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Self-Published Book Review: Mistress of the Dancing Bones by Thomas Alexander

Self-Published Book Review: Mistress of the Dancing Bones by Thomas Alexander

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Dancing-Bones-CoverThis month’s self-published book is Mistress of the Dancing Bones by Thomas Alexander.

Four hundred years ago, the Deathlords threatened to destroy all of humanity. It was the nephilim who saved the human race. Thus was the Code Sanguine founded: humans swore to serve the nephilim, and if required, give them their blood, while the nephilim swore to protect humanity, and raise the best of the humans to nephilim themselves. For before the Code Sanguine, the nephilim were known by another name: vampires.

Ashia is the daughter of a nephilim warlord, Marcel Boucher, and his human wife. This does not make her a nephilim, or even part nephilim. She is fully human until embraced by the nephilim. She is also, thanks to her mother, Dahraki, one of the dragon-blooded, and that gives her access to another kind of magic, the necromancy of the Than Khet. Unfortunately, the servant who secretly tutored her in Than Khet magic neglected to tell her that it is incompatible with becoming nephilim. Should a Than Khet be embraced as a nephilim, she would go mad as the two parts of herself warred.

When he discovers what has happened, Ashia’s father is furious. All his dreams for his daughter have come crashing down. But larger problems plague Ashia’s family. Renegade vampires are plaguing Marcel’s territory and the family’s enemies are placing the blame squarely on Marcel and his willingness to embrace barbarians rather than civilized Avensh as nephilim. In order to discover the truth, Ashia agrees to accompany the legendary nephilim witch-hunter Dusang and his demon-cat-fey ally, Tama, in tracking down the renegades and discovering the truth behind a conspiracy that involves not only renegades and political enemies, but the Deathlords themselves.

I am generally not a fan of vampire novels. I prefer my vampires as antagonists rather than as love interests. And for the love of God, sunlight better burn, or at least weaken, them, not cause them to sparkle. So I was taking a chance on this novel, but I’m glad I did.

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Derek Künsken wins 2012 Asimov’s SF Readers’ Award

Derek Künsken wins 2012 Asimov’s SF Readers’ Award

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Derek KunskenI flipped open the October/November issue of Asimov’s SF this afternoon and the first words to catch my eye were from Sheila Williams’s editorial, on the 27th Annual Readers’ Award Results. They were:

Much praise was lavished on relatively new writer, Derek Künsken. Richard Harding spoke for many when he wrote, “the most striking story I read was ‘The Way of the Needle.’ Wonderful imagination combined with ethics and striving. Thank you very much.

I missed the original announcement on Derek’s blog back in May, so I’m glad I caught it in print.

Congratulations to Derek! We were proud to publish his popular story, “The Gifts of Li Tzu-Ch’eng,” in Black Gate 15 (and not just because Derek is a fellow Ottawa native). Sherwood Smith’s SF Site review of the story said, in part:

Though he is famous in both history and legend, what finally happened to the warlord Li Tzu-Ch’eng is not known. A possible path is hinted at in this tale, which begins when Li is approached by a woman, Nü Wa, who claims to be a messenger of Heaven. She offers Li four gifts. When the reader discovers that Li may only use three of the gifts — the fourth will be used against him — and one of the gifts is love, it’s clear that this will not be a straightforward tale of swords and war…

Other winners this year include Joe Haldeman (Best Poem), Robert Reed (Best Novella, for “Murder Born”), and Sandra McDonald and Megan Arkenberg, who tied for Best Short Story (for “Sexy Robot Mom” and “Final Exam,” respectively.)

Artist Laura Diehl won for Best Cover for the December 2012 issue, which you can see here. Congratulations to all the winners!

September/October Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction now on Sale

September/October Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction now on Sale

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Fantasy and Science Fiction September October 2013-smallOkay, technically it’s been on sale for over a month, but I just bought my copy last week. Good thing this is a bi-monthly magazine or I’d be hunting up back issues on eBay.

