9 has our protagonists Arak and Valda resuming their quest to rescue Malagigi from his demonic imprisonment in far-off White Cathay. After having rescued Pope Hadrian and having rid the world of one Black Pope, our stalwart heroes are set for some adventure on the high seas. It’s time for a one-off pirate tale, but one in which Thomas manages to work in Vesuvius and an encounter with the lost souls of Pompeii.

Arak is about fed up with cities: “He-No take me — I’ll be glad when we’re done with the cities of your world, and I can take to the forests again.”

But first they have to pay a visit to Neapel (modern-day Naples) to find Pope Hadrian’s friend Gallio, who can provide them passage to Byzantium.  The Holy Bishop of Rome told them that they would know Gallio by the ring he wears, “which shows two hands grasping but a single cross.”

As with every past arrival at a new city, the first signs are ominous. People are packing up and leaving the port in droves, because “there’s no longer work there for free laborers — or honest seamen!”

They soon discover the reason: Gallio’s ship is now manned mostly by slaves. When they begin inquiring down at the bay, two “lecherous merchants” immediately hone in on Valda, because, as Thomas narrates, “Alas, however, in these unenlightened days, the presence of an attractive woman on the docks usually has but one meaning for the sea-rovers of Neapel…”

Need I tell you how their pawing at her ends? With her knife at the throat of one, of course, and the other one nearly skewered like the pig he is. Their lives are spared, though, in exchange for pointing the way to Gallio’s ship.

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The Black Fire Concerto & the Monsters of Memory

The Black Fire Concerto & the Monsters of Memory

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I love monsters. Don’t we all?

When it comes to monsters, one of the best things about writing dark fantasy fiction is that it gives you a chance to build your own.

My first novel, The Black Fire Concerto, is packed with monsters. Black Gate overlord John O’Neill has generously invited me to talk about where my creatures came from, in the spirit of the Monstrous Posts on Monsters series I wrote many moons ago for all you denizens of the shadowlands.

The world of The Black Fire Concerto has been ravaged by a ghoul plague (though one could argue that’s the least of its problems.)

My ghouls are yet another riff on the zombie motif (now, now, no need to roll your eyes, just hear me out.) Most zombie plagues in film and in books pay a lip service of sorts to science fiction – the agent that gets dead flesh moving again is a virus, or an alien undeath ray, or something cut from that pseudo-scientific cloth.

Zombie epidemics have become so pervasive in popular culture, at least here in the U.S., that we only need a little hand-waving in the direction of chemical weapons and government conspiracies to suspend our disbelief – never mind that basic biology tells us the concept is ridiculous.

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Andre Norton, Michael Moorcock and Appendix N: Advanced Readings in D&D

Andre Norton, Michael Moorcock and Appendix N: Advanced Readings in D&D

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stormbringerAnd so we come to two of the most influential and prolific fantasy writers of the 20th Century, Andre Norton and Michael Moorcock, as we follow intrepid literary explorers Mordicai and Tim Callahan on their voyage of discovery through Appendix N at Tor.com.

Tim and Mordicai have been none too gentle to some of the writers in Appendix N, including L. Sprague de Camp, Gardner Fox, and even Roger Zelazny. But in Norton and Moorcock, they find authors they can appreciate.

Here’s Tim on Michael Moorcock:

I read The Swords Trilogy and The Chronicles of Corum early, and they made an impact. They exploded inside my mind in a way I have never forgotten, even if I can’t remember many of the story details from any particular chapter… but I didn’t really feel like I tuned into Elric until halfway through the first reprint volume, when we get the four novellas of Stormbringer…

It’s classic Moorcock, in that imaginative and terrifyingly evocative way that I loved all those years ago when I first picked up The Swords Trilogy off a spinner rack in my hometown general store. Stormbringer begins with agents of chaos abducting Elric’s wife, and it takes off into the realm of mass warfare and conflicts with not-quite-dead-gods soon enough.

Moorcock aims for the mythic.

Read the complete article here.

Good to see a little love for classic sword & sorcery, but personally I don’t see a lot of direct influence from Elric on D&D — unless you count the section on powerful artifacts in the Dungeon Masters Guide, which clearly was conceived with weapons like Stormbringer in mind.

