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Marvel Feature: Red Sonja 7 (plus Conan the Barbarian 66, 67, and 68)

Marvel Feature: Red Sonja 7 (plus Conan the Barbarian 66, 67, and 68)

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marvel-feature-7-coverSo the next issue blurb at the end of Marvel Feature 6 was just a bit misleading. After you went back to the comic shop (or newsstand or drug store or wherever people went in 1976 to get comics), paid your thirty cents for Conan the Barbarian 66, and got the issue back home, you would discover that it wasn’t a continuation of the story from Marvel Feature 6 at all. No, “Daggers and Death-Gods!” instead told the story of Conan and Belit docking in Massantia to trade some “honest loot, freely plundered.” After some tense negotiating, they are told of a missing page from the Book of Skelos being kept in the Temple of a Thousand Gods. There’s a hefty reward being offered by an unknown client (who works through a middleman) to anyone who can steal the page from the temple. Conan and Belit make their way through the temple and, after nearly killing eachother, thanks to a caretaker’s spell, they find the page … and Red Sonja. So issue 66 actually tells a story parallel to the one we just finished, with the promise that the next part will, for real this time, be told in issue 67.

Well, we’ve already invested sixty cents into this story, so we might as well invest another thirty to find out where it ends. Issue 67 opens with four pages of re-caps to the stories we read in Marvel Feature 6 and Conan the Barbarian 66. After the recaps, Sonja and Belit have exactly one panel of dialogue before Belit draws her sword and tries to kill her. Red Sonja called her a serving wench and that was all it took because, as Belit is fond of reminding us, she’s actually the daughter of the death-goddess Derketa (Belit believes this because Belit is crazy). The fight lasts for three panels before Belit concedes that Red Sonja is a better swordswoman and throws her sword aside. But she hasn’t conceded the fight, only changed weapons. Apparently, Belit (like all crazy girlfriends) carries a knife. At this point, Red Sonja probably realizes that Conan has enough problems with his delusional knife-wielding girlfriend, so she opts instead to grab the page, slice through the torch that lights the chamber, then flee under cover of darkness. Because Red Sonja only has crazy delusions of grandeur after watching her entire family murdered. For Belit, it’s a lifestyle.

The rest of the issue is Conan promising Belit that he’ll track down Sonja and the page, then getting sidetracked when he discovers an old friend has been imprisoned for murdering one of the town guard (which he’s done so many times, you’d think he’d be surprised to find that some people actually get arrested for it). After killing a half-man/half-tiger (honestly, no one’s even surprised by this sort of thing any more), he frees his friend and discovers that he was locked in the cell next to the man who originally stole the page (small world, Roy Thomas, awfully small world). He meets back up with Belit and they take in this new bit of information just as Red Sonja races past them on horseback. We’re told that the story will be continued in Marvel Feature 7.

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Star Trek Into Darkness Poster Fuels Gary Mitchell Speculation

Star Trek Into Darkness Poster Fuels Gary Mitchell Speculation

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star-trek-into-darkness-smallJust to review, Black Gate is a website with a laser-like focus on the best in new and neglected fantasy. If you want science fiction, there’s plenty of other places for that. Except maybe for Star Trek, because that has William Shatner and we’re big fans.

Now that we’ve cleared that up, I’d like to point you to the just-released poster for the upcoming Star Trek Into Darkness, featuring a trenchcoat-clad badass standing on a mound of rubble that used to be Federation stuff, starting at other Federation stuff he could also knock over. Just to drive home the point, his profile forms part of a crumbling Federation emblem (click the image at right for a bigger version).

That’s one cool poster. It’s also done absolutely nothing to dampen ongoing speculation that the villain this time is none other than Gary Mitchell, Kirk’s friend and helmsman who became all glow-eyed and megalomanical after slamming into the edge of the galaxy at warp 3 in “Where No Man Has Gone Before.” Neither has the film’s official description:

When the crew of the Enterprise is called back home, they find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization has detonated the fleet and everything it stands for, leaving our world in a state of crisis. With a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one man weapon of mass destruction.

As our heroes are propelled into an epic chess game of life and death, love will be challenged, friendships will be torn apart, and sacrifices must be made for the only family Kirk has left: his crew.

For the record, I think this is a great choice. “Where No Man Has Gone Before” was the second pilot and one of the show’s earliest episodes, and frankly one of its best. And if the poster and teaser description are any indication, the action this time won’t take place on a remote planetoid covered in giant styrofoam rocks, but a populated center where the stakes are a lot higher and the explosions a lot bigger. Finally, as reported some time ago, Sherlock actor Benedict Cumberbatch has been cast as the film’s villain, and I think he’d make a magnificent Gary Mitchell, both as a jovial lieutenant commander and as an all-powerful psychic loonie.

