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

The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in September

The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in September

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dunsanyThe top article on the Black Gate blog last month was Foz Meadows’s debut piece for us, “Challenging the Classics: Questioning the Arbitrary Browsing Mechanism,” an unflinching examination of the value of the classic fantasy canon to the modern reader.

The classics were a popular subject last month: second on the list was M. Harold Page’s article “(Not) Recommending SF&F Classics to the Young Person or Novice.”

Third was Connor Gormley’s salute to the prose of Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, and Michael Moorcock, “Who Took the Flowers out of My Prose?” Still sticking with the classic theme, I see. You folks are nothing if not consistent.

Fletcher Vredenburgh’s look at Karl Edward Wagner’s Night Winds was in 4th place, and Jon Sprunk finally broke us out of our September fascination with fantasy classics with his post “War – What is it Good For? Violence in Fantasy Literature.”

The complete Top 50 Black Gate posts in September were:

  1. Challenging the Classics: Questioning the Arbitrary Browsing Mechanism
  2. (Not) Recommending SFF Classics to the Young Person or Novice
  3. Who Took the Flowers out of my Prose?
  4. Night Winds by Karl Edward Wagner
  5. War — What is it Good For? Violence in Fantasy Literature
  6. Why I Write Fantasy
  7. “It’s Your Job to Make it Interesting. Just Do Your Job“
  8. Vintage Treasures: The List of 7 by Mark Frost
  9. The Other Appendix N
  10. Andre Norton, Michael Moorcock and Appendix N: Advanced Readings in D&D

     

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The Top 20 Black Gate Fiction Posts in September

The Top 20 Black Gate Fiction Posts in September

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Pathfinder Tales King of Chaos-smallDave Gross shot to the top of our fiction charts last month, with an exclusive excerpt from his new Pathfinder Tales novel King of Chaos. The halo affect also lifted his previous book in the series, Queen of Thorns, into an impressive 4th place.

There were a few other new faces on the list. BG regular Peadar Ó Guilín debuts in 6th place with his fourth story for us, “The Dowry,” the tale of an artist caught with a wizard’s daughter who soon finds himself in the body of a dog, and Michael Shea makes the list for the first time with his novella of Lovecraftian horror “Tsathoggua.” John C. Hocking leaps into the list despite the fact that his “Vestments of Pestilence” appeared with only two days left in the month, with a story that author James Reasoner called “An absolute joy to read… If you’re a fan of action-packed heroic fantasy, I guarantee you’ll be entertained.”

Ryan Harvey returns with his new Ahn-Tarqa tale “Stand at Dubun-Geb,” which Tangent Online called “A fun story that reminded me of Conan.” It joins the first Ahn-Tarqa tale in the Top 20, “The Sorrowless Thief,” published in April.

Also making the list were exciting stories by Joe Bonadonna, Howard Andrew Jones, E.E. Knight, Mike Allen, Vaughn Heppner, Aaron Bradford Starr, Jamie McEwan, Martha Wells, John R. Fultz, Gregory Bierly, and David C. Smith and Joe Bonadonna.

If you haven’t sampled the adventure fantasy stories offered through our new Black Gate Online Fiction line, you’re missing out. Every week we present an original short story or novella from the best writers in the industry, all completely free. Here are the Top Twenty most-read stories in September:

  1. An excerpt from Pathfinder Tales: King of Chaos, by Dave Gross
  2. “The Moonstones of Sor Lunarum,” by Joe Bonadonna
  3. An excerpt from The Bones of the Old Ones, by Howard Andrew Jones
  4. An excerpt from Pathfinder Tales: Queen of Thorns, by Dave Gross
  5. “The Terror in the Vale,” by E.E. Knight
  6. “The Dowry,” by Peadar Ó Guilín
  7. “Stand at Dubun-Geb,” by Ryan Harvey
  8. An excerpt from The Black Fire Concerto, by Mike Allen
  9. “Tsathoggua,” by Michael Shea
  10. “The Pit Slave,” by Vaughn Heppner

     

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Nebula Award-winning Author Eugie Foster Diagnosed with Cancer

Nebula Award-winning Author Eugie Foster Diagnosed with Cancer

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Eugie FosterThe tireless Eugie Foster, author and genre powerhouse, announced this week on her blog that she has been diagnosed with cancer.

Eugie first came to my attention while she was running Tangent Online, after Dave Truesdale stepped down. She reorganized the field’s premiere short-fiction review site, recruited a great team of reviewers, and returned it to a regular schedule — and industry prominence. At the same time, her own writing appeared in Interzone, Apex, Fantasy Magazine, Realms of Fantasy, and other places; her Interzone story “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast” won the 2009 Nebula Award and was nominated for the Hugo. Her first collection, Returning My Sister’s Face and Other Far Eastern Tales of Whimsy and Malice, was published the same year.

