Back in December, Derek Kunsken’s enthusiastic review of Star Wars: Rogue One, “I Am One With the Force and the Force Is With Me,” shot up to #2 on our monthly traffic chart. Last month he claimed the #1 slot, and he didn’t need a blockbuster film to make it happen — he did it the old fashioned way, with a book review. The book in question was Thrill-Power Overload: A History of the British Comic 2000 AD, a detailed history of the legendary comic that launched Judge Dredd, Alan Moore’s D.R. and Quinch, Sláine, Rogue Trooper, Strontium Dog and countless others. Check it out.

Number 2 on the list for February was Mark Finn’s report on the Kickstarter for the first Skelos Press anthology, Chicken Fried Cthulhu, followed by Violette Malan’s survey of My Top Five Sword-Fight Movies, our obituary for GDW founder Loren Wiseman, and Andrew Zimmerman Jones’ interview with Paizo mastermind and Creative Director of their new Starfinder RPG, James L. Sutter.

Howard Andrew Jones’ review of one of his favorite recent games, the solitaire-suitable WWII simulation Heroes of Normandy, came in at #6 for February. At #7 was our report on the new Literary Wonder & Adventure Podcast from Robert Zoltan and his talking raven — featuring a lengthy interview with Black Gate‘s own Ryan Harvey on one of his favorite topics, Edgar Rice Burroughs. And close on its heels was our announcement of the 2017 Nebula Award Nominations.

Rounding out the Top Ten were Steven Brust’s summary of Five Roger Zelazny Books that Changed His Life, and Fletcher Vredenburgh’s January Short Story Roundup.

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. Thrill-Power Overload: A History of the British Comic 2000 AD
2. Dark Dreams in Red Dirt
3. My Top Five Sword-Fight Movies
4. GDW Co-Founder and Game Designer Loren Wiseman Has Died
5. Modular: James Sutter Fields Some Starfinder RPG Questions
6. Lock ‘n Load Tactical: Heroes of Normandy
7. Literary Wonder & Adventure Podcast Presents: Edgar Rice Burroughs, A Conversation with Ryan Harvey
8. SFWA Announces the 2017 Nebula Award Nominations
9. Steven Brust’s Five Roger Zelazny Books that Changed His Life
10. January Short Story Roundup

     

11. Hugo Nomination Thoughts, 2017
12. Occult Detective Quarterly #1 Now Available
13. What Black Sabbath Can Teach Us About Writing
14. Modular: Who Would Win? John McClane and James Bond versus a Tribe of D&D Goblins
15. Vintage Treasures: Some Classic Science Fiction Hardcovers
16. Modular: Rethinking the OSR through Modiphius’s Conan – Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of
17. Tea and Sympathy with the Paranormal: An interview with Steampunk Goddess Gail Carriger
18. Get Reacquainted with the Gentlemen Bastards in Scotty Lynch’s The Bastards and the Knives
19. Battles with Blades and Bows, and Creatures Charming and Terrifying: Journeys, edited by Teresa Edgerton
20. One Million Years B.C. on Blu-Ray—Because You Love Dinosaurs Too

     

21. The Complete Carpenter: Halloween (1978)
22. In the Hot Seat: The Reviewer Gets Grilled: An Interview with Fletcher Vredenburgh
23. Vintage Treasures: The Novels of Lawrence Watt-Evans
24. Why Must Han Solo Die? Revisited
25. Dorgo’s Dozen Questions: Getting Grilled by Joe Bonadonna
26. Modular: Dungeon Delving Tips – Part I
27. Andrew Liptak on 33 SF and Fantasy Books Everyone Will Be Talking About in 2017
28. Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: Researching the Tropes
29. Making Lovecraft Look Quaint: Swift to Chase by Laird Barron
30. Some Historical Novels for Readers and Writers of Fantasy and Science Fiction

     

31. The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Thoughts on The Sussex Vampire
32. The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Mister Bean as Simeonon’s Maigret?
33. Modular: How to Defeat an Ancient Red Dragon in D&D with a Low-Level Party
34. Fantastic, June and July 1962: A Pair of Retro-Reviews
35. Final Thoughts on Narnia. The Last Battle: A Criticism and a Defense
36. Lawrence Ellsworth’s New Translation of Dumas’ The Red Sphinx
37. Silent Screen Swashbucklers, Part 2 of 2: Black Pirates and Beloved Rogues
38. Morbid Number Crunching: The Norman Bates Kill Tally
39. Ed Bryant, August 27, 1945 – February 10, 2017
40. B&N Blog on 96 Science Fiction & Fantasy Books to Read in 2017

