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Teaching and Fantasy Literature: Beren and Luthien Raided the Fortress of Angband, and No One Will Get This Lousy T-Shirt

Teaching and Fantasy Literature: Beren and Luthien Raided the Fortress of Angband, and No One Will Get This Lousy T-Shirt

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When we finally reached “The Tale of Beren and Luthien,” my Intro to Myth students forgave me for dragging them through the drier, more mythographic early stretches of The Silmarillion. (“It’s as bad as the begats!” the most biblically literate one in the class said of “The Valaquenta,” and then she had to explain the begats to her classmates.) There was a lot to forgive, including a pop quiz on the names of the Valar.

But then: True love! Shapeshifting! Sauron defeated in sorcerous song battle! Fate, doom, oaths upheld at ultimate cost! “The Tale of Beren and Luthien” is cinematic, iconic, perfect for Hollywood at its best and worst. My disgruntled undergrads adored it.

They’re not the only ones who’ve ever wished it could be a movie.

Shake Google, and at least one fan film falls out, along with intermittent fan forum discussions of ideal directors, casting, and adaptation decisions. I gather the Tolkien estate is unlikely to authorize films of stories that made their first published appearances after Tolkien’s death. Fair enough. If I were looking back from the afterlife of my imagining and saw my rough drafts, cobbled together by my long-suffering literary executor, adapted by strangers into Hollywood films, I too might… no, actually, I wouldn’t object at all. Now that I think of it, I’d feel immensely honored by the effort, amused by its inevitable shortcomings, and relieved that my family might finally see some benefit from my years of toiling in proverbial obscurity. But hey, that’s just me. If Tolkien’s son thinks the professor would be displeased, he’s in a better position to know than any of the rest of us.

So, no movie.

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January/February Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine now on Sale

January/February Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine now on Sale

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fsf-jan-feb-2013The new issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction goes on sale today. Not often you see cows (or floating eyeballs, for that matter) on the cover. Louis West reviews the issue at Tangent Online; here’s what he says about the cover story:

This issue of F&SF contains a diverse and (mostly) entertaining selection of SF, horror, and fantasy stories. Many of the authors have a long history of producing award-winning work. For the most part, that excellence is displayed throughout this issue.

“Watching the Cow,” by Alex Irvine, is masterfully told. Once started, I couldn’t stop. I had to know how it would end, and the end was nicely unexpected….

Ariel, the genius of the family, has accidently blinded two million teens who had been playing a game using VR goggles. And two of the kids were her brothers. But it wasn’t a physical blindness. All the parts still worked. The brain simply had stopped processing the visual data. The kids didn’t seem bothered at all, although the parents freaked and conspiracy theories thrived.

Ariel was determined to fix the problem, and her angry brother believed her. Instead of sight, all the kids could now mentally network with each other… This story is told from Ariel’s brother’s POV. It follows his emotional roller-coaster ride as he deals with what’s happening to his kids, their lack of reaction, keeping the secret that his sister had caused the problem and wondering when the FBI will finally catch up to him and Ariel. A pleasure to read.

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Ian Tregillis on Secret Government Demonology, Writers Group Hazing Rituals, and Vlad Jetpack, King of the Space Vampires: An Audio Interview

Ian Tregillis on Secret Government Demonology, Writers Group Hazing Rituals, and Vlad Jetpack, King of the Space Vampires: An Audio Interview

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Readers with an eye for detail will note that this interview with Ian Tregillis was conducted in July, but not posted until now, and one might wonder why I waited so long. This one took a lot of sound editing because the interview covers two topics that are so intermeshed that we jumped back and forth in the actual interview, but I’ve re-edited it so that it’s got what I hope is a more logical progression. We discuss Ian’s trilogy, The Milkweed Tryptich, which includes: Bitter Seeds, The Coldest War, and the yet to be released Necessary Evil, which I cannot recommend highly enough. And while we discuss how these books came to be, we talk at length about our time in Critical Mass.

bitterseeds2coverCritical Mass is a writers group that has been around for nearly two decades. During the time I lived in New Mexico and was attending meetings, the membership included: George RR Martin, Walter Jon Williams, S.M. Stirling, Melinda Snodgrass, Victor Milan, Yvonne Coats, Sally Gwlan, Terry England, Daniel Abraham, and Ty Franck, among others who came and went. (And now readers will cease to be the least bit impressed by whom I’m able to get interviews with, I know.) When Ian joined this group, I’d already been a member for about five years and he and I shared the distinction of being the youngest and only unpublished members. We were also the only members from Los Alamos and the meetings were always in Santa Fe or Albuquerque, which meant either a one- or a two-hour commute, so we carpooled. That probably gave us way too much time to form in-jokes.

