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Category: Editor’s Blog

The blog posts of Black Gate Managing Editor Howard Andrew Jones and Editor John O’Neill

Marvin Kaye to Edit Weird Tales

Marvin Kaye to Edit Weird Tales

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weird-tales-358Marvin Kaye, author and editor of 28 genre anthologies, including Weird Tales: The Magazine That Never Dies, Masterpieces of Terror and the Unknown, and the World Fantasy award-winning The Fair Folk, has reportedly purchased Weird Tales from John Betancourt of Wildside Press, with the intention of editing it himself.

Current editor Ann VanderMeer reported the news on her blog:

I am very sad to have to tell you that my editorship at Weird Tales, which has included one Hugo Award win and three Hugo Award nominations, is about to come to an end. The publisher, John Betancourt of Wildside Press, is selling the magazine to Marvin Kaye. Kaye is buying the magazine because he wants to edit it himself. He will not be retaining the staff from my tenure. I wish him the best with the different direction he wants to pursue, including his first, Cthulhu-themed issue. The current issue of Weird Tales is #358, just published. My last issue will be #359, which Kaye plans to publish in February…

The past five years reading fiction for Weird Tales magazine has been an honor for me. I had a blast doing this but I have also contributed to the canon of “the weird tale”— a responsibility I take seriously, not only for the readers of today, but for the readers of tomorrow. This iconic magazine originally blazed a trail for new approaches to dark fantastical fiction, and I did my best to return to that legacy.

Technically the Weird Tales name is owned by Robert Weinberg and Victor Dricks, who purchased it in the late 1970s, and who have licensed it to multiple publishers over the past three decades, including Terminus Publications, DNA Publications, and Wildside Press.

While VanderMeer’s tenure at Weird Tales was occasionally controversial — especially among sword & sorcery fans — she took some brave risks with the magazine. With Stephen H. Segal she presided over an ambitious and successful redesign in 2007, brought home the first Hugo Award in the history of the magazine in 2009, and she assumed his post as editor-in-chief when Segal departed in January of last year. I thought she did a fine job, and she will be missed.

On the other hand, always glad to see a good Cthulhu-themed issue. I’m looking forward to seeing where Kaye intends to sail with Weird Tales.  I expect it will be places both strange and familiar.

Fictional Frontiers Interviews Howard Andrew Jones

Fictional Frontiers Interviews Howard Andrew Jones

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the-desert-of-soulsSohaib Awan at Fictional Frontiers interviews Black Gate Managing Editor Howard Andrew Jones on his first novel The Desert of Souls, non-Western fantasy, juggling modern expectations in historical fiction, and much more:

Fictional Frontiers: I’m spouting hyperbole here, but I think it’s so well earned…. give us an overview of The Desert of Souls.

Howard: Like a lot of adventure fiction, it starts with the discovery of a body. Of course, it’s the body of a dead parrot. The parrot’s beloved by Jaffar — I guess it’s a little Disney joke, because you know, Jaffar and the parrot. But of course Jaffar was a real character… arguably the most famous vizier in Arabian history. Anyway… his guard captain Asim suggests an adventure into the market. So he and Jaffar and the scholar Dabir go out into the city in disguise, and a dying man presents them with a strange and beautiful artifact, a golden door pull, and he asks them to keep it safe.  And that’s where things really take off. Dabir and Asim are tasked by Jaffar with learning the pull’s origin and purpose. Naturally they’re not the only ones after the thing, and they soon learn it may open a gateway to an unearthly realm, accessed in the ruins of the lost city of Ubar, which is sort of like an Atlantis of the sands.

The complete podcast runs 22 minutes, and is available here.

Win a Limited Edition Copy of Rage of the Behemoth from Rogue Blades Entertainment

Win a Limited Edition Copy of Rage of the Behemoth from Rogue Blades Entertainment

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rotbJason M Waltz, publisher of Rogue Blades Entertainment, is giving away a free copy of the limited edition of Rage of the Behemoth to one lucky winner this week.

Described as “Almost 150,000 words of monstrous mayhem recording the ferocious battles that rage between gargantuan creatures of myth and legend, and the warriors and wizards who wage war against, beside, and astride them,” Rage of the Behemoth gathers 21 splendid tales of pure adventure fantasy under one cover, including contributions from Bill Ward, Andrew Offutt & Richard K. Lyon, Lois Tilton, Mary Rosenblum, Sean T. M. Stiennon, Brian Ruckley, Bruce Durham, Jason Thummel, C.L. Werner, and many more.

