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Letters to Black Gate: Ed Carmien, Scott Taylor, Matthew David Surridge, and our Digital Future

Letters to Black Gate: Ed Carmien, Scott Taylor, Matthew David Surridge, and our Digital Future

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Ed Carmien's "Before the Wind," from Black Gate 10. Art by John Kauffman.
Ed Carmien's "Before the Wind," from Black Gate 10. Art by John Kaufmann.

John Burt writes:

I am really enjoying the back issues of Black Gate I purchased. The Morlock series is awesome! The next article for me is the Choose Your Own Adventure in issue 12.

Other writers I enjoyed: Ed Carmien’s “Before the Wind” (BG 10) blew my socks off, probably my favorite story so far. Martha Wells is always enjoyable, Mark Sumner’s “Leather Doll” was the best until “Before the Wind.” Todd McAulty is very good. Those are the ones that come to mind while writing this.

I am a rebel when reading these as well, I start at the beginning and read from end to end, skimming over the RPG stuff (I play boardgames mainly), Which leads me to a comment about an earlier article, when discussing the magazines of the 70s that are gone, the writer mentions that Rodger MacGowan disappeared from the scene, he did, sort of. He is the art director of GMT Games and has RBM Studios, which does art for games (mainly wargames) and publishes the house organ for GMT Games, C3i.

Thanks for the feedback, John. We have fiction in inventory from Martha Wells and Todd McAulty that I think you’ll enjoy, as well as more Morlock stories by James Enge. Stay tuned!

Simone Stubbs comments on our plans to switch to a digital format:

John, I am writing to say that I won’t read the new Digital Issue. I prefer a hard copy sent to my address. Yes, it is what the new generation wants to do, read by hand held devices. But, I am sixty nine years old and my husband and I just have one desktop computer and one Track Phone between us for communication. Whenever you publish hard cover please send it to my address.

Simone, I know what you mean — a lot of our readers are constantly asking for digital versions of the magazine, and I know we’ll have to make them happy to survive. But I still prefer a physical copy of the magazine myself. I’m 48, and my house is filled with old books and magazines. It would make me very sad to have to totally give up print.

It will be some time before we’re able to do another physical edition of the magazine, however. If you’re missing any of the print issues, I’d be happy to offer you print back issues while you wait.

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This Week’s Bargain SF & Fantasy Books at Amazon.com

This Week’s Bargain SF & Fantasy Books at Amazon.com

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those-across-the-river2You. You’ve got some kind of high octane karma going.

Not feeling it? Check this out: two days ago the World Fantasy Convention announced Christopher Buehlman’s debut novel, Those Across the River, had been nominated for a World Fantasy Award. And guess what’s recently been remaindered at Amazon.com for just $9.98 in hardcover.

See what I mean? And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. How about a copy of He Is Legend: An Anthology Celebrating Richard Matheson, edited by Christopher Conlon and containing all new stories by Stephen King, Joe Hill, Nancy Collins, and Joe Lansdale, for just $2.08 (marked down from $25.99)? Or Col Buchanan’s epic fantasy, Farlander, in hardcover for $1.80 (originally $24.99)? Or the gorgeous full-color art anthology, Sci-Fi Art Now, edited by John Freeman, for just 12 bucks (was $29.99)? Or Omnitopia Dawn, the first volume of Diane Duane’s new Omnitopia series, for a measly $2.92 (original price: $24.95)?

Damn, man.  You did something right in your previous life. Invented penicillin or the TV remote control or something. Sit back and enjoy the spoils.

Most books are discounted from 60% to 80%. As always, quantities on these bargain books are very limited. All are eligible for free domestic shipping on orders over $25. Many of last month’s discount titles are also still available; you can see them here.

KenzerCo Announces HackMaster Basic is now Free

KenzerCo Announces HackMaster Basic is now Free

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hackmaster-basic2Free stuff!

When I was working at Motorola in the late 90s, the lawyer whose office was just down the hall had his own game company. His name was David Kenzer, and his company was Kenzer & Company. Tuns out they published one of my favorite comics, Jolly Blackburn’s hilarious Knights of the Dinner Table. Once I made this discovery, Dave and I collaborated on a bunch of projects, one of which became Black Gate magazine.

