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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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John Joseph Adams Interviews John R. Fultz

John Joseph Adams Interviews John R. Fultz

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wayofthewizardJohn Joseph Adams, editor of The Way of the Wizard anthology, has interviewed contributor — and Black Gate blogger and author — John R. Fultz in conjunction with the book launch:

In the cannon of classic fantasy, there are many examples of terrific wizardry, such as Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser tales, where Ningauble of the Seven Eyes and Sheelba of the Eyeless Face are the heroes’ patrons – mysterious inhuman wizards who watch over and protect Fafhrd and the Mouser, as well as giving them preposterous quests now and then. The tales of Clark Ashton Smith are rife with wizardry… Malygris of Susran, Namirrah of Zothique, and Evagh the Warlock, to name only a few. Nobody could build a rich, phantasmagoric world of dark wonders like Smith… Michael Moorcock’s Elric of Melnibone is one of my favorite wizards as well… Who knew a wizard could be such a bad-ass with a sword?

The Way of the Wizard was released on November 16th; the book’s website features seven “Free Reads,” including  John Joseph Adams’ introduction, stories from Adam-Troy Castro, Jeremiah Tolbert, David Barr Kirtley, and the complete  text of John R. Fultz’s “The Thirteen Texts of Arthyria.”

John R. Fultz blogs here regularly; he’s also the author of “Oblivion Is the Sweetest Wine” (Black Gate 12), “Return of the Quill” (Black Gate 13), and the upcoming “The Vintages of Dream.”

The complete interview is here.

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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Last Chance to Win a Copy of Terror in the House: The Early Kuttner, Volume One

Last Chance to Win a Copy of Terror in the House: The Early Kuttner, Volume One

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kuttnerThree week ago we announced we were giving away three copies of the first volume of The Early Kuttner, titled Terror in the House, newly released from Haffner Press.

How do you win a copy? Just send an e-mail to john@blackgate.com with the title “Kuttner Contest,” and a one-sentence review of your favorite Henry Kuttner short story. And don’t forget to mention what story you’re reviewing!

That’s it.  Three winners will be drawn at random from all qualifying entries, and we’ll publish the best reviews here on the Black Gate blog.

But time is running out — the contest closes on December 1. Because if these things are still piled on top of Alice’s sewing table after that, believe me, there will be hell to pay.

Haffner’s archival-quality hardcovers are some of the most collectible books in the genre. Terror in the House is 712 pages in hardcover, with a preface by Richard Matheson and introduction by Garyn G. Roberts, Ph.D. It is edited by Stephen Haffner and illustrated by Harry V. Parkhurst, and has a retail price of $40.

All entries become the property of New Epoch Press. No purchase necessary. Must be 12 or older. Decisions of the judges (capricious as they may be) are final. Not valid where prohibited by law. Terms and conditions subject to change as our lawyers sober up and get back to us. Eat your vegetables.

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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A Review of The Lion of Cairo, by Scott Oden

A Review of The Lion of Cairo, by Scott Oden

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lion-of-cairo1The Lion of Cairo, by Scott Oden
Thomas Dunne Books (384 pages, $25.99, December 7, 2010)

I think it’s totally cool that the dedication page of Scott Oden’s forthcoming novel The Lion of Cairo (U.S. publication date Dec. 7) pays homage to a sword and sorcery legend:

To Robert E. Howard
whose tales of swordplay and sorcery
gave inspiration to a kid from Alabama
and caused him to take up the pen
in his own time

After the Howard name-drop you pretty much know what you’re in for: Pulse-pounding sword play, leagues of warring assassins, political intrigue, a hint of evil sorcery, and the clash of armies on a grand stage. On all these elements Oden delivers.

Though inspired by the man from Cross Plains, The Lion of Cairo is no slavish imitation of Howard. The work — book one of the Emir of the Knife trilogy — shares just as much or more in common with Harold Lamb’s Swords from the East or Steven Pressfield’s historical fiction than REH’s tales of the Hyborian Age. Cairo’s main character, the assassin Assad, is more Pale Rider than muscular Cimmerian. He’s a dude you don’t want to tangle with: Deadly with a blade instead of a six-gun; not cocky but quietly confident in his abilities; single-minded of purpose; a stone-cold killer. Though he’s an assassin Oden successfully manages to portray him as sympathetic, a killer we can get behind. It’s a pretty nifty bit of characterization.

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Great Gift Ideas For Geeks and Science Fiction and Fantasy Fans

Great Gift Ideas For Geeks and Science Fiction and Fantasy Fans

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honey-monthI love being interviewed.  Especially on weeks when Jack Nicholson isn’t talking to the press.  I tell my wife, “I was interviewed more often than Jack Nicholson this week.”

Alice is rarely impressed. “I don’t like Jack Nicholson,” she tells me. But I keep it up, in the hopes that it will win me some lovin’.

