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Art of the Genre: Dark Sun

Art of the Genre: Dark Sun

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dark-sun-256

The summer of my sophomore year in college a friend of mine bought a copy of TSR’s Dark Sun Campaign Setting circa 1991. As I’d just gotten into my newest comic book obsession, I didn’t have the cash to spend on RPGs so I was content to let him spend his money on the game as I relegated myself to being a player.

I found the world fun, surprisingly new for stodgy old TSR, and although the campaign I played in ended abruptly when my human gladiator decided he’d had enough of a Halfling in the party and clove him in two, it was still something that stuck with me for many years afterward.

To me, the demise of the setting in 1996 revolved more around the rise of Magic the Gathering and less about TSR’s new age of design that was being brought forth around 1990. This isn’t to say that those works are innately perfect and simply died as the foundation of the industry was eroded away because I often found them lacking, particularly in the department of art.

Now certainly I couldn’t have dreamed that the newest member of TSR’s pit, Gerald Brom, would go on to be one of the greatest fantasy artists of his generation, but he did bring a very different feel to this new universe.
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Atomic Fury: The Original Godzilla on Criterion Collection Blu-ray

Atomic Fury: The Original Godzilla on Criterion Collection Blu-ray

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bill-sienkiewicz-godzilla-criterion-cover

This week’s release of the original 1954 Japanese Godzilla (Gojira) on Blu-ray from the Criterion Collection is a major step in recognition for the film in the US. Yes, that’s the Criterion Collection, the premiere quality home video release company, acknowledging that Godzilla is a world cinema classic.

As a life-long Godzilla and giant monster fanatic, I can tell you what a long journey we’ve taken to get to this point. When I became feverishly interested in Japanese fantasy cinema, beyond the boyhood love, in my early twenties, Godzilla and its brethren had almost zero respect in North America. And zero quality home video releases. Even as the awful Roland Emmerich Godzilla hit screens to howls of hatred, there was no corresponding move to get the real films out to North American viewers in editions with subtitles and decent widescreen presentations.

In the mid-2000s, the shift started. The original Godzilla, not the Americanized version with Raymond Burr, got a theatrical stateside release, and then a DVD from Classic Media. G-Fans such as myself were finally freed from having to see the movie on bootleg VHS tapes and could recommend it easily to friends, promising them that the Japanese original would blow their mind with its quality. Now, we’re getting into the big-time cineaste world with Hi-Def and the Criterion Collection.

However, I’d like to temper my enthusiasm for 1954’s Godzilla with this statement: although a great film, it is not my favorite Godzilla movie, nor is it representative of the series.

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Steampunk Spotlight: Cherie Priest’s “Tanglefoot” & Clementine

Steampunk Spotlight: Cherie Priest’s “Tanglefoot” & Clementine

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clementineClementine (Amazon, B&N)
Cherie Priest
Subterranean Press (208 pages, Sept. 2010, $4.99)

“Tanglefoot” (free online)
Cherie Priest
Subterranean Press (Fall 2008, free)

Reviewed by Andrew Zimmerman Jones

Cherie Priest has become one of the biggest names in the steampunk sub-genre, starting mostly with her groundbreaking 2009 book Boneshaker that introduced most readers to “The Clockwork Century,” the alternate history 1880’s storyline that she created. There are three main features of “The Clockwork Century”:

  1. The Civil War has been going on for over 20 years.
  2. There are airships (and other steampunk accoutrements, such as goggles).
  3. There are zombies (or close enough approximations)

Boneshaker focused on features 2 and 3, with the Civil War really just a background note that has little direct bearing on the story. After all, it’s set in Seattle, which is far outside the territory where the Civil War is being fought.

Clementine, on the other hand, leaves the zombies behind to focus on the Civil War (and the airships) in far greater detail.

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The Birth of Sword’s Edge Publishing

The Birth of Sword’s Edge Publishing

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SEP LogoSword’s Edge Publishing released its first product in 2004. Looking back, I think that the reason for starting the company were faulty. Not because it was self-publishing – self-publishing is considered “indy” for role-playing games and not frowned on as it is in fiction – but because myself and my initial partner in the venture wanted to publish rather than be publishers. That is an important distinction. We created SEP not because we wanted to start our own business, but because we wanted to have control over our creations. This is perhaps a laudable goal, but in hindsight I think we could have achieved artistic control without self-publishing.

