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Blogging Austin Briggs’ Flash Gordon, Part Eight “The Royal Hunt”

Blogging Austin Briggs’ Flash Gordon, Part Eight “The Royal Hunt”

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flash-gordon-4-27lf“The Royal Hunt” was the eighth installment of Austin Briggs’s daily Flash Gordon comic strip serial for King Features Syndicate. Originally published between November 27, 1942 and April 21, 1943, “The Royal Hunt” follows on directly from “Queen Tigra of Forestia” with the Queen decreeing they all take part in a lion hunt. She makes sure that Dale is given an untamed horse in an effort to injure her rival for Flash’s affections. Meantime, her former consort, Prince Cugar, manages to escape from his cell while the others are otherwise occupied.

While Briggs is no match for Alex Raymond when it comes to illustrating the splendor and pageantry of Mongo, his scenes of Flash’s bare-handed battle with the lion, when he breaks the cat’s back, are as exciting as anything found in the contemporaneous Tarzan newspaper strip. The incident itself seems out of character for Flash and more suited to Edgar Rice Burroughs’s celebrated jungle lord, as much as Flash’s punching out a horse seems better-suited to a western pulp hero.

More troubling for contemporary readers is the continued sexism, unique to Briggs’s take on the character, with the fiercely independent Queen Tigra finding she enjoys having a man give her orders. While Alex Raymond’s dichotomy between virtuous Dale and the exotic, sexually liberated women of Mongo may have been rooted in classical virgin/whore stereotypes, his seminal Sunday strip never demeaned his female characters as Briggs regularly did in the daily strip. This is unfortunate and, coupled with Briggs’s relatively inferior art and plotting, serves to undermine his success as Raymond’s heir once the series’ creator departed the Sunday strip.

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Goth Chick News – 13 Questions for Horror Writer Ania Ahlborn

Goth Chick News – 13 Questions for Horror Writer Ania Ahlborn

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image0022Back in September, I had the pleasure of getting an advance look at an apparently rare phenomenon: a horror novel written by a woman.

Perhaps “rare” is not the best word to describe this relatively small pool of talent. But take a moment to enter the words “women horror writers” into Google and the first article that appears is entitled “Top 25 Women Horror Writers You Probably Haven’t Heard Of (But Should Probably Know.)” After that entry, the following articles contain even smaller and more limited lists, most replicating some if not all the names that appear in that Top 25 you probably haven’t heard of.

Maybe (hopefully) the pool of ladies of dark literature is larger than we perceive and it’s the collective psyche which falsely attributes all the good, page-turning frights to the boys.

After all, it’s not like we girls don’t have the ability to scare the snot out of you.

Because you know we do.

Just to prove that point, let me introduce you to Ania Ahlborn, on track to break the conventions around women in horror beginning with her first novel, Seed, and shattering them completely with her upcoming release, The Neighbors.

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Teaching and Fantasy Literature: Hefting the Dramatist’s Toolkit

Teaching and Fantasy Literature: Hefting the Dramatist’s Toolkit

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the-dramatiste28099s-toolkit-smallHere’s a silly but common way to organize a creative writing program: The absolute prerequisite for any class that specializes by genre–and in this context, genre means the big divisions into fiction, poetry, and drama–is a general creative writing class that purports to introduce students to the the basics of all three genres in a fourteen-week semester. Assume your first class meeting is lost to administrivia, your last class meeting is a wash because students are packing out for their winter or summer holidays, and you’ll lose one or two others to snow days or the flu. You have to give thirty–yes, thirty–undergrads a grounding in all the technique they may ever get in fiction in four weeks. All they may ever get of poetry, all they may ever get of drama–four weeks each.

Moreover, odds are that you’re not a generalist yourself, any more than your students are. At least one of those mega-genres is going to be your weak spot, and now you have to prioritize all the technique you don’t know in that weak genre to figure out what’s most important to introduce your students to in the four weeks they’ll spend trying to be, say, playwrights.

Fortunately for me, I knew a Real Live Playwright who helped me figure out what the most important basics were in her genre. She pointed me to Jeffrey Sweet’s book, The Dramatist’s Toolkit: The Craft of the Working Playwright. Sweet’s book didn’t make a dramatist of me, but it did illuminate what Joss Whedon and his writers were up to in all that crackling dialogue on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. As I studied the more uneven shows I loved, like Babylon 5 and The X Files, what separated the glorious episodes from the episodes that fell flat was much easier for me to pinpoint. When I turned my hand to fiction again after a decade as a poet and scholar, most of what I got right was the result of using Sweet to dissect Whedon.

So, what are the tools in that toolkit? And which are the ones we need?

