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December Short Story Roundup

December Short Story Roundup

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oie_353335828o37jb-4I hope everybody had a pleasant holiday and is off to a good New Year. For my inaugaral post 0f 2017, I’ve got a bag full of short stories for you from Grimdark Magazine and 2016’s standout newcomer, Cirsova.

I’ve often dismissed grimdark as a marketing device. First, there’s always been cynical and gritty fantasy, and second, a lot of what’s billed as grimdark is not all that dark and grim. Leave it to Grimdark Magazine editor Adrian Collins to find one of the grimmest, most throughly miserable and unpleasant stories imaginable with which to open Issue #9.

“A Length of Cherrywood,” by Peter Orullian, is like a poisoned crossbow bolt to the brain. Jastail J’Vache is a slaver of women and has a serious mother issue. Following his loss at game played for unique stakes — bets are made with items connected to horrible personal deeds — J’Vache decides he must face the fount of darkness in his soul. Maybe I’m a wuss, but I can’t say I liked this one. The story does a stellar job of creating a vile protagonist and exploring his mutilated soul. The game played between J’Vache and several other equally twisted characters is blackly brilliant. Still, “Cherrywood” isn’t something I enjoyed reading. Let me warn you, it’s not for the meek. While there’s some violence, the real grimdarkness lies in the ways the characters treat each other. The story was previously published in Blackguards, edited by J.M Martin, in 2015.

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The Poison Apple: Interview with a Brooklyn Vampire

The Poison Apple: Interview with a Brooklyn Vampire

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Steven Van Patten from That Metal Show

For our next “victim” of the new Black Gate column, The Poison Apple, I’d like to introduce Steven Van Patten. Steven is a member of the Horror Writer’s Association and when vampires are supposed to be sleeping, he works as a TV show stage manager. In the past he’s worked on shows such as MTV’s Total Request Live, The Dr. Oz Show, Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell and The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore. He straddles two extremes of a busy lifestyle but still manages to write about topics that are underexplored in the speculative fiction realm. He’s written the Brookwater’s Curse series, Rudy’s Night Out, a children’s vampire story, and Killer Genius: She Kills Because She Cares, which was nominated for the African-American Literary Show Award.

Crowens: What got you into vampires?

SVP: As a little kid and an only child, often I had to entertain myself. Back in the day, that included Chiller Theater and being inspired by movies with Christopher Lee. When Blacula was released, that stuck with me as a strong, dominant character but in a sea of stereotypical nonsense in a Blaxploitation flick. As I got older, I started getting annoyed as to what happened to the brothers in a horror movie — they were dead before the credits rolled and characters were underdeveloped.

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Short Fiction Spotlight: 2016

Short Fiction Spotlight: 2016

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I’m going to break form to close off 2016, to give a few recommendations from everything I read this past year. Despite the claim by a lot of people that 2016 was the worst year ever (bear in mind the years where tons of people died of the Black Plague) at the very least we weren’t hurting for great reading material. I’ll be posting my Top Ten Novels later, but today I want to focus on short fiction, which doesn’t seem to get discussed as much as I think it deserves. So here are the six short stories that I enjoyed the most in 2016 (since I couldn’t narrow it down to an even five).

“Badgirl, the Deadman, and The Wheel of Fortune” by Catherynne M. Valente, published in The Starlit Wood (Saga Press, 2016)

C.S.E. Cooney has already posted a review of this phenomenal anthology, which reexamines fairy tales in a variety of compelling ways. Valente’s story is subtle fantasy – until the very end, this could just be a story about a father and his drug dealer, told from the perspective of the father’s daughter. Because I’m a teacher with lots of experience working with troubled youth, Valente’s use of the daughter’s narration stayed with me for days after I finished — knowing that little Badgirl is in danger and doesn’t really understand what’s going on makes this story tragic not for its fantastic side, but for its realism.

