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Locus Reviews Black Gate 14

Locus Reviews Black Gate 14

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locus-595aThe August issue of Locus, the Magazine of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Field, contains a review of our latest issue by Contributing Editor Rich Horton.

Black Gate‘s Winter issue is positively huge… and it delivers excellent value. There are three novellas, all entertaining. My favorite was Robert J. Howe’s “The Natural History of Calamity,” which is basically urban fantasy, but with quite a clever central idea. Debbie Colavito is a private detective with a difference: she detects what’s wrong with someone’s “karmic flow” and restores the balance. In this story she takes a case for a nice young man whose equally nice girlfriend has just dumped him. Was it something he did wrong, some bad karma? Or is it something to do with her new boyfriend, a nasty piece of work who, by coincidence, has some history with Debbie? The central idea is pretty intriguing and could, I think, support a series. Nicely done, with some well-handled twists.

Rich also enjoyed “Devil on the Wind” and “The Word of Azrael”:

“Devil on the Wind,” by Michael Jasper & Jay Lake concerns a group of magicians whose power arises from their own suicides (and revivals). One such witch is sent to a nearby Prince to enforce the rule of these magicians. But she learns that her allies have plans that don’t include her… Even better is Matthew [David] Surridge’s “The Word of Azrael.” It concerns Isrohim Vey, who sees the Angel of Death on a battlefield and as a result is spared — more a curse than a blessing — to search again for the Angel. His search almost takes the form of a catalog of sword & sorcery tropes, his many adventures told briefly but with style and an ironic edge. Surridge both celebrates and winks at the genre. It’s very entertaining, clever, and even thought-provoking.

The online counterpart to Locus magazine is the excellent Locus Online, edited by Mark R. Kelly.

Dragon*Con Report Part 2

Dragon*Con Report Part 2

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dragonconlogoI said a few words about Dragon*Con itself in Part 1 of my con report.  In this one, I’d like to share our experiences at the largest science fiction and fantasy convention in North America.

After a long  journey,  Black Gate publisher John O’Neill and I reached  Atlanta late Thursday afternoon. Reviews Editor Bill Ward acted as our elite scout, and was not only waiting with con badges, but had scoped out the route we’d need to follow to unload our boxes and boxes of Black Gate magazines and vintage science fiction paperbacks. While John and I have been corresponding with Bill Ward for several years, we’d never before met him in person, and it was a pleasure to be able to do so. Bill proved to be just as indispensable, organized, and articulate as he is online, and possessed a dry, quick wit as well.

Jason Waltz, owner of Rogue Blades Entertainment, shared a quarter of the booth with us, and although he and his friend John Whitman had driven down from Milwaukee and we had driven down from Illinois and Indiana, we somehow arrived within a few minutes of each other without coordination. I doubt it would have worked out as well if we’d actually planned it. Between the five of us we managed to get all the Black Gate gear and RBE gear unloaded within an hour. Unpacking it and putting it on display took a bit longer, and required additional time the following morning.

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Sword & Sorcery is Alive and Well at Pyr

Sword & Sorcery is Alive and Well at Pyr

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shadows-sonWell, I’m back from Dragon*Con, and my head is still spinning. It would take me weeks to jot down even a partial record of all the events we attended and the great people we met (not to mention the jaw-dropping costumes I was constantly gawking at) — so I think I’ll leave that to Howard, who’s already posted Part I of a splendid con report.

Instead, I’m going to hit the highlights.  The best event we attended at the convention, bar none, was the Pyr Books, a New Voice in Publishing panel, hosted by publisher Lou Anders and attended by Pyr authors Clay & Susan Griffith, Erin Hoffman, Andrew Mayer, Ari Marmell, Mike Resnick, Jon Sprunk, Sam Sykes, and the amazingly cool James Enge.

Why was it so great? Lou highlighted the terrific titles Pyr will be publishing over the next six months in a fast-paced and entertaining slide show, and each of the authors chimed in at appropriate moments to tell us a little more about their books. It was a great way to get introduced to an entire line in under an hour.

And what a line. I haven’t been this intrigued by so many books from a single publisher in a long time.

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Dragon*Con Report Part 1

Dragon*Con Report Part 1

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john-and-the-hobbits
John O'Neill mingling with celebrities.

Those of you who’ve never attended a convention, let alone Dragon*Con, might wonder what the purpose of one is, and what they are like. I used to wonder what all the fuss was over myself, so I thought I’d provide a quick primer for the uninitiated. Attending a fantasy or science fiction convention is an excellent opportunity to mingle with other people who enjoy the same things you do, to interact with the creators of the kinds of work you love, and to meet with the people who edit and publish that work. Sometimes it’s a chance to obtain reproductions of that work, or images from it, or objects based on props from said work. Conventions are also a fabulous chance to network with peers and publishers who might or might not know your own work, although I never advise cornering an editor for twenty minutes of unbroken narrative to pitch any novel, especially one that you haven’t written yet.

