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Author: John ONeill

New Treasures: The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H. P. Lovecraft and I. N. J. Culbard

New Treasures: The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H. P. Lovecraft and I. N. J. Culbard

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The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath-smallIn January of this year, I reviewed I.N.J. Culbard’s graphic novel adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s At The Mountains of Madness. And I loved it.

Since then, Culbard has produced several additional Lovecraft volumes, including comic adaptations of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and The Shadow Out of Time. And while I was at my local comic shop on Saturday, buying D&D dice for my kids, I spotted another one in the new arrivals rack: The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, a thick 144-page adaption of one of H.P. Lovecraft’s lesser-known fantasies.

Three times Randolph Carter dreamed of the marvelous city, and three times was he snatched away while still he paused on the high terrace above it.” Randolph Carter embarks on an epic quest across a world beyond the wall of sleep, in search of an opulent and mysterious sunset city. When he prays to the gods of dream to reveal the whereabouts of this magical city, they do not answer, and his dreams stop altogether. Undaunted, Carter resolves to go to Kadath, where the gods live, and beseech them in person. However, no one has ever been to Kadath, and no one even knows how to get there — but that won’t stop Randolph Carter from trying.

While The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath is not as celebrated as some of Lovecraft’s more famous work, it is highly regarded by many of his most dedicated fans. It’s also received several high-profile graphics adaptions in the last few years, including a gorgeous hardcover edition from P.S. Publishing (part of their new Pulps Library), and a Kickstarter-funded graphic novel from artist Jason Bradley Thompson. (And if you insist on going old school, of course, there’a also the Ballantine Adult Fantasy paperback.)

The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath was published by SelfMadeHero on November 18, 2014. It is 144 pages, priced at $19.95. There is no digital edition.

Ghost Stories and Stranger Tales: Couching at the Door by D.K. Broster

Ghost Stories and Stranger Tales: Couching at the Door by D.K. Broster

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Couching at the Door-smallThomas Parker’s article on Ghost Stories for Christmas yesterday inspired me to look through my own collection for Victorian era ghost stories. I was intrigued by his suggestion to revive the ghostly tradition of Christmas past, by reading classic ghost stories out loud to my kids around the fireplace on the cold evenings of December.

Of course, my children are all teenagers. Which means they’ll be checking their smartphones, playing games on the iPad, and generally rolling their eyes when I suggest a 100-year old family entertainment. They don’t even like to watch movies from the 1980s. Or technology of any kind released before 2010.

Well, that’s parenting. You need to endure a little eye-rolling before they come around. I think I’ll start with W.F. Harvey’s “The Clock,” from The Beast with Five Fingers, which John C. Hocking called “a masterful short piece… Truly one of the finest examples of what H.P. Lovecraft called ‘spectral fear’ ever put on the page.” Or maybe a ghost detective story from Mark Valentine’s The Black Veil & Other Tales of Supernatural Sleuths. Or a Sherlock Holmes pastiche from The Game’s Afoot.

Of course, all three of these books have one thing in common: They’re all part of Wordsworth’s Tales of Mystery & The Supernatural (or TOMAToS, for short). It’s the perfect line of books if you’re looking for great Victorian horror tales…. or great ghost stories, period.

I need a book that will keep them on their toes, an author who mixes supernatural mysteries with even stranger weird tales. And after looking through my Wordsworth collection, I think I have just the thing: D.K. Broster’s Couching at the Door.

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The Classic Games of Metagaming: Ogre

The Classic Games of Metagaming: Ogre

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Ogre Metagaming-smallLast week, I wrote about discovering early Metagaming advertisements in copies of Analog and Asimov’s SF, as well as other science fiction magazines I read in the late 1970s. The ads — for tiny science fiction games I could carry around in my pocket — fired my imagination.

I was already gaming with my friends over lunch at school and the thought of playing games featuring giant robot tanks and wizard duels instead of another round of chess was too much to resist. I mailed off my check and waited impatiently for my treasures to arrive.

Now, ask most young folks how they felt when the magical item they ordered from the back of a comic or magazine finally came in the mail and you’ll hear some pretty sad stories. Those X-ray spectacles? A crushing disappointment. That family of sea monkeys? In reality, tiny frozen shrimp. And don’t even ask about the Polaris Nuclear Submarine.

