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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Tying in the BBC Sherlock Special

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Tying in the BBC Sherlock Special

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Special_VictorianCostumeBack in July, what seems to be the most popular ‘The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes’ post appeared here at Black Gate. I looked at what I think went wrong with season three of the BBC’s Sherlock. I included the just-released ninety-second, ‘first look’ video for the upcoming Special, to be aired around Christmas. And I pointed out it seemed to be full of the “Look how clever we are” bits that I lamented in my post.

Now, just about everyone, including myself, loves that the Special is set in Victorian times; unlike the episodes in the first three seasons. Cumberbatch and Freeman would be given their first (and quite likely, only) opportunities to play Holmes and Watson in the Doyle mold. I view it as a chance for the show to get back on track and reclaim the multitude of fans it lost during season three.

That trailer was a fun little look at the Special and a second trailer came out earlier this month. “Fun” is not a word I would use. This is clearly not going to be a cute little Christmas episode, or a hunt for the owner of a goose and a hat (not a goose with a hat). In fact, it’s not about the yuletide at all. As you can see, it’s going to be some very serious business.

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Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Wrath of Fu Manchu, Part One

Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Wrath of Fu Manchu, Part One

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Wrathdaw_fu_manchuThe Wrath of Fu Manchu was a 50-page short story serialized in five installments in The Toronto Star weekly supplement from January 26 to February 23, 1952 under the unlikely title Green Devil Mask. It was given its current title when Rohmer scholar, Dr. Robert E. Briney made it the centerpiece of a posthumous hardcover collection of previously uncollected short fiction, The Wrath of Fu Manchu and Other New Stories first published in the U.K. in 1973 by Tom Stacey. A U.S. mass market paperback edition from DAW Books followed in 1976. It was subsequently reprinted in Allison & Busby’s Fu Manchu Omnibus – Volume 5 in 2001. Titan Books will reprint the original collection as a trade paperback in March 2016.

The story was initially published only in Canada due to a copyright loophole. Rohmer had recently sold the option to the television rights to the Fu Manchu characters and was prohibited from publishing new works about the characters in Britain or the United States until the courts resolved a dispute over whether the literary rights transferred with the agreement. This situation persisted for the next five years until the literary rights were eventually restored to the author. The character was an easy money-maker for Rohmer at a time when his bank account was suffering. Rohmer’s desire to fly under the radar with the Canadian publication of the story likely accounts for his original decision to avoid using the name Fu Manchu in the title of the story.

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Canadian Inventor Creates the Goblin Glider

Canadian Inventor Creates the Goblin Glider

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This week Canadian inventor Catalin Alexandru Duru conducted the first successful test flight of a working hoverboard over a pond in Quebec.

Duru broke the world record for the longest hoverboard flight — more than 250 meters, five times the previous record — at Quebec’s Lake Ouareau in May of this year, but he’s been working on a “secret, next-generation version” of his device for the past five months. On Wednesday of this week, the 31-year-old Canadian inventor and his company, Omni Hoverboards, invited Reg Sherren of the CBC to witness the first test of the new prototype in Quebec. Watch the one-minute clip above for the results, and read all the details at the CBC website.

All I can say is: It’s about time, 21st Century. And now I know what I want for Christmas.

Why Novellas? Tor.com‘s Stellar New Fantasy & SF Releases

Why Novellas? Tor.com‘s Stellar New Fantasy & SF Releases

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The-Sorcerer-of-the-Wildeeps-Tor Witches-of-Lychford-Tor Sunset-Mantle-Tor

Here’s the thing about Tor.com Publishing: I’m a total fan. Complete fanboy.  I know, I know, they pay me to tell people how wonderful the books are, but between you & me? I’d do it for free, because I’m a total sucker for the books we’re putting out. (Probably not full-time, though, so if you’re reading this, boss, keep the paychecks coming!)

