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Vintage Treasures: The Empire of Fear by Brian Stableford

Vintage Treasures: The Empire of Fear by Brian Stableford

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The Empire of FearLast week’s Bram Stoker Awards nominees — not to mention all the recent chatter about horror and dark fantasy on this blog, from Matthew David Surridge’s investigation of Rebecca to my Saturday piece on Adam Nevill’s Last Days — has gotten me to thinking about the major horror novels of my youth. One of the most frequently discussed and passed around was Brian Stableford’s vampire epic The Empire of Fear.

England in the seventeenth century is a land ruled by the Undead, an empire upon which the sun never rises. Feared and envied, worshipped and despised, Richard the Lionheart and his aristocracy of vampires rule with terror and the darkly-seductive promise of life eternal for the lucky few. For centuries it has been thus. But now, even in the very shadow of their vampire masters’ tyranny, mortal resistance is brewing.

Edmund Cordery, member of the cabal pledged to penetrate the mysteries of the vampires and destroy them, strikes the first blow. But it will fall to his son, Noell, to carry on the crusade of human against inhuman. And it will fall to those who come after Noell to keep the struggle alive for over three centuries — from England to Malta to modern-day America, where destiny will decide finally whether the forces of horror or humanity will hold sway over all…

For short fiction fans, The Empire of Fear grew out of the author’s “The Man Who Loved the Vampire Lady,” a novelette in the August 1988 Fantasy & Science Fiction. Stableford was one of the most ambitious horror writers of the late 80s and early 90s, especially with work such as his well-regarded Werewolf trilogy (starting with The Werewolves of London, 1990). Having covered werewolves and vampires, Stableford completed the triumvirate of classic monsters in 2008 with The Shadow of Frankenstein, the first of The Empire of the Necromancers trilogy.

The Empire of Fear was published in paperback by Ballantine Books in October 1993 (hardcover edition 1988). It is 469 pages, with an original cover price of $5.99.

New Treasures: The Eye of the World: The Graphic Novel, Volume 3

New Treasures: The Eye of the World: The Graphic Novel, Volume 3

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The Eye of the World Graphic NovelNo, you’re not a bad person because you prefer to wait for the comic versions of major bestelling fantasy series. I’m right there with you. We are what the world has made us, and it’s not our fault.

It’s especially not our fault that the world keeps throwing all these enticing graphic novels our way. The latest series to catch my eye has been The Eye of the World, the ambitious adaptation of the first novel in Robert Jordan’s 14-volume, 10,000+ page fantasy epic The Wheel of Time.

This isn’t the first Jordan comic project. New Spring, based on his 2004 Wheel of Time prequel novel, was published by Tor in 2011 and became a New York Times bestseller — a pretty good indicator that more would be in the works. (It’s currently heavily discounted at Amazon.com.)

The first volume of the comic version of The Eye of the World was released in 2011; volume two in June of last year. Chuck Dixon, who also scripted New Spring, returned for this project; with this volume he’s paired with new artists: Marcio Fiorito, illustrator of Anne Elizabeth’s Pulse of Power, and Francis Nuguit, a comic-book illustrator from the Philippines.

Volume 3 collects issues thirteen to eighteen of the ongoing series published by Dynamite comics. It finds our heroes — Rand, Mat, Perrin, Egwene, Moiraine, Lan Mandragoran, and the rest — split into three groups while fleeing the ancient, dead city of Shadar Logoth. Pursued by the deadly Mashadar, Perrin and Egwene attempt a dangerous river crossing and encounter a mysterious stranger, while Rand and Mat disguise themselves as apprentices on a cargo ship.

The Eye of the World: The Graphic Novel, Volume 3 was published by Tor Books on January 29, 2013. It is 176 pages in hardcover, priced at $24.99. There is no digital edition.

Red Sonja 13

Red Sonja 13

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Red Sonja 13 coverSo this is the big wrap up to the storyline that began back in issue 8. Red Sonja sneaks back into Skranos in order to reinstate Suumaro as the rightful heir to the throne. Never mind that, over the last four issues, we’ve seen that Suumaro is a misogynistic momma’s boy who can’t seem to accomplish anything on his own. His half-brother Oryx (the current heir to the throne) is even worse. The first plan is to sneak past a sleeping guard.

