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Black Gate Speaks with G. Winston Hyatt of Primeval: A Journal of the Uncanny

Black Gate Speaks with G. Winston Hyatt of Primeval: A Journal of the Uncanny

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Primeval A Journal of the Uncanny, Issue 1G. Winston Hyatt is a busy man. He agreed to talk to Black Gate only if we could come to one of his many work places. We nodded vigorously at the black carrier pigeon that had brought the message and asked it when and where. It returned ten minutes thereafter with directions from the good man Hyatt, saying to meet him outside of a certain window outside of a certain brownstone on a lonely street at 12:12 in the a.m. We were to have a lantern – candle or gas, it did not matter – just not a flashlight. Any fool with a smart phone could accidentally mimic a flashlight signal, and yes, dear readers, we had to learn a long high sign that included a mighty number of flourishes, turns and flashes. As all Black Gate staff members are well versed in flourishing, turning, and flashing windows at night, this was not a problem.

When G. Winston Hyatt was satisfied that we were who we were, a rope ladder was dropped from the ledge of the thick-curtained window and Black Gate was afforded entry into a certain museum. This museum is unknown to the general public, as it contains nefarious, occult objects with high opinions of themselves that would not do well being constantly selfied in front of by tweens and stickied up by jam-fingered toddlers.

It was amongst this collection of the unnatural and fantastic that G. Winston Hyatt led Black Gate to two chairs, a small table, and two coffee mugs to talk about his latest project, Primeval: A Journal of the Uncanny.

Primeval being a semiannual journal of the eerie and exceptional, searching to examine “…the convergence of contemporary anxiety and ancient impulse. Each issue feature[ing] fiction and essays exploring horror, the macabre, and that which should not be – yet is.” Issue #1 features work by Harlan Ellison and Laird Baron, plus an interview with Jack Ketchum.*

That’s right, comrades, we have found for you a new horror publication in both print and digital formats.

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Lynne M. Thomas steps down as Editor of Apex Magazine

Lynne M. Thomas steps down as Editor of Apex Magazine

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Apex Magazine 45-smallLynne M. Thomas has resigned as editor of Apex Magazine, effective at the end of the year. She made the announcement yesterday on the Apex blog:

While the past two years of editing Apex Magazine have been deeply satisfying both personally and professionally, I will be stepping down as the Editor-in-Chief of Apex Magazine after the December 2013 issue. I’m in need of break, after which I’m looking forward to exploring new opportunities and projects. Managing Editor Michael Damian Thomas will be stepping down with me.

Publisher Jason Sizemore plans on continuing the magazine. Michael and I are working closely with the incoming editor to ensure a smooth transition…

I’d especially like to thank our contributors and readers. You’ve embraced us, and I just want to hug you all back. When we took over, we had no idea that the magazine would grow the way it did. We didn’t expect two Hugo Award nominations.

Lynn has edited Apex since issue 30, when she took the reins from Catherynne M. Valente. The new editor has not been announced.

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Fall 2013 Subterranean Magazine now Available

Fall 2013 Subterranean Magazine now Available

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Subterranean Magazine Fall 2013-smallThe tireless Bill Schafer has released another issue of the excellent Subterranean Magazine, right on time, continuing to make those of us who struggled with publishing deadlines look bad. Jerk.

The Fall Issue is packed with big names, too. Just check out this table of contents:

“Doctor Helios,” by Lewis Shiner
“The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling,” by Ted Chiang
“Hook Agonistes,” by Jay Lake and Seanan McGuire
“What Doctor Ivanovich Saw,” by Ian Tregillis

Lewis Shiner is the author of Deserted Cities of the Heart, Frontera, Slam, and many other novels. “Doctor Helios” is a whopping 30,000 words, practically a novel in itself.

The brilliant Ted Chiang has won four Nebula awards and four Hugo awards for his short fiction — pretty good considering he’s written only 14 stories in the past 23 years. A new Chiang story is a major event, and it’s not often you’re offered one for free.

Jay Lake has been published twice in Black Gate magazine (“Fat Jack and the Spider Clown,” in BG 8 and “Devil on the Wind,” in collaboration with Michael Jasper, in BG 14); his collaborator here, Seanan McGuire, has never been published in Black Gate, but we don’t hold that against her. She has written 10 novels in the October Daye series, and (as Mira Grant) the Newsflesh trilogy and the upcoming Parasite.

