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The Finest Sword & Sorcery: Announcing the Winners of the Stalking the Beast Contest

The Finest Sword & Sorcery: Announcing the Winners of the Stalking the Beast Contest

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Pathfinder Tales Stalking the Beast-smallLast month we invited Black Gate readers to tell us about the best sword & sorcery tale they’d ever read, in one paragraph or less.

In return, we offered to award a copy of Howard Andrew Jones’ terrific new Pathfinder Tales book, Stalking the Beast, the follow-up to his hit Pathfinder release Plague of Shadows from Paizo Publishing, to five lucky winners.

Those five winners were randomly drawn from the list of all qualified entrants.

Before we announce the winners, let’s have a look at some of the story suggestions. As much as we’d like to, we can’t reprint all the entries we received, so we’ll limit it to the 10 we found most insightful, well written, or intriguing. In the interest of diversity, we’ll limit our sampling to one entry for each author or major work. (But fret not — all qualifying entries received before December 1st were included in the drawing.)

We’ll start with David Kahler, who kicks things off in excellent fashion with the tales of Fritz Leiber:

My favorite Sword and Sorcery book is Fritz Leiber’s Swords Against Wizardry, a Fafhrd and Grey Mouser tale. From the very beginning, when the pair consult an old hag ( because, according to Fafhrd, before embarking on any great enterprise, it’s customary to consult a warlock or witch”) to the Lords of Quarmall and the battles with Hasjarl’s wizards, Swords Against Wizardry is (IMHO) one of the best of Leiber’s tales. His prose is superb, and the action sequences just as good. Fafhrd and Grey Mouser epitomize the “Neutral-Good” actions of adventurers who (even while they seek to enrich themselves) strive to do the right thing even if the “wrong” course of action would have been easier and more convenient. Thanks for the opportunity to win HAJ’s latest book! I always enjoy finding new reads and authors on your site. Keep up the good work!

You’re most welcome, David. Thanks for the enthusiastic entry — and good luck!

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Sword Sisters: A Partnership, a Prequel, a Picture Show, and a Print Run

Sword Sisters: A Partnership, a Prequel, a Picture Show, and a Print Run

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> The first Red Reaper novel from Tara Cardinal and Alex Bledsoe is prequel to the 2014 movie The Legend of the Red Reaper
The first Red Reaper novel from Tara Cardinal and Alex Bledsoe is the prequel to the 2014 movie The Legend of the Red Reaper. Click for bigger version

Tara Cardinal has quite a story to share. And now she has a novel too. They’re not quite the same thing — but they have a lot in common.

Her, for instance. The actress/writer/director pours everything she is into her stories, and once a person knows them both, the interplay between them is obvious. Passion is a way of life for Tara, and she instills in her projects and the people around her a thirst for it.

This is not the sum of her though. Tara does all her own stunts AND swordplay, she added directing to her resume on the fly, learned how to write the score, edited the film, and interested Uwe Boll into co-producing the movie The Legend of the Red Reaper with her. Then she hit upon an idea to write a story prequel to the movie she’d written and created.  She sketched it out, discovered Alex Bledsoe wandering the same Sword & Sorcery super-aisle, and the rest is history. (Alex offers a bit of a better description of how it all worked out over on his site.)

Alex just so happened to have recently worked with RBE on Writing Fantasy Heroes, and so introductions were made, and the work began. It wasn’t long before the manuscript was going through edit exchanges, the art was being penciled & inked, and both interior and cover layout was being described, revised, and delivered.

But wait! There’s even more to the story. Tara’s passion isn’t for writing, directing, even acting. It’s for empowering children and young women in pursuit of her dream of making the world a better, happier place. The martial artist and swordswoman is also a humanitarian, psychologist, and child advocate. From the age of 12, Tara has always been about defending, assisting, and benefiting children survivors of abuse, illness, and disaster.

