Browsed by
Category: Magazines

Professor Jameson’s Space Adventures, or Zoromes Make the Happiest Cyborgs

Professor Jameson’s Space Adventures, or Zoromes Make the Happiest Cyborgs

Comments 5 comments

Amazing Stories April 1938-smallI first ran across Neil R. Jones’s Prof. Jameson stories in junior high while reading Isaac Asimov’s Before the Golden Age — which, by the way, is one of my favorite anthologies.

Neil R. Jones’s first Prof. Jameson adventure appeared in the July 1931 issue of Amazing Stories. In this first story, “The Jameson Satellite,” Mr. Jones gives us all the background information that we’ll ever need to follow this wonderful over-the-top space adventures of Professor Jameson and his Machine Men colleagues, the Zoromes!

Within the first few pages, we learn that Professor Jameson of the 20th century had a horrible revulsion against being buried and subsequently becoming worm food after his death. So, to ease his mind, he arranged to have his body placed in a hermetically sealed rocket after his death and then launched into orbit around the Earth.

Following me so far? Good. So now we skip ahead 40,000,000 years to find the Professor’s orbiting Tupperware bowl still circling a now-dead Earth, which is itself orbiting a dying Sun which has cooled off and become a Red Giant (we now figure that this’ll actually take somewhere around 5 billion years to happen). So far so good? Good!

We then meet a group of intergalactic explorers who are at this very moment investigating our dying solar system. Their sensors pick up a metallic object orbiting the Earth.

Now of course the reader knows immediately what the object actually is. When they finally approach Earth and discover Prof. Challenger’s coffin-ship, they take it aboard their own greatly larger ship.

It turns out that the Zoromes aren’t your run-of-the-mill extra-terrestrial explorers. Nope, they are actually cyborgs! The Zoromes wanted dearly to explore the galaxy, but knew their mortal bodies wouldn’t survive a journey that might entail thousands of years, so they traded flesh and bone for metal and circuitry. Makes sense to me.

…

Read More Read More

The Best New Sword & Sorcery of the Last Twelve Months

The Best New Sword & Sorcery of the Last Twelve Months

Comments 7 comments

stormbringerMy name’s Fletcher Vredenburgh and I blog and yammer on the Internet (and comment here on Black Gate) as the Wasp. When Dale Rippke’s super-informational swords & sorcery site Heroes of Dark Fantasy went dark, I wanted to create a site to fill that void, but I wasn’t sure what shape it would take.

Initially, Swords & Sorcery: A Blog was going to be dedicated solely to classic heroic fiction. I figured I would just re-read and write about the books I already knew and loved, like Death Angel’s Shadow or Stormbringer, and that would be enough.

Then I discovered I was living in the midst of a S&S revival. Spurred by magazines like Black Gate and fueled by authors like James Enge and Howard Andrew Jones, new stories at least as good as anything from the genre’s heyday in the seventies were being created.

That led me on a hunt for anything new in S&S. I quickly learned that for every Enge or Jones, there were a dozen writers regularly gracing the electronic pages of numerous online magazines.

For what I now wanted, which was to get a sense of what was going on down on the ground and then convey that to any readers I might have, the standout publications were Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, edited by Adrian Simmons, David Farney, and William Ledbetter and Beneath Ceaseless Skies, edited and published by Scott H. Andrews.

For over a year now I have continually struck genre gold in both magazines.

Over the past year of reviewing, I’ve read thirty stories from HFQ and BCS. Re-reading my reviews, I was struck both by how many of the stories I liked, and how many I recalled in detail. In fact, there was only one story I actively disliked. There was straight up no-holds-barred swords & sorcery, techno-fantasy, some chinoiserie, and an Arthurian tale thrown in for good measure.

I went out looking for heroic fantasy, and was rewarded instead with an antidote for all the monstrously long and never-ending series weighing down Barnes & Noble’s shelves.

