The top article at Black Gate last month wasn’t even a BG piece, strictly speaking. It was a brief link to Matthew David Surridge’s essay The Great Hugo Wars of 2015, at Splice Today. Based on the overwhelming traffic to that article, and the high number of comments, it seems our readers are still more than casually interested in the Hugo Awards.

Number 2 on the list was M Harold Page’s look at Fool’s Assassin, and How Robin Hobb Writes Lyrical Fantasy Without Being Boring. As always, never underestimate the power of a great title. It was followed by our obituary for BG contributor and author Bud Webster.

Rounding out the Top Five were Matthew Wuertz’s piece on a 60-year old scandal, the Galaxy Science Fiction $6,500 Novel-Writing Sham, and Donald Crankshaw’s review of D. P. Prior’s second self-published fantasy novel Carnifex, the sequel to his popular debut The Nameless Dwarf.

Also in the Top Ten for February were Doug Ellis’ historical essay on the Great Pulp Gathering at Mort Weisinger’s House in 1937, Marie Bilodeau’s review of season one of The Flash, Fletcher Vredenburgh’s detailed look at Stephen R. Donaldson’s The Illearth War, our sneak peek at Salomé Jones’s new anthology Cthulhu Lies Dreaming, and Violette Malan’s look at Agent Carter.

The complete list of Top Articles for February follows. Below that, I’ve also broken out the most popular overall articles, online fiction, and blog categories for the month.

The Top 50 Black Gate posts in February were:

1. Matthew David Surridge on The Great Hugo Wars of 2015
2. Fool’s Assassin: How Robin Hobb Writes Lyrical Fantasy Without Being Boring
3. Bud Webster, July 27, 1952 – February 14, 2016
4. The Galaxy Science Fiction $6,500 Novel-Writing Sham
5. Self-Published Book Review: Carnifex by D. P. Prior
6. The Great Pulp Gathering: That Time Jack Williamson, L. Sprague de Camp, Frank Belknap Long, Edmond Hamilton, John W. Campbell, Manly Wade Wellman, Otis Adelbert Kline and others met at Mort Weisinger’s House in 1937
7. Superhero TV: Remembering Fun
8. Despair All The Way Down: The Illearth War by Stephen R. Donaldson
9. Future Treasures: Cthulhu Lies Dreaming edited by Salomé Jones
10. Superhero TV: That’s Agent Carter To You

     

11. I Need a Job
12. Superhero TV: Watching Supergirl With a 10-Year Old
13. The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: The Stuff That Dreams are Made of
14. Pulp-era Gumshoes and Queen Victoria’s Underwear: Stitches in Time: The Story of the Clothes We Wear by Lucy Addlington
15. The Power That Preserves by Stephen R. Donaldson
16. The 2015 Locus Recommended Reading List
17. Witch Doctors and Mind-Reading Sleuths: Richard Powers’ Interior Art for 1950s Men’s Adventure Magazines
18. Vintage Treasures: The Science Fiction Book Club Original Anthologies
19. Fellowship of the Pathfinders: The Importance of Party Dynamic in Fantasy Adventure
20. Gypsies, Paupers, Demons and Swans: Rich Horton’s Hugo Recs

     

21. SFWA Announces the 2016 Nebula Award Nominations
22. January Short Story Roundup
23. John Dee, Scholar and Magician
24. Frank Kelly Freas Illustrates A. Bertram Chandler’s “The Far Traveller”
25. Marooned Spacemen, Forgotten Planets, and Alien Dragons: Rich Horton on Rocannon’s World/The Kar-Chee Reign
26. The Books of David G. Hartwell: The Early Horror Paperbacks
27. Thomas M. Disch on the Best Science Fiction of 1979
28. New Treasures: The Birthgrave Trilogy by Tanith Lee
29. New Treasures: Front Lines by Michael Grant
30. Goth Chick News: What’s the Worst Thing You’ve Ever Done? Miss Out on This News, That’s What…

     

31. Discovering Robert E. Howard: Howard Andrew Jones and Bill Ward Re-Read “Red Nails”
32. Vintage Treasures: The Early Fantasy Novels of Nancy Kress
33. Review: Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear — Actually Rather Wise
34. Superhero TV: Exploring the Dark Mysteries of Gotham
35. Post-Modern Pulp: Speaking With Indie Action Writer Jack Badelaire
36. On the Trail of the Octopus
37. New Treasures: Exordium of Tears by Andrew P. Weston
38. The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Dr Watson, Doormat
39. Weird Fiction Review #6 Now on Sale
40. The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: George Raft Made Bogie a Star

