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Mysteriouser, and Mysteriouser

Mysteriouser, and Mysteriouser

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Waldo and Magic Inc-smallThe idea of genre in literature is relatively recent, if you take as your time span the history of the written word. Why, I remember a time when there were only two genres, Poetry and Prose. Or, as we call them nowadays, Fiction and Non-fiction. Things have gotten more complicated since Sir Philip Sydney wrote “A Defense of Poetry,” however, as I’m sure a glance over any of our own bookshelves would tell us.

Last week, in discussing my serial-killer fantasy, Path of the Sun, I started talking about cross-genre writing. I was writing a high fantasy crime novel, but most examples of the crime/fantasy cross are urban fantasies, set in an alternate reality.

The first of these to cross my path was Robert Heinlein’s “Magic Inc” (1940). Technically, it’s an amateur sleuth mystery – the main character isn’t a professional detective of any kind – Archie Fraser lives in a world where magic is a routine service you rent or purchase, like the expertise of a plumber or a musician. When he’s threatened by the equivalent of the mob, asking him to pay “insurance” for his business and threatening him with magical reprisals, he finds an unusual ally in the shape of a very powerful, and very old, witch.

In 1987/88, Glen Cook published the three novels that make up the Garrett Files: Sweet Silver Blues, Bitter Gold Hearts, and Cold Copper Tears. (Fans of John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee books will recognize MacDonald’s method of keeping his books straight by using a different colour in each title.)

Cook’s Garrett is a human private investigator with supernatural allies, but he sets the stage for the more recent Dresden Files, now in, I think, its fourteenth or fifteen volume. Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden is himself a magician, part Sam Spade and part Merlin, living in an alternate version of Chicago.

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Blogging Sax Rohmer’s President Fu Manchu, Part Four

Blogging Sax Rohmer’s President Fu Manchu, Part Four

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President CorgiPresident CassellSax Rohmer’s The Invisible President was originally serialized in Collier’s from February 29 to May 16, 1936. It was published in book form later that year by Cassell in the UK and Doubleday in the US under the title President Fu Manchu. The novel is the first in the series to fictionalize real events with characters based on familiar figures in the US in the 1930s, such as Huey Long and Father Charles Coughlin. More than one critic has noted the story may have influenced the classic Cold War conspiracy thriller The Manchurian Candidate.

The key to tracking down Fu Manchu comes from the most unlikely of sources. It is Robbie Adair, Moya’s four-year old son, who mentions to Mark Hepburn about the mad man who lives at the Stratton Building, the high-rise across the street from Robbie’s apartment, who makes sculptures of a bust and hurls them down to the street below. Robbie also mentions “Yellow Uncle” who is kind to him and gave him his own auto for his birthday. Moya dismissed the stories as a little boy’s imagination, but Hepburn realizes the auto is in fact a toy car and “Yellow Uncle” is very real. The mad man Robbie sees is Professor Morgenstahl, a brilliant German scientist believed dead, who is now a slave to the Si-Fan and installed at the Stratton Building. During his free hours each day, he sculpts a bust of Fu Manchu and hurls it to the pavement below in impotent rage.

 

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Readercon 24: “A Most Readerconnish Miscellany”

Readercon 24: “A Most Readerconnish Miscellany”

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BGClaire
Yours Truly, C.S.E. Cooney

First of all…

HALLOOOOO Black Gate Readers!

I don’t even know if you remember me; it’s been so long, and I think there are probably a lot more of you now. Anyway, I’m C.S.E. Cooney, and I’m a writer, and sometimes I blog here, and today is one of those days.

So, hi. Again.

This last weekend, I attended Readercon 24, as participant and performer. This year, instead of signing up for ALL THE SCARILY CLEVER PANELS that I’m mostly unsuited for, I signed up to perform stuff.

BGBanjo
Caitlyn Paxson, Jacqueline of All Trades

Because I like performing.

Performing’s cool.

And since performing is so cool, why, Caitlyn Paxson (another writer, also a storyteller, also a harpist and banjo-player, also the Artistic Director of the Ottawa Storytellers and All-Around Belle Dame Sans Merci, only, like, Avec Merci) and I proposed to teach a workshop at Readercon called “From Page to Stage: Adapting Your Text for Performance.”

But I get ahead of myself.

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Goth Chick News: Frankenstein’s Army, Or If Nazis and Hellraiser Had Kids

Goth Chick News: Frankenstein’s Army, Or If Nazis and Hellraiser Had Kids

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image001Okay, I admit it.

Much like the kid who gets the giggles reading the “dirty” words someone highlighted in the classroom Webster (and yes, I admit doing that as well), me and my sophomoric inclinations are a sucker for anything deemed inappropriate.

I would normally conduct a dramatic eye-roll if I received an email about an upcoming film called Frankenstein’s Army. The actual email that landed in my in-box, however, was accompanied by the somewhat taboo but ultimately irresistible “Red Band” trailer.