Jason Waltz introduced me to Eugie at Dragon*Con in 2010, at her busy press station deep in the con’s hive center, where she produced the onsite newsletter, the Daily Dragon. Eugie was even more impressive in person — charming and highly articulate, filled with drive and energy.

Eugie made the following announcement on Tuesday:

I’ve been struggling with blinding headaches for the last several months – since June – that has recently also become persistent sinus congestion and significant loss of hearing in my right ear. I thought originally it was a bad dental crown, since the timing coincided, or possibly TMJ, since the symptoms seemed to point in that direction.

After seeing a dentist, general practitioner, ENT, and oral surgeon; and being prescribed three (now four) courses of antibiotics, steroids, and a variety of narcotics to help alleviate my pain, they took CT scans yesterday.

As it turns out, the culprit is a malignant, fast-growing tumor, around 6cm, in my sinuses and hard and soft palate regions. In short, it’s cancer. They don’t know what kind yet so can’t make a prognosis. The ENT who ordered the CT scan said that surgery – ASAP, immediate, urgent – to remove the tumor is my only treatment alternative at this point. Whether I require chemo afterwards depends on the type of cancer it ends up being.

She is only 41 years old. Read the complete details, and the latest updates, on her blog.

The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in August

The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in August

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Lonesome Wyatt-smallThe top article on the Black Gate blog last month was Patty Templeton’s interview with enigmatic author/musician Lonesome Wyatt, guitarist and vocalist for the gothic country music band Those Poor Bastards, and author of the pulp horror novel The Terrible Tale of Edgar Switchblade.

Second on the list was our look at the first volume in the Classics of Science Fiction line, The Best of Stanley G. Weinbaum, followed by Bryan Thomas Schmidt’s massive roundtable interview with the editors of four Year’s Best volumes: Ellen Datlow, Paula Guran, Rich Horton and Gardner Dozois.

Roundtable interviews seem to be popular this month. Next on the list was Garrett Calcaterra’s hard look at the life of a fantasy midlister, a conversation with authors M. Todd Gallowglas, Patrick Hester, Wendy N. Wagner, and David B. Coe. Rounding out the Top Five for the month was Nick Ozment’s look at the eldritch work of H.P. Lovecraft.

The complete Top 50 Black Gate posts in August were:

  1. An Interview with Lonesome Wyatt of Those Poor Bastards
  2. Vintage Treasures: The Best of Stanley G. Weinbaum
  3. Finding the Best: An Interview with Year’s Best Editors Ellen Datlow, Paula Guran, Rich Horton and Gardner Dozois
  4. Gallowglass, Hester, Wagner, Coe: Four Authors Sound Off on the Writing Life of a Midlister
  5. So You’re a Horror fan and You’ve Never Read…
  6. L. Sprague de Camp, Fletcher Pratt, Gardner Fox and Appendix N: Advanced Readings in D&D
  7. Weird of Oz Conjures up Some Other Horrors
  8. When Ideas Collide
  9. More Than Whodunit: The Science Fiction Mystery
  10. The Exploding World of Castles and Crusades

     

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The Top 20 Black Gate Fiction Posts in August

The Top 20 Black Gate Fiction Posts in August

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The Black Fire Concerto-smallThere’s a few new faces on the Top Fiction list this month.

Mark Rigney’s “The Keystone,” third and final chapter of his epic fantasy series The Tales of Gemen, broke into the Top Five. Tangent Online called it “Masterfully told… The tension never stops, starting with nightmares, followed by chases across half the world… Once I started reading, I couldn’t stop.” Both of the previous chapters made the list as well, including the opener “The Trade,” which Tangent Online called “Marvelous!” and “The Find,” which it described as “Reminiscent of the old sword & sorcery classics… A must read.”

Also making the Top Five for the first time was our excerpt from Mike Allen’s new dark fantasy The Black Fire Concerto, which Tanith Lee called “A prize for the multitude of fans who relish strong Grand Guignol with their sword and sorcery.” And Vaughn Heppner had two of his Tales of Lod in the Top 10:  “The Serpent of Thep” and “The Pit Slave.”

Also making the list were exciting stories by Howard Andrew Jones, Joe Bonadonna, E.E. Knight, Paul Abbamondi, Martha Wells, Aaron Bradford Starr,  David C. Smith and Joe Bonadonna, Ryan Harvey, Judith Berman, Robert Rhodes, Emily Mah, John R. Fultz, and Jamie McEwan.

