Browsed by
Category: Blog Entry

One Last Time into the Primal Land: Sorcery in Shad by Brian Lumley

One Last Time into the Primal Land: Sorcery in Shad by Brian Lumley

Comments 4 comments

oie_242034314rvenvucAll good things must come to an end. I get that, and as I’ve gotten older I appreciate that more than ever. However, they do not all have to end badly. Sometimes, though, as with Brian Lumley’s Primal Lands stories, they do. Despite some rough-hewn edges and some too-purple prose, I completely enjoyed the first two collections in the series, The House of Cthulhu and Tarra Khash: Hrossak! (follow the links to my Black Gate reviews). I looked forward to the culmination of these tales in the final volume, Sorcery in Shad (1991). Unfortunately, it’s a bit of a flop. Only Lumley’s easy-going style, colorful world-building, and a clear love for his characters kept its reading from being drudge work.

Lumley is a controversial figure in the world of Lovecraft Mythos fiction. By inclination, he is a writer of action and adventure. What he brought to Mythos stories were heroes who fought back, unwilling to acquiesce in the face of existential dread (and monsters), which didn’t always work very well.

It served him splendidly here, though, in his stories set on Theem’hdra, the continent-sized remnant of a gigantic volcano, in the earliest days of Man on Earth. House of Cthulhu introduced the setting and several recurring characters, most notably the sorcerer, Teh Atht, through a series of mostly independent short stories. Tarra Khash, through several linked stories, told the escapades of its titular good-hearted barbarian wanderer. By the end, Tarra Khash and his friends had saved the world from demonic domination and he had decided to head back home.

…

Read More Read More

An Experiment in Gor: What Are John Norman’s Books About, Really? The Hidden Secret of the Counter-Earth Saga is an Over-Abundance of…

An Experiment in Gor: What Are John Norman’s Books About, Really? The Hidden Secret of the Counter-Earth Saga is an Over-Abundance of…

Comments 27 comments

tarnsman_of_gor_vallejo_coverI’m positive that I read the first book in the [Counter-Earth Saga/Tarl Cabot Saga/Chronicles of Counter-Earth/Gorean Cycle/Gorean Saga/take your pick], sometime back in junior high. That would be Tarnsman of Gor, first published in 1966 by Ballantine, which recounts how Earth professor Tarl Cabot is mysteriously transported to our solar system’s hidden tenth planet orbiting the sun in a position exactly counter to Earth’s. There he encounters a Barsoomian-inspired sword-and-planet environment. He quickly adapts, becoming a Gorean swordsman and assimilating into the culture of his adopted planet.

If I read any of the sequels, I can’t recall — although I remember enjoying the first book, at least the first part of it recounting Talbot’s strange experiences (involving a mysterious package, I believe) and subsequent relocation to another world. As The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997), a huge tome sitting here on my bookshelf, notes, the first Gor books were passable Edgar Rice Burroughs pastiches, and that’s the impression I came away with too. As a boy, I was a huge fan of ERB’s John Carter of Mars stories and was looking for something else along those lines.

The Encyclopedia goes on to condemn later volumes in the series (which now total 34), noting that they “degenerate into extremely sexist, sadomasochistic pornography involving the ritual humiliation of women, and as a result have caused widespread offence.” DAW, which published the series from volumes 7 through 25, apparently dropped Norman for this reason (Naughty Norman!), and the subsequent 9 volumes are only available in e-book editions.

As a collector and purveyor of vintage sci-fi and fantasy paperbacks, I happen to have several Gor books sitting in a pile here beside my office desk. I will be posting them to eBay soon. I have, on occasion, picked one up and opened it at random to read a paragraph or two.

…

Read More Read More

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Poul Anderson’s “The Archetypal Holmes”

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Poul Anderson’s “The Archetypal Holmes”

Comments 3 comments
Poul's wife Karen, also a sccifi author and Sherlockian, drew these for his essay.
Poul’s wife Karen, also a scifi author and Sherlockian, drew this for his essay.

As far as Sherlockians go, I have a rather large Joseph Campbell library. I’ve even written about Holmes and the Monomyth (“The Hero’s Thousand-and-First Face”). Through Campbell, I discovered Carl Jung’s The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. However, all attempts to read it were abandoned rather quickly. I found it tough going. I do have a decent handle on archetypes from Role Playing Games, though.

