Goth Chick News: Gaining Residency in Fear City

Goth Chick News: Gaining Residency in Fear City

Comments 0 Comment

image008Have you ever become a fan of something in its earliest days and watched as it got better and better over time, until you were congratulating yourself at seeing the early greatness before everyone else caught on?

Or maybe that’s just me.

Usually it’s authors or film makers I have the pleasure of meeting on their freshman outings, and you can just tell that if you keep an eye on some them, things are going to get even more amazing as they further hone their craft.

In this particular case, it’s a hybrid of all the pop culture creativity that has been so much fun to follow.

Creating a haunted attraction from the ground up takes all the effort you can imagine — doubled. There’s the space, the permits, the theme, the detailed sets – costumes, makeup, actors, and promotion. Basically, all the components (and expense) of a stage production or an indy film with the additional elements of crowd control and liability insurance.

Fear City just kicked off its third season with a “Bloody Red Carpet” event on October 4th and its evolution has been a scream to watch.

…

Read More Read More

Vintage Treasures: Ronald Welch’s Knight Crusader

Vintage Treasures: Ronald Welch’s Knight Crusader

Comments 7 comments
Knight Crusader
“The British Harold Lamb”

Try not to lick your cracked lips. Don’t think of water. Listen to the Saracen arrows buzz past. Don’t flinch! Most of all, hold the line!

Grumpy old Sir Fulk can’t stand the heat. He raises his helm and ignoring the shouts of the other crusaders, waits while his son, Sir Joscelin, shares the last of his flask.

Whirrrrrrr! Thock!

An arrow takes Sir Fulk in the throat. There’s blood, there’s thrashing, and the old knight dies in the arms of his son, the effete Sir Joscelin.

Kurtzhau – age 6 – lets out a cry, as if he too were there, riding out under the baking 12th-century sun to face the army of Saladin. This is four years ago and I’m reading aloud from Ronald Welch’s Knight Crusader.

Now, Sir Joscelin — he of the camp voice, the silk clothing, perfumed handkerchief, the tough-as-nails young warrior who enjoyed winding up his conservative father with his decadent ways – charges out solo, determined on revenge.

Another cry from Kurtzhau. He draws up the covers. It’s Sunday morning, we’re reading in bed, and only now am I remembering that Ronald Welch, though nominally writing Children’s Fiction — he won the Carnegie medal for this — is ruthless with his body count.

Like the Crusader army, I’m caught in a cleft stick. If I stop, Kurtzhau won’t have closure. If I go on… well… Sir Philip, the hero, has a “character shield.” Let’s just say that his friends don’t.

…

Read More Read More

Working with Stanley Schmidt

Working with Stanley Schmidt

Comments 3 comments

Stanley SchmidtIt’s hard for me to believe that I worked with Stan for over thirty of the thirty-four years that he spent at the helm of Analog.

When I started at Davis Publications as an assistant in the subsidiary rights department, Stan was the imposing figure down the hall. Stan shared an office with Betsy Mitchell. He was the first person I ever knew who could work from home — he only came into the office three days a week.

Later, at management’s request (because they were always after our office space), his schedule was reduced to just one day a week in the office, which suited him fine. Stan’s assistant was responsible for mailing him a big box of slush manuscripts, and whatever else he needed, each month.

As I got to know him, I became less intimidated, but no less impressed. Stan is one person who has never lost the curiosity that drove him as a child. As a young person, this inquisitiveness led to science fiction and to being what would now be called a semifinalist in the Westinghouse Science Talent Search. As an adult, this curiosity has opened up many different avenues. He and his wife, Joyce, love nature and have a profound understanding of America’s flora and fauna. They have hiked and/or backpacked all over the country.

My family and I have been fortunate to be invited on some of those hikes. Although they are both in terrific shape, the Schmidts are kind to their companions, even when we are not particularly fit or when we are accompanied by a three-year-old. Because they like to stop to look, marvel, and identify the leaves and birds and ferns and snakes around them, they set a relaxed pace. Still, we’ve all made it to the top of peaks and there is little in life more beautiful than the memory of picnicking while watching turkey vultures soar below us and listening to Stan play the recorder.

…

Read More Read More

Dungeonslayers 4.0 & The Demolished Ones

Dungeonslayers 4.0 & The Demolished Ones

Comments 3 comments

dungeonslayersI’ve fallen for two game products I never expected to like. One is a slim paperback rule system for a fantasy role-playing game – and you might think we have enough of those, but this is pretty excellent. The other initially puzzled me because it seemed on first blush like it was a Victorian murder mystery… except that I discovered it more resembled The Prisoner.

The products have very little in common, except that they come from the same publisher and that I highly recommend them both.