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New Treasures: Dead in the Water, a Warhammer 40K Audio Drama

New Treasures: Dead in the Water, a Warhammer 40K Audio Drama

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dead-in-the-water-sandy-mitchellLast week, I wrote a brief introduction to the Warhammer 40K universe, under the guise of a review of The Achilus Assault gamebook. It was a cheap gimmick, I know, but life is short and filled with great things you need to know about.

In the comments section Joe H wrote:

I love the WH40K setting, the thing that bothers me is that they have this vast sprawling galaxy full of wonders and terrors and way too much of the content seems to boil down to Space Marines vs. Space Orks… That’s why I was so intrigued by Rogue Trader — a WH40K setting that’s not just about FOR THE EMPEROR! I just wish we’d get more of that kind of thing in the novels. Are there any current novels that move outside of the Space Marine paradigm?

I love these kinds of questions. The kinds I actually have an answer to, I mean. And the answer in this case is yes.

There are several great series I could point you to, but because it’s after 9:00 pm and my family is impatiently waiting for me to start our family movie, I’m going to limit it to one: You should try the Ciaphas Cain novels by Sandy Mitchell. Commissar Cain is a revered hero of the Imperium, a man who’s seen action in some of the deadliest hot spots in the galaxy… and he’s pretty much done with that. All he wants to do is keep his head down and serve out his tour of duty… but alas, fate has other plans.

Cain is an entertaining rogue in a universe of dark horrors, and it’s a winning combination. There are several excellent omnibus collections of his novels available, but I recommend you start the same way I did: with Dead in the Water, a terrific one-hour audio drama that serves as the perfect intro to both Cain and the Warhammer 40K universe.

Cain is enjoying a quiet posting to a backwater river world when a squad on a routine mission goes missing. Pressed into investigating by his commanding officer, Cain quickly discovers that all is not what it seems… and a sinister opponent is manipulating events behind the scenes. The action is quick, the characters memorable, and the narration by Toby Longworth is excellent. The production quality of these Black Library Audio Dramas — with their dead-on sound effects, moody original music, and tight plotting — has been consistently excellent, and they have quickly become highly collectible. Already the early releases are out of print and starting to command collector’s prices on Amazon.com. I suggest you grab this one while you can.

Dead in the Water was published by Black Library in June, 2011.  It is one hour on a single CD, priced at $17.

Tangent Online: “‘Godmother Lizard’ Entranced Me From the Beginning”

Tangent Online: “‘Godmother Lizard’ Entranced Me From the Beginning”

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claire-254Tangent Online reviews C.S.E. Cooney’s original fantasy novella “Godmother Lizard,” published at Black Gate on Sunday, November 10:

C.S.E. Cooney’s “Godmother Lizard” is a delightful fantasy tale about an orphan girl, Ro, and how she becomes a hero by saving her friends from their human-looking mother who was slowly eating them. It takes her two decades to accomplish this, but that’s part of the charm of this story. Cooney deftly uses that time to grow Ro and her friends into adults which changes them from victims to empowered.

I enjoyed the fantastical elements in Ro’s world. The essence of its magic is poignantly captured when Wyll, Jaks’ younger brother, gives Ro his living silver lizard bracelet for protection: “It wound in frantic circles around his finger, mewling all the time, until it had spiraled to rest a blunt triangular head upon his fingernail.”

The story language is rich and colorful, the growing relationship between Ro and Jaks reminiscent of chivalrous lords and ladies. The dialog has a pleasantly oblique edge to it which entranced me from the beginning. I highly recommend it.

I felt the same way when I first read it. “Godmother Lizard” is a marvelously creative fantasy set in a uniquely inventive world — one that Cooney returns to in her upcoming story “Life on the Sun.” Catch it right here as part of our upcoming line of Black Gate Original Fiction.

Read Louis West’s review in its entirety at Tangent Online, and read C.S.E. Cooney’s novella “Godmother Lizard” completely free here.

The complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including Judith Berman’s sword & sorcery tale “The Poison Well,” Donald S. Crankshaw’s 50,000-word short novel A Phoenix in Darkness, Aaron Bradford Starr’s adventure tale “The Daughter’s Dowry,” the 25,000-word dark fantasy novella “The Quintessence of Absence” by Sean McLachlan, Harry Connolly’s thrilling mystery “The Whoremaster of Pald,” and Jason E. Thummel’s adventure fantasy novelette “The Duelist” is here.

Dabir and Asim Discover England

Dabir and Asim Discover England

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bones-of-the-old-onesOur Managing Editor Howard Andrew Jones posted the news on his blog on Friday, but I thought it was worth repeating here: new British publisher Head of Zeus has picked  up The Chronicles of Sword and Sand (known around these parts as the adventures of Dabir and Asim) for British publication.

The first volume, The Desert of Souls, was published here in the US on February 15, 2011, and the exciting sequel, Bones of the Old Ones, is scheduled to arrive in less than three weeks. Head of Zeus will bring both into print overseas for the first time beginning in April of 2013.

