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Jeff Mejia reviews Conan: Ruins of Hyboria

Jeff Mejia reviews Conan: Ruins of Hyboria

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Conan is one of the most influential characters in all of fantasy. His influences has always been felt in the background, but he’s getting a lot more press lately due to an upcoming film adaptation (complete with new trailer). This supplement, reviewed by Jeff Mejia, focuses  not on the man so much as the setting … or rather, a type of setting which is woven into many of the greatest Sword and Sorcery tales (and games).conan-ruins-of-hyboria-vincent-darl15-med

Conan: Ruins of Hyboria

Vincent N. Darlage
Mongoose publishing (156 pages, $29.95, June 2006)
Reviewed by Jeff Mejia

Like many of you, I’m one of those who actually read The Lord of the Rings decades before the movie came out. I would get the books out every couple of years and reread them, and as I did so I would wonder what this locale would look like or how to create that character using my favorite gaming system. When Peter Jackson’s epic movie trilogy came out I was an instant fan; sure they left out a couple of favorite characters and missed a few beats here and there, but for all of that I finally had a glimpse of Middle Earth beyond the Brothers Hildebrandt calendars. For me Jackson’s The Lord of The Rings was a feast for the eyes. And such is the case with Ruins of Hyboria.

From Conan to Thundarr, Ruins have been a staple of Sword and Sorcery fiction. In Ruins of Hyboria by Vincent Darlage, we are not only provided with a system to help create and flesh out ruins of our own creation, we are also treated to full descriptions of some of the more famous ruins in the Conan saga.

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Supernatural Spotlight – Episode 6.20 “The Man Who Would Be King”

Supernatural Spotlight – Episode 6.20 “The Man Who Would Be King”

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The Archangel Castiel is confronted about his recent actions.
The Archangel Castiel is confronted about his recent actions.

This week begins with the Archangel Castiel praying in a cemetery, recounting to God some of the wonders he’s encountered over the ages: a fish crawling from the water, the Tower of Babel (there’s only so high you can pile dung), Cain/Abel, David/Goliath, Sodom/Gomorrha, and so on … up until the Apocalypse, which “was averted by two boys, an old drunk, and a fallen angel. The grand story and we ripped up the ending and the rules and destiny, leaving nothing but freedom and choice.” (A lot of good dialogue in this one, so it’ll be a quote-heavy review.)

Except now Castiel has doubts, that maybe he’s made the wrong choice, and he’s seeking guidance from God, so he begins to tell his story.

With the Winchesters, Castiel is still pretending that he doesn’t know whether or not the demon Crowley is alive. In reality, not only is Crowley alive, but he’s currently dissecting Eve’s corpse. “Eve’s brain, dead as a tin kipper, and yet, for some reason, she keeps laying eggs.” Creepy, fish-like eggs, which he pulls out of her guts. And when he electrocutes her brain, it causes seizures in a vampire they have tied up (just for these sorts of experiments, apparently).

Crowley’s concerned that Castiel is distracted, that his affection for the Winchesters is putting their plans to open Purgatory in danger. They’re bickering like an old married couple. “The stench of that Impala is all over your overcoat. I thought we’d agreed, no more nights out with the boys.”

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E. E. Knight Reviews The Stepsister Scheme

E. E. Knight Reviews The Stepsister Scheme

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the-stepsister-schemeThe Stepsister Scheme
Jim C. Hines
Daw (344 pp, $7.99, January 2009)
Reviewed by E.E. Knight

Jim C. Hines has penned a worthy follow-up to his Jig the Goblin books, a delightfully funny series that established Hines as the go-to guy for humorous fantasy between Pratchett publication dates.
Jig was short on size and muscle but long on moxie and chutzpah. Hines has glammed up his protagonists for this new series, taking on one of the most popular public domain franchises (thanks to Walt Disney): Fairy Tale Princesses, cleverly mashing them up with a Charlie’s Angels-style setup.

Sleeping Beauty (“Talia”) is more or less the leader, Snow White (“Snow”), the series sexpot and owner of some handy mirror-magic, and Cinderella (“Danielle”) is the bride with the kidnapped Prince and husband who needs rescuing. During her quest Danielle discovers her own power (no fear, it is delightfully Disneyesque) as she risks all to return her bridegroom Prince Armand to her bedchamber and his position as future heir to the Kingdom of Lorindar, currently under Queen Beatrice. Queen “Bea” is the royal voice dispatching the gals on their assignments, sometimes contracted through Snow’s magic mirror.
The Stepsister Scheme is a blend of Maguire’s Oz updates, Shrek’s madcap fairy tales, and gal detective stories.