But Metagaming microgames were not disappointments. Quite the opposite.

Microgame #1: Ogre was one of the first games I ordered from Metagaming. It was not the last. I still remember the first trial games I played with my brother Mike; the thrill of moving my Ogre cybertank relentlessly across the heavily cratered map board. Ogre was a wonderful game — brilliantly simple in design, easy to set up, and lightning fast to play.

It became, in fact, one of the most successful science fiction board games ever published, selling hundreds of thousands of copies. It went through numerous editions, and is still in print and available today — in both a no-frills reprint of the original 1977 edition and a limited edition deluxe version with multiple giant mapboards, more than 500 oversized full-color unit counters, and 3-D models, which will run you over $150 (if you can find a copy).

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New Treasures: Jala’s Mask by Mike and Rachel Grinti

New Treasures: Jala’s Mask by Mike and Rachel Grinti

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Jala's Mask-smallThis is something of an unusual cover for Pyr. They’re known for their heroic fantasy and sword & sorcery, and their covers have reflected that — with colorful action set pieces usually illustrating a dynamic narrative moment (Check out a few of the Pyr covers we’ve showcased in the past few months, such as James Enge’s The Wide World’s End, or the Nebula Awards Showcase 2014.)

Not so for Jala’s Mask, which shows a couple in dull islander garb standing on a beach, doing… well, not much of anything, really. Not what I usually expect from Pyr. Good to see some racial diversity on a fantasy cover — Lords knows this industry could use it — but  would it kill you to throw in a sword, or maybe a gratuitous sea monster? I’m just sayin’. At least there’s a dude in a mask floating behind the title to menace up the proceedings a bit — that’s something, anyway.

Fortunately, I’m intrigued by the back cover blurb, which introduces us to a woman who must steal the face of a god in order to save her people.

For two hundred years, Jala’s people have survived by raiding the mainland. By shaping the reefs around the Five-and-One Islands into magical ships, they can cross the ocean, take what they want, and disappear. Or so they have always believed. On the night after Jala becomes queen, a tide of magical fog sweeps over the islands, carrying ships from the mainland. Inside are a desperate people, driven half-mad by sorcery and looking for revenge.

Now Jala — caught between her family’s unending ambitions, the politics of the islands thrown into turmoil, and her unexpected love for the king — must find a way to save them all if she can.

But there are greater powers at work, and the politics of gods are more terrifying than she could have imagined. To save the Five-and-One Islands she may have to leave them behind.

Mike and Rachel Grinti are also the authors of Claws. Jala’s Mask was published by Pyr on November 4, 2014. It is 285 pages, priced at $18 in trade paperback and $11.99 for the digital version. The cover art is by Marc Simonetti.

The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in October

The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in October

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Dragon34-KenRahmanSometimes people critique Black Gate by looking over the site, noting our focus on books and magazines, and proclaiming us “books snobs.”

That’s not true at all, I argue calmly. Look — you know what the most popular article on the Black Gate website was just last month? It was Scott Taylor’s Art of the Genre post, “The Top 10 Dragon Magazine Covers of the 1970s & 80s.”

You see? We’re not merely book snobs. We’re also art snobs.

This is Scott’s second month at the top of the charts — back in September, he claimed the top spot with his article on the Top 10 TSR Cover Paintings of All Time, a nostalgic look at the finest artwork from the Golden Age of roleplaying. Scott certainly knows his stuff when it comes to fantasy art — and our readers love him for it.

The next few articles at the top of the charts don’t do much to help my thesis that we’re not book snobs, however. The #2 article for the month of October was M. Harold Page’s “Four Books on Historical European Martial Arts.” Hard to argue that you’re not just all about books, when your most popular posts are all about books.

The #3 article for the month was my look at The Fantasy Roots of Fan Fiction, an argument that the modern fan fiction phenomenon grew largely out of the tradition of the pastiche novel, and especially the long-running success of the Conan pastiche, and the success of writers like Lin Carter, who wrote pastiches for most of his career.

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The Top 20 Black Gate Fiction Posts in October

The Top 20 Black Gate Fiction Posts in October

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The Black Fire Concerto-smallMike Allen continues to dominate the top of our charts for a second month, with the exclusive excerpt from his first novel The Black Fire Concerto. Mike’s breakout collection Unseaming was released on October 1st from Antimatter Press. Check it out here.

