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Month: April 2020

Black Gate Fiction: Everybody Comes to Rick’s (Casablanca Chronicles)

Black Gate Fiction: Everybody Comes to Rick’s (Casablanca Chronicles)

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Casblanca_CafeFrontCasablanca is my all-time favorite movie. And I few weeks ago I posted a story I wrote starring Captain Renault; set immediately after the movie ends. That was actually the second Casablanca story I wrote. Here’s the first. It is pure cheese. Some day I will go back and turn it in to a proper story. But back before I became a decent writer, I did this oust of love for the best film I have ever seen. Be kind to me (Maltese Falcon reference there).

Rick stood next to the bar, watching the floor, where a few couples were dancing to the slow tune which the orchestra was playing. He took a drag on his cigarette, glad that it was a good crowd tonight. His place always did strong business during the holidays. People wanted to get out for a nice night and forget the insignificance of their daily lives. Carl had decorated the place, putting bows on the doors, and stringing lights along some of the columns. There was even a big pine tree with various oddments hanging from it. Christmas didn’t mean much to Rick: hadn’t since he’d left Chicago.

Sam was setting up his piano near the band. His break would be over in a few minutes. Rick turned his attention to the door where a large man was just coming in. He was over three hundred pounds but carried his weight without difficulty. The man caught Rick’s eye and came towards the bar.

“Good evening, Rick. I see that you have some of my customers here tonight.”

Ferrari ran the Blue Parrot, Rick’s main competition in Casablanca. It had the feel of a local kasbah, while his own Café Americain would have been a comfortable fit in Monaco. It was the most elegant joint in town, and it had an honest gambling room in the back. There weren’t too many honest places in Casablanca. Certainly none associated with Ferrari.

“You know my motto, Ferrari – The customer is always right.”

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Vintage Treasures: Wondermakers, edited by Robert Hoskins

Vintage Treasures: Wondermakers, edited by Robert Hoskins

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Cover art: uncredited (left) and FMA (right)

Robert Hoskins was a pretty familiar name on paperback racks in the 1970s. He was a senior editor at Lancer Books from 1969-1972, and during that time published and edited five volumes of the prestigious Infinity SF anthology series. Overall he edited over a dozen science fiction anthologies, including First Step Outward (1969), Swords Against Tomorrow (1970), and Against Tomorrow (1979). He also wrote ten novels, including three for Roger Elwood’s Laser imprint.

Between 1969-1979 he produced roughly 30 paperbacks, an extraordinary period of output. After 1979 he vanished, and frankly I don’t blame him. If I had to write and package 30 books in 10 years, I’d probably avoid the publishing industry for the rest of my life too. Hoskins died in 1993, and his eyes were probably still bloodshot. His entry in the Science Fiction Encyclopedia says “Hoskins’s books made no claims to be anything more than entertaining action adventures,” which I think is a fair assessment.

In 1972 and 1974 he produced two odd reprint anthologies, Wondermakers: An Anthology of Classic Science Fiction and Wondermakers 2. My best guess is that these were aimed at the academic market; a big clue is the ad on the back page encouraging Teachers, Librarians and School administrators to “Send for your free Fawcett catalog today!” The rather stiff intro by Robin Scott Wilson opens with “It has become commonplace for students of science fiction to assert the antiquity of the genre,” and that’s as far as I got before I dozed off. The text on the back covers (see scans below) drones on about “Science Fiction’s development” and something about “Man’s questioning, searching beyond the boundaries of his immediate present and into the future.” I’ve never seen books that sound so much like my high school English teacher in my entire life.

But setting aside the dull packaging, these are actually pretty interesting. How many anthologies do you know include Edgar Allan Poe, H. G. Wells, Rudyard Kipling, Arthur Conan Doyle, Theodore Sturgeon, and James Blish under one cover? That’s just the first one; Wondermakers 2 is even more intriguing.