Anywhoo…The late Poul Anderson was one of the giants in the field of science fiction: he was racking up Hugo Awards when that meant something.  He was also a devotee of Sherlock Holmes and a member of The Baker Street Irregulars. For good measure, he was also a Solar Pona fan and a Praed Street Irregular. Anderson wrote some odd Holmes pastiches and some, insightful, erudite Sherlockiana about the great detective.

In September of 1968, The Baker Street Journal included “The Archetypical Holmes,” a fine essay by Anderson and the kind of excellent Sherlockiana that is sadly all too rare these days – made obsolete by pop-centric, culture-appeasing works. Take it away, Poul!

…

Read More Read More

Into the Mystic: The Mask of the Sorcerer by Darrell Schweitzer

Into the Mystic: The Mask of the Sorcerer by Darrell Schweitzer

Comments 1 comment

oie_1852341b75ezo3oI read a lot of fantasy — most of it older works — and yet Darrell Schweitzer’s mesmerizing The Mask of the Sorcerer (1995) had escaped my attention until fairly recently. Around the time I reviewed another of Schweitzer’s books, Echoes of the Goddess (2013), John Fultz told me that if I was looking for something really wild, Mask was where to go, so I bought it. And for two years it sat there on the virtual TBR stack. When John (who described it as “Harry Potter in Hell” and wrote an appreciation of Schweitzer here at Black Gate ten years ago) and others recently recommended it as a work of S&S horror, I finally picked it up. I have read some extraordinary novels this year, several of which I will positively reread in the years to come. The Mask of the Sorcerer (MotS) is one of those.

MotS is about the education of sixteen-year-old sorcerer, Sekenre. In a land inspired by ancient Egypt, he learns that magic and sorcery are two very different things:

Sorcery is not magic. Do not confuse the two. Magic comes from the gods. The magician is merely the instrument. Magic passes through him like breath through a reed pipe. Magic can heal. It can satisfy. It is like a candle in the darkness. Sorcery, however, resides in the sorcerer. It is like a blazing sun.

Sorcerers draw on deep forces, often by evil means. When one sorcerer kills another, the killer absorbs his victim’s soul and knowledge. There’s a cumulative effect to this, so one victory can yield the spirits of dozens of previously defeated opponents.

…

Read More Read More

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Milton F. Perry’s ‘Harry S. Truman, Sherlockian’

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Milton F. Perry’s ‘Harry S. Truman, Sherlockian’

Comments 0 Comment
Perry with Harry S. Truman
Perry with Harry S. Truman

It’s well known in Sherlock Holmes circles that Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States of America (now THERE was somebody worthy of that office) was a great fan of the world’s first private consulting detective, even having written about Holmes more than once. The third of his three Vice Presidents, and his successor at the Oval Office, was Harry S. Truman. Truman was also a follower of Holmes and like FDR, was granted membership to The Baker Street Irregulars.

Milton F. Perry himself became an Irregular in 1990. As he mentions in this essay, he was the Curator of the Museum at the Harry S. Truman Library from 1958 until 1976. The position gave him enviable access to the former President. Perry wrote the following essay for the December, 1986 Baker Street Journal. Truman’s interest in Holmes is not as well-known and certainly deserves to be publicized. So, as a frightful election day looms, Come, the game is afoot! – Bob

 

“Mr. President,” I asked, “What did the dog do in the night time?”

Harry S Truman grinned and looked at his glass of bourbon and branch water. “Perry,” he said, “you ought to know better than test an old Holmesian like me, the only honorary member of the Baker Street Irregulars. You know damned well the dog did nothing in the night time!”

This was my introduction to Harry Truman as a Sherlockian, a relationship I was able to develop from time to time during the years I was associated with him as Curator of the Museum at the Harry S Truman Library in Independence, Missouri, from 1958 until 1976. I was fortunate to have been able to discuss many things with him during those years, mostly in the uninterrupted privacy of his office.

