Search Results for: adrian simmons

Watch the Windycon Sword & Sorcery Panel with Mike Penkas, David C. Smith, Adrian Simmons, and John O’Neill

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Mike Penkas moderates the Sword & Sorcery panel at Windycon 47 Windycon 47 was held in Lombard, IL from November 12-14. I was a guest of the convention, with a reading and several panels, and it was an absolute delight to attend an in-person convention again. Carlos Hernandez was the Author Guest of Honor, and his wife Claire Suzanne Elizabeth Cooney (former Managing Editor of Black Gate) was the Poetry G.O.H. In addition to their other activities, the two conducted…

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Discussing All Things Fantasy, Past, Present, and Future: An Interview with Adrian Simmons and David Farney of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly

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Heroic Fantasy Quarterly is an ezine dedicated to publishing short works of heroic fantasy. More than that, through both prose and poetry we hope to hearken an older age of storytelling – an age when a story well told enthralled audiences. Traits of great oral storytelling survive the ages to influence treasures of literature, the pulps, radio plays, late-night game sessions, and now Heroic Fantasy Quarterly. So reads the “Mission Statement “of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly. Like Black Gate e-magazine, Heroic…

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Adrian Simmons on Pseudopod

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Adrian Simmons is one of our favorite editors. With his team of cohorts he edits the marvelous Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, which you should be reading. He’s also a prolific and popular blogger, and his articles for Black Gate — including Fools in the Hotzone and Frodo Baggins, Lady Galadriel, and the Games of the Mighty — are some of the most popular pieces we’ve ever published. But he’s also a fine fiction writer. This week Pseudopod, the premier horror fiction…

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Belated Movie Review #9: Corey Feldman’s The Birthday

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The Birthday (Arcadia Motion Pictures, November 10, 2006) What are you doing right now? Whatever it is, stop it. Stop it and watch the Corey Feldmen vehicle The Birthday. Watch it. Right! Damn! Now! “Woah, Simmons,” you may be saying to yourself. “Where’s the fire? What’s the rush?” The rush is twofold. Fold First — while this is a belated movie review, it isn’t my fault that it is so late! We are lucky that this move is viewable at…

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Howard Andrew Jones, July 19, 1968 – January 16, 2025

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Howard Andrew Jones is dead. It’s hard to write those words. Howard has been a huge part of my personal and professional life since 2002, when I opened a submission to Black Gate magazine and found a long, rambling, and extremely enthusiastic cover letter from him, expressing his delight at finding a quality magazine devoted to heroic fantasy. The letter ended with “I want in, bad,” and was attached to a terrific tale featuring two adventurers named Dabir and Asim….

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Merry Christmas from Black Gate

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This has been a milestone year for our little website. In 1999 my friend Wayne MacLaurin helped me register the blackgate.com domain, and we launched the site to support our ambitious fantasy magazine. This year we quietly celebrated a quarter-century of continuous operation and quality fantasy coverage, and in the process added several talented newcomers to our small staff of regular bloggers, including Neil Baker, Jeffrey Talanian, Charles Gramlich, William H. Stoddard, and Ian McDowell. We also welcomed back David…

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Booyah! Quatro-Decadal Review, an Introduction to the World as it was in November 1999

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Some of the print SF magazines of November 1999: The 50th Anniversary issue ofThe Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Analog, and the October-November doubleissue of Asimov’s Science Fiction. Covers by Chesley Bonestell, Kim Poor, and Jim Burns With the ‘69, ‘79 and ‘89 magazines behind me I prepare to delve into 1999. On the one hand, my memories of 30-year-old-me (30 YOM), while closer in time than 20YOM, are perhaps a bit hazier because unlike 20 YOM, 30 YOM…

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A Decadal Review of 1989 Science Fiction Magazines: Wrap-up

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I reviewed five science fiction magazines from mid-2021 to early 2024. Here are my overall notes and rankings. Asimov’s Science Fiction, September 30, 2022 Edited by Gardner DozoisCover by Wayne BarloweRanking 1st out of 5 Megan Lindholm’s (AKA Robin Hobbs) “A Touch of Lavender” and Walter Jon William’s “No Spot of Ground” really elevate this issue. Allen Steele’s “Ride to Live, Live to Ride” was solid, and two trying-to-get-in-on-the-‘cyberpunk’-wave stories, Robert Silverberg’s “Chiprunner” and Orson Scott Card’s “Dogwalker” had a…

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Quatro-Decadal Review: Weird Tales, November 1989, edited by John Betancourt, George H. Scithers, and Darrell Schweitzer

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Weird Tales, Fall 1989 (Terminus Publishing). Cover by J.K. Potter There has been quite the gap in my reviews. I’ve been high-centered on Weird Tales. Many factors played a role in this — mostly that it is not a small magazine by any stretch. Then there is the fact that I read it in early 2023, got distracted by other things, and had to re-read it to write about it. As readers of these reviews know, I don’t hold back…

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Heroic Fantasy Quarterly Best-of Volume 4 Anthology Now Available

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The Best Of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly 4 (June 6, 2024). Cover Art by Karolína Wellartová After gathering the cold fire and the breath of virtuous fish we were finally able to forge mithril and orichalchum into a fine mesh, through which we strained the very aether of imagination and distilled it into Heroic Fantasy Quarterly Best-of Volume 4.  From issues #25 to #32 we bring you: Sixteen stories Ten poems Twenty-seven illustrations; and An essay on the Sword and Sorcery…

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