I saw Ian Tregillis give a reading at the World Science Fiction Convention last year — and that man knows how to pack a room. His most recent novels are Bitter Seeds, The Coldest War, and Necessary Evil, the final book in the The Milkweed Triptych.

Subterranean is edited by William Schafer and published quarterly. The Fall 2013 issue is completely free and available here; see their complete back issue catalog here. We last covered Subterranean magazine with their previous issue, Summer 2013.

New Treasures: Knights of the Dinner Table #200

New Treasures: Knights of the Dinner Table #200

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Knights of the Dinner Table 200-smallI am thrilled to report that Kenzer & Company, publishers of the fine Hackmaster and Aces & Eights role playing games, have published the 200th issue of the world’s best gaming comic, Knights of the Dinner Table.

Knights of the Dinner Table is written and drawn by my friend Jolly R. Blackburn, with editorial assistance by his talented wife Barbara. If Jolly’s name is familiar, it may be because of last Saturday’s appreciation of his earlier publication, the much-missed role-playing magazine, Shadis, where KoDT first appeared. Or you may remember the last time I shone a spotlight on KoDT, with issue #191 last September. Or maybe you’re a fan of the KoDT spin-off The Java Joint, which appeared in every issue of the print version of Black Gate, and was finally collected (with one new strip) last April. Or perhaps you’re simply a fan of KoDT all on your own, and don’t need me telling you how brilliant it is.

The first issue of Knights of the Dinner Table appeared from AEG in the summer of 1994. With issue five it switched to its current publishers Kenzer & Company, and it has appeared regularly ever since.

I don’t think I need to tell you what an incredible accomplishment it is for a comic to reach the 200 mark in today’s market — especially with the same creator at the helm. It is, in fact, an almost unparalleled achievement (the only comparable example I’ve been able to come up with is Dave Sim’s Cerebus). To reach issue 200 under any circumstances is an amazing achievement for an independent comic.

I wrote a book review column in the back of Knights of the Dinner Table for four years, starting in the late 90s (the incredible series of coincidences that lead to that happy state of affairs are related in my introduction to the collected Java Joint). I got to meet and game with Jolly, Dave Kenzer, Steve Johansson, Brian Jelke, Barbara Blackburn, and the entire KenzerCo gang — and let me tell you, I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything.

But it’s my contributions to and relationship with KoDT that I’m most proud of during that era. KoDT has survived not simply because it occupies a unique niche in the gaming community, but because it is a singularly brilliant work from a uniquely talented creator. If you haven’t tried it yet, the massive issue 200 is a great place to come on board.

KoDT #200 was published July 2013 by Kenzer & Company. It is $8.99 for a 96-page black & white comic. The cover is by Larry Elmore; more details and order instructions are here, or try the free online strips.

Galaxy Science Fiction, April 1951: A Retro-Review

Galaxy Science Fiction, April 1951: A Retro-Review

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Galaxy Science Fiction April 1951With this issue, Galaxy reached a crossroads. Caught by rising costs, H. L. Gold had to do something.

He noted on the Editor’s Page that he could take one of two actions. He could cut costs by lowering fiction pay rates or the quality of the paper stock. Or he could raise the price of the magazine. Pressed for time, he opted for the latter. Beginning with the May, 1951 publication, the price jumped from 25 cents to 35 cents.

For those who love statistics but hate math, that’s a 40% increase. But the way I see it: quality has a cost. Good call, Mr. Gold.

Now let’s turn to the fiction.

“Nice Girl with 5 Husbands” by Fritz Leiber – Tom Dorset is an artist, unknowingly displaced by the winds of time to a century in the future. He meets a girl named Lois who brings him back home to meet her family. Tom learns that not only is Lois married, but the relational structure of the family is unlike anything he’s ever heard of.

I found it interesting that the protagonist never put together that he was in the future until someone casually mentioned the date. The story seemed more of a quick picture of how the future could unfold, but I wanted something deeper by the end.

“Inside Earth” by Poul Anderson – Conru gives up his entire life, even his physical appearance, in order to appear like an Earthling. Valgolia rules the galaxy, including Earth, but its aim is more than controlling the planets. It wants equality throughout the planets, and such can only be achieved by forcing unity.

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Vintage Treasures: Jolly R. Blackburn’s Shadis #15

Vintage Treasures: Jolly R. Blackburn’s Shadis #15

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Shadis 15-smallA few weeks ago, I stumbled on an eBay seller unloading a nice collection of vintage gaming merchandise. Quite a bit of it sold at high prices too, especially TSR’s Dragon Dice sets and several classic D&D modules in mint condition.

