John ONeill – Page 437

Win One of Four New Copies of The Unearthed Arcana 1st Edition Premium Reprint!

Sunday, February 24, 2013 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

Wizards of the Coast has offered us four new copies of The Unearthed Arcana 1st Edition Premium Reprint as giveaways. Is this a great country or what?

Until last week, Gary Gygax’s seminal Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rule book Unearthed Arcana — which introduced the Cavalier, Barbarian, and Thief-Acrobat classes, among many other earth-shaking changes — had never been reprinted. This premium reprint incorporates the many corrections and updates published in Dragon magazine, making it the definitive edition. We first covered the release on Thursday and the excited discussion still continues in the Comments. Here’s what Seven Kings author John R. Fultz has to say:

The release of Unearthed Arcana changed everything. Suddenly we had new spells! Weapon Specialization! Barbarians and Cavaliers! One of the greatest long-term campaigns I ever ran centered around two players that exemplified the classic “buddy-cop” paradigm, although they were opposites: Lystoke the Cavalier and Braigore the Barbarian. One was all about civility and the martial code of honor, the other was a Chaotic Neutral ass-kicker who took no prisoners. Together they made a legendary team… at one point they kicked Mammon’s ass, drove him back to Hell, and plundered his treasure room. Ah, memories.

Oh, I almost forgot one of the other major game-changers from Arcana: Tons of new Magic Items!!! First Edition just isn’t the same without this book.

How do you win a copy? Easy! Just follow in John’s footsteps and send an e-mail to john@blackgate.com with a one-paragraph summary of your most memorable D&D or AD&D characters. Points will be awarded for conciseness and originality. We’ll publish the best here at Black Gate, and the Top Ten as decided by our judges will be included in a draw for one of four copies of the new Unearthed Arcana 1st Edition Premium Reprint, compliments of Wizards of the Coast.

All entries become the property of New Epoch Press. No purchase necessary. Must be 12 or older. Decisions of the judges (capricious as they may be) are final. Sorry, US entrants only. Not valid where prohibited by law. Eat your vegetables.

Kirkus Looks at Astounding Science Fiction

Friday, February 22, 2013 John ONeill Comments 4 comments

Andrew Liptak at Kirkus Reviews has posted a nice retrospective of one of the most influential figures in the history of our genre: John W. Campbell, editor of Astounding Science Fiction and the short-lived Unknown magazine. Here’s a snippet:

In 1938, science fiction would run into another personality who would change science fiction again: When 28-year-old author John Campbell Jr. was hired to edit Astounding Magazine. Campbell’s influence in the magazine market is commonly cited as the beginning of the so-called Golden Age of Science Fiction, and represented a major shift away from the conventions of Gernsback’s pulp era…

With the release of the July 1939 issue of Astounding, the gloves came off. The issue’s table of contents contained a number of high quality stories from new and regular Astounding writers: “The Black Destroyer,” the first published story by A.E. van Vogt; “Trends,” Isaac Asimov’s first sale to the publication; “City of the Cosmic Rays,” by Nat Schachner; “Lightship, Ho!,” by Nelson S. Bond; “The Moth,” by Ross Rocklynne; Amelia Reynold’s “When the Half-Gods Go;” and “Greater than Gods,” by C.L. Moore.

Subsequent issues of Astounding featured a regular stable of authors who have become household names: Theodore Sturgeon, Robert Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard and Isaac Asimov, amongst many others. The magazine had changed the landscape…

The complete article is here. Thanks to John DeNardo at SF Signal for the tip.

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Nebula Award Nominations Announced

Thursday, February 21, 2013 John ONeill Comments 19 comments

The Nebula is one of the most prestigious awards our genre has to offer. Indeed, since the winners are chosen by science fiction and fantasy writers rather than a popular vote, many people consider it the most prestigious genre award.

