Browsed by
Month: March 2015

Join Howard Andrew Jones and Bill Ward in a Swords Against Death Re-Read

Join Howard Andrew Jones and Bill Ward in a Swords Against Death Re-Read

Comments 4 comments

Swords Against Death-smallI’ve been enjoying the re-read of Fritz Leiber’s famous Lankhmar stories over at Howard Andrew Jones’ website. Howard and Bill Ward have taken a break from their entertaining examination of Lord Dunsany, and have turned their keen eye towards one of the most famous sword and sorcery series of all time, Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser books. They open the series with an overview of the second volume, Swords Against Death, a collection of short stories. Here’s Howard.

Once I got past the short, storyless opening (“The Circle Curse”) I was engrossed. Every short story was approximately the same length, and a few were tangentially connected. It was a little like episodic television.

More importantly, it was exciting, fast-paced, brimming with magic and sword-play and horror and mystery — and beautiful women, a subject that was becoming increasingly interesting to teenaged Howard. I loved Swords Against Death so much that I read it at least six times in the next few years (oh, to have so much spare time and energy).

Swords Against Death was not only one of the first fantasy books I read, it was my introduction to true sword-and-sorcery. These days the line between sword-and-sorcery is a lot more blurred than it was in the mid ’70s. Back then you pretty much had high fantasy, or sword-and-sorcery, and I definitely preferred the latter for the grit and the kind of protagonists, not to mention the pacing.

Swords Against Death was published in July 1970 by Ace Books. It is 251 pages, originally priced at $0.75. The gorgeous cover is by the one-and-only Jeff Jones.

Read the complete overview here, and part one (a look at “The Circle Curse”) here.

Vintage Treasures: Science Fiction: The Great Years edited by Carol & Frederik Pohl

Vintage Treasures: Science Fiction: The Great Years edited by Carol & Frederik Pohl

Comments 2 comments
Science Fiction The Great Years Pohl-small Science Fiction The Great Years Sphere-small

Science Fiction From the Great YearsOne of my favorite pulp reprint anthologies is Science Fiction: The Great Years, edited by Carol & Frederik Pohl and released by Ace Books in 1973 (cover artist unknown), and by Sphere in the UK in 1977 (cover by Peter Jones).

Part of the reason I like it is because it’s part of a series I remember very fondly. The second volume, Science Fiction: The Great Years, Volume II, was released in 1976. It was also part of an Ace imprint, Science Fiction From the Great Years, a line of 17 pulp classics edited and selected by Fred Pohl and published in paperback between 1972 and 1976. All bore the colophon at left. I first discovered pulps in the mid-70s, in Jacques Sadoul’s marvelous art book 2000 A.D: Illustrations From the Golden Age of Science Fiction Pulps, and finding these paperbacks on the shelves proudly proclaiming their pulp roots at around the same time was an exciting discovery.

…

Read More Read More

Building Up Fantasy Readers

Building Up Fantasy Readers

Comments 3 comments

micemysticsIn a recent post, M. Harold Page gave some thoughts for gamer parents which I found very helpful. Particularly that instead of focusing on our old games, we should look to new games as perfectly acceptable entries into tabletop.

I spend a lot of time gaming with my kids, and it’s very easy for me to want to rush them. For example, at my wife’s urging, when my 9-year-old grew enamored with one of my NPCs, I decided to try to bring him into our adult Pathfinder RPG gaming group by letting him take over the character. He was constantly impatient, wanting to jump his turn in the cycle, asking questions constantly. Enthusiastic … but in a way that clearly drove the other players nuts.

However, instead of going full-on RPG, we can play games such as Mice & Mystics (Plaid Hat Games, Amazon) or the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game (Paizo, Amazon), games which have a lot of moving parts and tell a story, but are also more structurally well-defined than a traditional tabletop RPG.

It’s very easy for me to want to share with the kids the games that I most want to play, instead of taking a step back to find the ones that are more appropriate for them. I have to meet them halfway.

…

Read More Read More

Relaunched Weirdbook Scores a Stephen Fabian Cover

Relaunched Weirdbook Scores a Stephen Fabian Cover

Comments 0 Comment

Weirdbook 31-smallEarlier this month I was very pleased to report that one of the greatest of all weird fiction magazines, W. Paul Ganley’s Weirdbook, is relaunching, with David A. Riley as Senior Editor and Publisher, and Douglas Draa, former Online Editor for Weird Tales, as Managing Editor and Fiction editor.

Last week on his blog David Riley revealed the cover for the upcoming Weirdbook 31, with art by none other than the great Stephen Fabian (at right; click for bigger version).

We are very pleased to be able to reveal the cover for issue 31, the first of the new Weirdbooks. It’s the work of Stephen Fabian, whose art often featured on earlier copies of the magazine.

Indeed, Fabian’s cover art was a hallmark of the original Weirdbook, and I’m thrilled to see that David and Doug have managed to secure him for issue 31. I’m certain it will make old-timers like me feel right at home.

