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Year: 2015

Vintage Treasures: The Man of Gold by M.A.R. Barker

Vintage Treasures: The Man of Gold by M.A.R. Barker

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The Man of Gold-smallI remember exactly where I was when I learned M.A.R. Barker had died. I was at the games auction at Gary Con IV on Saturday, March 24th, 2012, when Luke Gygax solemnly paid tribute to the industry giants we’d lost that last year — and he announced that M.A.R. Barker, the brilliant creator of the world of Tékumel, had passed away at the age of 82. When I got home that night, the first thing I did was write an obituary for Black Gate, honoring the man who’d done so much for the hobby.

Tékumel was a unique creation in fantasy gaming. It was home to one of the earliest RPGs ever written, Empire of the Petal Throne, published by TSR in 1975, and later a series of well-received fantasy novels by Barker, beginning with The Man of Gold, published by DAW with a marvelous cover by Michael Whelan in 1984.

Tékumel is a distant world populated by both humans and aliens, who have built a vast and intricate civilization over thousands of years. Ruled by the upper clans of the land, the planet’s culture is based upon the teachings of gods and demons, upon the ways and wiles of alien races, and upon the layered traditions of monarchs ancient and current. Tékumel is an exquisitely detailed world where surprise and adventure are as natural as night and day.

The Man of Gold is the first novel based on the Tékumel: Empire of the Petal Throne RPG. Follow the quest of Harsan, acolyte of the temple of Thumis, as he ventures forth to seek a forgotten empire’s super weapon known only as the Man of Gold.

Tékumel has been revisited many times by talented game creators over the decades, and is now the setting for multiple game systems.

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Sample All Ten of Tor.com‘s Upcoming Novellas With Their Fall 2015 Sampler

Sample All Ten of Tor.com‘s Upcoming Novellas With Their Fall 2015 Sampler

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Tor 2015 Fall SamplerI’m very excited to see that Tor.com has made an impressive commitment to a distinctive new line of premium novellas coming out this fall. It’s not just that I love novellas — these books really look terrific.

These are short novels, ranging in size from 96 to 224 pages, and all are available in trade paperback for around $12.99, or in digital format for just $2.99 each. The line includes a great mix of established authors — including folks we’ve discussed enthusiastically here at Black Gate, like Daniel Polansky (Low Town), Michael R. Underwood (Shield and Crocus), Paul Cornell (London Falling), and Nnedi Okorafor (Who Fears Death) — and some exciting new discoveries. Tor.com has just released a free sample of all ten books in their Fall 2015 Sampler. It’s available now through multiple outlets. Check it out!

You can now download a free ebook sampler that will give you an exclusive sneak peek at all ten of our Fall novellas. Featuring authors such as Kai Ashante Wilson, Nnedi Okorafor, K. J. Parker, Daniel Polansky, and many more, this sampler contains exciting new fantasy worlds, harrowing science fiction adventures, stolen memories, edible angels, and talking salamanders. Download the sampler now from Amazon or iBooks. (A Barnes & Noble link will be available soon!)

We’ve previously covered two upcoming titles in the Tor.com fall catalog, Alter S. Reiss’s Sunset Mantle and Kai Ashante Wilson’s The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps, and we’ll be covering more in the coming weeks. All ten will be available globally in ebook for $2.99 US/CAN, trade paperback, and audio format. See the complete catalog of upcoming novellas at Tor.com.

A Medieval Birthday Cake

A Medieval Birthday Cake

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2015-08-17 20.45.02

Photo courtesy Philip Cresswell

I’m halfway to 92, and being a crotchety old fart I don’t have a proper post for you this week. So here’s a photo of yours truly enjoying a medieval gingerbread birthday cake cooked by a good friend of mine. The recipe comes courtesy of The Society for the History of Medieval Technology and Science.

This and other recipes were the subject of a talk by Caroline Yeldham, an expert on historic cookery. The recipe is below. Be warned it makes quite a lot so you might want to cut down the quantities. The end result is rich and tasty and you don’t have to eat much to fill you up. It’s also quite gingery. Is that a word?

