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

Announcing the 2018 Hugo Award Finalists

Announcing the 2018 Hugo Award Finalists

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Featured_HugoAward Spiffy

Holy neutron stars, it’s the end of March, and you know what that means…. it’s time to announce the finalists for the 2018 Hugo Awards! Doubtless most of you paid close attention to Rich Horton’s suggestions for the best science fiction and fantasy of last year, did a lot of heavy reading over the last four weeks, and thoughtfully cast your nominating ballots. Or maybe not.

But either way, it’s time to see who all your fellow voters nominated. Ready? Here we go.

Best Novel

The Collapsing Empire, by John Scalzi (Tor)
New York 2140, by Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit)
Provenance, by Ann Leckie (Orbit)
Raven Stratagem, by Yoon Ha Lee (Solaris)
Six Wakes, by Mur Lafferty (Orbit)
The Stone Sky, by N.K. Jemisin (Orbit)

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Vintage Treasures: Annals of Klepsis by R.A. Lafferty

Vintage Treasures: Annals of Klepsis by R.A. Lafferty

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I haven’t used Goodreads much, but I’m beginning to see that’s a mistake. It truly is a marvelous resource for those looking for a wide range of opinions about books — especially those that have been out of print for decades. For example, here’s a small sample of reviews for R. A. Lafferty’s gonzo space-pirate novel Annals of Klepsis, published as an Ace paperback original in 1983. First up is Andrew:

A surrealistic apocalypse from a master of surreal apocalyptic fantasy. Lafferty’s novels function with the logic of a Bugs Bunny cartoon written by Kafka.

Astonishing how on-point that is a 2-sentence review. Here’s a snippet from a much more in-depth review by Printable Tire.

The book’s setting is sort of a blend of science fiction, in that it takes place on another planet, with “zap guns” (not called that) and everything, and fantasy, in the way Alice in Wonderland is fantasy. The very loose sprawling story takes place on Klepsis, a pirate planet, who for the last 200 hundred years has been in a state of pre-history, a state of legend. One of the thousands of things Lafferty postulates is that all pre-history and pre-legend does not take place in linear time, but because it is pre-history it all takes place at the same time; thus Hercules was a contemporary of Achilles, and thus the proportion of ghosts in this book.

And finally, here’s a sample from my favorite Goodreads review, from Raymond St.

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The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in February

The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in February

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January sure was popular with readers. The most popular article at Black Gate last month was… our summary of the most popular articles at Black Gate the previous month. If that patterns hold, this will be the most popular article on the blog in March. To guarantee that, I’ve put a big picture of Godzilla at the top. You’re welcome.

Getting back to more regular fare, the second most popular post on the blog last month was Elizabeth Crowens’ epic interview with Buffy the Vampire Slayer author author Nancy Holder. Third on the list was a Vintage Treasures feature on Robert E. Howard’s Solomon Kane 1: Skulls in the Stars (which just proves Bob Byrne’s thesis that REH is a sure ticket into the Top Ten). Rounding out the Top Five were our look at a much more recent book, the new Looming Low anthology from Justin Steele and Sam Cowan, and my salute to a vanished book imprint, A Farewell to Roc Books.

As always, games were well represented in the Top Ten. Andrew Zimmerman Jones scored the #6 slot with his feature review of the new RPG Tales from the Loop, and M Harold Page entertained us with his report on I Love the Corps, which was good enough for #7. No Top Ten list would be complete without Ryan Harvey, and he made his appearance at #8 with the latest installment of The Complete Carpenter, this time featuring Big Trouble in Little China (1986). Wrapping things up was our look at Unbound Worlds on A Century of Sword and Planet, and the debut effort of new BG blogger David Neil Lee, with his review of Kong – Skull Island.

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Future Treasures: The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume Three edited by Neil Clarke

Future Treasures: The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume Three edited by Neil Clarke

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The Best Science Fiction of the Year 3 Neil Clarke-smallNeil Clarke has only had produced two volumes of his Best Science Fiction of the Year, but it’s already become one of my favorite Year’s Best anthologies — and considering the competition (Dozois, Strahan, Horton, Guran, Kelly, Adams, and Afsharirad, among others), that’s really saying something.