The 2012 Nebula Awards Nominees were announced yesterday by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, the voting body that grants the awards. The nominees are:

Novel

Throne of the Crescent Moon, Saladin Ahmed (DAW)
Ironskin, Tina Connolly (Tor)
The Killing Moon, N.K. Jemisin (OrbitUK)
The Drowning Girl, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Roc)
Glamour in Glass, Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor)
2312, Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit)

Novella

On a Red Station, Drifting, Aliette de Bodard (Immersion Press)
After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall, Nancy Kress (Tachyon)
“The Stars Do Not Lie,” Jay Lake (Asimov’s SF)
“All the Flavors,” Ken Liu (GigaNotoSaurus)
“Katabasis,” Robert Reed (F&SF)
“Barry’s Tale,” Lawrence M. Schoen (Buffalito Buffet)

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New Treasures: The Unearthed Arcana 1st Edition Premium Reprint

Thursday, February 21, 2013 John ONeill Comments 26 comments

The Premium 1st Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons reprint series is one of the best ideas Wizards of the Coast has ever had.

By bringing Gary Gygax’s original AD&D rulebooks back into print in deluxe editions, Wizards is making the groundbreaking work of the father of role playing available to a modern audience. More than that, it’s a tacit acknowledgement of the growing popularity of retro-gaming, a nod to those players who still enjoy playing first edition (or OE, Original Edition) D&D and AD&D.

I’m one of them. My most recent game of D&D was last Sunday, and one of the books we reached for during play — as a troop of goblins chased my player characters through a dark wood — was the first edition AD&D volume Unearthed Arcana.

Unlike the Players Handbook, Monster Manual, and Dungeon Masters Guide, Gygax’s Unearthed Arcana — which, among many other innovations, introduced the Cavalier, Barbarian, and Thief-Acrobat classes — had never been reprinted, and the copy we used to quickly check the effects of my daughter’s druid’s “Goodberry” spell was the original TSR printing from 1985. That’s a hard book to come across these days, as one of my young players lamented.

But no longer. Wizards of the Coast released the Unearthed Arcana 1st Edition Premium Reprint on Tuesday of this week. Best of all, this edition incorporates the corrections and updates published under Gygax’s supervision in Dragon magazine, making this the definitive edition of the text. At long last, players can assemble a complete collection of the most essential rule books for the greatest role playing game ever written, without having to pay collector’s prices for long out-of-print volumes.

The Unearthed Arcana 1st Edition Premium Reprint was published by Wizards of the Coast on February 19, 2013. It is 128 pages in hardcover, priced at $49.95. There is no digital or softcover edition.

“Reminiscent of the Old Sword & Sorcery Classics”: Tangent Online on “The Find” by Mark Rigney

Wednesday, February 20, 2013 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Louis West at Tangent Online reviews “The Find,” Part II of The Tales of Gemen, published here on Sunday, February 17th:

In Mark Rigney’s “The Find” we meet the young Gemen and learn his terrible secret: at age ten, Gemen followed his sister through an arcane portal and lost everything – sister, family, seven years of life and his entire world line. For decades he has crisscrossed this world, recovering the scattered portal stones to rebuild the gateway and return home…

Gemen… acquires Velori, sharp-tongued warrior priestess of Dominion, from the Courtyard of Trials where she deigns to kill her four attackers because her hidden weavers (giant spider friends) counseled “mercy.” The massive, bear-like Dorvic joins the pair by happenstance, an encounter that leads to a fight for their lives against several dozen Corvaen soldiers…

An enjoyable, often boisterous tale, reminiscent of the old sword & sorcery classics. I can’t wait to see what fate awaits Gemen. A must read.

“The Find” is the sequel to “The Trade,” Part I of The Tales of Gemen the Antiques Dealer, which Tangent Online called a “Marvelous tale. Can’t wait for the next part.”

Read Louis West’s review at Tangent Online, and read “The Find,” a 14,000-word novelette of weird fantasy, completely free here.

The complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including stories by C.S.E. Cooney, Vaughn Heppner, E.E. Knight, Jason E. Thummel, Gregory Bierly, Judith Berman, Howard Andrew Jones, Dave Gross, Harry Connolly, and others, is here.

New Treasures: Low Town by Daniel Polansky

Wednesday, February 20, 2013 John ONeill Comments 1 comment

One of our most popular articles in 2012 was Matthew David Surridge’s brilliant “The Enjoyment of Fantasy: Open Letters to Adam Gopnik, Mur Lafferty, and John C. Wright,” the latter part of which he spends taking Wright to task for some of his criticisms of Low Town. Matthew’s points are many and varied and I’m not going to summarize them here. I will admit, however, that after reading his article, my first reaction was, “What the heck is Low Town? It sounds kinda cool.”