Surging back into second place are Janet Morris and Chris Morris, with an excerpt from their heroic fantasy novel The Sacred Band. They also claimed the #3 slot with “Seven Against Hell,” an exclusive sample from their new anthology, Poets in Hell.

Knocked out of the #2 slot was “The Find,” Part II of The Tales of Gemen by Mark Rigney, which settled at #4 this month. “The Keystone,” Part III of the series, also made the list. Check out Mark’s first novel, the popular Check-Out Time, released on October 7 from Samhain Publishing.

Rounding out the Top Five was Ryan Harvey’s sword & sorcery story “The Sorrowless Thief,” a tale of intrigue and dinosaur beasts, part of his popular science-fantasy set series on the continent of Ahn-Tarqa.

Also making the list were exciting stories by Joe Bonadonna, John C. Hocking, David C. Smith and Joe Bonadonna, Judith Berman, Michael Shea, C.S.E. Cooney, Aaron Bradford Starr, Jason E. Thummel, Steven H Silver, Martha Wells, Sean McLachlan, Harry Connolly, Howard Andrew Jones, and John R. Fultz.

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Vintage Treasures: Zacherley’s Midnight Snacks

Vintage Treasures: Zacherley’s Midnight Snacks

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Zacherley's Midnight Snacks-smallI love Zacherly’s Midnight Snacks.

I love the whole goofy premise: a ghoul’s favorite midnight reading. A ghoul named Zacherley. Who comments on each story, with special “cheering notes.” You go, Zacherley.

Of course, it’s in the long-standing tradition of the Old Crypt Keeper, who introduced the horror tales in EC Comics, and Cain and Abel, hosts of DC Comics’ long-running House of Mystery and House of Secrets comics, just to name a few. The cheerful undead storyteller, who delights in a good creepy tale (not to mention the occasional moral fable or two.)

In keeping with the fiction that these stories were selected by a ghoul, the editor of Zacherly’s Midnight Snacks is uncredited. Someone must know who compiled this (and subsequent) volumes for Ballantine, but they’re not talking.

The book collects nine short stories and novelettes from the pulps (“precious old mouldering records”), including Thrilling Wonder, Unknown, Beyond Fantasy Fiction, and Fantastic Universe. Authors include Richard Matheson, Theodore Sturgeon, Wallace West, A. E. van Vogt, and Henry Kuttner. Here’s the blurb on the back of the book:

As choice a brew of ghouls, vampires, ghosts and creatures of EVEN MORE VARIED TALENTS as you could wish to meet, in stories garnered from precious old mouldering records, and with special cheering notes on each by ZACHERLEY.

This volume was released in March 1960. Zacherley managed one additional anthology, Zacherley’s Vulture Stew, released in August the same year, before (presumably) laying down for his eternal rest.

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Robert Silverberg on the Tragic Death of John Brunner

Robert Silverberg on the Tragic Death of John Brunner

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The Great Steamboat Race John Brunner-smallSix months ago, I wrote about an unusual find I made online: The Great Steamboat Race, an enormous and ambitious historical novel written by none other than John Brunner. Brunner, of course, was a highly regarded SF and fantasy writer, beloved even today for Stand on Zanzibar, The Complete Traveller in Black, and many other novels. He died in 1995, at the World Science Fiction convention.

The Great Steamboat Race was an enigma. I’d never seen a copy before, never run across one in dozens of years of haunting bookstores. The copy I found online was very inexpensive — less than the $7.95 cover price for a brand new copy, for a book published over 30 years ago — so I bought it. I wrote it up as a Vintage Treasures curiosity, and then more or less forgot about it.

At least until this week, when I was browsing through a collection of Asimov’s SF magazines from the late 90s I recently acquired. Before I packed it away in the Cave of Wonders (i.e. the basement), I plucked one out of the box at random, and settled back in my big green chair to read it.

It was the March 1996 issue, with stories by Tony Daniel, Suzy McKee Charnas, Steven Utley, and the late John Brunner. I always take the time to read Robert Silverberg’s Reflections column, and I flipped to that first. The title was “Roger and John,” and it was a tribute to two recent deaths that had shaken the SF community: Roger Zelazny and John Brunner. Silverberg had been friends with both men for decades and said “Their deaths, for me, illustrate the difference between a tragedy and a damn shame. Let me try to explain.”