Star Trek Into Darkness is directed by J. J. Abrams, and written by Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof and Roberto Orci. It is the twelfth feature-length Star Trek film and the sequel to 2009’s Star Trek. It is set for release on May 17, 2013.

Electric Velocipede 25 Now Available

Electric Velocipede 25 Now Available

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electric-velocipede-25-smallJohn Klima’s groundbreaking magazine Electric Velocipede continues to innovate in its new electronic format. John tells us:

This is one of our strongest issues to date. I’m very proud of the stories and poems (nine!) in it. The stories will be going up through bi-weekly through the end of the year, but we’re putting the entire issue on sale right away so that people can get it now and read it on their e-reader of choice… Our first story, “The Night We Drank Cold Wine” by Megan Kurashige has received incredible response from readers to date.

Many of you are already helping spread the word about the issue, but because I think it’s pretty special that we’re at our 25th issue (with four issues planned for next year!)

Let’s talk turkey for a moment. Electric Velocipede is one of the best independent genre magazines out today, period. It’s been nominated for the World Fantasy Award four times and won the 2009 Hugo Award for Best Fanzine.

In September, it closed a successful Kickstarer round, funding the next four issues, and even reached the $7,500 stretch goal that allowed it to make electronic versions of all its past issues.

It’s an exciting time for the magazine and if you’re not paying attention, you’re missing out on some of the most exciting short fiction the field has to offer.

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Black Gate Online Fiction: The Bones of the Old Ones by Howard Andrew Jones

Black Gate Online Fiction: The Bones of the Old Ones by Howard Andrew Jones

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bones-of-the-old-ones-contest-win11

Black Gate is very pleased to offer our readers an exclusive first look at the latest Dabir and Asim novel by Howard Andrew Jones, the acclaimed author of The Desert of Souls and Pathfinder Tales: Plague of Shadows.

As a snowfall blankets 8th century Mosul, a Persian noblewoman arrives at the home of the scholar Dabir and his friend the swordsman Captain Asim. Najya has escaped from a dangerous cabal that has ensorcelled her to track down ancient magical tools of tremendous power, the bones of the old ones.

To stop the cabal and save Najya, Dabir and Asim venture into the worst winter in human memory, hunted by a shape-changing assassin. The stalwart Asim is drawn irresistibly toward the beautiful Persian even as Dabir realizes she may be far more dangerous a threat than anyone who pursues them, for her enchantment worsens with the winter. As their opposition grows, Dabir and Asim have no choice but to ally with their deadliest enemy, the treacherous Greek necromancer, Lydia. But even if they can trust one another long enough to escape their foes, it may be too late for Najya, whose soul is bound up with a vengeful spirit intent on sheathing the world in ice for a thousand years….

Howard is also the author of The Desert of Souls, Pathfinder Tales: Plague of Shadows, and the short collection The Waters of Eternity. His stories of Dabir and Asim have appeared in a variety of publications over the last ten years, and led to his invitation to join the editorial staff of Black Gate magazine in 2004, where he has served as Managing Editor ever since. He blogs regularly at the Black Gate web site and maintains a web outpost of his own at www.howardandrewjones.com.

Dabir and Asim first appeared here in “Sight of Vengeance” (from Black Gate 10), and “Whispers From the Stone,” (Black Gate 12). They are some of the most popular stories to appear in our pages.

The Bones of the Old Ones is published by Thomas Dunne Books. It is a 307-page hardcover available for $25.99 ($12.99 ePub and PDF), and will be released on December 11. Learn more at Macmillan.com.

Read the first two chapters of The Bones of the Old Ones here.

Dive Into a Bleak Future with Anomaly

Dive Into a Bleak Future with Anomaly

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anomalyReviewing a cool new book or game for Black Gate used to be easy. Sit down in my big green chair for a few hours, type up my thoughts, and then I’m free to spend the rest of the day polishing my Bone action figures.

That was before Anomaly, the massive 370-page graphic novel from Spawn artist Brian Haberlin and Pixar board member Skip Brittenham. Anomaly is a groundbreaking glimpse into the future, in more way than one.

First off, this thing is massive. The huge 7-pound hardcover is a full 15 inches by 10 inches, just slightly smaller than a Buick. Make sure you sit in a sturdy chair to read it (and maybe do some wrist exercises to limber up first). It’s so big they had to create a new publishing company just to get it out the door: Anomaly Publishing.

Second, it comes with something called Ultimate Augmented RealityTM, which means that to thoroughly experience the book I had to have the right gadgets. Following the instructions, I innocently pointed my iPhone at page 7. A 3-D image of a clicking alien popped up on my screen, moving around and making alien-guy sounds. When my son tried to flip the page, alien dude fell over.

