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Masterpiece: The Sword of Rhiannon by Leigh Brackett

Masterpiece: The Sword of Rhiannon by Leigh Brackett

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PZO8005-Cover.inddI committed a major heresy, in public and on record, against the sword-and-sorcery community when I stated on the recording for a podcast that, in the realm of “sword-and-sorcery” fiction, I prefer Leigh Brackett over Robert E. Howard. Although at least one participant on the podcast seconded my opinion, I do understand why most sword-and-sorcery readers cannot go with me on this. Howard is, after all, the Enthroned God of the genre. And, strictly speaking, Brackett did not write fantasy or historicals. Her specialty was action-oriented science fiction with heavy fantasy influences, the sub-genre of science-fantasy known as “planetary romance.” (Sometimes called “sword-and-planet.” I hate that term.)

I love Robert E. Howard’s work; it’s foundational for me. But, it’s “not that I love Howard less, but that I love Brackett more.” To that extent, I want to promote the sheer awesomeness that is Leigh Brackett whenever I can. And in her 1949 novel The Sword of Rhiannon (buy it here!) she reached what I believe is her apex: a planetary romance set across an ancient version of Mars, crammed with sword-swinging action, pirate-style swashbuckling, alien super-science, a hero as flinty as granite, an alluring and surprising femme fatale warrior, and an overarching theme of redemption, loss, and futility that ends up pushing what sounds like a standard adventure into a work of intricacy and overwhelming emotion.

Leigh Brackett (1915–1978), a long time resident of the same neighborhoods in Los Angeles where I grew up and still live, was a student of Howard’s work and an immense admirer. However, she didn’t copy him when she started her own career, but infused his passionate style with her own passions. Brackett shows the influence of other predecessors — Clark Asthon Smith, A. Merritt, C. L. Moore, Henry Kuttner, Otis Adelbert Kline, Edgar Rice Burroughs — but her mixture is blended so perfectly that all of it feels fresh and driven. I just finished another re-reading of The Sword of Rhiannon, and I am as thunderstruck as ever with how damn great Leigh Brackett was at what she did. Even more, I am awed at how modern her tale feels, even though the outer hull shows it as an old-fashioned pulp romance. Not that there’s anything wrong with the old pulp style; I still read Edgar Rice Burroughs avidly. But Brackett to this day stands in a class of her own.

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Game Review: Dragon Dominoes in Looney Labs’ Seven Dragons

Game Review: Dragon Dominoes in Looney Labs’ Seven Dragons

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sevendragons_1Two of my favorite card games come from Looney Labs: Fluxx and Chrononauts.  One of the major selling points of these games, for me, is that they’re creative games that have victory conditions that can change on a dime. You can be close to winning and then, with a lucky and well-played turn by an opponent, you can find yourself on the losing end.

Seven Dragons captures this chaotic feel, mixing it with some great fantasy artwork by Larry Elmore. The name comes from two different aspects of the game:

  • There are seven different colors of dragons represented in the the game: red, black, gold, blue, green, silver, and rainbow
  • The goal of the game is to create a chain of seven dragons of your designated color

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Apex Magazine #26 Released

Apex Magazine #26 Released

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bigcover-239x300Apex Magazine is a monthly on-line publication of science fiction, fantasy and horror edited by Catherynne M. Valente.

The issue features three stories: “The Neighborly Thing to Do” by T.J. Weyler, “The Widow and the Xir” by Indrapramit Das and “The Rapid Advancement of Sorrow” by Theodora Goss. Paul Jessup’s non-fiction piece is “The Top 10 Experimental Genre Books You’ve Never Heard Of.”

Apex Magazine is sold online for $2.99; it’s also available in Kindle, Nook, and a downloadable format through Smashwords. Previous issues are available through their  store. We last profiled Apex with Issue 23.

You can subscribe and get 12 issues for just $19.99.

Art of the Genre: The Critical Hit Update

Art of the Genre: The Critical Hit Update

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tank_the_dragon_-_text_beneath_box-300Well now, I’m making this special appearance because I promised Zachary, who I haven’t seen in some time actually, that I’d post up news on The Critical Hit. News, you see, has finally happened, although it all seems very mixed at the moment.

A few months back, after posting several comics here in Black Gate, Jeff Laubenstein and I sold our comic, The Critical Hit, to Wizards of the Coast for a new website comic launch they were going with this summer. It was a kind of veneration to the old Dragonmirth comics found in the back of Dragon Magazines, so I thought The Critical Hit fit very nicely with that concept. So did Jon Schindehette the Creative Director at Wizards, and so Black Gate’s loss was to be Wizards gain.

