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Author: Bob Byrne

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Cthulhu Casebooks (Vol 2) & The Thinking Engine

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Cthulhu Casebooks (Vol 2) & The Thinking Engine

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Lovegrove_MiskatonicLast December I wrote about Sherlock Holmes & the Shadwell Shadows, volume one of James Lovegrove’s Cthulhu Casebooks trilogy. And this December, it’s on to book two, Sherlock Holmes and the Miskatonic Monstrosities. I wasn’t quite as fond of the second installment, though not because it’s a bad book.

As I wrote in that first review:

The basic premise of the… trilogy is that Watson made up the sixty stories in the Canon. He did so to cover up the real truth behind Holmes’ work. And that’s because the truth is too horrible to reveal. In a nutshell, Watson has written three journals, each covering events fifteen years apart, to try and get some of the darkness out of his soul.

The darkness exists because Holmes, with Watsons’s assistance, waged a career-long war with the otherworld beings of the Cthulhu mythos.

Somewhere in another Black Gate post, I calculated the percentage that Holmes is absent in each of the four novellas which Doyle wrote featuring the great detective. Lovegrove chose to use that novella model and it’s my biggest complaint about the book. Holmes and Watson find a journal and read it. It reminds me of the Mormon interlude in A Study in Scarlet and it takes up thirty-five percent of the book.

Fully one-third of this novel has nothing to do with Holmes or Watson. It provides background to the mystery, but it could be a standalone story and it would have no more tie-in to Holmes than an account of my going out to lunch yesterday.

The flashback takes place in Arkham and it is essentially a Cthulhu short novella. Lovegrove got to write a Lovecraft pastiche within a Holmes pastiche. Of course, these three books are aimed at fans of the Cthulhu stories, so it’s not totally out there. I’ve read stories by Lovecraft, Derleth and others. I don’t mind them, but I’m not a particularly big fan. So, I’m not the target audience for the trilogy.

Those who are avid Holmes and Cthulhu fans are likely to enjoy this second book more than I did. But the fact is that this was a third of the book with no Holmes and/or Watson.

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Simulations Publications Inc: The TSR Incursion

Simulations Publications Inc: The TSR Incursion

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Around the end of 1981, brothers Kevin and Brian Blume wrested control of TSR away from founder Gary Gygax. The company would change dramatically under their leadership, until Gygax returned from his west coast exile in 1984 and (briefly) reclaimed his company. One ‘Blume Incident’ from 1982 is a pretty good example of the way they did things.

In 1958, Avalon Hill was formed, creating the modern wargaming industry, out of which role playing games grew. In 1969, James Dunnigan created Simulations Publications, Inc. — to be known as SPI — with Redmond Simenson as co-founder. He started the company to save an existing wargaming fanzine, Chris Wagner’s Strategy & Tactics, which was in a precarious financial state. Simenson was the graphic designer for the magazine and a huge part of its success. For the princely sum of $1 (yes, you read that right), SPI took on Strategy and Tactics and made it the industry’s leading newsletter, starting with the September, 1969 issue.

Strategy & Tactics would include a new wargame in every single issue from then through the current one, which is remarkable. With the popularity of the magazine, SPI also became Avalon Hill’s major competitor in the wargaming market and enjoyed great success in the seventies. Things were good. Then, as for JFK, came Dallas. Okay, not quite.

Dunnigan’s Dallas: The Television Roleplaying Game, was a licensed product, intended to cash in on the massively successful show. My first thought is to wonder how many Dallas fans wanted to play an RPG — apparently not many. It was a disaster. Simonsen commented that they produced “80,000 copies and that was 79,999 too many.”

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Murder on the Orient Express

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Murder on the Orient Express

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OrientExpressTrainWhile I have read a lot of mysteries by a lot of different authors, I’d never cared for Agatha Christie. When I began watching David Suchet’s masterful performance as Hercule Poirot (which I’m SURE you read about here at Black Gate), I had never finished a Christie novel. I just didn’t like her stories and there was way too much out there that I’d rather read. However, because Suchet was simply amazing, I became a Poirot fan and I read all of the short stories. By picturing the actors and settings from the television show while I read, it worked for me.

