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Year: 2013

Animal Stories: Johanna Sinisalo’s Troll: A Love Story

Animal Stories: Johanna Sinisalo’s Troll: A Love Story

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Ennen päivänlaskua ei voiA few years ago, a cat came to live with me under unexpected circumstances. (This is getting around to a look at a fantasy novel, and no the novel has nothing to do with cats as such, and yes I have a point.) I’d never had a pet when I was young, so I suddenly found myself dealing with a new range of experiences and emotions; and found also that the depictions in most media of relationships between pets and their humans were notably lacking. There’s a complexity of living with, and to an extent being responsible for, a non-human animal. You have to learn about (and sometimes worry about) diet and medical needs and what certain behaviour patterns mean. You have to learn how to communicate with a creature that does not use words — but which may be surprisingly good at understanding emotions in a voice. These sort of things are rarely shown in most stories about humans and animals, but they’re a crucial part of the experience of dealing with a pet.

Which brings me around to Johanna Sinisalo’s book Ennen päivänlaskua ei voi, a Finnish book translated into English in 2003 by Peter Owen as Not Before Sundown and then again the same year by Herbert Lomas as Troll: A Love Story. The book won the 2000 Finlandia Prize for best novel written by a Finnish citizen and was one of the winners of the 2004 Tiptree Award, apparently in the Owen translation. I read the Lomas version, and was impressed by the prose and structure, by the book’s conceptual flexibility and symbolic heft, and by Sinisalo’s depiction of a man coming to learn to live with an inhuman creature — specifically, a troll. It’s not quite a ‘pet’ in the sense of a domesticated animal, and the relationship between man and troll is certainly different than that of the usual human and pet. But some of what the main human character feels and does is recognisable to me as somebody who lives with a cat.

And I think that kind of relationship informs the basic theme of the book: otherness and the things one person projects on another. Sinisalo’s book acknowledges that the most profoundly ‘other’ creatures around us are the animals we call ‘pets.’ They are adopted members of our families; but do not share the biology that makes us what we are, and that shapes how a human thinks. Their thought processes are alien to us. We try to understand them, we think we come to know them, but for all our good intentions probably still can’t help but project ourselves onto them. That tendency to project fears, hopes, and narratives onto others is I think what drives Sinisalo’s book.

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Revisit Pavis: Gateway to Adventure

Revisit Pavis: Gateway to Adventure

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Pavis Gateway to Adventure-smallLast April, Sarah Newton wrote a marvelous two-part review of Moon Design’s Pavis: Gateway to Adventure, the third (and easily the most massive) edition of a fantasy setting I first enjoyed 30 years ago.

Getting my hands on one proved to be more challenging than I expected, however. Apparently, the first printing sold out quickly and I had to wait until it was reprinted. Finally, more than a year after Sarah’s enticing review appeared here at Black Gate, I was able to sit down with my own copy.

Why was I so intrigued? Partly it was memories of that marvelous first edition, a gorgeous boxed set from Chaosium. Pavis was one of the most ambitious RPG adventure supplements ever made when it appeared in 1983: a completely realized bronze age city, packed with historical detail, strange cultures and cults, maps, thieves, profiteers, and adventurers.

Most important of all, however, Pavis was a launching point for adventure in Big Rubble, its sister publication, a ruined city overrun by trolls, snakes — and much worse things. The subtitle of the new edition is “Gateway to Adventure,” and that’s a wholly accurate description.

The new edition combines both Pavis and Big Rubble under a single cover, adding a host of new material on top of an already well-realized setting.

The result is a terrific product, with more tightly-woven encounters and plot threads and everything you need to kick off a grand adventure.

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New Treasures: Walking in the Midst of Fire

New Treasures: Walking in the Midst of Fire

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Walking in the Midst of Fire-smallWalking In the Midst of Fire is the sixth installment in the Remy Chandler series, which began with A Kiss Before the Apocalypse. These books are a mix of urban fantasy, paranormal romance, and noir detective fiction, following the exploits of an angel private investigator trying to lead a normal life. (Not gonna happen, Remy.)