“It’s a 3D representation that obeys the laws of gravity,” Tim noted. “Boggles the mind,” his brother Drew agreed.

Finally, Anomaly offers a more traditional glimpse into the future through its story, a space opera set in 2717, when humanity has conquered the stars and is in turn controlled by The Conglomerate, a profit-focused corporation that rules with an iron fist. Jon is a disgraced ex-enforcer for The Conglomerate, doing menial jobs in high orbit over a poisoned planet Earth, when he’s given a second chance: to protect the daughter of a high-ranking executive on a daring first contact mission. There’s more going on than meets the eye, however, and the high-stakes mission quickly goes off the rails as the explorers encounter lethal terrain, deadly mutants, strange magic, and corporate intrigue and betrayal on a mysterious world.

Anomaly is 370 pages (314 of story and another 56 of appendices) from Anomaly Publishing. It will be published December 1, 2012, with a cover price of $75. Check out the cool YouTube promo video here.

The Top 45 Black Gate Posts in October

The Top 45 Black Gate Posts in October

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conan-24-the-song-of-red-sonja-smallOctober was the most active month in the history of the Black Gate blog, breaking every traffic record on the books. The month’s top articles were accessed some 10,000 times each, and our new line of weekly Black Gate Online Fiction kept our webserver working overtime.

The most popular fiction posted at Black Gate in October was:

And the top articles of the month were:

  1. Art of the Genre: Top 10 Hawt Fantasy Artists
  2. Art and Argument in Arts of Dark and Light
  3. Teaching and Fantasy Literature: Hazards of Teaching Cool Stuff You Love in a Classroom
  4. Arnold Schwarzenegger Signs on to Return as Conan
  5. In Defense of Red Sonja: Not the Female Conan
  6. Popular Marketing Mistakes: Cannibalism
  7. Black Gate Online Fiction: “The Whoremaster of Pald“
  8. In Defense of Red Sonja: The Chain Mail Bikini
  9. The Nightmare Men: “Master by Name Master by Number”
  10. Mystery 101: Books to Die For is a Complete Course in Mystery Fiction

    11. …

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Interzone 243 and Black Static 31

Interzone 243 and Black Static 31

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527526Together again, TTA Press releases Interzone and Black Static in the same month as part of its new publishing scheduling. (I understand the economic reasons why the publishers are doing this, but I liked the old way of alternating issues. Ah, well, if it’s the price to be paid for having a magazine that is actually printed instead of pixalated, it’s well worth it.)

The Nov–Dec issue of Interzone is the second in the new slightly more compact format, with novelettes by Jon Wallace, and Jason Sanford, plus stories by Chen Qiufan (translated by Ken Liu), Caroline M. Yoachim, and Priya Sharma. Cover art is ‘The Star’ by Ben Baldwin.  Features include “Ansible Link” by David Langford (news and obits); “Mutant Popcorn” by Nick Lowe (film reviews); “Laser Fodder” by Tony Lee (DVD/Blu-ray reviews); book reviews by Jim Steel and the team, including an interview with Adam Roberts conducted by Paul Kincaid.

Black Static features cover art by Richard Wagner; novelettes by Jackson Kuhl, Steven J. Dines, and Victoria Leslie; stories by Seán Padraic Birnie, Steven Pirie, and James Cooper; illustrations by Ben Baldwin, David Gentry, and Rik Rawling; comment columns by Stephen Volk and Christopher Fowler; book reviews by Peter Tennant; and DVD/Blu-ray reviews by Tony Lee.

Blogging Austin Briggs’ Flash Gordon, Part Nine “The Isle of the Elvins”

Blogging Austin Briggs’ Flash Gordon, Part Nine “The Isle of the Elvins”

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966521austinbriggs“The Isle of the Elvins” was the ninth installment of Austin Briggs’ daily Flash Gordon comic strip serial for King Features Syndicate. Originally published between April 22, 1943 and March 25, 1944, “The Isle of the Elvins” follows on directly from “The Royal Hunt” with Queen Tigra of Forestia accidentally losing her way back to the capitol and leading Flash and Dale into Lost Lake, where a fabled treasure stolen from Forestia long ago is believed to be buried. The trio finds a rowboat and set out to cross the lake when the boat’s owner overtakes them and capsizes the boat. Flash is overcome by the stranger and nearly drowned and has to be rescued by Dale and Tigra. The stranger takes possession of Flash’s ray gun and takes them captive. He introduces himself as Doron, King of the Elvins who live on an island in Lost Lake. Soon they are joined by the diminutive form of the Elvin General Krom.