For 2018, in addition to being one of the best, he’s also the first. His Year’s Best anthology will be the first to go on sale, in just two weeks. Here’s the description. (And yes, they’re talking about Rich Horton in that first line. Isn’t it obvious?)

To keep up-to-date with the most buzzworthy and cutting-edge science fiction requires sifting through countless magazines, e-zines, websites, blogs, original anthologies, single-author collections, and more ― a task accomplishable by only the most determined and voracious readers. For everyone else, Night Shade Books is proud to introduce the latest volume of The Best Science Fiction of the Year, a new yearly anthology compiled by Hugo and World Fantasy award–winning editor Neil Clarke, collecting the finest that the genre has to offer, from the biggest names in the field to the most exciting new writers.

The best science fiction scrutinizes our culture and politics, examines the limits of the human condition, and zooms across galaxies at faster-than-light speeds, moving from the very near future to the far-flung worlds of tomorrow in the space of a single sentence. Clarke, publisher and editor in chief of the acclaimed and award-winning magazine Clarkesworld, has selected the short science fiction (and only science fiction) best representing the previous year’s writing, showcasing the talent, variety, and awesome “sensawunda” that the genre has to offer.

Neil’s volume includes stories by Alastair Reynolds, Nancy Kress, Sarah Pinsker, Linda Nagata, Greg Egan, Kelly Robson, Kathleen Ann Goonan, Yoon Ha Lee, Aliette de Bodard, Robert Reed, Rich Larson, Peter Watts, Suzanne Palmer, and many others.

Here’s the complete table of contents.

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Nazis and Superheroes Warring in the Shadows: An Interview with Kay Kenyon

Nazis and Superheroes Warring in the Shadows: An Interview with Kay Kenyon

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The Dark Talents novels by Kay Kenyon

I was lucky enough to hear Kay Kenyon read from her novel At the Table of Wolves in 2016, and I was immediately captivated. Her tale of a young English woman with superhuman abilities in the late 1930s who is drawn into the world of intelligence services warring in the shadows — and who stumbles on a chilling Nazi plan to invade England, utilizing their own superhuman agents — was one of my favorite novels last year. I jumped at the chance to interview Kay for Black Gate last week; the transcript of our conversation is below.

The next book in the series, Serpent in the Heather, arrives in hardcover on April 10th, and Saga Press is offering a Goodreads Giveaway which runs until March 27. Check it out here!

Kay, thanks so much for joining us! I first became acquainted with your work through your marvelous standalone SF novels from Bantam Spectra beginning in the late 90s, like The Seeds of Time, Rift, and Maximum Ice, which was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award. More recently you’ve embraced series fiction, starting with The Entire and The Rose from Pyr, and now the Dark Talents books from Saga. Why the switch?

Do you want the deep artistic reason or the crass marketing one? I mean, I’m tempted to go all artistic on you with the vision thing and growth as a writer, but I know you too well to lie that brazenly.

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Vintage Treasures: A Midsummer Tempest by Poul Anderson

Vintage Treasures: A Midsummer Tempest by Poul Anderson

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A Midsummer Tempest Poul Anderson-small A Midsummer Tempest Poul Anderson-back-small

Cover by Luis Bermejo

Poul Anderson formed a pretty consistent part of my paperback SF diet in the late 70s and early 80s. Novels like Mirkheim (1977) and classic tales like the Hugo Award-winning “No Truce with Kings” (1963) made me an early fan. But I always thought of Anderson as an SF writer, and as a result I never paid much attention to his fantasy. It wasn’t until my fellow writers here at Black Gate educated me that I learned what I was missing:

