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Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Venus, Part 5: “The Wizard of Venus”

Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Venus, Part 5: “The Wizard of Venus”

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wizard-of-venus-roy-krenkel-frontpieceThe Venus series ends not with a novel, but a novella. Consequently, this will be the shortest entry in my survey of Burroughs’s last series, but I have appended a wrap-up with my final thoughts on the Venus books as a whole.

Our Saga: The adventures of one Mr. Carson Napier, former stuntman and amateur rocketeer, who tries to get to Mars and ends up on Venus, a.k.a Amtor, instead. There he discovers a lush jungle planet of bizarre creatures and humanoids who have uncovered the secret of longevity. The planet is caught in a battle between the country of Vepaja and the tyrannical Thorists. Carson finds time during his adventuring to fall for Duare, forbidden daughter of a Vepajan king. Carson’s story covers three novels, a volume of connected novellas, and an orphaned novella.

Previous Installments: Pirates of Venus (1932), Lost on Venus (1933), Carson of Venus (1938), Escape on Venus (1941).

Today’s Installment: “The Wizard of Venus” (1964)

The Backstory

Edgar Rice Burroughs’s experiment of writing the previous Venus book as four linked novellas succeeded — commercially, at least — so he forged ahead with a new story in 1941 to start a second quartet. But no magazine purchased “The Wizard of Venus.” ERB moved on to the second story, which he started on 2 December 1941 in his home in Hawaii.

You can see where this is headed.

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Dream a Dream: The Chronicles of Everness by John C. Wright

Dream a Dream: The Chronicles of Everness by John C. Wright

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everness1The Last Guardian of Everness
Tor (336 pages, Sept 2004, $25.95)
Mists of Everness
Tor (352 pages, Feb 2005, $25.95)
By John C. Wright

The Everness of the title is simply a house, a sprawling mansion built on the northern Maine coast.  Everness is a memory palace made real, a house whose features and layout are identical in both the waking and dream worlds, and one of the few gateways where dreams can cross over into manifest reality.  It is a conduit for all the normal dreams that come to humans in their sleep, but it is also a border to be defended.  The run-down seawall of the manifest world is a towering battlement in the Dreaming.

John C. Wright’s Chronicles of  Everness is an epic in two moderately sized volumes dealing with an assault upon our world (the waking world) and a horde of unspeakable evils from our nightmares.  Literally.  The world of the fantastic exists, but only in a vast dream-world composed of a vast population of gods, demons, monsters, fairies, selkies, angels, and supernatural princes.

It’s a difficult pair of books to encapsulate in any reasonable number of words, simply because of the sheer number of ideas, fantastic settings, plot threads, and scenarios Wright manages to stuff between his covers.  On the most basic level, they’re a tale of good versus evil, but that battle is fought in locations ranging from a suburban living room to the towers of an undersea Hell.  The books bite off a lot, and manage to chew through most of it with style.

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The Nightmare Men: “The Ghost-Seer”

The Nightmare Men: “The Ghost-Seer”

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9781840225396Aylmer Vance, agent of the enigmatic Ghost Circle, made his first appearance on the nightmare stage in 1914. The creation of husband-and-wife writing team Alice and Claude Askew, Vance appeared in eight consecutive issues of The Weekly Tale-Teller between July and August. The stories-“The Invader”, “The Stranger”, “Lady Green-Sleeves”, “The Fire Unquenchable”, “The Vampire”, “The Boy of Blackstock”, “The Indissoluble Bond” and “The Fear”-ranged from grotesque to gentle, and are, by and large, of a slower pace than those featuring Vance’s contemporaries, such as Carnacki. Only one of the stories has been regularly anthologized (“The Vampire”), with the rest languishing in obscurity until the release of recent collections by Ash-Tree Press and Wordsworth Editions respectively.

Like John Silence, Vance inhabits an England of soft spiritual influence, where elementals, ancient memories and ghostly manifestations cling to the unseen corners and visit just long enough to inject the mundane with a booster shot of the strange. Unlike Carnacki’s Outer Monstrosities and Malign Visitors, the apparitions that Vance faces are utterly human in their aspect, if not their motivation. Death is no barrier to the desires of the flesh or the dreams of the determined, and it is when these elements intrude on the hard-won peace of the Edwardian mind that the Ghost-Seer must intervene.

