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Support the Literary Wonder & Adventure Show!

Support the Literary Wonder & Adventure Show!

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Literary Wonder & Adventure Show

Dream Tower Media, fine folks behind the Literary Wonder & Adventure Show, have launched a Patreon site to help fund it and offset some of the extensive costs of creating a top-notch audio program. And you know what that means. That’s right — you can now help support the creation of new episodes in this fine podcast series!

And Robert Zoltan (and his pal Edgar the Raven) have some terrific new episodes in the pipeline. They will be following up their popular interviews with BG blogger Ryan Harvey, fantasy author Scott Oden, and neglected genius Howard Andrew Jones, with THE GOLDEN AGE OF SCIENCE FICTION. With Special Guest, Hugo, Locus and Robert A. Heinlein award-winning author, Allen Steele in Part 1, and Hugo-nominee Becky Chambers (A Closed and Common Orbit) in Part 2.

Check out some of their earlier episodes, and learn more about how to support this worthy project at the Patreon site.

In 500 Words or Less … Never Now Always by Desirina Boskovich

In 500 Words or Less … Never Now Always by Desirina Boskovich

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oie_21364ndRY5yGNever Now Always
By Desirina Boskovich
Broken Eye Books (88 pages, $9.99 paperback, June 2017)

A while back I had an idea for a short story about people caught up in a massive alien invasion, where humanity is rounded up and imprisoned in gray, windowless compounds while their captors run nefarious experiments, all of which is part of some mysterious, overarching plot a la Lost and the like. Then I told myself something like that has been done so many times that it wasn’t worth bothering, and I tucked the idea away on a mental shelf and haven’t looked at it since.

I bring this up because the novella Never Now Always by Desirina Boskovich takes that core premise of people imprisoned and experimented on by mysterious overlords and spins it so effectively, adding layers of dark surrealism and uncertainty to create a deeply compelling story. Never Now Always has a War of the Worlds/The Fifth Wave vibe with a literary style, propelled by the fact that the story’s three protagonists (and practically the only characters focused on) are constantly having their memories stolen and/or modified, stripping away most of their identity by removing the thing that makes each of us distinct. Main character Lolo knows that she has to find her sister, Tess, but everything else is an uncertain blur, to the point that she doesn’t even know the words for things. Boskovich weaves those language gaps into the narrative with a subtlety that is also easy to read and follow – something that a lot of surrealist and literary fiction doesn’t pull off.

There are cycles repeated here, as Lolo and the others try to find and support each other and ultimately escape, but the ongoing layers of mystery means that there is never a moment without intrigue. Is their bizarre prison on Earth, or somewhere else? Are Lolo and the others children, or adults who have lost their semantic and episodic memories – or something else? Are the Caretakers around them seeking to experiment, indoctrinate, or possibly protect these humans from self-inflicted harm?

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Stories from a S&S Griot: Nyumbani Tales by Charles R. Saunders

Stories from a S&S Griot: Nyumbani Tales by Charles R. Saunders

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“I am going to tell a story,” the griot says.
“Ya-ngani!” the crowd responds, meaning “Right!”
“It may be a lie.”
“Ya-ngani.”
“But not everything in it is false.”
“Ya-ngani.”
The griot begins his tale.

                                       from “Amma” by Charles R. Saunders

oie_2919383060rtzPRDFor those unfortunates unacquainted with Charles R. Saunders and the tales he’s woven, you can read plenty about them here at Black Gate. Suffice it to say he is called the father of sword & soul. Starting in the 1970s, he took the elements of swords & sorcery — mighty heroes, beautiful women, monsters, deadly magic, and more monsters — and turned them to his own purpose.

A fan of sci fi and fantasy growing up in the 1950s and 60s, by the time he graduated college in 1968, he was frustrated with a lot of what he was reading. As he recounted in an interview with Amy Harlib in The Zone:

I began to realise that in the SF and fantasy genre, blacks were, with only few exceptions, either left out or depicted in racist and stereotypic ways. I had a choice: I could either stop reading SF and fantasy, or try to do something about my dissatisfaction with it by writing my own stories and trying to get them published. I chose the latter course.

It was to the great benefit of heroic fantasy that Saunders made the choice he did. In addition to helping expand the horizons of the genre beyond the European settings that dominated it back then, he also created two monumental characters.