The Desert of Souls was called “An Arabian Nights adventure as written by Robert E Howard” by Dave Drake, and Bones of the Old Ones received a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly. In a recent feature review, SF Signal called the second volume “A damn good tale that not only pays homage to the masters, but sets its own print on the genre.”

Bones of the Old Ones is the best fantasy I’ve read in years. It’s a rollicking adventure that follows Dabir and Asim on a daring quest across the landscape of 8th Century Arabia, packed with ancient secrets, underground lairs, dread pacts, mysterious sorcery, desperate heroism, and moments of laugh-out-loud humor. The cast is much larger than The Desert of Souls, and the stakes are higher, as Dabir and Asim race against time to prevent an ancient sorcerous cabal from plunging the world into eternal winter.

Goodreads is offering signed copies of The Bones of the Old Ones — and copies of The Desert of Souls — to three lucky winners this month; visit Goodreads to enter. The winners will be announced December 19th. And now that The Desert of Souls is available in trade paperback, Amazon.com is selling the hardcover for just 10 bucks — get them while they last.

The Bones of the Old Ones will be released in North America on December 11. We first reported on it back in August.

Marvel Feature: Red Sonja 5

Marvel Feature: Red Sonja 5

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marvel-feature-5-coverI just realized something curious about Red Sonja. I mean, besides the chain mail bikini and vow never to (kiss/have sex with/love) a man who hasn’t defeated her in battle. After a dozen issues, I’ve never seen this woman get paid for anything. All the demons and wizards and brigands she takes down, yet no one’s ever paid her a shekel for her services. Honestly, why keep doing it if no one pays her?

Maybe she thinks if she kills enough evil wizards for free, word of mouth will spread and someone will offer her a paying gig as wizard-slayer. Maybe she’s working as an unpaid intern to gain experience in wizard-killing before pursuing a career in that field. Maybe she’s working for store credit, getting discounts on her weapons and bikinis in exchange for showcasing a metalsmith’s product line.

Of course, word of mouth, internships, and store credit are stupid reasons for unpaid labor; but it’s fantasy, so let’s run with it. After all, she’s a gorgeous redhead in a chain mail bikini. How else is she going to make a living? So when she sees a sign offering 1,000 gold pieces for slaying a forest beast, she’s in.

She finds herself accompanied by Tusan, a fellow bounty hunter who’s far more interested in “getting to know her” than slaying an evil bear god (seriously, it’s a giant bear). But he’s got money, so Sonja allows him to take her to a tavern for a few drinks.

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Vintage Treasures: Alfred Hitchcock’s Monster Museum

Vintage Treasures: Alfred Hitchcock’s Monster Museum

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alfred-hitchcocks-monster-museum-smallLast month, my son came home from school and began poking through our library. “I have to read a short story collection for Lit block,” he explained.

I think “Lit block” maybe means English class. I’m not going to ask, I already get enough grief for not understanding what kids today are talking about. After a few minutes, Drew gave up. “I’ll check the school library tomorrow,” he said. Please. This is what eBay is for. And sure enough, after a short search, I found a collection he found suitably intriguing. With story titles like “Slime” and “Shadow, Shadow, on the Wall,” how could he not? There was a copy in great shape for just $2.75, and very soon it was ours.

Of course, I ended up being even more interested than Drew. Alfred Hitchcock’s Monster Museum was one of roughly a dozen anthologies published under Hitchcock’s name and ghost-edited by Robert Arthur, including 12 Stories for Late at Night, Scream Along with Me, and Stories That Scared Even Me. This one contains a terrific mix of pulp fiction from 1929 – 1954, from Murray Leinster (Will F Jenkins), Manly Wade Wellman, Theodore Sturgeon, and many others. Here’s the complete TOC:

A Variety of Monsters — Introduction by Alfred Hitchcock
“Slime” — Joseph Payne Brennan (Weird Tales, March 1953)
“The King of the Cats” — Stephen Vincent Benét (Harper’s Bazaar, Feb 1929)
“The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles” — Idris Seabright (F&SF, Oct 1951)
“Henry Martindale, Great Dane” — Miriam Allen deFord (Beyond Fantasy Fiction, Mar 1954)
“Shadow, Shadow, on the Wall” — Theodore Sturgeon (Imagination, Feb 1951)
“Doomsday Deferred” — Will F. Jenkins (The Saturday Evening Post, Sep 24 1949)
“The Young One” — Jerome Bixby (Fantastic, Apr 1954)
“The Desrick on Yandro” — Manly Wade Wellman (F&SF, Jun 1952)
“The Wheelbarrow Boy” — Richard Parker (Lilliput, Oct 1950)
“Homecoming” — Ray Bradbury (Mademoiselle, Oct 1946)

The paperback is abridged from the original 1965 hardcover, which also included “The Day of the Dragon” by Guy Endore, “The Microscopic Giants” by Paul Ernst, and Jerome Bixby’s “The Young One.” I prefer the trade paperback however, mostly because of the gorgeous and moody cover (click on the image at right for a bigger version).