One of the most successful products Dave and his team of geniuses ever produced was the HackMaster role playing game. Conceived as a clever parody of Dungeons & Dragons — and a fully functional RPG — it was published under a license from Wizards of the Coast and won the coveted Origins Award for Game of the Year 2001. It was a huge labor of love for all involved, and I was drafted to write the “HackMaster Smartass Smackdown Table” (HSST), a simple tool to help Game Masters discipline unruly players.

For the last ten years, HackMaster has been expanded with over fifty supplements — including the brilliant Annihilate the Giants (a parody of Gary Gygax’s classic adventure module Against the Giants), Little Keep on the Borderlands, and my favorite, the out-of-print The Temple of Existential Evil (new copies of which currently sell on Amazon for north of $500). HackMaster Basic, a 192-page single volume collection of the essential rules, was published in 2009 and helped introduce a whole new audience to the game.

I left Motorola in 2006, but kept in close touch with Dave. For the past few years, KenzerCo has been working in secret on a complete revamp of HackMaster, and the results have been at last unveiled with HackMaster Fifth Edition. The Hacklopedia of Beasts, a 384-page full color deluxe hardcover and one of the most visually gorgeous game books I’ve seen, arrived first. And now KenzerCo has announced The HackMaster Player’s Handbook, a 400-page leathered book that includes everything you need to play.

To celebrate the arrival of Fifth Edition, KenzerCo has announced that they’re making the PDF version of HackMaster Basic completely free. This book serves as a gateway to the dynamic thrill of the HackMaster game, and I highly recommend it.

Why not check it out? You can learn more, and get the free download, at the KenzerCo site here.

Apex Magazine #39

Apex Magazine #39

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apexmag0812August’s Apex Magazine features  “Armless Maidens of the American West” by Genevieve Valentine (who is interviewed by Maggie Slater), “Murdered Sleep” by Kat Howard, “Waiting for Beauty” by Marie Brennan and “Undercity” by Nir Yaniv. Cover art by Ekaterina Zagustina. Nonfiction by Jim C. Hines and editor Lynne M. Thomas.

Apex is published on the first Tuesday of every month.  While each issue is available free online from the magazine’s website, it can also be downloaded to your e-reader from there for $2.99.  Individual issues are also available at  Amazon, Nook, and Weightless.

Twelve-issue (one year) subscriptions can be ordered at Apex and Weightless for $19.95; Kindle subscriptions are available for $1.99 a month.

New Treasures: Wizards of the Coast Releases Dungeon Command

New Treasures: Wizards of the Coast Releases Dungeon Command

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dungeon-commandI’ve been relieved and gratified to see the resurgence in fantasy board gaming over the last decade.

With the demise of the great board game companies of my youth — SPI, Yaquinto, Avalon Hill, FASA, GDW, Metagaming, Task Force, and many others — it looked like the hobby that fired my imagination and gave me such pleasure for decades was headed for extinction. But Fantasy Flight, Wizards of the Coast, Days of Wonder, and a handful of other companies have turned that around in the last few years, releasing terrific titles that have rejuvenated the entire genre, like RoboRally, Small World, Ikusa, and the epic Conquest of Nerath.

It hasn’t happened in a vacuum. Part of the credit goes to the explosion of interest in miniatures. Games Workshop’s Warhammer, Privateer Press’s WarMachine and Iron Kingdoms, Wizkids’s HeroClix, and collectible miniature games from Wizards of the Coast and many others, have made table top gaming cool again, getting young gamers to put down their game controllers and pick up dice.

Wizards of the Coast has really been at the forefront of fantasy board gaming, especially recently. Just in the past few years they’ve released a surprising number of innovative and successful titles, including Lords of Waterdeep, The Legend of Drizzt, Castle Ravenloft, and many others.

Now they’re at it again with a major new launch: Dungeon Command, a head-to-head miniatures skirmish game designed for two or more players.

It looks like a lot of fun. And best of all, the components of Dungeon Command are 100% compatible with other popular Wizards of the Coast games: the miniatures and dungeon tiles can be used with the D&D RPG, and the unique cards provided with each miniature can be used with D&D Adventure System board games like Castle Ravenloft, Wrath of Ashardalon, and The Legend of Drizzt.

