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Adventures Fantastic Salutes Bud Webster and Tom Reamy

Adventures Fantastic Salutes Bud Webster and Tom Reamy

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san-diego-lightfoot1We’re receiving reports as Black Gate 15 arrives in mailboxes around the globe. We’ll update you here as we collect feedback and reviews on the issue and its contents.

One of the first to check in was Keith West at Adventures Fantastic, who has written an open letter to Bud Webster in response to Bud’s column on Tom Reamy, the acclaimed fan and short story writer who died in 1977:

Dear Bud,

I wanted to let you know how much I appreciated your profiling Tom Reamy in your inaugural installment of “Who?!” in the new issue of Black Gate. I’ve enjoyed your “Past Masters” columns for years. You have a tendency to profile most of my favorite writers from my teenage years. I assume you know which ones to pick because you have exemplary taste. I was especially pleased that you chose Tom Reamy. He is an author who is sadly neglected, and I wish someone would bring him back into print in an archival edition…

Somewhere, and I don’t recall where, I found a hardcover of San Diego Lightfoot Sue. At the time I was (and still am) an aspiring writer with a fondness for short fiction… In his Afterward, Howard Waldrop writes about the gas station the Reamys operated on the highway between Breckenridge and Woodson. As soon as I read about it, I knew exactly the gas station Howard was talking about. It sat in a curve in the road just inside the county line.

The gas station is gone now, but the house is still standing. That’s it in the photo on the right. I’d read on the Black Gate blog that you were going to write about Tom and I took the picture when I was visiting my parents in Breckenridge last Christmas.

Job well done, Keith. A nice piece of investigative reporting. Thanks for the touching tribute of your own. Hope you enjoy the rest of the issue as much as Bud’s column.

You can see Keith’s complete letter (and photos) here.

A Review of City of Bones by Martha Wells

A Review of City of Bones by Martha Wells

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city-of-bonesCity of Bones by Martha Wells
Tor Books (383 pages, hardcover, June 1995)

It’s always fun to find a fantasy book that isn’t based on medieval Europe. City of Bones, by Martha Wells, is advertised as a story which draws on the Arabian Nights, and it does not have genies and magic lamps, but certainly brave thieves and dangerous deserts. It also contains a little bit of steampunk and a post-apocalyptic element.

Our hero Khat is a relic dealer, which is to say, a shady and unlicensed archeologist-for-profit. It seems that long ago, the world was wetter and cooler and more hospitable, and artifacts from that time have great value — not to mention, very occasionally, magic powers. Now, most of the world is covered by a rocky desert called the Waste. Khat is a krisman, a hardy marsupial humanoid who is well-adapted to the Waste, but reviled in most cities. Charisat, where he lives, may be one of the richest trading cities in the world, but it’s a cruel and hierarchical place.

Khat and most of the people he knows are noncitizens, and they take it for granted that they have very few rights. They aren’t even permitted to use “real” money, just tokens that serve the same purpose. Khat and his associates are very careful never to speak of buying artifacts; they barter for them. Even using the word “buying” could bring the Trade Inspectors down on them, and if the Trade Inspectors take them away, they won’t be coming back.

This tension between the powerful and the powerless is one of the driving forces of the story. When Khat is hired by a Patrician to help explore a nearby ruin, he takes it as read that he’ll probably be betrayed. It only becomes worse when he realizes that the Patrician is actually a Warder, a law enforcer who uses sanity-destroying magic. Khat becomes more and more involved in events, but he never entirely trusts any of his companions, even fellow relic dealer Sagai, his long-time partner. His paranoia is at least partly justified.

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Black Gate 15 PDF Version Now Available

Black Gate 15 PDF Version Now Available

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bg-15-cover2The PDF version of Black Gate 15 is available for immediate purchase from our online store.

BG 15 is $8.95 in PDF for a single copy, and is also available as part of a two-issue subscription ($16.50) or four-issue subscription ($29.95). For print subscribers the cost is even lower: just $4.95 for a single PDF, and $8.50 for a two-issue sub.

All those with an existing PDF subscription have now been sent a unique download link. If you have a PDF sub and have not yet received one, contact us at sales@blackgate.com.

BG 15 is another massive issue: 387 pages of fiction, reviews, and articles. It contains 22 stories, totaling nearly 152,000 words of adventure fantasy. An intrepid prince conducts a daring raid to intimidate a sinister monarch in “An Uprising of One,” by Jamie McEwan. Three brothers undertake a dangerous voyage to find a new god for their village in Rosamund Hodge’s “Apotheosis.” And two skilled soldiers find that a simple delivery for a necromancer is never simple in “A Pound of Dead Flesh,” by Fraser Ronald.