The next step is to steal a harem girl’s outfit. More specifically, she pays the harem girl a gold coin to remove her outfit. There’s a great panel of the harem girl covering herself in shock at the thought of removing her clothes, even though, really, that must be part of the job description. So Red Sonja has to hold a dagger to the girl’s throat, urging her to forego her usual modesty and strip off the two-piece translucent outfit. Keep in mind, Sonja’s in the girl’s room, so it’s not like anyone else will even see her before she just puts on another outfit. In fact, why doesn’t Sonja just ask her for a spare outfit, since the harem girls can’t wear the same thing every day (and if they do, um, yuck).

Once again, Red Sonja takes to the streets, dressed in a harem slave outfit that leaves more to the imagination than a chainmail bikini. But she’s in disguise now. Because, apparently, no one was looking at her face the last time she was in Skranos. It’s a pretty stupid plan, but of course it works.

One page later, she walks right up to Oryx and starts flirting with him, face uncovered. Keep in mind, this is the man who ordered her to be hung just a couple weeks earlier. Red Sonja was standing at the gallows, insulting Oryx, before his half-brother swung in and rescued her. I’m just saying, she’s someone he’s going to remember. But with a worse disguise than Clark Kent, she manages to get close to him.

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Amazing Stories, August 1964: A Retro-Review

Amazing Stories, August 1964: A Retro-Review

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Amazing Stories August 1964Here’s another of Cele Goldsmith’s issues of Amazing, though by this time she had married, and was Cele Lalli. Of particular interest this time around is an obscure Ursula K. LeGuin story.  I notice as well a different font for the title – I liked it. Not sure when it changed.

This time the cover is by Richard McKenna. At first I thought it might be the author of the Nebula winning story “The Secret Place” as well as “Casey Agonistes” and the bestselling non-SF novel The Sand Pebbles (for which last I have seen it suggested he did the original cover). This is credited to him in the ISFDB, actually, and it’s creditable if not brilliant, a scene at a restaurant on the Moon, with aliens – vaguely reminiscent, perhaps, of David Hardy.

However, further investigation (with the help of ace bibliographer Phil Stephenson-Payne) reveals several further covers from mid-60s SF magazines, mostly Galaxy and If, credited to R. McKenna. These covers bear some resemblance in style to this cover, and those that are signed are signed RMcK, much as with this painting. The latest of these other covers dates to 1968, while Richard McKenna of The Sand Pebbles died in 1964. So it seems most likely that another Richard McKenna worked as an illustrator for a while in the mid-60s.

The editorial, unsigned this time (other examples I’ve seen were signed by Norman Lobsenz, the Editorial Director) is about continental drift, which was just beginning to gain traction as a believable theory. There is no science article, but Sam Moskowitz contributes an SF Profile on Mort Weisinger, focusing on his early career as an SF fan, fanzine producer, and occasional writer, before giving him a bit more credit for Superman than seems fair to Siegel and Shuster.

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Adventure on Film: Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey

Adventure on Film: Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey

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Under a fearsome black-and-white moon, a boy, perhaps twelve, enters a fever dream of navigator2orange-fired torches whirling down infinite chasms, of men clambering up a towering church steeple, of skies moving too quickly for thought. The boy’s careworn, grubby face melts into black and white rippling water, and the nightmare — if nightmare it is — comes to a sudden end.

Welcome to Fourteenth Century Cumbria, a snowy, monochromatic waste, all bare rock and snowdrifts and blackwater lakes. In a hardscrabble mining village, young Griffin, plagued by his apocalyptic visions, waits for his idol, Connor, to return from a visit to the wider world. But even before Connor’s return, all talk is of death, for the Plague is come, marching inexorably closer.  The villagers quickly convince themselves that only a holy quest can save them, and on the slimmest of evidence — Griffin’s disjointed prognostications — Connor, Griffin and four other men set off, bound for a mineshaft so deep (it is said) that it leads straight to the other side of the world. Griffin’s band brings a copper cross that they hope to mount to a titanic cathedral as an offering, a Cumbrian plea to stave off death itself.

Griffin finds the mineshaft right enough, together with a mechanical battering ram with which the men bore a hole to the far side of reality. And what do they find once there?  Twentieth century New Zealand.