Author Thomas E Sniegoski wrote the YA series The Fallen before switching to adult fiction with the Remy Chandler books. I first came across his name in the world of comics, however, when he wrote the prequel to Jeff Smith’s brilliant fantasy Bone, the mini-series Stupid, Stupid Rat Tails: The Adventures of Big Johnson Bone.

Remy Chandler, angel private investigator, is trying his damnedest to lead a normal life in a world on the verge of supernatural change. He’s found a new love — a woman his dog, Marlowe, approves of — and his best human friend is reluctantly coming to grips with how… unusual… Remy’s actions can be. And he’s finally reached a kind of peace between his true angelic nature and the human persona he created for himself so very long ago.

But that peace can’t last — Heaven and the Legions of the Fallen still stand on the brink of war. Then one of Heaven’s greatest generals is murdered, and it falls to Remy to discover who — or what — might be responsible for the death, which could trigger the final conflict… a conflict in which Earth will most certainly be the beachhead.

The deeper he digs, the further he goes into a dark world of demonic assassins, secret brothels, and things that are unsettling even to a being who has lived since time began. But it is not in his nature — angelic or human — to stop until he has found the killer, no matter the personal price…

Walking in the Midst of Fire was published August 6th, 2013 by Roc Books. It is 340 pages, priced at $15 for the trade paperback and $9.99 for the digital edition.

Gatchaman

Gatchaman

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GatchamanA couple weeks ago, I discussed one of the movies I saw at this year’s Fantasia film festival, OXV: The Manual (which has since won the festival award for Most Innovative Feature Film). The last film I saw at the festival this year was one of the ones I was most looking forward to: the international premiere of Gatchaman, an adaptation of the Japanese cartoon series Science Ninja Team Gatchaman (which you might know as Battle of the Planets or G-Force, depending on your age and place of residence in the 70s and 80s). My reaction to it was a bit complicated. As an adaptation, it’s mediocre at best; as a film it has serious issues. But I enjoyed it quite a bit. A hell of a lot, in fact. And yet … I can’t help but be aware it could have been better.

Some basic information first: the film was directed by Tôya Satô from a screenplay by Yûsuke Watanabe. It’s scheduled to go into wide release on August 24 in Japan. The original cartoon show ran for 105 episodes from late 1972 to late 1974, and in 1978 was repackaged for North American audiences (with significant edits and some new bits of animation) as Battle of the Planets. It got a second translation in the 80s as G-Force. In Japan, the series has spawned a number of sequel series, with a new series set to begin airing later this year.

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Gygax Magazine #2 Announced for Gen Con

Gygax Magazine #2 Announced for Gen Con

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Gygax Magazine 2The second issue of Gygax magazine is now at the printer and will ship in time for Gen Con.

Holy cats, that’s next week. This year Gen Con, the largest game convention in the country, takes place August 15-18 at the Indiana Convention Center.

We’ve been anxiously (and impatiently) awaiting the second issue of Gygax. I reviewed the fabulous first issue back in March and thought it was entirely successful at capturing the spirit of the earliest days of role playing, particularly the first issues of The Dragon, the magazine that shaped and guided the industry in the mid-1970s.

Gygax is a “quarterly adventure role-playing aid” that seems to be sticking more closely to an annual publishing schedule. As that sounds eerily similar to the eventual schedule for the print version of my own magazine, Black Gate, I’m just going to keep my mouth shut and not throw stones.

What I am going to do is peer closely at the pic of the Table of Contents recently published at the MTV Geek and see what I can make out. Looks like Tim Kask has an article on Tactics in Samurai Battles, Joy Libby looks at Hitchhiking in Doctor Who, Bryan Pope (Pipe? Page?) examines Building a Winning Spellbook for Mage Wars, and Vincent Flavio looks at The Old-School Renaissance.

That’s about all I could get before my eyes gave out. I’ll have to wait for the print version to discover the rest. For now, I’ll enjoy that tantalizing Jeff Easley cover and keep an eye on the magazine stand at my local game shop.

