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Apex #37 and Interzone #240

Apex #37 and Interzone #240

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apexmag0612June’s Apex Magazine features  ”Winter Scheming” by Brit Mandelo, “In the Dark” by Ian Nichols and “Blocked by Geoff Ryman  (who is interviewed by Maggie Slater), as well as Seanan McGuire’s poem, “Wounds.” Ken Wong provides the cover art. Nonfiction by Tansy Rayner Roberts and editor Lynne M. Thomas round out the issue.

Apex is published on the first Tuesday of every month.  While each issue is available free on-line 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 and Weightless.

467_large2A version for the Nook will also be available in the near future.  Twelve issue (one year) subscription can be ordered at Apex and Weightless for $19.95; Kindle subscriptions are available for $1.99 a month.

The May–June issue of Interzone has stories by Vylar Kaftan, Ray Cluley, Lavie Tidhar, Elizabeth Bourne and Tracie Welser. Cover art is ‘The Hanged Man’ by Ben Baldwin, the third of his covers commissioned for 2012.

The issue also includes all the usual suspects: “Ansible Link” by David Langford (news and obits); “Mutant Popcorn” by Nick Lowe (film reviews); “Laser Fodder” by Tony Lee (DVD/Blu-ray reviews); along with book reviews by Jim Steel and others, and an interview with Nancy Kress.

Interzone alternates monthly publication with sister dark horror focused Black Static, published by the fine folks at TTA Press.

Black Gate Goes to the Summer Movies: Prometheus

Black Gate Goes to the Summer Movies: Prometheus

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prometheus-posterIf you plan to see Prometheus this weekend, know that you are in for an endless buffet of visual astonishment, especially if you spring to see it in IMAX 3D. Ridley Scott belongs to the breed of filmmaker who can justify the use of the 3D gimmick. He poured everything at his disposal to make his new science-fiction film worth the extra dollars, euros, pound notes needed to watch it in an immersive environment. Prometheus is visual and aural splendor for the cinema.

Know also that you will meet flat characters who often do idiotic things (“Don’t pet the freaky alien snake-thingy! You call yourself a scientist?”) and more idiotic things (“Don’t take off your helmets, you morons! You call yourselves space-explorers?”) and more idiotic things (“Don’t go down into the basement alone!” Well, that doesn’t specifically happen, but many equivalent things do.); a script that turns its initial concept into a shapeless mess by the halfway point; and the general disappointment of watching what promised to be an amazing return for Ridley Scott to the Alien universe he helped create ending up as standard science-fiction thriller pulp.

Does this add up to a good film? Uh, I’m willing to say it does. And whether “good” is enough for you when it comes to Prometheus will depend on how much you anticipated its release and how much you devoured of its brilliant promotional and viral campaigns.

Prometheus presents a puzzle for me personally: It is far below what I wanted as a dramatic experience, yet the cinematic experience of it is stupendous. The tension here offers plenty to ponder, but in a meta-critical sense that has little to do with the story that Prometheus offers. What makes a good film? What makes a good story? What makes a good film story? How much do expectations alter those questions? Are they all the same questions? Yes? No? Buy a vowel?

I guess what I am trying to say is that you should go see Prometheus for yourself, no matter what the critical consensus says, simply because it engages in questions about filmmaking and will no doubt begin tons of debate.

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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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nights-of-villjamurFour packages from Amazon.com piled up on my doorstep today, which reminds me it’s time to do another bargain book round-up. Ah, I love bargain books.

Here’s the latest remaindered SF & fantasy titles I’ve found on Amazon, including two new titles by Cory Doctorow; Fergus and the Night-Demon, a great-looking illustrated fantasy from Jim Murphy & John Manders; the recently-reviewed Black Blade Blues by J. A. Pitts; plus books by Kage Baker, Kat Richardson, Fiona McIntosh, Gordon Dahlquist, Michael Marshall Smith, Christina Meldrum, Galen Beckett, and the debut of a promising new fantasy series from Mark Charan Newton, Nights of Villjamur:

Nights of Villjamur, Mark Charan Newton [$10.38, was $26]
Makers, Cory Doctorow [$10, was $24.99]
For the Win, Cory Doctorow [$7.20, was $17.99]
The Dark Volume, Gordon Dahlquist [$10.40, was $26]
Myrren’s Gift: The Quickening Book One, Fiona McIntosh [$5.98, was $14.95]
Downpour (Greywalker, Book 6), Kat Richardson [$9.98, was $24.95]
The Magicians and Mrs. Quent, Galen Beckett [$9.20, was $23]
The Servants, Michael Marshall Smith [$5.98, was $14.95]
Madapple, Christina Meldrum [$6.80, was $16.99]
The Empress of Mars, Kage Baker [$10.38, was $25.95]
Fergus and the Night-Demon, Jim Murphy & John Manders [$6.40, was $16]
Black Blade Blues, J. A. Pitts [$6.40, was $15.99]

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. Most of last week’s discount titles are still available; you can see them here.

Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Golden Scorpion, Part Three – “At the House of Ah-Fang-Fu”

Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Golden Scorpion, Part Three – “At the House of Ah-Fang-Fu”

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golden-scorpion-5golden-scorpion-3Sax Rohmer’s The Golden Scorpion was first printed in its entirety in The Illustrated London News Christmas Number in December 1918. It was published in book form in the UK the following year by Methuen and in the US in 1920 by McBride & Nast. Rohmer divided the novel into four sections. This week, we shall examine the third part of the book, “At the House of Ah-Fang-Fu” which comprises eight chapters.

The story picks up at Scotland Yard where Gaston Max, Inspector Dunbar, and Dr. Keppel Stuart have gathered in the Assistant Commissioner’s office. Max suggests that the veiled figure known as the Scorpion that Dr. Stuart glimpsed in China five years earlier is likely the same criminal known as the Scorpion currently operating out of Limehouse. The Frenchman also believes that Mademoiselle Dorian, aka Zara el-Khala, aka Miska, is likewise an essential key to unravelling the mystery.

Max suggests a connection exists between Mr. King (from Rohmer’s 1915 novel, The Yellow Claw) and the Scorpion. Specifically, the Frenchman theorizes that the two criminals belong to the same Chinese or Tibetan organization whose tentacles have seemingly enveloped the globe. Having named the secret criminal society in the third and, at the time, final Fu Manchu thriller, The Hand of Fu Manchu published the previous year; Rohmer now desired to link his two Gaston Max Limehouse mysteries to the earlier series’ continuity. This is an interesting change of direction as Rohmer had originally taken great pains to separate the more realistic Yellow Claw from the outlandish mayhem of his Fu Manchu thrillers. This reversal not only signalled the fact that he wasn’t entirely ready to be done with the character, but was seeking creative ways of continuing the series without resorting to a purely formulaic approach.

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Goth Chick News: 13 Questions for the Creators of Outpost 13

Goth Chick News: 13 Questions for the Creators of Outpost 13

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image001As you know, we here at Goth Chick News are great fans of the indy film industry and there’s nothing we love better than getting a peak behind the clapboard.  Well, there was that one intern who refused to watch any film that didn’t have a title soundtrack by Celine Dion, but oddly enough he got sent out to pick up a YooHoo for Scott Taylor on his second day and just never came back.

Funny that.

So you can imagine the excitement when Wyatt Weed (Pirate Pictures), Billy Hartzel and Corey Logsdon (State of Mind Productions) agreed to give Black Gate an exclusive look at their short film Outpost 13 before it launches into what will surely be an exciting journey.

Clearly recognizing a bandwagon headed down the yellow brick road of success, it was obvious the only thing to do was jump on.  But not before squeezing a little insider information out the boys on how they turned their creative imaginations into movie magic.

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Christopher Paul Carey on Gods of Opar: Tales of Lost Khokarsa

Christopher Paul Carey on Gods of Opar: Tales of Lost Khokarsa

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gods-of-opar2In July 2005, I was alerted to an amazing find: the partial manuscript and detailed outline to Philip José Farmer’s third Khokarsa novel had been located among the author’s files.

At the time, I was serving as editor of Farmerphile, an authorized, digest-sized magazine devoted to bringing into print rarities and previously unpublished material by Farmer, and so naturally I had been contacted by the magazine’s publisher, Michael Croteau, when the new Khokarsa material turned up.

I was a huge fan of the original two books in the cycle — Hadon of Ancient Opar (1974) and Flight to Opar (1976) — considering them to be at the highest tier of Farmer’s adventure fiction, and it was with quivering fingers that I typed a reply to Mike’s email and requested a copy of the pages. When the photocopies promptly arrived, I was astounded. Here on an epic scale was the entire arc of what Farmer had planned for the third novel of the series, minus a few finishing touches where he had speculated on alternate courses for the story’s finale.

What’s more, the novel didn’t star Hadon, the duty-bound protagonist of the first two installments, but rather Hadon’s giant cousin Kwasin in all his larger-than-life stature — the wild, unrestrained antihero of the series, who was last seen on stage in Hadon of Ancient Opar, swinging his massive ax of meteoritic iron against impossible odds to give Hadon and his companions a chance to escape the forces of the power-hungry King Minruth.

It was a story that I instantly knew needed to be told — the conclusion to a trilogy for which Farmer’s fans had been waiting almost thirty years.

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New Treasures: R.A. Salvatore’s War of the Spider Queen

New Treasures: R.A. Salvatore’s War of the Spider Queen

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war-of-the-spider-queenAh, the lure of the fat fantasy novel. There’s really nothing quite like it.