Best of all, Tara’s rolled all that passion, all that experience, and all those goals into a Sword & Sorcery novel that delivers the sword-swinging, monster-slaying, ancient god-defying, and good ol’ fun we Black Gaters (hmm, sounds like a football team name to me!) expect — and she’s done that while also delivering Aella, a young woman protagonist who struggles with identity, destiny, belonging, and confidence simultaneous with racial, familial, and sexual tensions.

Aella is not your everyday chain-mail bikini warrior — she’s the heroine every young woman experiencing her own struggles with identity, belonging, confidence, and belief can look up to and emulate.

Understanding Tolkien: Why His Landscapes Work

Understanding Tolkien: Why His Landscapes Work

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hobbit-book-cover
…the story and the world it articulates, rocks.

There’s no better way to experience the distinction between text and structure than to go back to the roots of our genre.

A few years ago, as a result of a spectacular parenting own-goal, The Hobbit -– a battered old copy that Mrs Harold-Page’s father once purchased for 8s 6d –- ended up as our five year old son’s bedtime story.

It was near midnight, and we were trying to coax our overtired insomniac little boy into sleep mode. I thought, Let’s read something that will hold his attention, but be so far over his head as to hypnotise him into dozing off. Instead, of course, the little blighter perked up and asked enough questions to understand what was going on. The following night — at a more reasonable time — he wanted The Hobbit again. I pointed out it was a bit old for him. Could he even remember the last thing that happened?

They got captured by trolls, but Gandalf did this voice then another voice and the trolls argued until the sun came up and they turned to stone…Is that Smaug on the cover, Daddy?

So, The Hobbit it was.

Reading the Hobbit is a bit like listening to Bill Haley and the Comets. The beat is there, but the delivery — though charming and skilled — is not quite right to the modern taste.

The Hobbit is packed with Herodotian ring composition, editorializing, explicit allusions to the character’s future, and lots of “telling” rather than “showing,” all of which distance us from the story.

Worse, Gandalf is the only person who really does anything until well into the book. It’s page 62 before Thorin even strikes a goblin, and he does that off screen, and in narrative summary — imagine how Robert E Howard would have handled that…

Even so, the story and the world it articulates, rocks.

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The Series Series: Seven Forges by James A. Moore

The Series Series: Seven Forges by James A. Moore

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Seven Forges-smallThis is your book. The books I’ve reviewed in the Series Series so far have had many virtues, and some of them have been exactly my sort of thing, but in most cases, I’ve had to include a caveat about how they might not be your sort of thing. This time I can say, if you’re a regular reader at Black Gate, the book I’m reviewing is exactly your bucket of grog.

James A. Moore dedicates Seven Forges in part “to the memory of Fritz Leiber and Robert E. Howard for the inspiration.” That dedication sets the bar high, and caused me a bit of readerly apprehension, because so many writers have imitated badly those two greats of the sword and sorcery tradition. Moore is far more than an imitator, though. He does some fresh, counterintuitive things with the genre conventions. More than once, he startled me into saying out loud, “I didn’t see that coming.”

The weirdest thing about this first volume of what will clearly be a series about a total war on a cosmic scale — complete with an entire national pantheon consisting only of war gods — is that most of the book consists of a troubled but earnest effort at establishing peace. Our hero Merros Dulver leads an expedition from a stable empire that hasn’t faced a truly threatening enemy in over a thousand years into the Blasted Lands, where the last batch of now-mythic enemies used to live. The Fellein Empire once mastered sorceries so reminiscent of nuclear weapons, I briefly wondered whether Seven Forges might be far-future science fiction in disguise.

But the people who live on the far side of the Blasted Lands would be right at home in Robert E. Howard’s Hyboria. Conan might have seen in them a civilization he could love — if civilization is the right word for the Sa’ba Taalor. In a hidden valley surrounded by volcanic mountains that are also sort of gods, which are also sort of the ruins of the seven cities destroyed in the distant past, the Sa’ba Taalor have spent the past thousand years in the pursuit of perfect individual excellence in all the arts of war. Their gods saved them from the cataclysm, and ever since, the Sa’ba Taalor have repaid their gods with perfect obedience of divine law, and, for that matter, divine whim. These gods give prophecies, speak directly into the minds of their worshippers, perform geological miracles, and do other, stranger things that remain intriguing mysteries at the novel’s end. Above all, the seven gods of the Seven Forges require constant readiness for ass-kicking.

