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Apex Magazine #15 arrives, featuring C.S.E. Cooney

Apex Magazine #15 arrives, featuring C.S.E. Cooney

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apexmag08Apex Magazine #15 was published on August 2, featuring fiction from Theodora Goss, Nick Mamatas, a reprint by Jeff VanderMeer — and “Dogstar Men,” a short poem by Black Gate blogger C.S.E. Cooney.

This is the first issue of Apex from new editor Catherynne M. Valente; Jason Sizemore continues as the publisher. The striking cover is by Brazilian artist Priscila Santos.

We last profiled Apex in June when they announced they were re-opening to submissions.

C.S.E. Cooney’s poem “Dogstar Men” is available here. Her most recent work for Black Gate, the three-part (and suitably epic) blog opus Exploring Fantasy in Metal, begins here.

Apex Magazine #15 is available online; the complete magazine is also available in a downloadable, pay-what-you-want edition through Smashwords, and in a Kindle edition (for 99 cents). Select back issues are also available through their excellent Magazine Archive.

To join the Apex Army and donate, subscribe, or help spread the word, visit their online store.

Anthopology 101 dives into classic SF Anthologies

Anthopology 101 dives into classic SF Anthologies

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anthopology-101aSF author Bud Webster informs us that his book Anthopology 101: Reflections, Inspections and Dissections of SF Anthologies, is now available from The Merry Blacksmith Press. Bud tells us:

Anthologies are the core samples of science fiction.  Through their pages, we can not only follow the growth of the genre from its very beginnings, but we can also study the past’s visions of the future.

As author of the always-fascinating Past Masters column, which examines the forgotten work of some of the finest SF and fantasy writers of the 20th Century, Bud should know.

This is one of the most intriguing titles I’ve come across in a while, and I’m really looking forward to getting a copy in my hot little hands.

The book includes an introduction from Mike Ashley, and collects 25 of Bud’s “Anthopology 101” columns  that originally appeared in The New York Review of Science Fiction, Chronicle, SFWA Bulletin, and other fine publications.

For anyone else with an obsessive interest in these fascinating and beautiful relics of early science fiction and fantasy (I’m talking to you, Rich Horton), you’ll want to jump over to the Merry Blacksmith website, where they’re offering free shipping on Anthopology 101 until August 21.

Thank Goodness! Why Gatekeepers Will Always Be With Us

Thank Goodness! Why Gatekeepers Will Always Be With Us

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bglgSixteen of your US dollars. That’s what the latest (monster) issue of Black Gate has cost you in these days of fear and crumbling factories. It’s strange, isn’t it? You’ll spend all that money on a collection of fiction and game reviews when the internet is bursting with so much free content. If you go looking right now, you can find a million Sword & Sorcery stories out there that you wouldn’t even need to pirate: the authors, overcome in a delirium of generosity, are only too thrilled to supply them for free.

And it doesn’t stop with short-stories! There are more novels waiting for you online than any dozen people could read in a lifetime, along with plays, movie scripts, poetry…

Oh God. The poetry.

So, what’s stopping you? I’ll tell you what’s stopping me: I don’t want to be a slush reader. It is mind-rotting, eye-burning work that actually becomes worse the more of it you do. Like some sort of cumulative poison. And for every great story we read in the pages of Black Gate, there have been several hundred at least that would have had any sane person thinking more and more about drinking that bottle of bleach under the sink. Oh yes.

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Gobsmacked: Tangent Online reviews Black Gate 14

Gobsmacked: Tangent Online reviews Black Gate 14

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bglgSteve Fahnestalk is a little overwhelemed with his first issue of Black Gate:

When I first opened the very thick envelope from Kansas City, I thought that Dave had messed up and sent me a Black Gate anthology… Full-color glossy perfect-bound wraparound cover on 380-plus pages containing not one, but three novellas, and sixteen stories. Plus poems, book and game review columns, letters, editorial and a comic strip — and handsomely illustrated throughout. I was poleaxed, banjaxed, gobsmacked and just plain overwhelmed. For those of you who bewail the terminal illness of the publishing industry, the loss of the midlist, the paring down of the professional story market and the death of the illustrated magazine, ease up. I’ve seen more professional-quality short stories in the last month in my mailbox, half of them in this magazine, than I had in the previous six months.

