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Frontier Guard, Robot Ships, and Rascal Traders: Rich Horton on Space Service, edited by Andre Norton

Frontier Guard, Robot Ships, and Rascal Traders: Rich Horton on Space Service, edited by Andre Norton

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Space Service Andre Norton-big

Andre Norton is one of the most revered science fiction writers of the 20th Century. True, much of her work is out of print these days, and she seems to have more or less fallen out of favor with modern readers (except Fletcher Vredenburgh, naturally), but there are still plenty of SF fans who credit her with their introduction to science fiction.

Many readers don’t know that Norton made a name for herself as an editor before she became acclaimed for her own writing. Her three SF anthologies for World Publishing Co., all published between 1953-56, remain some of her most collectible work. Party that’s due to their relative rarity, but the Vigil Finlay covers are also a big factor. These are gorgeous books, eagerly sought by collectors, especially in good condition.

Over at his website Strange at Ecbatan, Rich Horton reviews the first one, Space Service. It appeared in hardcover in 1953 and, like the other two, has never been reprinted.

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Lore of the Witch World by Andre Norton

Lore of the Witch World by Andre Norton

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By the western wall of Klavenport on the Sea of Autumn Mists — but you do not want a bard’s beginning to my tale, Goodmen? Well enough, I have no speak-harp to twang at all the proper times. And this is not altogether a tale for lords-in-their-halls. Though the beginning did lie in Klavenport right enough.
— from “Legacy from Sorn Fen”

oie_2962753vGY7eZ66I’ve written before that Andre Norton’s Witch World books is a series I avoided for way too long. There were two things that kept me away from them over the years. The first, when I was younger, was their name: Witch World. It seemed a little too twee. When I was older there were so many other things I wanted to read that it never crossed my mind to investigate Andre Norton’s catalogue. If she ever occurred to me at all, it was as the author of Starman’s Son and several other books shelved in the children’s section at my local library. Later, I found a few scattered Norton volumes in the boxes of paperbacks my dad kept in the attic but, again, nothing prompted me to read them. At the time, the cover of “Witch World” turned me off. (Today I love the goofy looking thing.)

Not until I started contemplating blogging about swords & sorcery did I actually read anything by Andre Norton. When I started expanding my library of S&S books, there were several anthologies I finally picked up, one being Flashing Swords #2, edited by Lin Carter. I had read some of its stories before, but not Norton’s Witch World story, “The Toads of Grimmerdale.”

I was surprised by the darkness of the story. Like I said, I had assumed the Witch World stuff was light and airy and my first encounter with it was a story of revenge for rape, set in a country savaged by years of war. Well I was hooked, and I scanned my shelves for any other Witch World stories. I found “Spider Silk” in Flashing Swords #3, and “Falcon Blood” in Amazons!, edited by Jessica Amanda Salmonson. I rooted through boxes in the Vredenburgh attic and dug out my dad’s ancient copy of the first novel, Witch World, and devoured it. Its inventiveness, fast pacing, and the sheer fun of it made me an instant fan.

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The Complete Carpenter: The Thing (1982)

The Complete Carpenter: The Thing (1982)

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drew-struzan-the-thing-1982-posterIf you’re a fan of the career of director John Carpenter, you probably have an idiosyncratic favorite among his pictures. The one that has special meaning for you, possibly because of nostalgia, a particular theme, or sheer rewatchability. I’ll telegraph ahead in this series and mention that In the Mouth of Madness is one of those special Carpenter films for me. Looking backward, Assault on Precinct 13 is the Carpenter movie I’m mostly likely to rewatch, and it rises in my estimation each time I return to it. One of my close friends is deeply in love with Big Trouble in Little China, and his wife roots hard for Christine. Carpenter’s catalog has a range of minor-league wonders, and I can’t feel upset for anyone picking offbeat choices. I’ve even heard stimulating defenses of The Ward, which (spoilers for future reviews) I think is Carpenter’s worst film.

However, general consensus says 1982’s The Thing — a remake of the 1951 SF classic The Thing from Another World by way of its source material, John W. Campbell’s 1938 novella “Who Goes There?” — is John Carpenter’s masterpiece. And general consensus is right.

