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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 June

The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in June

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beneath-ceaseless-skies-logoAccording to our badly-overheated traffic meter, you folks visited the Black Gate blog in record numbers last month (and you left a mess in the visitors lounge, too. Seriously, what’s with all the Taco Bell wrappers?)

Still, we’re glad to see you. I was pleased to note that our most popular article in June was Fletcher Vredenburgh’s look at our distinguished competition, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly and Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and his assessment of the best new Sword and Sorcery of the last twelve months. Close behind was Scott Taylor’s newest Top 10 list, “The Top 10 Role Playing Games of All Time,” and Patty Templeton’s interview with uber-editor and 21st Century Renaissance Man, John Joseph Adams.

Rounding out the top five were Douglas Draa’s review of Michael Shea’s horror classic The Color Out Of Time, and our coverage of Jean Rabe’s resignation as editor of the SFWA Bulletin.

The Top 50 Black Gate posts in June were:

  1. The Best New Sword and Sorcery of the Last Twelve Months
  2. Art of the Genre: The Top 10 Role Playing Games of All Time
  3. An Interview with John Joseph Adams
  4. Vintage Treasures: The Color Out of Time by Michael Shea
  5. Jean Rabe Resigns as SFWA Bulletin Editor Amidst Controversy
  6. Art of the Genre: Kickstarter – It Really Shouldn’t Be About the Stuff
  7. Robert E Howard and Appendix N: Advanced Readings in D&D
  8. Maureen F McHugh’s China Mountain Zhang
  9. Pathfinder RPG: Fey Revisited
  10. Did I Do that? or We’ve Had the Sword, Where’s the Sorcery?

     

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The Secret Supplement: Greyhawk, Gygax, and Outdoor Survival

The Secret Supplement: Greyhawk, Gygax, and Outdoor Survival

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Outdoor Survival-smallA while ago, my 13-year-old daughter Taylor told me her friend Will had seen the famous “Advanced Dungeons and Dragons” episode of Community and wanted to learn how to play.

“Sure,” I said. “Tell him to come over on Saturday and I’ll put together a quick adventure for both of you.” My 15-year-old son Drew joined in, creating a fighter, and even Tim, my 17-year old, got in on the action, rolling up a 1st level magic user.

That was over six months ago. What began as a simple session, involving a bunch of farm kids rescuing a dwarven thief named Jasper from marauding gobins, has evolved into an epic campaign, a desperate adventure to stop an army of hobgobins and orcs from completing a railroad that will bring war to their frontier home.

It’s the most fun I’ve had role playing in decades.

I introduced my kids to D&D years ago, but we played only intermittently, and the campaign — such as it was — never really built up steam. The addition of a fourth player, from outside the family, has brought with it a regular Saturday morning schedule, and the result is a much heightened level of interest from everyone involved.

Things are happening faster, they’re leveling up quicker, and they spend the days between sessions talking excitedly, planning, and trying to puzzle out how all the clues they’ve uncovered fit together to reveal the sinister plan behind events.

It’s brought a change in how I dungeon master, too. When I was DM for a group my own age, from roughly 1980 to 2000, there was a certain level of performance anxiety. Every session had to be bigger and better, each adventure more ambitious and epic than the last. I couldn’t just create a fun, two-hour subterranean module… I had to bring an entire underworld civilization to life, with a believable backstory and vast cast of heroes and villains.

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The Doom That Came to Kickstarter

The Doom That Came to Kickstarter

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The Doom That Came to Atlantic City-smallReports are coming in that Erik Chevalier, the man behind one of the most high-profile Kickstarter game successes of 2012, The Doom That Came To Atlantic City, has admitted that he will never produce the game.

The Doom That Came To Atlantic City, created by Eberron designer Keith Baker and artist Lee Moyer, was a Monopoly-style game with a distinct Cthulhu flair. Described as “A light hearted Lovecraftian game of urban destruction,” the game invited players to take the roles of Great Old Ones in a race to be the first to destroy the world. The Kickstarter campaign launched May 7, 2012 with a $35,000 goal; by the time it closed on June 6, 2012 it had raised an astounding $122,874.