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Black Gate Online Fiction: “The Sealord’s Successor,” Part I, by Aaron Bradford Starr

Black Gate Online Fiction: “The Sealord’s Successor,” Part I, by Aaron Bradford Starr

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The Sealord's Successor Part One-smallGallery Hunters Gloren Avericci and Yr Neh, last seen in “The Tea-Maker’s Task” (published here on December 30th) and “The Daughter’s Dowry” (October 14), find themselves drawn into a deadly conspiracy involving a powerful kingdom, ancient secrets… and a very peculiar painting.

The group gathered around it. There were few people present. Hallmaster Terring, whom Gloren, Yr Neh and I secretly knew to be an Eidnine Knight and possible successor, was present, as was Garder Jho and his houseboy, Peppin. In addition, there were ten courtiers of various rank.

Terring stood slightly behind the painting. He swept the drape aside.

Masterfully done, the painting showed little but a small patch of sun-washed beach. In the sand lay a cut stone of shocking red. The flat, dark expanse of beach was marred only by rows of runes drawn in the wet sand.

It was instantly mysterious, this image. Who had drawn these symbols? What did they mean? The stark image would have been interesting enough. But as we stared, the painting moved. A sheet of water swept over the sand… When it was done the jewel lay in a new place, and new runes again covered the image, cut into the sand.

Terring spoke from where he stood just beyond the painting. “Is this indeed the Succession Painting of the Etherbis?”

They all nodded, muttering agreement.

Of “The Daughter’s Dowry,” Tangent Online said, “A story such as this deserves a world of its own and more adventures from its hero,” and it called “The Tea-Maker’s Task” “an entertaining, tongue-in-cheek fantasy… I wanted more.” We’re more than happy to oblige with this third exciting installment of the adventures of Gallery Hunter Gloren and his cat companion, Yr Neh.

The complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including stories by Mark Rigney, C.S.E. Cooney, Vaughn Heppner, E.E. Knight, Jason E. Thummel, Judith Berman, Howard Andrew Jones, Dave Gross, Harry Connolly, and others, is here.

“The Sealord’s Successor”  is a complete 35,000-word novella of fantasy mystery presented in two parts, with original art by Aaron Bradford Starr. Part II will be presented next week; both parts are offered at no cost.

Read Part I here.

Weird of Oz Considers Postbuffyism

Weird of Oz Considers Postbuffyism

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old battlestarBattlestar_Galactica_poster-HBObuffy

When discussing television series, especially genre shows (particularly horror, science fiction, and fantasy), my friends and I sometimes use a couple of adjectives that are pretty relevant and meaningful to us and may be of interest to readers of this blog: “pre-Buffy” and “post-Buffy.”

Most visitors to the Black Gate website will need no introduction to writer/director Joss Whedon and the “Whedonverse,” a term that encompasses all he has contributed to fantasy media over the past two decades in virtually every medium: television shows, comic books, webcasts, movies. Ranging from seminal shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly to comic-book continuations of those series as well as runs on other properties like The X-Men; from the hip web series Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog to a cult horror film like Cabin in the Woods to the third-highest-grossing film of all time (2012’s The Avengers): trust me, you’ve seen his work.

In this week’s informal musing, I’ll focus in on his first television show, Buffy, which ran seven seasons from 1997-2003 — not to discuss the series per se, but to explain what I mean when I use it as a benchmark in describing a television show as being “post-Buffy.”

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The Best One-Sentence Reviews of Manly Wade Wellman: The Winners of The Complete John Thunstone Contest

The Best One-Sentence Reviews of Manly Wade Wellman: The Winners of The Complete John Thunstone Contest

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The Complete John Thunstone-smallThree weeks ago, we announced a contest to win one of two copies of Manly Wade Wellman’s The Complete John Thunstone, compliments of Haffner Press.

To enter, contestants had to submit a one-sentence review of their favorite Manly Wade Wellman novel or short story. That’s it. Are we good to you, or what?

It quickly became the most popular contest in our history, with a steady stream of diverse entries covering the entire expanse of Wellman’s nearly 60-year career, from his first story in Thrilling Tales in 1927, to his final John the Balladeer story, “Where Did She Wander,” in 1986.

We’d like to present some of the best submissions here, and at the end we’ll announce the two winners, both of whom will receive a copy of The Complete John Thunstone, the latest archival quality hardcover release from Haffner Press.

