Black Gate – Page 1004 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

Why Did the Genre Cross the Road?

Friday, November 29, 2013 Violette Malan Comments 1 comment

Last week I was talking about dystopias and satires, urban fantasy and paranormal romance, and further thought has led me to observe that genre can be a tricky thing. Of course, I was really talking about how definitions change and evolve, and how we all fight the changes we don’t agree with. I didn’t really talk about the difference between nouns and adjectives. I didn’t mention that something can be dystopian, without being, actually, a dystopia. Or that something can have satirical elements, without being, technically, a satire.

After all, practically everything we read – or watch for that matter – has a romantic element, but that doesn’t mean we’re reading romance novels, or watching rom-coms.

Total aside: is there a rom-trag genre? Wuthering Heights, maybe? Rebecca? Truly, Madly, Deeply?

Anyway. I’ve actually had a romance novel published, so I think of myself as someone uniquely qualified to talk about that aspect of crossing genres.

As with any other genre, romance has characteristic conventions, but what really makes a romance novel a romance novel is that it tells the story of a very precise portion of the protagonists’ lives. Specifically, it tells the story of how they met the person they love, and began spending the rest of their lives together. Other things are very likely happening to the characters at the same time. They have work lives, social lives, family obligations. They may have crimes to commit or solve. But if the main plot concerns their love life, then it’s a romance. If there’s also a mystery/crime, that means there’s a mystery element, one that exists only to allow the characters to meet, interact, and so forth.

…

Read More Read More

The Shadow of Fu Manchu Falls Upon Me

Friday, November 29, 2013 William Patrick Maynard Comments 0 Comment

Without Fu Manchu in my life, I would never have started down the path of penning these articles. One thing I was certain of was that there were no more surprises. I had found every official appearance of Sax Rohmer’s master villain and would, in due course, cover all of them in this blog eventually. So it seems appropriate that in this the year that marks the centennial of the first Fu Manchu novel, my 200th article covers a hitherto unknown official piece of Fu Manchu history.

A few weeks ago, I attended Classicon in Michigan and convention organizer, Ray Walsh handed me the January 1933 issue of Movie Mirror with Joan Bennet on the cover. The second feature was The Mask of Fu Manchu by Sax Rohmer. I suspected it was an excerpt from or serialization of the book I was unaware of and found it intriguing that it had eluded both Bob Briney and Larry Knapp, the two foremost Rohmer scholars who have done a phenomenal job of compiling bibliographical information on the author.What the issue actually contained was something far more valuable: an 11-page “fictionization” of the 1932 MGM film starring Boris Karloff and Myrna Loy, fully illustrated with stills from the movie, some of which were quite rare. The adaptation was credited to Constance Brighton, an author I have found no other information concerning which made me suspect the name was a pseudonym.

…

Read More Read More

Goth Chick News: The Devil and Leonardo DiCaprio in the White City

Thursday, November 28, 2013 Sue Granquist Comments 4 comments

The last time we heard anything about a possible film version of one of my very favorite books, Erik Larson‘s The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair That Changed America, Leonardo DiCaprio‘s company had just optioned it and attached the actor to the project. Way back then DiCaprio had yet to shoot either J. Edgar or The Great Gatsby, both of which have already come and gone.

And that’s what the industry refers to as “development hell.”

However, recently it was confirmed that DiCaprio was, and still is, set to play H.H. Holmes, the serial killer who haunted the creation of the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. We still haven’t heard all that much about the film, but Warner Bros. says they are still working to make it a reality, and have hired Graham Moore to script.

It might help to move things along that fellow Chicago native Moore is a huge fan of the book, and has been for some time. As he told Deadline Hollywood,

[I’ve been] obsessed with Devil in the White City for a decade. My high school was 50 yards away from where the Chicago World’s Fair was held, and I played soccer on a field near where Holmes murdered about 200 people. It was a truly horrible crime, but it’s a very Chicago story. Though I moved to LA, I think of myself as fundamentally Mid-Western, and in a weird way, this is a dark and twisted tribute to my hometown.

Nicely put Mr. Moore, I couldn’t agree more.

…

Read More Read More

Heroic Historical and Uncomfortable Truths

Thursday, November 28, 2013 Comments 8 comments

large_towton — A winter battle. How positively…

People often quote LP Hartley (without having any idea they’re quoting him, or who he was, me included) — “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”

To an extent you can take a tourist attitude and go, “Look at the funny foreigners. How romantic!”

Distance in time fosters distance in morality, making it — for example — entirely acceptable to offer Battle of Towton greetings cards. A winter battle. How positively Christmassy!

Or for the Scottish Borders Council to adopt the Border Reiver as a logo.

