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Author: John ONeill

Gary Gygax’s Hall of Many Panes

Gary Gygax’s Hall of Many Panes

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hall-of-many-panes-gygaxWhew. What a week. I bought a collection of 240 new SF & fantasy paperbacks on Monday, and trying to squeeze them into already-crowded bookshelves in my library is taking some determination. Tomorrow morning I’m throwing some clothes in a bag for a trip to Madison with Patty Templeton and Katie Redding for Wiscon, one of the best conventions in the Midwest.

But tonight, I relaxed and dusted off some of the goodies waiting patiently for my attention. The most intriguing one in the pile is Gary Gygax’s Hall of Many Panes, a boxed mega-adventure from Troll Lord Games, which I purchased on eBay back in March.

Panes was released in 2005, so don’t get too excited if you haven’t heard of it. It’s not a recently-discovered manuscript by the creator of D&D, or anything like that. It was originally written for Gygax’s latter day RPG Lejendary Adventures, but has also been statted for d20 systems, which makes it usable with virtually any of the popular retro-clones on the market like OSRIC or Labyrinth Lord.

Gygax was a master of the mega-adventure, and I’m not sure why he didn’t write more of them, especially at the end of his career when he was experiencing a resurgence.

But then again, I wonder at the fact that the ones he did write — like Necropolis and the massive Castle Zagyg — weren’t more popular, and perhaps that helps explain it.

Anyway, we’re here to talk about Hall of Many Panes. Troll Lord has done a great job assembling a package clearly modeled after the classic TSR boxed sets: inside are three sizable books (76, 96, and 102 pages) and a pamphlet of maps and gaming handouts. The books are a little light on art, but sturdy and highly readable.

…

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Goth Chick News: Joss Whedon’s Other Summer Movie

Goth Chick News: Joss Whedon’s Other Summer Movie

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cabin-in-the-woodsJohn O’Neill here, on behalf of Goth Chick. Goth got a callback for the part of Morticia in the upcoming production of The Addams Family at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater, and she was outta our offices like a comet.  I found a scrawled note in my chair reading, “Gone all week — cover for me, and there free tickets for opening night in it for you.  Ta!”

So I’m currently sitting at her desk, hoping to tell you about the week’s best goth entertainment, hottest new trailers, and overlooked 80’s horror films. Man, how does she find anything? Her desk is covered in morgue photos, news clippings and — I swear to God — a voodoo doll collection. I’m scared to touch anything, and every one of her interns jumps at least a foot when I try to speak to them.

The heck with it. Stick with what you know. And what I know is that all my friends refuse to talk to me about The Cabin in the Woods.

The Cabin in the Woods, in case you haven’t heard, is Avenger‘s director Joss Whedon’s other summer movie. He was the producer and co-writer of the film, which was directed by Drew Goddard, staff writer for Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the writer of Cloverfield. I ‘d tell you more about the movie, but I don’t know anything. All I can find is this sparse description on IMDB:

Five friends go for a break at a remote cabin in the woods, where they get more than they bargained for. Together, they must discover the truth behind the cabin in the woods.

Seriously, the hush level on this film is amazing. No one will talk about it. It’s like everyone who’s left the theater has been sworn to secrecy. My friends say things like, “Dude, what did you think of that moment, about 30 minutes in?” I tell them I haven’t seen it yet and they mutter under their breath, and say “Go see it.  Immediately.”

Which isn’t going to be easy. While The Avengers is well on the way to becoming, like, the most profitable film in the history of the world, The Cabin in the Woods is more closely following the trajectory of Joss Whedon’s earlier films: it was released on April 13 and has nearly vanished from theaters. Those penetrating and silent stares from my friends are becoming more urgent.

I’m here to pass that urgency along to you. It’s too late for me, but maybe it’s not for you. Somewhere in your town there’s a theater still showing this movie. Don’t be left out. Catch it before it’s gone.

Save yourselves.

The Sword & Sorcery Anthology Now on Sale

The Sword & Sorcery Anthology Now on Sale

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sword-and-sorcery-anthologyOne of the year’s most anticipated books has arrived — a few days ahead of its official June 1 publication date.