If you haven’t sampled the adventure fantasy stories offered through our new Black Gate Online Fiction line, you’re missing out. Every week, we present an original short story or novella from the best writers in the industry, all completely free. Here are the Top Twenty most-read stories in August:

  1. An excerpt from The Bones of the Old Ones, by Howard Andrew Jones
  2. “The Moonstones of Sor Lunarum,” by Joe Bonadonna
  3. “The Terror in the Vale,” by E.E. Knight
  4. “The Keystone,” Part III of The Tales of Gemen, by Mark Rigney
  5. An excerpt from The Black Fire Concerto, by Mike Allen
  6. “The Serpent of Thep,” by Vaughn Heppner
  7. “So Go the Seasons,” by Paul Abbamondi
  8. “The Pit Slave,” by Vaughn Heppner
  9. The Death of the Necromancer, a complete novel by Martha Wells
  10. “The Find,” Part II of The Tales of Gemen, by Mark Rigney

     

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Get The Temple of Elemental Evil for Free at DriveThruRPG

Get The Temple of Elemental Evil for Free at DriveThruRPG

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The Temple of Elemental EvilThis week, through Saturday 9/28, the classic The Temple of Elemental Evil supermodule is free at DriveThruRPG.

The Temple of Elemental Evil may be Gary Gygax’s crowning achievement as a dungeon designer. It was the last major adventure he designed for TSR and — at 128 pages — was by far the largest and most ambitious. It was written by Gygax and Frank Metzner, and originally published in 1985. It has been out of print for over a quarter century, and is one of the most collectible of all TSR adventure modules.

Interest in The Temple of Elemental Evil remains very high, even after all these years. Matthew David Surridge wrote a fascinating analysis for us in his article The Art of Storytelling and The Temple of Elemental Evil. The module has been converted to a popular computer game and the opening chapter, The Village of Hommlet, was recently revised for 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons.

In fact, the major impediment to playing the Temple today is that it’s very difficult to find. Used copies start at $40 – $50 at Amazon and eBay.

DriveThruRPG, through their DnDClassics.com site, has eliminated that problem. They’re selling a high-quality PDF of the original module for $9.99 — complete with all the original art and maps. And if you download it before the end of the day Saturday, it’s completely free. Get it here.

DnDClassics also has a huge assortment of early TSR adventures and rulebooks — including Castle Greyhawk, Deities & Demigods, Descent into the Depths of the Earth, and numerous Planescape, Ravenloft, and Forgotten Realms titles — in PDF, at excellent prices. Check out their store for more details.

Vintage Treasures: Hell’s Cartographers, edited by Brian W. Aldiss and Harry Harrison

Vintage Treasures: Hell’s Cartographers, edited by Brian W. Aldiss and Harry Harrison

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Hell's Cartographers-smallI’ve been enjoying writing my ongoing series on the Ballantine Best of… books. It’s nice to be able to celebrate all those classic SF and fantasy writers, sure, but it’s also an excuse to talk about how I discovered each of them and what their books meant to me personally.

I don’t think I’m unique in this. SFF readers love to talk about the favorite authors of their youth. Look at the comment threads for any of my Ballantine articles — it’s just a bunch of us old fans yakking about the good old days (and yelling at those kids with their Kindles to get off our lawn).

In truth, this is a long-established tradition. Respected, even. Lots of SF authors did it. Asimov and Damon Knight did it, in Before the Golden Age and Science Fiction of the 30s. So did Brian Aldiss, in Billion Year Spree, and Sam Moskowitz, in Seekers of Tomorrow, Under the Moons of Mars, and just about every book he ever wrote. Perhaps most famously, Kingsley Amis did it in New Maps Of Hell, his celebrated survey of science fiction from 1960.

But probably my favorite example is Hell’s Cartographers, a marvelous collection of “personal histories” from six top science fiction writers: Alfred Bester, Damon Knight, Frederik Pohl, Robert Silverberg, Harry Harrison, and Brian Aldiss. This book is packed with countless anecdotes, fascinating references to SF magazines and ground-breaking stories, and tales of awkward adolescences. And for those of us interested in the history of the field, there is treasure on every page.

There are numerous quotes I could tease you with, but I’ll limit myself to this one, from Damon Knight’s entry, “Knight Piece,” which effectively communicates just how hapless these accomplished young men were around women.

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Vintage Treasures: The List of 7 by Mark Frost

Vintage Treasures: The List of 7 by Mark Frost

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The List of Seven Inside Spread-small

I love buying paperback collections. Like this one, which I  found online last week. Just look at at all those gorgeous vintage paperbacks. Seriously, click on that link and look at them. I’ll wait.

Twenty-eight volumes in terrific shape, for less than twenty bucks. Including four early volumes from Neal Barrett, Jr; three vintage Lovecraft collections (one of them The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath); both Ballantine volumes of William Hope Hodgson’s The Night Land; one of Lin Carter’s better fantasy collections, Imaginary Worlds; A. Merritt’s The Moon Pool; a smattering of Ursula K. LeGuin, plus C.S. Lewis, Clark Ashton Smith, Ray Bradbury, Edgar Rice Burroughs, John Bellairs, and half a dozen more. There’s even a beautiful copy of Sherlock Holmes Through Time and Space, which I’ve lusted after ever since Violette Malan teased me with the cover in her article on science fiction mysteries last month.