However, over the past 13 months, Chevalier has been releasing increasingly bleak progress reports, culminating in this post Tuesday:

This is not an easy update to write. The short version: The project is over, the game is canceled…

From the beginning the intention was to launch a new board game company with the Kickstarted funds, with The Doom that Came to Atlantic City as only our first of hopefully many projects… Since then rifts have formed and every error compounded the growing frustration, causing only more issues. After paying to form the company, for the miniature statues, moving back to Portland, getting software licenses and hiring artists to do things like rule book design and art conforming the money was approaching a point of no return. We had to print at that point or never. Unfortunately that wasn’t in the cards…

Predictably, the feedback from backers has been scathing.

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“We Thought We Were Immortal”: Robert Bloch on J. Francis McComas, Eric Frank Russell, and Leigh Brackett

“We Thought We Were Immortal”: Robert Bloch on J. Francis McComas, Eric Frank Russell, and Leigh Brackett

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Starlog Science Fiction Yearbook-smallLast week, as part of my ongoing look at Lester Del Rey’s Best of… paperbacks from the 1970s, I wrote a brief piece on The Best of Robert Bloch. In the Comments section, Tangent editor and uber-fan Dave Truesdale offered up this fascinating tidbit:

Back in 1978 David Gerrold and I edited the Starlog SF Yearbook… For the section titled In Memoriam I wrote Robert Bloch and asked if he would do the honors (Kerry O’Quinn, Starlog publisher had given me a budget and so I was of course paying authors). Bob agreed and turned in well over a thousand words on three people who had passed away in 1978: J. Francis “Mick” McComas, co-founder of F&SF; Eric Frank Russell, and Leigh Brackett. It was a marvelous piece, bookended with how the field had begun so small when everybody knew everybody else and it was a big deal when someone died — and today (1978) when hardly anyone noted the passing of folks like Hugo Gernsback or Raymond Palmer…

After Bob got the check for his piece, he wrote back to express his thanks and that Mrs. Bloch would no doubt enjoy spending it on several bags of groceries.

After thinking on it a bit more, Dave got in touch with Robert Bloch’s daughter, Sally (Bloch) Francy, to ask for permission to reprint the piece. Here’s part of her reply:

I’m sure Dad would be very pleased, and I hope he and Rich Matheson are chatting about it as I ‘speak.’ I babysat for Matheson’s kids and rode horseback with their oldest daughter, Tina… Rich’s passing, though not a surprise, given his age and health issues, was still a shock. He and Harlan Ellison are the two people I knew from when I was a teenager, and to whom I still feel strong emotional ties to my father. They are the last of his generation of the people I knew. I miss my dad every day, still!

Thanks to Dave’s efforts, the complete text of her letter and her father’s 1978 piece are reprinted on the Tangent Online website.

Vintage Treasures: The Comic Times

Vintage Treasures: The Comic Times

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The Comic Times 4-smallJust check out that 1980 Charles Vess cover at right. Isn’t it neat? I sure thought so, when I accidentally stumbled across it on eBay.

It is now mine. Mine mine mine. Because, Charles Vess. Also, poor impulse control.

Strange thing happened when it arrived, though. I thought I was buying an early issue of The Comics Journal. As soon as I unpacked it — and stopped cooing over the Charles Vess cover — I noticed that it was not an issue of The Comics Journal. It was something called The Comic Times.

I’m embarrassed to admit that I never heard of The Comic Times. Had to look it up and everything.

I’m embarrassed because the early 80s was when I was pretty much completely immersed in the comics scene. I was buying and reading comics by the truckload, from Arthur’s Place in downtown Ottawa. Frank Miller’s Ronin, Cerberus, Love and Rockets, Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing, Keith Giffen’s Legion of Super Heroes, Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg, Pacific Comics… I didn’t need something called The Comic Times. I was living The Comic Times.

I’m sure enjoying reading it now, though. It’s a fun and informative little zine, and I bet I would have gotten a lot out of it back in 1980. Near as I can figure out, it only lasted six issues. It was edited by Dennis Cieri and Mark Gasper, and published out of New York. Like The Comics Journal, it was printed on newsprint and looks like it was typeset with a Smith Corona.

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The Top 20 Black Gate Fiction Posts in June

The Top 20 Black Gate Fiction Posts in June

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The Death of the NecromancerWe were pleased and honored to present Martha Wells’ Nebula-nominated novel The Death of the Necromancer as part of our Black Gate Online Fiction lineup last month. The complete text of the novel — all 22 chapters — was offered here for free, for the first time anywhere.