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Interzone #236 September-October 2011

Interzone #236 September-October 2011

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374The new Interzone features contains stories by Jason Sanford (“The Ever-Dreaming Verdict of Plagues”), Mercurio D. Rivera (“Tethered”), Jon Ingold (“The Fall of the City of Silver”), Fiona Moore (“The Metaphor”) and Stephen Kotowych (“A Time for Raven”); art by Richard Wagner, Ben Baldwin, Jim Burns and Martin Hanford. There’s also the regular columns, Ansible Link by David Langford, Mutant Popcorn by Nick Lowe,  and Laser Fodder by Tony Lee; book reviews including an interview with Lavie Tidhar conducted by Maureen Kincaid Speller.

You can also download issue 230 for free, containing stories by Aliette de Bodard, Nina Allan, Lavie Tidhar , Patrick Samphire and Tim Lees.

In other news, Locus reports that the Amazing Stories trademark has been acquired, possibly for use as the title for an online magazine. This would be how many times the dead magazine has been resurrected? Although this time, a true resurrection, as it wouldn’t have a physical paper form.

Blogging Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon, Part Fourteen – “Power Men of Mongo”

Blogging Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon, Part Fourteen – “Power Men of Mongo”

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flashgordonpowermenofmongopower-men1“Power Men of Mongo” was the fourteenth installment of Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon Sunday comic strip serial for King Features Syndicate. Originally published between April 14, 1940 and January 12, 1941, “Power Men of Mongo” picks up the storyline where the thirteenth installment, “The Ice Kingdom of Mongo” left off with Flash, Zarkov and Katon speeding by rocket-engine to Mingo City in a desperate attempt to rescue Dale. The rocket-engine is hijacked by Logun and the remnants of the Freemen who happily rejoin the battle to overthrow the Emperor of Mongo. They succeed in infiltrating the city, but one of the Freemen, Pital betrays Flash for the reward promised by Ming. The Emperor sets a trap to capture Flash and the Freemen when they meet in a warehouse at night. Dale starts a chemical fire in the warehouse to warn Flash of the danger. Ming leaves her to burn. Unable to remove her from the blazing warehouse, Flash settles for putting out the fire and then making a daring escape.

Flash successfully infiltrates Ming’s royal guard and very nearly succeeds in rescuing Dale, but Ming outmaneuvers him. Hunted by the police, Flash is rescued by Katon who leads him to the underground electrical works where the Power Men of Mongo are employed. Ergon, head of the Lodge of the Power Men has already befriended Zarkov and is eager to have the Power Men join the rebellion against Ming. The Power Men cause a blackout in the palace during which Flash and Zarkov (disguised as Power Men) eventually succeed in rescuing Dale. It is interesting to note that Flash’s Power Man outfit makes him look suspiciously like DC’s superhero, The Flash. Zarkov is given more of a chance to show his heroism. A turning point comes when Flash finds many of his former Freemen working in Ming’s munitions factory. Flash orchestrates a workers’ revolt and has the men turn on their foremen and seize control of the factory.

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Goth Chick News: New Haunted Tunes and Something Cool to Read While You Listen to Them

Goth Chick News: New Haunted Tunes and Something Cool to Read While You Listen to Them

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image008Question: If grungy rock musicians from Seattle get all the Barbie-doll girls, then who gets the Goth Chicks?

Answer: Moody dudes in top hats and capes playing disturbing, dark dirges, that’s who.

Cue the organ music and pull back the black velvet curtains to reveal the boys of Midnight Syndicate and their newest title Carnival Arcane; just in time for your Ray-Bradbury-inspired, Something Wicked This Way Comes themed cocktail party.

You all have one of those, right? Or is it just me…?

The Bradbury reference is inevitable as a haunted, night circus is what immediately came to mind when I listened to this CD. And if clowns are your nightmare, I wouldn’t fall asleep with the track “Sea of Laughter” playing in the background.

The narrative of the disc surrounds the Lancaster-Rigby Carnival, a turn-of-the-century traveling circus with more than a few skeletons in its closet.

Inspired by historical research into carnivals of that time period, Carnival Arcane co-creator (and my musician-groupie crush) Ed Douglas describes the music this way:

We wanted to push the boundaries on this disc. For a band that’s made a career of making “soundtracks to imaginary” films, I think this one feels more like a movie than anything we’ve done to date.

And co-creator Gavin Goszka says:

It’s definitely the most complete and intricate soundscape we’ve ever produced. You can practically smell the popcorn and Fairy Floss (cotton candy). “There’s also a tremendous amount of variety. There are moments where I think the listener will find themselves caught up in this strange sense of wonder and macabre fascination, and others that will leave them shaking in their boots. We were able to expand our instrument roster on this disc in ways that we’d only touched on before.

Each one of the twenty-five tracks is a self-contained gem of a storyline that will strike a nerve with anyone who believes there’s something more disturbing at traveling carnivals than employees without good dental plans.

