Browsed by
Category: BG Staff

Scott Taylor at Game Knight Reviews

Scott Taylor at Game Knight Reviews

Comments 1 comment

game-knight-reviewsBlack Gate‘s Scott Taylor, our esteemed Wednesday blogger and author of the Art Evolution series, is the first ever guest blogger at Game Knight Reviews this week. GKR is a terrific source of roleplaying game reviews, interviews and news, run by Brian Fitzpatrick.

Scott talks about how he first discovered Black Gate:

Sometime in 2008 I was shopping short story markets and someone on a blogging site indicated that the Swords & Sorcery magazine Black Gate was an option for a story I was writing. As a person always dedicated to wanting to know my market, and being a huge fan of Robert E. Howard and Fritz Leiber, I ordered three of the most recent copies of the magazine as ‘research material.’

When they arrived at my home I was intrigued to find that they were included with a two page letter of thanks that was actually a ‘choose your own adventure’ concerning a haunted house and the spirits of half a dozen literary fantasy greats. I laughed and laughed as I went through it, died probably three times, and in my minds-eye was whisked away to the junior high library where I first picked up a copy of The Cave of Time.

That, my friends, is what Black Gate is about, pure nostalgia, humor, and of course some of the most outstanding fantasy fiction one can find on today’s market.

Thanks for the plug, Scott! Glad to hear you enjoyed the mini solo-RPG we included as a subscriber letter with Black Gate 12. It’s still available with every copy shipped.

You can read the complete guest blog here, and check out the excellent Game Knight Reviews here.

Rich Horton Reviews Blood of Ambrose and This Crooked Way

Rich Horton Reviews Blood of Ambrose and This Crooked Way

Comments 4 comments

World Fantasy Award Nominee

Blood of Ambrose
James Enge
Pyr (416 pp, $15.98, April 2009)

This Crooked Way
James Enge
Pyr (414 pp, $16.00, October 2009)
Reviewed by Rich Horton

A few years ago Black Gate featured the first published story from James Enge, “Turn Up This Crooked Way” (in BG 8). I admit I regard first stories with skepticism – but despite limited expectations I was entirely delighted, and at the end of the year it made my “Virtual Best of the Year” list. Enge continued to place stories in the pages of Black Gate, all featuring the main character from “Turn Up This Crooked Way,” a rather dour magician named Morlock Ambrosius. Morlock’s reputation is bad, but, perhaps predictably, he is actually on the side of good. There were some hints of a tortured history for him in those initial stories, but little real details about his past.

Now we have two novels from Enge, each also about Morlock. The first, Blood of Ambrose, is more conventionally a novel – though quite episodic in structure – and while Morlock is a major character, he shares the stage with another protagonist. But we are vouchsafed some revelations about Morlock’s back story. As for the second book, This Crooked Way, it is straightforwardly a fix-up of several of the Black Gate stories, as well as some new episodes and linking material. For all that, it does feature an overarching narrative arc, so it ends up working effectively enough as a novel.

…

Read More Read More

WISCON SUNDAY: In Which Goblins, Floomps, Flying Spaghetti Monsters and Ice Cream Robot Kings Abound

WISCON SUNDAY: In Which Goblins, Floomps, Flying Spaghetti Monsters and Ice Cream Robot Kings Abound

Comments 8 comments
"Like FIRE, HellFIRE, this FIRE in my skin!"
"Like FIRE, HellFIRE, this FIRE in my skin!"

It was a stormy Sunday morning in Wisconsin. Guests of the Madison Concourse startled awake to the tune of “Hellfire,” from Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame, floating in from a nearby hotel room.

The voices were tuneful (well, mostly — given the amount of sleep the singers were operating on) and vigorous (especially for that hour of the morning), and, after all, who could resist lines like:

Voice 1: It’s not my fault!

Voice 2: MEA CULPA!

Voice 1: I’m not to blame!

Voice 2: MEA CULPA!

Voice 1: It is the gypsy girl, the witch who sent this flame!

Voice 2: MEA MAXIMA CULPA!

The guests, satisfied that no poor soul was being murdered and flung from a bell tower in a righteous rage — that, after all, it was only Ms. El-Mohtar and myself greeting the morning in our usual way — rolled back over and went to sleep…

…

Read More Read More

WISCON SATURDAY: In Which We Encounter Monsters, Tacos, Traveling Fates & Faerieland

WISCON SATURDAY: In Which We Encounter Monsters, Tacos, Traveling Fates & Faerieland

Comments 9 comments
133
Terrifying banana of later acquaintance.

The Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood woke with much gusto. A puppy pile was had, as was a deliciously free, Con-Suite breakfast. There was a random, rather interruptive child building a trebuchet at the table. Sadly, the trebuchet didn’t work.

[The Critic suggests that you never attempt to give C.S.E. Cooney a banana at breakfast or otherwise. She has a mild anger at bananas.]

