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“When things fall apart, they are going to fall apart in L.A. first”: LOSCON 37

“When things fall apart, they are going to fall apart in L.A. first”: LOSCON 37

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loscon-banner-photoOnly a few months ago, I would never have believed that I would end up writing two convention reports within the space of a month. Yet here I am bringing you news of LOSCON 37, the 2010 installment of the long-running Los Angeles-based science-fiction, fantasy, and horror convention.

This year’s World Fantasy Convention was an almost overwhelming experience—not only was it my first convention and my first time meeting some of the core Black Gate mavens, but WFC is one of the most professional cons on the planet, bringing together top writers, publishers, and editors for a long weekend of uninterrupted speculative-fiction intensity. And nobody wears costumes. As I planned going to my next convention, I knew that I would be at something less lavish and more fan-centered, with a looser feel. And with costumes. Lots of costumes. But there would also be no Black Gate. Going to LOSCON was a test for me: could I have fun at an event where I wouldn’t be part of large contingent?

Oh yeah. LOSCON was a different kind of thrill than World Fantasy, but it was still a thrill.

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A review of War for the Oaks, by Emma Bull

A review of War for the Oaks, by Emma Bull

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warfortheoaksWar for the Oaks, by Emma Bull
Ace Books (309 pages, $3.50, 1987)
Cover by Pamela Patrick

Thematically, War for the Oaks by Emma Bull has a lot in common with Charles de Lint’s Jack the Giant Killer, which also appeared in 1987 (and which I reviewed here.) If I’d known exactly how similar they were, I’m not sure I would have picked it to review for a few months yet. Still, it’s a good book, and I’m glad I got a chance to read it.

Eddi McCandry, guitarist and singer, is about to leave both her old band and her boyfriend, the lead singer. She’s ready, she thinks, for a normal life. It’s a plan that falls apart in only one chapter; the fey need a mortal presence to witness their upcoming war, and they’ve chosen her.

In short order, Eddi is stalked by a man and chased by a huge dog, insulted by a woman made of water, drafted by the Seelie Court, and saddled with a constant guardian: the man-dog shapeshifter who herded her into the encounter.

To make matters worse, Eddi finds out that she has to stay under surveillance for at least half a year so that the Unseelie Court can’t assassinate her. Her watchdog is a phouka who enjoys living up to his trickster roots, and keeping a regular job would be impossible with him following her everywhere even in the unlikely event that he decides to behave himself, so Eddi bows to the inevitable and decides to start a band.

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Supernatural Spotlight – Episode 6.9 “Clap Your Hands If You Believe”

Supernatural Spotlight – Episode 6.9 “Clap Your Hands If You Believe”

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Dean Winchester detains a suspected fairy.
Dean Winchester detains a suspected fairy. Does this count as a hate crime?

If you’re an avid fan of my posts on this blog (and I assume that most of you are) you’ll notice that I didn’t post last week. I’m hoping that the intervening week has removed some of the trauma and heartache from the experience, not to mention given you the opportunity to seek some much needed counsel from your spiritual guru or therapist.

It was my DVR’s fault. A week ago, I re-arranged the living room so that we’d have room for the television. I moved the television, along with the accompanying bundles of wires and electronic gizmos. Everything was working fine, hours before Friday night prime time television. But, sadly, the DVR still decided (and make no mistake, it was a conscious choice, of this I’m sure) not to record Supernatural.

So I went to the CW website, in hopes of watching the episode in time to review it … but to no avail, because it takes a week for them to post the episode. And my internet television of choice, Hulu, does not offer Supernatural. Thus why you, dear readers, are getting this recap more than a week after the show aired.

On the plus side, though: Dean gets abducted by aliens … or maybe fairies!

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Novel Writing: Symbolic Thinking

Novel Writing: Symbolic Thinking

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The Holy GrailHampered this past week by a bad cold, I’ve made only minimal progress in National Novel Writing Month (you can see my previous thoughts on this year’s NaNoWriMo here, here, here, and here). Still, a few things have become clear to me about the shape of my story; I seem to be writing, not a two-book story, but a four-book saga. Which is all right, since the idea of the story, Modred finding his way at the court of Arthur and beyond, was always meant to divide into four units; only now it seems those units are going to be longer than I’d expected.