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Black Gate Online Fiction: “The Dowry” by Peadar Ó Guilín

Black Gate Online Fiction: “The Dowry” by Peadar Ó Guilín

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Peadar Ó Guilín 2009In which the young lover Fiachra learns it is unwise to seduce a wizard’s daughter… particularly in a wizard’s garden.

Fiachra woke on a bed of straw surrounded by snuffling animals and a melange of stenches that made his eyes water. A boy of maybe eight crouched at a safe distance under a flickering rush light.

“My eyes,” thought Fiachra. He tried to rub them, but could not. Color had leached from his vision, as though he were still under moonlight in the wizard’s garden. The boy, the straw, even the rush light seemed grey to him.

He tried to speak, to ask where he was. Only a whine emerged.

The boy approached and gingerly extended a hand. “Good doggy,” he said, “nice doggy.”

It was then Fiachra realised the awful truth. The garden! What had he done? How had he been so stupid? He howled and howled until a man came to whip him. After, he spent the night whimpering with only the boy’s arms around him for comfort.

Peadar’s first story for us was “The Mourning Trees” (Black Gate 5), followed by “Where Beauty Lies in Wait” (BG 11) and “The Evil Eater” (BG 13), which Serial Distractions called “a lovely little bit of Lovecraftian horror that still haunts me to this day.”

Peadar’s first novel, The Inferior, was published to terrific reviews in 2008; it was followed a sequel, The Deserter, in 2012.

The complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including stories by Dave Gross, Mike Allen, Paul Abbamondi, Vaughn Heppner, Mark Rigney, Aaron Bradford Starr, Martha Wells, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, E.E. Knight, C.S.E. Cooney, Howard Andrew Jones, and many others, is here.

“The Dowry” is a complete 4,700-word short story of adventure fantasy offered at no cost.

Read the complete story here.

New Treasures: Lord of Bones

New Treasures: Lord of Bones

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Lord of Bones Justine Musk-smallI like to try new titles and new authors, especially a new fantasy series. This genre is so rich and diverse that no one can encompass it all, and if you’re not constantly willing to dip your toe in the water, then maybe you should try another hobby.

So I was delighted to see that Amazon had discounted the second volume of a promising new dark fantasy series, Lord of Bones, to just $1.30. I snapped up a copy immediately. (If you’re interested, I suggest you do the same — Amazon’s bargain pricing algorithm is notoriously fickle.)

Lord of Bones was written by Justine Musk, who has lived a fascinating life. I know, lots of writers claim to have lived fascinating lives, what with being an ambulance driver in World War I or assistant to Anna Wintour at Vogue or something. But seriously, Musk’s life is fascinating. She was the first wife of Elon Musk, founder of PayPal and SpaceX, and her famous article “I Was a Starter Wife”: Inside America’s Messiest Divorce” is filled with quotes like this:

In the late spring of 2008, my wealthy entrepreneurial husband, Elon Musk, the father of my five young sons, filed for divorce. Six weeks later, he texted me to say he was engaged to a gorgeous British actress in her early 20s… Her name is Talulah Riley, and she played one of the sisters in 2005’s Pride and Prejudice. Two of the things that struck me were: a) Pride and Prejudice is a really good movie, and b) My life with this man had devolved to a cliché…

The first crowded apartment we’d shared in Mountain View seemed like ancient history from our 6,000-square-foot house in the Bel Air hills. Married for seven years, we had a domestic staff of five; during the day our home transformed into a workplace. We went to black-tie fundraisers and got the best tables at elite Hollywood nightclubs, with Paris Hilton and Leonardo DiCaprio partying next to us. When Google cofounder Larry Page got married on Richard Branson’s private Caribbean island, we were there, hanging out in a villa with John Cusack and watching Bono pose with swarms of adoring women outside the reception tent… I spent an afternoon walking around San Jose with Daryl Hannah, where she caused a commotion at Starbucks when the barista asked her name and she said, blithely, “Daryl.”

