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Black Gate Kuttner Contest: And the Winners Are…

Black Gate Kuttner Contest: And the Winners Are…

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kuttnerBlack Gate magazine is very pleased to announce the winners of our Kuttner Contest:

Pawel Martin
Alexander G. Tozzi
G. W. Thomas

All three winners receive a copy of Terror in the House: The Early Kuttner, Volume One, compliments of publisher Haffner Press. Terror in the House is 712 pages in hardcover, and is edited by Stephen Haffner and illustrated by Harry V. Parkhurst. Congratulations to the winners!

To enter the contest required a one-sentence review of your favorite Henry Kuttner short story. Winners were chosen at random from all eligible entries.

The wide range of entries gave us a fine appreciation for just how well Henry Kuttner is still remembered over 50 years after his death, and these concise reviews of readers’ favorite Kuttner tales should help those less familiar with him understand the enduring quality of his fiction. Some of the best entires we received are collected below.

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Take Advantage of Holiday Discounts at Lulu.com

Take Advantage of Holiday Discounts at Lulu.com

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luluI got a reminder from Lulu.com this morning that the window for placing Holiday orders in time for Christmas is closing.  Thanks Lulu!

Plus, they sent me the handy coupon at right.  It’s good for 20% off any order (up to a total of $100 savings) until Dec 31, 2010.

I hope I don’t get in trouble for sharing it. Probably not.  But if anybody locks you in a small room and shines a bright light in your face and demands to know where you got this coupon, remember these handy phrases: “I’ll talk!  It was Gordon van Gelder.”

Or just go get your own coupon online, at their Daily Deals page.

startling-storiesLulu is the leading Print on Demand (POD) publisher. Need a reminder of all the great titles available at Lulu?

Over the past year we’ve told you about the two volumes of The Clayton Astounding reprints, Vagabonds of Space and Planetoids of Peril.

For gamers, there’s the new role playing game of heroic rodents, Hyperborean Mice, featuring grim swords & sorcery action… with talking mice.

For short fiction lovers, there’s G.W. Thomas’ terrific Dark Worlds magazine, featuring tales of modern adventure fantasy, and the new incarnation of pulp magazine Startling Stories, from Wild Cat Books (shown at left).

And don’t forget Charles R. Saunders’ latest Imaro novels, The Naama War, and The Trail of Bohu.

At that and much more.  Support your favorite small press publishers, and get some great gifts at the same time. How cool is that?

Wizard Trails: On the Making of the Black Gate Trailer

Wizard Trails: On the Making of the Black Gate Trailer

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Not so very many months ago, we posted Black Gate‘s first trailer ever.

We are still very proud of it. So proud, in fact, that we’re bringing it up again! Oh my gosh!

I figured, in the light of Harry Connolly’s posts about Walking the Trail(er), it would be interesting to interview the wizardly gentleman who aided and abetted (and conjured and conspired) in the making of Black Gate‘s own fabulous trailer.

So I wrote to Magill Foote and asked him some impertinent questions, and he was kind enough to answer them!

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Writing: Historical Fantasy and the Book Deal

Writing: Historical Fantasy and the Book Deal

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lion-of-cairo
Scott’s new book. Go buy it!
A few months ago James Enge and I sat down for a cyber conversation about serial characters and the book deal.  We both had a lot of fun, and the the exchange seemed of interest to Black Gate readers, so I asked my friend Scott Oden to join me  for a similar back-and-forth interview.

If you haven’t yet heard of Scott Oden, you’re missing a rising star in historical fiction. I learned of his work when our mutual friend, Robert E. Howard scholar Morgan Holmes, handed me a copy of Scott’s first book and urged me to read it. My “to-be-read” pile is as tottering as that of most readers, but I took Morgan at his word and was launched into an action-packed thrill ride at the side of Phoenecian mercenary leader Hasdrabal Barca in Men of Bronze. Oden’s skill with character, pacing, and description — not to mention his action chops — impressed me greatly. When I learned Scott was a fan of historical fiction writer Harold Lamb, I invited him to write an introduction for one of the Lamb historical collections I was editing.