The Sword & Sorcery Anthology, edited by David G. Hartwell and Jacob Weisman, is now on sale. This massive 480-page tome contains classic S&S tales from the writers who created the genre — including C. L. Moore, Fritz Leiber, Robert E. Howard, Poul Anderson, Karl Edward Wagner and Michael Moorcock — as well as modern masters such as Charles R. Saunders, Glen Cook, George R. R. Martin, Jeffrey Ford, and Caitlín R. Kiernan.

It also includes “Epistle from Lebanoi,” an original tale by Michael Shea, author of the classic Nifft the Lean, and “The Year of the Three Monarchs,” a new story by Michael Swanwick.

The early reviews have already been filled with praise, including this one from Publishers Weekly:

Hartwell and Weisman have selected some of the best short-form work in the genre… This is an unbeatable selection from classic to modern, and each story brings its A game.

With an introduction by David Drake, “Storytellers: A Guided Ramble into Sword and Sorcery Fiction” and a tantalizing assortment of stories I’m unfamiliar with — including “Gimmile’s Song” by Charles R. Saunders, “Soldier of an Empire Unacquainted with Defeat” by Glen Cook, “Six from Atlantis” by Gene Wolfe, and “Path of the Dragon” by George R. R. Martin — this ones leaps right to the top of my want list.

The Sword & Sorcery Anthology is published by Tachyon Publications, and priced at $15.95 for the print version and $10.95 in digital format. More complete details are here, and the complete Tables of Contents is here.

Catherynne M. Valente parts ways with Night Shade Books

Catherynne M. Valente parts ways with Night Shade Books

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the-habitation-of-the-blessed2Catherynne M. Valente has announced her third Prester John novel, following The Habitation of the Blessed and The Folded World, will not be published by Night Shade Books. In a statement on her blog last week she said:

I continue to think that Night Shade puts out wonderful books and I hope for their success. I did not take this step lightly. But their recent troubles have made our business relationship difficult, and I could not in good conscience proceed with a third book given the circumstances. Obviously I’m being a bit vague – there’s no point in airing laundry in public… What this means is that at the moment, The Habitation of the Blessed and The Folded World are for the most part unavailable. Some copies will float around for awhile yet, but most of the e-versions are gone. I hope to fix this in the next week – I have relicensed the covers from the excellent Rebecca Guay and Night Shade has been very kind and accommodating with regards to physical copies and digital files…

As for the third and final book in the series, The Spindle of Necessity, I am committed to finding a way to make sure you get to see it. I owe you a finish. Oddly enough, Prester John is my longest series to date, and I want to bring it all to a close the way I planned to from the beginning… Given the market realities, the most likely avenue for this is a Kickstarter campaign to fund a self-published version.

At press time, both The Habitation of the Blessed and The Folded World are available at Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com, in both print and Kindle versions. But if you’re interested in getting copies, you want want to move quickly.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Files for Bankruptcy

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Files for Bankruptcy

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lord-of-the-rings-hobbit2Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, US publishers of The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Animal Farm, 1984, The Time Traveler’s Wife, Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea, and numerous books by Harlan Ellison, Kage Baker, Philip K. Dick, Philip Roth, Ray Bradbury, James Morrow, Margaret Atwood, Diane Duane, Jane Yolen and literally hundreds of others, filed for bankruptcy protection today.

Houghton Mifflin, an educational and trade publisher in the United States, acquired Harcourt Publishing in 2007 to become Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. The company has 4,000 employees around the world.

It officially filed for pre-packaged bankruptcy this morning, citing debts and liabilities of over $1 billion. The filing is part of a restructuring that it hopes will cut debt by $3.1 billion. The company issued a statement today, saying it:

will maintain normal day-to-day business operations throughout the restructuring process, and we expect no disruptions to our relationships with our customers, agents, authors, employees, business partners and suppliers. Additionally, our plan provides for our suppliers and vendors to be paid in full during and after this process and for our employees to continue receiving their usual pay and benefits.

The company said it still expects to complete the restructuring by the end of June. For additional details, see this article at Publisher’s Weekly.

Spring 2012 issue of Subterranean Magazine Now Available

Spring 2012 issue of Subterranean Magazine Now Available

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subterranean-magazine-spring-2012I admit I never know when to blog about Subterranean magazine. I really enjoy it, and I used to go to great lengths to acquire the print issues. But now that they’ve converted to an online zine they’re releasing the contents in a rolling format, a new story or article every week.