…

Read More Read More

Kirkus Looks at Galaxy Science Fiction

Kirkus Looks at Galaxy Science Fiction

Comments 1 comment

Galaxy February 1951Over the last few months, Matthew Wuertz and Rich Horton have been tag-teaming a series of Retro Reviews here at Black Gate, looking at science fiction digests from the 1950s and 60s — especially H.L. Gold’s Galaxy, which Matthew has been covering issue by issue since the very first, cover-dated October 1950.

Meanwhile, Andrew Liptak at Kirkus Reviews has done his own retrospective, “Changing the Playing Field: H.L. Gold & Galaxy Science Fiction,” a detailed and affectionate look at Gold and the superb magazine he created:

Galaxy appeared in October 1950 as a monthly publication. It paid far better than its competitors, and Gold proved to be a far better editor than his counterpart at Astounding… With Gold at the helm, Galaxy Science Fiction began to change the tone of the genre. Astounding had taken advantage of the scientific rush that followed the development of the atomic bomb, and the resulting doomsday stories that followed. Gold went in another direction, explaining in an editorial that “The shape humanity is in is cause for worry, I believe, but not the kind of paralyzing terror that clutches science fiction writers in particular… Look, fellers, the end isn’t here yet.”

Strong, socially aware and satirical fiction became the mainstay with Galaxy, and 1951 proved to be an excellent year for the publication: “The Fireman,” by Ray Bradbury, appeared in the February issue, set in a dystopian world where literature was burned by government agents, and was later expanded into his landmark novel Fahrenheit 451. April brought Cyril Kornsbluth’s story “The Marching Morons,” and September saw Gold bring Robert Heinlein away from Astounding with his three-part story The Puppet Masters…

…

Read More Read More

Vintage Treasures: The Last Province Magazine, Issue #4

Vintage Treasures: The Last Province Magazine, Issue #4

Comments 7 comments

The-Last-Province-Issue-4I recently stumbled across a copy of a gaming magazine I’d never encountered before: The Last Province, a bi-monthly British publication that apparently lasted five issues, from October 1992 to September 1993.

This doesn’t happen very often, so it was definitely worth investigating. And I’m glad I did, as it turned out to be a delight.

I think the cover — a Martin Lennon character study of three very different adventuring fellows striding confidently across a green and pleasant land — effectively communicates both the content and editorial attitude. If the art doesn’t do it, the tag words “Independent British Roleplaying” at the top should give you the idea.

Paz Newis’s page 4 editorial is a perfect mix of defensiveness towards gaming stereotypes, and contempt for what others consider ‘normal.’ Pretty much exactly how I remember gamers talking in the 90s.

To my mind ours is one pastime with a wealth to offer its participants. It is to those of you who wish to take roleplaying out of the ‘spotty adolescents’ stereotype that this magazine is aimed.

Recently… I thought it would be a good idea to sit in front of the television. I was appalled! It really was brain numbing. All of my higher brain functions seized up. If this is what the majority of ‘normal people’ spend their time doing I have no desire to be normal.

The news section is jammed with headlines on the big events of the day — including Steve Jackson’s quarter-million dollar judgment against the US Secret Service for seizing their computer equipment during an investigation of GURPS Cyberpunk, the report that a young employee at a Glasgow branch of a well known game store chain was apparently fired for being female, and the release of a major new RPG from FASA with the strange title Earthdawn.

…

Read More Read More

New Treasures: The New Yorker Fiction Issue, June 10 & 17, 2013

New Treasures: The New Yorker Fiction Issue, June 10 & 17, 2013

Comments 3 comments

The New Yorker Fiction issue June 2013A while back I bought a subscription to The New Yorker. I had one in grad school and quite enjoyed it, during those rare moments when I had time to read it.

Which pretty much describes the current situation. Every time an issue arrives, I examine it with great interest and then set it aside to read later. Currently, there’s more than a dozen piled up by my big green chair in the library.

But I finally made the time to open one this week, and the occasion was the arrival of their summer Fiction issue. It’s a big double issue, thicker than most and with two dates on the cover (June 10 and 17, 2013).

It’s not just that there’s a lot of content, but the cover — the silhouette of a femme fatale clutching a mauser against a 1930s New York skyline — promised something I almost never see in The New Yorker: genre fiction. Like last year’s science fiction issue, it’s the kind of surprise that deserves to be investigated.