Yes, I love short fiction and, by extension, I love short novels. But when you really fall in love with a book or series, nothing satisfies like a volume that weighs as much as a phone book.

Which is why I was delighted when two fat fantasy compendiums landed on my doorstep this week: R.A. Salvatore’s War of the Spider Queen, Volume I and Volume II.

These aren’t written by R.A. Salvatore.  You can tell because his name is in the title. R.A. Salvatore created the popular character Drizzt Do’Urden and has written nearly two dozen novels featuring the drow ranger, several of them best-sellers. War of the Spider Queen returns to Drizzt Do’Urden’s homeland, the Underdark, to spin a tale of a ragged band of four dark elves on a desperate quest to find Lloth, drow goddess and the demon Queen of Spiders, and save their subterranean city of Menzoberranzan and the entire dark elf race.

The two-volume War of the Spider Queen collects all six novels: Dissolution by Richard Lee Byers, Insurrection by Thomas M. Reid, Condemnation by Richard Baker, Extinction by Lisa Smedman, Annihilation by Philip Athans, and Resurrection by Paul S. Kemp. All were published between 2002 and 2005, with R.A. Salvatore overseeing the development of the entire series.

These are handsome and satisfactorily hefty volumes. I took them out and photographed them on the bricks of my front patio, so you can get a sense of their size. (Click on the image above to get a bigger version).

Volume I contains the first three novels; it is 1,074 pages for $15.95 in trade paperback. Volume II gathers the last three; it is 1,076 pages for $15.95. Both have cover art by Brom. They are published by Wizards of the Coast and are now available.

Art of the Genre: The Art of a Future Fallen

Art of the Genre: The Art of a Future Fallen

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Looks like all those A-bombs sure cleaned up the air... but they also left some strange mutations...
Looks like all those A-bombs sure cleaned up the air... but they also left some strange mutations...

I grew up under the threat of a nuclear holocaust. Perhaps I’m not a child who was taught to jump under their desk when the nuke hit like those of the 50s, but I watched and wondered as President Reagan threatened the Soviet Union with Star Wars and certainly found some perverted joy in watching moves like The Day After and Threads.

At one point, I was thoroughly convinced I’d die in a nuclear attack well before I ever had sex. It’s true, and I even broke down and admitted as much to my mother who assured me that would not be the case. Still, how could she know? Did she control the secret briefcase with the red button that launched mutually assured destruction like the President? I think not! But alas, doomsday never came… and once again mothers everywhere were proved wise in the face of their twelve year-old children.

Still, my fascination with that A-bomb only grew once I started playing D&D in the early 80s. By the time I had a functional relationship with the rules of the game, probably 8th Grade, I began crafting my own post-apocalyptic RPG called ‘Future Warrior’.

I very much wish I could share some of the covers for that game with you, but they’ve found their way into storage (a tragedy, I know). Still, I had a core rulebook and four distinct supplements for the game all under my first LLC moniker RST Hobbies, which is of course the reverse of TSR. (Note: RST are my initials, Roger Scott Taylor, which isn’t the only odd connection I have to TSR because I also share a birthday, July 27th, with Gary Gygax)

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Black Gate Goes to the Summer Movies: Snow White and the Huntsman

Black Gate Goes to the Summer Movies: Snow White and the Huntsman

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snow_white_and_the_huntsman_posterSummer movies, like boxes of Crackerjacks (does anyone still eat those? I never see them for sale any more), come packed with surprises. And, like Crackerjacks toys, often they are lame surprises. Let-downs. Occasionally — and it usually happens only once per summer — the toy you dig out of the same-old same-old caramel and peanut glop is a Hot Wheels car with flame details and killer sci-fi spoilers that somebody in the Crackerjack plant accidentally dropped into the box while leaving hastily for a smoke break.

Snow White and the Huntsmen is one of those positive summer surprises. I hope it isn’t the last “Hot Wheels” shock of the season, but in the month-long lull that followed the boffo fun of The Avengers, I’ll take it and cling to it.

A high-fantasy film like Snow White and the Huntsman (the ampersand only appears on publicity material) should not be a hard-sell to Black Gate readers. But the marketing and trailers pushed hard to get the Twilight fan-base to show up, so fantasy lovers pegged it early on as “not for us.” But it is! The Twilight viewers will love it, but they’ll like it for the same reasons other viewers will: it’s a broad-appealing, well-constructed, marvelous-looking, fun fantasy romp.

And, if it were not for a major casting blunder, I could easily see myself adding Snow White and the Huntsman to my Blu-ray shelf the week it comes out. I still will purchase it, but a few months after its street-date when I can get a bargain on it used.

The unpleasant truth is the piece of miscasting is monumental: the first of the two title characters, the figure who gives her name to the legend. My dear Snow White. Played in a perpetual coma by Kristen Stewart.

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