Editor’s Blog – Page 102

Reimagining Star Wars as West Wars

Thursday, June 28, 2012 John ONeill Comments 5 comments

I usually ignore the endless stream of Star Wars fan creativity here on the blog — Lego remakes, the Silent Star Wars, and numerous others. Black Gate is all about shining a light on neglected fantasy… if you think Star Wars is neglected, it’s because you’re blind and deaf and you live on Easter Island.

But every once in a while a simple idea comes along that reduces me to a 12-year old Star Wars fanboy again. That’s what happened yesterday when I discovered Sillof.com, the brainchild of Indianapolis, IN, sculptor Sillof, who specializes in making custom action figures and also makes props for films.

Sillof has created a line of action figures called West Wars, featuring a brilliantly realized cast: Luke S. Walker, a young man living on the outer borderlands with his poor aunt and uncle, Leah Orango, daughter of one of the most prominent ranch families in the territory, “Old” Bennet Kennelly, one-time sheriff who was driven into hiding when his former deputy turned on him, and the villainous Sheriff Akan “Death” Vardas, enforcer for the corrupt robber barons and railroad tycoons.

The entire cast is instantly recognizable, even though they’re all in period garb. Sillof has done the same with other periods, giving names and faces to the cast of Samurai Wars, World Wars, Noir Wars, Serial Wards, and others.

Besides making me daydream of someday watching a version of Star Wars set in a western town — sort of like watching MacBeth set during the US Civil War, or Romeo & Juliet in 1950s Brooklyn, both of which I have done — Sillof’s creations remind us just how universal the themes of Star Wars are. And in fact, just how fluid story is… how easy it can be to move the props of narrative to a different stage to make it fresh spin.

Not to mention that they vindicate a decades-long fascination with action figures. Thanks, Sillof! You the man.

Vintage Treasures: George R.R. Martin’s “Nightflyers”

Monday, June 25, 2012 John ONeill Comments 15 comments

Over the weekend I put away a collection of 80s magazines I purchased a few months ago. In the process I discovered the April 1980 issue of Analog, which I read as a junior in high school in Ottawa, Canada.

There’s a lot to like about this issue, from the gorgeous cover by Paul Lehr — perhaps my favorite SF artist — to a famous short story by one of my all-time favorite SF writers: “Grotto of the Dancing Deer,” by Clifford D. Simak, which won both the 1980 Nebula Award and 1981 Hugo Award for Best Short Story. Even the ads reflect those things I personally found most exciting and fresh about SF and fantasy at the time: a full page ad from TSR for D&D, “The Ultimate in Adventure Games;” an ad for six microgames from Metagaming (the company that introduced me to role playing games), including the classic Ogre; and a subscription form for Ares, the short-lived SF gaming magazine from SPI.

This issue is an intriguing cultural artifact for other reasons. There’s an editorial from Stanley Schmidt in response to the recent kidnapping of 50 Americans at the US embassy in Iran, both a fascinating snapshot of a critical moment in American history, and a typical science fiction response:

What the Iranian crisis really demonstrates, at least as dramatically as any incident so far, is that if we want real freedom, we must produce our own energy… Technologies which can do this are possible, and we should not willingly settle for less. Readers of this magazine are well acquainted with the role space can play, but many people are not — and we need to get the action under way now.

If you read Analog in the 20th Century, you got used to this. Exploring space was pretty much the answer to everything — the energy crisis, the hole in the ozone, foreign policy crises, and crappy network television programming — and the magazine’s self-congratulatory tone clearly told its readership (including 15-year-old readers in Ottawa) that they were smarter and more informed than everyone else, especially on science and technology, topics far more important than cars, sports, and other things kids our age obsessed about. Analog told its readers they were destined for success. The future was ours.

But the real reason this issue is remembered is its cover story, George R.R. Martin’s novella of horror in deep space, the chilling classic “Nightflyers.”

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Tor Releases The Devil Delivered and Other Tales by Steven Erikson

Friday, June 22, 2012 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

I know we’ve got a lot of Steven Erikson fans out there. We’ve got your back.

On Tuesday Tor Book released The Devil Delivered and Other Tales, the latest collection of a trio of fantasy novellas from Steven Erikson, following 2009’s Bauchelain and Korbal Broach, which gathered three short novels of the Malazan Empire.