If you’re not familiar with the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) classifications, movie trailers are generally tailored for “All Audiences,” even if the movie itself is rated “R.” Such trailers state as much with the wording housed in a green “band” across the screen.

A “Red Band” trailer is definitely not for all audiences, and generally contains something naughty. Sadly, red band trailers often signal that shock value will be replacing story/production/acting values… although there are rare exceptions.

But unable to resist the red band, I opened it – oh yes I did.

And I watched the trailer for Frankenstein’s Army.

And I understood why it received a “red band” designation.

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How to Run a Successful Kickstarter – Part II

How to Run a Successful Kickstarter – Part II

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This is Part II of a two-part series on How to Run a Successful Novel Kickstarter

Find Part I here.

For years, I’d been planning on pulling together my short fiction into a collection of some sort to get it out and into the world. And for years I hemmed and hawed about actually doing it. I didn’t have time. It wouldn’t do well. My time would be better spent on my next novel. You’ve probably said many of the same things yourself.

Well, late last year, a few things changed. One, I wrapped up my debut trilogy, The Lays of Anuskaya, which finally freed up a fair bit of time for me to work on something besides novel-length work. And two, Kickstarter happened. What do I mean by that? Well, Kickstarter had been around for a while, but more and more I was seeing successful projects being started and completed on the platform. I saw how impressive some of them were, how caught up I got in the “community” that successful projects could bring about. I saw how effective some project owners were about running the Kickstarters during the ‘Starter itself.

And it got me to thinking: it may take some time and effort, but if they can do it, so can I.

And if I can do it, so can you.

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Watch This Awesome Teaser Trailer for The Boxtrolls, Because it’s Good for You

Watch This Awesome Teaser Trailer for The Boxtrolls, Because it’s Good for You

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Seriously, this trailer will make you smile, turn you into a better person, and maybe even teach you a foreign language. All in 72 seconds.

As I reported last week, Alan Snow’s criminally overlooked YA series The Ratbridge Chronicles — so overlooked that America forgot to publish it — is being adapted into a feature film by stop-motion studio Laika, creators of Coraline and ParaNorman. Any studio that takes their name from the first dog in space is okay in my book.

Technically, I think The Boxtrolls adapts only the first novel, the marvelous Here Be Monsters, which appeared in 2006. The second, Worse Things Happen at Sea, was released in the UK in October 2010, and cruelly snubbed here in the US — at least until last week, when it was finally published by Atheneum Books (you guys rock). The third, Thar She Blows, is scheduled to appear in December 2013.

The Boxtrolls will be released September 26, 2014. It is directed by Graham Annable and Anthony Stacchi, and stars the voice talents of Ben Kingsley, Simon Pegg, Elle Fanning, Isaac Hempstead-Wright, Toni Collette, and Jared Harris.

New Treasures: Cobweb Bride by Vera Nazarian

New Treasures: Cobweb Bride by Vera Nazarian

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Cobweb Bride-smallThere’s lots of perks to running the Black Gate global mega-publishing empire. For one thing, I enjoy being part of the “lamestream media,” telling America what to think and do, ignoring today’s critical issues so I can focus on movies about giant robots. That’s satisfaction right there. Plus, those Manhattan press parties are a blast. Seriously, I could tell you stories.

But the best part of publishing is discovering new talent, the emerging short fiction writers of today who will be the towering giants of the field tomorrow. Writers like Vera Nazarian, whose brilliant short story, “Niola’s Last Stand,” we published earlier this year. Strangely, no one seems to have told Vera that she’s expected to toil away in obscurity for years before vaulting to superstardom — she’s already accumulated two Nebula noms, and her just-released novel, Cobweb Bride, looks like a clear contender for one of the most talked-about books of the year. Some people have no respect for due process.

Well, we know how to cash in on a good thing. So we asked Vera for an exclusive quote explaining Cobweb Bride to our readers (“Quick — while she’s still taking our calls.”) Here’s what she told us:

Cobweb Bride is a story of Death and Love and loss and intensity, a strange twist on the Persephone myth set in an alternate Renaissance Europe. Enter the Uncanny Valley of the Shadow of Death. This is a place at the heart of the Brothers Grimm and in the mind of Dante, in the gut of Ouroboros, in the mouth of Hell, and in the eye of a glittering Imperial Court rivaling the splendor of Louis XIV’s Versailles.

It is an epic fantasy of love and eldritch wonder, about death’s ultimatum to the world.

Does that sound awesome, or what? What did we tell you? Pay attention, we won’t steer you wrong.

Cobweb Bride is the first book of the Cobweb Bride Trilogy. It was published by Leda on July 15. It is $14.95 in trade paperback, and just $5.99 for the digital edition.