…

Read More Read More

The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in September

The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in September

Comments 2 comments

hall-of-bones-frog-god-smallThe most widely-read article last month — by a wide margin — was Bob Byrne’s look at classic role playing, “Why I Went Old School — or Swords & Wizardry vs. Pathfinder.” In fact, Bob’s piece is the most popular feature we’ve had at Black Gate all year (with the exception of our May announcement that we declined a Hugo nomination). He’s posted three recent updates to it so far, re-capping his group’s exploits in Matt Finch’s Hall of Bones adventure module, so check back if you haven’t recently.

Coming in at #2 was another gaming article, Carlos Hernandez’s “What No Man’s Sky Can Learn from SFF Worldbuilding.” Sometimes I wonder why we bother doing anything other than gaming pieces?

Rounding out the Top Five were our examination of Michael McDowell’s Blackwater serial novel from the 1980s, Thomas Parker’s fond look at the 1960s Batman, and Sean McLachlan’s writing confession, “When Researching Your Novel Scares You: Daily Life in the Third Reich.”

Violette Malan’s thoughtful look at one of the great 20th Century SF writers, “Andre Norton: Are Her Men Really Women?”, came in at number six, followed by Bob Byrne’s second gaming article for the month, “RPGing is Story Telling.” Next up was William Patrick Maynard’s review of his fellow Black Gate author, Josh Reynolds, who recently released two direct sequels to Philip Jose Farmer’s The Other Log of Phileas Fogg for Meteor House.

Bob continued to hog the Top 10 list, coming in at #9 with “The Master Plot Formula (per Lester Dent).” And Barbara Barrett wrapped up the list with her look back at a neglected fantasy classic from 1991, HBO’s Cast a Deadly Spell.

The complete list of Top Articles for September follows. Below that, I’ve also broken out the most popular overall articles, online fiction, and blog categories for the month.

…

Read More Read More

The Man Behind The Princess Bride

The Man Behind The Princess Bride

Comments 9 comments

goldman-11111“It’s an accepted fact that all writers are crazy; even the normal ones are weird.” Wm. Goldman

Anyone who has been reading my posts over the last few years already knows that The Princess Bride (TPB) is one of my favourite – if not my favourite – movies. Family and friends quote from it all the time. “Morons!” we’ll exclaim when faced with any, or, “Murdered by pirates is good,” we mutter as we walk away from someone who should be.

And I know there will be some who disagree with me, but I think TPB is one of the few examples where the movie is actually better than the book. And why not? They were both written by the same person, one who understands clearly what he’s doing:

Here is one of the main rules of adaptation: you cannot be literally faithful to the source material.
Here’s another that critics never get: you should not be literally faithful to the source material. It is in a different form, a form that does not have the camera.
Here is the most important rule of adaptation: you must be totally faithful to the intention of the source material.
— from Which Lie Did I Tell?

Which, by the way, is the perfect answer to people who complain when movies turn out to be different from books. It’s only when screenwriters fail in that last rule that they’ve done a bad job.

…

Read More Read More

Lovecraft’s Dreamlands Via Graphic Novel: Jason Thompson’s The Dream-Quest of the Unknown Kadath & Other Stories

Lovecraft’s Dreamlands Via Graphic Novel: Jason Thompson’s The Dream-Quest of the Unknown Kadath & Other Stories

Comments 0 Comment
kadath-cover_255
Thompson’s Dreamlands has an Orientalist feel but an alien one. (Click to enlarge.)

Jason Thompson sent me a copy of his The Dream-Quest of the Unknown Kadath & Other Stories. It even came in a cool envelope, but I’ll get to that.

I’ve been on a bit of a Lovecraft quest.

HP Lovecraft is more than a Geek-only in-joke, there’s still something powerful about his works — or so I discovered reading “The Festival,” “Shadow over Innsmouth” and “Whisperer in the Dark” to my 8-year-old daughter. She experienced the stories as like Scoobie Doo, but when you pull off the bad guy’s mask his face is made of worms.

So, though the style is dated and thus heavy going in places, the structure is sound: he really nailed the whole “unfolding mystery leading to horrible revelation” trope. (I must therefore take back what I said before, I’m sure people do read HP Lovecraft for pleasure from time to time, much as we might also read Malory, because I am now one of them.)