But what’s surprising me so far is not how the material I expected to find in the story is arranging itself, but how unpredictable some of that material is. How symbols are choosing themselves, and manifesting in strange ways. And in ways of which I’m only vaguely conscious.

“Symbol” is in many ways a difficult word. What’s a symbol? The way I think of it, it’s an image in a story that means more than itself; specifically, an image that means more than can be explained. It’s an allusive image; a symbol typically seems to mean more than one thing, and usually gains resonance by being part of more than one symbol-system, whether the author was conscious of it or not. So a symbol can be defined as an image whose significance can be read many ways, but which can never be wholly captured by a non-narrative paraphrase.

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Life with Phil

Life with Phil

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jp-philip-2-articleinlineOn the heels of Mark Twain’s best seller, we now also have this memoir from Anne Rubenstein Dick, third wife of five of the only science fiction writer so far to gain literary legitimacy for inclusion in the Library of America series.  Originally self-published, The Search for Philip K. Dick has been re-edited by Tachyon Press; it covers the five years of Rubenstein’s “courtship” and marriage to one very weird guy during what might be called his “mellow years” in the early 1960s, also the time when he wrote his Hugo award winning (and only award winning) novel,  Man in the High Castle. According to Anne, “I’m not saying he wasn’t a very nice person too; he was. He just had a very dark shadow.”

Dr. Nikola: An Introduction

Dr. Nikola: An Introduction

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nikola311Dr. Nikola is another highly influential Victorian character who has been all but forgotten in the intervening century. The creation of Australian novelist Guy Boothby, Antonio Nikola was one of the earliest examples of a villain granted his own series. Nikola appears in five novels: A Bid for Fortune (1895), Dr. Nikola Returns (1896), The Lust of Hate (1898), Dr. Nikola’s Experiment (1899), and Farewell, Nikola (1901).

Many of the trademarks associated with later criminal geniuses begin with Nikola. Like James Bond’s nemesis Blofeld and his ever-present white Persian cat, Nikola is rarely seen without his black cat Apollyon. Fu Manchu’s pet marmoset Peko is often depicted perched on his shoulder in Sax Rohmer’s thrillers, so Apollyon is regularly described as perching on Nikola’s shoulder.

It is Fu Manchu who owes the most to Nikola. The description of Fu Manchu’s “brow like Shakespeare and face like Satan” finds a parallel in Nikola’s similarly striking features. Nikola is described as having “the Devil’s eyes.”
Even more so, Fu Manchu shares with Nikola an uncharacteristic code of honor that makes these villains somewhat sympathetic in the reader’s eye. Both villains make generous gifts to the individuals they formerly persecuted treating the entire affair as if it was merely a game.

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Goth Chick News: You Really Need to Tell Me Everything… Now

Goth Chick News: You Really Need to Tell Me Everything… Now

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image0083I’m about to cross into some sacred territory here, but what the heck.

I really didn’t like The Empire Strikes Back, originally the second (ultimately fifth) in the Star Wars series. In fact, it pretty much put me off the rest of the movies and though I doggedly attended each and every one, the shine went off at number two.

Why?

Because the story left me hanging.

Yep, that’s basically it. The fact that we had to — nay, were forced to — come back for number three to find out what became of Han Solo, who was frozen in carbonite and being rocketed toward certain doom at the end of Empire, sucked the life out of the entire experience for me. Darth Vader’s evil pales in comparison to a cheap trick like an unfinished storyline.

Now before you start peppering me with email and comments about how George Lucas is a national treasure and “how dare I” and all that, please hear me out.

I know a lot of you will say that being left in suspense is part of the fun, and that if a tale is too rich to be told in under three hours it deserves to be broken up into segments. In the case of an HBO series or daytime soap operas I completely agree; waiting to see what happens tomorrow or next week is indeed the hook that keeps the viewers coming back, me included (i.e. True Blood).

The big difference is, the individual segments were never conceived or written to stand alone. And perhaps this is the argument one could make about George Lucas and his intentions when he wrote the entire Star Wars epic. However, a little cynical part of me can’t help but wonder if it had something to do with money, and that’s the bit that ever so slightly gets under my skin.

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Art Evolution 11: Jim Roslof

Art Evolution 11: Jim Roslof

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Art Evolution, 1979-2009, continues as we journey back in time to the founding days of the RPG genre. For those of you who have missed what’s come before, you can catch-up here.