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Seductive Sorceress Queens, Decadent Civilizations, and Moon-lit Brawls: A Review of Bloodstone by Karl Edward Wagner

Seductive Sorceress Queens, Decadent Civilizations, and Moon-lit Brawls: A Review of Bloodstone by Karl Edward Wagner

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Bloodstone Karl Edward Wagner-smallI love used book shops. And when I say love, I damn well mean love; anything that offers me a Kane Book for less than a pound is pretty much saying ‘I do’ in my book. You just can’t buy that kind of passion, unless you happen to offer me a Kane book for under a…. oh, never mind!

Now, if you’re a bit of a fantasy connoisseur (and if you’re reading this you probably are) you’ve likely heard of Kane, or at least Karl Edward Wagner; the guy’s novels sell for an arm and a leg on Amazon and are showered with praise at every turn. So you can understand my excitement upon finding the book, and my anticipation when I opened it up.

The story follows Kane as he stumbles upon an intriguing ring during a raid. His interest piqued, Kane investigates further and finds that it is actually linked to a legendary giant gem named ‘Bloodstone’ which would, apparently, look really nice in his front garden. Needless to say Kane decides to look for it, and his search leads him to an ancient city somewhere in a forest, one that serves as a kind of no man’s land for two warring leaders: Malchion, and Dribeck.

What follows is some seriously top-notch sword and sorcery; the first few chapters are brilliant, filled to the brim with Gothic imagery and seductive sorceress queens, decadent civilizations, moon-lit brawls with lurid beasts; all the good stuff that made me fall in love with the genre. It’s got everything: mysticism, super-science, monsters, a lost city, and an ancient civilization.

And the first couple of skirmishes with a race of lizard men, the Rillyti, (who happen to be the very same lizard men who made Bloodstone) are all excellently done, filled with a real unpredictability, and a truly tangible sense of danger. It really reads like something you’d find in the pages of Weird Tales, alongside the latest Conan tale, or Solomon Kane’s newest yarn.

And it’s great fun. The kind that is a lot harder to find today (a few exceptions aside). At this stage, the thunder in its pacing was audible, the weight of its sword blows palpable, the dirt and grit and grime of its world was seeping into the room. And I loved every moment.

So why, Mr Wagner, why oh why, did you slow it down?

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My Favorite Dragons

My Favorite Dragons

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Dragonslayer poster-smallDragons.

These creatures of legend have captivated our imaginations from the dawn of time. A staple of fantasy literature and culture, they embody power, majesty, and perilous danger.

I’d like to share with you some of my favorites, in no particular order.

Smaug (The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien)

Ah, old Smaug. Wrecker of dwarven homes and stealer of treasures. I can still remember the rapture with which I read this book as a child, with all Bilbo’s misadventures leading him toward an epic confrontation with this ancient wyrm.

Without a doubt, Smaug triggered a fascination with dragons that has lasted my entire life. And now with The Hobbit movies coming out, I can re-live that joy in its full splendor on the big screen.

Vermithrax Pejorative (Dragonslayer, Touchstone Pictures)

I saw this movie as a kid, fresh off my love-affair with Smaug. Even though we see precious little of the beast until the final act, just the sounds of its breath rising from the ground and the reactions of the various characters to its presence fill the movie with a wonderful sense of anticipation.

And the final battle between wizard and dragon is pretty damned good for its time. Definitely, a diamond in the rough.

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New Treasures: Darkwalker by E.L. Tettensor

New Treasures: Darkwalker by E.L. Tettensor

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Darkwalker-smallDarkwalker is the debut fantasy novel from E.L. Tettensor and it offers an intriguing mix of both the familiar and the new — just what I’m looking for, I think.