The striking cover this issue is by David A. Hardy for Eugene Mirabelli’s short story, “The Shore at the End of the World.” Chuck Rothman doesn’t mention it in his Tangent Online review, but he does praise contributions from Rachel Pollack and Oliver Buckram:

Rachel Pollack contributes a first-class fantasy in “The Queen of Eyes,” a story of Jack Shade, one of the Traveler’s Aid Society – which, despite its mundane name, deals with supernatural events. He’s something of a detective, and when a woman comes to him to report her mother is missing, he quickly realizes her mother is the Queen of Eyes, with the ability to see everything at once, and a major power in the world. The story describes Jack’s search for her. It’s filled with imaginative details and characters, treachery and mystery and is spellbinding from start to finish.

We next move to the purest space opera in “Un Opera Nello Spazio” – yes, an actual opera . It’s a synopsis of an opera set on a spaceship, where Orlando the orangutan longs for Flora, a human. Arias are mentioned (I was especially tickled by Allarme Ross! (Red Alert). This is the type of story that is either a tour de force or which fails utterly, but Oliver Buckram avoids the potential pitfalls to create an entertaining diversion.

Albert E. Cowdrey returns after a long absence (one issue — but that’s a long absence for Cowdrey, who hasn’t missed being in the Table of Contents of F&SF for two years.) Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

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New Treasures: Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs

New Treasures: Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs

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Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs-smallI had the pleasure of talking to Bob Garcia a few weeks ago, at a party at Doug Ellis‘s house near Chicago. Bob is a great guy — always jovial and superbly well-informed, and always ready to entertain with fascinating, behind-the-scenes tales of the publishing biz. His American Fantasy was one of the finest fantasy magazines of the 80s, and ever since he’s been well-positioned at the heart of the industry.

I took the opportunity to ask him about his new anthology, Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs, co-edited with Mike Resnick, just published by Baen on October 1st. It’s such a great idea — all new stories set in the many worlds of ERB, by many of today’s hottest writers — that it’s a wonder no one has thought of it before.

Bob was happy to give me the details. The book contains ten new tales set in the legendary worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs — plus one reprint, Resnick’s novella, “The Forgotten Sea of Mars,” which originally appeared in the fanzine ERB-dom way back in 1966. This is the only Mars/Barsoom story in the book, as Disney now controls the rights to Burroughs’s Mars properties.

The book suffers not at all for that, however. When Bob and Mike started approaching writers, soliciting submissions, they were overwhelmed by the enthusiastic response. The final Table of Contents includes a new Tarzan tale by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, a Carson Napier of Venus homage by Richard A. Lupoff, a Moon Maid contribution from Peter David, a Mucker story from Max Allen Collins and Matthew Clemens, a Pellucidar story by Mercedes Lackey, a crossover tale by Joe R. Lansdale (“Tarzan and the Land Time Forgot”), plus stories by F. Paul Wilson, Todd McCaffrey, Kevin J. Anderson and Sarah A. Hoyt, and Ralph Roberts.

Here’s a few sentences from the introduction by Resnick and Garcia that give you an idea of the breadth of Burroughs’s accomplishments and just how vast a playground he left for their contributors to play in.

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Appendix N: Carrying on the Flame

Appendix N: Carrying on the Flame

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Runequest Sixth Edition-smallAs recently posted here at Black Gate by James Maliszewski in his article “The Other Appendix N,” the very first Appendix N bibliography of inspirational reading ever printed in a roleplaying game was actually in the 1978 edition of Chaosium’s RuneQuest; a year before Gygax released his own homage in the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide. Whilst it merely followed the time honored convention of academic publications, few remember nowadays that it was RuneQuest which started an institution in roleplaying that still continues to this day.

Surprisingly, the differences between the two bibliographies are quite stark. RuneQuest’s list, rather scholarly, incorporated a lot of ancient history texts, books of military warfare, and Nordic sagas; whereas AD&D’s was more devoted to fantastical fiction, especially the less well-known authors of the genre. Central to both bibliographies, however, are some familiar names: Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, Michael Moorcock, Clark Ashton Smith, and JRR Tolkien. Other than that, there was little overlap between the two.

