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Goth Chick News: The Odds and Bleeding Ends

Goth Chick News: The Odds and Bleeding Ends

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minionsAh summertime! With Memorial Day behind us we can finally relish the signs that warm weather is here to stay and the frigid months are at least temporarily a thing of the past. Though I am already counting down the less than five months until Halloween, even I am somewhat giddy in the abundant sunlight streaming in the office window, making it clear I haven’t dusted since the last full moon. Which reminds me…

Here at Black Gate headquarters the Goth Chick News department celebrates the summer solstice by welcoming a new batch of fresh meat, I mean interns, who wander through the halls on their first day wide-eyed with awe and anticipation. They are led past the door marked “basement,” blissfully unaware that this is where they will live out their next ten weeks of sunny days taunted and harassed for my enjoyment, until their Tuesday night algebra lectures will seem like recess. They’re led past the Black Gate cafeteria, where they’ll rarely be allowed to eat but will instead endlessly queue up for my chai tea lattes. Today they look young, fresh and optimistic, but by August it’s a whole different story.

I love the smell of Axe cologne on a summer morning. It smells like… victory.

However, as there is still some time before I can begin the joyful work of breaking in my new minions, I have a few tasty tidbits to share with you. 

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Goodbye Realms of Fantasy — Again?

Goodbye Realms of Fantasy — Again?

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realms-april2010Reports have surfaced that Realms of Fantasy publisher Warren Lapine has written to subscribers of the magazine, telling them that if they don’t renew their subscriptions he’s going to shut it down.

Warren rescued Realms just last year, when his Tir Na Nog Press purchased it with much fanfare from Sovereign Media, who had announced that April 2009 would be the final issue. Tir Na Nog’s first issue was July 2009, and the magazine has continued with renewed vigor ever since — publishing new fiction from Euan Harvey, Bruce Holland Rogers, Richard Parks, Harlan Ellison, Carrie Vaughn, and many more.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Warren’s complaints stem from his obvious disappointment that so many fans were highly vocal about the pending loss of the magazine last year, and yet so few are willing to put their money where their mouth is.

However, as author and subscriber Mishell Baker so eloquently puts it, “Why should I send my money to a guy who’s telling me there may not be a magazine by the time he cashes my check?”

Warren clarified his position to Baker in a follow up post at The Dreaded Sword:

I think your missing the point of the letter. The magazine isn’t quite making enough money to go on as things stand right now. It was close down the magazine now, or send the letter. So saying that I shouldn’t have sent the letter suggests that I should have just shut down the magazine and not given it’s readers a heads up before closing it. Fortunately, your reaction to our letter is not the norm. Many people have a larger sense of community than you are displaying here and I expect this to save the magazine.

Realms of Fantasy is one of the few remaining professional fantasy magazines, and well worth your support.  You can purchase a subscription here.

Original Fiction: “THE WEIRD OF IRONSPELL” by John R. Fultz

Original Fiction: “THE WEIRD OF IRONSPELL” by John R. Fultz

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http://sheikman.blogspot.com
http://sheikman.blogspot.com

“The Weird of Ironspell” by John R. Fultz

Illustrations by Alex Sheikman

  

5. The Son of Ironspell

The storm fell from the mountains like the wrath of an angry god. Thunder shook the earth and lightning split the sky, striking fires along the mountainsides. Rain fell in a driving flood, and the wind ripped trees from the earth’s bosom, smashing them to kindling. Servants pulled open the gates of Ironspell Keep, and two black steeds fitted for war galloped into the tempest.

Those left in the wake of the riders bolted the castle doors tight and prepared a funeral bier for the Lady of the Keep. Princess Tyarah of Neshma, Bride of the Avenger, lay pale and bloodless on the floor of the nursery chamber.

They wrapped her in a shroud of white silk, sprinkled her frail body with rose petals, and burned sacred candles at her vigil. They prayed to the God of the Underworld that her soul would find its way; they prayed to the Goddess of Vengeance that Lord Ironspell would find his son and the devil who had taken him.

It would be days before the tragic news reached the fortress city and Queen Zandara. Ironspell Keep guarded the chief pass through the Greyfold Mountains, some thirty leagues from Neshma proper, but a messenger would be dispatched as soon as the storm relented. Weeping, he would tell the queen how her daughter was murdered and her infant grandson stolen away in the night. He would tell how the Avenger rose from a spell of nightmares to find his son’s crib empty, his wife slain by sorcery. He would tell of the storm that rolled from the mountains as if Ironspell’s black wrath had conjured it. How Ironspell rode into the raging squall with Tumnal the Swift racing at his heels. And the messenger would show to the Queen of Neshma the only evidence left by the perpetrator of this terrible crime: a piece of black leather inscribed with the insignia of a golden skull.

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Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

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prince_of_persia_posterPrince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010)
Directed by Mike Newell. Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Ben Kingsley, Gemma Arterton, Alfred Molina.

I appear to be transforming into Black Gate’s “movie reviewer.” A natural development, considering that I’m a voracious film-goer who sees most new movies during their opening weekends (a benefit of living a block away from one of best multiplexes in Los Angeles), and that the studios have tossed quite a few fantasy spectacles our way so far this year that appeal to the magazine’s demographic.