But as to what a convention is like, they’re all different. World Fantasy Con, which Black Gate will be attending in force near the end of October, tends to be somewhat intimate, and fairly sober – at least during the day. Dragon*Con, well… I think Lou Anders of Pyr described it quite well in a post earlier today when he said it was like Mardi Gras on Middle-Earth. There are so many different lines of programming that Dragon*Con requires five immense hotels to provide space for them all, and so many attendees that they can’t fit into even those – there are at least five overflow hotels in addition to those with events. There seem to have been something in the area of 68,000 people attending this year. You could field a whole lot of Roman legions with all of those people, though you probably wouldn’t want to.

When I say “Lines of Programming” I mean different kinds of panels and events. There are so many special guests and panels to attend you can go to Dragon*Con with ten of your friends and each have entirely different, and interesting, experiences. If you want, you can go to nothing but writing panels and learn publishing secrets. You can go to media panels where movie, TV, or comic stars discuss what it was/is like working on their show. You can go to the art show and peruse the graphic arts, or maybe buy some, or go on the gaming track, or see a huge selection of independent films. There were two halls of exhibitors and one dealer room and even though I toured through all three I’m sure I didn’t see every product. Strolling through all of it are folk in costume. Some of those costumes are simple affairs, or store bought. Some are hand-crafted works of exquisite art. Some of them will sear your mind in wonder, although not always the good kind.

Into this we of Black Gate wandered, and I’ll provide a detailed account of what we saw and who we met before the end of the week.

Black Gate Zeppelin to Dragon*Con Update 6: Collateral Damage

Black Gate Zeppelin to Dragon*Con Update 6: Collateral Damage

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Adrift over the Great Black Swamp, the wingless flying car Caeruleum probed earth water and the night-dark sky with the sightless fingers of sensor beams.

“The principle is simple enough,” explained Rapunzel McNally, the mad philologist’s beautiful daughter, her clear-cut features lit an eerie green from readouts on the air-car’s control panel. “The cicadas and crickets of the swamp, responding to ancient magnetic rhythms in the earth, spell out messages from the timeless times from before time. My father explained it to me.”

“I suppose it hasn’t occurred to you,” I said, “that your father is the one who’s simple?”

Her father, the mad philologist Gabriel McNally, was in the back seat of the aircar, wearing his most stylish straightjacket. After his denial of tenure by the University of Mackinac he had spent a month drinking absinthe, and had disappeared for another month into the swamp. He returned babbling about a convention of dragons and messages from the Old Ones.

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After the Book Deal

After the Book Deal

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In May of 2010 I posted two short essays about something that had been a kind of holy grail for me: obtaining a book deal with a major publisher. That first essay is about the power of making connections; the second concerns itself more with the specifics of my own novel contract. In this third essay I thought I’d talk a little about what happened once the book contract was signed.1793-notebook1

The advice you usually hear is to not quit your day job, so you may be wondering why I did so, since, as I previously mentioned, I was not awarded a gold-plated limousine with my new book deal.  I have a spouse with a good income, and my advance was more than I would make in a year teaching as an adjunct professor at the local university, so my wife and I decided to have me try writing full time to see how it would all pan out. It is not as great a gamble as it might be for someone with a more permanent position, as I can always return to teach more adjunct classes.

In January I began to draft the promised second book. I continued to work away at it until I got the chance to submit a book proposal to a brand new novel line at Paizo. I had enjoyed my communications with Paizo’s Erik Mona and James Sutter during my years at Black Gate, and I’d thought highly of their game products, so I tossed my hat in the ring. The result was another book offer, which has kept me so busy for the summer that I pretty much disappeared from the Black Gate board. I have enjoyed working with the Paizo folks, but as that editorial process is just beginning and that for my first book is wrapping up, I thought I’d talk today about the steps of novel deal one.

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Black Gate Zeppelin to Dragon*Con Update 5: It’s too Hideous

Black Gate Zeppelin to Dragon*Con Update 5: It’s too Hideous

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The Harold Lamb approaches Caracas to ask for directions
The Harold Lamb approaches Caracas to ask for directions.

Oh God. Oh, God.   Lovecraft was right.  Things that are seen, cannot be unseen.

So I thought I’d have a private cabin on this flying death-trap Howard Andrew Jones has poetically named The Harold Lamb, but no.  That’s reserved for important bloggers, like Sue “Goth Chick” Granquist, and our fancy pilot, Bill Ward.  During our trip to Atlanta, I’m stuck down here in engineering, sharing a tiny cabin with Jason Waltz and John Woolley.  They’re good guys, but for the past two days they’ve been laughing about some private joke.  This morning, when I was finally done shoveling coal into the engines, I asked them to let me in on it.

They share a glance, and then Woolley moves a little closer, his voice lowered.  “Okay,” he says. “You know how naive editor John O’Neill is, right?”

Well, yeah.  He’s a Canadian, he trusts everyone.  I nod, and Woolley continues: “He’s never been to Dragon*Con before.  Yesterday he asks me and Jason about it.  What he should expect, stuff like that.  So I tell him, it’s tradition to dress up as Princess Leia — that wins everyone over. And he totally falls for it.”