In truth, while there were a few companies that might have been interested in the modern military adventures for the d20 RPG market – which is what SEP was producing – none of them were “publishers” in the sense that Wizards of the Coast (producers of Dungeons & Dragons), White Wulf (Vampire) or Steve Jackson Game (GURPS) were. Most were relatively successful self-publishers that had expanded into publishing the works of others. Given that these companies were mostly publishing PDFs and that the barrier for entry into the PDF market was low, we decided to just do it ourselves. As with punk rock, DIY has a certain cachet in RPGs. It didn’t necessarily indicate quality, but DIY certainly reflects passion.

We had that.

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Clarkesworld Issue #64

Clarkesworld Issue #64

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cw_64_3001The January issue of Clarkesworld is currently online. Featured fiction: “Scattered Along the River of Heaven” by Aliette de Bodard, “What Everyone Remembers” by Rahul Kanakia and “All the Painted Stars” by Gwendolyn Clare.  Non fiction by Christopher Bahn, Jeremey L. C. Jones and Neil Clarke.  The cover art is by Arthur Wang.

All of this is available online for free; there’s even an audio podcast version of all three stories read by Kate Baker. However, nothing is really free. The magazine is supported by “Clarkesworld Citizens” who donate $10 or more.

We last covered Clarkesworld with issue #63.

The Nightmare Men: “The Haunted Wanderer”

The Nightmare Men: “The Haunted Wanderer”

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thumb_john_kirowanWhile Robert E. Howard is perhaps best known for creating Conan, he had his share of occult investigators of one stripe or another. There was Steve Harrison of River Street, Solomon Kane with his fiery Puritanism and cat-headed ju-ju staff and, of course, John Kirowan.

Kirowan is of an age and appearance with a number of Howard’s other characters, being tall, slender, brooding, and black haired — a Celt of the modern age. Sorrow hangs about him like a shroud, and his history is tragic. Though few agree on what form said tragedy might have taken, all believe that it has something to do with the years that he spent studying the occult arts in the black hills on Hungary and the secret places of Inner Mongolia.

What is known for certain is that Kirowan renounced these studies, and assumed the guise of a sceptic. But, when the nightmarish denizens of diabolical realms intrude upon the lives of his friends and companions, John Kirowan shows his true colours, and the haunted wanderer once more thrusts himself between the innocent and the devils in the dark.

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Blogging Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon, Part Eighteen – “Jungles of Mongo”

Blogging Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon, Part Eighteen – “Jungles of Mongo”

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queendesira21jungles-of-mongo“Jungles of Mongo” was the eighteenth installment of Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon Sunday comic strip serial for King Features Syndicate. Originally published between June 21 and November 1, 1942, “Jungles of Mongo” picks up where the preceding installment, “Queen Desira” left off with the seductive Queen and a bare-chested Flash riding the local steed, a gryph through the lush jungles of Tropica with Dr. Zarkov and Dale Arden bringing up the rear. Prince Brazor, who has usurped the throne of Tropica from Desira, releases a pack of bloodwolves to hunt them down.

Alex Raymond captures the beauty of Tropica’s flora and fauna with the same care and attention to detail that he demonstrated in some of his earliest Mongo strips. Flash fells a great tree so that the fugitives can travel down the river and, in a move that is now unthinkable, our hero deliberately sets fire to the forest to aid in their escape from Brazor and his bloodwolves. Of course, the cliffhanger nature of the serial demands constant peril and the fugitives quickly find themselves facing the Whirlpool Falls. Zarkov and Dale survive the falls, but Desira (whose top is provocatively torn going over the falls) is sucked into the whirlpool with Flash apparently sharing her fate in his attempt to rescue her.