I was interviewed by SF Signal for their regular Mind Meld column, along with people less famous than me, like Jeff VanderMeer, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Mike Resnick, Martha Wells, David B. Coe, Jaym Gates, Brenda Cooper, Mike Brotherton, A. Lee Martinez, and other international celebrities and rock stars like that.  The topic was Great Gift Ideas For Geeks and Science Fiction and Fantasy Fans, and here’s what that VanderMeer guy said about some book about honey by Amal El-Mohtar:

The Honey Month – This beautifully illustrated volume of short fictions and poems takes as its inspiration the author’s tasting of 28 different kinds of honey, one per day. Each tasting leads to a different literary creation, but she begins each entry by describing the honey in terms that will be familiar to wine connoisseurs. To top it all off, Oliver Hunter’s finely rendered color illustrations make encountering such rich, heady prose even more delightful…. The book’s a slim 73 pages for a reason: like the honey described, any more and it would be too rich for most readers. As it stands, however, The Honey Month is the perfect length, and the perfect gift.

I tried to buy a copy of The Honey Month from Amal at Wiscon, but she wouldn’t sell it to me (I think because I was more famous than her). Now that she’s had a book blurbed by VanderMeer and done, like, the most popular interview in the history of Black Gate, I expect all that to change. And maybe a brother can buy a simple book, know what I’m sayin’?

You can read the complete SF Signal article here.

A Review of The Outlaws of Sherwood, by Robin McKinley

A Review of The Outlaws of Sherwood, by Robin McKinley

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outlaws-of-sherwoodThe Outlaws of Sherwood, by Robin McKinley
Greenwillow Books (282 pages, $12.95, 1988)
Cover by Alan Lee

“I am no historian,” Robin McKinley writes in the author’s note to The Outlaws of Sherwood, “and never flattered myself that I would write a story that was historically accurate. I did, however, wish to write something that was, let us say, historically unembarrassing.” I’m no historian either, but I’d say she succeeded.

The Outlaws of Sherwood is, of course, a retelling of the Robin Hood legend. It also feels extremely real, despite the historical issues mentioned in the author’s note. This is a good story for people who like a touch of logistics in their fiction. In between adventures — the book has a somewhat episodic feel, although it’s building up to a definite climax — there are plenty off details that highlight the problems and solutions to maintaining a covert community in a tangled forest.

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Who’d have thunk it?

Who’d have thunk it?

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On the heels of John’s report about Mark Twain’s autobiography comes the news that the $35 760 page first volume of a massive, somewhat disjointed, work is a bestseller.

twain-articleinlineSo in this Kindelized, iPadded and Nooked age of reading trivialized by celebrity tell-it-alls, self-help elevation and political numbwits (though excerpts from the book demonstrate that things were just as bad in Twain’s era as ours, except ours is perhaps a little worse thanks to the Internet and cable TV), Mark Twain’s physical opus is this season’s Christmas holiday hit, surpassing even that of Keith Richards.

Of course, cynic that I am (a cynicism inspired by youthful exposure to Mark Twain), I wonder how many copies will go unread, mere ornaments on a bookshelf, a hip gift idea, especially if that gift has a certain cache as something hard to get.

Somewhere, Twain is finding this immensely amusing.

The Autobiography of Mark Twain

The Autobiography of Mark Twain

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mark-twainMark Twain, the legendary American author and humorist, left behind perhaps the most famous unpublished autobiography in history.  Claiming the opinions and stories within were too strong to be received by his public, Twain left instructions that the book was not to be published until 100 years after his death.

Samuel Clemens (“Mark Twain”) died on April 21, 1910. Accordingly, the University of California Press published Volume One of the Autobiography of Mark Twain this week, releasing the 760-page first installment of what will be a 3-book series on Monday, November 15.

Twain dictated his autobiography in 1906, four years before he died.  The text of those dictations, with explanatory editorial notes, have been gathered into these volumes.  While unpublished, the autobiography has not been secret — in fact, biographers have had access to it for the last century, so there are no bombshells waiting for us in its pages.

What there is is a stream-of-consciousness self-portrait created from anecdotes, stories, and portraits of America as it existed over a century ago, captured by one of this nation’s keenest writers and social critics.  Written with little regard for chronological order, Twain tells of his encounters with the fabulously wealthy (but “grotesque”) Rockefeller family, his troubles with bankruptcy, the tragic death of his daughter Susy, who died at 24 of meningitis, and much more. Over at Ambrose & Elsewhere, our main man James Enge has done a full review, saying in part:

Standout sections of this book include Twain’s discussion of his brother Orion, who seems to have been bipolar, and Twain’s account of how he patiently and gently corrected an overzealous editor… there is a lot else here, including a sort of 19th century Paris Hilton – a woman who was famous simply for being famous. That story made me feel better about our crappy media culture – apparently it’s always been crappy, ever since the invention of mass media.

Twain, author of The Prince and the Pauper, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, and The Mysterious Stranger, was one of America’s finest fantasists.   The Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume One, includes 66 photographs and is priced at $34.95.  More information is at the Amazon.com listing.