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Art Evolution 2011: Chuck Lukacs

Art Evolution 2011: Chuck Lukacs

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fire-lukacs-255

Ok, so I work as Art Director here at Black Gate L.A., and that means I get to see a good amount of really fantastic art, especially where Art Evolution is concerned. That being said, it’s not often I get introduced to talent on the magazine that I wasn’t previously aware of. Still, it does happen, and one such artist is Chuck Lukacs.

Now that’s not to say Chuck is new to the fantasy industry, far from it, but as I’ve never been a Magic the Gathering player, and with the mass of D20 D&D books hitting the shelves since 2000, you can’t always identify every artist you see.

Chuck, however, was doing his due diligence during the 2000s, and his talents were recognized by many youthful minds along the way. He’s graced the pages of dozens of RP books, as well as Magic collections, and his art finally made it to me as I read the tales of Morlock the Maker which appeared in the pages of Black Gate’s print edition. Here, Chuck helped define James Enge’s character that would eventually go on to produce full novels in his own right.

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Book Jewelry by Emily Mah Jewelry Designs

Book Jewelry by Emily Mah Jewelry Designs

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pendantEmily Mah Jewelry Designs is a company I formed when I decided that raising two small children; writing speculative fiction short stories, romance novels, and jewelry making articles; taking classes in new jewelry media; selling jewelry on Etsy; and figuring out how to stay within my husband’s student stipend budget in London weren’t keeping me busy enough. I was merely overstretched, not fully flirting with insanity, and as a Clarion West survivor and law school graduate, I found that abnormal. So I decided to make use of my law degree, Clarion West connections, and jewelry making skills.

I contacted my workshop-mate, Stephanie Burgis, author of The Un-ladylike Adventures of Kat Stephenson, a middle grade fantasy trilogy set in Regency England. The first book, Kat Incorrigible came out this year in the US (it was released last year in the UK as A Most Improper Magick). Though Steph and I are both Americans, we live as ex-patriates in the UK – me in London and she in Wales. She was immediately in support of the idea and has been the ideal business partner, which is to say, she’s maintained her enthusiasm and been endlessly forgiving as I hit dead ends, overrun self imposed deadlines, and bumble my way through this whole venture. I send her what free jewelry I can to show my gratitude.

Draft pendantAnd now, months later, our collaboration is taking shape. I’ve produced three designs, a pendant that I released at the same time that Kat, Incorrigible hit bookstores, a pair of earrings that debuted at the launch party for the second book, A Tangle of Magicks (this will be released as Renegade Magic in the US next year), and a charm bracelet that just went on the market about an hour before I sat down to write this post. One might ask, how big is the market for book tie-in jewelry like this? I have no idea. Ask me in a year or two. What I can talk about, though, is how we started this venture. …

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SEVEN PRINCES – Cover Launch

SEVEN PRINCES – Cover Launch

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sp-coverOrbit Books just did a cover launch for SEVEN PRINCES on their official site today: http://www.orbitbooks.net/ I’ve wanted to share this with BG readers for months, and the day has finally come…

Artist Richard Anderson did an amazing job, giving us a silhouette of each prince, evoking the golden sun of a battlefield, the waving standards of ancient armies, and leaving just enough detail to the imagination.

Richard will also be doing the covers for the 2nd and 3rd Books of the Shaper, i.e. SEVEN KINGS and SEVEN SORCERERS. More of Richard’s cutting edge artwork can be found at his own site:  http://www.flaptrapsart.com/

Amazon is taking pre-orders for SEVEN PRINCES right here: http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Princes-Books-Shaper-Fultz/dp/0316187860/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1317091065&sr=8-1

Peace!
John

Supernatural Spotlight – Episode 7.1 “Meet the New Boss”

Supernatural Spotlight – Episode 7.1 “Meet the New Boss”

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God-Castiel faces off against Death, with Dean Winchester looking on.
God-powered Castiel faces off against Death, with Dean Winchester looking on.

The last season ended with Castiel pulling all the souls out of Purgatory. Sam tried to stab him with an angel blade, but the new souls made Castiel so powerful that it didn’t kill him. The sixth season ended with him saying to Sam, Dean, and Bobby:

… the angel blade won’t work, because I’m not an angel anymore. I’m your new God. A better one. So you will bow down and profess your love unto me, your Lord, or I shall destroy you.

Bobby – being the most common sense-having of the trio – begins this episode by bowing down before him. Dean and Sam are about to follow suit when Castiel tells them not to bother, since it means nothing if they’re doing it out of fear. He makes it clear, though, that he has no particular affection left for them anymore. He’s not going to kill them, because there’s no point to it. As long as they do not move against him, he sees no need to kill them.

The status is definitely not quo this season.

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