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New Treasures: Professor Challenger: New Worlds, Lost Places, edited by J.R. Campbell and Charles Prepolec

New Treasures: Professor Challenger: New Worlds, Lost Places, edited by J.R. Campbell and Charles Prepolec

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Professor Challenger New Worlds, Lost Places-smallProfessor Challenger is one of the great explorer-heroes of the genre. Created by Arthur Conan Doyle in his 1912 novel The Lost World, Challenger also appeared in The Poison Belt and The Land of Mist, and a pair of short stories. Now editors J.R. Campbell and Charles Prepolec have assembled a brand new collection of exciting tales featuring the irrepressible Professor Challenger, with contributions from Mark Morris, Stephen Volk, Guy Adams and James Goss, Black Gate blogger Josh Reynolds, and many others.

Brilliant, belligerent and bearded in equal measure, incapable of suffering fools, or journalists, gladly, the greatest scientific mind of his generation — Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Professor George Edward Challenger — returns in ten all-new tales of scientific adventure and wonder. He is the discoverer of The Lost World, the prophet of The Poison Belt, the destroyer of The Disintegration Machine, and the man who made the World Scream! Who can deliver mankind from the shackles of ignorance? Who else but that great self-proclaimed champion of science? We give you, ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages, the one, the only, Professor George Edward Challenger!

This original anthology, from the authors and editors who brought you the Gaslight Sherlock Holmes series, sees Challenger and his stalwart company including the reporter Malone, big game hunter Lord John Roxton and the skeptical colleague Professor Summerlee, travel across space and witness the ravages of time, narrowly eluding a dinosaur’s bite only to battle against the invasive red bloom of alien foliage, then plunge deep into the mysteries hidden within the Earth and reach out to the moon and into the heart of the unknown. Strap yourself in for chills, thrills and challenges to the unknown in exciting new worlds and lost places with literature’s foremost scientific adventurer.

Professor Challenger: New Worlds, Lost Places was edited by J.R. Campbell and Charles Prepolec and published by EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing on August 15, 2015. It is 250 pages, priced at $15.95 in trade paperback, and $5.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Dave Elsey.

538 Blog Reports Crowdfunding Is Driving A $196 Million Board Game Renaissance

538 Blog Reports Crowdfunding Is Driving A $196 Million Board Game Renaissance

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Exploding Kittens-smallNate Silver’s popular 538 blog, known mostly for astute political analysis, often takes a hard look at other industries, and yesterday Oliver Roeder examined the recent explosive growth in crowdfunding for board games. His examples include Conan (which we covered here,) Reaper Miniatures, Dwarven Forge, and the break-out hit Exploding Kittens, which exceeded its campaign goal in eight minutes and set a record for most backers in Kickstarter history, raising $8,782,571 from 219,382 backers.

Luke Crane is Kickstarter’s in-house board game expert and resident dungeon master. He sees Kickstarter as the latest in a series of board and card gaming milestones. Dungeons & Dragons, first published in 1974, crystallized role-play gaming. Magic: The Gathering, which debuted in 1993 and became a smash hit, spawned countless expansions and still boasts a competitive professional circuit. The Settlers of Catan, and its first English-language edition in 1996, gave many their first taste of German board gaming kultur. That game has sold over 15 million copies.

And then, in mid-2009, Kickstarter launched.

Since that debut, pledges to board and card game projects on the site have totaled $196 million, according to the company. Ninety-three percent of that money went to successful projects — those that reached their fundraising goal. For comparison, pledges to video game projects, including hardware and mobile games, have totaled $179 million. Of that, 85 percent went to ultimately successful projects. On Kickstarter, analog is beating digital.

Read the complete article here.

Future Treasures: Sunset Mantle by Alter S. Reiss

Future Treasures: Sunset Mantle by Alter S. Reiss

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Sunset Mantle-smallI’ve really been impressed with what I’ve seen of Tor.com’s new line of novellas. There are ten on the schedule, from a diverse range of exciting authors — including Nnedi Okorafor, K. J. Parker, Daniel Polansky, and Michael R. Underwood — and they look terrific.

The first to go on sale will be Kai Ashante Wilson’s debut, The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps, and Tor.com will publish roughly one a week through most of the fall. September 15th sees Alter S. Reiss’ Sunset Mantle, the tale of an exiled warrior, and a doomed settlement called the Reach Antach…

With a single blow, Cete won both honor and exile from his last commander. Since then he has wandered, looking for a place to call home. The distant holdings of the Reach Antach offer shelter, but that promise has a price.

