Search Results for: Captain Blood

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Beyond Captain Blood: Three by Sabatini

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The Sea Hawk (Warner Bros, 1940) We’ve already covered Errol Flynn’s breakthrough swashbuckler Captain Blood (1935) in this series, and you’ve probably seen and savored it, but you might not be familiar with Rafael Sabatini, the author who wrote the novel it was so memorably adapted from. In the Nineteenth Century Alexandre Dumas père was the king of historical adventure, but in the Twentieth Century that crown passed to Rafael Sabatini (1875-1950). Born in Italy, Sabatini was raised and schooled…

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The Books of Blood, Captain Blood

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A few months ago, I discovered that Fletcher Vredenburgh was reading Captain Blood at the same time I was working my way through the lesser-known book-length Captain Blood story collections (Captain Blood Returns — aka The Chronicles of Captain Blood — and The Fortunes of Captain Blood). We made a solemn pact to compare notes and share our findings on Black Gate, which brings us here today. Now Blood isn’t remotely a fantasy figure – except in the loosest of senses – but…

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Goth Chick News: The Count Returns to His Fangy, Blood-Sucking Origins

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Courtesy Wallpaperflair.com If you’ve read GCN for any length of time, you’ve probably come to understand that as it pertains to vampires, I am a solid purist. I mean, I’m not at all against imagining them in modern society, as in Blade or Blood Red Sky, and I positively love alternative takes such as Let the Right One In and The Lost Boys. It’s also hard not to be a fan of What We Do in the Shadows because it’s…

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On Rivers of Blood: Fevre Dream by George R.R. Martin

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For many of his fans, George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire (aka A Game of Thrones, the title of the first book in the series) is considered to be his masterpiece. Undoubtedly GOT is his magnum opus, but for me his masterpiece is 1982’s Fevre Dream, which is one of my favorite vampire novels. Everything about this novel — setting, characters, prose, theme — reads as if Martin had channeled Mark Twain and Bram Stoker, had conjured…

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Purity of Blood by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

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I closed out my review of Captain Alatriste last summer by stating I would be reading more of Arturo Pérez-Reverte’s series in “short order.” That did not happen. Only now, over a year later, have I plunged back into the grimy, deadly underside of Golden Age Madrid. Even more than its predecessor, Purity of Blood (1997) explores the darkest heart of imperial Spain as she, only 130 years after her emergence as the world’s leading power, is collapsing in on herself;…

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The Omnibus Volumes of Cassandra Rose Clarke: Magic of Blood and Sea and Magic of Wind and Mist

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Angry Robot is one of the most innovative (and successful) new genre publishing houses in the last decade. Not every aspect of its journey has been equally successful, however. Its Strange Chemistry imprint, launched in 2011 to publish young adult SF and fantasy, shut down in 2014… but not before publishing highly acclaimed new work by Martha Wells, Jonathan L. Howard, and three early novels by Cassandra Rose Clarke: The Assassin’s Curse (2012) and its sequel The Pirate’s Wish (2013), and The Wizard’s…

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Captain Alatriste by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

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Was once a captain, the story goes, who led me in battle, though in death’s throes. Oh, senores! What an apt man was that brave captain. — E. Marquina, The Sun Has Set in Flanders Spain’s Golden Age ran from roughly 1492, the final year of the Reconquista, until 1659 and the signing of the Treaty of the Pyrenees with France. During that period seemingly endless rivers of gold and silver from the kingdom’s colonies around the world flowed into its…

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Sea Trolls, Spaceship Captains, and Immortal Warriors: Publishers Weekly on Warrior Women

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Publishers Weekly has given a starred review to Paula Guran’s latest book Warrior Women, calling it an “Epic anthology… truly impressive.” Two dozen stories of women warriors form this epic anthology of stories about those forced to fight, those who chose to fight regardless of odds, those who ran from their destiny as warriors, and those who will end war at any cost. In Caitlín R. Kiernan’s “The Sea Troll’s Daughter,” the titular daughter of a fearsome beast reluctantly confronts the…

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Fantasia Diary 2015, Day 4: Therapy for a Vampire, Bridgend, Assassination Classroom, Ludo, and Who Killed Captain Alex?: Uganda’s First Action Movie

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Late last Friday night, the 17th of July (or early the next morning, to be precise), I was unable to keep from smiling as my city was cheerfully demolished by a crew of Ugandans, cheered on by a Fantasia Festival crowd. It was a wonderful end to an already very surreal day. After having gotten not quite enough sleep the night before, I was at my fifth movie of the day. Even more than usual, each film had been wildly…

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Headed For a Watery Grave: The Adventures of Captain Marvel, Chapter Ten: Doom Ship

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I’m glad to see that you’ve gotten here early — as we near the end of our saga, seats are going to be at a premium, and you’re fast running out of opportunities to see Frank Coughlan Jr. and Tom Tyler perform their mystic switcheroo. I mean, once this silly thing is out of the theater, it’ll be forever relegated to the realm of nostalgic memory — it’s not like anyone will be able to watch it at home sixty…

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