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Adventures in Earth’s Prehistory: Jane Gaskell’s Atlan Saga, Part III

Adventures in Earth’s Prehistory: Jane Gaskell’s Atlan Saga, Part III

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Paperback Library (Frank Frazetta)
Paperback Library (Frank Frazetta)

Tandem edition
Tandem edition

Hodder & Stoughton (Denvil)
Hodder & Stoughton (Denvil)

Paperback Library (second printing)
Paperback Library (second printing)

Book Three (or Two, depending on the publisher) of Jane Gaskell’s Atlan Saga bears the same title as the series: Atlan. The previous volume(s), reviewed here (The Dragon) and here (The Serpent), left off where our heroine Cija married the “Dragon” General Zerd. Having just received the throne of the fabled continent of Atlan in a bloodless conquest, Zerd was crowned emperor, effectively making Cija empress.

Atlan commences with a brief introduction by a deserter called Scar, recounting preceding events with his own first person narrative as he legs his way to the capital. Meeting up with a bird-riding officer in search of a disguise, they switch places. Now mounted, Scar (and the introduction) fast forward to the capital where we encounter the Empress Cija.

Being empress is not all it is cracked up to be. Cija is still very much a loner and even though she’s surrounded by courtiers and handmaidens, she is lonely. Zerd’s wandering eye soon has him distracted by other women, leaving Cija to her own devices. Unto this scene arrives her old lover Smahil, and a brief tryst follows.

This is probably the right time to reveal a spoiler I’ve avoided in my previous reviews: Smahil is Cija’s half-brother. This is something Cija did not know when they first became lovers, but by the time he arrives in the capital, she is well aware of their familial relationship, yet is so desperately lonely she still shares her bed with him.

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Vintage Treasures: Watership Down by Richard Adams

Vintage Treasures: Watership Down by Richard Adams

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watershipdown“I announce,” read the Times of London’s review in 1972, “with trembling pleasure, the appearance of a great story.”

This is not the typical language of a contemporary book review, but then the book in question, Watership Down, was not a typical book. It was and is a fantasy with wide crossover appeal, a mythic adventure with rabbits as the principal characters. That’s right, rabbits: those long-eared good-for-nothings whom we humans largely dismiss as being dumber than a box of rabbit-sized rocks.

Having read and adored the book in my early teens, I determined it was time to share it with my twelve-year-old son, who still craves his daily dose of bedtime story. And why not? I’d get to read a tale I had not revisited for more than thirty-five years, and I’d get to gauge my son’s reactions every step of the way.

To say he was impressed would be an understatement. As we approached the closing chapters, he wanted extra, before-bed reading time, but in the same breath kept exclaiming how he didn’t want to finish. “Are there more books about Hazel and Bigwig?” he asked. “Are there?”

Spoilers follow. If by some terrible chance you, gentle reader, have not read Watership Down for yourself, then please, close this page. Go do something else. Purchase a copy of Watership Down, for example. You can always return here once you’ve read to “The End.”

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The First Blade Runner 2 Trailer is Out!

The First Blade Runner 2 Trailer is Out!

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Blade Runner is my favorite science fiction movie and it’s probably in my Top 10 Movies of All Time as well. It’s scifi, hard boiled noir with great cinematography. I have the 4-disc Director’s Cut DVD set and a couple soundtrack CDs. I played the PC game through twice and I even have D.K. Jeter’s two not-so-great sequel novels (thank goodness they didn’t turn to those for the sequel!).

I am optimistic that Blade Runner 2049, the sequel out next year, over two decades after the original, will be a good movie. Hampton Fancher, who co-wrote the original Blade Runner script, co-wrote this one as well. And Harrison Ford is back as Rick Deckard. Now, I think that Ridley Scott played a pivotal role in the look and feel of Blade Runner. He is listed as an Executive Producer on the new film, but he is not directing. So, I’m a bit concerned.

In the new film, Ryan Gosling plays Agent K, a young blade runner who discovers a secret which could destroy society. So, he seeks out former blade runner Rick Deckard (Ford), who seems to have been missing for thirty years, for help. Visually, this has the Blade Runner feel. And I can’t stress enough how important that’s going to be. If watching this new film doesn’t take you back to the original, it’s going to be a failure.