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John DeNardo on the Best Science Fiction/Fantasy Reads for April

John DeNardo on the Best Science Fiction/Fantasy Reads for April

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One thing about a global pandemic… at least it doesn’t interfere with my reading time. Book stores may be closed and book sales may be down, but books continue to be published, and I continue to enjoy them. And the always dependable John DeNardo at Kirkus Reviews showed up on time (as always) to give us his read on the best SF and Fantasy for April, making sure I’m kept abreast of the month’s top releases. Here’s a few of his recommendations.

Chosen Ones by Veronica Roth (John Joseph Adams/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 438 pages, $26.99 hardcover/$14.99 digital, April 7)

WHAT IT’S ABOUT: Ten years after a group of ordinary teenagers, the Chosen Ones, were trained by the government to fulfill a prophecy of killing an all-powerful entity called the Dark One who was decimating entire cities, things are far from normal. While the world has largely moved on, the five heroes — still the world’s most popular celebrities — are having a rough time. One of them, Sloane, suffers from PTSD, and is harboring secrets. When one of the Chosen Ones dies and the others gather for the funeral, they discover that the Dark One’s ultimate goal was perhaps more sinister than they or the government could ever have imagined.

WHY YOU MIGHT LIKE IT: YA author Roth’s first adult novel looks behind the usual superhero tropes and examines the psychological impacts of fading fame and having served one’s purpose.

I’m a sucker for a good superhero tale. Veronica Roth is the author of the international bestselling Divergent Series and Carve the Mark.

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Network Effect is the First Full Novel in the Martha Wells’ Epic Murderbot Saga

Network Effect is the First Full Novel in the Martha Wells’ Epic Murderbot Saga

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Covers by Jaime Jones

Martha Wells exploded into the big time with Murderbot. Black Gate readers, of course, know and love Martha from her Ile-Rien tales “Holy Places,” “Houses of the Dead,” and “Reflections,” which originally appeared in the pages of our print magazine (and her Nebula-nominated novel The Death of the Necromancer, which we serialized online in its entirely here.) But the world at large didn’t truly know her the way we did until the first Murderbot tale All Systems Red appeared in 2017, sweeping all the awards — including the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus — and kicking off one of the most successful SF series of the 21st Century. Sequel Artificial Condition (2018) won the Hugo and Locus, and she declined the nominations that came her way for the third and fourth installments (there’s a tradition of Black Gate writers declining Hugo Awards, beginning with Matthew David Surridge, but that’s another story.)

Network Effect, the first full-length Murderbot novel, is one of the most anticipated books of 2020, and it arrives in less than three weeks. I’ve heard plenty of glowing reports from folks who received advance copies, but my favorite came from Martha’s fellow BG writer C.S.E. Cooney, who wrote:

Finished reading Martha Wells’ Murderbot 5 Network Effect aloud to Carlos and Sita.

From time to time, I’d come across a sentence that would make me — and then Carlos too, and then my mama, in solidarity — just yell out: “MAARRTHHAA!!!”

Anyway. That was my second read, and it just keeps getting better.

Network Effect will be published by Tor.com on May 5, 2020. It is 352 pages, priced at $26.99 in hardcover and $13.99 in digital formats. The cover is by Jaime Jones. Read Chapter One of All Systems Red at Tor.com.

When Disney Meets Mad Max: Aftermath: an Adventure Book Game by Plaid Hat Games

When Disney Meets Mad Max: Aftermath: an Adventure Book Game by Plaid Hat Games

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Gen Con 2020 is, as of this writing, still scheduled to take place July 30 – August 2, 2020. But now that other major events, such as the massive San Diego Comic Con have been canceled due to the threat of the coronavirus, I expect it won’t be long before Gen Con is canceled as well. I hope it isn’t, but frankly I think the only thing keeping it on the schedule at this point is blind optimism.

