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The Black Gate Christmas Gift List

The Black Gate Christmas Gift List

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a-guile-of-dragons[Apologies in advance for not being politically correct enough to call this the Black Gate Holiday Gift List. If you don’t celebrate Christmas, kindly ignore this post. Or use our suggestions to buy something for yourself, we won’t tell anyone.]

If you’re a Black Gate fan, we already know a lot about you. You’re almost certainly a fantasy devotee, well-read, with impeccable taste, and accustomed to the natural adoration of your peers. Pretty close, right? And you’re probably also a procrastinator who puts off Christmas shopping until the last minute, and ends up buying Wal-Mart gift certificates on December 24.

You can do better than that. In fact, we’re here to help you. Here’s a handy list of the best fantasy books, movies, games and comics of the season, with a link to a recent review, courtesy of the editors and staff of Black Gate magazine. We have gifts for every price range, from $5 to $150. Good luck, and happy shopping!

  1. A Guile of Dragons, James Enge ($17.95)
  2. The Bones of the Old Ones, by Howard Andrew Jones ($25.99)
  3. American Science Fiction: 9 Classic Novels, edited by Gary K. Wolfe ($70)
  4. Universal Classic Monsters: The Essential Collection ($149.98)
  5. Lords of Waterdeep, Wizards of the Coast ($49.99)
  6. The Weird, edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer ($39.99)
  7. Epic: Legends of Fantasy, edited by John Joseph Adams ($17.95)
  8. A Throne of Bones, Vox Day ($4.99)
  9. Three Parts Dead, Max Gladstone ($24.99)
  10. Books To Die For, edited by John Connolly and Declan Burke ($29.99)

    11. …

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First Teaser Trailer Released for Star Trek Into Darkness

First Teaser Trailer Released for Star Trek Into Darkness

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Hot on the heels of our Monday speculation surrounding the upcoming Star Trek Into Darkness, comes word that Paramount has released the first teaser trailer. In terms of creating a spectacle, I think there’s a good chance they’ve succeeded admirably… there are at least three brief scenes that clearly take Star Trek places I’ve never seen before.

True, there’s an awful lot of fisticuffs for a Star Trek film. And a lot of screaming, and what looks like 23th Century kung fu. That’s weird.

But there’s also some terrifically exotic alien landscapes, a huge cast, and what looks like breath-taking urban action. Overall, I think the positives outweigh the negatives.

The clip sheds no further light on whether or not Benedict Cumberbatch is indeed playing Gary Mitchell — although he is shown in Star Fleet uniform, so that puts to bed conjecture that he’s playing Khan.

Check it out below.

Goth Chick News: Evil Dead is Alive and Well

Goth Chick News: Evil Dead is Alive and Well

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image002You really shouldn’t read from that book.

I mean seriously.

Put it down.

Oh well, you’re screwed.

A remake of Sam Raimi’s horror film franchise Evil Dead finally has a release date in 2013 after a couple of false starts, some casting shuffles, and a change of director that had fans screaming for the wrong reasons.

As early as 2005, it had been confirmed that a remake of Evil Dead would be made. At that point, it was to be produced by Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi, but would not include any references to the original characters. It was also said that the movie would be about a group of teenagers that go to the cabin and find the book, but the similarities with the 1981 version would end there.

However, in August 2007, Bruce Campbell revealed in a radio interview that the proposed remake was “going nowhere” and “fizzled” due to extremely negative fan reaction.

The rumor mill went quiet after that, until July, 2011 when Ghost House Pictures (Sam Raimi’s production company) announced it would be producing a remake with Fede Alvarez directing and Diablo Cody refreshing the script. That’s when the legions of The Dead cried foul.

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Star Trek Into Darkness Poster Fuels Gary Mitchell Speculation

Star Trek Into Darkness Poster Fuels Gary Mitchell Speculation

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star-trek-into-darkness-smallJust to review, Black Gate is a website with a laser-like focus on the best in new and neglected fantasy. If you want science fiction, there’s plenty of other places for that. Except maybe for Star Trek, because that has William Shatner and we’re big fans.

Now that we’ve cleared that up, I’d like to point you to the just-released poster for the upcoming Star Trek Into Darkness, featuring a trenchcoat-clad badass standing on a mound of rubble that used to be Federation stuff, starting at other Federation stuff he could also knock over. Just to drive home the point, his profile forms part of a crumbling Federation emblem (click the image at right for a bigger version).

That’s one cool poster. It’s also done absolutely nothing to dampen ongoing speculation that the villain this time is none other than Gary Mitchell, Kirk’s friend and helmsman who became all glow-eyed and megalomanical after slamming into the edge of the galaxy at warp 3 in “Where No Man Has Gone Before.” Neither has the film’s official description:

When the crew of the Enterprise is called back home, they find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization has detonated the fleet and everything it stands for, leaving our world in a state of crisis. With a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one man weapon of mass destruction.