I am indeed thankful that the Great Movie Gods are providing us with more epic fantasy. I just wish they were providing us better epic fantasy. What do I need to sacrifice to get something more worthwhile from Middle Eastern fantasy than Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time? Goats just aren’t doing it, apparently, and my apartment manager has informed me that this is in violation of health codes. So I’m stuck, for the moment, with a sand-and-sorcery epic based on a video game franchise.

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The Cimmerian Takes a Final Bow

The Cimmerian Takes a Final Bow

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cimmerian2The Cimmerian, one of the most respected websites devoted to heroic fantasy — indeed, perhaps the most respected — has announced it will wrap up in on June 11.

The Cimmerian began as a bi-monthly print journal in April 2004. Edited by Leo Grin and dedicated to the work of Robert E. Howard, it ran for thirty-five issues and was twice nominated for the World Fantasy Award.

The Cimmerian website launched the following year, featuring contributions from Steve Tompkins, Rob Roehm, and Mark Finn, and it attracted considerable attention. When the print version came to an end in December 2008, Grin handed the reins to Tompkins, who managed the site until his tragic death a few months later. 

Since December 2008 the website has broadened focus, becoming “a website and shieldwall for Robert E. Howard, J.R.R. Tolkien and the Best in Heroic Fantasy, Horror and Historical Adventure.” Under the guidance of new manager Deuce Richardson, over the past year it’s also turned its keen critical eye to Sax Rohmer, David Gemmell, Karl Edward Wagner, Charles R. Saunders, Michael Moorcock, Clark Ashton Smith, H. P. Lovecraft, and many others. With the greater scope has come greater readership, growing to nearly 100,000 viewers/month.

The articles at The Cimmerian, by such folks as Miguel Martins, Al Harron, Barbara Barrett, William Maynard, Jeffrey Shanks, Keith Taylor, Brian Murphy, and Jim Cornelius, have never been less than fascinating, covering everything from the latest on the new Conan movie to Weird Tales to the recent — and excellent — tributes to Frank Frazetta.

Leo Grin says the blog will continue until June 11, the anniversary of Robert E. Howard’s death, and after that the site will be archived.  Its loss will be keenly felt.

Goth Chick News: Pass Me the O-Positive Please

Goth Chick News: Pass Me the O-Positive Please

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image008Back in 2005 I had the pleasure of lunching with Charlaine Harris, who was on a book tour celebrating the release of her fourth Sookie Stackhouse novel Dead to the World.

It was a major milestone — not only was it her first hardcover release but the cover was embellished with gold sparkly bits; naturally Ms. Harris and her publicist were thrilled. Frankly, being a novice contributor to Black Gate at the time, it was really hard to say which one of us was more thrilled, but I’m pretty sure it was me.

Always the quintessential Southern lady, Ms. Harris was the picture of floral-print charm as she quite proudly told me about the advent of her characters and how excited she was about her next series, Grave Sight, to be released later that year. It was with a slight blush that she admitted her writing mortified her teen-aged children, which made me like her even more.

At the end of that lovely lunch I followed Ms. Harris across the parking lot to a Borders bookstore, where she appeared before a small but adoring crowd of around thirty fans who greeted her like a rock star. And I drove home that day thinking that those sexy, imaginative Sookie books which had become favorites of mine didn’t seem like the sort of stories that would spring from someone who smelled of lilacs and carried a patent leather purse.

Around that same time, on the other side of the country Alan Ball was stuck in an LA airport waiting on a tardy departure when he stopped into a news stand and picked up a paperback copy of Living Dead in Dallas, Ms. Harris’ second Sookie Stackhouse novel, thinking he’d kill some time with a pulpy vampire story. Having just wrapped Six Feet Under for HBO, Alan Ball was looking for his next project, never believing he’d find it in an airport. Numerous interviews indicate that once Alan Ball dug into chapter one of Living Dead, he didn’t close it until he’d read the last page.

And that is precisely when sexy, steamy, vampire magic happened, and though I didn’t know it at the time, I was practically at ground zero.

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Original Fiction: “THE WEIRD OF IRONSPELL” by John R. Fultz

Original Fiction: “THE WEIRD OF IRONSPELL” by John R. Fultz

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http://sheikman.blogspot.com
http://sheikman.blogspot.com

“The Weird of Ironspell” by John R. Fultz

Illustrations by Alex Sheikman

 

4. The Jewel and the Giant-King

 

Yom was a city of magicians.

Of all the kingdoms lying west of the Greyfold Mountains, only Yom boasted that its walls were defended by a legion of sorcerers, or that its wizard-king had slain a dozen ancient wyrms to free the Western Realms of the dragon plague. In the inky depths of night the city’s towers and ziggurats gleamed with all the brilliance of the wizardry that was its claim to fame.

Of all magical arts only the practice of necromancy was banned from the city’s environs, for the people of Yom did not want their dead disturbed. Yet every other manner of sorcery thrived here. Alchemists, adepts, enchanters, conjurors, soothsayers, theosophers, prestidigitators, thaumaturges, and mages wandered its marbled streets and hobnobbed among its hanging gardens. Yom was also home to vast wealth, and the penalty for thievery was death.