Today, Friday the 8th, the test of The Critical Hit went live over at the Wizards D&D website so I hope that all of you who enjoyed the few comics I posted here will journey on over and take a look at it here. We’ve been getting beaten up a bit in the comments section, so if you do like the piece and would like to see it continue, please sign in and comment yourself. Otherwise, I guess I won’t see you in the funny papers!

The Nightmare Men: “A Doctor, Darkly”

The Nightmare Men: “A Doctor, Darkly”

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800px-carmillaIt’s always best to begin at the start, to quote no one in particular. We’ll start with the introductions: my name is Josh Reynolds and I wanted to be a detective when I grew up…no, not just a detective.

I wanted to be an occult detective. I wanted to be Donald Pleasance hunting down the Horse of the Invisible, or Peter Cushing making a cross out of candlesticks and shoving them right all up in Christopher Lee’s fang-y mug. I wanted to be Carl Kolchak, Thomas Carnacki and Dr. Strange. I wanted to bust up eldritch cults, Draculas and devil-worshipping biker gangs.

Unfortunately, my wife won’t let me. So, instead, I scratch the monster-hunting, ghost-busting itch by writing…well, stuff like this. ‘This’, of course, being ‘The Nightmare Men’ (of which this is the first installment, natch), a series of semi-regular essays on the subject of occult detectives; one part introduction, one part analysis, all awesome, all the time. Basically, if you’ve ever wanted a primer on occult detectives, the Nightmare Men is for you. And we begin with the granddaddy of them all…

Sheridan Le Fanu’s Dr. Martin Hesselius.

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Blogging Marvel’s The Tomb of Dracula, Part Nine

Blogging Marvel’s The Tomb of Dracula, Part Nine

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tod-44The Tomb of Dracula #44, “His Name is Doctor Strange” kicks off the series’ crossover with Marvel’s flagship occult title, Doctor Strange. The crossover was a natural choice given the characters and the fact that artist Gene Colan had a past association with Marvel’s Master of the Mystic Arts. Admittedly, the physical resemblance between Colan’s rendition of Stephen Strange and the Lord of Vampires is a bit too close for comfort, but Marv Wolfman delivers a solid script that makes the crossover fun despite failing to live up to the potential of what the meeting between these two characters might have been.

The story gets underway with Strange retrieving his faithful manservant, Wong from the crystal ball he had mystically disappeared into only to find his valet has been bitten by a vampire. Strange enters the crystal ball and visits the past to see Wong interrupting Dracula’s attack on an innocent woman and then watches through Wong’s eyes as the vampire turns on his manservant. This intriguing set-up sets Strange off to put an end to Dracula’s reign of terror. From here, we segue to a largely pointless comic relief subplot where tabloid journalist Harold H. Harold is incensed to learn that his publisher’s sexy, but dimwitted receptionist Aurora Rabinowitz has sold her story about their encounter with Dracula and earned a byline.

ds-14From there, we move to the much more interesting subplot involving the white-haired vampire who is being sought by both Blade and Hannibal King. The actual conflict between Dracula and Dr. Strange comes off rather well with the sorcerer tracking the vampire to his coffin and entering an astral battle with the vampire in 15th Century Wallachia. Unsurprisingly, Strange underestimates the vampire’s hypnotic powers and is attacked and bitten by Dracula. The issue’s real climax sees Blade and Hannibal King meeting for the first time on the trail of the white-haired vampire who ruined both of their lives.

Doctor Strange #14, “The Tomb of Doctor Strange” concludes the crossover with Steve Englehart’s script fitting as seamlessly into Wolfman’s storyline as Wolfman did with his in the first part. This uncommonly effective crossover can be contributed to the fact that Wolfman edited both titles. As the story gets underway, we learn that Strange’s astral form is still free while his physical body has fallen victim to the vampire. More significantly, Dracula first stumbles upon the deconsecrated Boston church in this issue which will play such an important role in the next story arc. Englehart also begins a continuing storyline with Dracula being pursued by an unseen spirit who taunts him with visions from his past. Dracula returns to feast on Strange and the magician’s astral form re-enters his body, awakening him. Strange calls on Jehovah and creates an astral cross which causes the vampire’s death. The effects of Strange and Wong’s vampire bits are reversed with Dracula’s death at the issue’s rushed conclusion.