As our heroes are propelled into an epic chess game of life and death, love will be challenged, friendships will be torn apart, and sacrifices must be made for the only family Kirk has left: his crew.

For the record, I think this is a great choice. “Where No Man Has Gone Before” was the second pilot and one of the show’s earliest episodes, and frankly one of its best. And if the poster and teaser description are any indication, the action this time won’t take place on a remote planetoid covered in giant styrofoam rocks, but a populated center where the stakes are a lot higher and the explosions a lot bigger. Finally, as reported some time ago, Sherlock actor Benedict Cumberbatch has been cast as the film’s villain, and I think he’d make a magnificent Gary Mitchell, both as a jovial lieutenant commander and as an all-powerful psychic loonie.

Star Trek Into Darkness is directed by J. J. Abrams, and written by Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof and Roberto Orci. It is the twelfth feature-length Star Trek film and the sequel to 2009’s Star Trek. It is set for release on May 17, 2013.

Adventure on Film: The Horseman On the Roof

Adventure on Film: The Horseman On the Roof

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tumblr_lu78az8s9c1qlll6ko1_500I didn’t know it at the time, but back when I was ten and surfing through horrendous Tarzan movies on rainy Saturday afternoons, The Horseman On the Roof (Le Hussard Sure le Toit, 1995) was the film I was actually hoping to see. Not that I would have understood much of what was going on, but the kinetic energy of it –– the film’s unswerving certainty that these events matter –– would have transported me right out of my seat.

Better yet, it still does. Horseman opens with a kidnapping and an execution, then tears off on a cross-country pursuit. Nor does the pace slacken. Director Jean-Paul Rappeneau fills even potentially tranquil moments –– a patriot hurriedly donning his overcoat, a restless horse being chosen by torchlight –– with kinetic punch. Horseman is a period piece, make no mistake, but it is also an action movie, and a great one.

True, there’s no overt fantasy element –– beyond the ready fictionalization of history necessary to the telling –– but Horseman is a six-course meal with all the trimmings: call it sword and sorcery without the sorcery.

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Goth Chick News: Tales of Fear: More Indy Horror Film Fun

Goth Chick News: Tales of Fear: More Indy Horror Film Fun

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image0021Back in the summer, we had the pleasure of getting a behind-the-scenes look at the indy sci-fi film Outpost 13 via an exclusive interview with the creators Wyatt Weed (Pirate Pictures), Billy Harzel, and Corey Logsdon (State of Mind Productions). As you know, Black Gate loves nothing better than spotting a rising talent and when that talent is producing indy horror films, we here at Goth Chick News get as excited as a pre-teen’er in an I-heart-Edward tent, camping out for the Twilight opening.

<insert high-pitched, pre-pubescent squeal here>

Well, you get the picture, even if you wish you didn’t.

On November 12th, State of Mind Productions released the official trailer for its upcoming feature length horror anthology Tales of Fear. Not coincidentally, the release date was also the 30th anniversary of the theatrical release of the classic George A. Romero film Creepshow (Logsdon and Harzel are fans).

Tales of Fear is a six-part horror anthology styled after the EC comics of the 1950‘s. The film seeks to capture the essence of the horror elements of the comics, as well as the crime and mystery aspects that made EC’s stories so popular (and occasionally controversial).

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Adventure On Film: The Color of Magic

Adventure On Film: The Color of Magic

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posterOnce upon a very suspect time, a human being by the name of Terry Pratchett conjured up a space-traveling sea turtle by the name of A’tuin, and proceeded to make a sizable fortune from the disc-shaped world he emplaced upon her. In Pratchett’s Discworld novels, magic of the most unpredictable kind is the norm, and so it should come as no surprise that, eventually, somebody had to commit his unique brand of literary lunacy to celluloid.

And so they did. The Color of Magic appeared in 2008, destined for British TV and comprised of two longish episodes.

Now, having admittedly come rather late to the Discworld table –– I read a short called “Troll Bridge” years ago, but didn’t realize it was part of a larger cycle –– my somewhat limited exposure was nonetheless sufficient to convince me that Pratchett’s novels were congenitally unfilmable.

Despite that dire opinion, I am happy to report that Sean Astin is delightfully droll as Twoflower, the Discworld’s first tourist, and David Jason is about as Rincewind as anyone could possibly be. As a murderous and ambitious wizard, Tim Curry simpers and smirks as only Tim Curry can, (although he doesn’t appear to be having nearly as much fun as he did as “Arthur King” in Spamalot). On an ankle-biting budget, the cinematography is generally first rate, as are most, though not quite all, of the props. Death –– a nuisance, and constantly in pursuit of Rincewind –– is lovingly voiced by Christopher Lee, but disappoints the eye. Bearing a cheap-looking sickle, Death appears to have just wandered in from a middling haul of Trick-or-Treats.