Overlord O’Neill went down to the dealers’ room. His Saturday activities included zapping book mites with a nano-taser, shouting to all and any of the merits of Black Gate and entertaining Bradley P. Beaulieu, the author of The Winds of Khalakovo. Yes, dear reader, there were so many authors at WisCon you couldn’t itch your back without knocking one off your shoulder.

O'Neill and Beaulieu
O’Neill and Beaulieu

While O’Neill was go-go dancing and having the Drexler-Smalley debate with those that walked by, C.S.E. Cooney and I attended Monsters!, a panel exploring the fascination of anomalous villains, led by David Peterson, P.C. Hodgell, Richard S. Russell and Tuppence.

What is the definition of a monster and how has it changed throughout history? The general consensus was that a monster is that which is unexplainable, unnatural, uncontrollable and has no culture.

frankensteinToday’s monsters usually cause psychological discomfort, whereas Medieval monsters were more of a spiritual bane.

Extending the question to who can be a monster, the experiments of Stanley Milgram and Solomon Asch were examined. Two continually referenced texts were On Monsters by Stephen T. Asma and The Monsters by Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler.

milgram-experimentMeanwhile, Katie Redding attended the Human, Cyborg or Just Another Robot? panel that, well, I refuse to talk about. We are not convinced that our Ms. K. is all that she used to be. In fact, we think she is more. There was a mech-hole in her noggin, (think Terminator 2 where they unscrew the back of Arnold’s head) and now she can lift mid-sized sedans and calculate large sums quicker than Rain Man.

…

Read More Read More

Locus Online Reviews Black Gate 15

Locus Online Reviews Black Gate 15

Comments 1 comment

bg-15-cover2Lois Tilton at Locus Online is one of the most diligent short fiction reviewers in the industry, and she’s been a friend and frequent champion of Black Gate for years. She’s the first to check in with a complete (and I do mean complete) review of our latest issue, although as usual she’s cranky about our fondness for series fiction:

I found much to praise in the last issue, and particularly the absence of the usual series stories. Possibly just to vex me, this time the zine has at least four new series and more sequels.

She had many kind words for the issue, including this about Jonathan L. Howard’s “The Shuttered Temple”:

Kyth the Taker… has taken a commission from the priesthood of Prytha to enter the Shuttered Temple, originally built years ago by an emperor whose power was being eroded by the Prythians. No one has yet survived the attempt… What Kyth is, besides broke, is apt at recognizing a trap when she sees it.

This one features the protagonist from one of the most enjoyable tales I’ve read in this zine, and the current story shares the same qualities of cleverness and ingenuity, with a light, engaging narrative.

–RECOMMENDED

We’re fans of sequels and series, of course, because truly great characters and stories aren’t always recognized immediately. Sometimes it takes a few installments for rich, complex fantasy to really find its audience.

Case in point: it’s great to see that Lois now considers the first Kyth story, “The Beautiful Corridor” (BG 13), “one of the most enjoyable tales I’ve read in this zine.” Especially since she dismissed it with faint praise in her original review, giving a “Recommended” label to the tale that followed it instead. It’s frequently only in retrospect that rich fiction truly reveals itself, and the best way we know to keep exciting characters fresh in your mind  is to present them to you as often as we can.

And that’s why we publish sequels. I’m glad it’s working.

WISCON FRIDAY: In Which the Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood Crashes A Zeppelin Into the State Capital

WISCON FRIDAY: In Which the Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood Crashes A Zeppelin Into the State Capital

Comments 12 comments
The Harold Lamb Comes to East Dundee
The Harold Lamb Comes to East Dundee

It was a partly cloudy day in East Dundee, IL.

There we were, three youngish women, frolicking in the flower garden, drinking tea and entertaining toddlers, when all of a sudden, a shadow moved over the sun.

It was Black Gate’s zeppelin, the Harold Lamb, on the descent.

“Ef!” Ms. Templeton twirled her stealth parasol in alarm. “The Gee-Dee thing’s coming down on the roof!”

“Not my roof!” Ms. Redding shouted, a baby on one stylishly jutted hip and a chaenomeles speciosa (a nasty and ubiquitous shrubbery, recently uprooted by dint of chain and pickup truck from her front garden) brandished high in her free arm.

For myself, I was convinced Ms. Redding was set to hurl the shrub (or, at the very least, the baby) at the Harold Lamb in an effort to knock it off its fatal course. Thankfully, at the last moment, the zeppelin veered, mooring itself between two surviving elms. A rope ladder unfurled. A familiar voice over the loudspeaker boomed down:

“Will the Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood please climb aboard?”

…

Read More Read More

Why Do You Like to Write? The Story of Janelle

Why Do You Like to Write? The Story of Janelle

Comments 1 comment

mead-notebooksWriters of the Future Volume XXVII is now available for pre-order from Amazon. That any book with my work in it is available on Amazon blows my mind.