This interview isn’t with just a fantastic writer, though he is that; Ian’s also a comrade in arms with whom I shared an important period of my career. The story of how his first novel trilogy came to be is inextricably connected to his tenure in Critical Mass and the high-powered, dynamic group it was and is.

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New Treasures: Dead Harvest by Chris F. Holm

New Treasures: Dead Harvest by Chris F. Holm

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dead-harvest-smallHoly cats, it’s 2013 already. Happy New Year, all you Black Gate peeps.

And where did 2012 go? There’s 1,021 unanswered e-mail messages in my in-box, I’m late editing this week’s BG Online Fiction entry, and I’m not even sure how many unread review copies are stacked up by my big green chair. 2013 ain’t even 20 hours old, and I’m weeks behind already.

Ah, the heck with it. I have to keep up on the latest top-notch fiction, don’t I? Yes, I do. So tonight I’m curling up in my big green chair and starting 2013 off right: by reading Chris F. Holm’s first novel, an intriguing mix of dark fantasy and noir-dark crime: Dead Harvest.

Meet Sam Thornton, Collector of Souls.

Sam’s job is to collect the souls of the damned, and ensure their souls are dispatched to the appropriate destination.

But when he’s dispatched to collect the soul of a young woman he believes to be innocent of the horrific crime that’s doomed her to Hell, he says something no Collector has ever said before.

“No.”

The second book, The Wrong Goodbye, hit shelves in September. If we’re lucky, they could both eventually be re-released in a handsome and affordable 3-novel omnibus like Aliette de Bodard’s Obsidian & Blood. But damn, I can’t wait that long.

Dead Harvest was published February 2012 by Angry Robot. It is 381 pages in paperback, priced at $7.99 ($5.99 for the digital edition).

See all of our recent New Treasures here.

Red Sonja 4

Red Sonja 4

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red-sonja-4-coverLast issue, Red Sonja competed in the Games of Gita, won, then killed the Queen of Athos. This issue, she’s still hanging around the city. Apparently, the queen wasn’t that popular. So her new friend, Mikal, is showing her the sights, which include a dark lake infested with shambling actors. “(T)hese strange beings, whose limbs are an eldritch mixture of beast and fowl and lowly reptile.” They slowly make their way to the aptly named “Theatre of Monsters.”

Walking into the Theatre, Sonja finds that the performances consist of monsters, who are clearly monsters wearing human masks, performing surreal renditions of standard plays. Of course, the actors behave with more dignity than the howling human audience around them. At one point, they invite Red Sonja to join their performance in exchange for a purse of gold.

Since Sonja is perpetually broke, she accepts the offer and takes the stage. But since it’s pretty much her fate to be perpetually broke, the offer of gold was a ruse and the monster performers try to kill her immediately. Several monster-corpses later, their leader is begging for mercy and offering to explain what just happened.

At this point, Mikal joins Sonja, having apparently been using the bathroom while she was fighting for her life on stage. The two of them are escorted to the lake, where the waters are parted Moses-style so that they can follow the monsters down to their underwater crystal city. There, she is told the story of how the monsters are descended from aliens whose ship crashed in the lake. After adopting water-breathing forms, they began to interbreed with various Earth animals (um, yuck) until the succeeding generations were the monsters that now occupy the city. Apparently, their leader was captured by the people of Athos and they are forced to perform as circus entertainers in order to ensure that he stays alive.

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Winter 2013 Issue of Subterranean Magazine now Available

Winter 2013 Issue of Subterranean Magazine now Available

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subterranean-winter-2013I enjoy doing these magazine updates. They keep me on top of the latest and greatest in genre short fiction and I can pretend I’m doing work.

