Black Gate – Page 1086 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

Nathan Shumate Looks at Lousy Book Covers

Monday, January 28, 2013 John ONeill Comments 10 comments

It’s a lot easier to publish a book than it used to be.

So easy in fact that people are doing it themselves. They’re doing away with traditional print and distribution, all the hassle of finding an agent, publishing contracts, and 20th Century promotional models entirely.

Unfortunately, in the process many of them are also getting rid of things they probably shouldn’t. Things like book design, and cover art. And marketing.

Or even proof-reading. I mean, who needs that, right?

Sadly, the result is that some good books are getting buried under terrible cover art, or painfully sub-standard art design. Nathan Shumate has made it his mission to showcase daily examples at his blog, Lousy Book Covers. Today’s poster child, Dixon Heurass’s Goat Suckin’, is sub-titled “Hotter Than It Sounds” (as Nathan dryly observes, “It would have to be, wouldn’t it?”)

Check out the many additional examples at Nathan’s blog to see just how many different ways there are to screw up cover art, or totally obscure passable art with poor title placement and font color.

We last discussed Nathan Shumate on the publication of his delightful experiment in communal self-publishing, Space Eldritch (which has a thoroughly excellent cover, incidentally).

Harry Connolly: “Let Me Tell You About My Ambitions, and Why They Don’t Include Kickstarter”

Monday, January 28, 2013 John ONeill Comments 4 comments

We’ve had some excellent discussions here about cloud funding, starting with Scott Taylor’s “The Pillaging of Kickstarter” last March. There’s no question that cloud funding sites like Kickstarter are here to stay, but the question remains: how much do they really help writers?

Harry Connolly has written a thoughtful and insightful piece on his blog from the point of view of a successful author and self-published writer, titled “Let me tell you about my ambitions, and why they don’t include Kickstarter (right now).” Here’s a quote:

Along with the release of the sales numbers of my self-published novel has come a flood of requests that I turn to Kickstarter to fund The Twisted Path… Currently, I have no plans to do that, and I’m writing this post because I want to explain my reasoning…

I want to be a best-selling author… It’s not about making a whole bunch of money, it’s about having my books in the hands of lots of readers from all over the world.

Several people have suggested that I could get new readers with a Kickstarter campaign, but I don’t consider that realistic. Take a look at these guys: their campaign has been fantastically successful. At the time I write this, they’re over 11,000% of their goal. However, they have fewer than 8,500 backers.

That’s huge for a Kickstarter but Circle of Enemies sold more copies than that and it’s considered a failure.

Harry Connolly’s first publication “The Whoremaster of Pald” appeared in Black Gate 3; his Twenty Palaces novels include Child of Fire, Game of Cages, and Circle of Enemies, all published in paperback by Del Rey, and the self-published Twenty Palaces.

You can read the complete blog post here.

Black Gate Online Fiction: “The Gunnerman” by Jason E. Thummel

Sunday, January 27, 2013 John ONeill Comments 7 comments

An action-packed tale of a battle at sea, a desperate swordfight on wind-swept decks, and dark sorcery hidden in the depths of a strange vessel.

“Starboard,” shouted the chief, “run ‘em out!”

The gun port was thrown open and the towmen sent the cannon’s barrel through the open port. Clap gazed down the barrel and could see the hull of the other vessel just out of range riding high and asking for it. It was a ship of similar size, two decks above the waterline, each with ten ports open and guns run out even as he watched. She was flying unfamiliar colors and her paint seemed of foreign design. The trigger rope itched in his hand, begging him for release.

“As she bears and on the roll, boys,” came the command. Clap took one last aim, hoping for the mainmast, stepped aside and pulled.

Jason’s first story for us was “The Duelist,” published as part of our Black Gate Online Fiction line on September 30th, 2012. His work has also appeared in Flashing Swords magazine, Rage of the Behemoth, Magic and Mechanica, and other venues. Some of his sword & sorcery and heroic fantasy is collected in In Savage Lands and The Harsh Suns, and the first two novels chronicling the supernatural adventures of occult detective Lance Chambers, The Spear of Destiny and Cult of Death, are now available.

The complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including stories by E.E. Knight, Gregory Bierly, Mark Rigney, C.S.E. Cooney, Judith Berman, Howard Andrew Jones, Dave Gross, Harry Connolly, and others, is here.

“The Gunnerman” is a complete 5,000-word sword & sorcery tale offered at no cost.

Read the complete story here.

The Weird of Oz gabs about Antiheroes

Sunday, January 27, 2013 Nick Ozment Comments 11 comments

Antihero. A problematic term to begin with, its overuse has further watered it down. Anti- typically means to be in opposition or even to be the opposite; the antithesis of a position is the oppositional position.