Anyway . . . this week I started writing some more observations on my experience at the Writers of the Future Workshop, but somehow got sidetracked into the rest of what you’re going to read. So I’m delaying more WotF until next week.

“Why did you become a writer?” or “Why do you like to write?” These are variants of the same question — one that most writers, whether career authors, part-timers, or hobbyists, encounter many times. The simplest questions are the trickiest to answer, as the Tao Te Ching points out: “Straightforward words sometimes seem paradoxical.”

Here are my straightforward words to answer both these questions: I enjoy telling stories by using words in interesting ways.

Now, to confuse the issue and make it paradoxical, allow me to tell you about a girl named Janelle.

…

Read More Read More

Self-Publishing: What I’m Doing, and Why

Self-Publishing: What I’m Doing, and Why

Comments 8 comments

The Fell Gard CodicesThere’s been a lot of talk around the blogosphere lately about self-publishing, and its merits relative to traditional publishing. I’m not going to say anything about that, as such. But it seems obvious to me that self-publishing has a value if you have a story that could not, due to the nature of its form, be published traditionally.

Which brings me to an announcement: I’m beginning a self-publishing venture of my own, The Fell Gard Codices. It’s an ongoing fantasy serial, and the first chapter goes live Wednesday, June 1. The web site’s already up, at Fellgard.com. I’ll be posting chapters every day for six days, and after that putting up three chapters a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. The serial is free through the web site, though readers can donate through PayPal, if they’re so inclined; and once I have enough material, I’ll be selling collections as ebooks.

So, given how I started this post, the questions become: why am I doing this? What is it about this story that makes this approach seem like a good idea?

…

Read More Read More

Writers of the Future: I Got an Illustration . . . and an Interpretive Dance!

Writers of the Future: I Got an Illustration . . . and an Interpretive Dance!

Comments 6 comments

with-framed-acolyte-illustration1chelsea-as-hallett-1I have returned after a two-week hiatus from Black Gate. It was a — busy time.

To get this out of the way first: Yes, I gave a shout out to Black Gate in general, with John O’Neill, Howard Andrew Jones, and Bill Ward in particular, when I accepted my award at the Writers of the Future Ceremony on 15 May 2011 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. (Here is the video of my section of the event, starting with the dance.)

When I started to write with the aim of publication — I don’t remember the exact moment when my love of writing began to seem like a possible profession, but it occurred about fifteen years ago — I liked to imagine a time when a professional artist would make an illustration of one of my books or stories. However, I never imagined that professional acrobats and dancers would create an interpretive dance of one of my stories as well.

I received many great gifts from my time at the Writers and Illustrators of the Future Workshop in Hollywood last week. Some are the tangibles like publication in a major anthology, a gala awards ceremony, my first official book signing, and payment. Some gifts are social, like a new network with the other winners as well as with the many celebrated writers and illustrators who make up the judging panel and the workshop teachers. All of us at the workshop will carry away a lifetime’s worth of advice, on everything from story construction to the best way to avoid getting a cold while on a book-promotion tour, from people such as Tim Powers, Robert J. Sawyer, Gregory Benford, K. D. Wentworth, Eric Flint, Dr. Yoji Kondo, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Kevin J. Anderson, Dave Wolverton, Rebecca Moesta, and Mike Resnick.

There’s plenty for me to say about the experience of the workshop and getting published in Writers of the Future Vol. XXVII, and I will say more in future posts. But for this post, I am going to delve into the purely emotional and personal high points: the picture, and the dance. The first I knew was coming — and it was better than I could have imagined. The second I did not expect — and no surprise could have been more sublime.

…

Read More Read More

Saladin Ahmed on Black Gate

Saladin Ahmed on Black Gate

Comments 1 comment

saladin-ahmedOver at Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist, guest blogger Saladin Ahmed had this to say about the modern landscape for heroic fantasy:

In recent years I’ve also discovered that there is a wealth of short-form heroic fantasy out there… Anthologies like the excellent Swords and Dark Magic feature some of the top names in the field (Erikson, Lynch, Abercrombie, Moorcock, Nix, Cook). And writers like Peter V. Brett have produced collections of short works set in their bestselling worlds (The Great Bazaar and Other Stories, Brayan’s Gold). But there are also some great short story ezines out there publishing the next generation of heroic fantasy writers: Heroic Fantasy Quarterly has made it their mission to bring back the pulp era with unabashedly larger-than-life adventures. Black Gate (the magazine where James Enge’s awesome Morlock Ambrosius got his start) is also working hard to revive the sense of wonder that heroes like Conan and John Carter of Mars used to evoke in readers. And Beneath Ceaseless Skies specializes in what the editor calls ‘literary adventure fantasy’ – stories that combine excellent prose and psychological depth with fantasy elements like alchemists, samurai, werewolves, and talking swords.

Thanks for the shout-out, Saladin! For our part we’re looking forward to your upcoming novel, Throne of the Crescent Moon.