I’m enormously grateful I was able to attend Gen Con last year. It was terrific fun, for one thing, and incredibly eye-opening. I’ve been immersed in gaming culture since I started playing Avalon Hill games in high school, and I spend a lot of time keeping up with new releases and hanging out at the local Games Plus auction. But I had no idea –really,  no freakin’ idea — of the true scale of this industry until I wandered the massive Exhibit Hall at Gen Con. Too large to take in in a single day, the Exhibit Hall (and all its various annexes, sub-rooms, and spillovers halls) is something that every game fan should experience once in their lives. It is jaw-dropping in both scale and diversity.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed when you’re standing in a packed stadium with tens of thousands of t-shirt-wearing gamers, and thousands of booths stretching in all directions. But once the wonder of it all starts to wear off, there are always games that stand out. One of those for me was Aftermath, by Plaid Hat Games. Copies were not available at the convention, but a quick internet search assured me it would be in production by October. I waited impatiently, and ordered one as soon as I could.

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Rogue Blades Author: My New Friend Agnes

Rogue Blades Author: My New Friend Agnes

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Howard changed my lifeBelow is an excerpt from comic book artist and writer Becky Cloonan’s essay  for the upcoming book, Robert E. Howard Changed My Life, from publisher Rogue Blades Foundation.

Ah, comic books! The great escape. Arguably (and don’t tell my partner this) my One True Love. Drawing comic books has been my dream since I read my first issue, a Silver Surfer Annual from 1988. Granted, I wasn’t a very good artist back then, but I drew every day, determined to improve myself no matter how long it took. New York City had changed me, true—but even with my new-found interests, music, philosophies, and friends, my love for drawing was still paramount. I still maintained the childhood dream that making comic books would one day be my only job.

Nearly twenty years have passed since then, and somewhere along the way that dream came true. I still draw every day, and with the same determination to improve myself. Surprisingly, I love it now as much as I did back then. I suppose there is the pressure of turning your hobby into your career, but that’s a whole different essay.

I still love drawing, but its purpose has changed. Little by little though, the more I relied on comics for my income, the less of an escape they became. There’s nothing to fear in my past anymore, and because it can’t hurt me I’m free to draw purely for the love of the thing. I had learned to fill in the cracks left behind from childhood in other ways. In the last few years I grew my hair back out; now I wear it long, like I did when I was young. And I’m still drawing comic books.

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Future Treasures: Shorefall, Book 2 of The Founders Trilogy by Robert Jackson Bennett

Future Treasures: Shorefall, Book 2 of The Founders Trilogy by Robert Jackson Bennett

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Cover design by Will Staehle

It’s a damn tough time to be publishing new books, with virtually every bookstore in the country closed and Amazon drastically increasing shipping times for books and other non-essential items. So I very much appreciate those authors and publishers who continue to do it. Lord knows I need good books more than ever these days.

Shorefall, the second volume in Robert Jackson Bennett’s Founders Trilogy, arrives next week from stalwart fantasy publishers Del Rey, and I’m very much looking forward to it. Writing in The New York Times Book Review, former Black Gate blogger Amal El-Mohtar called first volume Foundryside “Absolutely riveting… A magnificent, mind-blowing start to a series.” It was selected as one of the Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Books of 2018 by The B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog; here’s what they said:

The author of the Divine Cities trilogy (a nominee for Best Series at the 2018 Hugo Awards) begins a new trilogy that’s as fun to read as its world is well-imagined. The city state of Tevanne runs on magic and pillage, as the four dominant merchant houses exploit the lands around them (not to mention the poor denizens who crouch outside their walls in a precarious shantytown known as Foundryside), as their scrivers create incredible machines and accomplish feats that look a lot like magic by way of intricate sigils that bend and break the laws of reality. Sancia Grado is a Foundryside thief who comes into possession of Clef, a sentient golden key — and is pursued by police captain Gregor Dandolo, reluctant scion of one of the richest houses. The unwitting Sancia falls into a scheme to destroy the power of the scrivers; putting a stop to it will bring her and Dandolo together as unlikely allies in the greatest theft theft in history, with the lives of everyone in Tevanne on the line. Read our review.