What wasn’t selling? The seller had haphazardly bundled some old gaming publications, in lots labeled “Magazine/Fanzine.” They included a pretty wide range of titles of various quality, including Game Trade Magazine, Games Quarterly, Game News, Gameplay, Games, Shred, The V.I.P. of Gaming Magazine, Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Games Unplugged, Dungeon, White Dwarf, Arcane, and Shadis. All the lots were priced at a dollar.

There wasn’t much interest in them, to be honest. In some cases, it wasn’t really a surprise. The lots were oddly bundled — one contained eleven magazines, including four copies of Games Quarterly #7 and six copies of Game Trade Magazine #125.

I couldn’t figure out why the seller didn’t split those up into different lots. Who on Earth would want six copies of GTM #125?

I won most of the lots for between one to two bucks each, answering my own question. I now own six copies of GTM #125 — and 52 other vintage gaming magazines published between 1982 and 2012.

There’s a lot of great reading and gaming history in there. I was especially pleased to see Sorcerer’s Apprentice, White Dwarf, and Arcane, all of which are highly collectible today.

But the real delight, of course, was the single issue of Jolly R. Blackburn’s marvelous Shadis: issue #15, cover-dated Sept/Oct 1994, one of the most famous issues of the magazine ever published — and indeed, one of the highest selling single issues of any gaming magazine of the 90s.

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Amazing, March 1961: A Retro-Review

Amazing, March 1961: A Retro-Review

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Amazing Stories March 1961-smallThis is a pretty strong issue of Amazing, overall. Really strong list of authors. The cover is interesting – not so much the illustration, a decent and quite accurate Leo Summers painting illustrating James Blish’s “A Dusk of Idols.” What intrigued me were the words.

Sure enough, “A Dusk of Idols,” by James Blish, adorns the cover. Makes sense. But atop the title, we read “Playboy and the Slime God.” That’s an Isaac Asimov story. Wouldn’t you think they’d have promoted Asimov’s name? But no. I can’t figure that one out.

Interiors are by Summers, Ivie, Morey, and the great Virgil Finlay. The editorial is by Norman Lobsenz as usual, and it promotes the next issue – which is to be a special All-Reprint issue, consisting of classic Amazing stories selected by Sam Moskowitz. (Sigh … I know people defend his research, and I have no dispute with that, but I do dispute his taste.)

Anyway, the issue does seem to feature some significant stories – an early Bradbury, Eando Binder’s “I, Robot,” an ERB reprint, Nowlan’s Armageddon – 2419, and pieces by Starzl, Hamilton, and Keller. Lester Del Rey’s Fact Article, “Operation Lunacy,” essentially addresses the Mutual Assured Destruction doctrine, a little presciently, it seems to me.

S. E. Cotts’s book review column, The Spectroscope, is rather harsh on balance towards two anthologies, Judith Merril’s The Year’s Best S-F, Fifth Annual Edition and Robert P. Mill’s Decade of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Cotts opens by complaining that “there are more kinds of anthologies than you can shake a stick at… of one particular author’s output, or from one particular magazine, or on one particular subject… year’s best, year’s worst, or the year’s zaniest.”

Of Merril’s book Cotts begins kindly enough: “As far as the stories are concerned, it is the best yet.” And particular praise goes to newer writers, Daniel Keyes for “Flowers for Algernon,” Carol Emshwiller for “Day on the Beach,” and “an English author, J. G. Ballard” for “The Sound Sweep.”

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When Aliens are Delicious: Murray Leinster’s “Proxima Centauri” and the Creepy Side of Pulp SF

When Aliens are Delicious: Murray Leinster’s “Proxima Centauri” and the Creepy Side of Pulp SF

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Astounding Stories March 1935What if the first aliens we encounter were made of chocolate? Crunchy, delicious, bite-sized chocolate. Imagine that during that all-important First Contact, you decided to take an experimental bite — because, one, chocolate aliens, and two, who would blame you? — and discovered they were so delicious they brought on raptures of ecstasy.

This is more or less the premise of Murray Leinster’s rip snortin’, force-ray filled space adventure “Proxima Centauri,” from the March 1935 issue of Astounding Stories. Except that the aliens are actually highly advanced carnivorous plants who have systematically hunted every form of animal life on their home planet to extinction, and the delicious, bite-sized aliens are us.