Plus the sequel to “The Beautiful Corridor” (BG 13) by Jonathan L. Howard, a lengthy excerpt from the blockbuster Dabir & Asim novel The Desert of Souls by Howard Andrew Jones, and new fiction from Harry Connolly, John C. Hocking, John Fultz, Vaughn Heppner, Darrell Schweitzer, Michael Livingston, Frederic S. Durbin, Chris Willrich, Maria V. Snyder, and many others!

In our non-fiction features Mike Resnick looks back at the best in black & white fantasy cinema, Bud Webster turns his attention to the brilliant Tom Reamy in his Who? column on 20th Century fantasy authors, Scott Taylor challenges ten famous fantasy artists to share their vision of a single character in Art Evolution, and Rich Horton looks at the finest fantasy anthologies of the last 25 years. Plus over 30 pages of book, game, and DVD reviews, edited by Bill Ward, Howard Andrew Jones, and Andrew Zimmerman Jones — and a brand new Knights of the Dinner Table strip.

The complete Table of Contents for the issue is here.

My Tim Prattathon at Podcastle and Other Cool Things

My Tim Prattathon at Podcastle and Other Cool Things

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bgpodcastleI had a quiet day at work, but blimey! I got a lot done!

While I hauled boxes, processed books, priced, et cetera — so long as customers weren’t in the bookstore — I listened to four stories right off of Podcastle’s website, starting with two by Tim Pratt.

The first one was called “Cup and Table”, which was (and here I quote the man who recommended it to me), “so kick-ass and so much fun and kind of unbelievable how much is crammed into that story.” It was very time-bendy (timey-wimey, as the denizens of Doctor Who might say), its edginess and moroseness always tinged with the tongue-in-cheek. And the end? Surprised a huge grin outta me. I very much recommend it.

bghartThe second, “Hart and Boot”, was less structurally complex but even more to my taste. It was like something my buddy Patty might write after we watched a few too many episodes of Deadwood and we were in a gun-slinging, hip-swinging mood. Its protagonist, Pearl Hart, made me want to put on a pair of cowboy boots and shoot my way across the west. (‘Specially if naked men sort of slurped up from the mud every time I thought on ’em hard enough. Yummy.)

What I liked best was that even with Pearl’s foul mouth, her conniving mind, her selfishness and brazenness and remorseless use of people (especially, perhaps, of the one human she actually loved), she still had moments of rough tenderness that just… got me. Boot was great too, but there’s only so much you can do with a character that tired all the time.

HECK YEAH TIM PRATT!

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WAY OF THE WIZARD Giveaway

WAY OF THE WIZARD Giveaway

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wayofthewizard6
Over at Goodreads, editor John Joseph Adams is giving away 10 free copies of the stupendous WAY OF THE WIZARD anthology. The book is packed full of terrific fantasy tales featuring wizards, warlocks, witches, sorcerers, magicians, and other workers of magic.

I’m proud to have a story in the book (“The Thirteen Texts of Arthyria”) but some of my personal favorites are George R. R. Martin’s “Into the Lost Lands,” Neil Gaiman’s “How to Sell the Ponti Bridge” (possibly my favorite Gaiman tale ever!), Jeffrey Ford’s mindbending “The Sorcerer Minus,” Susana Clarke’s mythic “John Uskglass and the Cambrian Charcoal Burner,” Robert Silverberg’s “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” Adam-Troy Castro’s “Cerile and the Journeyer,” Mike Resnick’s haunting “Winter Solstice,” and Kelly Link’s superb “The Wizards of Perfil.” And there are tons more great tales here.

Click over to http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/10571-the-way-of-the-wizardand snag your free copy!

Cheers,
John

The Novels of Black Gate

The Novels of Black Gate

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childoffire“Why do the review pages always seem to be full of books which no one buys and the bestseller lists full of books no one reviews?”

This was tweeted the other day by a lit. agent called missdaisyfrost and the first thing it brought to my mind was Black Gate.

Day by day, genre short fiction magazines seem to grow more literary even as their sales plummet, while BG — may I call you BG? — is one of the few to proudly assert its pulp roots and to cater to the majority of people who like, you know, something to happen in the stories they read.

So, it’s interesting that while a lot of my fellow BG buddies haven’t had stellar success in most of the Big Mags out there in the wild, many of them are now kicking ass in the real market, novels: the only place outside of Hollywood that writers can make an actual living from their craft.

The first story I ever read in the magazine was Harry Connolly‘s The Whoremaster of Pald. It totally knocked my socks off.

Nor was I the only one to suffer from sudden chills in the foot area — people raved about that story and now, years later, Child of Fire, by the same author has 108 reviews on Amazon.com, most of them equally thrilled.