How do you win? Easy!

Just comment on any of the three posts this week at Rogue Blades Entertainment’s Home of Heroics , and you’ll be entered into a drawing to win a copy. The Home of Heroics is the Grand Central Station for heroic fiction on the Web, and previous writers have included Martha Wells, E.E. Knight, David C. Smith, Charles Saunders, Bill Ward, and many others.

Comments must be made between Monday, July 25, and Friday July 29. Complete details on the contest are here.

Learn more about Rage of the Behemoth here.

You won’t find many contests this easy — or this much fun. Check out Home of Heroics today. You can thank us later.

Borders Begins Liquidation

Borders Begins Liquidation

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borders-lockedBorders, one of the largest bookstore chains in the United States, has began the process of closing its doors.

Going-out-of-Business sales started today at all Borders, Borders Express, and Waldenbooks locations, with up to 40% off most items. The store has announced that gift cards will be honored during the liquidation, Borders Rewards Plus discounts are good through August 5th, and Borders Bucks will be accepted until July 31.

CEO Mike Edwards sent this e-mail to all Borders Rewards members yesterday, saying in part:

We had worked very hard toward a different outcome. The fact is that Borders has been facing headwinds for quite some time, including a rapidly changing book industry, the eReader revolution, and a turbulent economy. We put up a great fight, but regrettably, in the end, we weren’t able to overcome these external forces.

Going out of business sales begin in stores Friday, July 22. I encourage you to take advantage of this one-time opportunity to find exceptional discounts on your favorite books…

When I moved to my current home in St. Charles, IL in 1997, it was a town filled with many bookstores. The arrival of Borders and then Barnes & Noble gradually killed virtually every one of them.

But I consoled myself with the fact that Borders was, in fact, a superb book store. Clean, well organized, and marvelously well stocked, it was a terrific place to browse and find books. And now it is gone, leaving my town with one small bookstore: Town House Books, the sole survivor of the coming of Borders over a decade ago. One town over, there’s also a B&N superstore — another marvelous place for book lovers.  Until it too goes bankrupt, as many investors are now predicting.

It is the end of the bookstore?  I hope not, but time will tell.  And until then, I’ll be shopping at Town House books.

The Death of an Audi

The Death of an Audi

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audi_a4I usually reserve the Black Gate blog strictly for topics related to the genre.  I hope you can forgive a brief trespass on that tradition today, as I celebrate being alive.

This morning I was on IL-47, a single-lane country highway, heading south to Champaign, where I work as a software salesman. At approximately 10:32 a.m. I watched as a fully-loaded 18 wheeler in the northbound lane went into a lock-up to prevent a crash with a stopped car. The truck lost control and twisted across the center meridian until it fully occupied both his lane and mine, still coming very fast and leaving me without a lot of options.

I hit him doing slightly over 60 mph. I’d already gone off-road on the right shoulder, but it wasn’t enough to avoid a collision. The impact triggered four of my Audi’s airbags, including three I didn’t even know I had.  Seriously — there were airbags everywhere.

I took the hit on the driver side. It drove the chassis down into my left rear tire, immobilizing it and sending me into a 60-mph uncontrolled spin — past the truck and back onto the road, then deep into the shoulder on the right. Fortunately the road and the shoulder were both clear. I leveled about 120 feet of grass in a dead line.

I got out of the car without a scratch, for which I thank God, and German engineering.

I can’t say the same about my loyal car, which took a critical hit.  It took ten minutes with a chain and a tow truck just to get it back on the road, and I can’t say for sure if it will ever move under its own power again.

But today, I have absolutely no complaints. I’m just glad to be alive.  Alice and our three kids showed up in her van three hours later, and drove me home to St. Charles, where we went out to dinner and celebrated. I consider myself a very lucky man.

But tomorrow, I will miss my car.

Just Two Months Left to Enter the Challenge! Stealth Writing Competition

Just Two Months Left to Enter the Challenge! Stealth Writing Competition

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challengeThe 2011 Challenge! Stealth Writing Competition from Rogue Blades Entertainment is officially one month old — which means there’s only 60 days left to enter.

The Challenge! writing competitions ask writers to submit an original work of short fiction using a piece of art and a one-word theme for inspiration. This year’s art, by Storn Cool, is at right; this year’s theme — appropriately enough — is Stealth.