My frame of reference for Poirot is episodes of the Suchet television show, not Christie’s original stories. Unlike Doyle, Stout, James Lee Burke, Tony Hillerman, Frederic Nebel and many others whose work I admire, I still am not interested in Christie’s writings. So, I like Poirot, but not Christie.

I wasn’t sure what to think of the new big screen Murder on the Orient Express, which I saw at 10:50 AM on opening day. On the one hand, I thought that Kenneth Branagh’s moustache was completely ludicrous and a huge strike against the move right out of the gate (I mean, who in the world thought that was a good move? Did Mark Gatiss have a hand in this?). On the other hand, it was Branagh’s amazing Shakespeare films that made me a fan of the Bard. He is a wonderfully talented actor. And this film, which he produced, directed and starred in, was his labor of love.

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Modular: Fox Trot Plays Dungeons & Dragons

Modular: Fox Trot Plays Dungeons & Dragons

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FoxTrot_OrlandoBill Amend’s Fox Trot is a comic strip that ran daily from 1988 into 2006, then switched to a Sunday-only format. Still around today, it tells the story of the Fox family. Dad Roger is a loveable goober who wishes he was better at golf and chess. Mom Andy is the common sense core of the family unit. Sixteen year old Peter is a wannabe athlete, with fourteen year old Paige a typical teenage girl. And ten year old Jason lives to torment Paige and is a school geek. He’s got a pet iguana named Quincy who acts like, well, an iguana, but can really be the center of a strip.

The dynamics and shifting alliances of the three kids are instantly relatable to anyone who grew up with at least one sibling. as Calvin and Hobbes’ creator Bill Watterson wrote in the introduction to the first collection:

Fox Trot particularly captures the Machiavellian nature of adolescents. The balance of power between Peter, 16, Page, 14 and Jason 10, is a constantly bartered commodity, and alliances are fragile and short-lived. No collusion will survive an opportunity to get a sibling in trouble, and hesitant parents are goaded with the cry of, ‘Punish him! Punish him! Ground him! Ground him!’

Meanwhile, the challenges of parenting and marriage are amply represented by Roger and Andy. It’s one of my all-time favorite strips and with my nine year old son going through all my collections, I’m enjoying the Fox family all over again.

Jason is a Black Gate kid. His interests are all over pop culture: Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, horror (he loves Halloween, to his family’s pain), Christmas lists, Indiana Jones (even Young Indiana Jones) and cultural tropes such as westerns and Sherlock Holmes. Naturally, being a brainy geek, he’s into Dungeons and Dragons, usually playing with his best friend, Marcus. One rainy spring break, Paige found herself lured into playing D&D with Jason.

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Modular: Successful Adventuring — Or, Staying Alive & Getting the Gold

Modular: Successful Adventuring — Or, Staying Alive & Getting the Gold

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Adventuring1_GloamholdCreighton Broadhurst is the founder and head honcho of Raging Swan Press, one of Pathfinder‘s leading third party publishers. His Shadowed Keep on the Borderlands is the spiritual successor to the old moat house in The Village of Hommlet. Creighton plays Pathfinder, but he approaches the rules-heavy game with an old school style, which is something I’ve been trying to figure out for myself.

His blog features lots of lists: GM advice, player tips, favorite modules, etc.. I broke his 25 Dungeon Delving tips into Parts One and Two and added my own comments (nothing like letting somebody else do the heavy lifting for a good post!). It seemed to work and Creighton didn’t mind, so I’m going to write some more Modular posts along those lines, like this one.

The Principles and bolded text below are Creighton’s, followed by my comments. Please share your thoughts on these principles and definitely go check out Creighton’s blog: it’s got a lot of great stuff for both players and GMs. And if you’re looking for some products to help out with your game, head on over to Raging Swan Press.

