Michael Penkas Promoted to Black Gate Website Editor

Michael Penkas Promoted to Black Gate Website Editor

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michael-penkasWe are very pleased to announce that, effective August 15, Michael Penkas has been promoted to Black Gate Website editor.

Michael Penkas moved to Chicago in 2004 and since then has performed at various open mic events. He previously worked as a copy editor and general assistant for the long-running Twilight Tales book/reading series. His short stories have been published in Midnight Echo, One Buck Horror, Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader, and Shock Totem, among others.

Michael sold his first short story to Black Gate in 2011. His first blog post for us was a review of Brendan Detzner’s short story collection Scarce Resources in November of 2011; in the last few months he’s reviewed Matt Wagner’s Mage: The Hero Discovered, Ted Naifeh’s Courtney Crumrin and the Night Things, and Jonathan Carroll’s The Land of Laughs, among others.

Michael takes over from C.S.E. (Claire) Cooney, who was promoted to website editor in January of 2011. Claire’s relocation to Rhode Island — and the growing success of her recent books, including How to Flirt in Faerieland & Other Wild Rhymes — has left her less time for other activities. Claire brought enormous energy and drive to the role, and she attracted many new bloggers to our small community. She will be much missed, although she promises to continue to blog for us when time permits.

Michael Penkas has been working hard behind the scenes for the past few months as Assistant Website Editor, bringing a new level of professionalism to the blog. We are pleased and very proud to have him officially take over the reins as our new Website Editor.

For a complete list of the folks responsible for Black Gate, visit our Staff Page.

New Treasures: Sherlock Holmes: The Army of Dr. Moreau

New Treasures: Sherlock Holmes: The Army of Dr. Moreau

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sherlock-holmes-the-army-of-dr-moreau2We see a lot of exciting, original fantasy every week here at the roof-top headquarters of Black Gate magazine. It’s good to see the genre is still filled with invention, and hot new writers throwing out new ideas like sparks off a forge.

But I’m not always in the mood for the new. Sometimes what I want is a fresh take on some of my old favorites. That’s why I enjoy Cthulhu fiction, for example, and William Patrick Maynard’s excellent Sax Rohmer articles and novels.

And that’s why I was very intrigued by Guy Adams’s Sherlock Holmes: The Army of Dr. Moreau, a potent literary mash-up that combines H.G. Wells and Arthur Conan Doyle. Guy Adams is the author of the Sherlock Holmes novel, The Breath of God, as well as The Case Notes of Sherlock Holmes and the horror novels The World House and Restoration. He’s also written several Torchwood novels, and a number of tie-ins to the TV series Life on Mars. Here’s the description:

Following the trail of several corpses seemingly killed by wild animals, Holmes and Watson stumble upon the experiments of Dr. Moreau. Through vivisection and crude genetic engineering, Moreau is creating animal hybrids, in an attempt to prove the evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin.

In his laboratory, hidden among the opium dens of Rotherhithe, Moreau is building an army of “beast men.” Tired of having his work ignored — or reviled — by the British scientific community, Moreau is willing to make the world pay attention using his creatures as a force to gain control of the government.

Any book that combines hidden laboratories, genetic engineering, Sherlock Holmes, and a plot to take over the world gets my attention.

Sherlock Holmes: The Army of Dr. Moreau was released on August 7 by Titan Books. It is 290 pages in trade paperback, priced at $12.95, or just $7.99 for the Kindle version. You can read the first two chapters here.

It Came From GenCon 2012: Craft Edition

It Came From GenCon 2012: Craft Edition

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GenCon isn’t called the biggest four days in gaming for nothing. As Howard Andrew Jones recently pointed out, it’s easy to go for several years and completely miss major tracks of programming (such as the fantastic Writers Symposium programs). One thing that’s easy to overlook amidst all the games are the great crafting booths…

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Goblin Road’s stuffed Hob Goblins

Black Gate has always been about finding the lesser-known sides of the fantasy world, and the Goblin Road line of products definitely fits the bill. They make dolls and masks, but let’s focus first on the dolls – such as this fun little guy shown to the right. These Hob Goblin toys are handcrafted in Ohio.

These things were just adorable and, as a gamer who has young gamers-to-be in the family, I thought they were awesome. The one flaw that I can see is that there isn’t a ton of diversity. There are three colors of vest, but all of the dolls had tan skin. I’d love to see some diversity in skin tone, as well as hair styles, and so on, to help mix it up a bit.

One fun little feature is that each Hob Goblin comes with a goblin adoption certificate, sort of like the ones that used to be included with Cabbage Patch Kids dolls, indicating that the goblin has been adopted by a kind human for their care and feeding.

In addition to the Hob Goblin dolls, Goblin Road produces molded leather masks of various styles, and some other accessories, such as horns. These were fairly impressive and reasonably priced as well, but aren’t currently listed on the website, though I’m told that the website will be updated to include these products in the relatively near future.