A little investigation revealed that Low Town is Daniel Polansky’s debut novel. Here’s the description:

Drug dealers, hustlers, brothels, dirty politics, corrupt cops… and sorcery. Welcome to Low Town.

In the forgotten back alleys of Rigus, the finest city of the Thirteen Lands, sits Low Town. Here the Warden — forgotten war hero and independent drug dealer — protects his turf. However, the Warden’s life of drugged iniquity is shaken by his discovery of a murdered child down a dead-end street… setting him on a collision course with the life he left behind. As a former agent with Black House — the secret police — he knows better than anyone that murder in Low Town is an everyday thing, the kind of crime that doesn’t get investigated. To protect his home, he will take part in a dangerous game of deception between underworld bosses and the psychotic head of Black House, but the truth is far darker than he imagines. In Low Town, no one can be trusted.

I’m intrigued. And while both Matthew and Wright seem to argue that Polansky doesn’t necessarily understand fantasy, it seems to me he’s grasped the basics just fine: he’s already written a sequel, Tomorrow the Killing, published in October 2012. Our man Myke Cole posted the following mini-review on Goodreads:

Polansky does it again. As with Mark Lawrence with King of Thorns, he shows progression as a storyteller with an even more twisted plot, more compelling and sympathetic character voice and more engaging setting.

Anybody who plugs Mark Lawrence in a one-sentence review has my immediate confidence. I purchased a copy of Low Town last month, and hope to check it out soon.

Low Town was published by Anchor Books in August, 2012. It is 341 pages in trade paperback, priced at $15 ($11.99 for the digital edition).

Congratulations to Black Gate on 3,000 Blog Posts!

Tuesday, February 19, 2013 John ONeill Comments 14 comments

I feel like one of the service staff at a restaurant, waiting excitedly at the entrance for their 10,000th customer. Minus the cool food service uniform.

Ryan Harvey’s article on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ The Oakdale Affair, which went live less than an hour ago, was our 3,000th post. Congratulations to Ryan — and indeed, to the entire Black Gate staff.

The Black Gate blog was the brainchild of Howard Andrew Jones, who suggested I replace the outdated site he and I updated haphazardly with a modern WordPress web publication. I originally said no — and in fact said ‘No” the next half dozen times Howard brought it up. But he eventually talked me into it. Our new look was designed by Leo Grin and our first two posts, in November 2008, were both written by our site engineer David Munger. Our first regular bloggers were David Soyka, Judith Berman, E.E. Knight, Ryan Harvey, James Enge, Scott Oden, and Bill Ward.

Note that I was not a regular blogger. I was not a blogger at all. It took me six months just to figure out how to log in and puzzle out WordPress — and much longer before I dared make my first, timid post. I wrote over 750 in the next four years, and gradually got the hang of it.

We are very proud to be able to bring you, our readers, the best in new and overlooked fantasy every week. The site has grown by leaps and bounds in the last four and a half years, and today a team of nearly 30 bloggers contributes over 20 articles per week. In November 2008 our readership was in the hundreds; this month we are perilously close to breaking 100,000 visits. It’s been an honor and a privilege, and we’re pleased to have you here to celebrate with us.

More Bad News for ‘Zines: Reader’s Digest Files For Bankruptcy

Tuesday, February 19, 2013 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Reader’s Digest, the most widely-purchased magazine in the world, has filed for bankruptcy protection for a second time.

Reader’s Digest was founded in 1922; it is currently published in more than 70 countries, with 49 editions in 21 languages. Not long ago, it had a worldwide circulation of over 10 million copies per month, making it the largest paid circulation magazine on the planet.

The magazine emerged from bankruptcy in 2009, selling off assets to lower its debt — including cooking website Allrecipes.com (sold for $180 million) and sister magazine Every Day With Rachael Ray (for $4.3 million). Its paid circulation fell to 5.5 million at the end of 2012, making it the fifth-biggest consumer magazine by circulation in the U.S., behind two publications from the AARP, Game Informer Magazine, and Better Homes and Gardens.