Selection and Maintenance of the Goal

A single, unambiguous goal is the keystone of a successful foray. Selection and maintenance of the goal is the master principle of adventuring. Do not get sidetracked or distracted; that way, disaster lies.

This is the opposite of the “Ooh, shiny object” approach. It’s so easy to get off track and chase after the ‘thing of the moment.’ Rumor of a dragon in the mountains, let’s go get him! Treasure in a cave outside of town? We’re on it! Heard a sound down that tunnel, turn left.

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Robert E. Howard Wrote a Police Procedural? With Conan?? Crom!!!

Robert E. Howard Wrote a Police Procedural? With Conan?? Crom!!!

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BG_GodBowlComicCoverReportedly, Ernest Hemingway bet Howard Hawks that the director couldn’t make a good movie out of his worst book. Hawks took the bet and we ended up with Humphrey Bogart in To Have and Have Not (it’s not Bogie’s best, but I vote Hawks the winner of the bet). Suppose I told you I could show you that one of what’s commonly considered among the worst Conan stories isn’t really that bad – and that it’s a pre-genre police procedural? Ready to take on the challenge?

In 2015, Black Gate‘s Discovering Robert E. Howard series showcased the breadth and diversity of REH’s writings. Boxing stories, westerns, science fiction, Solomon Kane, El Borak: Howard was an immensely talented author who wrote in a variety of genres. My first entry in the series was about Steve Harrison, Howard’s take on the hardboiled private eye with a weird menace twist. As you can read in that essay, Howard didn’t care for the genre and he abandoned it almost as quickly as he entered it. Today, I’m going to look at his lone police procedural. Yep – Robert E. Howard wrote a police procedural before the term was even in use. And it features Conan!

The general consensus is that Howard hit the mark with his fourth Conan story, “The Tower of the Elephant,” published in March of 1933. His first was “The Phoenix on the Sword,” which appeared in Weird Tales in December of 1932 and was a rewrite of an unpublished Kull story, “By This Axe I Rule.” Farnsworth Wright, editor of Weird Tales, rejected the second, “The Frost Giant’s Daughter,” which to me, reads more like a chapter in a longer work than a self-contained story.

“The God in the Bowl” was probably written in early 1932 and was Howard’s third Conan story. Wright rejected this one as well and it did not see print in any form until an edited version by L. Sprague de Camp was published in 1952’s Space Science Fiction, Volume 1, Number 2 (the story has nothing to do with either space or science fiction…). De Camp did less chopping on this one than most of his Conan edits, but fans could finally read Howard’s original text in Donald Grant’s The Tower of the Elephant in 1975.

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Modular: Picking Pathfinder

Modular: Picking Pathfinder

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I’m curPatfhinder_Corerently running a Swords & Wizardry (S&W) campaign for a few friends. I wrote here about why I chose S&W instead of my preferred system, Pathfinder. In fact, that post served as the genesis for this Black Gate feature,  Modular. But now, I’m going to look at some of the strengths of Pathfinder and why, when this S&W campaign is done, I’m going to transition the group to a Pathfinder adventure.

So, though I had both played and run Pathfinder, I chose S&W for reasons I talked about in that prior post. I wanted a more story-driven, less mechanics-based system. Also, because two-thirds of the party was new to pen and paper RPGing, I wanted something lighter in the rules department. And there’s no comparison between the two in that regard. The S&W Core Rules comes in at just over 140 pages. The Pathfinder Core Rulebook is almost 600!

Now, I explained in that first post that while I was still reading RPG products, I had stopped playing during 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons (D&D): there simply hadn’t been time for it.

But I wanted to get back into playing, and the choice seemed to be between Pathfinder and the newly released 4th Edition. Now, I had only ever played D&D, going back to 1st Edition. I mean, it was synonymous with role playing games and 4th Edition was the natural choice. But as I researched both systems, Pathfinder clearly seemed to be the way to go.

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Modular: Dungeon Delving Tips – Part II

Modular: Dungeon Delving Tips – Part II

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Delve_ESEarlier this year, Modular looked at the first dozen tips for dungeon delving from Creighton Broadhurst of Raging Swan Press. Today, we follow up and tackle thirteen more to get to 25. Good dungeon delving used to be a lot more important than it is today.