So, technically, one might interpret anti-hero to mean a villain. This is rarely, if ever, how the term is used; so what do we mean by an antihero?

Off the top of my head, without resorting to any dictionary definition, this is how I tend to picture an antihero: A person not serving any particular ideal or higher purpose, but generally self-serving, who, while going about his (or her) business in pursuit of fortune, power, pleasure, or whatever turns his crank, is suddenly confronted by a moral choice. And at that moment, not for any dogmatic or religious reasons, any creeds or codes, but simply because of some niggling inner compass — his conscience — he makes the choice that is least likely to offer personal gain, that involves self-sacrifice, that may in fact be fatal. He makes a heroic choice, the choice that allows us to continue to root for him as the hero-protagonist.

Think of the fallen samurai in The Seven Samurai or the lawless gunslingers in The Magnificent Seven. In both cases, when they learn that the threatened peasant village cannot really afford to pay them and that they are outnumbered five to one, they nevertheless decide to make a stand to protect the afflicted. No promise of financial reward and a very high probability of death — an option that the histories of these men would not suggest they would choose. They are neither knights nor saints. Yet they become heroes and, in some cases, martyrs. All appearances to the contrary, deep down they prove to be — when it really counts — good men. Or in that moment they become good men.

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“Even a God Can be Moved”: Locus Online on “When the Glimmer Faire Came to the City of the Lonely Eye”

Sunday, January 27, 2013 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Lois Tilton at Locus Online reviews John R. Fultz’s “When the Glimmer Faire Came to the City of the Lonely Eye” published here on Sunday, January 6:

Artifice the Quill, in exile, has joined a company of players and is now about to see his first play staged for the ghosts that haunt Mornitetra, a city where the eye of its god looks down from a tall pedestal in the central plaza. The subject of his drama is the doom of its sister city Ultimetra, from whence the ghosts have come after the god destroyed their own, in wrath at their sin. Artifice has misgivings about this venue, but he is not in charge of the troupe…

The story… stands effectively on its own. The real interest is not so much in Artifice himself as in the head of the troupe, Mordeau, whose sorcery enhances the stagecraft and effects, so that even a god can be moved.

John’s tales for Black Gate include “Oblivion is the Sweetest Wine” (Black Gate 12), ”Return of the Quill” (Black Gate 13), and “The Vintages of Dream” (BG 15). Seven Kings, the second book of the Shaper Trilogy, was released on Jan. 15; read an exclusive chapter here.

Tangent Online called “Glimmer Faire” “an enjoyable adventure that reveals the power of art;” read that review here. You can read Lois’s complete review at Locus Online, and “When the Glimmer Faire Came to the City of the Lonely Eye,” a complete 6,800-word novelette of heroic fantasy, free here.

New Treasures: Pirate Freedom by Gene Wolfe

Saturday, January 26, 2013 John ONeill Comments 7 comments

I love bargain books. I love pirate books. And I love Gene Wolfe books. So I don’t need to tell you how I feel about bargain pirate novels by Gene Wolfe.

Pirate Freedom was released in hardcover in November 2007, and in trade paperback three years later. It’s a swashbuckling adventure novel — Sci-Fi Weekly called it “straight up adventure in the mold of Robert Louis Stevenson, Rafael Sabatini, or even the Pirates of the Caribbean films” — but as you’d expect from Wolfe, he adds an unexpected twist or two.

It begins in a monastery in Cuba the day after tomorrow, where a boy named Chris realizes he’s not meant for the priesthood, and sets out for the streets of Havana. From there it becomes a tale of time travel and fantasy adventure. The San Francisco summed it up thusly:

Plenty of action, romance, and historical color. Nearly every pirate cliche is given a new spin, from mutinous crews to cursed ships, from beautiful women in disguise to treasure beyond imagining.

Still, I hadn’t gotten around to picking up a copy until this week, when I noticed that Amazon had marked down the price by 60% — to $9.98 for the hardcover, and just $6.40 for the trade paperback. If you’re interested in a copy, act quickly; there are only about half a dozen left.

Pirate Freedom was published by Tor Books. It is 320 pages, and was originally priced at $24.95 for the hardcover, and $15.95 for the trade paperback. The gorgeous cover is by David Grove (click on the image at right for a larger version).

Kiini Ibura Salaam on Advice Received in the Bathroom from Octavia Butler, Selling Books at the Green Market, and Holding Five Jobs When Life Only Has Room for Two: An Audio Interview

Saturday, January 26, 2013 Emily Mah Comments 1 comment

e3667e7c97f30a7f0235ec.L._V149931200_SX200_ I’m a total fangirl around Kiini Ibura Salaam.