Unleash your inner Conan with Barbarian Kings

Unleash your inner Conan with Barbarian Kings

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Barbarian Kings SPI-smallMagic Spells and Enchantments! Elves and Orcs and Dwarves! Airships and Pirate Fleets! Heroes and Wizards and… Barbarian Kings.

That’s the cover copy on the boxed version of Barbarian Kings, one of the most fascinating games from my childhood, a game clearly inspired in equal measure by Robert E. Howard and J.R.R. Tolkien. Except for the airships, which I think maybe was an attempt to throw in a little Edgar Rice Burroughs and John Carter of Mars.

My fascination didn’t stem from any virtue of the game design. In fact, I never even had the chance to play it when it was first released in 1980. But it loomed large in my imagination.

Barbarian Kings was originally published in Ares #3. I’ve mentioned Ares before — it was the short-lived (and today, highly collectible) magazine published by SPI that included a science fiction or fantasy board game in every issue.

And what games they were. Star Trader, simulating high-stakes interstellar trade, commerce, and piracy; The High Crusade, inspired by Poul Anderson’s classic novel of a medieval conquest of the galaxy; Nightmare House, which featured intrepid explorers venturing into a haunted house; Voyage of the B.S.M. Pandora, a solitaire game of interstellar exploration on savage worlds; The Omega War, simulating a post-apocalyptic battle on a war-scarred North America in 2419. And nearly a dozen others.

And in issue #3, it was Barbarian Kings, a simple but compelling game of fantasy empires in conflict for 2-5 players. The Jack Kirby-inspired art on the cover communicated just about everything you needed to know (click on the image at right for a bigger version). This was a game of empire building in a world of dwarves, orcs, and magic, just like any of a hundred fantasy novels crowding the shelves in the 70s. It was a compact theatre of the imagination that could drop you smack dab into your favorite fantasy setting and let you run rampant with an army at your back. And airships. Let’s not forget the airships.

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Vintage Treasures: The Best of Stanley G. Weinbaum

Vintage Treasures: The Best of Stanley G. Weinbaum

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The Best of Stanley G WeinbaumThis is the fifth volume in Lester Del Rey’s Classics of Science Fiction line I’ve discussed here (starting with The Best of Murray Leinster, The Best of Robert Bloch, The Best of Henry Kuttner, and The Best of C M Kornbluth.) I believe it may also have been the first, since it has the earliest publication date of the titles we’ve examined so far — April 1974 — and also because the cover design for the first printing (see below) was slightly different and a little rougher.

And also because, if you’re going to launch a series dedicated to the very best science fiction and fantasy writers of the century, it makes sense to start with Stanley G. Weinbaum.

This isn’t the first time we’ve covered Weinbaum’s career. The distinguished Ryan Harvey wrote a terrific retrospective three years ago, where he said, in part:

In a way, Weinbaum was science fiction’s equivalent of Robert E. Howard: a hugely talented author who died too young. But Weinbaum’s run was even shorter than Howard’s — a mere year and a half, with twelve stories published during that time. Posthumous work followed, but considering the immense talent that Weinbaum shows in his fiction — starting with his first story! — it is frustrating how little of this gold strike ever got to the surface for readers to mine.

We’re hardly the first fans to champion Weinbaum’s pulp science fiction. H.P. Lovecraft praised him highly, calling him ingenious, and stating that he stood miles above the other pulp SF writers in his ability to create genuinely alien worlds, especially in comparison to Edgar Rice Burroughs and his “inane” stories of “egg-laying Princesses.” And series editor Lester del Rey, in the June 1974 issue of IF magazine, said:

Weinbaum, more than any other writer, helped to take our field out of the doldrums of the early thirties and into the beginnings of modern science fiction.

Pretty heavy claims. So exactly who was this writer who won such adoration and devotion, even decades after his death?