Flash and Desira are carried by an underwater current into a cavern beneath the river. Flash climbs astride the prostrate form of Desira to perform artificial respiration to revive her when they are attacked by a giant cavernosaur, a cross between a seal and a plesiosaur. Flash kills the creature after a dramatic struggle. Don Moore’s script and Alex Raymond’s art wring every last bit of sexual tension out of the final panel with a trembling Desira in her torn clothes nestled against Flash’s heaving bare chest after his exertions against the carnivorous mammal. Moore notes that Desira ceases to be a Queen at that moment and is only a woman as she pleads with Flash to hold her.

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Goth Chick News: It’s All One Big, Dark Side to Me

Goth Chick News: It’s All One Big, Dark Side to Me

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image0062I am not a huge fan of Star Wars.

Now, wait.  Before you start sending me emails of an aggressive variety allow me to say that there are aspects of the movies I like; quite a few actually.

However, I have to say that Lucas lost me with the whole militant teddy bear angle, and being that story line was fairly early on in the series, I never really got my Jedi mojo going.

But if there was one part of Star Wars that did consistently attract my attention it was…

Bet you can guess.

The Sith.

I suppose it’s the whole shadows – darkness – evil thing.  It resonates.

And you can bet George Lucas is well aware that even if there are people like me, who aren’t hard-core acolytes that can speak Wookie, he can still find a way to get me to buy in.

Literally.

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Revisiting The Chronicles of Amber

Revisiting The Chronicles of Amber

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amberIn my never-ending quest to bring heroic fiction and sword-and-sorcery to a wider audience, I have been writing essays for National Public Radio. Last May they carried an article I drafted about three books reprinting pulp (and slick)  magazine treasures.

Today, as part of their Guilty Pleasures series, I waxed on about one of my very favorite series, Roger Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber. I can’t say as I feel especially guilty about loving the first Amber series, although I do always have to mention a few caveats when I recommend it. For instance, I usually emphasize that I didn’t care nearly as much for the later sequel volumes.

I discovered Zelazny’s Amber at about the same time I read Fritz Leiber’s Swords Against Death and a whole slew of Michael Moorcock novels. As a young teenager, those stories effectively blew my mind. I can honestly say that there’s no fantasy series that had as great an impact upon me. Even today, some twenty years after my last reading, I can still quote portions extensively. If you’re a fan of heroic fiction and sword-and-sorcery, you really owe it to yourself to give it a try

If you want to know more about Amber, check out the article, and if you’re wanting to see more coverage of genre work at NPR I hope you’ll Like, Tweet, Recommend, or whatever else the page.

Art of the Genre: The Age of Perfect Creation

Art of the Genre: The Age of Perfect Creation

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martin-300Perhaps some of you know of my utter disdain for George R.R. Martin. There are various reasons for this feeling, but this week I had a friend call me to complain about A Dance of Dragons, a book which I’ve refused to read. I must say, however, that I felt a great deal of satisfaction at his ire toward the novel because somehow that made my own dislike of Martin’s post-2000 work all the more valid. My friend’s thoughts were echoed by the bulk of Amazon reviews, and as I did a bit of research on what people were thinking about A Dance of Dragons I remembered my own experience with its predecessor in the Song of Ice and Fire series.

You see, the last Martin book I read was A Feast for Crows. I took it with me on vacation to St. Croix and read it under the tranquil skies of the Caribbean just a few months before my son was born. When I got to the end of the book, there was a note of apology placed there from Martin concerning the text I’d just read. Now I’m no rocket scientist, but if an author has to apologize to a reader AFTER they read his book, then you know you’ve been taken for a ride.

At that point I swore I’d never read anything by Martin again, no matter how much I loved A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, and A Storm of Swords. In that promise to myself, I was vindicated by my friend’s words concerning A Dance of Dragons. Yes, at last a true victory for being a stubborn ass was mine to enjoy!!!!!!

However, after hearing this news concerning the latest volume, a couple of remembered quotes I’d read concerning writing started doing the rockem sockem robot dance in my head.

The first of these random quotes concerns Martin’s publication dates, and his extreme time lag between.

I like to get ten pages a day, which amounts to 2,000 words. That’s 180,000 words over a three-month span, a goodish length for a book — something in which the reader can get happily lost, if the tale is done well and stays fresh.

– Stephen King, On Writing.

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