Imaro is the outcast warrior who eventually finds his destiny as champion against the forces of evil. Dossouye is an exiled warrior-woman from the kingdom of Abomey. The stories and novels featuring Imaro and Dossouye belong on the shelves of any S&S fan. If you haven’t read them yet, I suggest you snag copies of Imaro: Book I and Dossouye, clear off whatever else you’re reading, and get started.

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Fantasy Warriors and Plastic Toy Soldiers on Memorial Day

Fantasy Warriors and Plastic Toy Soldiers on Memorial Day

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gijoe-treasury-edition-special-page-01Black Gate is a site devoted to fantasy and science fiction, and an inordinate amount of fantasy and science fiction is devoted to soldiers, warriors, barbarians, slaughter and destruction. Which I’m all for in my fiction.

Today, though, here in the United States, we observe Memorial Day and remember real soldiers and fallen warriors. So, if you don’t mind, for the blog today I am posting the transcript of the speech I delivered this morning at the Memorial Day service in Elgin, Minnesota. It is short (I kept it to one page). And if you came here looking for your daily dose of fantasy, don’t worry — the speech contains at least one reference to ghosts and alternate realities (How could it not? It is a speech by Oz)…

I brought a plastic army man with me today because I want to talk about the grim knowledge we gain as we grow up, the understanding that comes along with putting aside childish things. When I was a boy — my son’s age, and he loves to play with army men — we’d set them up and knock them over. Make our gun and explosion noises, like we’d learned from the movies. It was all right; they’re just pieces of plastic.

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The Great Savage Sword Re-Read: Vol 5

The Great Savage Sword Re-Read: Vol 5

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-SSoC-Vol5This series explores the Savage Sword of Conan collections from Dark Horse reprinting Marvel Comics’ premiere black-and-white fantasy mag launched in the mid-70s. Previous installments: Vol 1 / Vol 2 / Vol 3 / Vol 4

Volume 5 collects issues #49 – 60 (1980 -’81), and it begins with the proverbial bang. Reigning art champs John Buscema and Tony DeZuniga return for a 4-issue adaptation of the L. Sprague DeCamp/Lin Carter novel CONAN THE LIBERATOR. These four issues are gorgeous–the Buscema/DeZuniga team is firing on all cylinders.

Story-wise this adaptation succeeds far better than the previous DeCamp/Carter adaptation, CONAN THE BUCCANEER (collected in Volume 4). Whereas BUCCANEER tended to meander and lack proper pacing, LIBERATOR moves at a brisk pace and gives us more classic Conan time.

LIBERATOR is basically a military fantasy with bit of sorcery thrown in to complicate the saga of Conan’s revolt against a mad tyrant. We have a beautiful spy, a scheming wizard, and a truly insane king who butchers his own subjects in a futile quest for immortality. Here is the story untold by Conan creator Robert E. Howard: The story of exactly how Conan became King of Aquilonia.

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A Grab-Bag of Comic Reviews: Southern Bastards, Jaegir, Deep End

A Grab-Bag of Comic Reviews: Southern Bastards, Jaegir, Deep End

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Southern Bastards-small

My comic reading has jumped all over the place this month, but I’ve been finding lots of good stuff.

Southern Bastards: I picked up Southern Bastards as part of a massive Image Humble Bundle last year. I finally got to Volume 1 this 2014 series by Jason Aaron and Jason Latour.

It was scary amazing.

I know nothing about the deep south, but both Jasons come from there. Their mission is: to write about the place they grew up in in all the ways it is peaceful, primal, timeless, haunted, hateful, spiritual, beautiful and scarred.

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The Story of Your Life: Arrival

The Story of Your Life: Arrival

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arrival-markerboard-600x337Having taken in Arrival at my basement Cineplex, I proceeded at once to my local library, to dig up a copy of Ted Chiang’s “The Story Of Your Life,” on which Denis Villeneuve’s film is based. I suspected I would discover that the adaptation took broad liberties with Chiang’s original story, and I was not disappointed.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

This notion of being ahead of oneself, as you’ll soon discover –– or know already, if you’re familiar with either Arrival or “The Story Of Your Life” –– might be considered a joke. A wry joke, at best. Sad, perhaps. Devastating.