The Reach Antach is doomed.

Barbarians, traitors, and scheming investors conspire to destroy the burgeoning settlement. A wise man would move on, but Cete has found reason to stay. A blind weaver-woman and the beautiful sunset mantle lure the warrior to wager everything he has left on one final chance to turn back the hungry tides of war.

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Fantasia Diary 2015, Day 8: Buddha’s Palm, Ojuju, The Reflecting Skin, and Haruko’s Paranormal Laboratory

Fantasia Diary 2015, Day 8: Buddha’s Palm, Ojuju, The Reflecting Skin, and Haruko’s Paranormal Laboratory

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Buddha's PalmI was at Concordia’s De Sève Theatre early on Tuesday, July 21, for a showing of a 35mm print of the Shaw Brothers’ wuxia fantasy Buddha’s Palm. After that, I had a decision to make. At 5:30 the Nigerian zombie movie Ojuju played directly against a re-release of the British-Canadian horror-suspense movie The Reflecting Skin. Which would I see? And then after that, the first live-action film by director Mamoru Oshii, Nowhere Girl, was directly opposite a quirky romantic fantasy comedy, Haruko’s Paranormal Laboratory. Again: which to see?

I’d have enough time after Buddha’s Palm to see one movie in the Fantasia screening room, and I decided I’d watch Ojuju there. The Reflecting Skin wasn’t available in the screening room, and anyway part of the draw of it was the chance to see a high-quality (2K) restoration of the movie for its twenty-fifth anniversary. As for the second decision, at the start of the day I assumed I’d go see Nowhere Girl. But sitting waiting for Buddha’s Palm, I changed my mind. Haruko seemed more overtly fantastic. And Nowhere Girl was in the screening room, so I’d have the chance to see it there — if I could find the time over the next few days among all the other movies I hoped to see.

The screening of Buddha’s Palm was introduced by King-Wei Chu, one of the festival’s Directors of Asian Programming. He noted the rarity of 35mm prints of this film, and said “As long as I’m alive, Fantasia will play 35 millimeter,” adding: “The doctors say six months.” As he went on to explain, in 1982, when Buddha’s Palm was made, the popularity of kung-fu films was declining in the face of a craze for Star Wars-esque science fiction, “so [the Shaw Brothers] decided to introduce special effects.” He noted that the movie predated Tsui Hark and Zu Warriors From The Magic Mountain (Shu Shan – Xin Shu shan jian ke), itself an important fantasy wuxia film. That said, we got to see a trailer for another Shaw Brothers film, The Kid With the Golden Arm (Jin bei tong), and then the main feature began.

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Galaxy Science Fiction, November 1952: A Retro-Review

Galaxy Science Fiction, November 1952: A Retro-Review

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Galaxy November 1952-smallThe November 1952 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction features cover art by Jack Coggins of an Earth satellite. This satellite is more like a space station than satellites I typically think of. But considering that the first artificial satellite (Sputnik 1) wasn’t launched until about five years after this issue hit newsstands, everything was still left to the imagination at this point.

Before I jump to the fiction, I want to comment on Willy Ley’s “For Your Information.” In part of the column, he discusses Mars and its vegetation. I thought that was rather odd or presumptuous for him, but at this time, scientists were observing coloration on the planet’s surface that changed seasonally. That coloration plausibly suggested vegetation, and if there’s vegetation, what other life might be there? Then Mariner 4 did a fly-by in 1965, showing reality. Additional Mariner spacecraft confirmed more of the same — that Mars was a dead planet.

I wonder how many people were crushed by this, including authors of science fiction. There might have been some who feared Martians coming to destroy us and felt relief. But I also think that the possibility of life on Mars offered a kind of hope to some — that humanity wasn’t completely alone. With the truth of Mars revealed, that hope had to extend beyond the neighboring red planet. It will be interesting to see how science fact continues to influence science fiction, not necessarily by devestating our hopes and dreams but by helping to reshape them into new possibilities. And even without life on Mars, the planet still has an allure to it — a vacant planet that beckons to be explored and perhaps settled.