The year was now twenty-ten, I had my ‘Iron Kingdoms Lyssa‘, and I was deep in the process of expanding my vision of true Art Evolution to a full-blown epic. Ten artists down and I was ready to move on to the second half of my dream list.

b2modulecover-254The first name on that slate was Brom. Pressed by Tony DiTerlizzi, and with other artists clamoring for this gothic-genius to be included, as well as my own love of the Dark Sun universe, I sent out my appeal him. Unfortunately Brom turned me down, nicely, to be sure, but he didn’t have the time to commit.

I took a breath, tried to find my Zen center, and placed images of a Brom Lyssa on hold. As in the cases of Erol and Clyde, it’s very tough to give up a dream, and I determined that if I kept these wonderful artists in the project loop, there might be a chance for a change of heart before all was said and done.

Putting my Dark Sun boxes to the side, I pulled forth one of the great TSR modules of all time, B2: Keep on the Borderlands. This cover was done by Jim Roslof, someone I’d seen on Facebook, and although he was long and again retired, he had been the Art Director at TSR when they went from black and white to full color. This was someone who mattered, and I needed to include him.

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“And It Goes On From There…” An Interview with Gene Wolfe

“And It Goes On From There…” An Interview with Gene Wolfe

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Gene Wolfe at Top Shelf Books
Gene Wolfe at Top Shelf Books

As I write this, it is Sunday afternoon, a quarter to five, and there is some serious gloaming and wuthering going on outside my window.

Gloaming and wuthering accurately describe the state of my stomach as well. I’ve just gotten home from a long lunch with Gene and Rosemary Wolfe at The Claim Jumper, where the appetizers are colossal, the entrees epic, and each dessert the size of a football field.

I have the touchdown in my fridge right now, all festooned in gobs of made-fresh-daily whipped cream. It’s the sort of dessert you’d wish on your worst enemy, in the interest of stopping her heart at a distance when she sees it waddling toward her.

A few weeks ago, I wheedled Gene into letting me interview him. He said sure, “Provided it is face-to-face and entirely hand-to-hand,” which made the whole thing sound like armed combat. I didn’t know then I’d be wrestling with an insurmountable mound of mashed potatoes and a heap of bellicose mushrooms, but things are always a bit surreal when you’re lunching with Wolfes.

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Pastiches ‘R’ Us (And My Two-Year Anniversary): Conan the Renegade

Pastiches ‘R’ Us (And My Two-Year Anniversary): Conan the Renegade

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conan-the-renegadeConan the Renegade
Leonard Carpenter (Tor, 1986)

Salutations, lovers of blood and thunder and me babbling about Frederick Faust! This week marks my second anniversary as a blogger on Black Gate. I’ve now held down the Tuesday spot for two years, and I believe that this missive you are now reading is my 104th post (I missed one week, but did a double-post another week during an REH birthday celebration).

Do you know what I am going to do to celebrate? I’m going to do the exact same thing I did on my first post . . . review a Leonard Carpenter Conan pastiche novel! Because I pride myself on my ability to change and adapt with the times.

Leonard Carpenter debuted on the Conan series with Conan the Renegade, which can be summed up in two words: “mercenary adventure.” Military action takes precedence over magic and wonder; most of the story unfolds in a small area around Koth and the bordering kingdom of Khoraja (seen in “Black Colossus,” which Conan the Renegade closely follows in the chronology that Tor Books was using for the pastiches at the time), and Conan’s adventuring mostly occurs within his role as a military leader and tactician. Carpenter does toss in a few horrific fantasy events, such as an unusual combat sorcerer and an ancient dungeon copied right out of “The Scarlet Citadel,” but readers who want a dark fantasy Conan should look elsewhere. Like, uhm, “The Scarlet Citadel.”

The warfare tale follows Conan to the Kothian city of Tantusium where he joins the Free Company of the mercenary captain Hundulph. Hundulph’s men are in the pay of Ivor, a Kothian prince who has risen in revolt against his uncle King Strabonus. Among the other mercenary captains rides the enticing warrior woman Drusandra, who leads an all-female band. Conan has suspicions of Ivor’s sorcerer Agohoth, a Khitan-trained wizard. This is very weird, since Conan never has suspicions about sorcerers.

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