Subterranean‘s 25th issue continues with the new policy of posting the complete contents online all at once, rather than in a weekly rolling format. This is the special Walter Jon Williams issue, with a brand new novella and a classic reprint, “Surfacing” — which I read years ago in a Dozois Best of the Year anthology, and had something to do with communicating with big alien whales. It’s cool, you should check it out.

Here’s the complete table of contents:

  • “Raptors,” by Conrad Williams (11,500 word novelette)
  • “Hard Silver,” by Steven R. Boyett (12,000 word novelette)
  • “The Boolean Gate,” by Walter Jon Williams (32,000 word novella)
  • “Surfacing,” by Walter Jon Williams (21,000 word novella, reprint)

Subterranean Press recently announced the deluxe edition of Robin Hobb’s lengthy new novella, The Willful Princess and the Piebald Prince, two collections by Harlan Ellison, and the on-sale date for the signed limited edition of Stephen King’s The Shining. Get all the news at their website.

Subterranean is edited by William Schafer and published quarterly. The Winter 2013 issue is completely free and available here; see their complete back issue catalog here. We last covered Subterranean magazine with their previous issue, Fall 2012.

The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in November

The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in November

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theavengers2012posterWe’ve had a great fall here at Black Gate: more folks visited us than at any time in our history, and we’ve had steady increases in readership every month since June. We’ve nearly doubled our traffic since this time last year — which would be terrific, if we could just get all you folks to wipe your feet before stepping on the carpet. In any event, thanks for the support, and here’s to an even better 2013.

The most popular fiction at Black Gate in November was:

  1. “Godmother Llizard,” by C.S.E. Cooney
  2. Pathfinder Tales: Queen of Thorns, Chapter One, by Dave Gross
  3. “The Whoremaster of Pald,” by Harry Connolly
  4. “The Poison Well,” by Judith Berman
  5. “Awakening,” by Judith Berman
  6. “A Phoenix in Darkness,” by Donald S. Crankshaw
  7. “The Quintessence of Absence,” by Sean McLachlan
  8. “The Daughter’s Dowry,” by Aaron Bradford Starr
  9. “The Duelist,” by Jason Thummel
  10. “The Moonstones of- Sor Lunaru,” by Joe Bonadonna

And the Top 50 articles of the month were:

  1. Where Life is Cheap and Secrets are Plentiful: Vox Day’s A Magic Broken
  2. Avengers Commentary
  3. Teaching and Fantasy Literature Breaking and Entering in the House of John Gardner
  4. Goth Chick News: Gird Your Loins
  5. Art of the Genre: Art of the Disappearing MMORPG

    6. …

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Black Gate Online Fiction: “The Tea-Maker’s Task” by Aaron Bradford Starr

Black Gate Online Fiction: “The Tea-Maker’s Task” by Aaron Bradford Starr

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tea-makers-task2Gallery Hunters Gloren Avericci and Yr Neh, last seen in “The Daughter’s Dowry” (published here on October 14), accept  a dangerous commission to investigate a deadly island:

Herrion’s eyes gleamed. “I’d like for you to return to where you found that book, and search the area for signs of the vine.”

“I’m not a botanist,” I objected. “You’d be better off hiring someone who is.”

“You make a good point. I’d like for you to escort my apprentice, Kemp. He will identify the vine.”

“The forests of Candelon are dangerous,” I said, uncertain. Herrion smiled.

“Ah! I see you are learning your craft!” Herrion laughed. “You will be well compensated.”

“No,” I objected, “the woods really are dangerous. There’s some sort of creature –”

“The Walker of the Woods,” the man said. “I’ve heard the tales. Have you seen this creature?”

“Well, no, but –”

“It’s settled, then. I’d like to hire you for three silver every day.”

I tried, unsuccessfully, I’m afraid, not to goggle. I had not seen a Silver Eye for longer than I could admit. Herrion, to his credit, closed his eyes, sipping once more.

“Drink up,” he said.

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.” We’re more than happy to oblige with this latest exciting installment.

You can see the complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including stories by Mark Rigney, C.S.E. Cooney, Donald S. Crankshaw, Aaron Bradford Starr, Sean McLachlan, Harry Connolly, and Jason E. Thummel, here.