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Goth Chick News: Old Dog, New “Twixt”

Goth Chick News: Old Dog, New “Twixt”

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image002The cool thing about Francis Ford Coppola (minus the “Ford” bit if you followed his work in the ‘80’s) is that, chances are he’s responsible for at least one movie in your top ten, regardless of your favorite genre.

From The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, to Peggy Sue Got Married and The Cotton Club, Coppola has never stuck to one movie “type,” but instead stretched his creativity into many corners for better or worse. Love them or hate them (or in some cases both), I’m betting Coppola movies can be found among your favorite quotes, your DVD collection or your Netflix queue.

But though he’s easily associated with making “an offer (you) can’t refuse,” Coppola is possibly least known for his forays into horror; though arguably this is his roots.

Beginning in 1963 with his first big budget film The Terror starring Jack Nicholson in one of his first roles and Boris Karloff in one of his last, Coppola followed up with Dementia 13 later that same year.

By his own admission, horror is where Francis Ford got a foothold in Hollywood.

However, it would be another thirty years before Coppola would return to the genre that gave him his break.

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The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities!

The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities!

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Rejoice and make merry!

The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities is available for purchase from today! Look at it!

I give you also a sample collage of the interior!

I have a story in this. I keep saying that and grinning because it is so unbelievable a thing. I am overjoyed about this for gazillions of reasons, most of which are variations on the following:

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Art of the Genre: Art of Anthologies

Art of the Genre: Art of Anthologies

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Stephen Hickman brings the Man-Kzin Wars to life as a beautiful anthology produced by Larry Niven
Stephen Hickman brings the Man-Kzin Wars to life as a beautiful anthology produced by Larry Niven

I’m not really sure if this can be classified at ‘art’, but certainly there is an art to the creation of anthologies. I mean, for all intents and purpose, Black Gate is an anthology, the scope and size of these new issues making it more a book than a magazine.

John O’Neill, our venerable editor, has done a fantastic job of giving his readers both the feel of an anthology while also being committed enough to each story as to provide wonderful art with it. That artistic contribution, in my opinion, is something that helps define what Black Gate is trying to do, and although the art direction in each issue’s very essence isn’t held to a single vision, the coherence of the product is still maintained in the highest quality.

Black Gate also weaves a thick quilt of characters within its pages, the repeated inclusion of certain authors allowing stories and characters to build, grow, and foster a relationship with a reader that many contemporary anthologies can’t produce. I’ve seen reviewers try to knock this, but in the end several have come around to indicate that John’s repeated choices are one of their favorite pieces of the magazine.

The art of the short story in its very nature is a simple entertainment, a microcosm of imagination that I fear is too often read like a teaser trailer found before your main attraction at the local Cineplex. In them we are often required to be told rather than shown a story, and I’m reminded of the musky depth of Don Lafontaine’s voice when I’m provided back story inside stories of already limited words… his signature opening ever echoing in my brain… ‘In a world where…’

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Tattoos and Fantasy! Proposal!

Tattoos and Fantasy! Proposal!

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This one's mine. It's a frikkin JESTER! With wings! And a TAIL! It has a story. What's yours? (Art by Rebecca Huston.)
This one's mine. It's a frikkin JESTER! With wings! And a TAIL! It has a story. What's yours? (Art by Rebecca Huston.)

Dear Fantasy Writers,

Pretty soon I (and an Editing Wizard of my acquaintance) will be putting together a thing for Black Gate (possibly an article, possibly a short documentary-type-thingy for YouTube) about Fantasy writers and their tattoos. I know some folks view their ink and its significance as intensely personal. If this is the case with you, please ignore the rest of this message.

But if you are a published Fantasy writer, and have an image on your skin that you want to share, and a short paragraph about it, I’d love to see it!

I’d want a jpg of the image (high resolution) and, if at all possible, a voice clip of the story — from GarageBand or whatever. If not a voice clip, then a written paragraph would definitely suffice.

I’d also want a short bio about yourself and where we might find your published work. We’d link to it in the article-portion of this project. (I see it as both an article and documentary. It’s all still coming together in my own head.)

If participating in this Black Gate YouTubementary shenanigans interests you, I’d love to have your files by August 1st. This thing’ll probably be several months in the making, and we may not a.) get enough material or b.) get too much to use all of it — but whatever happens, I’d update all participants as we make progress.

So! Ideas? Hail and Well-Mets? Flagrant Compliments? “Absolutely want in!”s? Then write to me at claire(at)blackgate(dot) com

Thank you!