Ryan Harvey on The Broken Sword
Fletcher Vredenburgh on The Whole Northern Thing: Hrolf Kraki’s Saga by Poul Anderson
Gabe Dybing on Poul Anderson and the Northern Mythic Tradition: An Introduction
Gabe Dybing on Chaotic and Lawful Alignments in Poul Anderson’s Three Hearts and Three Lions
Gabe Dybing on Northern Matter in Poul Anderson’s “Middle Ages” of The Broken Sword and in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-Earth
Gabe Dybing on Sex and Violence in Poul Anderson’s Rogue Sword

I’ve recently started exploring more of Anderson’s fantasy back catalog, and last month I purchased a copy of A Midsummer Tempest, an alternate world fantasy in which William Shakespeare was an historian, rather than playwright, and the events he recorded were all factual. While the plot draws from multiple Shakespearean plays, as the name implies it is chiefly based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest. It was nominated for both the World Fantasy Award and a Nebula, and won the 1975 Mythopoeic Award for Best Novel.

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Unbound Worlds on Where to Start with Gothic Space Opera

Unbound Worlds on Where to Start with Gothic Space Opera

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Hyperion Dan SImmons-small Blind Sight Peter Watts-small The Burning Dark Adam Christopher-small

I didn’t even know one of my favorite SF sub-genres had a name. But it does, and over at Unbound Worlds Matt Staggs tells us what it is.

In a gothic space opera, pseudo-medievalism, superstition, insanity, and decay are juxtaposed with space travel: a perfect embodiment of progress, science, and rationality. The starship becomes a stand-in for the haunted mansion, and the universe at large the misty moors that surround it.

Cults, all-powerful religions, and demonic forces are commonly found in the genre, and the wear and tear of space travel — time dilation, and the assumption of death-like states of suspended animation for examples — on human relationships are often emphasized. Human life far from civilization becomes stranger, perhaps even hostile. In gothic space opera, human beings become the aliens they fear.

Gothic space opera! It’s like Dracula married Star Wars and they had a little goth space baby. Matt says gothic space opera is “Movies like Event Horizon and Sunshine, the popular wargame franchise Warhammer 40,000, and the video game Dead Space.” I like all those things, so I’m on board (I also like Alien, the ultimate haunted-space-ship movie, but maybe that’s a separate sub-sub-genre or something. I don’t question the experts.)

It was probably Warhammer 40,000, with its exciting tales of the Dark Ages of a vast galaxy-wide empire paralyzed by superstition and constant warfare, that really cemented my love of this brand new sub-genre. Matt suggests some excellent starting points for curious fans; and this is where I really paid attention. Here’s a few of the highlights.

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Literary Wonder & Adventure Podcast: Clark Ashton Smith, Poet of The Fantastic

Literary Wonder & Adventure Podcast: Clark Ashton Smith, Poet of The Fantastic

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Clark Ashton Smith Poet of the Fantastic

I’ve started listening to podcasts during my morning commute on the train and, let me tell you, I am an instant fan. I can’t explain what took me so long to discover them, but I am a convert. I’ve really been enjoying Jonathan Strahan & Gary K. Wolfe’s Coode Street Podcast, and am just getting into Welcome to Night Vale. But the best podcast I listened to this month was Episode 9 of the Literary Wonder & Adventure Show from our old friends Robert Zoltan and Dream Tower Media. This month’s topic is Clark Ashton Smith, Poet of The Fantastic, and the special guest is our very own Saturday blogger Ryan Harvey.

Ryan practically introduced me to CAS with his epic four-part examination of The Fantasy Cycles of Clark Ashton Smith, starting with The Averoigne Chronicles. He brings both a deep knowledge and genuine passion to the topic, and his enthusiasm is infectious. Here’s a clip from around the 7-minute mark.

The first of [Smith’s] weird short stories that he sold to a magazine was 1926, a story called “The Abominations of Yondo,” which he sold to a local magazine called The Overland Monthly. And H.P. Lovecraft, who was his pen pal at the time, and for the rest of Lovecraft’s life, encouraged Smith to sell his stories to Weird Tales. And he got into Weird Tales, and for a period of about five years he, H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, were also all pen pals, and were the major focus of the magazine. And Smith sold a lot of stories at this time, and then in 1934-35, right about the same time both Lovecraft and Howard stopped writing – although for very different reasons – Smith just no longer needed to support his parents (his mother died in ‘35 and his father died in ‘37) and he just lost interest in writing prose.