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Anchorwick

Anchorwick

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AnchorwickAnchorwick
Jeffrey E. Barlough
Gresham & Doyle (387 pages, $14.95, October 2008)

Of all the books I’ve reviewed for Black Gate, the one that sticks in my head is Jeffrey Barlough’s Strange Cargo, which I reviewed way back in 2005 for BG #8. Grumpus that I am, of course I dinged it. I still stand by the review years later, though I feel some guilt about it too. Barlough is such a wonderful yet unappreciated fantasist that to judge him on that single novel is like measuring Hemingway by To Have or Have Not or Kerouac by The Subterraneans. Frankly, Strange Cargo isn’t even a bad book; it’s simply a novel where the author’s ambition exceeded the page count and so shortcuts were taken. Literary ambition is hardly a crime and Barlough is, nevertheless, a talent I invite everyone to sample.

With his first three books OOP, Barlough’s fifth, Anchorwick, makes a fine initiation for newcomers (younger versions of the protagonists from Barlough’s debut, Dark Sleeper, appear here in supporting roles). His alternate 20th century, called the Western Lights, has a sophisticated backstory that’s easier to link to than for me to explain, but I’ll try: in a world where the Ice Age never ended, a cataclysm has reduced humanity to a slip of English civilization along North America’s western coastline. It’s neither steampunk nor weird western; the technology is early 19th century. It’s kinda-sorta gaslamp fantasy, except there doesn’t seem to be any natural gas. Barlough’s creation is best described as a Victorian Dying Earth — gothic and claustrophobic yet confronted by its inhabitants with upper lips held stiff.

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The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, January 1966: A Retro-Review

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, January 1966: A Retro-Review

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fsf-jan661Here’s the second of three consecutive months of SF magazines I recently bought, each a different specimen of the canonical “Big Three” of that time. The first, the December 1965 issue of Galaxy, is here.

Edward Ferman was the Editor of F&SF at this time, as he had been for a while. (I have heard that even while his father Joseph was listed as Editor, Edward was actually doing the job.)

The cover is by Jack Gaughan, illustrating “L’Arc de Jeanne,” by Robert F. Young. Of course there was no interior artwork, excerpt for Gahan Wilson’s cartoon. There were also no ads except for the Classifieds in the F&SF Marketplace, and except for one or two inhouse ads. This issue did feature the Statement of Management and Circulation. Average Paid Circulation, 53,831. Average Mail Circulation, 16,644.

The features include Wilson’s Cartoon, a very brief “Science Springboard” by Theodore L. Thomas, about smog, and Isaac Asimov’s Science column, this time called “The Proton Reckoner,” about counting things, lots of things, like the protons in the universe.

And there is a book review column by Judith Merril. She writes from London, in September of 1965, and her subject is how much better things are in England: the drinking, people’s looks, the rock and roll, and the SF — the New Wave SF (though Merril does not here use that term). She focuses on three major fairly young writers: J. G. Ballard, Brian W. Aldiss, and John Brunner.

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Charlene Brusso Reviews May Earth Rise

Charlene Brusso Reviews May Earth Rise

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mayearthriseMay Earth Rise
Holly Taylor
Medallion Press (485 pages, $15.95, October 2009)
Reviewed by Charlene Brusso

Does the world need another Arthurian fantasy series? There are as many versions of the story of King Arthur as there are authors to tell it. This is the fourth novel (following Night Bird’s Reign, Crimson Fire, and Cry of Sorrow) in Taylor’s muscular epic fantasy Dreamer’s Cycle, which blends Arthurian myth with Celtic legend in a Dark Ages setting. Arthur is a High King without a kingdom, threatened by one Havgan, a Coranian warleader from across the sea (think Saxons) who’s devoted to Lytir, the One God, and feels it’s his duty to kill all the witches.

As the novel opens Arthur is plotting to rescue the Y Dawnus, the magic-wielding druids, seers, sorcerers and bards whose powers are necessary to sustain Kymru, Arthur’s empire. Taylor casts Arthur as a master strategist who first offers Havgan a chance to leave Kymru – and the Y Dawnus – or stay and die. Havgan, a determined aggressor, and overconfident to boot, refuses to leave. Arthur is surrounded by a large cast of characters – minor kings who once ruled various parts of Kymru, some displaced druids who’ve broken away from the Archdruid after he sided with Havgan, and various friends and relations.

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Welcome to Bordertown: Part the Third of a Brobdingnagian Review

Welcome to Bordertown: Part the Third of a Brobdingnagian Review

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bgbordertownDon’t you believe for a nanosecond that the reason I didn’t finish up this Welcome to Bordertown blog was because I didn’t finish the book. Not for the flicker of a fly’s eye!

The trouble is, as soon as I finished it, I had to go and read the other Bordertown books: Will Shetterley’s Elsewhere and NeverNever, followed by Emma Bull’s Finder. I even started The Essential Bordertown, and it is bliss! Bliss, I tell you! I even had a Long Lankin dream.