Perhaps not surprisingly, we received the most votes for Wellman’s popular Silver John stories, also known as the John the Balladeer tales. We begin with Jeremy Harper, who highlights the very first Silver John story:

“O Ugly Bird!” A legend is born when a saintly hillbilly musician confronts a backwoods sorcerer and his goddamn Ugly Bird and smites them dead with his silver string guitar.

Nick Ozment expands on Jeremy’s comments this way:

Having enjoyed one of Manly Wade Wellman’s Silver John novels, I find it interesting how Wellman’s traveling troubadour provides an American folk counterpart to Yeats’s Irish bard Owen Red Hanrahan, rooting the mysticism and magic in American soil.

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Damnation Books Releases Waters of Darkness by David C. Smith and Joe Bonadonna

Damnation Books Releases Waters of Darkness by David C. Smith and Joe Bonadonna

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Waters of DarknessWe’re very pleased to note the March 1 release date of a new novel by two Black Gate contributors, David C. Smith and Joe Bonadonna, which they describe as “the best supernatural pirate dark fantasy… EVER.” We asked Dave about the book’s genesis, and here’s what he told us:

This story is based on a ms. I wrote in 1978 that was to be a sequel to The Witch of the Indies, my first published novel, based on Robert E. Howard’s Black Vulmea character… I wrote a 50,000-word first draft in the spring of 1978 (before Witch was published) that I filed away for decades. Despite my naive enthusiasm (at the age of 24!) that Zebra would certainly want a sequel, as we know, The Witch of the Indies sank fast and has pretty much been forgotten. But! Who doesn’t love a pirate story? Joe asked to see that old, yellowing (literally) draft and went to work on it. So we wound up collaborating — at a distance of 35 years, in a way — and have written what we both think is a terrific pulp-style pirate dark fantasy.

Joe took my rough draft, added at least 10,000 words to it, recrafted who knows how many thousands more, and brought in new characters, new developments… He went to town and really brought the thing to life.

David and Joe’s last collaboration for us was The Big Barbarian Theory, one of the most popular articles on the Black Gate blog last year. We featured David’s The Fall of the First World in December, and posted the complete text of Joe’s Dorgo the Dowser novella “The Moonstones of Sor Lunarum” last Sunday.

Waters of Darkness was published by Damnation Books on March 1, 2013. It is 60,000 words and currently available in Kindle format for $5.95. The wonderful cover is by Dawne Dominique. More details at the website.

The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination Just $1.99 at Amazon.com

The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination Just $1.99 at Amazon.com

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The Mad Scientist's Guide to World DominationNo sooner do I settle into my big green chair with John Joseph Adams’s massive fantasy anthology Epic (which I covered here just two days ago), than do I discover that he’s unveiled another great project. Packed with “all original, all nefarious, all conquering tales,” The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination is available in Kindle format for just $1.99 from Amazon.com. Here’s the table of contents:

“Professor Incognito Apologizes: an Itemized List” by Austin Grossman
“Father of the Groom” by Harry Turtledove
“Laughter at the Academy” by Seanan McGuire
“Letter to the Editor” by David D. Levine
“Instead of a Loving Heart” by Jeremiah Tolbert
“The Executor” by Daniel H. Wilson
“The Angel of Death Has a Business Plan” by Heather Lindsley
“Homo Perfectus” by David Farland
“Ancient Equations” by L. A. Banks
“Rural Singularity” by Alan Dean Foster
“Captain Justice Saves the Day” by Genevieve Valentine
“The Mad Scientist’s Daughter” by Theodora Goss
“The Space Between” by Diana Gabaldon
“Harry and Marlowe Meet the Founder of the Aetherian Revolution” by Carrie Vaughn
“Blood and Stardust” by Laird Barron
“A More Perfect Union” by L. E. Modesitt, Jr.
“Rocks Fall” by Naomi Novik
“We Interrupt This Broadcast” by Mary Robinette Kowal
“The Last Dignity of Man” by Marjorie M. Liu
“Pittsburg Technology” by Jeffrey Ford
“Mofongo Knows” by Grady Hendrix
“The Food Taster’s Boy” by Ben Winters

The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination was published by Tor Books on February 19, 2013. It is 368 pages in trade paperback priced at $14.99; the list price on the digital version is $9.99. The awesome cover is by Ben Templesmith. More details are available here. No idea how long the $1.99 deal will last, so take advantage of it soon.