Here’s the official call to action from Rogue Blades:

Using the awesome cover art provided by Storn Cook and this year’s title Stealth, capture your muse over the next 15 days and embark upon grand adventure! … Get your heroic adventure in any genre to RBE between June 15th and September 15th, 2011, and see if you have what it takes to deliver a winning tale! Speculative fiction is NOT required for Challenge! themes, so readers could find Historical Swashbucklers, Sword & Sorcery/Planet, Soul & Sandal, Western, Mystery, Dark Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Horror and even Romance — ALL the flavors of HEROIC FICTION so long as they are mighty and mysterious tales of action and adventure.

The top twelves stories, as determined by the judges, will be awarded a print copy of the anthology, and the top three will also be awarded a cash prize,  and written critiques from the judges.  Judges this year are artist Storn Cook, author and writing instructor Mary Rosenblum (Horizons & Water Rites), and Black Gate editor John O’Neill (Me. And I’m ready to be entertained, so sharpen those pencils kids).

Last’s year’s contest, the Challenge! Discovery 2010, had ten winners, including Henrik Ramsager, Nicholas Ozment, Frederic S. Durbin, Gabe Dybing, and Keith J. Taylor. The winning entries from the 2010 contest will be collected in the Challenge! Discovery anthology, to be published by Rogue Blades Entertainment.

The contest entry fee is only $10, and a minimum number of participants is required. The official Challenge! submission guidelines are here, and the complete details of the Challenge! Stealth contest are here. Stories must be between 3,000 and 9,000 words.

What more do you need to know?  Start writing!! I expect to see great things from you on September 15.

C.S.E. Cooney’s The Sea King’s Second Bride wins the Rhysling Award

C.S.E. Cooney’s The Sea King’s Second Bride wins the Rhysling Award

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C.S.E. Cooney
C.S.E. Cooney

Woo-hoo!  Break out the bubbly!

Black Gate Website Editor C.S.E. Cooney has won the Rhysling Award, Long-Form category, for her poem “The Sea King’s Second Bride.” The Rhysling Awards are given each year by the Science Fiction Poetry Association to the best science fiction, fantasy, or horror poem of the year.

The Rhyslings are named for the blind poet Rhysling in Robert A. Heinlein’s “The Green Hills of Earth.” The categories are “Best Long Poem” (50 or more lines), and “Best Short Poem” (49 or fewer lines).

About her winning poem, Claire tells us:

It’s all due Nicole Kornher-Stace. And Amal El-Mohtar. And Jessica Wick. Who conspired to buy me that print of John Bauer’s Agneta and the Sea King. Which made me FINALLY buy that book of Swedish Folk Tales.

“The Sea King’s Second Bride” was originally published in Goblin Fruit, edited by Amal El-Mohtar and Jessica P. Wick . You can read the complete poem here.

The winners are announced at Readercon, held this year from 14-17 July at the Burlingon Marriott, outside of Boston, Massachusetts. The nominated works are traditionally compiled into an anthology called The Rhysling Anthology. This year, there were 37 nominees in the long poem category, and 56 in the short poem category. The complete list of nominees is here.

Congratulations to C.S.E!  In honor of her win, Black Gate would like to buy all our readers a bottle of bubbly1. Raise a toast with us in honor of our favorite poet — and now the world’s favorite, too.

1. Must be of legal drinking age. Must realize we’re joking. Offer not valid outside the continental U.S.A. Or anywhere that sells bubbly.

UFO TV Presents: Pulp Fiction – The Golden Age of Sci Fi, Fantasy

UFO TV Presents: Pulp Fiction – The Golden Age of Sci Fi, Fantasy

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So I recently stumbled upon this terrific, hour-long documentary on the Golden Age of Science Fiction and Fantasy pulps, produced by UFO TV.

I admit I’ve never heard of UFO TV before (um, is it a cable station I don’t know about?), but this is a fun offering. Some of the folks interviewed include Ray Bradbury and Kevin J. Anderson (with a large variety of L. Ron Hubbard paperbacks prominently displayed over his shoulder, from every angle), and the mix of old movies clips and spot animation is top-notch.

Plus they pack in what must be a record number of SF pulp covers for a documentary. Seriously.

