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Styrbiorn the Strong, a review

Styrbiorn the Strong, a review

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styrbiorn1“There is but one way for a man, and that is to remember that none may avoid his fate. This is to a man as the due ballast to the ship, which maketh the vessel indeed loom somewhat deeper, but keepeth it from tossing too lightly upon the uncertain waters.”

–E.R. Eddison, Styrbiorn the Strong

As a youth, E.R. Eddison (1882-1945) so loved William Morris’ translations of the Old Norse sagas that he taught himself Old Icelandic, desiring the pure injection of North Sea ice water into his veins that the stories in their original tongue delivered. He carried that love of the Sagas with him as a writer of fantasy fiction. Their echoes can be felt in Eddison’s best known work, The Worm Ouroboros (1922), but four years after the Worm Eddison set to work on the real thing, trying his hand at his own saga Styrbiorn the Strong (1926).

Styrbiorn the Strong tells the story of Styrbiorn Olaffson, teenage heir to the throne of Sweden. Denied his birthright and exiled from Sweden, Styrbiorn spends three years a-viking, during which his power and influence waxes mightily. Three years later he returns to claim his share of the kingdom. Except for a few minor characters everyone in the story is an historical figure. The main facts of the tale are also historical, including the concluding bloody Battle of Fýrisvellir, but the details and characterizations are of Eddison’s own making.

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Josh Wimmer Reviews Shades of Milk and Honey

Josh Wimmer Reviews Shades of Milk and Honey

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milkhoney_fnlcoverShades of Milk and Honey
Mary Robinette Kowal
Tor (304 pp, $14.99, trade edition June 2011)
Reviewed by Josh Wimmer

If you have read anything about Shades of Milk and Honey, then you have seen it described as “Jane Austen, but with magic” or something along those lines. That is pretty much unavoidable. The novel, the first by Hugo nominee Mary Robinette Kowal, isn’t just written in a style and voice resembling that of the British author’s Regency-era romances, but also features sisters – one pretty, one smart – yearning for suitable suitors; a low-key but loving father who wants to see his girls married because he can’t provide for them forever; a cavalcade of potential husbands of various sorts; and a lot of house parties. In other words, the book takes plenty from Pride and Prejudice and the rest of Austen’s oeuvre.

What it adds is a mild but meaningful undercurrent of fantasy, and a slightly more modern-day message than might be found in the early-19th-century works that inspired it. Jane Ellsworth is unmarried and, at age 28, likely to remain that way. To recommend her, she has her wits, her emotional steadiness, and her skill with glamour – the magical crafting of visual and audible illusions, typically for aesthetic purposes. All fine qualities, but perhaps not enough to make up for her plain appearance (which Jane resolutely and admirably refuses to enhance with glamour).

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Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Mars, Part 4: Thuvia, Maid of Mars

Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Mars, Part 4: Thuvia, Maid of Mars

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thuvia-maid-of-mars-mcclurg-coverJohn Carter’s story appeared finished with The Warlord of Mars. But readers wanted more, and Burroughs was fired with productive energy. Less than a year after “ending” the Martian novels, he launched into the second phase of the series, with a new hero, new heroine, and new point-of-view style.

Our Saga: The adventures of earthman John Carter, his progeny, and sundry other native and visitors, on the planet Mars, known to its inhabitants as Barsoom. A dry and slowly dying world, Barsoom contains four different human civilizations, one non-human one, a scattering of science among swashbuckling, and a plethora of religions, mystery cities, and strange beasts. The series spans 1912 to 1964 with nine novels, one volume of linked novellas, and two unrelated novellas.

Today’s Installment: Thuvia, Maid of Mars (1916)

Previous Installments: A Princess of Mars (1912), The Gods of Mars (1913), The Warlord of Mars (1913-14)

The Backstory

Burroughs wrote the fourth Barsoom novel in April–June of 1914 under the stunningly uninspired working title of “A Carthoris Story.” But it wouldn’t appear in magazine form until two years later, where it ran in All-Story in three installments in April 1916. Burroughs was deep in the middle of the busiest period of his life, and he spent most of 1915 trying to sell his new properties to Hollywood, all without success. The delay getting Thuvia, Maid of Mars to market may reflect how crazy the author’s life was getting — and that he realized that Tarzan was going to be his big franchise.