 

41. New Treasures: Pathfinder Tales: Through The Gate in the Sea by Howard Andrew Jones
42. Goth Chick News: Rare Footage of Steven Spielberg NOT Directing Poltergeist…
43. Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Pellucidar Saga: Tanar of Pellucidar
44. Goth Chick News: A Penny for More Dreadfuls
45. It’s A Group Effort
46. The Arian Baptistry in Ravenna, Italy
47. In Viriconium by M. John Harrison
48. The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Erle Stanley Gardner on Mysteries
49. A Storm of Wings by M. John Harrison
50. The February Fantasy Magazine Rack

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

1. Death Knight Love Story: WMA meets WTF
2. “Are You Not Still Entertained?”: Gladiator’s 10-Year Oscar Anniversary
3. Fantasia Diary 2015, Day 5: Teana: 10000 Years Later, Crimson Whale, and The Shamer’s Daughter
4. My Fantasia Festival, Days 5 to 7: Cold in July, The Fatal Encounter, and Huntresses
5. Solitaire Adventure with Victory Point Games
6. Goth Chick News: Samuel L. Jackson Takes On Japanese OVA – Hold On To Your Butts…
7. Adventures on Stage: Fantasy Literature’s Missing Link
8. Living it Large: How Larger Than Life Characters Work
9. Haunt the House: The Music and Art of Will Houlihan
10. Adventures In Gaming: The Temple Of the Sea Gods
11. Eccentric in Retrospect: Helen Simpson’s The Woman on the Beast
12. Blowing the Doors Off the Barn: Expanding the Iron Fist Mythos
13. The Return of the King (1980)
14. Heroic Fantasy with the Sharp Edge of Reality: A Review of The Sacred Band by Janet Morris and Chris Morris
15. New Treasures: The Library of America Publishes Elmore Leonard
16. Return to Thieves World in Beyond Sanctuary: The Revised and Expanded Author’s Cut by Janet Morris
17. Tribulations Herculean and Tragic: Beyond Wizardwall by Janet Morris
18. The IX by Andrew P. Weston
19. Vintage Treasures: The Silistra Quartet by Janet Morris
20. Caught Between Rebels and the Empire’s Blackest Magic: Beyond the Veil: The Revised and Expanded Author’s Cut by Janet Morris
21. A Shaper of Myths: The Best of Cordwainer Smith
22. I, The Sun by Janet Morris
23. A Detailed Explanation
24. The Series Series: Shieldwall: Barbarians! by M. Harold Page
25. Part Gothic, Part Sword and Sorcery, and Part Horror: Andrew P. Weston’s Hell Bound

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. “Nero Wolfe – Stamped for Murder” by Bob Byrne
4. An Excerpt from Mouth of the Dragon by Tom Barczak
5. An Exclusive Excerpt from Soleri by Michael Johnston
6. An Excerpt from Truck Stop Earth by Michael A. Armstrong
7. “In the Wake Of Sister Blue” by Mark Rigney
8. An excerpt from Mad Shadows II by Joe Bonadonna
9. “Iron Joan” by ElizaBeth Gilligan
10. “The Moonstones of Sor Lunarum” by Joe Bonadonna
11. “A Holmes Christmas Carol” by Bob Byrne
12. Fiction Excerpt: “The Beautiful Corridor” by Jonathan L. Howard
13. “The Renunciation of the Crimes of Gharad the Undying” by Alex Kreis
14. Fiction Excerpt: “The Wizard’s Daily Horoscope” by Maria V. Snyder
15. “Queen of Toads” by Joe Bonadonna

The top categories last month were:

1. Editor’s Blog
2. Vintage Treasures
3. Blog Entry
4. Books
5. Art
6. BG Staff
7. Art of the Genre
8. News
9. Interviews
10. Fiction
11. Magazines
12. Future Treasures
13. Games
14. Reviews
15. Role Playing Games
16. New Treasures
17. Series Fantasy
18. Comics
19. Goth Chick
20. Conan

The Top 50 Black Gate blog posts in January are here, and you can see all 87 posts we made in the month of February here.