There are even bigger surprises in the Table of Contents, starting with “An Inch and a Half of Glory,” a new story by Dashiell Hammett, author of The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man, and the Continental Op novels.

Before you dash over to check Wikipedia (as I just did) — yes, Dashiell Hammett is still dead. He died in 1961.

…

Read More Read More

Jean Rabe Resigns as SFWA Bulletin Editor Amidst Controversy Over Sexist Articles

Jean Rabe Resigns as SFWA Bulletin Editor Amidst Controversy Over Sexist Articles

Comments 30 comments

SFWA Bulletin 200Jean Rabe, editor of the Bulletin of the Science Fiction Writers of America, has stepped down following a series of controversies in recent issues.

The problems began with the now-infamous issue #200, pictured at right, featuring a Jeff Easley Red Sonja cover. Mike Resnick and Barry N. Malzberg, in their long-running column, wrote about “lady editor” Bea Mahaffey (among others), glossing over her significant accomplishments in the field to focus on her looks. In issue 201, CJ Henderson praised Barbie for maintaining “quiet dignity the way a woman should.” But things really blew up with issue 202, in which Resnick and Malzberg responded to mounting criticism by crying about censorship.

There’s been a great deal written about this in the blogosphere and fan press in the past month (Charlie Jane Anders at io9 has an excellent round-up), but I think Benjamin Rosenbaum put it best in his June 3 open letter “Dear Barry & Mike“:

It takes a certain kind of willful blindness not to get that slathering wolf whistles all over your tribute to women editors of years past might piss off… well, pretty much anyone born after 1960.

It’s not that we don’t know how it was when you guys came up. We know that back in the day, talking loudly about Andre Norton looking good in a bathing suit was supposed to be a gracious compliment about which she should be merrily grateful… We know this. We get it. We can make the imaginative leap to your context.

What upsets me, though, is that you apparently can’t make the imaginative leap to our context. You apparently don’t get that talking about how hot an editor is in a skirt — not in a love letter or a roast or an autobiographical reminiscence, mind you, but… in the central house organ of her writers’ organization — is, for us, kind of disgusting…

And then, honestly guys, the confused ramble about censorship?… That’s just painful. Like, if you say something that sucks, and we tell you it sucks, that’s… censorship? Stalinism?

SFWA President John Scalzi issued an apology to readers of the SFWA Bulletin on June 2.

Fantastic Stories, October 1964: A Retro-Review

Fantastic Stories, October 1964: A Retro-Review

Comments 1 comment

Fantastic Stories October 1964I continue my peregrinations through the Cele Goldsmith Lalli years at Amazing/Fantastic.

This issue features a George Schelling cover. I don’t know if there are Schelling fans out here – but I have to say I found it quite poor, with absurdly stiff human characters, a particularly strange looking female character, a quite inaccurate representation (as to size) of the Tharn antagonist, and also not representing the scene it apparently depicts very well. Other than that… it’s kind of colorful.

(Click on the image at left to get a full-size version).

Curiously, the cover features no author’s name – only the title of the serial, “Seed of Eloraspon,” and the description: “Magnanthropus returns in a new novel.”

The interiors are by Arndt, Schelling (rather better than the cover), Finlay, and Andragna.

The ads are mostly Ziff-Davis house ads, with one full page ad for the Rosicrucians. The editorial, as usual by editorial director Norman M. Lobsenz, is about progress towards a real life version of Donovan’s Brain (and many other stories). The only other feature is a single column on what’s “Coming Next Month.”

The fiction:

Novelet:

“Beyond the Ebon Wall,” by C. C. MacApp (18,700 words)

…

Read More Read More

Fantasy Face-Off: Henry Kuttner’s Elak of Atlantis vs. Robert E Howard’s Conan the Cimmerian

Fantasy Face-Off: Henry Kuttner’s Elak of Atlantis vs. Robert E Howard’s Conan the Cimmerian

Comments 13 comments
Weird Tales, July 1938, featuring Elak of Atlantis in "Spawn of Dagon"
Weird Tales, July 1938, featuring Elak of Atlantis in “Spawn of Dagon”

Now, before I start actually looking at these two heroes, I should probably explain why I’m doing what I’m doing.