I chuckle.  That sounds like John.  Right now he’s probably in the stores, cutting up sheets to make a white princess dress.  But before I can comment, Jason adds: “That’s not the worst part. Yesterday I heard him asking Howard about those illegal genetic samples we picked up when we raided Dr. Zarius’ polar labs.  He took two back to his room.”

“Wait,” I say, with mounting horror. “O’Neill’s not crazy enough to experiment with those…. is he? They can change you, in ways you’d never imagine.” I can see in John’s and Jason’s faces that they’ve suddenly come to the same dread conclusion I have.  In moments, the three of us are pounding on the door to O’Neill’s cabin.

“Go away!” he shouts from inside.  But his voice…. it’s changed.  Changed in indescribable ways.

“We’ve got to break down this door,” Woolley says fervently, grabbing a crow bar.  Jason helps him, but I start to back away.  I know, with absolute mounting horror, what we’ll find when we open that door.  It can’t be… it can’t be… but I know that it will be.  And I can feel my very sanity slipping away… just as I hear the door crash open, and the screaming begins, as John and Jason look upon the horror within…

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Black Gate Zeppelin to Dragon*Con Update Episode 4: Boys Smell

Black Gate Zeppelin to Dragon*Con Update Episode 4: Boys Smell

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zeppelin-girl1On the whole, I’m not opposed to traveling with boys. Generally speaking they are amusing companions particularly when refusing to ask directions, thereby winding you through mildly interesting places while attempting to locate the desired destination sans MapQuest. Along the route, in an effort to distract their hapless passengers from all the pointless meandering, they can generally be counted on for lively and revealing conversation about former girlfriends, prior arrests and entirely icky things done in frat houses; all of which become prime blackmail fodder for later use.

Therefore, I did not immediately dismiss Howard’s idea of coming along on a road-trip to the Atlanta Dragon*Con in the Black Gate zeppelin via the Canadian Rockies, Baja and Rhode Island. Frankly by the normal standards, it’s about as much planning as I’ve ever know these boys to do. Besides, just seeing the look on John’s face when he heard the whole plan would have been more than enough incentive in and of itself, but when I learned the zeppelin had enough cargo space to house the new batch of interns plus my blender, I was in.

Now several days into the trip we are, of course, hopelessly astray of the original brilliantly planned route, E.E. Knight keeps going on and on about the steaks at Le Cheveux Club Pour Les Hommes and how big his Mauser is, and in an attempt to get cell coverage John insists on going topside in spite of the turbulence, then throwing up over what I hope is Cleveland but at this point could just as easily be New Mexico.

And the overall conditions in this zeppelin are starting to deteriorate.

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Black Gate Zeppelin to Dragon*Con Update Episode 3: the Salad is Tossed

Black Gate Zeppelin to Dragon*Con Update Episode 3: the Salad is Tossed

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All hands repel boarders!
All hands repel boarders!

Gentlemen!

I can indeed verify that Howard von Steppenwolf-Jones’s fearful presentiment about the revelation of our route is correct. We are compromised and our mission imperiled. While returning home from a convivial evening of cards and tawny Port at my club (Le Cheveux Club Pour Les Hommes — best steak au poivre in Chicago, I might add) I noticed my door had been  jimmied with a crude textural analysis and took the precaution of drawing my trusty life preserver. Senses, pistol, and wits half-cocked, I entered. From my library, I heard a whispered chant:

Mene, mene, Derrida upchuckin’
Dulce et decorum est, pro postmodernism scribtum

I’d heard those black words before, in the nightmarish 2006 free-for-all at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival.  A claven of MFA candidates, driven mad by Midwestern Chardonnay and a few passed-around copies of Rosebud, had very nearly cost me my life.

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Black Gate Zeppelin to Dragon*Con Update

Black Gate Zeppelin to Dragon*Con Update

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zepplein-brochure2bThere’s a temporary lull in operations and the skies are clear over Oklahoma, so I thought I’d take the time to set the record straight about our expedition to Dragon*Con via the Black Gate zeppelin, the Harold Lamb. John described the start of our journey just after we departed the Black Gate rooftop headquarters Thursday.

Those of you who know publisher John O’Neill are aware that he has a tendency to exaggerate. For instance, he stated that the zeppelin is capable of Mach 2, but it usually maxes out around 1.5. He’d probably report that we were attacked by a flock of cybernetic pterodactyls, but in truth it was really only a half dozen, and Bill Ward and I took out most of them with the electric railguns. John was only blown back a few feet when the aft railgun exploded, too, so just nod politely if he tells you he was smashed into the hull and stunned.

I really wish John hadn’t broadcast our route, because I’m afraid it’s attracted unwanted attention. I’m fairly certain Dr. Zaius sent the cybernetic pterodactyls after us, but John Fultz tells me he sent mocking letters to both Aquaman AND the Legion of Doom on Black Gate letterhead, so there’s just no telling. Still, we’re prepared for pretty much anything on our journey, and we’ve decided to stick with the plan.

Now I thought I’d take a few moments to respond to some questions that have come in during our trip.

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