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Blogging Sax Rohmer’s Daughter of Fu Manchu

Blogging Sax Rohmer’s Daughter of Fu Manchu

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fumandausaxrohmersigned-761x1023Sax Rohmer’s Daughter of Fu Manchu was originally serialized as Fu Manchu’s Daughter in twelve weekly installments of Collier’s from March 8 to May 24, 1930. It was published in book form the following year by Cassell in the UK and Doubleday in the US. Rohmer divides the novel into four sections comprising three chapters each. This week we examine the first part.

It had been over a dozen years since Rohmer had finished the Fu Manchu series. Since that time, both The Yellow Claw (1915) and his three Fu Manchu titles had been filmed by Stoll. In the late 1920s, with the advent of sound, Paramount announced a new series of Fu Manchu films starring Warner Oland as the Devil Doctor. Collier’s was eager to capitalize on the character’s renewed popularity and the author signed a contract to revive the series.

His first attempt was to write a contemporary thriller involving American protagonists opposing a self-styled Emperor of Crime, to be revealed at the story’s conclusion as Fu Manchu’s daughter. After several installments of the serialized adventure for Collier’s, Rohmer’s editor determined that the author had failed to capture the flavor of the original series and both parties reluctantly agreed to let him alter the story’s conclusion to remove all trace of Fu Manchu. The delayed serial, The Emperor of America resumed after a hiatus of several months in 1928 and was published in book form the following year. A minor work, it is most notable for serving as the template for the Sumuru series, another ersatz Fu Manchu, many years later.

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World Fantasy Award Nominations Announced

World Fantasy Award Nominations Announced

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those-across-the-river2The nominations for the 2012 World Fantasy Awards have been announced. They are:

Novel

  • Those Across the River, Christopher Buehlman (Ace)
  • 11/22/63, Stephen King (Scribner)
  • A Dance with Dragons, George R.R. Martin (Bantam)
  • Osama, Lavie Tidhar (PS Publishing)
  • Among Others, Jo Walton (Tor)

Novella

  • “Near Zennor”, Elizabeth Hand (A Book of Horrors)
  • “A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong”, K.J. Parker (Subterranean, Winter 2011)
  • “Alice Through the Plastic Sheet”, Robert Shearman (A Book of Horrors)
  • “Rose Street Attractors”, Lucius Shepard (Ghosts by Gaslight)
  • Silently and Very Fast, Catherynne M. Valente (WSFA Press and Clarkesworld)

Short Story

  • “X for Demetrious,” Steve Duffy (Blood and Other Cravings)
  • “Younger Women,” Karen Joy Fowler (Subterranean, Summer 2011)
  • “The Paper Menagerie,” Ken Liu (F&SF, March-April 2011)
  • “A Journey of Only Two Paces,” Tim Powers (The Bible Repairman and Other Stories)
  • “The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees,” E. Lily Yu (Clarkesworld April 2011)

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Enjoying Vintage Comics with The Toon Treasury of Classic Children’s Comics

Enjoying Vintage Comics with The Toon Treasury of Classic Children’s Comics

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toon-treasure-of-classic-childrens-comics2One of the great things about the 21st Century? Cheap comic reprints (I know, that’s top of your list too, right?)

Seriously. When I was growing up, if you wanted to know what happened in Amazing Spider-Man #65, you had to find someone five years older than you and pester the hell outta them until they told you. As comic archival systems went, it was crude and had little to recommend it.

Not today. Now you have an embarrassment of choices. Want the color reprints of Amazing Spider-Man? The cheap black-and-white? Hardcover or paperback? Digital or paper? Paper or plastic? Bah. All these choices make me grumpy. I miss nagging all the teenagers in my neighborhood. Yelling at them to get off my lawn isn’t the same.

And here’s the other thing. If you want to read premium reprints of superhero, sci-fi, or horror comics from the 50s through the 90s, life is grand. Just browse the graphic novel section at Barnes & Noble or Amazon and you’ll see what I mean — the choices are staggering. Marvel, DC, Gold Key, Charlton, EC… they’re all there, and in quantity.