The Story

It’s the first week of the winter-over at US National Science Institute Station 4 (aka Outpost #31) in the Antarctic interior. It doesn’t start well. A helicopter from a Swedish Norwegian base makes an explosive landing at the outpost while trying to gun down a runaway sled dog. The men at the outpost take in the dog and try to figure out what happened, although failed radio communications make it difficult. They investigate the Norwegian base and discover it devoid of life with signs of a horrific violent event. It seems the Swedes Norwegians dug up and thawed out an alien lifeform from a spaceship trapped under the ice pack for thousands of years, and that didn’t turn out that swell for them.

Oops, too late … That adorable sled dog allowed into the US station is actually the alien, which can alter its shape and assimilate other organics while perfectly imitating them on the outside — and it’s started in on the men at Outpost #31. Paranoia and alien transformation freakiness break out. If it takes them over, then it has no more enemies, nobody left to kill it. And then it’s won. World assimilation in 27,000 hours after first contact with civilized areas.

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An Incomparable Voyage Through Dreamland: The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia A. McKillip

An Incomparable Voyage Through Dreamland: The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia A. McKillip

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The Forgotten Beasts of Eld-smallThe Forgotten Beasts of Eld
Patricia A. McKillip
Tachyon Publications (240 pages, $14.95 in trade paperback, September 19, 2017)
Reprint edition (originally published by Atheneum, August 1974)

The moment you begin The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, the World Fantasy Award-winning novel by Patricia A. McKillip, you understand you have put yourself in the hands of a masterful wordsmith. McKillip has no peer when it comes to incantatory prose, and her wizardry spells you into a waking dream in this breathtaking tale.

The young wizard Sybel comes from a legendary lineage of animal keepers. After calling a magisterial bounty of magical beasts to her castle, she protects them with the unwavering love of a lioness. When a knight entrusts an infant boy into her care, unbeknownst to the so-called ice-hearted wizard, her life unravels into the pursuit of true love, justice, and the attainment of one’s free will.

Though the animals play a prominent role in the tale, the action mainly revolves around Sybel and the two men who love her. Tam, the babe given to her not long after leaving the womb, cares for her throughout the story. Through the numerous hardships that befall Sybel in her quest for justice in a troubled world, he remains steadfast in his love for the woman he considers his mother.

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August Short Story Roundup

August Short Story Roundup

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oie_225359V0Ky2mKfWith summer’s end in sight, I’m back with another short story roundup. For those paying attention, you probably noticed I’m calling this the August roundup instead of the July one. That’s because there’s so much stuff I have to pick and choose from (and more coming soon – see this post at Howard Andrew Jones’ site), I can’t always get to it in a timely manner. From now on, each roundup will focus on whatever new short stories I’ve managed to read since the previous one. It’s a minor thing, but there it is.

Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, produced under the expert guidance of Adrian Simmons and company, continues to be the fieriest star in the S&S heavens. #33 contains not only the usual three stories and three poems, but an announcement that HFQ’s second Best of collection has been fully funded and will appear this fall. I really dug the first one and have high hopes for this one. Also, they played a fun game in this issue that I won’t describe, but it’s clever and I applaud the editors for pulling it off.

The new issue kicks off with “Between Sea and Flame” by Evan Dicken. Set in an alternate universe where Tenochtitlan fell not to Cortes, but to a strange priesthood from the sea, it’s a sequel to “Mouth of the Jaguar.” Once again, Hummingbird, refugee warrior from the fallen Mexica Empire, finds herself at the center of chaos and death. This time around she is caught between two deadly and evil forces: the Sea People who serve the terrible god Dagon, and that of the even more malevolent Destroyer. Convinced by one of the Sea People’s generals, she joins them and their allies to storm the stronghold of the Destroyer’s great follower, Pedrarias. Her decision brings her to a land already being twisted by the Destroyer’s malign aura:

If Hummingbird had any doubts about the threat posed by the Destroyer, the mountain put them to rest. Ometepe’s animals had become strange, monstrous things, twisted as if by some terrible hand. Flocks of bat-winged hummingbirds flitted around the war party, darting in to stab at the warriors with beaks barbed like fishing harpoons. If they were not crushed quickly enough, they burrowed inside the body. Many Mankeme fell shrieking down the hill, digging at their own flesh with knives and axes.