The magazine filed for Chapter 11 protection in an attempt to cut debt; it is hoping to convert about $465 million of debt into equity held by its creditors. Reader’s Digest has about $1.1 billion in assets and slightly under $1.2 billion in debt, and has arranged roughly $105 million to keep it afloat during bankruptcy proceedings.

The news follows a lengthy obituary list for magazines in 2012, including the 80-year old Newsweek, which published its last print issue in December, music magazine Spin, Nintendo Power, Whole Living, American Artist, and many others. Fantasy fans lost the print version of the excellent New York Review of Science Fiction in 2012, which converted to digital format last spring.

Black Gate Online Fiction: “The Find,” Part II of The Tales of Gemen, by Mark Rigney

Sunday, February 17, 2013 John ONeill Comments 45 comments

Gemen the Antiques Dealer gathers a resourceful team of fighters and adventurers to assist him in his mysterious quest, in the sequel to “The Trade”:

The guards finished lowering their prisoner into the octagonal pit. Gemen guessed that at least three hundred now looked on as the woman, very much alone, paced back and forth with restless, furtive energy while a bored-sounding magistrate, above, read out a host of generic accusations.

The magistrate rolled up his paintbark parchment. “The accused calls herself Velori, and she will now defend herself! Survival connotes innocence!”

Immediately four ladders snaked down, and as Velori planted herself in the center, four warriors slid down and advanced, their heads encased in bestial masks of iron and leather, inlaid axes at the ready.

Gemen’s companion let out a dry laugh. “You’re about to tell me it isn’t fair, aren’t you? They’ve got weapons. She doesn’t.”

Gemen shook his head. “It looks fair to me.”

Mark Rigney is the author of the plays Acts of God and Bears and winner of the 2012 Panowski Playwriting Competition. His short fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in Black Static, The Best of the Bellevue Literary Review, Realms of Fantasy, Talebones, Not One Of Us, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet and many more. His contemporary fantasy novel, A Most Unruly Gnome, won the 2009 First Coast Novel Contest. Two collections of his stories (all previously published by various mags and ‘zines) are available through Amazon, Flights of Fantasy, and Reality Checks.

“The Find” is a complete 14,000-word novelette of weird fantasy offered at no cost. It is the sequel to “The Trade,” Part I of The Tales of Gemen the Antiques Dealer, which Tangent Online called a “Marvelous tale. Can’t wait for the next part.”

Read the complete story here.

New Treasures: Death Watch, by Ari Berk

Saturday, February 16, 2013 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

I live in a house with three young adults, all fairly active readers. When one discovers an intriguing new fantasy series, it gets passed around excitedly. That happened with Christopher Paolini’s Eragon books, Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight, Suzanne Collins’s Gregor The Overlander and The Hunger Games, and John Flanagan’s Ranger’s Apprentice books.

The latest book to get discussed and passed around is Ari Berk’s Death Watch, the first installment in The Undertaken Trilogy. It’s too early to determine if this will captivate all three the way previous books have, but early indications are good.

They say the dead should rest in peace. Not all the dead agree.

When Silas Umber’s father, Amos, doesn’t come home from work one night, Silas discovers that his father was no mere mortician, but an Undertaker who worked to bring The Peace to lost and wandering souls. With Amos gone, Silas and his mother move back to Lichport, the crumbling seaside town where he was born, and Silas seizes the opportunity to investigate his father’s disappearance.

When his search leads him to his father’s old office, he comes across a powerful artifact: the Death Watch, a tool that allows the owner to see the dead. Death Watch in hand, Silas begins to unearth Lichport’s secret history — and discovers that he has taken on his father’s mantle as Lichport’s Undertaker. Now, Silas must embark on a dangerous path into the Shadowlands to embrace his destiny and discover the truth about his father — even if it kills him.

Death Watch was published November 27, 2012 by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers. It is 560 pages in trade paperback, priced at $9.99 ($8.89 for the digital edition). The second volume of The Undertaken Trilogy, Mistle Child, was published Feb 12.

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