Physically, then, in real-world terms, The Color of Magic is of course filmable –– as is just about everything these days, including massive sand worms and infinitesimal specks of pollen. I even recall seeing, on Nova, an attempt to demonstrate string theory’s ten dimensions on the two-dimensional plane of a television screen –– an abject failure, yes, but I blame myself. My limited powers of imagination and whatnot. Me and my four-dimensional mindset.

So let me amend my question: can The Color of Magic be adapted to film successfully?

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Goth Chick News: Leonardo’s Next Stop; The Twilight Zone… Maybe

Goth Chick News: Leonardo’s Next Stop; The Twilight Zone… Maybe

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The epic of this film’s development is definitely beginning to look like a journey not of sight or sound, but only of mind.

Leonardo DiCaprio and his company, Appian Way Productions, have been developing a Twilight Zone movie since 2007. The script has been through a series of rewrites, with Joby Harold (All You Need is Kill, Tom Cruise’s latest film) being the latest scribe. There have also been numerous directors attached, with things looking up recently when Matt Reeves (Let Me In and Cloverfield) got onboard… until he dropped out shortly after, reportedly to head 20th Century Fox’s upcoming sequel, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.

Bummer.

We were never actually told what the new Twilight Zone film was about, except that it would combine several episodes from the original Twilight Zone show. But today, we have a one-sentence plot summary that states:

The film follows a test pilot who winds up breaking the speed of light; when he puts down his craft, he discovers that he’s landed a bit late for supper – 96 years late.

Not a huge amount to go on then, although it’s nice to see a nod to The Twilight Zone’s favorite themes, namely space and time travel. It’s also not clear which of the episodes the movie will draw from.

But one thing is certain, there will be a twist at the end.

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Disney for the Win: Wreck-It Ralph

Disney for the Win: Wreck-It Ralph

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wreckitralphOver the last few years, I’ve been a big fan of Disney/Pixar films, but not so much of the films put out by Disney itself. While I enjoyed Tangled well enough, when compared to the Toy Story franchise or Wall-E, the more mainstream Disney movies just don’t have the same emotional impact.

Or at least they didn’t. I think Disney may have broken that trend with their newest film, Wreck-It Ralph.

It’s not for nothing that this film marks a departure from Disney’s typical formula of repackaging classic fairy tales, either. By stepping outside of this traditional storytelling structure, they allowed for something new and adventurous. There’s a creative energy behind Wreck-It Ralph that was missing from The Princess and the Frog and Tangled.

This isn’t to say that Wreck-It Ralph doesn’t rely on classic stories as its inspiration. It’s just that these are classic video game stories … the fairy tales of the modern age.

The Basic Story (Minimal Spoilers)

Ralph is the “bad guy” in an 8-bit video game called Fix-It Felix, Jr., in which he lives in the city dump and comes down every day to destroy an apartment building, while the hero of the game repairs it. On the 30th anniversary of his video game, he has an existential crisis and decides he wants to be treated with respect. Toward this end, he decides to become a hero in another video game … throwing his own game into chaos.

That’s the basic story, the one that you get in the trailers, and there’s certainly no shortage of cameos and Easter eggs for those who grew up with video games in the 80’s and 90’s. (My 7-year-old missed some of the jokes that impressed me the most, of course.)

But what this description misses is how deeply plotted Wreck-It Ralph actually is, the many layers and plot twists that come up … but for that, we’ll need to offer at least a few high-level spoilers (nothing too major, though).

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What Writers Can Learn From Joss Whedon’s The Avengers Audio Commentary

What Writers Can Learn From Joss Whedon’s The Avengers Audio Commentary

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theavengers2012posterAbout a month ago, The Avengers (Amazon, B&N) came out on DVD and Blu-Ray. My guess is that most avid superhero fans have probably already gotten their copies. Even if superheroes aren’t normally your thing, though, I recommend getting the film, especially for those who are writers or aspiring writers.

When the film came out in theaters back in May, I wrote an article “What Writers Can Learn From Joss Whedon’s The Avengers.” All of those points are still valid and if you haven’t seen the film, the writing is top notch. The bonus materials on the blu-ray, however, give you glimpses into more than just the film-making process, but a good glimpse into how to craft a good story. Some mild spoilers will be revealed below, if you haven’t yet seen the movie.

Tor.com has compiled a pretty good breakdown of the commentary, for those who want a more complete glimpse of what Whedon discusses.

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