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Andrew Zimmerman Jones Reviews Shard RPG

Andrew Zimmerman Jones Reviews Shard RPG

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shardI first discovered the Shard RPG at GenCon in 2009. Despite being one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever seen, I was instantly enthralled by the premise. If the review below wets your appetite, then you can get more information (including a free Welcome Booklet download) from the Shard RPG website.

Shard RPG Basic Compendium

Aaron de Orive and Scott Jones
Shard Studios (352 pages, $39.99, August 2009)
Reviewed by Andrew Zimmerman Jones

One of the pleasures of going to GenCon is to stumble upon some of the small press games, which are like little treasures sprinkled throughout the dealer’s room. The last time I went, one such treasure was Shard, a game with a spark of originality that is rarely found even in the gaming industry.

Don’t get me wrong, I love traditional fantasy settings and even love the permutations where tradition is turned on its ear, such as the way mythical creatures are portrayed in White Wolf’s World of Darkness line.

But still, there’s something to be said for a game that doesn’t rely on mages, elves, vampires, werewolves, and so on as the basis of their originality.

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I Still Don’t Understand the Amulet, But I Love The Secret of NIMH

I Still Don’t Understand the Amulet, But I Love The Secret of NIMH

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secret-of-nimh-theatrical-posterThe Secret of NIMH (1982)
Directed by Don Bluth. Featuring the Voices of Elizabeth Hartman, Peter Strauss, Dom DeLuise, Derek Jacobi, Hermione Baddeley, David Carradine, Arthur Malet, Paul Shenar, Wil Wheaton, Shannon Doherty.

Hello, my name is Ryan Harvey, and apparently all I do here at Black Gate is review animated fantasy films.

With 1982’s The Secret of NIMH now out on a fresh new Blu-ray Disc. . . .

Wait a minute. Seriously, MGM Home Video? (Or Fox, or whoever actually handled this disc.) This is the best you can do with your new release of The Secret of NIMH onto hi-def? Normally, I would wait until the end of a movie review to discuss the quality of a DVD/BD, but you require me upfront to take you behind the shed with a very large paddle. This is shameful. The Secret of NIMH is an acknowledged animated masterpiece, the film responsible for starting the uphill climb from years of “limited animation” doldrums toward the new flowering of the 1990s. This movie taught a generation of viewers what was possible in the medium. It has fans of freakish dedication, such as myself, a scads of websites dedicated to its deconstruction and analysis. And all you can do is slap down whatever print you had on hand and stick on 1080 lines of resolution?

No, no, this is unacceptable. Disney pours immense work into restoring their classics for Blu-ray release, using the best prints possible and cleaning them up so the films look as fresh as they did on the animators’ table. But your current version of The Secret of NIMH looks far worse than it did on theater screens in 1982. I should know, since I was there as a wide-eyed youngling, and recall how the movie blew apart my nine-year-old mind with its motion, depth of imagery, beautiful backgrounds, and bizarre fantasy effects animation. And yet you give us a Blu-ray slathered in scratches and noise with dulled colors and a washed-out palette. This is hardly a step up from the 2007 DVD release. You couldn’t even bother with an interesting popup menu font! Are you aware that this is a classic?

Ah, clearly not.

I think I have that out of my system. Breathe. Breathe. Okay, now I think I can talk about one of the greatest fantasy experiences ever put on animation cels.

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Lord Dunsany and “The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save For Sacnoth”

Lord Dunsany and “The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save For Sacnoth”

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Lord DunsanyLord Dunsany’s short story “The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth” has been called the first sword-and-sorcery story ever written. That attribution has been contested elsewhere, though. I don’t particularly intend to grapple with the question — it seems to me that genres are defined by conventions, which is to say by expectations held by a reader; whether a story fits a genre therefore depends on whether the conventions it uses are the ones that the individual reader expects, and while many stories use conventions in such standard ways that there’s broad agreement about sort of tale they are, some, like ‘Sacnoth,’ will vary in definition from person to person. But as a story, I think “Sacnoth” is worth discussing. Like most of Dunsany’s early short stories, it’s really quite brilliant.

(You can find it online here, and if you’ve not read it before I strongly urge you to give it a try.)

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Goth Chick Crypt Notes: Like Remaking Gone With the Wind

Goth Chick Crypt Notes: Like Remaking Gone With the Wind

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image001It’s difficult to believe that I’m about to type this, but here goes.