Not surprisingly, The Death of the Necromancer was far and away our most popular fiction offering last month. But it was by no means the only widely-read tale we had for you. Our exclusive excerpt from Howard Andrew Jones’ second Dabir and Asim novel, The Bones of the Old Ones, was our second most popular post, and Aaron Bradford Starr’s 35,000-word epic fantasy mystery featuring Gallery Hunters Gloren Avericci and Yr Neh, “The Sealord’s Successor,” was a close third, followed by Joe Bonadonna’s adventure fantasy “The Moonstones of Sor Lunarum,” and Judith Berman’s sword & sorcery novella “The Poison Well.”

Also making the list were exciting stories by Ryan Harvey, E.E. Knight, Michael Penkas, Jason E. Thummel, Mary Catelli, Robert Rhodes, Emily Mah, Vaughn Heppner, and many others.

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 June:

  1. “The Death of the Necromancer,” by Martha Wells
  2. An excerpt from The Bones of the Old Ones, by Howard Andrew Jones
  3. “The Sealord’s Successor,” by Aaron Bradford Starr
  4. “The Moonstones of Sor Lunarum,” by Joe Bonadonna
  5. “The Poison Well,” by Judith Berman
  6. “The Sorrowless Thief,” by Ryan Harvey
  7. “The Terror in the Vale,” by E.E. Knight
  8. “The Daughter’s Dowry,” by Aaron Bradford Starr
  9. “The Worst Was Yet to Come,” by Michael Penkas
  10. “Assault and Battery,” by Jason E. Thummel

     

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New Treasures: The Lives of Tao by Wesley Chu

New Treasures: The Lives of Tao by Wesley Chu

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Steven Silver, Holly McDowell, and Mary Robinette Kowal in at the Without a Summer launch party
Steven Silver, Holly McDowell, and Mary Robinette Kowal in at the Without a Summer launch party. Click for bigger version

Back in April, I was invited to Mary Robinette Kowal’s Without a Summer launch party here in Chicago, to celebrate the publication of the third volume of her Glamourist Histories fantasy series (which we covered right here at Black Gate on April 6).

It was a great chance to catch up with a lot of local writers, including Steven Silver, Holly McDowell, and Kelly Swails — and to meet Mary’s husband Rob, who is a winemaker (seriously!) at City Winery Chicago.

I’d like to pause here to note that I don’t get to write a sentence like that every day.

And, of course, it was a chance to see Mary, who was modeling one of her trademark empire style dresses. Brilliant writer, killer fashion sense, married to a winemaker… you can see why one just doesn’t turn down an invitation from this woman.

About an hour after I arrived, Mary introduced me to Wesley Chu, another local Chicagoan and recently published author.

Now, this never gets old. I’ve been in publishing a long time now, and I meet aspiring writers, wannabee writers, and Gee-I’ve-got-a-great-idea-for-a-novel writers all the time. But introduce me to someone who’s published an honest-to-God novel, and I turn into an instant fanboy.

I can’t help it. At heart I’m still a reader, and I’m not so jaded by this industry that I can’t appreciate that behind all the marketing spin, crushing deadlines, commercial pressures and compromises, is true magic — the fragile creative spark nurtured and nudged onto the stage by the diligent and the brave. I’m in awe of these people, and when I meet a new author I want to hear all about their creations.

I had a great talk with Wesley, and he was gracious enough to indulge me a little and tell me about his book. And the more I heard, the more fascinated I became.

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Watch This Awesome Teaser Trailer for The Boxtrolls, Because it’s Good for You

Watch This Awesome Teaser Trailer for The Boxtrolls, Because it’s Good for You

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Seriously, this trailer will make you smile, turn you into a better person, and maybe even teach you a foreign language. All in 72 seconds.

As I reported last week, Alan Snow’s criminally overlooked YA series The Ratbridge Chronicles — so overlooked that America forgot to publish it — is being adapted into a feature film by stop-motion studio Laika, creators of Coraline and ParaNorman. Any studio that takes their name from the first dog in space is okay in my book.

Technically, I think The Boxtrolls adapts only the first novel, the marvelous Here Be Monsters, which appeared in 2006. The second, Worse Things Happen at Sea, was released in the UK in October 2010, and cruelly snubbed here in the US — at least until last week, when it was finally published by Atheneum Books (you guys rock). The third, Thar She Blows, is scheduled to appear in December 2013.