Whilst these recommended reading lists reveal each game’s designers’ interests and objectives, it also highlighted that every writer is heavily influenced by the literature they read, and by implication, those stories available to them at the time.

For Gary Gygax, a man turned forty by the time he wrote the Dungeon Masters Guide, the early works of fantasy authors such as Poul Anderson, Leigh Brackett, Fox Gardner, Andre Norton, Jack Vance, and Roger Zelazny were readily available in bookshops, hot off the press. Indeed, almost all of the books on his inspirational reading list would have been as easy to pick up as purchasing a copy of A Game of Thrones is today.

Although the combined authors of RuneQuest were less than a decade younger, their drier bibliography somehow never matched the mystique of Gygax’s subsequent list, despite the fact that the game itself gripped my imagination with a far tighter hold. This fascination was more due to the Classical style of its illustrations combined with Greg Stafford’s wondrously magical world of Glorantha, with its roots firmly grounded in diverse mythologies – alas, unlisted in the first Appendix N.

When Lawrence Whitaker and I set about refining and re-launching RuneQuest as a quality roleplaying game, we too were influenced by our own youthful reading.

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Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Drums of Fu Manchu, Part Three

Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Drums of Fu Manchu, Part Three

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poster_05Sadrums_of_fu_manchu_posterx Rohmer’s The Drums of Fu Manchu was first serialized in Collier’s from April 1 to June 3, 1939. It was published in book form later that year by Cassel in the UK and Doubleday in the US. The third quarter of the book picks up with Ardatha having risked her life to warn Bart Kerrigan to leave Venice immediately. The beautiful Eurasian climbs through the startled Englishman’s window in his canal-side hotel room and pleads with him to cease interfering in the Si-Fan’s plans to assassinate German dictator Rudolf Adlon.

While Kerrigan’s mind reels at the thought that Ardatha shares the same feelings for him as he does for her, the two are interrupted by the sound of footsteps outside. They fall silent, fearing she has been followed, but when the footsteps pass, the two fall into one another’s arms and make passionate love in their desperation.

After Ardatha departs into the night, Kerrigan first fears for her safety and then is overcome with guilt at the thought that she acted the part of a decoy who kept him from his duty of watching over Sir Denis. He rushes to his friend’s room and finds Smith has disappeared. Kerrigan is forced to realize that while he made love with Ardatha, Sir Denis fell into the hands of the Si-Fan and their efforts to protect Rudolf Adlon from assassination have been compromised as a result.

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Goth Chick News: For Your Enjoyment — Scaring the Snot Out of People

Goth Chick News: For Your Enjoyment — Scaring the Snot Out of People

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Nightmares Fear Factory2If you have a younger sibling, a twitchy girlfriend, or a pal susceptible to suggestion, then you’ve probably done it.

If you’ve ever been to camp, driven to some deserted location with a local legend attached to it, or offered to walk through first in a haunted house line up, then you’ve most definitely done it.

At some point in your life, you’ve gotten perverse pleasure from scaring the life out of another human being.

Admittedly, I think I’ve lost a few friends over it in my case. This is due to my complete lack of empathy with the victim ,which manifests in my laughing so hard I nearly have a seizure.

Totally unfair and coming in around the fourth-grade level of humor to be sure, but I just can’t help myself.

And neither can you – admit it.

My greatest joy this time of year comes from positioning myself in the standard group of six to walk through some haunted attraction, with at least two random pre-teen girls.

More is better.

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Nebula Award-winning Author Eugie Foster Diagnosed with Cancer

Nebula Award-winning Author Eugie Foster Diagnosed with Cancer

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Eugie FosterThe tireless Eugie Foster, author and genre powerhouse, announced this week on her blog that she has been diagnosed with cancer.