…

Read More Read More

Try Out Spellbound Magazine

Thursday, November 28, 2013 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

Two weeks ago I reported on the great work editor Raechel Henderson was doing with Eggplant Literary Productions. The impetus was dropping by her booth at Windycon, where I saw the fabulous array of new fantasy novels and novellas she’d recently released, including new e-books from Lenora Rose, Laura J. Underwood, Lori Ann White, Patricia Russo, Martin Clark, and many others.

Eggplant is effectively a one-woman show, so I was tremendously impressed to see so many new titles. I know what it’s like to finance, edit, art direct, design, layout, produce, market and distribute one issue of a genre magazine every year… so just seeing the host of new releases Raechel had published in the last 12 months meant I needed to go have a bit of a lie down.

It’s not just her surprising accomplishments in the area of e-books, which are only a small part of Eggplant. On top of the book line, Raechel also produces the excellent Spellbound, a thriving new magazine that has published 19 issues since 1999.

Spellbound is a children’s fantasy e-zine for kids 8-12 years of age, which makes it almost unique in the marketplace. It was originally launched in Fall 1999 and went on hiatus after 15 issues, after the Spring 2003 issue. It was re-launched in Winter 2012 with greatly increased production values, including gorgeous color covers; so far Raechel has released four new issues like clockwork.

If you enjoy children literature — or have an inquisitive or imaginative child in your life — Spellbound makes a great value. Each issue contains original stories, poetry, art, and a Recommended Reading list, all centered around a special featured creature. The Fall 2013 issues showcased Creatures of the Deep, Dark Woods, with gorgeous cover art by Francesca Resta; the Summer 2013 issue focused on Dragons (click on the image at right for the full-sized cover art).

Individual issues of Spellbound are $5.00 (US) each; a four-issue, one year subscription is $20.00 (US). Order directly from the Eggplant website.

What’s next for Raechel and Eggplant Production? I’m not certain, but I’m looking forward to seeing what they produce next. Ignore them at your peril.

Vintage Treasures: The Coming of the Rats by George H. Smith

Thursday, November 28, 2013 John ONeill Comments 6 comments

A lot of post-apocalyptic novels and films appeared in the 50s and 60s. World War II was still a recent memory, and the threat of the H-Bomb was very real, even if most folks didn’t understand exactly what the “H” stood for. Publishers and filmmakers played on the very real terrors people faced every day. Fear of another war. Fear of atomic radiation.

And, going by the cover of George H. Smith’s The Coming of the Rats, the deep-seated fear that rats would attack our women and strip their clothes off.

Now, I’m not sure how our parents and grandparent dealt with these crippling fears, but from what I understand their coping mechanism involved a lot of cheap paperbacks, and multiple Saturday matinees (which seems like a stable strategy, when you think about it).

This is how that generation learned the facts about atomic radiation. And how the logical result would be mutants, and lots of ’em. Giant mutant ants. Mutant town-eating blobs. And horrible, women-chewing mutant rats.

Which brings us to The Coming of the Rats, and its hallowed place in the post-apocalyptic fiction canon.

Author George H. Smith (not to be confused with George O. Smith, author of Venus Equilateral and Troubled Star, or the George H. Smith who wrote Swamp Lust, Swamp Bred, and other swamp love classics) had a checkered career as a paperback writer in the 60s. His first publication was a short story in Startling Stories in 1953, and he sold a number of stories to SF magazines throughout the fifties before graduating to novels. He’s mostly remembered today for a line of soft-core erotica written under various pseudonyms.

His first attempt at more serious SF was The Coming of the Rats. But nobody told the cover artist, who cheerfully went the soft-core route, depicting a toga-party victim unsuccessfully fending off high-jumping rats.

Of course, the best covers intrigue readers and make them ask questions, and this cover made me ask questions. Chiefly, “Why are you wearing a dish towel?”

…

Read More Read More

New Treasures: Copperhead by Tina Connolly

Wednesday, November 27, 2013 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

I first met Tina Connolly at the World Fantasy Convention in San Diego in 2011. She was charming, witty, and very entertaining — precisely the kind of person you want to follow around to all the good parties. I tried this enthusiastically for a while, until someone from the con committee patiently explained to me that this was called “stalking” and was, like, illegal.

Fortunately, Tina Connolly is also a very talented writer. And reading her novels (I’ve discovered) is exactly like hanging out with the author at a great party. The same sparkling wit, the same penetrating intelligence. Except, unlike at parties, I can pause the conversation to look up words without looking stupid.

Tina’s first novel Ironskin was an historical fantasy set in an alternate version of early 1900s England, and was nominated for a Nebula Award last year. The sequel Copperhead has finally arrived, and it looks just as delightful as the first volume.

Helen Huntingdon is beautiful — so beautiful she has to wear an iron mask.