You can see more of Fabian’s artwork in our detailed look at Stephen E. Fabian’s Ladies & Legends last year, and read more about Weirdbook (including their recent call for book reviewers) at David’s blog. They expect to have issue 31, the first issue of the relaunched magazine, available by the end of August this year.

See the Table of Contents for The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2015 Edition, edited by Paula Guran

See the Table of Contents for The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2015 Edition, edited by Paula Guran

Comments 0 Comment

The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2015-smallPaula Guran’s Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror is one of the better Years’ Best anthologies on the market. It’s been published since 2010, and each and every volume somehow manages to introduce me to terrific new voices in dark fantasy.

This year looks no different. Paula Guran recently announced the table of contents for the 2015 volume on her website, including fiction from Laird Barron, Dale Bailey, Gemma Files, John Langan, Helen Marshall, Brandon Sanderson, Simon Strantzas, Jeff VanderMeer, and Ken Liu. Plus plenty of names I don’t recognize…. yet. I’m looking forward to another great collection.

Here’s the complete TOC (alphabetical by author).

Kelley Armstrong, “The Screams of Dragons” (Subterranean Press Magazine, Spring 2014)
Dale Bailey, “The End of the End of Everything” (Tor.com, 23 Apr 2014)
Laird Barron, “(Little Miss) Queen of Darkness” (Dark Discoveries #29)
Elizabeth Bear “Madam Damnable’s Sewing Circle” (Dead Man’s Hand)
Richard Bowes, “Sleep Walking Now and Then” (Tor.com, 9 July 2014)
Nadia Bulkin, “Only Unity Saves the Damned” (Letters to Lovecraft)

…

Read More Read More

Future Treasures: Seriously Wicked by Tina Connolly

Future Treasures: Seriously Wicked by Tina Connolly

Comments 0 Comment

Seriously Wicked Tina Connolly-smallI met Tina Connolly at the World Fantasy Convention a few years ago, and had the good fortune to hear her read. She knows how to spin a tale, and has a gift for smooth, easy prose. If I could only bring a handful of books with me to a desert island, Tina Connolly would make the cut.

Her latest novel, Seriously Wicked, will be released this May and it sounds like a lot of fun. Keep an eye out for it — you’ll thank me later.

Camellia’s adopted mother wants Cam to grow up to be just like her. Problem is, Mom’s a seriously wicked witch.

Cam’s used to stopping the witch’s crazy schemes for world domination. But when the witch summons a demon, he gets loose — and into Devon, the cute new boy at school.

Suddenly Cam’s got bigger problems than passing Algebra. Her friends are getting zombiefied. Their dragon is tired of hiding in the RV garage. For being a shy boy-band boy, Devon is sure kissing a bunch of girls. And a phoenix hidden in the school is going to explode on the night of the Halloween Dance.

To stop the demon before he destroys Devon’s soul, Cam might have to try a spell of her own. But if she’s willing to work spells like the witch… will that mean she’s wicked too?

We previously covered Tina with her Nebula-nominated debut novel Ironskin, and its sequel, Copperhead.

Seriously Wicked will be published by Tor on May 5, 2015. It is 208 pages, priced at $17.99 in hardcover and $9.99 for the digital edition.

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Asimov’s The Caves of Steel

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Asimov’s The Caves of Steel

Comments 5 comments

caves of steelIn 1953, Isaac Asimov combined the science fiction and mystery genres with a three-part serial. In The Caves of Steel, Asimov painted a bleak future for humanity that served as more than just the background of a murder investigation.

Earth became overpopulated and civilization had to adapt to the massive resource needs. Cities became densely populated collectives. Efficiency drove everything. Section units (one, two and three room apartments) rather than houses. Group eating areas, rather than individual kitchens. Common shower and bath units instead of one (or more) per family. Hundreds of miles of high-speed conveyer belts, rather than roads and cars. The ancient, underground roadways were used by official forces to fight fires, to move about to quell riots and such.

Towns and cities were absorbed by ever-growing CITIES. The huge Cities were roofed in by domes until “Outside” became a terrible place that city dwellers never went to: they stayed in their caves of steel, eating mass produced yeast and hydroponics. Direct sunlight was not experienced. As Asimov says, “There was no doubt about it: The City was the culmination of man’s mastery over the environment.”

Then the Spacers came. Man had colonized other planets but those inhabitants eventually rebelled and broke free. They then returned and easily defeated Earth’s defenses.

The Spacers lived on other planets in wide-open spaces, with many robot servants. Asimov essentially paints a picture of the rich, upper class, living indolently, and the poor, lower class, packed together like sardines.

…

Read More Read More

Vampiric Legions Versus Noble Knights: Avalon Hill’s Dark Emperor

Vampiric Legions Versus Noble Knights: Avalon Hill’s Dark Emperor

Comments 2 comments

Dark Emperor Avalon Hill-smallBy 1985 it was pretty clear that J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings was the defining fantasy of the 20th Century — and that the license was a gaming gold mine. SPI had turned it into the classic board game War of the Ring in 1977, which had gone through multiple printings and was still selling well nearly a decade later. SPI had built on the success of WotR with a small line of Tolkien-inspired games, the most ambitious of which was Greg Costikyan’s sumptuous Swords & Sorcery, in 1978.