Giving the Devil His Due: A Review of Dreamers in Hell

Giving the Devil His Due: A Review of Dreamers in Hell

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Dreamers in Hell-smallDreamers in Hell (Heroes in Hell, Volume 15)
Created by Janet Morris, edited by Janet and Chris Morris, and written “with the diabolical assistance of their damnedest writers.”
Perseid Press (478 pages, June 13, 2013, $23.95 in trade paperback)

It is a place of swords and spears, revolvers and automatic weapons, sorcery and science, catapults and cannon, bows and arrows, computers and demons. It is a place where there is no Hope for the damned, merely the suggestion of it.

Welcome to Hell, where Perdition rules. Whether a soul believes in Hell or not, Hell believes in damnation of the mortal soul. Anyone can end up in Hell, no matter what religion, no matter what faith. You may not believe in Hell, but Hell believes in you.

In Hell, all things are possible. In Hell, many of the damned believe they have been wrongly sent there, while others accept their fate and try to make the best of a bad situation. In Hell’s Mortuary, the Undertaker giveth and taketh away, revives and reassigns the damned — again and again — so they can continue their dance with the Devil. Yes, welcome to Hell — where rogues and heroes and fools quest for a way out, and Satan plots to storm the Gates of Heaven.

Ah, but wait… the powers that be in Heaven have decided that Hell has become too comfortable. Infernity is in trouble. El Diablo is lying down on the job.

Heaven has sent Erra, Babylonian god of plague and mayhem, and his 7 Sibitti (his Auditors, his Enforcers, his personified weapons), to further punish the innocent as well as the guilty, and they do so with great glee. They are Hell’s judge, jury, and executioners. Satan can’t even run Hell the way he wants to run it. Paradise mocks him. Will Erra replace Satan? Make things worse for everyone in all levels and versions of Hell — past, present and future?

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Fritz Leiber, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Appendix N: Advanced Readings in D&D

Fritz Leiber, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Appendix N: Advanced Readings in D&D

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Swords and Ice Magic-smallOver at Tor.com, Tim Callahan and Mordicai Knode continue with their thoughtful and entertaining tour through Gary Gygax’s famous Appendix N, the library of fantasy and SF titles referenced in the back of the Dungeon Master’s Guide. In the past few weeks, they’ve covered Fritz Leiber and Edgar Rice Burroughs — proving once again that they can write these columns faster than I can keep up.

So we’ll play catch-up today. Here’s what Mordicai says about Leiber, author of the genre-defining Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser tales.

Guys, Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and Gray Mouser are basically the bee’s knees. In fact, I might go so far as to say they are the most Dungeons and Dragons of anything on the Appendix N list… The thing about the Lankhmar stories is that they are actually how people play the game as well… Let me illustrate it thus: Fafhrd straps fireworks to his skis at one point in order to rocket across a jump. That sort of insanity is just so… well, so Dungeons and Dragons; I don’t know how Leiber does it… Leiber’s imagination is so fruitful that, well, it is like he has a chaos theory generator in his head. Billions of flapping butterflies.

So true! And here’s Tim on how Edgar Rice Burroughs’s John Carter novels may have influenced level limits.
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Some of the Best Battles in Recent Memory: A Review of Dawnthief

Some of the Best Battles in Recent Memory: A Review of Dawnthief

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Dawnthief Pyr-smallDawnthief (Chronicles of the Raven 1)
By James Barclay
Pyr (403 pages, $17 September 22, 2009)

Balia, the setting of Dawnthief, isn’t a very nice place, not at all. Rape, murder, betrayal, lust, and just plain old human cruelty, yep it’s all here by the bucket-load. But as interesting as the world is, it can’t even compare to the people who populate it.

Dawnthief follows a group of mercenaries called ‘The Raven’ as they are employed by one of the four magic colleges, Xetesk, to find Dawnthief, a spell apparently designed to end the world and the only thing capable of destroying the ‘wytch lords’: all powerful beings bent on destroying the world, who for no particular reason, have decided to wake up again, and, for no particular reason, destroy the world.

Needless to say, our intrepid adventurers set out to stop them, accompanied all the while by Denser, a mage from Xetesk, sent to oversee the operation, cast Dawnthief and cause a lot of trouble for The Raven. Now in order to do what they want to do, they must find four catalysts, which are basically the things needed to cast a spell. These are located across Balia and must be found if they are to have any chance of success.

The plot is the book’s weakest point; it all feels a bit clichéd, a bit tired and, to be frank, a bit boring. The catalysts serve only to ferry the team from one battle to the next, all they do is give the group an excuse to move from point A to point B and set up the next fight, or puzzle.

It’s not exactly original either, is it? Just another “save the world from the dark lord” story, another Lord of the Rings mimic; tried and true, but contrived and unoriginal. I mean come on, care a little bit.

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