Don’t know what a Long Lankin is? Boy oh boy. Dark magic, that. Am I gonna tell you all about it? NO! You must read these books for your own sweet selves!

But now that I’m mostly done with my huge Bordertown stack o’ goodies and am calming down some, I figured I should probably wrap up this, for lack of a better word, “review,” the first two parts of which can be read here and here, for those of you whose patience stretches even unto eternity.

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Supernatural Spotlight – Episode 6.19 “Mommy Dearest”

Supernatural Spotlight – Episode 6.19 “Mommy Dearest”

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Sam and Dean have a chat with Eve, who decides to take the form of their dead mother.
Sam and Dean have a chat with Eve, who decides to take the form of their dead mother.

Eve’s up to no good in the town of Grant’s Pass, Oregon, by being unusually charming to a college student (named, as we shortly learn, Edward Bright). She runs her hand across his cheek, which cannot be a good thing. He wonders away from the bar she enters. Eve kisses another boy, then walks through and begins touching people. The whole place goes insane with a monstrous, vampiric feeding frenzy, as she sits and calmly watches.

Dean is making bullets filled with Phoenix ashes, but isn’t sure it’s going to work. The ashes certainly aren’t burning him. In fact, it’s all a bit of an exercise in futility without a location, so they summon Cas to try to get a bead on Eve. He has no information, but Sam has the idea of trying to track down an empathic monster to see if they can get Eve’s location from one of them.

Castiel is able to track down a cult favorite: Amber Benson, from Buffy: The Vampire Slayer fame. (For those who weren’t avid Buffy fans, Benson played Tara, the lesbian love interest of Willow. Her season 6 death at the hands of a misogynistic nerd nearly triggered the destruction of the world at Willow’s hands. Tara also had the best song in the classic “Once More, With Feeling” musical episode of Buffy, also from Season 6. If you have not seen it, Season 6 of Buffy is some of the best television ever made.)

Fortunately for fanboys like me, Benson also played the non-killing vampire Lenore, who was introduced briefly in Season 2 of Supernatural.

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Looking for the real Robert E. Howard in One Who Walked Alone

Looking for the real Robert E. Howard in One Who Walked Alone

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one-who-walked-aloneIt couldn’t have been easy for Novalyne Price Ellis to write One Who Walked Alone: Robert E. Howard the Final Years (Donald M. Grant Publisher, Inc., 1986). Price Ellis’ memoir of her relationship with Howard (roughly 1934-36) is illuminating in its raw honesty. It’s also painful, at turns disappointing and downright frustrating. We might find escape in Howard’s sword and sorcery tales but there is none to be found here.

But above all, One Who Walked Alone is brave. Price Ellis never sacrifices accuracy to save face. Howard was a successful writer and a free spirit, and told wild, vivid stories, traits that Price Ellis found irresistible. But she was also painfully embarrassed with the Texan, unable to accept his occasionally odd public behavior. She was disappointed that he didn’t conform to her own conception of manliness and began to date other men, including one of his best friends, Truett Vinson, which cut Howard to the quick. While her reactions were understandable, at times I found her to be rather shallow and unlikeable. And yet rather than off-putting I find that uncompromising truthfulness highly admirable.

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Andrew Zimmerman Jones Reviews Pathfinder Supplements

Andrew Zimmerman Jones Reviews Pathfinder Supplements

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pathfinder_rpg_core_rulebook_coverPaizo publishing’s Pathfinder RPG is both familiar and innovative, as it brings the best of Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 into a fresh new approach. In this review, I explore the core rulebook and a couple of their supplements, explaining why you should look into the game system if you haven’t already.

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Core Rulebook

Jason Bulmahn
Paizo Publishing (575 pages, $49.99, Aug. 2009)

Pathfinder Module: Crypt of the Everflame

Jason Bulmahn
Paizo Publishing (32 pages, $13.99, Sept. 2009)

Pathfinder Adventure Path #25: Council of Thieves (1 of 6): The Bastards of Erebus

Edited by Sean K. Reynolds
Paizo Publishing (92 pages, $19.99, Aug. 2009)

Reviewed by Andrew Zimmerman Jones

Your first look at the massive tome that is the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Core Rulebook can be a bit intimidating. I first ran across it piled high on a mountainous table at GenCon’s Paizo Publishing booth in summer 2009 and, I admit, I wasn’t even sure what it was. Yet another fantasy roleplaying game? Elves, dwarves, and halflings? It sure didn’t seem worth much attention, and I didn’t really get what all the hype was about.

Then I realized what it was… this was my old mistress, Dungeons & Dragons v3.5, all dressed up in a new outfit and ready to go out on the town again.

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