You see, when Robert E Howard — creator of the sword and sorcery sub-genre, bare-fisted boxer, and all-round amazing writer — killed himself at the age of thirty, he left a pretty substantial gap in the pulp fiction market, one that was very hard to fill, but one that had to be filled. So Henry Kuttner, a fellow writer more famous for his science fiction than his fantasy, was called in to take up the sword and sorcery mantle — and stumbled in doing so.

The blurb describes the Elak stories as “exciting tales that helped establish a genre,” and “a major step in the evolution of the genre.” (I read Gateways kindle collection.)

Yeah that’s… an overstatement, not much more than a writer’s hyperbole. To be frank, the Elak tales are most easily comparable to a Saturday morning cartoon or a SyFy B-movie, what with all the hackneyed prose and clichéd characters.

Kuttner makes no attempt to advance the formula that Howard established, no attempt to evolve the genre as the over-enthusiastic blurb suggests. What you get instead is a readable adventure, entertaining, but not much more; it’s plot and prose, its action and characters merging with all the other yarns you’ve read and books you’ve consumed.

But then perhaps that’s the point. Pulp is meant to entertain; it’s not The Lord of the Rings or The Game of Thrones, it’s not supposed to make you think or take sides, not intended to evolve anything. Just to entertain.

…

Read More Read More

Galaxy Science Fiction, February 1951: A Retro-Review

Galaxy Science Fiction, February 1951: A Retro-Review

Comments 3 comments

Galaxy February 1951The February, 1951 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction is groundbreaking. The first story is a novella by Ray Bradbury titled “The Fireman.”

My heart skipped a beat when I saw this, and I quickly discovered that Bradbury later expanded this tale into the classic novel Fahrenheit 451.

In “The Fireman,” Mr. Montag works as a fireman – not one who douses flames, but one who starts them in order to destroy books. Books, after all, are upsetting and challenge the brain-numbing entertainment of the day. People who are well-read might unbalance a society of non-thinkers.

I read Fahrenheit 451 in school, and I didn’t understand all of the warnings Bradbury issues throughout the novel. When I read “The Fireman,” there were parts that really concerned me as I considered our own society. Replace references to “television” with “Internet” or “Facebook,” and suddenly Bradbury’s dystopia doesn’t seem so distant anymore. This is a story I wish everyone would read – and think about while reading it. It really is quite chilling.

“…And it comes out here” by Lester del Rey – A man travels back in time to prepare his younger self for an expedition. The mission is to retrieve a device from the future and claim it as his own invention.

I love the second-person narrative of this tale, and I equally enjoyed the way that everything circuitously ties together. It was interesting how del Rey used the protagonist both as a character and as a narrator, and because time travel was involved, these were essentially two different people.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering — yes, this is the same man who started Del Rey Books.

…

Read More Read More

Forrest J. Ackerman and the Days of the Do-It-Yourself Anthology

Forrest J. Ackerman and the Days of the Do-It-Yourself Anthology

Comments 5 comments

Forrest J Ackerman Starlog 1978-2When I was 14 years old, I stumbled on an article in Starlog magazine titled “The World’s Greatest Science Fiction Fan.”

It was about Forrest J. Ackerman, of course: writer, literary agent, and editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland. But Forry’s greatest claim to fame was his legendary science fiction collection, housed in the Ackermansion in Los Angeles.

The article was accompanied by some mind-blowing photos. Forry standing before one of his greatest prides: his complete collection of Weird Tales. Forry posing with the original model used in George Pal’s War of the Worlds. Forry shaking hands with the Maschinenmensch from Metropolis. [Click on the image at left or below for bigger versions.]

The article appeared in the 1978 issue of Starlog, and it had a pretty profound effect on me. After I read it, I knew what my life’s work would be: to build a science fiction collection that could stand with pride alongside Forrest J. Ackerman’s.

These are the things that only a 14-year-old can dream.

…

Read More Read More