In all seriousness, it really is a “dream job,” precisely what I’d hoped to be doing when I got into publishing: having opinions about books with wizards & spaceships, & making those opinions matter. I’ve picked up a bit of jack-of-all-trades over the years, & being part of a new experiment flexes those skills in ways I am still gleefully scrambling to figure out. Tor.com Publishing is proof that publishers are doing new things & evolving.

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Springald! The Medieval Eighty-Eight

Springald! The Medieval Eighty-Eight

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Springald1
“Destroyed everything within range”

The springald looks quaint in the 14th century illustration – a flimsy looking box frame served by two oddly bendy crewmen.

Youtube video of reconstruction in action
Youtube video of reconstruction in action

However, at the battle of Mons-en-Pevele in 1304, a pair of French springalds “destroyed  everything within range” — and that range could be 300 m — until the enemy overran them and hacked it up.

According to the Royal Armouries Springalds and Great Crossbows (the main source for this article), a springald bolt could weigh 1.4kg, and impacted with an estimated energy of 1782 Joules, that’s about twenty times that of a regular crossbow, nearly three times that of a Magnum pistol, and a bit more than an impact from an AK47 round (source)!

No wonder, then that the chronicler Froissart describes one such terrible missile passing right through a man and out the other side!

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Goth Chick News: The Overlook Gets a Starring Role

Goth Chick News: The Overlook Gets a Starring Role

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The Stanley Hotel
The Timberline Lodge

If you had asked me, when a prequel to The Shining was first green-lighted in July of last year, I’d have said it didn’t sound like such a hot idea.

Initial plans suggested the storyline would center on events leading up to Jack, Wendy and Danny Torrance’s arrival at the remote and ominous Overlook Hotel; and though fans of the book know there is a substantial amount of pre-Torrance material to work with, it just didn’t seem on the same terrifying level as the ultimate fallout of those events.

That early opinion of mine (may have) changed when Mark Romanek became attached to the project this week — a real-deal director with an edgy artistic vision.

Film will be called… wait for it…

The Overlook Hotel.

The premise is based on a deleted prologue written by Stephen King. “Before the Play” is about:

The origin story of the Overlook Hotel through the eyes of its first owner, Bob T. Watson. A robber baron at the turn of the 20th century, Watson scaled the remote peaks of the Colorado Rockies to build the grandest resort in America, and a place he and his family would also call home.

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Call For Submissions: Mysterion

Call For Submissions: Mysterion

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A few months ago, I announced that the self-published book review column would be going on hiatus while I worked on a new project. It’s now time to talk about that project here.

Mysterion's cover art by Rob Joseph.
Mysterion’s cover art by Rob Joseph.

My wife and I have decided that we have too much time and money. The obvious way to rectify this situation is to publish a pro-paying speculative fiction anthology. And as you can tell by the beautiful cover art we acquired, we’ve already begun our personal wealth redistribution program of transferring money from us to other artists.

The anthology is called Mysterion: Rediscovering the Mysteries of the Christian Faith, and it is now open for submissions. As the name gives away, we’ll be publishing stories that engage with Christianity. While the phrase “Christian speculative fiction” occasionally appears on our website, our anthology is not what is often meant by “Christian fiction”: stories written by Christians and for Christians with nary a heresy nor a swear word to raise an eyebrow. We’re not looking for preachy stories, nor are we necessarily looking for unambiguously pro-Christian stories. There’s no need for the writer or the story to pass some theological standard for Mysterion. On the contrary, we’re hoping to be challenged.

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Legendary Pictures to Make Godzilla Vs. Kong

Legendary Pictures to Make Godzilla Vs. Kong

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King Kong vs Godzilla

BG blogger emeritus (and part time Hollywood correspondent) Ryan Harvey has slipped us the word that Legendary Pictures, the makers of the 2014 blockbuster Godzilla, has green-lit a trio of sequels featuring the monster-hunting organization Monarch, including a re-make of that tender slice of celluloid heaven, King Kong Vs. Godzilla. Here’s part of yesterday’s  press release from Warner Bros:

All-powerful monsters become towering heroes for a new generation, revealing a mythology that brings together Godzilla and Legendary’s King Kong in an ecosystem of other giant super-species, both classic and new. Monarch, the human organization that uncovered Godzilla in the 2014 film, will expand their mission across multiple releases… The initial trio of films are 2017’s Kong: Skull Island; Godzilla 2 in 2018; and then Godzilla Vs Kong, arriving in theaters in 2020… Production on Kong: Skull Island begins October 19th.