Clawed hands reached down from the tangled foliage above to pluck the heads from passing warriors. Diriangen would’ve been among them had not Hernández dragged him back at the last moment. Hummingbird joined the Mankeme in flinging javelins into the trees. What fell resembled sloths, but grown large and bloated. Their arms were thin, boneless things, little more than ropes of muscle with claws sharp as knapped flint. A warrior buried her axe in one of the things, only to have the creature burst like an overripe fruit to disgorge a swarm of fleshy mosquitos.

This is a swell story, filled with well-paced and -choreographed action. Dicken effortlessly combines elements of real history with his fictional reality, and has created a darkly wonderful world of elder terrors and bold, strong-armed adventurers.

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Repent Your Crimes: Marvel’s Black Bolt Series

Repent Your Crimes: Marvel’s Black Bolt Series

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I’ve been a Saladin Ahmed fan for a while. I probably heard his first fantasy fiction at Beneath Ceaseless Skies with Mister Hadj’s Sunset Ride, or in Podcastle’s Judgement of Swords and Souls (click on the links for free audio versions). I also met him in person in 2013 when I ended up at the same table as him during the Nebula Awards Banquet (where his first novel had been nominated).

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So I perked up when I saw that Marvel had Ahmed writing a new Black Bolt solo series. I picked up the first issue in June, put it in my backpack and promptly…. left it sitting in my TBR pile. For two months. And I didn’t even crack it open until issue #4 was already out.

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Mage: The Hero Denied #0 and #1

Mage: The Hero Denied #0 and #1

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Mage 0So, I’ve been meaning to get back into writing comic reviews, but there’s frankly been very little out there that got me excited. I’m more of an old school comic fan, preferring the comics that would actually take ten or fifteen minutes to read. Yeah, I’m a slow reader, but even I can push through most modern comics in two or three minutes without much trouble. All splash pages and dialogue-free scenes. It seems like most modern comic writers don’t know how to tell a serial story: each issue should be its own story, as well as a part of a greater narrative.

But I’ve long been a huge fan of Matt Wagner (check out my previous reviews for Mage: The Hero Discovered and Mage: The Hero Defined), so I knew I was going to be on board for the third and final part of his Mage trilogy: The Hero Denied. Issue #0 came out in July and, while it looked great, it was basically a half-issue meant to work as a teaser for the main book, so there wasn’t much to review. Also, I got suckered in by a nice issue #0 for the Red Sonja reboot that fed into a series that was disappointing. So I decided to wait until a proper issue #1 came out before deciding whether or not it was worth my time to commit to review the whole series.

Since you’re reading this, you can guess how I feel about issue #1.

But let’s start with issue #0. (spoilers to issues #0 and #1 beyond this point)

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A Gathering of Ravens by Scott Oden

A Gathering of Ravens by Scott Oden

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To you, I am orcneas. To the Dane, I am skraelingr. The blasted Irish would name me fomorach,” Grimnir said, then smote his breast with one black-nailed fist. “But I am kaunr! Do you understand now?”

Grimnir from A Gathering of Ravens

 

oie_155021fZFaLK07You know me: I’m the guy who reads mostly old swords & sorcery novels and short stories. Aside from a few by Milton Davis and P.C. Hodgell, I haven’t read many new S&S novels. My experience with contemporary fantasy novels has been mostly… disappointing.

I’m also a guy who is on record as disliking the utilization of orcs in modern fantasy. In the works of their creator, J.R.R. Tolkien, orcs are perversions of elves created by Middle-earth’s satan figure, Melkor. In modern fantasy they’ve become little more than woefully misunderstood warriors — basically fantasy Klingons. So, when Scott Oden sent me a copy of his latest book, A Gathering of Ravens (2017),  and I learned its protagonist was an orc, my hopes weren’t high. Well, Oden’s novel knocked the heck out of any prejudices I had. New or old, this book kicks ass, and is one of the best swords & sorcery novels I’ve read in a while.