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Hammers, Chemo and Disapproving Dads: Marvel’s Thor

Hammers, Chemo and Disapproving Dads: Marvel’s Thor

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Working on novels and such took me away from some of the main Marvel storylines just before Secret Wars until just after Civil War II (so I just missed a lot). I’m in the process of catching up on some Marvel real estate.

Lately I’ve been reading The Mighty Thor (they’re up to issue #13) and The Unworthy Thor (they’re up to issue #2).

For you completists, Thor goes way back to Journey Into Mystery #83, when Stan Lee and Jack Kirby made up the Asgardian god and made him fight aliens. Thor has been a popular character in Marvel who, along with Hercules, brought the divine to the Marvel Universe.

Asgard and Tales of Asgard brought in a ton of new characters into Thor’s orbit in the 1970s. The 1980s gave Thor a huge boost under creator Walt Simonson who defined the character for many modern readers.

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Always Winter, Never Christmas?

Always Winter, Never Christmas?

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narnia-christmas-small

Just a short post this week, since I’m sure we all want to get back to our holiday celebrations.

And speaking of which, I’m sure that everyone who remembers The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe as well as I do knows where today’s title comes from. The first time that Lucy finds herself in in Narnia, she meets Tumnus the faun, who tells her that because of the power of the White Queen, in Narnia it’s always winter, but never Christmas.

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Modular: How to Introduce Kids to Tabletop Role-Playing #1: Picking a System and Genre

Modular: How to Introduce Kids to Tabletop Role-Playing #1: Picking a System and Genre

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…perhaps in a fit of nostalgia, you made a Christmas present to yourself

It’s Christmas. You’ve got everybody together. Perhaps you’ve all watched Stranger Things  and now you have the urge to dust down your dice, dig out the Dungeon Masters’ Guide and introduce whatever kids just happen to be lying around to the imaginative world of your youth.

Or perhaps in a fit of nostalgia, you made a Christmas present to yourself of a recently published role-playing game, but the only available players right now are under 12. Or perhaps you’re like me, a life long player, and this is just a good moment to share the joy.

So how do you go about introducing kids to tabletop role-playing?

Really very easily, as it happens. The youngest child I’ve GM’d for was my 5-year-old-daughter when she crashed a party of 9-year olds, found all the traps and made off with the loot. Having done this a few times and talked to other gamer-parents, I’ve noticed a few things…

(Geek and Sundry beat me to the punch on this one (link), but my take is slightly different.)

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The Blue Lamp by Robert Zoltan

The Blue Lamp by Robert Zoltan

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oie_19158312fpr312tLet me confide a secret I have never told anyone before: sometimes, when I’m reading a story, and I’m all by myself, especially if it’s night and the only illumination is from my reading light, I’ll read out loud. And do voices. I’ll only read the dialogue out loud, reading the rest silently so it’s like I’m creating my own radio show. I like to think it sounds pretty cool. It’s definitely fun. When Robert Zoltan Szeles began telling people he was hard at work on an audio version of his story “The Blue Lamp,” I was jazzed.

“The Blue Lamp” first appeared in Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #26 last year, as written by Robert Zoltan (a name, you have to admit, is pretty awesome for penning S&S). I liked it very much and reviewed it favorably in my October 2015 Short Story Roundup:

A catman, a mothwoman, and an eerie blue lamp figure in Robert Zoltan’s very fun and self-illustrated (well one picture anyway) “The Blue Lamp.” For any fan of S&S those three things should be enough to make you read the story. We know what we like and when we seen it we flock to it like, well, moths.

For those wanting to know more it’s simple: two friends — a tattoo-covered barbarian called Blue, and the poet (and master swordsman) Dareon Vin — get into a fight. Wandering into the big city by himself, Blue ends up looking into the wrong magic blue lamp. When Dareon goes out to find him, unexpected things start to happen. The two physically and temperamentally mismatched heroes bring to mind a certain pair from classic S&S, but only enough to be good fun, not reeking of thievery.

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