As I’ve mentioned in previous writing posts, it was Scott who introduced me to his editor, the talented Pete Wolverton of Thomas Dunne Books, and Scott who introduced me to the agent we now share, the gifted Bob Mecoy. Scott wrote on this topic some months ago, after I took news of my own book deal public last November.

Scott’s new novel, a historical fantasy set in 11th century Cairo, hits bookstore shelves this Tuesday. I had the privilege of reading the book in manuscript, so I can tell you that it’s one of the best historical novels of the year.  Its impending release seemed like a fine excuse for a discussion about  historical fiction, middle-eastern protagonists, and, naturally, Harold Lamb. I lead off, then Scott follows. At the end of each exchange, we trade questions, and occasionally we interject responses.

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“The Word of Azrael” Selected for The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy

“The Word of Azrael” Selected for The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy

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yearsbest2011Matthew David Surridge’s novellete “The Word of Azrael” has been selected for The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2011 Edition, edited by Rich Horton.

Congratulations, Matthew!  “The Word of Azrael” has been praised in many places since it appeared in Black Gate 14. Here’s what Rich said in his Locus magazine review in the August issue:

Even better is Matthew [David] Surridge’s “The Word of Azrael.” It concerns Isrohim Vey, who sees the Angel of Death on a battlefield and as a result is spared — more a curse than a blessing — to search again for the Angel. His search almost takes the form of a catalog of sword & sorcery tropes, his many adventures told briefly but with style and an ironic edge. Surridge both celebrates and winks at the genre. It’s very entertaining, clever, and even thought-provoking.

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Monstrous Post on Monsters: First Sequence

Monstrous Post on Monsters: First Sequence

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Were I a monster good and proper, I wouldn’t bother with these words shimmering on your computer screen. I’d rather reach through the transparent pane and pluck your eyes right out of your gobsmacked head, and none too neatly either, and as I contentedly burst your eyeballs between my teeth I’d either savor your screams with equal relish, or simply ignore them.

J.R.R. Tolkien's iconic Balrog.

But alas, such an act is (for now) beyond my capacity, and so in lieu of a more hands-on experience I offer you a blog entry about monsters. Perhaps the first of several, depending on the whims of my Lady Cooney, Supreme Sorceress of the Black Gate.

Maybe it’s time for introductions. I’m Mike Allen, and you’ve heard about me here before, in entries on modern Cthulhu Mythos stories, Heavy Metal in Fantasy, the fantasy poetry journal Goblin Fruit, and Arab/Muslim fantasy fiction. Yup, these chaps are all the same Mike Allen. I’m grateful to John R. Fultz, Amal El-Mohtar and of course Miss Cooney for all this foreshadowing.

I have some experience with monsters, which I presume is why Miss Cooney asked me to write about this topic.

At the most recent World Fantasy Convention, aside from hanging out with the Black Gate crew, I participated in a panel called Beyond Modern Horror, that in a nutshell boiled down to what creators of horror do to scare and disturb the readers of today. And as you can imagine, monsters came up in the discussion.

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Walking the Trail(er): Part Two

Walking the Trail(er): Part Two

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Marissa Merrill (“Annalise”)
Marissa Merrill (“Annalise”) and Harry Connolly

Let me summarize part one of this post briefly: Authors and/or publishers sometimes make book trailers, which are supposed to look like movie trailers but for, you know, books… and they’re usually awful, largely for lack of time and funds. Some of the best of the no-budgeters are funny which is fine if you’ve written a funny book.

Also, I’m not sure there’s any evidence at all that they actually sell the books they’re meant to promote. I’ve certainly never bought a book because of a trailer.

So why am I making one?

Let me backtrack: the trailer I mentioned in part one that almost sold me on a novel was something I watched over a year ago. (I’d link to it, but I can’t find it again.) It was a slow pan over a ship. It was obviously someplace cold, and the crew had just found something in the ice. There was a Lone Guy, his back to the camera, chipping away at a giant block of ice.

What was in it? The camera didn’t show us but I was intrigued. Was it Captain America? A Deep One? A Deep One dressed as Captain America? I had to know!

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Walking the Trail(er): Part One

Walking the Trail(er): Part One

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hc2Did you know that there are awards for book trailers? They’re called “The Moby Awards” and you can check the most recent winners (and losers) here. (There doesn’t appear to be any listings for the years before 2010, probably because there aren’t any.)

