I keep hunting for themes when I tabulate the most popular articles on this website every month. But you Black Gate readers, you’re inscrutable. One month you want all the secrets of writing fantasy trilogies, the next it’s all about the origins of Dungeons and Dragons. Seriously, I’d love to know what articles I should be planning for this blog… but after seven years like this, I give up.

Well, I suppose it’s good that you have diverse interests, anyway. And you sure have great taste in writers and books.

Take last month for example. The number one article for the month was a guest post from author Harry Connolly, author of “The Whoremaster of Pald” and Game of Cages, examining Attack Novels — those story ideas that a writer can’t stop thinking about.

Number two on the list was M Harold Page’s review of Campaign Cartographer 3 Plus, a terrific new fantasy cartography tool for creating your own magical kingdom.

And the number three article at BG last month was M Harold Page’s look at history as the bedrock of fantasy: “The History Manifesto and Sweeping Histories.”

Fourth on the list was our report on a recent attempt to reboot SSI’s famed Gold Box games using Kickstarter, followed by Thomas Parker’s heartfelt remembrance of a great American actor, “Leonard Nimoy Saved My Life.” And sixth was Elizabeth Cady’s detailed look at the new film Jupiter Ascending, “Capitalism Ascending.”

The complete list of Top Articles for March follows. Below that, I’ve also broken out the most popular blog categories for the month.

The complete Top 50 Black Gate posts in March were:

1. Helpless in the Face of Your Enemy: Writers and Attack Novels.
2. Software Review: A look at Campaign Cartographer 3 Plus
3. The History Manifesto and Sweeping Histories
4. TSI Kickstarter is Rebooting the SSI Gold Box Series
5. Leonard Nimoy Saved My Life
6. Capitalism Ascending
7. Northern Matter in Poul Anderson’s “Middle Ages” of The Broken Sword and in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-Earth
8. Legion from the Shadows by Karl Edward Wagner
9. The Omnibus Volumes of Jack Vance, Part II: Tales of the Dying Earth
10. New Treasures: Swords of Steel edited by D.M. Ritzlin

     

11. The IX by Andrew P. Weston
12. Memories of Mosul before ISIS
13. Neil Gaiman and Ursula K. Le Guin on Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant
14. The Future of Fantasy: March New Releases
15. The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: REH Goes Hard Boiled
16. Gen Con Threatens to Leave Indiana Over Religious Freedom Bill
17. Goth Chick News: Will Ripley Finally Get a Happy Ending?
18. The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: The Lords of Dus
19. Developing a Voice, Fine Tuning Scripts, and Getting Neurotic About Hair Color: An Interview with Marvel Comics Assistant Editor Xander Jarowey
20. Expanding Our Magazine Coverage at Black Gate

     

21. Adventures In History: George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman
22. Vampiric Legions Versus Noble Knights: Avalon Hill’s Dark Emperor
23. What Really Happened at the First Siege of Orleans? And, Where Does Dark Age History Come From?
24. Weirdbook Relaunches
25. Vintage Treasures: Book of the Isle by Nancy Springer
26. The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Asimov’s The Caves of Steel
27. Ancient Hatra: Another Victim of ISIS
28. Vintage Treasures: Damnation Alley by Roger Zelazny
29. Representations of the Amazon in Poul Anderson’s Virgin Planet and in DC’s Wonder Woman
30. Wild West Outlaws of the Silent Screen: When Hollywood Hired Real Bandits

     

31. Goth Chick News – Don’t Open: Dead Inside, Walker Stalker Con Drags into Chicago
32. February Short Story Roundup
33. Two Great Books by Poul Anderson: The High Crusade and The Golden Slave
34. Leah Schnelbach Ranks the Fantasy Films of the 1980s
35. What Are the Best Star Trek Original Series Episodes for Kids?
36. Future Treasures: New Cthulhu 2 edited by Paula Guran
37. Adapting Nostalgia to Be More Awesome (And How I Try to Contain my IDW Anger While Remaining Spoiler Free. Mostly)
38. Vintage Treasures: The Boats of the Glen Carrig by William Hope Hodgson
39. Fantasy Literature: The Sword of the Lady, Part 2
40. Vintage Treasures: The Chronicles of Corum by Michael Moorcock

     

41. An Astounding Science Fiction Testimonial
42. Miss Fury: Sensational Sundays 1941-1944
43. Goth Chick News: A Horror Convention Starring Bud Bundy? Read On…
44. Art of the Genre: The Art of the Iconic Character
45. High Space Opera: Jim Starlin’s Metamorphosis Odyssey and Dreadstar
46. What to Read Next?
47. Fantasy Literature: Tears of the Sun & the Frozen Pizza Effect
48. Fantasy Literature: The High King of Montival
49. Vintage Treasures: Sheila Gilluly’s Greenbriar Trilogy
50. Top 50 Black Gate Posts in February

 

The top categories last month were:

1. New Treasures
2. Books
3. Fiction
4. Blog entry
5. Magazines
6. Vintage Treasures
7. Game Reviews
8. Reviews
9. Music
10. Pulp
11. Editor’s Blog
12. Fashion
13. Convention Report
14. Comics
15. Art of the Genre
16. Conan
17. Art
18. BG Staff
19. Future Treasures
20. Goth Chick

The Top 5o Black Gate blog posts in February are here, and you can see all 129 posts we made in the month of March here.