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Are You Listening?

Are You Listening?

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Halls for BGAnyone who’s read the bio that comes at the end of my posts knows that I’m also V.M. Escalada, and that very shortly, in August in fact, Halls of Law (Book One of The Faraman Prophecy) will be coming out from DAW. That news is exciting enough in itself, but a week ago I learned that the audio rights for both of the Faraman Prophecy books had been picked up by Brilliance Audio.

I was doing my happy dance when I read further down in my publisher’s email and said to myself “Questionnaire?” At first I thought “oh gods, someone else wants a bio.” But on glancing at the questionnaire in question, I realized they wanted to know stuff about my book, not about me.

How refreshing.

Nor did they want the usual one-sentence summing-up of the plot (if I could have written it in one sentence . . . ) No, they wanted to know how the book should be read aloud. By someone else.

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Even More Metal on Metal: Swords of Steel Volume III

Even More Metal on Metal: Swords of Steel Volume III

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For the third time in two years, Dave Ritzlin has gathered metal musicians and gotoie_2311445pWjU2VwKten them to turn their talents toward full-throttle swords & sorcery. (My reviews of the previous two volumes are here and here). Unlike last year’s installment, which too often wandered astray, the brand new Swords of Steel Volume III is almost all S&S. Serious, skull-splitting, blood-spilling, adrenaline-pumping S&S.

Following a short introduction by Mark “The Shark” Shelton (Manilla Road/Hellwell/Riddlemaster), the book kicks off with its best story — “Thannhausefeer’s Guest” by Howie K. Bentley (Cauldron Born/Briton Rites). I didn’t like his story “All Will Be Righted on Samhain” in the first collection, but I did like his “The Heart of the Betrayer” in the second.

The sole survivor of a ship sunk by enemy attack washes ashore, unconscious and suffering from amnesia, on a lonely island. When he first awakes, a woman in white whose name flickers at the edge of his memory, walks the beach beside him and tells him what he must do:

Rolling his head to one side, he glanced at her, his vision wavering in and out. Flaxen hair framed her pale-skinned classic beauty with high cheek bones and full red lips that seemed to have never smiled. Her icy blue eyes looked through him upon dim netherworld vistas far beyond the realm of man. She appeared familiar, but he didn’t know who she was. They had walked for only a moment when she languorously raised her right arm and pointed to the colossal citadel at the top of the hill in the distance. “You must go there,” she said in the monotone of a black lotus dreamer.

When he reaches the citadel he falls unconscious again. This time he comes to in a bed, still unable to recall his name, receiving medical attention from a beautiful, red-haired woman. Because he came from the sea, she names him Manannan after the ocean god.

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Exclusive Preview: Archipelago by Charlotte Ashley, Andrew Leon Hudson & Kurt Hunt

Exclusive Preview: Archipelago by Charlotte Ashley, Andrew Leon Hudson & Kurt Hunt

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Archipelago Kickstarter

As I’m sure you’ve figured out, I’m a huge fan of propping up and promoting other writers. Most of the time that has been spotlighting and reviewing new novels and short fiction, but today I present to you Archipelago, a serialized online adventure fantasy series jointly written by authors Charlotte Ashley, Andrew Leon Hudson and Kurt Hunt. This isn’t just serial fiction that you can read and enjoy – it’s collaborative and competitive, where the readers get the opportunity to influence the fictional world. Here’s an official blurb from the project’s Kickstarter page:

Four hundred years ago, when control of the world came to depend on naval power as never before, a courageous few set off on journeys of discovery and conquest that would alter the fates of nations in ways no-one could imagine.

But once they’d sailed the seven seas, what if they found another.

This week I have been given the opportunity to share an exclusive preview of the Archipelago project. Below is my interview with Charlotte Ashley, one of the authors behind the project, followed by her prologue, “The Ur-Ring,” which will be continued in a series of serialized episodes, alongside similarly-structured narratives by her fellow writers. Her prologue will be exclusively available here for the next week, after which it and the other prologues will be posted on their Patreon page (see below). It’s no exaggeration to say that this is one of the coolest projects I’ve looked at since I started writing for Black Gate, and I hope you enjoy the sneak peek below.

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