When people ask what the best thing about Clarion West was, my first answer is: everything I learned about writing; but a very close second is: that it made me cool enough to hang out with people like Kiini. Originally from New Orleans, she has traveled the world and writes mind-bending stories rich in culture and sensuality. She is also a painter, mother, and blogger for KIS List, an email newsletter she started over a decade ago.

At the time of this posting, she has just earned out her advance on her collection of short stories, Ancient, Ancient, which any short story author can tell you is no small feat. In this interview, she discusses both her artistic process and her marketing strategy as she continues to build a name and a brand for herself in the modern publishing era.

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The Rumors Are True: JJ Abrams to Helm Next Star Wars

Saturday, January 26, 2013 John ONeill Comments 12 comments

Late last night, Walt Disney Studios announced that J.J. Abrams will direct the still-untitled Star Wars: Episode VII.

An announcement was expected following Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm in October and rumors have been swirling around Abrams for the last 48 hours.

In entertainment circles, this hook-up is akin to the marriage of Michael Jackson and Priscilla Presley, which made Jackson Elvis Presely’s son-in-law. Abrams, who directed 2009’s Star Trek, unites science fiction’s two largest film franchises under a single creative umbrella.

Abrams had an impressive television resume long before he became King of SF Film: his creations include Felicity, Alias, Lost and Fringe. He wrote and directed the Spielberg homage Super 8 and the action flick Mission: Impossible III, and co-wrote Armageddon. George Lucas said in a statement:

I’ve consistently been impressed with J.J. as a filmmaker and storyteller. He’s an ideal choice to direct the new Star Wars film and the legacy couldn’t be in better hands.

According to Disney’s Michael Arndt, the Oscar-winning writer of Little Miss Sunshine, Toy Story 3, and the upcoming The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, will write the screenplay. It will arrive in theaters in 2015, and Disney has announced plans to release a new Star Wars film every two to three years after that. The Empire Strikes Back writer Lawrence Kasdan will script the second, and Simon Kinberg (Sherlock Holmes) is on deck for the third.

Rumors abound on the plot of the next three films, including whether or not they will include Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford. Recent reports in The Guardian and Reuters suggest they could center on Luke Skywalker’s attempts to found a Jedi academy on the planet Yavin 4.

Hasbro Announces It Will Cut 550 Jobs

Friday, January 25, 2013 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Hasbro, owner of Dungeons & Dragons and Magic the Gathering, announced plans today to cut about 10 percent of its workforce and consolidate facilities to reduce expenses.

Hasbro, known chiefly for its toy line, said fourth-quarter revenue failed to meet expectations due to weaker than expected holiday demand. Hasbro expects revenue for the quarter to decline nearly 4% to $1.28 billion, badly missing earlier expectation for a 6% jump.

Hasbro’s brands include Monopoly, Nerf, G.I. Joe, and Transformers. The company didn’t break down the earnings disappointment so it’s difficult to lay the blame on any particular division, but it probably didn’t help that last year’s Battleship film, co-produced by Hasbro, was a significant flop. The next Transformers film isn’t due until 2014.

Hasbro employs 5,500 worldwide; a 10 percent cut would affect about 550 people. Since Hasbro doesn’t break out earnings for its Wizards of the Coast division, fans are in the dark about just how successful the division is — and whether or not it’s likely to be affected by the coming cuts.

Stay tuned to Black Gate for news, gossip, and unwarranted speculation as it develops.

George R.R. Martin: “A Writer Who Needs to Get Writing”

Friday, January 25, 2013 John ONeill Comments 12 comments

George R.R. Martin is profiled by The Huffington Post today in a piece titled “13 Writers Who Need To Get Writing.”

Martin is the poster child — his smiling face is at the top — but the article also pokes Philip Pullman (“We want him to write The Book of Dust, the latest companion book to the His Dark Materials series”), George Saunders (“His quirky, disturbing sci-fiesque suburban short stories have critics fighting over each other… write a goddamn novel already”), and The Night Circus author Erin Morgenstern (“Morgenstern says her next book is “a film noir-flavored Alice in Wonderland“… WE WANT TO READ IT NOW.”)

In other GRRM news “The Princess and the Queen,” a new novella set in the world of A Song and Ice and Fire, will appear in Martin and Gardner Dozois’s upcoming “massive crossgenre anthology” Dangerous Women. Here’s the scoop from Martin’s blog:

Mine own contribution… well, it’s some of that fake history I have been writing lo these many months, the true (mostly) story of the origins of the Dance of the Dragons. The stand-alone stories, not part of any series, feature some amazing work as well. For those who like to lose themselves in long stories, the Brandon Sanderson story, the Diana Gabaldon story, the Caroline Spector story, and my “Princess and Queen” are novellas. Huge mothers.

Read the complete details at Tor.com.