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Self-published Book Review: Woman of the Woods by Milton Davis

Self-published Book Review: Woman of the Woods by Milton Davis

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Woman of the Woods - small

This month’s self-published novel is Woman of the Woods by Milton Davis. Set in the land of Meji, a mythical land based on ancient Africa, Woman of the Woods is the story of Sadatina, a young woman of the Adamu. For centuries, the Adamu have been under attack by the nyoka, dark ape-like servants of the god Karan. Their only protection has been the Shosa, warrior-women blessed by their god, Cha, to fight the nyoka. Even as a young girl, Sadatina is stronger and faster than her older brother, better at hunting and fighting than any of the young men in her village. She eventually learns that this is because she is the forbidden daughter of a Shosa, and even untrained, she is blessed with their fighting ability. She needs those abilities when the nyoka come, slaughtering her adoptive family, leaving her to fend for herself, and eventually her village, with only the aid of two shumbas–jungle cats whom she has raised from cubs. It is as the village’s protector that she earns the name Woman of the Woods, since she protects the village while living apart from it. The Shosa find her there, and invite her to join them. At first she refuses, and returns home. At this point, the story skips forward twenty years, to where she has not only become a Shosa, but their military and spiritual leader.

The latter half of the book, where Sadatina is a mature warrior rather than an awkward girl, is a different story than the beginning. In a longer work, where the second half was a separate novel in its own right, the change would have been less jarring. As it is, it takes some getting used to for the reader to see Sadatina giving orders rather than rebelling against them. The latter half’s story is also larger, more epic story than the coming of age story which filled the first half of the novel. Rashadu, a nyoka who long ago turned against his master, has returned, and it is up to Sadatina to decide whether he is an enemy or an ally against Karan.

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Unconcerned with Genre: Lydia Millet’s Oh Pure and Radiant Heart

Unconcerned with Genre: Lydia Millet’s Oh Pure and Radiant Heart

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Oh Pure and Radiant HeartIt’s not uncommon for writers of fictions called ‘literary’ to use science-fictional or fantastic elements in their work. And it’s not uncommon for sf readers to suggest that they’re using those elements wrongly, with a lack of understanding of the material they’re working with — usually, depending on the specific case, either because the writer didn’t understand the history of the way the element in question has been treated in prior (genre) works, or simply because they haven’t thought the logic of what they’re doing through in a rigorous way. Personally, I find this is rarely a problem in the fantastic ‘literary’ works that I read. And, intriguingly, when it is a problem, it’s not necessarily a significant problem.

I recently read Lydia Millet’s 2005 novel, Oh Pure and Radiant Heart. Published and promoted as mainstream ‘literary’ fiction, it also contains speculative elements, and was nominated for the Clarke award. It’s an example of what I mean. It’s not an unflawed novel. And perhaps some of the flaws are the kinds that a writer used to genre fiction would naturally avoid. But I don’t think they’re actually critical flaws in the framework of this particular book, which has its interests elsewhere. And, ultimately, the flaws of the book are far outweighed by its successes.

The novel tells a story about Ann and Ben, a librarian and a gardener, who meet three men mysteriously reborn into the year 2003: Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, and Leo Szilard — three men who were behind the creation of the atomic bomb. The first quarter of the book brings the cast together, and if it doesn’t explain why the scientists have manifested in the world (just as they were at the moment of the first nuclear explosion at the Trinity test site in 1945, and with no memory of anything after that point) it at least establishes that we’re not likely to get any answers. The second quarter of the book follows Ann, Ben, and the scientists as the three physicists travel to Hiroshima, trying to understand the world of the future. In the third quarter of the book, the physicists, having met an eccentric millionaire in Tokyo, begin a crusade for nuclear disarmament. The last quarter sees the crusade reach a climax with a march and violent conclusion in Washington. Although to say all this in this way shortchanges the strangeness of the book: it’s an often-wonderful piece of extravagance, that lives in a heady mix of symbolism and humanity.

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Vintage Treasures: The Best of Hal Clement

Vintage Treasures: The Best of Hal Clement

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The Best of Hal Clement-smallHal Clement was perhaps the least well-known subject in the Classics of Science Ficiton series, even in 1979, when The Best of Hal Clement appeared. He’s virtually forgotten today, 10 years after he died.

Ironically, he was probably the author I was personally most familiar with. Not because I read much of his fiction (not a lot was in print by the late 70s), but because of Maplecon.