Silverberg portrays Zelazny’s death as a damn shame, saying “Roger was the happy man who led a happy life… By the time he was twenty-five he had begun what was to be a dazzling career in science fiction.” Zelazny’s career, Silverberg observes, had been filled with a series of triumphs, and his death by cancer at the age of 58 had robbed the field of future great work from a master.

Brunner, Silverberg observes, was a tragic figure. And central to the tragedy was the novel The Great Steamboat Race.

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New Treasures: Elisha Barber by E.C. Ambrose

New Treasures: Elisha Barber by E.C. Ambrose

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Elisha Barber E C Ambrose-smallI missed E.C. Ambrose’s Elisha Barber when it was released over the summer. But I met the author, and found a copy in my freebee bag, at the World Fantasy Convention, and it seemed like I was missing out on a promising new voice in fantasy. I started reading it today; so far it’s a fast moving and well written dark fantasy of an alternative fourteenth century of brutal war, necromancy… and stranger things.

England in the fourteenth century: a land of poverty and opulence, prayer and plague… witchcraft and necromancy.

As a child, Elisha witnessed the burning of a witch outside of London, and saw her transformed into an angel at the moment of her death, though all around him denied this vision. He swore that the next time he might have the chance to bind an angel’s wounds, he would be ready. And so he became a barber surgeon, at the lowest ranks of the medical profession, following the only healer’s path available to a peasant’s son.

Elisha Barber is good at his work, but skill alone cannot protect him. In a single catastrophic day, Elisha’s attempt to deliver his brother’s child leaves his family ruined, and Elisha himself accused of murder. Then a haughty physician offers him a way out: come serve as a battle surgeon in an unjust war. Between tending to the wounded soldiers and protecting them from the physicians’ experiments, Elisha works night and day. Even so, he soon discovers that he has an affinity for magic, drawn into the world of sorcery by Brigit, a beautiful young witch… who reminds him uncannily of the angel he saw burn.

In the crucible of combat, utterly at the mercy of his capricious superiors, Elisha must attempt to unravel conspiracies both magical and mundane, as well as come to terms with his own disturbing new abilities. But the only things more dangerous than the questions he’s asking are the answers he may reveal.

Elisha Barber is the first novel in The Dark Apostle series; the second volume, Elisha Magus, was released on July 1, 2014. Elisha Barber was published on June 3, 2014 by DAW Books. It is 386 pages, priced at $24.95 in hardcover, $7.99 in paperback, and $6.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Cliff Nielsen. Download the first three chapters at E.C. Ambrose’s website

The Dark Issue 6 Now on Sale

The Dark Issue 6 Now on Sale

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The Dark Issue 6-smallThe sixth issue of The Dark, cover-dated November 2014, is now on sale.

Truthfully, I haven’t paid much attention to The Dark magazine recently. But at the World Fantasy Convention I picked up a free sampler, containing an assortment of fiction from past issues, and crammed it into my travel bag. Of all the things I could have read on my flight back to Chicago (and believe me, that bag was so stuffed it barely fit under the seat in front of me), it was that sampler that seemed most intriguing, so once we were off the ground I pulled it out, reclined my chair, and started to read.

It only took a few minutes to convince me that overlooking The Dark has been a serious mistake. A quarterly magazine of horror and dark fantasy co-edited by Jack Fisher and Sean Wallace, The Dark has published short fiction by some of the brightest stars in the fantasy firmament, including World Fantasy Award winner Nnedi Okorafor, Angela Slatter, Rachel Swirsky, E. Catherine Tobler, Stephen Graham Jones, and many others.

Issues are available in digital format for just $2.99. Each one contains four short stories (roughly 40 pages), and is available through Amazon, B&N.com, Apple, Kobo, and other fine outlets. They can also be read for free on the website. The sixth issue contains the following:

Calamity, the Silent Trick by Sara Saab
The Three Familiars by Eric Schaller
Mourning Flags and Wildflowers by Patricia Russo
Home at Gloom’s End by Naim Kabir

If you enjoy the magazine as I do, there are plenty of ways you can help support it, including by buying their books, reviewing stories, or even just leaving comments. See the Issue 6 story summaries here, and their complete back issue catalog here. We last covered The Dark with Issue #1.