Alfred Hitchcock’s Monster Museum was published by Random House in trade paperback in 1982; the original cover price was $2.50 for 213 pages.

Wake Up to a New World With Awakening: The Art of Halo 4

Wake Up to a New World With Awakening: The Art of Halo 4

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awakening-the-art-of-halo-4-smallI took the family to Best Buy yesterday to buy a new phone for my wife. They didn’t have anything below $250, so we trooped back to the car to return to the Verizon store. My teenage boys, flush with dog-sitting money, were the only happy shoppers, chortling excitedly in the back seat over a copy of 343 Industries’ Halo 4.

I got some scattered details over breakfast this morning. Master Chief, hot-babe AI Cortana, abruptly awakened from deep sleep, a Covenant fleet, a giant Forerunner planet, alien mysteries, and a lot of shooting. Sounds like Halo to me.

So when I sat down to sort through the week’s stack of review copies, my hand naturally gravitated towards the copy of Awakening: The Art of Halo 4, a thick oversize hardcover sent our way by Titan Books. It turned out to be an excellent choice, and  it thoroughly captivated my interest for the next 90 minutes.

Awakening is probably not a good choice if you’re not a fan of art, cutting edge computer games, or far-future science fiction. But if you’re interested in any of those things, you’ll find it very interesting and if, like me, you have more than a passing interest in all three, you’ll find it fascinating.

Awakening is packed with nearly 200 pages of full-color art, concept designs, and sketches from some of the top artists in the field, including Sparth, Robogabo, John Liberto, Glenn Israel, Jhoon Kim, and Thomas Scholes. The descriptive text, by “incurable Halo fanatic” Paul Davies, is brief and to-the-point, rarely more than a slender paragraph on each page. Davies wisely lets the artists do most of the talking, quoting Senior Art Director Kenneth Scott and concept artist Sparth at length.

And the art is indeed spectacular. The design breakdowns — for Master Chief, his mostly naked AI companion Cortana, numerous weapons, the truly splendid vehicle fleet, and the gun-toting alien Covenant and mysterious Forerunners — are detailed and a lot of fun, but it’s the gorgeous alien landscapes and breathtaking unexplored vistas that really fire the imagination. I guarantee there are sights here that you’ve never seen before, from the nebula-like clouds trapped between two vast constructs to the massive Didact ship, so large it can only be explored using a UNSC Broadsword fighter.  More proof that it’s computer entertainment pushing the sense-of-wonder envelope for SF and fantasy fans today.

Awakening: The Art of Halo 4 was published in hardcover by Titan Books on November 6. It is $34.95 for 192 pages. Get more info, including reproductions of some of the artwork, at the Titan website.

A Dark and Glorious World: The New Midgard Campaign Setting

A Dark and Glorious World: The New Midgard Campaign Setting

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midgard-smallI confess that I have a problem with a lot of RPG campaign settings on the market. Some of them are simply tired and played out. Some are designed to lock customers into purchasing adventures and sourcebooks, leaving little room for customization. Some take a “kitchen sink” approach, avoiding anything too distinctive in an effort to support every type of campaign.

As the lead designer and publisher at Kobold Press, I decided it was time to launch a project that would reinvent a few fantasy traditions, and restore all that I think is great and good in classic fantasy RPGs. It would be based on time-tested elements of my own homebrew campaign, not on market research, potential licensing opportunities, or maximizing shareholder value. It was time to let slip the drakes of war, sharpen up the great ax, and split some skulls with a new setting!

With that in mind, I worked with my talented colleagues Jeff Grubb and Brandon Hodge, and the Open Design community, to create the Midgard Campaign Setting. It’s made for conflict, plunder, deep magic, and horrific secrets. That’s reflected in the design choice to provide clear adventure hooks for every place described in the book, for instance, and in the decision to provide a system of ley line magic. Better yet, much original material for Midgard is written by newcomers, so it’s a place where everyone can sharpen their game design chops (more on that in a minute!).

When you’re in Midgard, you’ve got big missions, mythic adventures, and lots of options — but the setting is designed to be compact and easy to pick up. There’s also the part that’s harder to explain, the getting-fantasy-right part. To quote a new fan TwistedGamer

Not since I was a teenager and first peeled back the plastic that had been wrapped around my first Forgotten Realms campaign boxed set have I felt the giddiness that I feel right now…

The masks of the gods, the blending of myth and pure invention, the shadow roads and some new, lighter elements like the beer goddess and the school of clockwork magic all make Midgard sing.

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