The setting is Kennian, part of the backwater Five Villages, which seems a lot like 19th-century England if you squint. Stepping into the scene is Police Inspector Nicolas Lenoir, tasked with investigating a dark mystery. Folks here for the most part scoff at the supernatural — but don’t tell the thing hunting Inspector Lenoir. This one looks like a fine mix of fantasy and mystery in a fog-shrouded Victorian-era (ish) landscape, with plenty of original touches to keep things interesting.

He used to be the best detective on the job. Until he became the hunted…

Once a legendary police inspector, Nicolas Lenoir is now a disillusioned and broken man who spends his days going through the motions and his evenings drinking away the nightmares of his past. Ten years ago, Lenoir barely escaped the grasp of the Darkwalker, a vengeful spirit who demands a terrible toll on those who have offended the dead. But the Darkwalker does not give up on his prey so easily, and Lenoir has always known his debt would come due one day.

When Lenoir is assigned to a disturbing new case, he treats the job with his usual apathy — until his best informant, a street savvy orphan, is kidnapped. Desperate to find his young friend before the worst befalls him, Lenoir will do anything catch the monster responsible for the crimes, even if it means walking willingly into the arms of his own doom…

Darkwalker: A Nicholas Lenoir Novel was published by Roc Books on Dec 3, 2013. It is 368 pages, priced at $7.99 for the paperback and for the digital edition. Read an excerpt on the Penguin website here.

See all of our recent New Treasures here.

One Man’s Trash…

One Man’s Trash…

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Seven SorcerersWhen I was growing up, everybody tried to tell me what to read.

My parents wanted to me read “normal” books, not “trashy” books with Frank Frazetta covers featuring scantily-clad maidens, sword-wielding barbarians, or hideous monsters. My teachers wanted me to read Modern Literature — and they made sure I was exposed to as much as possible — although my favorites were Hamlet and Beowulf.

In college my instructors pushed Ernest Hemingway and Raymond Carver toward me and I read them, but only because I was required to. None of this depressing and introspective realism caught my fancy. I was made for more fantastic stuff. Oh, I read. Voraciously. From the time I was old enough to hold a book I read non-stop. It began with The Hobbit in third grade, and before I finished middle school I had finished The Lord of the Rings trilogy. But I read what I loved, not what people THOUGHT I should read. I read fantasy. (With liberal doses of horror and sci-fi.)

I read Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Michael Moorcock, Lin Carter, Weird Tales magazine, and later Tanith Lee, Robert Silverberg, William Gibson, and Lord Dunsany. I read fantasy fiction with a dark edge, sword-and-sorcery, horror, and sci-fi. I even read my share of Stephen King, David Eddings, Piers Anthony, and John Norman. I didn’t give a damn what people thought I SHOULD be reading. Still don’t. I didn’t care that most of my literary heroes were from the pulp fiction era, and that their work was largely dismissed as “trash” when they were producing it. I read their works three or four generations after the fact, and I loved it.

Today I enjoy discovering new authors who take those pulp-inspired roots and do something entirely new with them–who breathe fresh life into classic concepts. I’ve found such writers in A.A. Attansio, R. Scott Bakker, and Guy Gavriel Kay, to name a few. If somebody recommends a book or an author to me, I’ll check it out. But it doesn’t take me all that long to figure out if it’s for me. If I like it, great! I’ll spread the word about that author and his/her work. I love to shout about the things I really dig. But if I don’t care for it, that simply means that a particular piece of fiction didn’t meet my personal taste. No harm done.

Because that’s all that really matters, when it comes to fiction. Personal taste.

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John R. Fultz’s Seven Sorcerers On Sale Today

John R. Fultz’s Seven Sorcerers On Sale Today

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Seven SorcerersWe’re celebrating a major publishing event at the Black Gate rooftop headquarters today: the arrival of Seven Sorcerers, the third novel in John R. Fultz’s Books of the Shaper series.