Someone is trying to remake the 1981 masterpiece, Time Bandits.

There are almost more things wrong with that statement than I can fit in one post. But I’ll run down the obvious ones, and you can debate the rest amongst yourselves.

I’m just too distraught.

First, I’m struggling with the concept of this classic being given what Hollywood is euphemistically terming a “reboot.” Let’s be honest, Time Bandits is perfect precisely the way it is. It doesn’t need updating, CGI’ing, or God-forbid, 3D’ing.

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Apex Magazine 23 Released

Apex Magazine 23 Released

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apexmag04pubitThe April edition of Apex Magazine boasts what publisher Jason Sizemore terms “the first of our new expanded editions.”

Editor Catherynne M. Valente’s fiction selections include Eugie Foster’s “Biba Jibun” and Michael J. Deluca marks his first Apex debut with “The Eater.” The reprints are Mike Allen’s Nebula Award-nominated “The Button Bin”  and Jennifer Pelland’s Nebula Award-nominated story “Ghosts of New York” from Dark Faith, about which I said:

The opening story, “Ghosts of New York” by Jennifer Pelland, considers the afterlife of those who made the horrific choice to jump from the Twin Towers rather than remain in a burning buidling about to collapse. The whole subgenre of 9/11 fiction is tricky, given  our collective memory of something so frighteningly incomprehensible that’s been trivialized over time with the endlessly surreal replaying loop of the imploding skyscrapers, but Pelland’s take here is vividly disturbing in suggesting that memorializing the dead can make matters worse.

Also included are Rose Lemberg’s poem “Thirteen Principles of Faith”and the history of the Nebula Awards by Michael A. Burstein.

Apex Magazine 23 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 back issue page. We last profiled Apex with Issue 22.

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

Ravenwood: The Forgotten Occult Detective

Ravenwood: The Forgotten Occult Detective

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ravenwood-fortier2ravenwood-davis1The phrase “pulp fiction” has been misused long before Quentin Tarantino appropriated it. For the past several decades nearly all genre fiction of the first half of the twentieth century has been considered pulp when in fact many of its bestselling authors (such as Edgar Rice Burroughs and Sax Rohmer) were published in the better-paying slicks and not the downscale pulps. The writing in the slicks tended to be more polished in sharp contrast to the breakneck pace of the pulps whose authors often hid behind house names and whose primary motivation was packing in as many thrills as possible in each story while still meeting their deadline.

Ravenwood is a typical pulp creation. Nowhere near as successful as Doc Savage or The Shadow, Ravenwood appeared as a support feature in five issues of Secret Agent “X” in 1936. The creation of prolific pulp writer Frederick C. Davis, the character did much to pave the way for the occult crimefighter The Green Lama and was a strong influence on Marvel Comics’ Dr. Strange.

Altus Press collected Davis’ five original pulp stories in a single volume, Ravenwood: The Complete Series published in 2008. More recently, the acclaimed contemporary pulp-specialty publisher Airship 27 revived the character for an anthology of new stories from their talented stable of modern pulp writers. Their Ravenwood, Stepson of Mystery was published in 2010.

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Goth Chick News: 13 Questions for Artist and Dark Beauty Editor Topher Adam

Goth Chick News: 13 Questions for Artist and Dark Beauty Editor Topher Adam

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darkbeautyYes, even Goth Chicks sleep with something under their pillows.

It started with a Deady Bear, then a vintage Rocky Horror Picture Show t-shirt and then a Living Dead Doll. But until now, it had never been a magazine.

About a month ago, I became acquainted with Dark Beauty and fell instantly in love. Not in a Johnny-Depp-as-Jack-Sparrow kind of way, but in a David-Bowie-in-jodhpurs-with-a-riding-crop-in-Labyrinth kind of way.

In other words, hopelessly.

A little digging led me to artist extraordinaire and Editor and Chief, Topher Adam who is well on his way to making my “Top 10 Most Interesting of the Underground” for 2011. Ever dreamed of seeing yourself as your favorite literary or movie character? Have a vision of yourself as Tolkien’s Elf King or as the Green Lantern? Topher is here to make your personal fantasy visions come true.