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Now Shipping: Black Gate 15

Now Shipping: Black Gate 15

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bg-15-cover2Black Gate 15 is now shipping.  The last subscriber copies will go in the mail early next week.

The issue is for sale through our online store.  Copies are available to US subscribers for just $18.95 including shipping (just select “Sample Issue”), or as part of a 2-issue subscription for only $32.95.

BG 15 is a massive 384 pages, packed with the best in modern adventure fantasy. This issues’s theme is Warrior Women, and it includes tales of female warriors, wizards, weather witches, thieves, and other brave women as they face deadly tombs, sinister gods, unquiet ghosts, and much more. Contributors this issue include Frederic S. Durbin, Harry Connolly, John Fultz, Darrell Schweitzer, Chris Willrich, Maria V. Snyder, and many others.

BG 15 is notable for more than just its epic size. This issue we celebrate the triumphant return of the fantasy series to our pages — starting with Jonathan L. Howard’s “The Shuttered Temple,” featuring the resourceful thief Kyth the Taker in the sequel to “The Beautiful Corridor” (BG 13).

Plus the opening installments of five exciting new serials that will continue in Black Gate 16 and beyond:

  • Vaughn Heppner’s rollicking sword & sorcery tale of the barbarian Lod in a decadent city, “The Oracle of Gog”
  • Brian Dolton’s Yi Qin the exorcist in a mystery of the ancient Orient, “What Chains Binds Us”
  • John C. Hocking’s tale of The Archivist and a deadly desert tomb, “A River Through Darkness and Light”
  • Jamie McEwan’s intrepid prince Tanek and his desperate solo campaign against a relentless invader, “An Uprising of One”
  • S. Hutson Blount’s story of Hautbee and the dread sorceress Gambetzo, “The Laws of Chaos Left Us All in Disarray”

That’s not all.  Howard Andrew Jones offers up a tantalizing slice of his blockbuster new novel The Desert of Souls; and Mike Resnick , Bud Webster, Scott Taylor, and Rich Horton contribute feature articles. Plus over 30 pages of book, game, and DVD reviews, edited by Bill Ward, Howard Andrew Jones, and Andrew Zimmerman Jones — and a brand new 4-page Knights of the Dinner Table strip! Plus 22 full pages of art from Kent Burles, Storn Cook, Mark Evans, John E. Kaufmann, Jim & Ruth Keegan, Malcolm McClinton, and many others. See the complete Table of Contents here.

Don’t forget our Back Issue Sale: any two back issues for just $25 plus shipping — including the massive BG 14 (384 pages, cover price $18.95) and our rare first issue (regularly $18.95).

Cover by Donato Giancola.

How I Spoiled My Own Bad Guys with Unexpected Success

How I Spoiled My Own Bad Guys with Unexpected Success

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el_greco_view_of_toledo. . . not that I mind, really.

I’m getting prepared to go on vacation in my own hometown, staying in a hotel a mere five miles from my current apartment. That’s what you get when you win a free trip to Hollywood . . . and you live in Century City (a.k.a. “Beverly Hills Adjacent”).

I am getting good mileage out of that joke, believe me. For this year’s Writers of the Future and Illustrators of the Future workshop and award ceremony, people are being flown into Los Angeles from as far away as Perth in Western Australia and Johannesburg in South Africa. As for me: a right turn, a left, another right, another left. With good traffic, sixteen minutes, or so declares the Lords of MapQuest. I don’t know if I’ve ever gotten to Hollywood in under sixteen minutes, but I tend to travel there during peak hours.

But what’s this post really about, since I imagine most of you do not dial into the Black Gate frequency to hear my driving reports?

First, it’s to explain why I might not have a post up next Tuesday, which is the start of the workshop week for winners of the Writers of the Future Contest. Second, it’s to shamelessly plug the upcoming Writers of the Future Vol. 27, in which I’ll be making my professional fiction-writing debut with my story “An Acolyte of Black Spires.” The anthology’s unveiling will be on Sunday, May 15, but the book won’t be on sale at bookstores and online outlets until the next month. None of the contributors have even seen the cover yet, nor have we seen the illustrations for our individual stories. (There’s apparently a special procedure for that.) The ceremony on the 15th at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel will stream live through the Writers of the Future website, in case anybody cares to see what I look like in a tux. Also, I have a few people on the Black Gate team I plan to mention in my speech. So, John, Howard, and Bill . . . you might want to tune in. Just saying.

But what I really want to talk about is the bizarre nature of “short story order.” When I first set out to write short stories in a series, I knew I would not have much control over the order in which they appeared. I’ve read enough on pulp history to understand how that works. However, 1) I never expected to sell any of these stories; and 2) I would never have imagined that this particular one would be the first in the series to appear.

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