Do I announce it here when the first article goes up? Or wait until the entire magazine is posted, two months later? By the time a new issue is up, I’ve already forgotten what I did last time. So over the years I’ve finally developed a consistent system: I blog about it whenever I remember.

So here I am to tell you about the Spring 2012 issue. And it’s got a terrific line-up, nearly 70,000 words of fiction, including two big novellas from Jay Lake and Allen Steele:

  • “The Weight of History, the Lightness of the Future,” by Jay Lake (24,000 words)
  • “Angel of Europa,” by Allen Steele (19,000 words)
  • “Sic Him, Hellhound, Kill Kill!” by Hal Duncan
  • “Random Thoughts Before a Fatal Crash,” by Caitlin R. Kiernan
  • “Here and There,” by Neal Barrett, Jr.
  • “A Holy War,” by Mike Resnick

Subterranean is edited by William Schafer, and published quarterly. The Spring 2012 issue is completely free and available here.

We last covered Subterranean magazine with their previous issue, Winter 2012.

Aqueduct Press releases The Moment of Change, an Anthology of Feminist Speculative Poetry

Aqueduct Press releases The Moment of Change, an Anthology of Feminist Speculative Poetry

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the-moment-of-change2I’ve received word this morning that contributor copies of Aqueduct Press’s The Moment of Change have started to arrive, and the book is now available for order on their website.

The Moment of Change is an anthology of feminist speculative poetry with an absolutely stellar line-up of contributors, including Ursula K. Le Guin, Jo Walton, Delia Sherman, Catherynne M. Valente, Theodora Goss, Phyllis Gotlieb, Yoon Ha Lee, Nisi Shawl, Greer Gilman, Sonya Taaffe, JoSelle Vanderhooft, and Nicole Kornher-Stace.

It also includes two members of Team Black Gate: two poems by Amal El-Mohtar, “Pieces” and “On the Division of Labour,” and a long poem by our website editor, C.S.E. Cooney,  “The Last Crone on the Moon.” The anthology is edited by Rose Lemberg, and she’s posted the complete Table of Contents here. In her introduction she writes:

In these pages you will find works in a variety of genres — works that can be labeled mythic, fantastic, science fictional, historical, surreal, magic realist, and unclassifiable; poems by people of color and white folks; by poets based in the US, Canada, Britain, India, Spain, and the Philippines; by first- and second-generation immigrants; by the able-bodied and the disabled; by straight and queer poets who may identify as women, men, trans, and genderqueer.

I had the pleasure of listening to C.S.E. read “The Last Crone on the Moon” last year at the monthly Top Shelf Books Open Mic here in Chicago, and it is worth the price of the book alone.

Rose Lemberg and many of the contributors will be reading from The Moment of Change at Wiscon in Madison, Wisconsin this weekend. I’ll be there, and I’m looking forward to it.

The Moment of Change is 174 pages in paperback. The cover art is by  Terri Windling. It sells for $20.

New Treasures: Shadow Blizzard by Alexey Pehov

New Treasures: Shadow Blizzard by Alexey Pehov

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shadow-blizzard2I tend to avoid fantasy trilogies until the third book is published, for the same reason that I don’t date musicians under 30. Because I’m married. Duh.

Man, that didn’t make any sense. I blame these stupid cold medications. My head feels four feet in diameter, and my thoughts seem to take… longer… to travel from one side to the other. I wish Alice were here to make me soup and send me to bed, but on Friday she left to take our son Tim to music camp in… um… I forget. Some state that has music camps.

You know what I need? A really good fantasy I can curl up with until I feel better. And now that Shadow Prowler, the third book in Alexey Pehov’s epic The Chronicles of Siala, has arrived I can do just that. Shadow Prowler is the sequel to Shadow Prowler and Shadow Chaser. Here’s what Matthew David Surridge said about the first volume in Black Gate 15:

Pehov has written a fantasy trilogy, with elves and orcs and dwarves and wizards and a quest… this first book, at least, feels fundamentally like a game of Dungeons and Dragons. The story is even structured around the exploration of an ancient burial ground, Hrad Spein, the Palaces of Bone, filled with traps, magic, and the undead… there is an enjoyable buzz of plot going on in the book. In fact, once you get over the echoes of Tolkien, in the form of the ancient artifact, the quest story, the elves and dwarves and the setting, you notice that the actual structure of the book is closer to Harry Harrison’s The Stainless Steel Rat: a thief tells the story of how he is captured by the good guys, and made to work for them.