Six months ago her sister Jane uncovered a fey plot to take over the city. Too late for Helen, who opted for fey beauty in her face — and now has to cover her face with iron so she won’t be taken over, her personality erased by the bodiless fey.

Not that Helen would mind that some days. Stuck in a marriage with the wealthy and controlling Alistair, she lives at the edges of her life, secretly helping Jane remove the dangerous fey beauty from the wealthy society women who paid for it. But when the chancy procedure turns deadly, Jane goes missing — and is implicated in a murder.

Meanwhile, Alistair’s influential clique Copperhead — whose emblem is the poisonous copperhead hydra — is out to restore humans to their “rightful” place, even to the point of destroying the dwarvven who have always been allies.

Helen is determined to find her missing sister, as well as continue the good fight against the fey. But when that pits her against her own husband — and when she meets an enigmatic young revolutionary — she’s pushed to discover how far she’ll bend society’s rules to do what’s right. It may be more than her beauty at stake. It may be her honor… and her heart.

Copperhead was published by Tor Books on October 15th. It is 318 pages, priced at $24.99 in hardcover, and $11.99 for the digital edition.

The Powerful Geek

Wednesday, November 27, 2013 Jon Sprunk Comments 6 comments

When I was ten years old, my father enrolled my brother and me into martial arts classes given at the local YMCA. It was a two-class session, starting with tae kwon do and then switching to judo for the second hour. It was my first real experience with physical training outside of school gym class. I was hooked right away.

At first, I really preferred the tae kwon do with its blocks and punches and kicks that somewhat resembled what my brother and I watched on Black Belt Theater on Saturday afternoons. The judo, on the other hand, was a lot more work. The instructor spent half the class running us through fairly rigorous calisthenics, followed by grappling and throws.

Now, by the time we began these lessons, I was already a fantasy- and scifi-loving geek. I was into Star Wars, Star Trek, The Lord of the Rings, Conan, and superheroes. For me, martial arts were a real-life connection to the heroic feats that permeated those works. Bruce Lee was one of my earliest personal icons. As I got older and went college, I added bodybuilding to my repertoire. After graduating, I worked for fourteen years as a guard at a maximum-security juvenile detention center, where my training was put to practical use.

It doesn’t require a Ph.D. in psychology to realize I was undergoing a transformation in all this. Studying these arts and working out allowed me to model the attributes of my childhood heroes. Yet, in aping these heroic qualities, I was also feeding my inner fantasy life. It helped me to make the decision to pursue fantasy writing as a career, as if it were a natural step on my personal journey.

…

Read More Read More

The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in October

Wednesday, November 27, 2013 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

The top article on the Black Gate blog last month was our look at Mike Resnick and Robert Garcia’s new anthology Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs. (A few weeks later Robert Garcia wrote his first Saturday blog post for us, a fond look back at The Pulp Art of Virgil Finlay. Do we bring the heavy hitters, or what?)

Second on the list was E.E. Knight’s open letter to Amy Farrah Fowler, a character on The Big Bang Theory, on her controversial theory that Indiana Jones had no impact on the ending of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Fight the good fight, Eric.

Third was Jon Sprunk’s look at his favorite fantasy films, followed by his article on the use of elves in fantasy lit. Way to hog the list, Jon. Rounding out the Top Five was James Maliszewski’s “Appendix T,” an attempt to craft a hypothetical Appendix N for the great Traveller RPG, listing roughly 20 works of classic science fiction that clearly influenced the game’s creators.

The complete Top 50 Black Gate posts in October were:

…

Read More Read More

Ancient Worlds: Between a Rock and a Rabid Sea She-Monster

Tuesday, November 26, 2013 Elizabeth Cady Comments 0 Comment

After Odysseus makes his way past the Sirens, he has to thread his way through twin threats on his way home: Scylla and Charybdis. Like many of the threats the Ithacan king faces, these have become proverbial: to be caught between Scylla and Charybdis is to be forced to choose between two terrible options.

And terrible they are. Scylla is a many-headed creature who snaps up sailors as they pass by. Charybdis is an unseen monster who lives under the sea, gulping down water and devouring ships like an aquatic Sarlacc. And if these weren’t individually terrifying enough, they are placed on opposites sides of a narrow strait, so that Odysseus must choose between them. Sailing far enough from Scylla to avoid getting chomped means getting sucked down into Charybdis’ maw, and vice versa.

(And does anyone at this point notice that an overwhelming number of Odysseus’ problems involve him being in terror of being sucked down, eaten, conquered or otherwise waylaid by women? UNLESS HE TERRIFIES THEM WITH HIS GIANT… UH… SWORD? I mean seriously. I really don’t give much weight to Freudian analysis the vast majority of the time but sometimes? You say one thing and you obviously mean your mother.)

…

Read More Read More