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James Enge’s A Guile of Dragons Arrives

James Enge’s A Guile of Dragons Arrives

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a-guile-of-dragonsThe official on-sale date isn’t until August 24, but I’ve now received multiple reports that James Enge’s A Guile of Dragons has arrived in stores. It’s also available for purchase online. We can’t postpone the party any longer.

James Enge’s first published story “Turn Up This Crooked Way” — the tale that introduced Morlock the Maker to the world — was in Black Gate 8. Morlock appeared in virtually every issue of Black Gate for the next five years; his last appearance was the novella “Destroyer” in BG 14.

James’ first Morlock novel, Blood of Ambrose, was nominated for the World Fantasy Award in 2010. It was followed by This Crooked Way, which collected a dozen short stories, including all six published in Black Gate, and The Wolf Age. A Guile of Dragons is the fourth in the series, and the first new Morlock book in almost two years. As we reported back in February, it is Morlock’s origin story:

Before history began, the dwarves of Thrymhaiam fought against the dragons as the Longest War raged in the deep roads beneath the Northhold. Now the dragons have returned, allied with the dead kings of Cor and backed by the masked gods of Fate and Chaos.

The dwarves are cut off from the Graith of Guardians in the south. Their defenders are taken prisoner or corrupted by dragonspells. The weight of guarding the Northhold now rests on the crooked shoulders of a traitor’s son, Morlock syr Theorn (also called Ambrosius).

But his wounded mind has learned a dark secret in the hidden ways under the mountains. Regin and Fafnir were brothers, and the Longest War can never be over…

The gorgeous cover is by Steve Stone. Click on the image at right to see the complete wrap-around image in HD.

A Guile of Dragons is 320 pages in trade paperback, published by Pyr Books. It is $17.95, and has an official on-sale date of August 24. But if you find it for sale and whisk it home before then, we won’t tell anyone.

Blogging Sax Rohmer’s Daughter of Fu Manchu, Part Two

Blogging Sax Rohmer’s Daughter of Fu Manchu, Part Two

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19560181_1daughterpinkSax Rohmer’s Daughter of Fu Manchu was originally serialized as Fu Manchu’s Daughter in twelve weekly installments of Collier’s from March 8 to May 24, 1930. It was published in book form the following year by Cassell in the UK and Doubleday in the US. Rohmer divides the novel into four sections comprising three chapters each. This week we examine the second part.

Rohmer slows his pace to take time to develop the character of Rima Barton at the outset of the second part. The reader begins to understand her as one of Rohmer’s typically strong female characters in contrast with the shrinking violets one is accustomed to in fiction of the day. The strained relationship between Rima and Shan Greville is revealed to be rooted in jealousy over his attraction to Madame Ingomar, the exotic foreign woman who had likewise stirred Sir Lionel’s passions.

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GenCon 2012 – Dungeons & Dragons Next Keynote Liveblog

GenCon 2012 – Dungeons & Dragons Next Keynote Liveblog

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Waiting for the D&D Next keynote to begin at GenCon 2012. Check it out on the big screen!
Waiting for the D&D Next keynote to begin at GenCon 2012. Check it out on the big screen!

For the first time in GenCon history, the week began with a keynote event on Thursday evening. And who gave the keynote? None other than the folks behind Dungeons & Dragons.

For the last several months, Dungeons & Dragons has been undergoing a transformation into their Dungeons & Dragons Next format (which they are loathe to officially call 5th edition).

The event was delayed a bit due to rain and venue change, but once things are moving, I’ll be liveblogging about the event. I know I won’t catch everything, but I’m sure there’ll be a link to video of the event online shortly and I’ll post it (and other background links) in an update over the next day or so, when I have more stable net access.

The Event Begins

7:25 pm – Peter Adkison, founder of Wizards of the Coast, runs onstage and discusses how this inaugural keynote came into being. Basically, Adkison strong-armed Greg Leeds (current CEO of Wizards of the Coast) into doing it, and made it clear that he expected Greg himself to get on stage and start the event off. So, with that ….

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A Brick-and-Mortar Bookstore Score

A Brick-and-Mortar Bookstore Score

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coverthelongships_norstedtsBrick and mortar bookstores are as rare as hen’s teeth these days, it seems, and that’s a shame. I enjoy the instantaneous convenience and enormous selection of Amazon and Abebooks, but there’s something about musty old bookstores that online shopping cannot replace. The tactile sensation of picking up books, the joy of utterly unexpected finds, and the atmosphere of a shop devoted to reading and book-selling, are experiences that online delivery mechanisms cannot replicate.

Yesterday, I found a wonderful bookstore that reminded me of the unique advantages and pleasures of the real over the virtual: Mansfield’s Books and More in Tilton, New Hampshire. Tilton is a town I had driven through numerous times without a cause to stop, outside of filling a gas tank and the like. But yesterday, while playing chauffer on a back-to-school shopping trip with my wife and kids, I caught a glimpse of a storefront window in Tilton Center that I had previously overlooked. In a brief glance I took in a display of hardcover books in the front window and a few cartons of paperbacks placed outside with a sign indicating a sidewalk sale. My attention piqued, I managed to free myself from the clutches of clothes and shoe shopping with little difficulty and quickly backtracked to Mansfield’s.