He draws special attention to “The Hangman’s Daughter” by Chris Braak:

Cresy has a problem. Night after night, she wakes from a dream of suffocating (as many children do) — but one particular night she thinks she saw something sitting on her chest and drawing the breath from her lungs. In these dreadful dreams she is paralyzed and can only wait for the dream to end so that she may draw a full breath again. Then, questioning the boys she plays with, she finds that all the children of Corsay have this problem. “Everyone gets those. It’s the bogeymen,” says Ally. How Cresy finds her personal center and gains the strength to face her nightmares face on (and what she finds when she does) is the crux of the story. A nice little tale of personal growth set in a less-than-usual fantasy world.

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What Sword and Sorcery Means to Me

What Sword and Sorcery Means to Me

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swordssorcery2The masterminds at SF Signal have asked the contributors and editors of Swords & Dark Magic: The New Sword & Sorcery — including some of the biggest names in fantasy — to define Sword and Sorcery, as part of their Mind Meld series.

They’ve published responses from Michael Moorcock, Glen Cook, C.J. Cherryh, James Enge, Lou Anders, Garth Nix, Joe Abercrombie, Bill Willingham, Tanith Lee, Tim Lebbon, and others.

Here’s what Moorcock said, in part:

I didn’t get this the first time around; I wrote a whole book on supernatural adventure fiction called Wizardry and Wild Romance which still probably didn’t answer the question. Basically I see it as a good old-fashioned sword and sandal or cloak and dagger drama with strong supernatural elements. Captain Blood meets Cthulhu. It seems, in fact, to have replaced the old historical melodrama in most of its aspects. Or returned to them if you look at those origins in the late Peninsula Romances which were the big news circa 1450.

You can read the complete article here, and SF Signal’s prior article on the best sword and sorcery stories — with lists from Martha Wells, Steven Brust, Brandon Sanderson, Lou Anders, James Enge, Mark Chadbourn, Mercedes Lackey, Mary Robinette Kowal and others — here.

Luke Reviews looks at Black Gate 14, Part III

Luke Reviews looks at Black Gate 14, Part III

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lasenorodleoro-277Luke Forney wraps up his detailed, three-part examination of Black Gate 14 with a look back at Part II:

The novellas really took the cake for the middle section, and had me really excited about the last part of this juggernaut of a magazine.

In the closing section he singles out “La Señora de Oro” by R.L. Roth:

This epistolary tale of a man out seeking gold to buy his farm from the bank is very engaging, playing with some nice horror themes, and really drawing out the protagonist’s character. The story races to a conclusion that was plenty rewarding.

And “Building Character” by Tom Sneem:

An entertaining tale of a character being run through a novice writer’s series of stories, this one manages to be both engaging and funny. A nice piece to build towards the end.

He closes coverage of the issue with:

The volume wraps up, as usual, with a Knights of the Dinner Table: The Java Joint comic strip, in which one of the characters plans on confronting Neil Gaiman for stealing his ideas. The extra-long strip was a fun way to close such a large issue, and manages to be plenty funny.

You can find the complete text of Part III here; Part I and Part Two are also still available. The complete TOC for Black Gate 14 is here.

Art by Malcolm McClinton for “La Señora de Oro.”

Black Gate subscriptions to increase to $39.95 on August 15th

Black Gate subscriptions to increase to $39.95 on August 15th

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bg_3-277As previously announced, Black Gate subscriptions will increase from $29.95 to $39.95 for four issues, starting August 15.

Why the increase? Frankly, it’s time to renovate the Black Gate rooftop headquarters, and all that crime-fighting equipment doesn’t come cheap.

Plus, what’s with postage costs?  When we started the magazine ten years ago, it cost roughly $1.70 to send the magazine to US destinations, Media Mail.  Now that’s risen to $2.77, or almost $12  for four issues, including packaging. When the new crime-fighting supercomputer arrives, first thing on the agenda is ferreting out the crimelords in the US Post Office.