When Seven Princes, the first book in the series, arrived in January 2012, it marked the debut of a major new fantasy talent. Seven Kings cemented that reputation, and over the next two years, John graduated from promising new novelist to full-fledged literary star. The critical acclaim for the first two books has been stellar — Barnes & Noble called them “flawless epic fantasy,” Library Journal praised Seven Princes as “A stand-out fantasy series from an author with an exceptional talent for characterization and world building,” and io9 labeled the same novel “Epic with a capital EPIC.”

John’s talent is too big to be contained just in novels — on June 3, 2013, 01Publishing published his first collection The Revelations of Zang, gathering his baroque and fascinating sword & sorcery Zang Cycle, featuring the tale of a revolt against the nine Sorcerer Kings whose power displaced the gods themselves.

We published three stories from John R. Fultz’s Zang Cycle in the print version of Black Gate: “Oblivion Is the Sweetest Wine,” that tale of Taizo the thief and his daring heist in spider-haunted Ghoth (BG 12); “Return of the Quill,” in which Artifice’s long-simmering plan to bring revolution to the city of Narr finally unfolds (BG 13); and the prequel story “The Vintages of Dream” (BG 15). Next, John took us back in time to Artifice’s first year as a member of the travelling Glimmer Faire in “When the Glimmer Faire Came to the City of the Lonely Eye,” which appeared as part of the Black Gate Online Fiction line here in January.

Somehow missed out on all the excitement? Read the excerpts and stories linked above or try the complete first chapter of Seven Kings for free. Get more details on Seven Sorcerers here.

Seven Sorcerers was published today by Orbit Books. It is 448 pages, priced at $17 in trade paperback and $9.99 for the digital edition. Look for it in bookstores everywhere — and stay tuned to Black Gate for a special opportunity to win a signed copy!

Vintage Treasures: The Unknown, edited by D.R. Bensen

Vintage Treasures: The Unknown, edited by D.R. Bensen

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The Unknown edited by D R Bensen-smallIn all of our recent discussions of pulps, we have sorely neglected one of the greatest pulp fantasy magazines of all time: John W. Campbell’s magnificent Unknown. It wasn’t deliberate; we’ve just been focusing on Amazing Stories, Galaxy, and the pulp roots of Dungeons and Dragons of late.

So to do a little catch-up, I thought I’d talk about a splendid anthology I’ve been reading this weekend: The Unknown, a collection of ten short stories and one novelette from the pages of Unknown. If you’ll allow me, I’d like to quote from the Wikipedia entry on Unknown, since I think it does a fine job of summarizing the genesis and impact of Campbell’s great experiment in fantasy:

Unknown (also known as Unknown Worlds) was an American pulp fantasy fiction magazine, published from 1939 to 1943 by Street & Smith, and edited by John W. Campbell. Unknown was a companion to Street & Smith’s science fiction pulp, Astounding Science Fiction, which was also edited by Campbell at the time; many authors and illustrators contributed to both magazines. The leading fantasy magazine in the 1930s was Weird Tales, which focused on shock and horror. Campbell wanted to publish a fantasy magazine with more finesse and humor than Weird Tales, and put his plans into action when Eric Frank Russell sent him the manuscript of his novel Sinister Barrier, about aliens who own the human race… The magazine is generally regarded as the finest fantasy fiction magazine ever published, despite the fact that it was not commercially successful, and in the opinion of science fiction historian Mike Ashley it was responsible for the creation of the modern fantasy publishing genre.

The Unknown contains an excellent survey of Unknown magazine, with entertaining editorial comments and fiction contributions from Henry Kuttner, Nelson S. Bond, Theodore Sturgeon, L. Sprague de Camp, H. L. Gold, Manly Wade Wellman, Fredric Brown, and Anthony Boucher — plus a Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser tale from Fritz Leiber, and more.

It also reprints interior art from the magazine by the great Edd Cartier (see a sample here), who painted the covers for many Unknown issues. I wish more paperbacks from the era did this, as I found the artwork delightful.

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