This post is the third in a series reflecting on the world of 1923, and the 1920s generally, as a background to early issues of Weird Tales. Imagine that you’re an American in 1923, and you’re taking a walk to the newsstand to buy the first issue of a new pulp fiction magazine. What sort of things will you see? Walk down a city street and you’ll observe other people around you, meaning you’ll see the fashions of the time….
Weird Tales volume 1 number 1 boasts 26 separate pieces of fiction, one of which is continued in the next issue. As you’d expect from an anthology, some stories are better than others. None reach the heights of the fiction the magazine would publish later. But a few are at least interesting in their own right. I’m going to look here at each story, which means this post is going to run long. After I’m done going piece-by-piece, I’ll write…
The first issue of Weird Tales landed on newsstands in late February of 1923. 192 pages long, it measured about 6 inches by 9, a standard size for a pulp fiction magazine. There were two different versions of the cover, perhaps due to a printing error; the illustration’s the same, a man with knife and gun fighting a shadowy tentacled monster which has grabbed a nearby young lady, but the colouring’s different. Either way, the cover advertised “‘OOZE’ / An…
Besting the Beast by Scott Forbes Crawford (2024, Kindle); Cover art by Ben Greaves Besting the Beast is Grimm-like tales for Grimdark readers Fantasy readers often seek escapism and encounters with the unknown, but those adventures can become too weird to be accessible. Shorter forms help. Incorporating some grounding in history or reality helps too. One of the most accessible styles is the fairy tale, and Scott Forbes Crawford delivers five remarkable fun, and easy-to-read, adventures bridging the short story…
We have an ongoing series at Black Gate on “Beauty in Weird Fiction,” where we corner an author and query them about their muses and methods to make ‘repulsive things’ become ‘attractive to readers.’ Previous subjects have included Darrell Schweitzer, Anna Smith Spark, Carol Berg, C.S. Friedman, John R. Fultz, and John C. Hocking (whose Conan and the Living Plague novel is finally due out this June 2024, so you should read that too to get psyched). Anyway, see the full list of interviews…
Old Moon Quarterly is a magazine of weird sword-and-sorcery fantasy. In the tradition of Clark Ashton Smith, Tanith Lee and Karl Edward Wagner, it contains stories of strange vistas, eldritch beings, and the bloody dispute thereof by swordsmen and swordswomen both. Old Moon Quarterly emerged in 2022. This reviews the four stories inside the Winter 2023 issue (Vol III), which delivers solid doses of the weird adventure it promises. The Editor-in-Chief is Julian Barona, flanked by Assistant Editors Caitlyn Emily…
Darker Than Weird by John R. Fultz (Jackanapes Press, April 15, 2023). Cover art & interior illustrations by Dan Sauer I devoured John R. Fultz’s 2021 Worlds Beyond Worlds collection (Black Gate review link). His action-fueled, weird short fiction has graced many venues like Weird Tales & Weirdbook, and his novel The Testament of Tall Eagle (and The Son of Tall Eagle) and the Books of the Shaper series have garnered praise from pillars in the field: “A master of…
We have an ongoing series at Black Gate on the topic of “Beauty in Weird Fiction” where we corner an author and query them about their muses and methods to make ‘repulsive’ things ‘attractive to readers.’ Previous subjects have included Darrell Schweitzer, Anna Smith Spark, Carol Berg, Stephen Leigh, Jason Ray Carney, and John C. Hocking (see the full list at the end of this post). Inspired by the release of Nightborn: Coldfire Rising (July 2023, see Black Gate’s review for more information), we are delighted to interview C.S. Freidman! …
What if your feelings had shape and were visible? What if you could see your nightmares manifest as they turned on you? C. S. Friedman has published 14 novels, including the highly acclaimed Coldfire Trilogy and the groundbreaking science fiction novel This Alien Shore (New York Times Notable Book of the Year -1998). Her Nightborn: Coldfire Rising novel will be published this July, 2023 by DAW Books; this post reviews an advanced review copy (preorder from the publisher). The…
We have an ongoing series at Black Gate on the topic of “Beauty in Weird Fiction.” Usually we corner an author and query them about their muses and ways to make ‘repulsive’ things ‘attractive to readers.’ Previous subjects have included Darrell Schweitzer, Anna Smith Spark, Carol Berg, Stephen Leigh, Jason Ray Carney, and John C Hocking. (See the full list at the end of this post). I’m excited to corner Joe Bonadonna this round. When his Dorgo character grilled/interviewed me in…