Mansfield’s occupies what appears to be a former office building. The main room has a fireplace in one wall with a few overstuffed chairs. A narrow hallway at the back opens up on the left and right to six rooms that were presumably individual offices at one time. Most of these smaller rooms were still hung with old, ornate doors with frosted glass panes and other such details, though one clearly served as a small kitchen at one point, complete with a sink. Each room—the main room in the front and the half-dozen at the back—was overflowing, floor to ceiling, with used books, as well as a scattering of other items (the “More” refers to some old movie posters, knick knacks, and used DVDs and CDs).

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GenCon 2012 Begins

GenCon 2012 Begins

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gencon-emblemTomorrow, I’m headed off to GenCon for a brief stay. My schedule this year has been a little hectic, what with a couple of book promotions, some revisions, some drafting, and an unexpected knee surgery, so I didn’t plan a whole lot of convention time. Now I’m regretting it, because GenCon is a lot of fun, and being there just for Saturday is going to feel a little like seeing the pie and only getting to eat one cherry.

There’s so much to see and do that I only recently learned about the Writing Symposium, a series of tracks about the writing industry for gaming and media fiction and all sorts of genre fiction. Writers and editors far more famous and influential than me will be speaking and offering advice as well as writing critiques, among them Patrick Rothfuss, Brandon Sanderson, and Mike Stackpole. Next year, I fully plan to be more involved.

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New Treasures: The Book of Cthulhu, edited by Ross E. Lockhart

New Treasures: The Book of Cthulhu, edited by Ross E. Lockhart

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book-of-cthulhuIt’s been a few good years for Cthulhu fans, with a number of high-profile, acclaimed anthologies offering brand new tales of everyone’s favorite genocidal cosmic entity, including Ellen Datlow’s Lovecraft Unbound (2009), Darrell Schweitzer’s Cthulhu’s Reign (2010), S. T. Joshi’s Black Wings of Cthulhu (2010), and Future Lovecraft (2011) edited by Paula R. Stiles and Silvia Moreno-Garcia, among others.

However, if you’re new to the Cthulhu mythos, or just want to sample the best Lovecraftian horror of the last eight decades, your options are a little more limited. Paula Guran’s New Cthulhu: The Recent Weird (2011) offers an excellent cross-section of fiction from the last decade, with short stories by Neil Gaiman, John Langan, China Miéville, Michael Shea, Charles Stross, and many others. At 528 pages, it’s a veritable feast of modern cosmic horror, but since the oldest story dates from the year 2000, it doesn’t really count as a true survey of the very finest Cthulhu fiction.

That title, I think, goes to Ross E. Lockhart’s The Book of Cthulhu. It includes some of the most famous Cthulhu stories of all time, including T.E.D. Klein’s “Black Man With a Horn” (1980), Brian McNaughton’s “The Doom That Came to Innsmouth” (1999), and fiction by Charles R. Saunders, Ramsey Campbell, Bruce Sterling, Laird Barron, Kage Baker, Thomas Ligotti, Gene Wolfe, and many others.

Although Lockhart draws heavily from modern writers, there’s surprisingly little overlap with Guran’s volume — a scant four stories. You could probably get away with getting both, in fact. I’m glad I did.

Ross E. Lockhart is the managing editor of Night Shade Books. A second volume, The Book of Cthulhu 2 — reprinting stories by Fritz Leiber, Neil Gaiman, Laird Barron, Michael Chabon, and many others — is scheduled for release in October.

The Book of Cthulhu is 530 pages in a handsome trade paperback, with cover art by Obrotowy. It was released in August, 2011 by Night Shade Books, with a cover price of $15.99.

Teaching and Fantasy Literature: Uses of Terrible Comic Adaptations

Teaching and Fantasy Literature: Uses of Terrible Comic Adaptations

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taran-wanderer21“Usually the combat scenes are the part I understand best,” said my student. “In this one, I have no idea what’s going on. There’s a wounded character at the end of the scene, and I have no idea how he even got near the fighting.”

We’d made our way to the end of Lloyd Alexander’s Taran Wanderer, the fourth volume in the classic 1960’s YA fantasy series The Chronicles of Prydain. My student and I had sojourned in Prydain for most of a year. The prospect of seeing Taran come into his full powers at last in The High King was so exhilarating that the kid had rushed through the last several chapters of Taran Wanderer and confused himself thoroughly.

I could have assigned the usual remedy — write one page per chapter, explaining who did what to whom and why, flagging anything that’s still confusing — but I had just read Ralph Fletcher’s Boy Writers: Reclaiming Their Voices. Fletcher devotes a chapter to the ways it can help students, especially male students in his experience, to draw illustrations and diagrams alongside their writing. Apparently English teachers in high schools and middle schools are trained to discourage such drawings, on the assumption that they’re a distraction from learning how to write.

“Write me a comic,” I said.

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