Ryan is a terrific resource for anyone who wants to understand the mystery and appeal of the great pulp fantasists of the early 20th Century, and host Robert Zoltan has edited their conversation into a fascinating 1-hour package. Check the whole thing out here, and see our coverage of previous episodes of the Literary Wonder & Adventure Show here

Vintage Treasures: Maske: Thaery by Jack Vance

Vintage Treasures: Maske: Thaery by Jack Vance

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Here’s a Jack Vance novel I haven’t read: Maske: Thaery, a science fiction adventure first published in hardcover in 1976. The Wikipedia entry does a fine job of summarizing how the book fits into Vance’s catalog, I thought.

Maske: Thaery is a science fiction novel by American writer Jack Vance, set in his Gaean Reach milieu… Maske: Thaery marks the beginning of the period when Vance’s novels were published exclusively straight to paperback, whereas prior to this the majority had first appeared in science fiction magazines, the last such examples being Durdane trilogy, serialised in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction from 1971 to 1973, The Gray Prince, serialised in Amazing Science Fiction in 1974, and Marune: Alastor 933, also serialised in Amazing Science Fiction in 1974. The twofold title of Maske: Thaery, with its separating colon, would suggest that it was originally intended to be part of a serial, similar to the Alastor novels (Trullion: Alastor 2262, Marune: Alastor 933, and Wyst: Alastor 1716), although no further volumes were written… Maske: Thaery continues Vance’s interest in richly textured, strongly xenological settings, in which an outsider protagonist comes into conflict with a bewilderingly complex social hierarchy, other examples being Emphyrio (1969) and the Durdane trilogy.

Maske: Thaery placed 12th on the annual Locus Award list for Best SF Novel in 1976. After Jack Vance’s death in 2013, I read the following tribute/review at Speculation…, which called the book “one of his best.”

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The 1001 Treasures of Black Blade Publishing and Goodman Games: Gary Con 2018 Report, Part II

The 1001 Treasures of Black Blade Publishing and Goodman Games: Gary Con 2018 Report, Part II

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Tales from the Magicians's Skull in the Goodman Games booth at Gary Con 2018-small

New releases at the Goodman Games table, including the magnificent Tales From the Magician’s Skull

In Part I of my Gary Con 2018 report, posted here yesterday, I talked about one of the great pleasures of walking the Exhibit Hall: meeting the creative masterminds behind the most dynamic companies in old-school RPGs, like Goodman Games, North Wind Adventures, Troll Lord Games, Black Blade Publishing, Frog God, Kobold Games, and many others. Today I want to talk about the other great pleasure of a truly rich Exhibit Hall. Namely, all those marvelous gaming treasures.

I do a pretty good job staying on top of the newest releases in the adventure gaming industry. More than that, I have a staff of top-notch game writers — like Andrew Zimmerman Jones, Bob Byrne, M. Harold Page, Howard Jones, Fletcher Vredenburgh, and Gabe Dybing, just to name a few — who constantly keep me informed. And yet virtually every step through the Exhibit Hall was filled with surprises. Anyone who’s ever visited the Exhibit Hall of a major gaming con or science fiction convention knows what I’m talking about. That sense of having stepped into a virtual Cave of Wonders, packed with a dozen lifetimes worth of magical discoveries.

You can’t recreate something that overwhelming with a simple blog post. But what the hell. I’m going to give it a shot anyway. To do that, I’m going to focus on the experience of walking around a single booth at Gary Con. In this case, the largest and most well-stocked one at the show, the joint Black Blade/Goodman Games tables at the entrance to the Hall. The sixteen photos below attempt to capture a few of my delightful discoveries — as well as give you a taste of the countless tantalizing items I had to hurry past in my efforts to be a gaming journalist. Prepare yourself.

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