     

41. Vintage Treasures: Worldmakers and Supermen, edited by Gardner Dozois
42. Try To Get Her, a Dystopian Romantic Comedy
43. Vintage Treasures: The Finnbranch Trilogy by Paul Hazel
44. The Lost World: A Classic Sixties SF Blockbuster
45. Prime Announces Table of Contents for The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Novellas 2016, edited by Paula Guran
46. New Treasures: The Bloodsounder’s Arc Trilogy by Jeff Salyards
47. The Amazing Authentically Authentic Latina Author!
48. Future Treasures: A Painted Goddess by Victor Gischler
49. Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: The Skeleton Matters (Or, Why It’s Not OK to Skip Scenes in Your Third Act)
50. Blogging The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer – Part One: “The Zayat Kiss”

There were plenty of older articles popular last month as well. The 25 most popular blog posts written before February were:

1. AD&D Figurines: Youth In a Box?
2. Death Knight Love Story: WMA meets WTF
3. Star Trek Movie Rewatch: Star Trek Into Darkness
4. Heroic Fantasy with the Sharp Edge of Reality: A Review of The Sacred Band by Janet Morris and Chris Morris
5. Art of the Genre: Top 10 Fantasy Artists of the Past 100 Years
6. Goth Chick News: Getting A-head at Airport Security
7. Estate Your Business, Please
8. Challenging the Classics: Questioning the Arbitrary Browsing Mechanism
9. A Proposal: An Award for SF Storytelling
10. A Detailed Explanation
11. Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: Pro-Tip From Carlos Hernandez
12. Tribulations Herculean and Tragic: Beyond Wizardwall by Janet Morris
13. Return to Thieves World in Beyond Sanctuary: The Revised and Expanded Author’s Cut by Janet Morris
14. My Inspiration: Black Canaan
15. Caught Between Rebels and the Empire’s Blackest Magic: Beyond the Veil: The Revised and Expanded Author’s Cut by Janet Morris
16. Out With the Old, In With the New: New Versus Vintage Treasures
17. Software Review (kind of): Fantasy Map Making with Hexographer
18. Art of the Genre: Art of Dungeon Maps
19. Ten Acclaimed Historical Fantasy Novels You Need to Read
20. The IX by Andrew P. Weston
21. Non-Compliant and Self-Aware: Bitch Planet
22. Glenn Lord, Nov 17 1931 – Dec 31, 2011
23. The “Known World” D&D Setting: A Secret History
24. Black Gate Withdraws From Hugo Consideration
25. Sword and Soul Revisited
26. Love in War and Realms Beyond Imagining: A Review of The Fish, the Fighters and the Song Girl by Janet Morris and Chris Morris

The Top Black Gate Online Fiction features were:

1. An Excerpt from The Sacred Band by Janet Morris and Chris Morris
2. “Seven Against Hell” by Janet Morris and Chris Morris
3. “The Serpent of Thep” by Vaughn Heppner
4. “The Find,” Part II of The Tales of Gemen, by Mark Rigney
5. “The Trade,” Part I of The Tales of Gemen, by Mark Rigney
6. “The Pit Slave” by Vaughn Heppner
7. The Death of the Necromancer, Part One by Martha Wels
8. The Keystone,” Part III of The Tales of Gemen, by Mark Rigney
9. “The Moonstones of Sor Lunarum,” by Joe Bonadonna
10. In the Wake Of Sister Blue, Chapter One, by Mark Rigney

The top categories last month were:

1. Books
2. Blog Entry
3. Magazines
4. Vintage Treasures
5. Art of the Genre
6. Conan
7. Art
8. BG Staff
9. Comics
10. New Treasures
11. Convention Report
12. Editor’s Blog
13. Contest
14. Fiction
15. Black Gate Goes to Summer Movies
16. Discovering Robert E. Howard
17. Essays
18. Movies and TV
19. Future Treasures
20. Reviews

The Top 5o Black Gate blog posts in January are here, and you can see all 127 posts we made in the month of February here.