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Some Notes on The Eagle of the Ninth

Some Notes on The Eagle of the Ninth

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The eagle of the NinthWhat I know about Rosemary Sutcliff:

She was born in 1920. At age two she was struck by a terrible form of juvenile arthritis; she was in a wheelchair most of her life. She didn’t learn to read until she was nine, but was read to by her mother — Dickens, the Mabinogion, Kipling, King Arthur, Robin Hood. She became a writer in 1950, with a book drawing from those tales: The Chronicles of Robin Hood. In 1954, she wrote a book about Roman Britain, The Eagle of the Ninth, that became the first of a well-known series. She died in 1992.

I recently read The Eagle of the Ninth. And as a result of that I know this, too: I will be reading more of her work, in the very near future.

The Eagle of the Ninth follows Marcus Flavius Aquila, a Roman Centurion assigned to Britain in the second century AD. Wounded in battle, he’s discharged from the military, recovers, and eventually begins a dangerous quest into the mysterious lands north of the Roman walls — into the wilderness haunted by strange tribes of barbarians.

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Vote in the 2011 Locus Online Poll!

Vote in the 2011 Locus Online Poll!

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the-desert-of-souls-tpBalloting for the annual Locus Poll and Survey is now open!

The winners of the poll are given the prestigious Locus Awards each year. Categories include Best SF novel, Best Fantasy novel, Best First novel, Best Anthology, Best Magazine, Best Editor, Best Artist, and many others.

But the Locus Poll is more than just an awards ballot. Locus has been taking the pulse of the entire industry for the last 42 years, and the information collected — on buying habits, reading preferences, income, computing, and much more — is used by Locus magazine to form a picture of the evolving dynamic of the modern SF and fantasy reader.

Of more than passing interest of to Black Gate readers, I was very pleased to note that our Managing Editor Howard Andrew Jones has been nominated for Best First novel for The Desert of Souls. And Black Gate magazine has been nominated for Best Magazine.

Voting is open to all, subscribers and non-subscribers, per the instructions:

In each category, you may vote for up to five works or nominees, ranking them 1 (first place) through 5 (fifth). Listed options in each category are based on our 2011 Recommended Reading List [this link will open a new window], with options in categories for editor, artist, magazine, and publisher including results of the past two years.

You are welcome to use the write-in boxes to vote for other titles and nominees in any category — if you do, please try to supply author, title, and place of appearance, where appropriate.

The ballot is here. The deadline is April 1, 2012. Make sure your voice is counted in the most important ballot and survey in the industry!

Goth Chick News: When Goth Chicks Attack

Goth Chick News: When Goth Chicks Attack

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image002Vampire Fashionistas, Flesh-Eating Ogres, Paranoid Werewolves and Sugar-Addicted Zombies…

Welcome to Gothopolis.

As I stare at the cover of Blood Feud: The Saga of Pandora Zwieback, Book 1 which was just delivered by the spotty intern handling the Black Gate mailroom this semester, several thoughts are competing for top billing; like “Where is this ‘Gothopolis’?” and “Someone get my travel agent on the horn,” and “Would Steven Roman mind if I developed a crush on him?”

Finally, someone who understands…

The cover of this magnificent work of art is reminiscent of looking in a mirror. Okay, not so much. But still I’m mesmerized. Is this really a novel about a zombie shooting, werewolf booting Goth chick?

It looks too good to be true really.

So I fire up the blender and with fine adult beverage in hand, I climb into my comfy chair (the big leather one just under the life-size stand up of Bela Lugosi) to have a nice, long, get-to-know-you session with Pandora Zwieback.

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Chris Braak Reviews First Lord’s Fury

Chris Braak Reviews First Lord’s Fury

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first-lords-fury
First Lord’s Fury
Jim Butcher
Ace Books (784 pp, $9.99, paperback November 2010)
Reviewed by Chris Braak

Despite the phenomenal success of his better known Dresden Files, the steady-hand and breakneck pace of First Lord’s Fury suggests that maybe Jim Butcher’s heart lies in epic fantasy.