Like Bauchelain and Korbal Broach, The Devil Delivered and Other Tales features work previously printed in expensive limited edition hardcovers from PS Publishing: The Devil Delivered (from March 2005), Fishin’ with Grandma Matchie (November 2005), and Revolvo (December 2008). Most of them are no longer available, or available only at collector’s prices, so if you’re an Erikson fan who hasn’t seen them before this edition is a bargain.

Unlike Bauchelain and Korbal Broach, this volume features standalone tales unrelated to his popular Malazan Empire setting. Here’s the summary for the first story, The Devil Delivered:

Mind the Hole. In a world of ozone depletion, toxic deadzones, internicine brew-ups and lifeless oceans, nothing has changed. Or so it seems, but in the break-away Lakota Nation, in the heart of a land blistered beneath an ozone hole the size of the Great Plains of North America, something is happening. Tracked by a growing global audience of online subversives and electronic muckers, a lone anthropologist wanders the deadlands, recording observations that threaten to bring the world’s powers to their knees. Past and future; restless ghosts and rogue corporations; rad-shielded cities and unprotected peripheral populations; all now face each other, across a chasm once wide but growing ever narrower. Mother Earth is poisoned beyond any hope of resuscitation. Humanity beyond any hope of redemption — but one last lesson of life awaits. When Nature starts losing the game, Nature changes the rules. We’ve turned paradise into Hell, and in Hell, the Devil Delivers.

The Devil Delivered and Other Tales is $14.99 in trade paperback for 336 pages. It was published by Tor Books on June 19, 2012.

Star Trek is New Again With Fresh Animated Intro

Thursday, June 21, 2012 John ONeill Comments 4 comments

Our buddy John DeNardo at SF Signal tells us about this extremely cool re-imagining of the original Star Trek intro, with William Shatner’s famous voice over… and some very compelling animation.

Keep your eye out for a red shirt who buys it half a second after beaming down, right around the 20 second mark.

The video was produced by The Quintek Group, a digital retouching studio in the Detroit area.

I got seriously nostalgic watching this. It makes me want to blow the dust off my DVD box set of Star Trek Season One and enjoy a few episodes.

Thanks, John. Owe you one.

The Retro Pulp Art of Tim Anderson

Wednesday, June 20, 2012 John ONeill Comments 4 comments

We love pulp fiction. And we love classic SF & fantasy movies.

So what’s not to love about Tim Anderson’s re-imaginings of classic SF films as pulp paperbacks?

Anderson is a concept designer for Electronic Arts in Salt Lake City. He’s also worked as a concept designer for Paramount Licensing, Inc., Radical Comics, and various independent filmmakers.

He’s started working on a personal side project that he hoped would motivate him “into thinking more graphically,” a series of highly detailed period paperback covers for some of the most famous SF films of the 20th Century.

Here’s what he says about his Blade Runner piece at right (click for a bigger version):

If you haven’t guessed by now, I’m a huge sci-fi fan, and a huge fan of Ridley Scott. Here’s a pulp cover I have had in the works off and on for a while now. I was inspired by the detective pulp covers of Robert McGinnis. If ever there was a sci-fi movie that lent itself well to a detective pulp cover, it’s Blade Runner.

Anyone who’s a fan of the great Robert McGinnis is okay by us.

Check out Tim Anderson’s versions of Alien, The Matrix and others here.

Thank You, Martin H. Greenberg (and Doug Ellis)

Sunday, June 17, 2012 John ONeill Comments 31 comments

That’s a pic of one of the boxes I unloaded in my library this morning. It contained 103 paperbacks from the vast collection of the great Martin H. Greenberg, one of the most prolific and talented anthologists our field has ever seen (click for a more legible version). Greenberg died almost exactly a year ago, on June 25, 2011. He left behind some 2,500 anthologies and other books he created — including over 120 co-edited with his friend Isaac Asimov — and his company Tekno Books, a book packager which produced nearly 150 books a year. I wrote about six of them just last week in my article TSR’s Amazing Science Fiction Anthologies.