So pull up a leather chair and meet Mr Topher Adam.…

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James Enge to do Morlock Trilogy: Tournament of Shadows

James Enge to do Morlock Trilogy: Tournament of Shadows

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morlock41I can’t help it! I must speak, and I must speak now, for I just found out about it. John O’Neill will probably glare at me, because once he hears, he’ll immediately want to post about it, and then he’ll discovered that I already have!!!

*cue maniacal laughter, canned music of doom*

But! But! So, I was cruising LiveJournal, you know, like you do, and there was a James Enge post, so I stopped by (which I always must, compulsively strewing comments like candy wrappers, and then suffering a guilty conscience about the inevitable litter of exclamation points), and there it was…

THIS ANNOUNCEMENT!!!

I’ve signed with Lou Anders at Pyr to do three more Morlock books. The contracts were dated March 25–Fall of Sauron Day! Coincidence, or destiny?

This will actually be a trilogy, not three standalone books. Each book will have its own story (because I believe in plot resolution) but each book will depend on its predecessor(s) more than the three books of Morlock in exile did. It’s not a prequel trilogy, though. It’s an origin story. The trilogy as a whole is titled Tournament of Shadows. The first book, which should be out next year, is called A Guile of Dragons. Which is about as much as I should say, since I’m not done with it yet…

There. Did that not just make your day???

For those of you who don’t know, Morlock Ambrosius rocks my world, your world, the Sea of Worlds, and any other world you can think of. He is a Maker, a son of Merlin, a Crooked Man, a crow-talker, a sometime drunk, a dragonslayer, a friend to werewolves and the bane of things that want to kill him. Novels thus far featuring him? Why, they are Blood of Ambrose (nominated last year for the World Fantasy award), This Crooked Way and The Wolf Age.

All of which, may I add, are worthy of your time: at the cost of meals, sleep and possibly your dignity as you find yourself trawling Enge’s LiveJournal and leaving a slew of capital letters in your wake…

Art of the Genre: Tolkien in B/W

Art of the Genre: Tolkien in B/W

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orc-300With all the news that The Hobbit has begun filming, my stalwart partner here at Black Gate L.A., Ryan Harvey, has been spending his days reenacting the Battle of Five Armies using mini-figs he’s collected since before the release of the LOTR trilogy. Although endlessly funny hearing him deliver Thorin’s final speech to Bilbo over and over again, I forced myself out on the seaside balcony to watch surfers and come up with this week’s blog.

All the cinematic excitement reminded me of my own days in Tolkien’s realms, the reading of his novels just the cusp of my experience as I delved deeply into Iron Crown Enterprise’s Middle-Earth The Role-Playing Game in 1986. MERP, as it is more affectionately called, became the second leading RPG sold in the 1980s, and although miss-management and rather daunting licensing dealings with the Tolkien estate finally resulted in the games dissolution and the company’s bankruptcy, the body of work put out by I.C.E. in a little over a decade remains the Middle-Earth canon for all role-players who truly take the genre seriously.

It was in these pages I was first introduced to the art of Liz Danforth. She, and fellow femme fatal Gail B McIntosh, were constants involved in the supplements of the game along with perhaps the least remembered but unlimitedly talented color-cover man, Angus McBride [1931-2007] who in my opinion will always be THE visionary of what Middle-Earth should be.

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Delia Sherman’s The Wizard’s Apprentice at Podcastle

Delia Sherman’s The Wizard’s Apprentice at Podcastle

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deliashermanTraffic is slow today at the bookstore, which meant I got to listen to Delia Sherman’s “The Wizard’s Apprentice” over at Podcastle while I checked in box after box of dusty tomes. (I know, I know! It’s true! I have everybody’s dream job!)

It’s a quite short story, but very dear — it reminds me, actually, of Diana Wynne Jones’ The Lives of Christopher Chant — just a bit, and in the best way. It’s YA Fantasy, very easy on the ears, with magic and shape-shifting and cranky wizards and lost boys and oatmeal and impossible tasks.

I remember hearing Neil Gaiman say — or reading about him saying it — that children read Coraline with every confidence that she’ll come through all her troubles all right. But that adults read it, and they find it far more frightening an experience because they’re not at all sure she will. I had occasion to be reminded of this as well while listening to this story.

Luckily for me, soon there will be a novel of these two characters, evil Mr. Smallbone and doughty Nick Chanticleer, and I for one am looking forward to getting to know them a heckuva lot better! Go, Delia! Write your heart out!