All that you need to play Dungeonslayers – apart from dice, paper, pencil, and imagination – can be found in a slim 160 page paperback. I suppose a lot of role-playing games can make a similar claim, and it’s one I’ve heard often enough that upon first look I really didn’t see what the big deal was. But Dungeonslayers really is a different animal.

It’s beautifully presented and succinctly explained. There’s no bloat here, and there’s nothing confusing. It’s minimalist without being simplistic, and incredibly succinct. You can get the game up and running with a minimum of fuss.

…

Read More Read More

Campbell’s Reheated Mythopoetic Soup

Campbell’s Reheated Mythopoetic Soup

Comments 19 comments

In the fall session of my teen writing class at our local library, I’m planning to teach Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey. I’ve avoided this for several sessions, because personally I’m sick of its influence.  It’s been the default setting for epic fantasy, certainly since 1977. But if nothing else, it’s a structure that presents easy examples and will hopefully prompt some good discussion on why it’s popular and what writers can do with it.

But it’s also got me thinking about how it applies to my own stories, particularly those in the heroic fantasy genre. Because although it might sound counter-intuitive, the Hero’s Journey is really the antithesis of heroic fantasy.

"It's perfectly reasonable that all your fantasy epics for the foreseeable future will be based on my work. And yes, I rock the plaid."
“It’s perfectly reasonable that all fantasy epics for the foreseeable future will be based on my work. And yes, I rock the plaid.”

…

Read More Read More

To Elf or Not To Elf: Races in Fantasy Lit

To Elf or Not To Elf: Races in Fantasy Lit

Comments 18 comments

Evangeline Lilly in The HobbitA long, long time ago, I wrote my first novel. This was decades before I would get published. I was fresh out of college with grand ideas about how my book would set the fantasy world on fire. The story featured a main character that was half human and half elf, who set out to defend his elven kin from a nation of hostile orcs.

Yeah, I know. Not exactly groundbreaking. I’m thankful that novel was never published, more because of the shitty writing than the plot or characters. Yet, it brings up an interesting debate within fantasy literature.

Are races like elves, dwarves, orcs, and goblins fair game for modern fantasy?

Now, off the cuff, I’m inclined to say yes. You can write about anything you desire. Who am I to judge, right? However, while that may be the politically-correct answer, a little more digging turns up some complex issues for the modern writer.

My first introduction to those “classic” fantasy races was Prof. J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings saga, and it was continued in my formative years via games like Dungeons and Dragons and Warhammer Roleplay. Growing up on a diet of elves and orcs, it was little wonder that I choose to feature them in my own early writing. I suspect that most authors begin by emulating their literary idols, but eventually you need to break away and find your own brand of storytelling. It’s difficult to find your voice when you’re playing in someone else’s sandbox.

But what about authors who genuinely want to write about these races? Here’s why I would advise against it.

…

Read More Read More

Support The Great Way, an Epic Fantasy Trilogy by Harry Connolly

Support The Great Way, an Epic Fantasy Trilogy by Harry Connolly

Comments 5 comments

The Great Way Harry ConnollyWe try not to pimp too many Kickstarter projects here on the BG blog. We know you’re probably as tired of hearing about them as we are. But today, we’re making an exception for Harry Connolly.

Why? Because he’s awesome.

Harry’s first fiction sale, “The Whoremaster of Pald,” originally appeared in Black Gate 2, and quickly became one of the most popular stories we’ve ever published. It was also the first tale we presented online in its entirety, and that experiment was so successful it helped launch the entire Black Gate Online Fiction line. Harry returned to the decadent city of Pald in BG3 with “Another Man’s Burden,” and his brilliant tale of a civilization on the brink of extinction, “Soldiers of a Dying God,” appeared in Black Gate 10. We couldn’t keep him to ourselves forever, and Harry’s first three novels — Child of Fire, Game of Cages, and Circle of Enemies, together comprising the Twenty Palaces trilogy — were published by Del Rey between 2009 and 2011.

Harry wasn’t won over by Kickstarter right away, pointing out the platform is a fantastic resource but not right for every project in his January 2013 column “Let me tell you about my ambitions, and why they don’t include Kickstarter (right now).” He’s apparently come around, however: on September 19, he kicked off a campaign to fund the completion of The Great Way, an epic fantasy trilogy about a supernatural invasion that destroys an empire.

The first draft of The Great Way is already complete, and weighs in at a whopping 300,000 words. Harry has made Chapter One of the first volume, The Way into Chaos, available on his blog. Cover artist Christian McGrath has agreed to do the cover art for all three books as a stretch goal, if the campaign reaches $34,000.