In case you haven’t heard of them, a book trailer is like a movie trailer — a short video that’s supposed to promote a book. Many of them look like movie trailers, and most are done on a budget (maybe I should say “without a budget”).

But do they work? Do they entice readers to buy books?

It’s an important question for me, because I’m making one.

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New Treasures: Songs of the Dying Earth

New Treasures: Songs of the Dying Earth

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sotdyWe get a lot of review copies here at the rooftop headquarters of Black Gate magazine, and it’s always a treat when the mail truck arrives. Getting free books never gets old, and we usually drop everything to tear open packages and pass around the most intriguing titles.

What is unusual is for a single book to bring all toil to a complete standstill for half an hour  (except for the tireless Howard Andrew Jones, who’s been missing in the restricted section of our pulp library for the last 48 hours). That’s exactly what happened when Songs of the Dying Earth (SotDE), edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, arrived today.

SotDE is a tribute collection; its subtitle is Stories in Honor of Jack Vance, and it contains nearly 700 pages of original fiction set in Vance’s Dying Earth — one of the great settings in all of fantasy, and home to Turjan the wizard, Rhialto the Marvellous, Cugel the Clever, and other fabulous characters. The Dying Earth is a far-future Terra, where the sun is on the verge of extinction, magic is potent and terrible, monsters roam the land, and the ruins of countless civilizations rest uneasily beneath layers of thin dust and vegetation.

dying-earth2The table of contents is one of the most impressive I’ve ever seen — it read like a Who’s Who of the most influential fantasy authors of the decade, including Robert Silverberg, George R.R. Martin, Walter Jon Williams, Jeff VanderMeer, Tad Williams, Glen Cook, Tanith Lee, Howard Waldrop, Elizabeth Hand, Lucius Shepard, Neil Gaiman, Phyllis Eisenstein, Liz Williams, Matthew Hughes, Terry Dowling, Mike Resnick, Paula Volsky, Kage Baker, John C. Wright, and others. It also includes a big new novella from Dan Simmons, an appreciation by Dean Koontz, and a preface by Jack Vance himself.

SotDE was first published in a limited edition by Subterranean Press last July; since then the book — and many of the stories — have received considerable attention. Jeff VanderMeer’s H.P. Lovecraft-inspired tale “The Final Quest of the Wizard Sarnod” has been turned into a novel, and SotDE was nominated for Best Anthology in the 2010 Locus Awards. Neil Gaiman’s story “An Invocation of Incuriosity” took home the Best Short Story prize at the same Awards.

Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honor of Jack Vance goes on sale Dec. 7th. It is published by Tor books, in hardcover for $27.99, and gets our highest recommendation.

Return to : Reviving a Masterpiece

Return to : Reviving a Masterpiece

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The new Norilana edition of a must-read fantasy classic, NIGHT’S MASTER by Tanith Lee.

Fantasy readers…rejoice!

The fact that Tanith Lee’s TALES FROM THE FLAT EARTH has been out of print for years has been a blatant injustice done to all lovers of epic fantasy. Now, thanks to Vera Nazarian’s Norilana Books, one of the field’s great masterpieces is once again available to the public.

The individual books of the FLAT EARTH series (each of which is a stand-alone novel) are being released in hardcover and trade paperback on a roughly annual basis, and feature gorgeous new cover treatments and artwork. If you haven’t yet discovered the FLAT EARTH books, I envy you. You are in for a spectacular reading experience.

The first book in this landmark series is NIGHT’S MASTER (1978), which was nominated for a Best Novel World Fantasy Award. It introduces the time-lost world of ancient sorcery where Azhrarn the Prince of Demons and his fellow Lords of Darkness roam the flat world creating mischief, drama, and tragedy across the primeval human kingdoms.

The book is rich with lyrical prose, jewel-bright imagery, dark beauty, and ironic myths. Human protagonists come and go, while the real main character is Azhrarn, who is despicable yet inhumanly handsome, evil yet oddly compassionate, godlike yet flawed, and an unlikely champion of a doomed humankind. Let all would-be fantasy writers savor the flavor of Lee’s sumptuous prose. This is how it’s done, people.

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