At long last with the introduction of the Elvins, Austin Briggs steps out of Alex Raymond’s shadow and produces a storyline with characters worthy of the strip, without seeming like pale imitations of what has gone before. Arriving on the island as slaves, they are surrounded by the Elvins, who hop up and down excitedly repeatedly shouting, “More girls!” Clearly, Briggs was enjoying himself with this strip. General Krom takes a shine to Tigra, calling her “curly-top” (one can’t help but think of Shirley Temple’s movie of the previous decade), while the indignant Queen of Forestia dismisses her captor as “monkey-face.” Flash comes to Tigra’s defense, but is quickly overwhelmed by the sheer number of Elvins in a scene that recalls the Lilliputians of Gulliver’s Travels.

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New Treasures: Crown of Vengeance by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory

New Treasures: Crown of Vengeance by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory

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crown-of-vengeance-smallHere’s an uncomfortable admission: I’ve never read anything by Mercedes Lackey. I know that seems improbable, just statistically speaking — she’s written, by my count, somewhere around 100 fantasy novels. If you’re a fantasy fan, you’re bound to read one sooner or later.

I have no excuse. If it helps, I’m a Canadian, and the traditions and culture of your America are strange to me. But I’m coming up to speed.

There’s no better way to try a new author than when she launches a new series, and that’s exactly what Lackey has done this month with Crown of Vengeance, the first novel in The Dragon Prophecy, co-authored with James Mallory.

Mallory isn’t as well known as Mercedes Lackey, but he’s no slouch. He’s the author of the Merlin trilogy, based on the Sam Neill mini-series, and in collaboration with Lackey he’s written both the Eternal Flame trilogy — including the New York Times bestseller, The Phoenix Transformed — and the Obsidian trilogy. If you like trilogies, Mallory’s your guy.

Although the flap copy is a little coy about it, anybody who pays attention to Amazon reviews will learn that Crown is a prequel to both the Eternal Flame and Obsidian trilogies. Okay by me, I’m still trying to come up to speed here. Besides, the marketing copy included with the book tells me “No previous knowledge of Lackey and Mallory’s collaborations is necessary to enjoy this fast-paced, action packed novel.”

Between the Mercedes Lackey connection, marketing copy that includes the words “action packed,” and the late-stage melee on the cover, I’m pretty much sold. And I don’t even know what the book is about yet. I read the front jacket, and it said something about elves, demons, legends, astonishing magics, forces of Light, and the Endarkened. Got it. Bring on the archers and the leaping horses.

Crown of Vengeance was published by Tor Books on November 13. It is 605 pages in hardcover priced at $27.99, or $13.49 for the digital edition.

Vintage Treasures: The Beast with Five Fingers by W.F. Harvey

Vintage Treasures: The Beast with Five Fingers by W.F. Harvey

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the-beast-with-five-fingersTwo weeks ago, I mentioned The Power of Darkness: Tales of Terror, by Edith Nesbit, a volume in the Wordsworth Tales of Mystery And The Supernatural (or, as we prefer to call it, TOMAToS).

I first discovered Wordsworth’s excellent Tales of Mystery And The Supernatural line, believe it or not, wandering the floor at the Windy City Pulp and Paperback show in Chicago with fellow pulp aficionados Howard Andrew Jones and John C. Hocking. We’d just passed a dealer selling omnibus collections of Ki-Gor reprints — which heartily tempted Howard, let me tell you — when Hocking became distracted by a thick volume on display amidst a vast sea of books: The Beast With Five Fingers, by W.F. Harvey.

I’d never heard of Harvey, although he’s fairly well-known in pulp circles for the short story that became The Beast With Five Fingers, a 1946 creeping-hand horror flick starring Peter Lorre. Hocking’s excitement had nothing to do with the cover story however, and everything to do with “The Clock,” which he described as one of the finest horror stories ever written. That was enough for me, and I took home a copy.

Hocking is not alone in his admiration. In Gahan Wilson’s anthology Favorite Tales of Horror, which includes “The Clock,” Wilson famously wrote:

I think that for sheer menace this is the most powerful story I have ever read, though exactly what it is that is menacing, and exactly what it is menacing to do are entirely mysterious.

I’m happy to say that the story lives up to its reputation. It’s a tiny marvel, splendidly written, about a mysterious and macabre encounter in an abandoned home. Or is it? Like much of the best gothic fiction, exactly what happened is open to interpretation.

But there’s more to The Beast with Five Fingers than just “The Clock” — much more — and I’m happy to say I’ve been enjoying the entire book. (If you’re not the patient sort, however, the complete text of “The Clock” is available online.)

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