But if you’re interested in children’s comics from the same era? Good luck.

There are a few intrepid publishers bucking the trend. Fantagraphics has one of the most ambitious publishing ventures in the history of comics with The Complete Peanuts, collecting all 17,897 daily and Sunday strips by Charles M. Schulz (18 hardcover volumes, so far). And let’s not forget Pogo: The Complete Daily & Sunday Comic Strips by Walt Kelly, or the extensive Disney comics of Carl Barks — especially his Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge — published by Gladstone and Boom! Studios over the years.

But these publishing projects assume you’re already a dedicated fan, and willing to shell out $30 (or more) per book for archival quality hardcovers. What if you just want to sample some of the best from the golden age of kid’s comics? For that, I heartily recommend Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly’s wonderful volume, The Toon Treasury of Classic Children’s Comics.

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Art of the Genre: The Art of Steampunk Couture

Art of the Genre: The Art of Steampunk Couture

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224212_102805193144891_102481739843903_22404_1475592_nI’m not truly sure when I first heard the word ‘Steampunk.’ I suppose it happened recently, because I believe the word is more modern than most realize. Before the 2000s I’d say the genre in question had a different title, although I’m not sure what it was.

I mean, we’d certainly seen it, in movies like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea or even the Wild Wild West. In gaming, I’d even played it with Frank Chadwick’s Space: 1889, but it somehow was just ‘Victorian Era’ or ‘Old West with a Twist.’ I suppose it could have been called ‘Vernian’ after Jules Verne, although it’s certainly not as catchy as Steampunk.

My thought, as it strikes me in this very moment, is that Cyberpunk, the catalyst of William Gibson, came first and that the ‘punk’ tag got attached to the ‘steam’ aspect of the time period in which the genre takes place. This, however, has begun to get overplayed, and just last week I swore off the word ‘punk’ entirely when I read a quote for a book that labeled the fiction ‘Godpunk’… seriously?! Godpunk?

Ah well, whatever the case, Steampunk is here and it seems here to stay. In my own experience, I’ve had the pleasure of not only gaming in a Steampunk setting, but also writing a novel in the genre with The Gun Kingdoms. That book, inspired by Space: 1889’s lead concept artist, David Deitrick, was a pleasure to create and it certainly gave me a fantastic reason to research the culture of the growing genre.

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New Treasures: Sherwood Smith’s The Spy Princess

New Treasures: Sherwood Smith’s The Spy Princess

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the-spy-princess2If you’re not reading Sherwood Smith, you’re missing out on one of the most gifted and versatile fantasy authors at work today.

Sherwood’d first novel, Wren to the Rescue (1990), kicked off the popular 6-volume Wren fantasy series, including Wren’s Quest (1993), Wren’s War (1995) and A Posse of Princesses (2008). I first took notice of her with the Court and Crown Duet, published as two YA novels, Crown Duel and Court Duel, in 1997/98.

Sherwood effortlessly transitioned to adult fantasy with the major novel Inda (2006), the first installment in an ambitious fantasy quartet which continued with The Fox (2007), King’s Shield (2008), and Treason’s Shore (2009). To science fiction fans Sherwood is the author of the beloved Exordium series, co-written with Dave Trowbridge, which began with The Phoenix in Flight (1993), as well as two novels in Andre Norton’s Solar Queen universe (co-written with Andre Norton), and two books in Norton’s Time Traders universe.

With The Spy Princess Sherwood offers up a treat for the numerous fans of her YA books: the tale of four intrepid children who are the only thing that stand between a city and destruction.

When twelve-year-old Lady Lilah decides to disguise herself and sneak out of the palace one night, she has more of an adventure than she expected — for she learns very quickly that the country is on the edge of revolution. When she sneaks back in, she learns something even more surprising: her older brother Peitar is one of the forces behind it all. The revolution happens before all of his plans are in place, and brings unexpected chaos and violence. Lilah and her friends, leaving their old lives behind, are determined to help however they can. But what can four kids do? Become spies, of course!

The Spy Princess is 400 pages in hardcover from Viking Juvenile. The hardcover is $17.99, and the digital version is $10.99. It was published on August 2.