Ancient burial grounds, traps, magic, the undead, and a reluctant thief. Yup, that could get me through this cold. Here’s the plot summary for the third volume, just for comparison:

Shadow Harold’s quest is almost at an end: he and his companions have fought long and hard to make their way to the tomb Hrad Spein, in search of the magic horn that is their only hope to defeating The Nameless One. The journey was perilous, and many in their company did not survive. Together, however, they have come further than anyone else ever has — but their struggle isn’t over just yet…

Wow. Three books, and they’re still in the same dungeon? Holy cats, that does sound like an epic game of D&D. If that’s not enough to sell you, here’s the cool book trailer.

Shadow Blizzard is 462 pages in hardcover. It was published on April 24th by Tor, and has a $26.99 cover price. It was translated from the Russian by Andrew Bromfield.

2011 Nebula Award Winners Announced

2011 Nebula Award Winners Announced

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among-othersI turned 48 today. Not a bad accomplishment, considering that when I started reading science fiction in 1974, I didn’t even know people got that old. And ever since I started reading novels on my iPad and Kindle, I’ve decided I’m officially living in the future.  SF used to prep me for the future, but whatever the next 48 years have in store, I ain’t ready.

Fortunately some things don’t change. People fall in love, tax bills come due, and great writing still wins awards. Case in point: the 2011 Nebula Awards, given out last night in a ceremony at the Nebula Awards Weekend in Arlington, Virginia.

Novel

Among Others, Jo Walton (Tor)

Novella

“The Man Who Bridged the Mist”, Kij Johnson (Asimov’s, Oct-Nov, 2011)

Novelette

‘‘What We Found’’, Geoff Ryman (F&SF Sept-Oct, 2011)

Short Story

“The Paper Menagerie”, Ken Liu (F&SF, March-April 2011)

Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation

Doctor Who: “The Doctor’s Wife”

Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy Book

The Freedom Maze, Delia Sherman (Big Mouth House)

You can find the complete list of nominees at Locus Online.

Octavia Butler and John Clute received the Solstice Award, and Black Gate blogger Bud Webster received the SFWA Service Award, for his tireless work with the Estate Project to track literary estates for deceased members of the science fiction community. Congratulations, Bud!

Weird Tales 359 Arrives

Weird Tales 359 Arrives

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weird-tales-359aWell, sort of.

I’ve been waiting expectantly for this one. It’s something of a watershed issue — Ann VanderMeer’s final issue as editor, and the first from the new publishers, Nth Dimension media (as we reported back in August). It has fiction from Stephen Graham Jones, Tamsyn Muir, Evan J. Peterson, and many others, and articles from Paula Guran, Michael Skeet and Kenneth Hite.

At least, so they tell me. I haven’t been able to find a copy. I blame the death of Borders, where I used to be able to buy it. I’ve been checking the magazine section of my local Barnes & Noble (where I get F&SF, Asimov’s, Analog and Interzone), but no luck.

But Ann VanderMeer tells me it’s out. New publisher John Harlacher tells me it’s out. So it probably is. If you see a copy in the wild, let me know will you? Speaking of Harlacher, here’s what he says about this issue, and the spectacular cover:

The first Weird Tales issue by our company, Nth Dimension media, has gone to press, and will be in your mailboxes by the end of February. It’s edited by Ann VanderMeer, has art direction by Stephen H. Segal, and is quite beautiful… Stephen worked with our artist, Dave Buchwald (known in the graphic design world for creating the covers of 2600 magazine), to create this cover, and we think it represents a style we will use for the near future. It features the new/old logo, an intriguing symbol by Jeff Wong (www.JeffWong.com), and a stunning piece of art by Aurielien Police. The layout achieved what was most important to me – an emphasis on art, while keeping the writer in the forefront.

It really is a great cover. Click on the image at right for a bigger version. Love the dapper robot dude.

Cover price for the issue is $6.99 (I guess). It is probably 80 pages. The complete table of contents is here. We last covered Weird Tales with issue 358.