He also left behind a massive collection in his home in Green Bay, which was purchased by Chicago collectors Doug Ellis and Bob Weinberg. They’ve been gradually selling the high value stuff — autographed vintage hardcovers, things like that. Doug runs the Windy City Pulp and Paper show every year, and he brought some of it to the show.

I’m usually a pretty social guy. Put me in a room with fellow collectors and I’ll happily spend my hours chatting. But as I passed Doug’s booth, I saw countless boxes of what looked like beautiful, unread vintage paperbacks stacked in neat rows, all priced at a buck. I started to browse, then select a few books, and finally obsessively dig through every single box, much to the annoyance of the always patient Jason Waltz and my other companions.

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A Dance With Dragons wins the 2012 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel

Saturday, June 16, 2012 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

The winners of the 2012 Locus Awards were announced today:

Fantasy Novel — A Dance with Dragons, George R.R. Martin
Science Fiction Novel — Embassytown, China Miéville
First Novel — The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern
Young Adult Book — The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, Catherynne M. Valente
Novella — “Silently and Very Fast,” Catherynne M. Valente (WSFA; Clarkesworld)
Novelette — “White Lines on a Green Field”, Catherynne M. Valente (Subterranean Fall ’11)
Short Story — “The Case of Death and Honey”, Neil Gaiman (A Study in Sherlock)
Anthology — The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty-eighth Annual Collection, edited by Gardner Dozois
Collection — The Bible Repairman and Other Stories, Tim Powers
Non-fiction — Evaporating Genres: Essays on Fantastic Literature, Gary K. Wolfe
Art Book — Spectrum 18, Cathy Fenner & Arnie Fenner
Artist — Shaun Tan
Editor — Ellen Datlow
Magazine — Asimov’s Science Fiction
Publisher — Tor

The Locus Awards are presented annually to winners of Locus Magazine’s readers’ poll. The award was first given in 1971; last year’s fantasy winner was Kraken, by China Miéville. We reported on the 2011 awards here.

Congratulations to the winners, and special congratulations to Cat Valente for sweeping three categories: Young Adult Book, Novelette and Novella.

Complete details on the 2012 winners, including all the nominees, are available at Locus Online.

New Treasures: Dungeons & Dragons Into the Unknown: The Dungeon Survival Handbook

Saturday, June 16, 2012 John ONeill Comments 1 comment

I don’t get to play D&D as much as I’d like these days. Which means that my enjoyment of the latest supplements chiefly depends on how fun they are to read. By that measure, Into the Unknown: The Dungeon Survival Handbook is one of the best books to come from Wizards of the Coast in a while.

What makes this one stand out? On the surface it’s pretty lightweight, described as

A guide for players and Dungeon Masters who want to play in a Dungeons & Dragons game that explores dungeons and plumbs the blackest reaches of the Underdark… Players will find an assortment of new powers, equipment, feats, character themes, and player races, including the kobold and the goblin. For Dungeon Masters, the book is a trove of dungeon-building advice and details, including lore on classic dungeon monsters, some quirky companions for adventurers, a few timeless treasures, and tips for incorporating players’ character themes into an adventure.

Yeah, we’ve seen this book a few times over the decades. A collection of vague dungeoneering advice, some monsters that didn’t make the cut for other modules, and a few new feats. Reminiscent of the 1986 title that finally convinced me I could ignore future TSR hardcovers, The Dungeoneer’s Survival Guide.

At least, that’s what I thought until I opened it.

My favorite section is a 17-page chunk of Chapter 2 titled “Infamous Dungeons,” which takes a detailed look at some of the most popular publications in D&D history, from Castle Ravenloft to The Temple of Elemental Evil to The Gates of Firestorm Peak. Not half-hearted marketing pieces, but warts-and-all descriptions of classic dungeons alongside pics of the original modules. Here’s a brief excerpt from the assessment of 1980’s The Ghost Tower of Inverness:

That publication was preceded by a tournament version that one could purchase only at WinterCon VIII in 1979 in a zip bag containing 40 loose-leaf pages. But even its more professionally published form, the adventure’s tournament pedigree was on full display. Discussions of scoring the players’ efforts riddle the adventure text, which presents an oftentimes nonsensical dungeon full of desperation-inducing challenges… Since then, the Ghost Tower of Inverness has appeared from time to time in various products. Most recently, it was featured in the D&D Encounters season March of the Phantom Brigade.