That’s a pretty safe bet; as of this writing, it stands at $33,300 (well past its original $10,000 goal), and shows no signs of slowing down. The Kickstarter ends on Oct 19th, so there’s still time to back it and ensure that you get copies of an exciting new fantasy trilogy from one of the best new writers in the genre. Check it out here.

Its [It’s] Q: The Winged Serpent on Blu-ray!

Its [It’s] Q: The Winged Serpent on Blu-ray!

Comments 4 comments

Q Winged Serpent Blu-ray CoverQ (1982)
Written, Produced, and Directed by Larry Cohen. Starring Michael Moriarty, David Carradine, Candy Clark, Richard Roundtree.

You want to know something that rocks? Actually, two things that rock, at least in my little world:

1. The Chrysler Building

2. Giant Monsters

So when you have a movie about a giant flying monster nesting in the Chrysler Building, you have something that rocks so hard it makes Van Halen sound like One Direction. Again, at least in my little world.

Video distributor Shout! Factory continued its stellar series of classic B-movie releases on Blu-ray in September with the HD debut of Q. This 1982 sleeper hit, concerning the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl (or a non-god of the same name) appearing in New York City as a humungous flying snake that likes to snap the heads off window washers and topless sunbathers, was always crying out for Shout! Factory to pluck it up.

The company has packaged the film with its alternate marketing title, Q: The Winged Serpent, and repeated the original tagline over the Boris Vallejo artwork: “It’s name is Quetzalcoatl… Just call it ‘Q’… that’s all you’ll have time to say before it tears you apart!” However, Shout! Factory fixed the original poster’s grammatical error, correcting It’s to Its. That is one of the few disappointments I have with their presentation of this nifty low budget flick; I know Shout! Factory doesn’t want to seem careless on the cover for their product, but that grammatical glitch adds charm to the story of a clueless low-life criminal/jazz pianist who holds New York hostage with a winged snake.

…

Read More Read More

Can’t Keep a Great Buncha Folks Down

Can’t Keep a Great Buncha Folks Down

Comments 16 comments

Writing Fantasy HeroesOr as Charlie Daniels sang, “RBE will rise again.” Or maybe not, but it is what he was thinking. Or maybe not.

It is, however, the truth. RBE (Rogue Blades Entertainment) has resurfaced online, finally putting up its first website in two years at Rogue Blades Presents.

It’s been a bit and then some, but the house is making strides and a comeback’s round the bend. The site is up, the books are all listed, the authors and artists are accounted for, and the future looks promising.

In recreating the site, I even discovered something spectacular: all of the old Home of Heroics posts! Granted, they’re buried in a mass of gibberish in an XML file, but it’s nothing a little elbow grease, good eyes, and lots of time won’t salvage. Volunteers?

Drop on by the new joint and share your thoughts of it; grab a book while you’re there.

Spotlight on Fantasy Webcomics: The Dirt on Ursula Vernon’s Hugo Award Winner, Digger

Spotlight on Fantasy Webcomics: The Dirt on Ursula Vernon’s Hugo Award Winner, Digger

Comments 0 Comment
Digger Volume 1 Ursula Vernon
Cover of Digger Volume 1 by Ursula Vernon from Sofa Wolf Press

I read a lot of webcomics. Back when I was writing Cowboys and Aliens II for Platinum, I started reading a bunch of the comics that were up on the now-defunct Drunk Duck and I got hooked.

What happens when you start reading webcomics is that you often follow links to other webcomics, until your bookmarks bar is full of comics you’re following on a regular basis and your inbox is full of recommendations from friends of the comics you should be following. That e-mail from a friend is how I discovered Digger by Ursula Vernon, which was the Hugo Award Winner for best graphic story and the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award winner, both in 2012.

It starts with an anthropomorphic wombat named Digger who, by page 6, has met a statue avatar of the god of wisdom Ganesh. Wombats being a race of logically minded architects and engineers, they don’t care much for gods and magic — but Digger is thrust into the middle of a story that has both. Magic has deliberately interfered with her tunnel, something no wombat takes kindly, and her sense of direction is askew, meaning she can’t get home until Ganesh helps her figure out just where home is from where she’s ended up.

While researching a trip home might seem like a harmless endeavor, it’s not as simple as it sounds, and soon Digger is up to her ears in strange characters: a young healer known only as the Hag, a shadow child who might or might not be a demon, an unnamed hyena exile who Digger calls Ed, a female warrior monk who is probably insane, and a whole tribe of hyena people who might want to eat her.

This might sound like a lot of silliness in one webcomic, and Digger has its share of humorous moments. But what happens between the words, the art, and the story is the stuff of magic — quite possibly the kind that Digger herself would approve of.

…

Read More Read More