Eugie first came to my attention while she was running Tangent Online, after Dave Truesdale stepped down. She reorganized the field’s premiere short-fiction review site, recruited a great team of reviewers, and returned it to a regular schedule — and industry prominence. At the same time, her own writing appeared in Interzone, Apex, Fantasy Magazine, Realms of Fantasy, and other places; her Interzone story “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast” won the 2009 Nebula Award and was nominated for the Hugo. Her first collection, Returning My Sister’s Face and Other Far Eastern Tales of Whimsy and Malice, was published the same year.

Jason Waltz introduced me to Eugie at Dragon*Con in 2010, at her busy press station deep in the con’s hive center, where she produced the onsite newsletter, the Daily Dragon. Eugie was even more impressive in person — charming and highly articulate, filled with drive and energy.

Eugie made the following announcement on Tuesday:

I’ve been struggling with blinding headaches for the last several months – since June – that has recently also become persistent sinus congestion and significant loss of hearing in my right ear. I thought originally it was a bad dental crown, since the timing coincided, or possibly TMJ, since the symptoms seemed to point in that direction.

After seeing a dentist, general practitioner, ENT, and oral surgeon; and being prescribed three (now four) courses of antibiotics, steroids, and a variety of narcotics to help alleviate my pain, they took CT scans yesterday.

As it turns out, the culprit is a malignant, fast-growing tumor, around 6cm, in my sinuses and hard and soft palate regions. In short, it’s cancer. They don’t know what kind yet so can’t make a prognosis. The ENT who ordered the CT scan said that surgery – ASAP, immediate, urgent – to remove the tumor is my only treatment alternative at this point. Whether I require chemo afterwards depends on the type of cancer it ends up being.

She is only 41 years old. Read the complete details, and the latest updates, on her blog.

The Before It’s Too Late List

The Before It’s Too Late List

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Confucius A Life of Thought and Politic-smallNot long ago, I sat down to begin a day’s work and found myself distractedly messing about online, where I blundered into a collection of quotes about reading.

I was immediately wrapped up in agreeing with the pronouncements of many famous people as they uttered heartfelt words about just how valuable, transporting and all around awesome reading really was. I nodded enthusiastically, feeling justified and righteous, and occasionally surprised.

I read,

No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance.

Whoa! That’s in-your-face enough to warrant a fist pump, maybe even throwing the horns. And who said it? Can you guess?

Confucius. I cackled to myself. Way to go, Confucius. Literary bad-ass of 500 BC.

Then I read…

“Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.”
— Henry David Thoreau

And that simple, obvious, muscular little sentence shot through me like a frozen dart.

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Finntroll! Viking Metal and the War Against Irony

Finntroll! Viking Metal and the War Against Irony

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finntroll
Imagine if the Cookie Monster joined a Madness tribute band and persuaded them to adopt a heavier guitar sound while he rapped.

There’s a half-naked man on stage and he’s got pointed ears — not the rubber Vulcan/Elf ears you see at parties; full on floppy troll ears. More importantly, he’s not doing this for comic effect. He addresses the crowd in a crisp Finnish accent; “Did anybody buy the album!”

Incoherent roars and yells from the pit where long-haired students wait to “mosh.”

Somebody must have boasted about getting a pirate download because Mathias – Finntroll‘s lead singer – shoots back levelly, “#### you, sir.  We have the vinyl over there. You can go buy it right now.”

Perhaps the pirate retorts that information wants to be free, or that musicians should play for the love of it. If he does, his words are lost because the music starts.

Gamer Dad and I have hauled ourselves to the Classic Grand in Glasgow, a city which reminds me of late Constantinople; the inhabitants live out a vibrant life amid the crumbling relics of Victorian glory, repurposing old buildings until the very scars in their fabric tell the sagas of lost milieus. This venue started life in 1915 as a cinema. Now it’s a rather good rock club.

We 40-something dads have the shortest hair in the room and are at the upper end of the demographic, but we don’t care. We’re here to see Tyr, who are playing support tonight. They’re more melodic than their cohorts and sing about Viking gods and the old ways. Robert E. Howard would approve (but that’s another story). However, we’re in no rush to get our train. We stay for the main act.

Finntroll are… not easy listening.

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