Lovecraft’s power goes way beyond spinning a spooky yarn. He has a knack of being intriguingly vague with great certainty.

The intriguingly is the important part that people often miss.

As frustrated teenage writers discover, vague descriptions of random stuff you made up are not in themselves intriguing. What makes Lovecraft intriguing as well as certain is that he is referencing what feels like a fully realised and disquieting story world, his famous Cthulhu Mythos.

…

Read More Read More

Fantasia 2016, Day 15: Ghosts and Djinns (Lace Crater and Under the Shadow)

Fantasia 2016, Day 15: Ghosts and Djinns (Lace Crater and Under the Shadow)

Comments 0 Comment

Lace CraterAt 7:30 PM on Thursday, July 28, I was in a seat in the De Sève Theatre waiting to see a screening of an American independent horror-comedy called Lace Crater, about a woman who catches a venereal disease from a ghost. After that I’d cross the street to the Hall theatre for a showing of the Iranian horror movie Under the Shadow. I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from either film, which from experience I knew was often the best way to come to a screening at Fantasia. I was pondering this when the lights went down and Adam Kritzer, producer of Lace Crater, was introduced to the crowd. He thanked us for coming, and urged all of us in the audience to turn to our neighbours, whether we knew them or not, and say whether we believed in ghosts. There was an aisle to my left. I glanced to my right. The man beside me shrugged. “Not particularly,” he said in French. “Same here,” I replied.

One’s personal beliefs aside, Lace Crater is an intriguing film. Written and directed by Harrison Atkins, it starts with a group of young friends who go to a house in the Hamptons, owned by the family of Andrew (Andrew Ryder), one of the bunch. Low-key sexual banter ensues. One of the women, Ruth (Lindsay Burdge, of The Midnight Swim and The Invitation), ends up sleeping alone in a guest house, which Andrew has warned her may be haunted. It is, by a ghost named Michael (Peter Vack). Michael, clad in burlap wrappings, isn’t very scary. He and Ruth end up talking, and connecting. And sleeping together. But back in the city, Ruth finds her one-night stand has consequences. She’s caught something that looks a lot like an STD from Michael, and it makes her increasingly erratic, putting increasing strain on the small network of her friends. Will she find a cure? Or will she have to face Michael again?

Kritzer’s introduction had promised a sexy ghost story, which I assume now was a joke; Lace Crater is, when you get down to it, a movie about a woman who has a one-night stand and contracts a nasty social disease. Which doesn’t strike me as the most sexually charged story in the world. On the other hand, there’s an engaging low-key aspect to the whole affair, a sense of normality, of mundanity, that reasserts itself through the whole tale. It’s a movie that resolutely refuses to let its supernatural aspects dominate.

…

Read More Read More

Horror and Swords & Sorcery

Horror and Swords & Sorcery

Comments 14 comments
oie_11642411ocm8evf
by Virgil Finlay

The air has turned crisp, the sun is dipping below the horizon earlier each evening, and the supermarket candy section seems to have grown exponentially. Halloween is just around the corner and, like many of you, my mind has turned to haunts and frights.

Horror is one of the primary elements dividing swords & sorcery from epic fantasy. To quote the Horror Writers Association’s site, horror fiction is that which “elicits an emotional reaction that includes some aspect of fear or dread.” Horror has been intrinsic to the genre from its earliest days. Robert E. Howard’s heroes, Kull, Conan, Bran, and Solomon Kane all face off against supernatural horror. In general, the worlds of S&S are dark and dangerous. The protagonists, mostly loners, find themselves pitted against an inimical universe populated with carnivorous forces of darkness that sate their hunger on humanity.

Epic fantasy is concerned with things like the fate of the world, the battle between Light and Darkness, or big dynastic squabbles. There may be moments of terror in epic fantasy (e.g. LotR’s Watcher in the Water; A Song of Ice and Fire’s wights), but it’s rarely the main event. Not in every story, but in most of their S&S work, writers like Clark Ashton Smith, Karl Edward Wagner, and C. L. Moore, created tales that were horror first and foremost. They spun nightmares and darkness into thread and, along with strands of adventure and mystery, wove from it something moodier than Prof. Tolkien or his successors.

…

Read More Read More