All that means we see about $18 from every $29.95 subscription.  With our new larger size and cover price (BG 14 was $15.95), even the old steam-driven computer was able to point out that selling four issues for $18 just wasn’t going to cover all that French mineral water Howard keeps ordering.

The good news is that the magazine has grown substantially in size. We don’t promise that each issue will be as large as BG 14 (384 pages), but future issues will boast an increased page count and be priced at $12.95.

Best of all, until August 15 we’ll honor the old subscription price of $29.95 for four issues.  So if you’ve been considering a subscription, now’s the time to take action.

Back issues will also increase to $12.95/copy, but until August 15 any four back issues are available for just $29.95 as part of our Back Issue Sale .

As always, we deeply value your support. And if you’ve got a used portable forensics labs, we’re in the market.

Gary Con II Report

Gary Con II Report

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gary_con2-logo1On Saturday I drove to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, for the second annual Gary Con, a friendly gathering in honor of Gary Gygax, the co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons and the father of role-playing games.

You can read the Tribute to Gary Gygax, written by the staff at Black Gate magazine and Paizo publisher Erik Mona after Gary’s death in 2008, if you’re not familiar with his work.

Chainmail re-enactment of T1: The Village of Hommlet at Garycon II
Chainmail re-enactment of T1: The Village of Hommlet at Garycon II. Click for bigger version.

Lake Geneva is the birthplace of D&D and, consequently, the entire RPG industry. It was here that TSR, the company Gary co-founded in 1973, was headquartered for over two decades, and where many of the creative minds who helped it grow from a fledgling hobby company to the most influential game publisher of the last 30 years still live today – people like Tim Kask, founding editor of Dragon magazine, Gamma World author James Ward, RPGA founder Frank Mentzer, Snit’s Revenge creator Tom Wham, and many others.

The stated goal of the con is to “harken back to the early days of gaming conventions where role-playing was in its infancy and the players shared a strong sense of camaraderie,” and in that respect Gary Con was an unqualified success.

Players gathered around dozens of tables enjoying highlights from TSR’s early catalog, including first edition AD&D, Metamorphosis Alpha, Dawn Patrol, Boot Hill, Dungeon, Chainmail, and more modern games that strive to capture that sense of old-school adventure, such as Hackmaster, Castles and Crusades, and even Gygax’s fondly remembered post-TSR effort, Dangerous Journeys.

Best of all, I saw many renowned game designers and early TSR employees mingling with the crowd, or acting as dungeon masters for classic Gygax modules such as Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, The Temple of Hommlet, and Castle Greyhawk.

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Nebula Nomination

Nebula Nomination

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In case you haven’t heard yet, Black Gate author Judith Berman’s been nominated for a Nebula award for her story from issue 10, “Awakening.” Here’s a hearty congratulations to her!

I don’t know whether those who nominated her were excited by one of the very best openings I’ve seen in a short story for a long time, or the compelling narrative that follows (or maybe it’s their well-known preference for tales featuring necromancers) but you can certainly check it out yourself by visiting the Black Gate web site, where we’ve made the story accessible to all comers. There you will also find links to Judith’s web page as well as the SFWA announcement about all nominees.

In addition to the congratulations to Judith, I’d like to thank our web site editor, the talented Leo Grin, for his tireless, dependable, and extremely polished work on the Black Gate web site.

Howard

Judith Berman’s “Awakening” Nominated for a Nebula Award!

Judith Berman’s “Awakening” Nominated for a Nebula Award!

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Congratulations to Black Gate‘s Judith Berman for getting a Nebula nod for her story appearing in Black Gate #10, “Awakening.” A fascinating, mind-bending fantasy of ghosts, sorcerers, treasure, haunted cities, perilous forests, and lost souls, it’s a standout tale that appeared in one of our best issues yet. Read the entire story here.

When you’re through reading Judith’s tale, you can click on the issue links on the sidebar to your left and read excerpts from some of the many other talented authors to be found in the pages of Black Gate. If you haven’t subscribed yet, get to it — you’re missing out on lots of the very best fantasy and Sword-and-Sorcery fiction being published today. And be sure to check out our Back Issue Sale, the perfect way to get caught up on your Black Gate collection, available only while supplies last.