YouTube offers the entire video for free, although it’s interrupted occasionally by (skipable) commercials.  It’s just like TV used to be!

Solaris Rising, Women Falling?

Solaris Rising, Women Falling?

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solaris_rising2I was consistently impressed with The Solaris Book Of New Science Fiction, edited by George Mann, which published three annual volumes between 2007 and 2009. Solaris Books is relaunching the series as Solaris Rising (shipping in October) under new editor Ian Whates, and I’ve been looking forward to it.

A while back Kev McVeigh at Performative Utterance noted the following rather dismaying statistic:

The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction by Boys volume one has Mary A Turzillo as token feminine contributor. One woman from eighteen listed authors. Volume Two is obviously the feminist volume with a remarkable three women out of fourteen involved…. It’s back to normal for Volume Three as fifteen stories allow room for just one woman…

It might be tempting to just blame editor George Mann for this. Perhaps it really is just his personal taste. After all Ian Whates is now on board, and he published an excellent all female anthology for Newcon Press, Myth-Undertakings. His Solaris Rising might reflect that? No, nineteen stories, 21 contributing authors, just three women.

What I’ve chiefly been dismayed about is the  reaction from some of the SF old guard, which quickly attacked Kev and his arguments in various newsgroups. This was an irrelevant stat (they said), and the percentage of women contributors had no bearing at all on quality. After all, if If Solaris was against women writers, why were they bothering to include any at all?

To put it bluntly, old guard, you’re missing the point. Wake up.

About five years ago I experienced exactly the same criticism as Ian and George. Someone (I honestly forget who) did the math on the first six issues of Black Gate and figured out that I’d published only 15 stories by women, out of a total of 51 – roughly 29%. Right about this time Rich Horton started reporting on the percentage of fiction by women in his yearly short fiction summations. At first I had exactly the same reaction as the old guard – this is a load of crap. I pick the very best stories sent to me; case closed. I deeply resented any implication otherwise, and considered the entire argument a waste of time.

I was, in short, a complete idiot.

…

Read More Read More

SF Site reviews Black Gate 15

SF Site reviews Black Gate 15

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bg-15-cover2Sherwood Smith continues her uninterrupted run of Black Gate reviews with a lengthy look at our latest issue at SF Site:

The previous issue, at nearly 400 pages, was so successful that the decision was made to stay at that length. For the amount, the price is quite reasonable, and the online subscription is half that. There are plans for issues compatible with Kindle and other e-readers. Judging by Black Gate‘s consistent quality, moving away from the pressure of seasonal publication has been a good one… here we’ve got a broad range of fantasy adventure fiction, from horror to comedy, at a variety of lengths. This spectrum, along with the regular columns, is another of Black Gate‘s strengths.

Sherwood seemed particularly taken with “A River Through Darkness and Light” by John C Hocking:

Lucella, a tough warrior woman, and the first-person narrator Archivist, have history together, as they travel in search of a hidden stash of ancient scrolls, accompanied by a scholar and an old soldier. Unfortunately, they are chased by bandits bent on vengeance… and then there’s the demon…

I think of Hocking’s stories as characteristic of Black Gate: a strong blend of the old sword and sorcery action and mood, but with modern attention to character development, especially of the women. Lucella, like Asdis in Hocking’s Norse tales, can hold her own in a world of heroes and demons. Dark and vivid, shot through with moments of humor, this story is a promising opening to the issue.

As well as “Into the Gathering Dark” by Darrell Schweitzer:

At first, when I saw that this was another tale of True Thomas, I settled in for a familiar ride. The story of Thomas has seen many versions, especially in the last thirty years. But Schweitzer does not inject this last tale of True Thomas with modern sensibilities. Exquisitely poignant, it is one of the best stories in the issue, beautifully rendering all that was best in the tales of Elfland, “neither of Heaven or of Hell,” of a century ago.

And “Dellith’s Child” by Nye Joell Hardy:

In this world, ship-owning families never set foot on land, and the female captains inherit the ability to see ley-lines, crucial on the vast oceans. The first person narrator, Grady, is visiting his sister Dellith on her ship. At first he’s delighted to learn that she has a son… until he sees the sea monster she calls by her son’s name. Then the whole world goes askew. Grady is a sympathetic hero in a fascinating world, the tension never flags, and the ending is unpredictable. This was one of my favorites.

The complete review is here. Sherwood’s previous review, of Black Gate 14, is here.