So it came to pass that Tumnal the Swift found himself locked in a damp cell, his limbs heavy with enspelled chains, deep in the catacombs below the wizard-king’s palace. Once known in seven realms as the Lord of Thieves, Tumnal was destined to be a footnote in the pages of an executioner’s journal. Although Yom’s penalty for thievery was precise, the bureaucracy of the place was staggering. Through no fault of his own (other than his libidinous nature) Tumnal had been caught and sentenced to death one month ago. But he might linger for years among the rats and roaches of the dungeon until the headsman came with his axe to carry out the sentence.

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Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #1—1 Million Years B(ruce) W(ayne)

Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #1—1 Million Years B(ruce) W(ayne)

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return-of-bruce-wayne-1After reading the Batman/Doc Savage Special, I didn’t imagine I would return to pick up any monthly Batman comics—or any monthly comics—for a span. I’m a trade paperback fellow who follows news of monthlies so I know what to buy in larger bound form when it reaches the bookstores.

Then I saw the sneak of the cover for issue #2 of the limited series Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne. And I screamed “Solomon Kane!” and rushed to find out what writer Grant Morrison was doing with this series. I learned that he was going to give me six issues of pulpy adoration, with Batman filling in a series of legendary pulp hero roles throughout history: barbarian Stone Age warrior, puritan witch-finder, pirate swashbuckler, and hard-boiled P.I.

Okay, I was on board for this, even though it rises out of the confusing mess of recent crossovers and events in the DC Universe, a mix-up that has alienated a lot of Bat-fans.

The events leading up to The Return of Bruce Wayne come from Grant Morrison’s run as writer on the monthly Batman comic and on the massive DC Universe event Final Crisis. Morrison is either a genius or a madman, probably both, and his time with Batman has seen developments that absolutely stagger the mind. The guy brought back Bat-Mite, for cryin’ out loud! Other crazy things he’s done: give Bruce Wayne a son with Talia; suggested that Bruce’s father, Thomas Wayne, faked his own death and is still alive; created a league of international Batman-and-Robin imitators; put Batman up against an adversary who might be the devil himself; and included “the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh” from some nutball 1961 story where Batman discovers a colorful version of himself on another planet.

And the amazing thing about all this? It works. Morrison is maniacal, but he layers on so much dementia that it is impossible not to ride along with it, even if half the time while I was reading it I was thinking “Huh?” That was fine, because the other half of the time I was thinking, “Whoa, cool!” . . . usually right after thinking, “Huh?”

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A Reader’s Guide to Sword & Sorcery Magazines

A Reader’s Guide to Sword & Sorcery Magazines

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avon_fantasy_reader_17sI recently stumbled across G.W. Thomas’ marvelous Reader’s Guide to Sword & Sorcery Magazines, which is well worth a look for short fiction readers interested in the history of the genre.

G.W. Thomas is editor and publisher of Dark Worlds,  the pulp-Descended magazine of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Mystery and other genres.  Dark Worlds was nominated for the Harper’s Pen Award earlier this year for Michael Ehart’s original sword & sorcery tale “Tomb of the Amazon Queen.”

But back to the Reader’s Guide already. You should check it out, it’s cool.  There are more complete magazine guides out there, certainly — the amazing Coverpop site, for example, with scans of literally thousands of old SF magazines, and a truly fun all-in-one SF Cover Explorer, as well as the magazines section of The Ultimate Science Fiction Web Guide, and even Wikipedia’s Science Fiction Magazine entry is pretty darn comprehensive — but few assembled with such a  focus on, and devotion to, heroic fantasy.

Thomas’s guide covers all the magazines that were instrumental in shaping modern Sword & Sorcery, starting with Weird Tales and Strange Tales, and continuing through Unknown, The Avon Fantasy Reader, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Fantastic, Weirdbook, Dragon, and many more. In between he also highlights lesser known (but still fascinating) titles such as The Fantasy Fan (1933-1935) and Midnight Sun (1974-1979). Finally, he provides links to some of the best sources of online S&S today, including Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Silver Blade, and Sorcerous Signals.

Here’s what he says about Black Gate:

This recent publication is the hottest place to read new S&S today. With authors like Martin Owton, Howard Andrews Jones, Charles Coleman Finley, Darrell Schweitzer, Charles deLint , it delivers a mix of Sword & Sorcery and other forms of Fantasy.

The guide includes some magnificent cover art, commentary from G.W, and links. The commentary is very short, and you can read through the entire guide in a few moments.  But the fiction it will introduce you to will last a lifetime. 

If you enjoyed the Reader’s Guide to Sword & Sorcery Magazines, you will likely also enjoy his broader and more ambitious Reader’s Guide to Sword & Sorcery, which also covers anthologies, short fiction, comics, TV/films, and much more.  I especially recommend his encyclopedic A-to-Z Guide to S&S authors, which covers virtually every major S&S writer of the last century, with copious cover scans of much of their major work. It’s still being updated, with links to work published as recently as last year. It’s like wandering though a well-stocked library.