Man, I could just lay these babies down on the floor and roll around in ’em. Except that would probably dog ear the covers.

They finally arrived today, carefully packed in tightly wrapped plastic, and I gently unwrapped them and settled in to examine my new treasures. Many clamored for attention, but the one that practically jumped into my hands was The List of 7, by Mark Frost. That’s the inside front cover above, complete with mummies, gruesome spectres, ghosts, a train chase, and — speaking of Sherlock Holmes — the words “The Game’s Afoot” scrawled on parchment (click for a bigger version).

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New Treasures: Lord of Bones

New Treasures: Lord of Bones

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Lord of Bones Justine Musk-smallI like to try new titles and new authors, especially a new fantasy series. This genre is so rich and diverse that no one can encompass it all, and if you’re not constantly willing to dip your toe in the water, then maybe you should try another hobby.

So I was delighted to see that Amazon had discounted the second volume of a promising new dark fantasy series, Lord of Bones, to just $1.30. I snapped up a copy immediately. (If you’re interested, I suggest you do the same — Amazon’s bargain pricing algorithm is notoriously fickle.)

Lord of Bones was written by Justine Musk, who has lived a fascinating life. I know, lots of writers claim to have lived fascinating lives, what with being an ambulance driver in World War I or assistant to Anna Wintour at Vogue or something. But seriously, Musk’s life is fascinating. She was the first wife of Elon Musk, founder of PayPal and SpaceX, and her famous article “I Was a Starter Wife”: Inside America’s Messiest Divorce” is filled with quotes like this:

In the late spring of 2008, my wealthy entrepreneurial husband, Elon Musk, the father of my five young sons, filed for divorce. Six weeks later, he texted me to say he was engaged to a gorgeous British actress in her early 20s… Her name is Talulah Riley, and she played one of the sisters in 2005’s Pride and Prejudice. Two of the things that struck me were: a) Pride and Prejudice is a really good movie, and b) My life with this man had devolved to a cliché…

The first crowded apartment we’d shared in Mountain View seemed like ancient history from our 6,000-square-foot house in the Bel Air hills. Married for seven years, we had a domestic staff of five; during the day our home transformed into a workplace. We went to black-tie fundraisers and got the best tables at elite Hollywood nightclubs, with Paris Hilton and Leonardo DiCaprio partying next to us. When Google cofounder Larry Page got married on Richard Branson’s private Caribbean island, we were there, hanging out in a villa with John Cusack and watching Bono pose with swarms of adoring women outside the reception tent… I spent an afternoon walking around San Jose with Daryl Hannah, where she caused a commotion at Starbucks when the barista asked her name and she said, blithely, “Daryl.”

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Vintage Treasures: The Lords of Underearth

Vintage Treasures: The Lords of Underearth

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Lords of Underearth-smallI’ve written before about the marvelously compact games from Metagaming that first introduced me to role playing, both in my editorial in Black Gate 12 and here on the blog.

It was the ubiquitous Metagaming ads on the inside cover of Analog and Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine in the late 70s that first caught my eye. I carefully clipped out the order form (I bet you kids have never clipped an order form out of a magazine in your life. Bah! You don’t know what you’re missing. A gaping hole in the cover of your magazine, that’s what you’re missing) and mailed off my $2.95 for copy of Melee and $3.95 for the fabulously deluxe Wizard.

Both games were written by Steve Jackson — yes, the same genius designer behind Ogre, GURPS, Car Wars, Munchkin, and numerous others. For my money (all $6.90), those two early games still rank as perhaps his finest creations.

Steve Jackson left Metagaming in the 1980 to found Steve Jackson Games and his loss was keenly felt. But the rights to Melee and Wizard remained with Metagaming and its owner, Howard M. Thompson. Thompson supported the system with a series of excellent releases, including some of the best solitaire products this industry has ever seen, including Death Test, Death Test 2, Orb Quest, and Grail Quest.

I’ve been playing Grail Quest since 1980 — the last few years with my son Drew at my side — fruitlessly searching the treacherous woods and castles outside Camelot for the Holy Grail. It’s got to be in that damn game somewhere. I’m going to find it some day, I swear.

Anyway, Metagaming produced a total of 22 microgames before the company folded in 1983. Virtually all of them were science fiction and fantasy in theme, and they exhibited an imaginative range of settings and themes, from Rivets — the game of two dueling robot colonies — to Sticks & Stones, the first (and only) stone age RPG. I’ve gradually collected all of them over the years, and it was with some satisfaction that I finally completed my collection this year with the one that was the most difficult to track down: the fantasy game of subterranean warfare in an ancient Dwarven Stronghold, The Lords of Underearth.

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