While characters seemed to die at a great pace in Gary Gygax’s original campaigns, for most of us who grew up on pen and paper, our characters were not disposable. We tried hard to keep them alive. Necromancer Games (who you surely read about here!) even put out a 3rd Edition D&D supplement, Raise the Dead, containing party quests to bring back that lost character.

In today’s MMO/video game world, death is simply something you undo by reloading the most recent saved game. A character can die dozens of times and we still get to play them over and over again.

But when death is a real threat, that party delving into the dungeons deep needs to employ strategies and tactics to accomplish the goal and get back out alive. Every character mattered (Kinda like, ‘No one left behind’ as a party slogan). So, here are thirteen more tactics to add to the first dozen to help keep your party alive.

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Solar Pons – The Complete Basil Copper

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Solar Pons – The Complete Basil Copper

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I’ve posted a few times about Solar Pons, whom Vincent Starrett called, “The best substitute to Sherlock Holmes known.” Since I created www.SolarPons.com and founded The Solar Pons Gazette, it’s fair to say I’m a big fan of the ˜Sherlock Holmes of Praed Street.’

Erikson-Lees cov copy

August Derleth wrote seventy-something stories about his creation before passing away in 1971. Derleth’s Arkham House publishing company had printed some works by British horror author Basil Copper and Arkham editor James Turner, in response to a Pons-related letter from Copper, suggested that the British writer compile the entire Pons collection into a two-volume Omnibus. Copper did so, making some 2,000 edits to Derleth’s originals to ‘correct errors.’ Copper referred to this Omnibus as “a veritable feast for Pontine enthusiasts.”

Sure. Except that there was a major outcry from said enthusiasts at Copper’s hubris in rewriting the master’s work (reminds me of L. Sprague de Camp ‘revising’ Robert E. Howard’s original Conan writings). It seems to me that the split was never healed. Meanwhile, Turner asked Copper to continue the Pons saga. Copper wrote four collections of stories and one partially completed novel over the next few years (he would go on to release two more collections of originals and complete the novel).

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By Crom: The Tor Conan – Quality May Vary…

By Crom: The Tor Conan – Quality May Vary…

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Conan_RogueEvery so often, I get the hankering to read a tale of Conan the Cimmerian (better known as ‘The Barbarian’ thanks to Ah-nuld Schwarzenmuscles).

I usually grab one of the three excellent Del Rey volumes (which Howard Andrew Jones and Bill Ward entertainingly went through – here’s the first installment) and get a quick fix. For a little more reading, I snag one of the Ace/Lancer series edited by L Sprague De Camp (with some help from Lin Carter). And less often, I find one of the Tor paperbacks that I haven’t gotten around to yet and try one of them.

As I mentioned in this post on what qualifies as Conan Canon (say that five times fast!) back in 2015:

‘From 1982 through 2003, eight authors (though primarily four) cranked out 43 new Conan novels for Tor. At two per year, the quality varied wildly, as you can imagine. John M. Roberts’ Conan the Rogue is an homage to Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest and one of my favorite Conan books. Steve Perry’s Conan the Indomitable is one of the worst fantasy books I’ve ever read (even though it is a direct sequel to Perry’s Conan the Defiant, which I liked).’

I have maybe two-thirds of the Tor books and have read two-thirds of those (What: I’m channeling Yogi Berra now?). Some of the Tor titles give you at least a bit of an idea what the story is about, such as John M. Roberts’ Conan and the Treasure of the Python and Leonard Carpenter’s Conan of the Red Brotherhood.

But the majority are all titled Conan the (insert vague word here). It’s a litany of titles like Conan the Valorous, Conan the Defiant, Conan the Great, Conan the Formidable: you get the idea. You’ve got to read the back cover to get some clue what the story is about.

The Tor books, pushed out at a punishing pace, are very much a mixed bag. And my experience so far is that more often than not, they fall into the “meh” or worse category.

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