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Explanations – I Got a Million of ‘Em

Explanations – I Got a Million of ‘Em

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RaksuraI was reading Martha Wells’ excellent The Cloud Roads the other day and I was struck, as I often am when reading something very well written, by how few explanations there were. One of the most difficult things writers of Fantasy or SF face in creating a new world, and alien beings, is to find a way to give their readers necessary information seamlessly, and Wells has done a great job here. There are plenty of things about the world of the Raksura I still don’t know and plenty that I had to figure out for myself. I know there are some readers who don’t want to do any work when they’re reading, but it’s a fact that you value and remember the information you had to work out for yourself a lot more than stuff that was just handed to you.

Yes, I’m talking about that old writing class cliché, “show, don’t tell.” And as important as that advice is when we’re creating sequences involving action and emotion, it’s doubly important when we’re handing out explanations.

Explanations have a bad rep, and justifiably. There’s the ever unpopular info-dump where all forward motion grinds to a halt and the author tells you everything you need to know – ever – about anything – or so it feels like. There’s the equally unpleasant and not-as-rare-as-you-might-hope “As you know Bob,” a dialogue oopsy, more cleverly disguised on TV than on the page. Don’t tell me you’ve never wondered why all those CSI guys tell each other what they’re doing all the time when they must already know. I know you have. But that’s the classic “As you know, Bob.”

There are situations (crime shows being one of them) where readers and audiences are becoming more knowledgeable about certain basics, to the point that explanations are no longer needed. But the unfortunate truth is that some of these back-handed ways of doing things still turn up from time to time, usually in the hands of amateurs in the field. The problem is that there are certain things the readers simply have to know and our jobs as writers is to find a way to tell them, without stopping the forward flow of the narrative and without having characters explain things to each other that they already know perfectly well.

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Blogging Epic Comics’ Tomb of Dracula Limited Series, Part Two

Blogging Epic Comics’ Tomb of Dracula Limited Series, Part Two

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30301-4602-33709-1-tomb-of-draculaMarvel Comics’ mature readers imprint, Epic Comics, published a Tomb of Dracula limited series in 1991 entitled, “Day of Blood, Night of Redemption.” Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan reunited from the original series and teamed with Al Williamson to produce this visually stunning and highly ambitious four-part epic. The script faltered a bit by the end, as it really needed at least two more issues to realize its full potential; but this was an excellent effort and a welcome return to form that is deserving of more attention for its high standard of quality throughout.

The third issue gets underway with a quiet interlude shattered when a street gang makes the mistake of harassing the vampire after discovering him alone on the streets of Washington D.C. There is an unmistakable cathartic glee to the scene where Dracula literally drags the leader of the gang to his death. This is followed by a brief segment that establishes Katinka as having joined Frank Drake and Blade in their hunt for the vampire. Her character proves the necessary bridge to smooth the rough partnership rekindled between these two very different men. She also functions as a Van Helsing substitute, who is seeking a scientific cure for Marlene’s possession.

Marv Wolfman obviously felt the imposing weight of technological change in the ten years since he had last written the character and brings the same weight to bear on the vampire. Dracula pays a visit to Lila in her dorm at Georgetown University, where he succeeds in seducing her. Once under the vampire’s spell, the young woman eagerly steals all of Professor Smirnoff’s notes and introduces the vampire to the burgeoning computer age and the marvel of the CD-Rom in this pre-Internet story. While Dracula absorbs all of this information, he is dismissive of Lila. The sexually confused young woman believes she loves the vampire and willingly enters into an abusive relationship with him.

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Goth Chick News: Music From Where It All Began

Goth Chick News: Music From Where It All Began

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image002It might have been at a sleep-over, huddled around the TV and a local public broadcasting station, or more recently around an older sibling’s laptop.

It could have been in a midnight show at the broken-down theater in the town where you attend college or, heaven-forbid, at the cliché of a drive-in.

Wherever it was, you’ll never forget it – that night (for it certainly was at night) when you discovered the classic movie monsters.

Who was first?

Dracula?

Frankenstein?

It doesn’t matter. The impact was the same. And whether you went on to be a lifelong fan of the genre or just a Lugosi devotee, there will forever be a place in your heart for that first time.

It’s a lot like love, only with more running and screaming.

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