Maplecon was the small local science fiction convention in Ottawa, Canada. I started attending in 1978, riding the bus downtown to the Chateau Laurier, a pretty daring solo outing at the age of fourteen. Hal Clement lived just a few hours away from Ottawa, in upstate New York, and he’d been a Guest of Honor at one of the earliest Maplecons; after that, he became a regular attendee. The convention staff referred to him warmly as “our good luck charm.”

I remember Clement — whose real name was Harry Clement Stubbs — as a friendly, highly articulate, and good-humored man. He was in his early 50s when I first saw him, so of course I considered him infinitely old. He was also soft-spoken and not prone to talking up his own work, which probably explains why all those times I heard him speak didn’t result in a lingering interest in his novels.

Clement wrote in a category that is nearly extinct today: true hard science fiction, in which The Problem — the scientific mystery or engineering puzzle at the heart of the tale — is the central character, and the flesh-and-blood characters that inhabit the story are there chiefly to solve The Problem. When Clement talked about writing, he mostly talked about the requirement to keep his stories as scientifically accurate as possible; he described the essential role of science fiction readers as “finding as many as possible of the author’s statements or implications which conflict with the facts as science currently understands them.”

Okay, that ain’t how I view my role as a reader — and I read a fair amount of hard SF. But your mileage may vary.

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A.C. Crispin, April 5, 1950 – September 6, 2013

A.C. Crispin, April 5, 1950 – September 6, 2013

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Storms of Destiny-smallAnn C. Crispin, who wrote 23 novels under the name A.C. Crispin — including the Starbridge series and two collaborations with Andre Norton — died yesterday.

Crispin began her career in 1983 with the Star Trek novel, Yesterday’s Son, in which Spock discovers that his brief dalliance with Zarabeth in an ancient ice cave in “All Our Yesterdays” resulted in a child. Accompanied by Kirk and McCoy, he uses the Guardian of Forever (from “The City on the Edge of Forever”) to journey back in time to rescue his son. It was the first Star Trek novel other than a movie novelization to hit The New York Times Bestseller List, and she followed her success with a sequel, Time for Yesterday.

Crispin produced six Star Trek novels and quickly branched out to other media properties. She wrote a novelization of the TV series V in 1984 and Alien: Resurrection in 1997. All three novels in her popular Han Solo Trilogy (The Paradise Snare, The Hutt Gambit, and Rebel Dawn) appeared in 1997.

She wrote two novels in the Witch World series with Andre Norton: Gryphon’s Eyrie (1984) and Songsmith (1992). The first novel in her Starbridge science fiction series appeared in 1989; it was followed by six more, the last five written in collaboration with a number of authors, including Kathleen O’Malley, T. Jackson King, and Ru Emerson.

Her last novel, Storms Of Destiny, the first installment in what was intended to be The Exiles of Boq’urain trilogy, was published in 2005.

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“It’s Your Job to Make it Interesting. Just Do Your Job”

“It’s Your Job to Make it Interesting. Just Do Your Job”

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The Silvered-smallThat’s what Tanya Huff said when Michelle Sagara suggested there was quite a bit of paranoia surrounding the idea of writing exposition – you know, all that explaining and informing stuff that I started talking about a couple of weeks ago?

As luck would have it, there was a panel on this very subject at World Con, featuring Jack McDevitt, Tanya Huff, Karl Schroeder, Walter Jon Williams, and Michelle Sagara (aka Michelle West), so rather than go on with my own prepared remarks, I’ll take this opportunity to relay their wisdom on the subject. They touched on many of the points I raised last time – notably the use of first person and the stranger-in-a-strange-land trope – and I’ll no doubt be referring to remarks made at this panel over the next couple of posts, where relevant to the specific subject at hand, but I’ll give you a short summary here.

What could be truer than the quote I use above – which, by the way, you should imagine being said in the most reassuring tone, the tone that says, “You can do it.” As writers, we hope never to write anything the readers find uninteresting. As readers, we know that there are parts we skip, don’t we? Just keep in mind that we don’t all skip the same parts. Setting aside how easy it might be to just do your job, think about what is being said here. It’s not your job to educate the readers. It’s your job to make whatever you do decide to tell them interesting.

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