The original King Kong Vs. Godzilla was released by Toho Studios in Japan in 1962, and became an instant monster-movie classic. Trust me, it was biblically awesome.

Read all the details at Deadline.

In the Trenches: Warhammer 40K: Gaunt’s Ghosts: Straight Silver

In the Trenches: Warhammer 40K: Gaunt’s Ghosts: Straight Silver

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Straight Silver Dan Abnett-smallThe world of Aexe Cardinal has been largely separated from galactic civilization for several centuries. Their technology is roughly on the level of ours around the time of the First World War — which is significant, because for almost half a century, the dominant nations of the planet have been in a deadlock with the Chaos-tainted Republic of Shadik. Their war is fought between lines of trenches across an ancient, toxic no man’s land. In all the ways that matter, it is the First World War, amplified in scale, duration, and stakes.

And who better to break a deadlock than the Imperial Guard, spearheaded by the tough-as-nails bravos of the Tanith First-and-Only?

The title, Straight Silver, refers to the foot-long war-knives carried by all the Tanith. I typically imagine them looking something like the classic Swiss bayonet. It’s a fitting title, because the cramped spaces of trench networks offer plenty of opportunity for blade-work.

After the intense battles of Honor Guard and Guns of Tanith, though, Straight Silver feels like a quiet interlude. There’s still plenty of fighting, but the only encounter which really stood out to me was a last-ditch defense of an isolated manor occurring in the last 20-30 pages of the novel. There’s another lengthy sequence where Gaunt personally leads a team across no man’s land to take out a battery of massive bombardment weapons, and while it’s certainly solid, it doesn’t particularly stand out from the other, similar sequences in the series.

Part of the problem is that, in recreating the conditions of a World War One style deadlock, Abnett hasn’t really given the Shadik troopers any unique features to make them more than generic bad guys — not even funny hats. It’s also not specified exactly how Chaos has affected them. The Shadik Republic thus stands out among the Ghosts’ adversaries only for its blandness.

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Comedy in Fantasy: The Ebenezum Trilogy by Craig Shaw Gardner

Comedy in Fantasy: The Ebenezum Trilogy by Craig Shaw Gardner

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A Malady of Magicks-smallThe late Terry Pratchett left a large gap in the Comedic Fantasy genre which, for many, may never be filled. Love him or hate him (I have found myself doing both over the years), he pretty much defined the field.

I first came across Craig Shaw Gardner not long after I read The Colour of Magic. Giving away my age here, but when I read The Colour of Magic I think only the third Discworld book, Equal Rights, has just been published. Needless to say, like anything new, different and — more precisely — successful, there was demand for more of the same. Enter Craig Shaw Gardner. While I doubt they were consciously trying to emulate Pratchett, it is possible that Gardner’s publisher may have drawn a parallel of sorts, and decided to try and brand his novels in a similar way.

Thus it was that I encountered A Malady of Magicks, which immediately caught my eye with its familiar cover style. The cover blurb:

In which a wizard with a nose for magic gets a very bad cold…

was intriguing. Add to that a Josh Kirby cover and one can start to see the parallels, intended or not. I didn’t buy the book, but made a mental note of it, and saw that in due course books two and three appeared: A Multitude of Monsters and A Night in the Netherhells respectively. Others followed.

I was of course looking at the British versions, published by Headline in 1988 and 1989 and as mentioned, all with Josh Kirby covers. The series was originally published in the US by Ace in 1986 and 1987, with the first book, A Malady of Magicks, reprinted three times in 1986.

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