Grimnir, the last of his race, lives on the Danish island of Sjaelland, dreaming of revenge against Bjarki Half-Dane, the man who killed his brother, Hrungnir. His desire to cleave his enemy with his trusty seax (a old Germanic sword), leads him from Denmark to England, and finally to the field of Clontarf, in Ireland.

Etain is a young woman, disguised as a man, bound for Roskilde to evangelize the Danes. After a bloody run-in with Grimnir, she finds herself bound to him and forced to act as his guide across the British Isles in search of his prey. With no recourse but to stay by his side, she follows him into the mystic heart of Yggdrasil, the world tree, traveling through time and space. The mismatched pair, devout Christian woman and resoundingly pagan monster, face off against numerous supernatural and mundane foes before reaching the book’s rousing conclusion on a field outside of Dubhlinn. Their story lets up only a few times, but those calmer passages serve to allow magical creatures or armies the time to marshall their forces for the next burst of violence.

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In 500 Words or Less: Nova by Margaret Fortune

In 500 Words or Less: Nova by Margaret Fortune

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nova margaret fortune-smallNova
By Margaret Fortune
DAW (320 pages, $24.99 hardcover, $7.99 paperback, June 2015)

My first time at the Nebulas weekend in May, I was given this massive bag of complimentary books (apparently this is standard, but hey, I’m new) – so many books, in fact, that my friend Derek Künsken and I were detained by Canadian Border Services on our way back to Ottawa. It’s taken me time to go through the bag and see what appeals to me, but I’ve finally been able to start reading them so I can review a few here.

I started with Nova, the first novel in the Spectre War series by Margaret Fortune. The back cover description piqued my interest: a former prisoner of war is returned home, except that she’s not actually a former prisoner of war – she’s a genetically-engineered bomb that’s supposed to explode in thirty-six hours.

The first few chapters lived up to my expectations, as the character Lia mentally prepares to “go Nova” and destroy a massive space station operated by her designers’ enemies. That in and of itself is a neat concept, especially when things obviously go wrong (if they didn’t, this would be a short story) and Lia faces the fact that she’s going to be around for a lot longer than she expected.

Unfortunately, after about 100 pages of Nova … I just got really bored. Every encounter sees Lia struggling to understand emotions she was never meant to feel, and connect with people who knew the person she’s designed to imitate. That sort of slow character development can be really effective, but in this case it got old really quick as Lia’s reactions became too repetitive.

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Purity of Blood by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

Purity of Blood by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

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oie_822641406YLopEI closed out my review of Captain Alatriste last summer by stating I would be reading more of Arturo Pérez-Reverte’s series in “short order.” That did not happen. Only now, over a year later, have I plunged back into the grimy, deadly underside of Golden Age Madrid. Even more than its predecessor, Purity of Blood (1997) explores the darkest heart of imperial Spain as she, only 130 years after her emergence as the world’s leading power, is collapsing in on herself; collapsing due to endless war, unsustainable debt, corruption at all levels, and unyielding religious fanaticism. Still, Spain remains a mighty empire; if not feared, still respected in all corners, and her subjects proud:

But at the time of this tale, our monarch was still a young man, and Spain, although already corrupt, and with mortal ulcers eating her heart, maintained her appearance, all her dazzle and politesse. We were still a force to be reckoned with, and would continue to be for some time, until we bled the last soldier and last maravedi dry. Holland despised us; England feared us; the Turk was ever hovering ’round; the France of Richelieu was gritting its teeth; the Holy Father received our grave, black-clad ambassadors with caution; and all Europe trembled at the sight of our tercios — still the best infantry in the world — as if the rat-a-tat-tat of the drums came from the Devil’s own drumsticks. And I, who lived through those years, and those that came later, I swear to Your Mercies that in that century we were still what no country had ever been before.

Purity of Blood picks up shortly after Captain Alatriste, in the year 1623. Like that book, this one is narrated by Íñigo Balboa, the son of one of Alatriste’s slain comrades. Íñigo tells the story from late in life, but during its events he is thirteen.

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