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New Treasures: The Fantasy Fan

Wednesday, June 13, 2012 John ONeill Comments 10 comments

Last month, I got a great e-mail from Black Gate blogger Barbara Barrett. In between her entertaining comments on The Avengers, Arthur Machen, and re-discovering comic books, was this fascinating tidbit:

I’ve started reading The Fantasy Fan — a fan’s tribute to Hornig. It’s a book containing a compilation of all the Fantasy Fan magazines… I’m only on the first zine but I’m amazed how closely the format matches that of Black Gate. Is this a *coincidence*? The first zine was published in September 1933 and it’s chilling because I keep in mind Robert E.Howard was still alive at that point… the breadth and depth of authors, articles and stories are wonderful. It’s definitely a page out of Living History.

Among fantasy collectors The Fantasy Fan is legendary. The world’s first fanzine dedicated to weird fiction, it lasted for 18 issues, from September 1933 to February 1935. Its contributors included some of the most famous names in the genre — H.P Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, Bob Tucker, Julius Schwartz, Forry Ackerman, Robert Bloch, August Derleth, Eando Binder, and many others — and its young editor Charles Horning so impressed Hugo Gernsback that he hired him to edit Wonder Stories in 1933, at the age of 17. While at Wonder Stories he published Stanley G. Weinbaum’s “A Martian Odyssey” and many other famous pulp stories.

Barbara’s reference to a compilation of The Fantasy Fan was so intriguing I had to track down a copy for myself, and it finally arrived last week. Copies of the original fanzine are so rare that I’ve never even seen one, so to hold a facsimile reprint of all 18 issues in my hands was rather breathtaking. The man behind the book is Lance Thingmaker, and here’s what he says in his introduction:

These fragile gems were so unique. They were simple little fanzines, but were filled with stories, articles and comments by history’s most important weird fiction writers and fans. I felt like I was looking back in time… Since they are extremely hard to find, it seemed many others probably never had the chance to check out the world’s first weird fiction zine. I wanted to make it happen.

The end product is a top-notch piece of work. The magazines are presented in facsimile format, with painstaking restoration of the original barely legible pages, hand printed and hand-bound in hardcover by Thingmaker. The book is over 300 pages, including the complete text of H.P. Lovecraft’s famous essay “Supernatural Horror in Literature,” which was being serialized when the magazine folded. It is limited to 100 copies and sold for $50. Thingmaker’s next project, due to ship later this month, is a facsimile reprint of all four issues of the ultra-rare pulp Marvel Tales.

You can find a detailed breakdown of the contents of The Fantasy Fan here. My thanks again to Barbara for alerting me to this before it sold out!

Vintage Treasures: Poul Anderson’s After Doomsday

Monday, June 11, 2012 John ONeill Comments 8 comments

I’m putting away all the paperbacks that arrived with my two Philip K. Dick lots, and I stumbled across the fabulous artifact at right.

After Doomsday was published by Ballantine Books in 1962, two years before I was born. It was originally serialized in Galaxy magazine (as The Day after Doomsday) between December 1961 and February 1962.

What truly makes it fabulous isn’t just the great cover art by Ralph Brillhart, with a bug-eyed alien stumbling on some guy surveying a road during his evening constitutional. No no no. It’s this wonderful description on the back cover:

CARL DONNAN was a space engineer — a man of action who did his job well and didn’t think much beyond that — but now his home planet was destroyed and he found himself with two burning ambitions:

– FIND the beings who blew up the Earth.

– SEARCH the galaxies until they located another Starship with female humans aboard.

BOTH PROJECTS were vital to the survival of the human race — and both were monumental tasks.

THIS was the time when the galaxies discovered how grim and purposeful a handful of homo sapiens could be.

A starship with “female humans” aboard. I think the first task for this guy Carl should be to look up “female humans,” find out they’re called “women,” and then put an ad on Craig’s List. The survival of the species is on your shoulders, dude. Time to put down that survey equipment and pick up a clean shirt. And maybe some mouthwash.

There’s a lengthy plot synopsis of After Doomsday here. Don’t expect it to be as entertaining as that back cover copy, though.

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