It took a while for Avalon Hill, the undisputed king of American board games, to get into the act, but by the mid-80s they decided to enter the epic fantasy market. They’d already tried their hand with Magic Realm in 1979, and later Elric, neither of which drew on the epic good-versus-evil model of The Lord of the Rings, and neither of which had been very successful. For their next attempt they lured Greg Costikyan from West End Games, where he’d been gainfully employed since SPI had been shut down by TSR in 1982.

Costikyan, who was only 25 at the time, already had an impressive resume. He entered the industry at 14, assembling games in the shipping department at SPI. He designed his first game for SPI, Supercharge (1976), based on the First and Second Battles of Alamein during World War II, when he was 17. By 1985 his published games included Barbarian Kings (1980), Paranoia (1984), and Toon (1984), not to mention the popular microgames The Creature That Ate Sheboygan (1979), Vector 3 (1979) DeathMaze (1979), and Trailblazer (1981). Perhaps his greatest success, West End’s Star Wars RPG, was just two years in his future.

Dark Emperor, the game Costikyan designed for Avalon Hill, is a two-player boardgame that mimics Swords & Sorcery‘s dual warfare-and-quest approach. Although it lacks both the deep world-building of that game, and its numerous rich scenarios, it’s clear that Costikyan learned from the overly-ambitious design of S&S, producing a more tightly focused game. The Tolkien influence is also clear… if you want to play Sauron, striding across a fantasy land as a nigh-unstoppable Dark Lord invading from another dimension, Dark Emperor is definitely for you.

…

Read More Read More

Black Static #45 Now on Sale

Black Static #45 Now on Sale

Comments 1 comment

Black Static 45-smallI didn’t see the latest issue of Black Static during my weekly trip to the bookstore yesterday, but it usually arrives in the US a couple of weeks after it goes on sale in the UK, so it should be on sale shortly. Issue #45 is cover-dated March/April; and contains no less than eight stories:

“The Second Floor” by S.P. Miskowski
“The Grey Men” by Laura Mauro
“The Visitors” by Stephen Hargadon
“The Fishing Hut” by Steve Rasnic Tem
“Hungry Ghosts” by Emily B. Cataneo
“The Frequency of Existence” by Andrew Hook
“The Drop of Light and the Rise of Dark” by Cate Gardner
“The Cleansing” by Danny Rhodes

Here’s the opening paragraph to Laura Mauro’s “The Grey Men.”

The grey men emerged from the fog on a November afternoon. Three days of thick, pale mist preceded their arrival; three days in which it appeared that the sky had collapsed beneath its own weight, choking the streets with cloud. The world itself was overcast. The fog held firm from Hertfordshire all the way into London, and for the two long, empty hours of his daily commute Adam would stare out of the train window, trying to pinpoint the exact margin where the dew-wet sidings disappeared irretrievably into the white.

…

Read More Read More

Shock Midnight Ambushes, Last Gasp Duels and Paraplegic Dwarves: I’ve Been Playing Mount and Blade

Shock Midnight Ambushes, Last Gasp Duels and Paraplegic Dwarves: I’ve Been Playing Mount and Blade

Comments 4 comments

Mount & Blade-smallI’m not, by any means, a PC gamer: the laptop I’m using to write this is just about held together with duct tape and clumps of old twig, and I have no idea where I could even find a graphics card, let alone which one to get.

Mount & Blade, however, makes me want to become one. I’m running this thing on its lowest possible settings: reduced the character models to stickmen, the trees to papier-mâché, the textures to cardboard. I’ve stripped this game of all possible graphical fidelity to get it running OK. I mean it wasn’t all that much to start with, but now it looks like interactive diarrhea.

Yet, I’ve still decided that this is the most fun I’ve had with a game with ages. It’s one of the few games nowadays that can leave me transfixed for hours, or even days, at a time. It’s a shame then, that it’s still pretty darn obscure.

Just one little caveat before we start, though. I’m talking about the original Mount & Blade here, not the jazzed up sequel: Mount & Blade Warband. The two are pretty much the same; it’s just that Warband has a few minor improvements and tweaks, like a greater variety of quests, better graphics, better animations, the ability to flirt relentlessly with the ladies of the realm and a whole new faction to join.

There’s also multiplayer, really, really good multiplayer. If you can get Warband, get that, but the original ran better on my laptop, and I played it a load more, so I feel a little more comfortable talking about it. Although, really, everything I talk about here is applicable to Warband, even more so, probably.

Mount & Blade is an open world, action RPG developed by Taleworlds and published by Paradox interactive in 2008. Taking place in a moderately realistic fictional medieval world called Caladria, players take the role of a nondescript migrant from some distant land, come to make his or her fortune amidst the wars that have torn the country apart.

…

Read More Read More