“The Tea-Maker’s Task”  is a complete 9,000-word novelette of heroic fantasy offered at no cost, with original art by Aaron Bradford Starr.

Read the complete story here.

BlackWyrm Publishing’s Latest: Burning the Middle Ground

BlackWyrm Publishing’s Latest: Burning the Middle Ground

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burning-the-middle-ground-smallI’ve been continually impressed with the growing fantasy and dark fantasy/horror catalog from Dave Mattingly’s BlackWyrm Publishing. They first appeared on my radar in 2008 with unapologetically straightforward adventure fantasy novels such as Jason Walters’s The Vast White and Trevis Powell’s Albrim’s Curse. Their cover art was excellent, their production values were solid, and they clearly knew what they were doing. Independent sword-and-sorcery publishers are thin on the ground these days, especially those willing to take a chance of new authors, and their arrival was much celebrated in our offices.

I met Dave for the first time at Worldcon in Chicago, and I was glad to finally be able to shake his hand. He had an impressive booth just around the corner from ours in the Dealer’s room, and I was stunned when I set eyes on the complete BlackWyrm catalog for the first time: dozens of new fantasy titles from a host of exciting new authors, spread out in an eye-catching panorama. Dave handed me a copy of their newest release, Jason S. Walters’s fiction collection An Unforgiving Land, and I took it home determined to steal enough time to read it.

I should have known that the mighty BlackWyrm Publishing empire would move faster than I could. Long before I could put the finishing touches on a review, Dave had added no less than seven new publications to his resume, including the epic fantasy Witches by Georgia L. Jones, Andrew Toy’s dark fantasy The Man in the Box — and Andrew Cooper’s novel of modern horror Burning the Middle Ground, which arrived in my mail box this week.

Burning the Middle Ground is a tale of religious conspiracy and supernatural mind control in small-town America. Journalist Ronald Glassner is determined to write a book on the McCullough Tragedy, which began the day Brian McCullough came home from school to discover that his ten-year-old sister Fran had murdered their parents. But the more time Ronald spends in the small town of Kenning, Georgia, the more the mystery deepens… until he finds himself caught up in a struggle between two very different churches. When the town’s pets begin to go berserk and mutilated corpses begin to appear, Ronald realizes he’s stumbled on the story of his life.

Burning the Middle Ground by L. Andrew Cooper was published in trade paperback by BlackWyrm Publishing on Nov 30, 2012. It is 330 pages, priced at $15.95. It’s only the latest in a terrific line of titles from an exciting new publisher — do yourself a favor and check them out.

The Nightmare Men: “The Blind Man”

The Nightmare Men: “The Blind Man”

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weird-tales-march-1944-small‘…an elderly man who wore his hair long and white…a firm, almost prognathus chin, half-pursed lips and a strong Roman nose. His eyes were not visible at all, for he wore dark glasses with shields which prevented one from seeing his eyes even from the side.’

Such is our first glimpse of Dr. Laban Shrewsbury, late of Arkham, late of the distant star Celaeno, and the Hyades in the 1944 story, “The House on Curwen Street”.  Blind, and yet all-seeing, Shrewsbury stands between humanity and Lovecraft’s nightmarish god-things, employing weapons both material and supernatural in the world’s defense.

Created in 1944 by August Derleth for a series of interlinked stories set firmly in the dark universe of HP Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos — a term coined by Derleth himself — Shrewsbury was far from the standard Lovecraftian protagonist. With his incantations and machinations, he is at first glance the antithesis of the hapless antiquarians and artists who populate both the original stories and many of the pastiches that came after.

“They are at the mouth of the Miskatonic now. But I am ready.”

-Dr. Laban Shrewsbury, “The House on Curwen Street”

Shrewsbury is far more active than his predecessors, who are, in most cases, passive victims of the horrors they encounter. Unlike John Kirowan, who has seen the audient void and been frightened by it into a haunted and semi-reclusive retirement, Shrewsbury is more akin to Titus Crow—he is an active combatant in a war in which humanity is, at best, a pawn, and at worst, food for the titanic forces at play.

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