“The Martian Way” by Isaac Asimov — Mario Rioz and Ted Long work together on a small ship near Mars, tracking and scavenging the abandoned shells of Earth spacecraft. These jettisoned pieces are essentially rocket stages cast off as part of the flight, and they contain metal the humans on Mars can reuse.

A rising politician on Earth named Hilder points out that Mars doesn’t reimburse Earth for the shells, and the monetary investments will take many years to return. But worse than that, Mars can never replenish the water it takes from Earth to propel its ships. As Hilder’s voice gains more attention, other politicians begin mimicking him, which leads to new policies that prevent the scavenging of shells.

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Science Fiction Classics #10 Now on Sale

Science Fiction Classics #10 Now on Sale

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Science Fiction Classics 10-smallIf you’re a pulp fan like me, you’re always interested in high quality facsimile reproductions of pulp magazines, especially ones available at reasonable prices. So I was delighted to discover Science Fiction Classics, a magazine that reproduces a complete pulp magazine with every issue. They’ve published ten issues, focusing (so far) exclusively on that grand old lady of the pulps, Amazing Stories.

The most recent issue, Science Fiction Classics #10, reproduces one of the rarest early pulps, and certainly the rarest issue of Amazing — the very first Amazing Stories Annual, from 1927. It includes the complete Barsoom novel The Master Mind of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and a short story by A. Hyatt Verrill, as well as five reprints — two classics from A. Merritt, including the long novella “The Face in the Abyss” and “The People of the Pit,” and tales by Austin Hall, Jacque Morgan, and H. G. Wells. It also contains interior artwork by Frank R. Paul, Gambee, and others. The complete contents are:

Preface by Hugo Gernsback
The Master Mind of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
“The Face in the Abyss” by A. Merritt (1923)
“The Man Who Saved the Earth” by Austin Hall (1919)
“The People of the Pit” by A. Merritt (1918)
“The Man Who Could Vanish” by A. Hyatt Verrill
“The Feline Light & Power Company Is Organized” by Jacque Morgan (1912)
“Under the Knife” by H. G. Wells (1896)

Science Fiction Classics is published by Pulp Tales Press. Issues are print on demand, and available through Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Lulu, and other places. Issue #10 was published on June 3, 2015; it is 132 pages, priced at $12.95. The cover is by Frank R. Paul. Order right at the Pulp Tales Press website.

See our August Fantasy Magazine Rack here, and all of our recent magazine coverage here.

July Short Story Roundup

July Short Story Roundup

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Between Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Swords and Sorcery Magazine, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies, July was rich with fiction (nine stories, two poems, and a video treat), and some of it is pretty darn good. So let’s get started.

oie_105135GlDNN9g6Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #25, with beautiful banner art by Dana Martin, has the usual complement of stories and poetry, and, this month, a special bonus from editor Adrian Simmons.

“Beast Hunter’s Song” by Michael A. Liguori, is about Sedrick the monster hunter’s second chance in life. Dragon hunters get all the glory, but the really dangerous and dirty work is done by the men bold and crazy enough to stalk the caverns of the Underlands for beasts that can swallow a dragon whole. Since the High Lord of Hunters decided there aren’t enough monsters left underground to hunt anymore, men like Sedrick have been reduced to guard duty.

When a Trogon, a beast “twice the size of a dragon, with two or three heads and terrible claws that could cleave an ox in half with a single swipe” ravages a city, the High Lord has no choice but to call Sedrick back to duty. While the plot is nothing out of the ordinary, there’s a wild inventiveness to Liguori’s underground world and its denizens. The end felt a little abrupt, but it could easily serve as an introduction to more adventures for Sedrick, which I would like to read.

In Linda Donahue’s “White Elephants” Darius, sent to guard an Indian princess betrothed to the Persian emperor, becomes infatuated with his charge. When she and the priceless white elephant accompanying her are snatched by a roc, Darius is determined to rescue her. The thing is, neither the emperor nor the Indian king’s emissary care much about the princess; they just want the elephant rescued. There’s magic and mystery behind everything, and Darius is forced to make some dangerous choices along the road to save the princess. This is a solid adventure tale with a setting not used often enough in fantasy.

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