Robert Jackson Bennett is also the author of the BFA and Shirley Jackson Award winner Mr. Shivers, The Troupe, American Elsewhere, and Vigilance (as well as possibly being Chris Pratt in disguise). Here’s the publisher’s description for Shorefall.

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Goth Chick News: Beetlejuice Gets a Documentary and It’s Everything We Ever Wanted

Goth Chick News: Beetlejuice Gets a Documentary and It’s Everything We Ever Wanted

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Beetlejuice Goth Chick

In an attempt to not succumb to the stresses of working above ground near windows, rather than in the cozy, underground bunker of the Black Gate offices, I have been systematically making a list of my favorite movies. I am then ranking them in watch order, with a view to not overindulge in too much of a single genre. I do know people who have done Friday the 13th or Halloween marathons during the lockdown, but most of them are on the verge of not being suitable to ever be in public again. Therefore, my movie list, though heavy on the horror, still runs the gambit from hardcore to light-hearted fun; from Evil Dead to High Spirits and a whole lot in between.

But any list I compile, regardless of how it is organized, would have Beettlejuice right up there near the top. Yes, I’m partial to Tim Burton on most days, but the ghost with the most is nothing short of a classic.

Hard to believe that it’s been just over 33 years since Michael Keaton offered to chew on a dog to get the hapless, recently deceased Maitlands to hire him to scare the living out of their charming, New England farmhouse. The movie, also starring Geena Davis, Alec Baldwin and Winona Ryder among others, earned close to $75 million at the box office, which is roughly five times its $15 million budget, and bagged an Oscar for costume and makeup. Since then, Halloween costumes, pop-up bars and museum exhibits have paid homage to this comedy-fantasy-horror flick to the point you’d think it would have all been done.

Thankfully, we’re wrong.

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Horror in a Time Of Coronavirus

Horror in a Time Of Coronavirus

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The Nightmare, Henry Fuseli, 1781

Horror is a reflection of its times.

All story-telling is: you can read the words of any time and find its birthday stamped in all its pages. Jane Austen couldn’t write a Renaissance novel, Hemingway didn’t write regency fiction, and Shakespeare couldn’t write in the sparse, bare bones prose that Hemingway did.

But horror is rather specifically tied to its own moment. When it works, it grows out of not just an individual’s fear but the atmospheric fear of an age.

Every generation of Horror has its own kind of terroir (a term from wine making that means the taste-remnants of every factor that goes into a bottle, from sun to rain to the trace minerals in the soil to the specific woods in the barrel a vintner uses). Frankenstein is stamped with Mary Shelley’s own biography (the loss of her children, her strained and strange relationship with her father and the ghost of her mother), but also a Romantic-era tension between technology and nature, Humanism and the ideas of divinity. Dracula is most obviously steeped in Edwardian era anxiety about sexuality, women’s role in society, and how rapid social changes are affecting both.

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New Treasures: Shadows & Tall Trees 8 edited by Michael Kelly

New Treasures: Shadows & Tall Trees 8 edited by Michael Kelly

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Cover by Matthew Jaffe

Canadian Michael Kelly is a Renaissance Man of modern Weird Fiction. He’s an accomplished author, with a novel and three story collections under his belt, including last year’s All the Things We Never See. He’s also the publisher behind Undertow Publications, one of the leading — maybe the leading — houses behind the modern Weird Fiction resurgence.

And in his spare time he’s one of the most important editors in modern horror, with over a dozen anthologies to his name, including five volumes of Year’s Best Weird Fiction and seven of his widely acclaimed Shadows & Tall Trees. In her annual summation in Best Horror of the Year, Ellen Datlow puts it succinctly: “Shadows and Tall Trees epitomizes the idea of, and is the most consistent venue for weird, usually dark fiction.”

The long-awaited eighth volume arrived last month and, like the previous installments, it’s packed with fiction by the top writers in the field, including Steve Rasnic Tem, Simon Strantzas, V.H. Leslie, Alison Littlewood, Brian Evenson, M. Rickert, and many others. It’s already gathering positive press; here’s the highlights from Matt’s review at Runalong the Shelves.

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