The Boxtrolls will be released September 26, 2014. It is directed by Graham Annable and Anthony Stacchi, and stars the voice talents of Ben Kingsley, Simon Pegg, Elle Fanning, Isaac Hempstead-Wright, Toni Collette, and Jared Harris.

James Frenkel Leaves Tor

James Frenkel Leaves Tor

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James FrenkelLong-time editor James Frenkel has left Tor Books.

Frenkel was one of the most accomplished editors at Tor — indeed, in the entire industry. I first came across his name in the mid-80s, when he was publisher of Bluejay books, a science fiction imprint that produced trade paperback editions of K.W. Jeter, Theodore Sturgeon, Philip K. Dick, Harlan Ellison, Connie Willis, and many others. Among many other accomplishments, Bluejay Books first began publishing Gardner Dozois’s The Year’s Best Science Fiction anthologies.

Frenkel joined Tor after the collapse of Bluejay in the late 80s, where he edited some of the biggest names in the industry, including Vernor Vinge, Joan D. Vinge, Frederik Pohl, Andre Norton, Dan Simmons, Jack Williamson, Timothy Zahn, Greg Bear, and many others.

Frenkel’s departure from Tor comes following accusations of sexual harassment, stemming from an incident at Wiscon reported by Elise Matthesen:

Two editors I knew were throwing a book release party on Friday night at the convention. I was there, standing around with a drink talking about Babylon 5, the work of China Mieville, and Marxist theories of labor (like you do) when an editor from a different house joined the conversation briefly and decided to do the thing that I reported. A minute or two after he left, one of the hosts came over to check on me… So I reported it to the convention. Somewhere in there they asked, “Shall we use your name?” I thought for a millisecond and said, “Oh, hell yes.”

While Matthesen did not immediately identify the editor in question, he was famously ID’d by Mary Robinette Kowal in her June 18 blog post “Why am I afraid to name the editor?” Yesterday Tor senior editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden made the announcement via Twitter that James Frenkel was no longer associated with Tor Books.

Frenkel currently lives in Madison, Wisconsin, with his wife, Joan D. Vinge. He has not yet made any public announcement regarding the issue.

Apple Found Guilty of Ebook Price Fixing

Apple Found Guilty of Ebook Price Fixing

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Steve JobsApple’s long-running legal battle to prove that it did not mastermind a conspiracy to price-fix digital books ended yesterday with a guilty verdict.

In April of last year, the US Department of Justice filed suit against Apple and the largest book publishers in the United States: Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Group, and Simon & Schuster. All the publishers settled, and only Apple chose to fight the battle in court. Yesterday, U.S. District Court Judge Denise Cote sided with the DOJ, saying that Apple played a “central role” in the conspiracy and that Apple and the publishers conspired to eliminate price competition in the emerging digital books market.

The legal battle and the discovery phase leading up to it, have been very much in the public eye. One of the most fascinating aspects (at least for people like me, whose eyes glaze over at 80-page legal documents) was the publication of behind-the scenes e-mails between Steve Jobs and publishers as they hammered out the details of the scheme. The Atlantic reprinted several of Jobs’s e-mails from January 2010, including an exchange with James Murdoch at News Corp, negotiating on behalf of HarperCollins:

Jobs wasn’t willing to compromise. He sent this reply to Murdoch the same day, arguing that Amazon’s pricing wasn’t sustainable and would train people to think that ebooks were cheap. Jobs also reminded Murdoch of Apple’s vast reach–“over 120 million customers with credit cards on file.” You need us more than we need you, he seemed to be saying.

Hatred of Amazon’s discounted ebook pricing strategy seemed to be the engine of the entire conspiracy and Judge Cote made specific mention of it in her ruling:

Before Apple even met with the first Publisher Defendant in mid-December 2009, it knew that the “Big Six” of United States publishing… wanted to raise e-book prices, in particular above the $9.99 prevailing price charge by Amazon for many e-book versions of New York Times bestselling books and other newly released hardcover books. Apple also knew that Publisher Defendants were already acting collectively to place pressure on Amazon to abandon its pricing strategy… The Publishers conveyed to Apple their abhorrence of Amazon’s pricing, and Apple assured the Publishers it was willing to work with them to raise those prices.

Apple contends that it has done nothing wrong, and plans to appeal the verdict.