“Proxima Centauri” has been reprinted a few times, but I’d never read it. It came up in the comments on my June 20th article on The Best of Murray Leinster, the first of the Classics of Science Fiction series I’ve been exploring recently. A reader named Doug said:

The one story of Leinster’s that impressed me the most was “Proxima Centauri.” Even if the main drive of the plot is pure pulp, the way he describes human behavior during the long trip adds a realism that counter balances the more fantastic elements (i.e. Plant Men). It’s aged incredibly well when you consider that it was written “Before the Golden Age” (I read this first in the same-named Asimov edited anthology).

Fletcher Vredenburgh concurred:

I was eleven when my dad bought and read the Leinster collection. When I asked him about it he said he didn’t think I’d like it. Fortunately, that only encouraged me to give it a try. Glad I did. The gloriously pulpy “Proxima Centauri” still creeps me out.

Well, that was enough for me. I dug out my treasured copy of Before the Golden Age and settled in to enjoy a classic tale of space travel and creepy aliens from a pulp master.

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Gygax Magazine #2 Announced for Gen Con

Gygax Magazine #2 Announced for Gen Con

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Gygax Magazine 2The second issue of Gygax magazine is now at the printer and will ship in time for Gen Con.

Holy cats, that’s next week. This year Gen Con, the largest game convention in the country, takes place August 15-18 at the Indiana Convention Center.

We’ve been anxiously (and impatiently) awaiting the second issue of Gygax. I reviewed the fabulous first issue back in March and thought it was entirely successful at capturing the spirit of the earliest days of role playing, particularly the first issues of The Dragon, the magazine that shaped and guided the industry in the mid-1970s.

Gygax is a “quarterly adventure role-playing aid” that seems to be sticking more closely to an annual publishing schedule. As that sounds eerily similar to the eventual schedule for the print version of my own magazine, Black Gate, I’m just going to keep my mouth shut and not throw stones.

What I am going to do is peer closely at the pic of the Table of Contents recently published at the MTV Geek and see what I can make out. Looks like Tim Kask has an article on Tactics in Samurai Battles, Joy Libby looks at Hitchhiking in Doctor Who, Bryan Pope (Pipe? Page?) examines Building a Winning Spellbook for Mage Wars, and Vincent Flavio looks at The Old-School Renaissance.

That’s about all I could get before my eyes gave out. I’ll have to wait for the print version to discover the rest. For now, I’ll enjoy that tantalizing Jeff Easley cover and keep an eye on the magazine stand at my local game shop.

Unleash your inner Conan with Barbarian Kings

Unleash your inner Conan with Barbarian Kings

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Barbarian Kings SPI-smallMagic Spells and Enchantments! Elves and Orcs and Dwarves! Airships and Pirate Fleets! Heroes and Wizards and… Barbarian Kings.

That’s the cover copy on the boxed version of Barbarian Kings, one of the most fascinating games from my childhood, a game clearly inspired in equal measure by Robert E. Howard and J.R.R. Tolkien. Except for the airships, which I think maybe was an attempt to throw in a little Edgar Rice Burroughs and John Carter of Mars.

My fascination didn’t stem from any virtue of the game design. In fact, I never even had the chance to play it when it was first released in 1980. But it loomed large in my imagination.

Barbarian Kings was originally published in Ares #3. I’ve mentioned Ares before — it was the short-lived (and today, highly collectible) magazine published by SPI that included a science fiction or fantasy board game in every issue.

And what games they were. Star Trader, simulating high-stakes interstellar trade, commerce, and piracy; The High Crusade, inspired by Poul Anderson’s classic novel of a medieval conquest of the galaxy; Nightmare House, which featured intrepid explorers venturing into a haunted house; Voyage of the B.S.M. Pandora, a solitaire game of interstellar exploration on savage worlds; The Omega War, simulating a post-apocalyptic battle on a war-scarred North America in 2419. And nearly a dozen others.

And in issue #3, it was Barbarian Kings, a simple but compelling game of fantasy empires in conflict for 2-5 players. The Jack Kirby-inspired art on the cover communicated just about everything you needed to know (click on the image at right for a bigger version). This was a game of empire building in a world of dwarves, orcs, and magic, just like any of a hundred fantasy novels crowding the shelves in the 70s. It was a compact theatre of the imagination that could drop you smack dab into your favorite fantasy setting and let you run rampant with an army at your back. And airships. Let’s not forget the airships.

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