First Lord’s Fury is the sixth, and presumably final, book in Butcher’s Codex Alera series. It brings to conclusion the long war that the Alerans and their sometimes-enemies, sometimes-allies, the Canim, have been fighting against the Vord. As in previous novels, the action is split: first between Tavi’s family who, along with the survivors of Alera Imperia (which was destroyed when a volcano erupted under it) fight a holding action across what remains of Alera, pursued to its edge by the relentless insectoid Vord. Meanwhile, Tavi – Gaius Octavian himself, the new First Lord of Alera – his band of merry men, and his new army of gigantic lycanthropes, struggle to develop increasingly improbable means to cross an entire continent in time to save the last remnants of his civilization.

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James Enge’s A Guile of Dragons Coming in August

James Enge’s A Guile of Dragons Coming in August

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a-guile-of-dragonsNice to see the print medium can still get me news in a timely fashion (even if it’s news that everybody else already knows by now).

Somewhere off the coast of Belize, on the balcony of a cruise ship about 100 miles from the nearest Internet access, I read in the latest issue of Locus magazine that Black Gate alumnus James Enge had delivered A Guile of Dragons, the first novel in A Tournament of Shadows, to Lou Anders at Pyr.

The novel is scheduled to be published on August 24. According to an interview with James at Old Game Reviewer that I dug up when I landed, it is Morlock’s origin story:

The Wolf Age did well enough that Pyr signed me to another 3-book deal. Currently I’m finishing up an origin story for Morlock. It’s called A Guile of Dragons and is due out next summer. It’s very old school fantasy in some ways — dwarves, dragons, Merlin and Nimue. (No elves, though. Everyone has to draw the line somewhere.) And it also gives us a look at Morlock’s homeland, which is a sort of anarchy where community needs are addressed by voluntary associations. It’s a sort of utopia, really — with monsters. Most utopias don’t have monsters, of course, but that’s why they lack a certain plausibility.

Pretty cool indeed. The striking cover art is by Steve Stone. Looking forward to this one.

Steampunk Spotlight: Cherie Priest’s Dreadnought

Steampunk Spotlight: Cherie Priest’s Dreadnought

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dreadnoughtDreadnought (Amazon, B&N)
Cherie Priest
Tor (400 pp., $14.99, 2010)

Reviewed by Andrew Zimmerman Jones

Cherie Priest returns to her “Clockwork Century” in full force in this third novel. In some ways, I would recommend that readers begin with Dreadought, even though it’s the third book in the series. Basically, the plot twist at the end of Dreadnought is the entire premise of Boneshaker, as I’ll explain later in the review. (Spoiler-ish alert!)

The book focuses on Mercy Lynch, a Confederate nurse whose husband has just died fighting for the Union. (Gotta love those border state romances!) She receives word from her father – who left her as a child – that he is dying, and he would like her to visit him in the Washington territory. That father is Jeremiah Swankhammer, who readers of Boneshaker will recognize as one of the key characters in that story.

With nothing really to keep her in Virginia, she sets off on a cross-country journey by airship and train to reach Tacoma and, ultimately, Seattle.  Unfortunately, the only train that can get her from St. Louis to Tacoma is the Union steam engine Dreadnought, and the train is carrying some bizarre cargo … cargo which makes the train trip into a harrowing ride that brings Mercy and the other passengers into conflict with bushwackers, a mad scientist, and even zombies!

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The Future of Bookstores Latest Update

The Future of Bookstores Latest Update

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29-barnes-jp4-articleinlineSo it now it seems publishers are counting on Barnes and Noble to help them stay in business.  Which is funny because it wasn’t that long ago when Barnes and Noble was a slayer of independent bookstores and an enemy of the books business; now it’s considered the only thing that stands in the way of total world domination by Amazon.

Interesting that the notion of a bookstore is beginning to look more and more like an Apple store. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. My kid just got a Nook and she goes to our local Barnes and Noble because she can read certain e-books online for free there. Meanwhile she can consume some mocha lattes and maybe even take home a real book. Like everyone else I shop on-line, but the atmosphere of a bookstore leads to impulse buys that isn’t the same as scanning some algorithm’s suggested reads.

Speaking of physical books, I just finished Richard Morgan’s The Cold Commands, Book Two of presumably a trilogy ironically titled A Landcc Fit for Heroes (in which the land is neither fit for heroes nor populated with behavior typically classified heroic) by Richard K. (whose middle initial is used on book jackets only on the American side of the pond for some reason) Morgan describe it as “genre busting.” That’s not just some publicist’s hyperbole.  You can read the complete review over here at the SF Site.