Marvel Feature: Red Sonja 5

Marvel Feature: Red Sonja 5

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marvel-feature-5-coverI just realized something curious about Red Sonja. I mean, besides the chain mail bikini and vow never to (kiss/have sex with/love) a man who hasn’t defeated her in battle. After a dozen issues, I’ve never seen this woman get paid for anything. All the demons and wizards and brigands she takes down, yet no one’s ever paid her a shekel for her services. Honestly, why keep doing it if no one pays her?

Maybe she thinks if she kills enough evil wizards for free, word of mouth will spread and someone will offer her a paying gig as wizard-slayer. Maybe she’s working as an unpaid intern to gain experience in wizard-killing before pursuing a career in that field. Maybe she’s working for store credit, getting discounts on her weapons and bikinis in exchange for showcasing a metalsmith’s product line.

Of course, word of mouth, internships, and store credit are stupid reasons for unpaid labor; but it’s fantasy, so let’s run with it. After all, she’s a gorgeous redhead in a chain mail bikini. How else is she going to make a living? So when she sees a sign offering 1,000 gold pieces for slaying a forest beast, she’s in.

She finds herself accompanied by Tusan, a fellow bounty hunter who’s far more interested in “getting to know her” than slaying an evil bear god (seriously, it’s a giant bear). But he’s got money, so Sonja allows him to take her to a tavern for a few drinks.

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Kobold Quarterly Magazine Goes Down Fighting

Kobold Quarterly Magazine Goes Down Fighting

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kobold-quarterly-fall-2012-smallThe terrific gaming magazine Kobold Quarterly — which we featured here just two weeks ago — has ceased publication. The final issue is #23, Fall 2012.

Publisher and editor Wolfgang Baur posted this announcement on Friday:

It’s a fact that in every fantasy roleplaying game… a kobold’s life is short. They’re wily and quick, but they have few hit points. Sooner or later they go down — fighting. That day has come for Kobold Quarterly magazine. After five years of publication, Shelly and I are closing the doors on the little fanzine that could.

I always hoped that Kobold Quarterly would someday be my full-time gig, but it was not to be. My sincere thanks go out to everyone who contributed to the magazine, starting with our stalwart subscribers, advertisers, authors, and artists. Thanks also to those who bought only an issue or two; for us, every sale was crucial…

And now, as adventurers do, we will gather in the tavern to hoist mugs of ale and talk about the monsters we slew and the treasures we won. And then we will begin planning and scheming for the next adventure. Kobolds might be easy to knock down individually, you see, but they always come in big numbers. The kobold crew will keep serving you with free articles, the free Courier newsletter, Kobold Press adventures and sourcebooks, and other projects.

Subscribers are being offered the option of a 150% refund in Kobold Store credit, or a 100% refund via PayPal or paper check. Contributors are being assured that even though the magazine is folding, Kobold Press is still going strong, and articles scheduled to appear in future issues may be picked up for other Kobold Press publications such as the Pathfinder New Paths line, Midgard Adventures, and other new releases.

Kobold Press will continue to publish the free Kobold Courier e-newsletter, as well as big commercial releases such as the The New Paths PDFs, Player’s Guides for Midgard, and two top-secret projects in the works for 2013. Read more about the excellent Midgard in Wolfgang’s recent Black Gate post.

While we know that the only constant in the gaming industry is change, the loss of Kobold Quarterly is a real blow to the field. It was an excellent magazine that captured the spirit and excitement of the best of the early gaming magazines, and it will be missed.

The Fantasy Adventures of Alexander the Great

The Fantasy Adventures of Alexander the Great

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alexanderI think my favorite parts of Alexander the Great’s life involve his fight with the dragon, and the time he climbed to a mountain summit and saw the angel of death. Not to mention his conversation with the speaking tree. After that, his meeting with the Emperor of China was almost superfluous.

I haven’t been dropping acid. I’ve been reading from the Shahnameh, the Persian Book of Kings, an epic poem and a national treasure of Iran, written by Abolqasem Ferdowsi over the course of many decades in the 9th century O.C.E. It purports to tell the history of Persia until the time of the Arab conquest, but what it mostly does is collect fabulous tales of adventure, betrayal, war, and love centered around Persian rulers. And because Alexander the Great came to rule Persia, there’s a long section devoted to him.

Alexander the Great from history and Sekander from the Shannameh have very different lives, and the version told by Ferdowsi reads an awful lot like an abbreviated fantasy epic.

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Black Gate Online Fiction: “The Poison Well” by Judith Berman

Black Gate Online Fiction: “The Poison Well” by Judith Berman

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poisonwell5Manvayar’s old master had been exposed as a secret necromancer… would that horrific experience give Manvayar the insight he’d need to ferret out the truth behind a rash of sorcerous killings?

Suddenly the oppression in the air condensed into cold threat, and an overpowering stink of rotting flesh rolled over him. The mare screamed and bolted past Manvayar. He spun around. A speck hung for an instant in his vision, then swelled. First it looked like a cloud of bloody pus suspended in water. Then, still growing, it congealed into a tangle of pinkish webbing and glistening limbs. Some of the limbs ended in groping hands, some bore toothy leeches’ mouths.

The exhilaration of pure hatred rushed through Manvayar. The necromancer was here! He narrowed his attention to the width of a sword blade, reached to the roots of his soul and ripped out a piece of his own substance, which he formed into Nariyo words of command and hurled at the creature. The words sank into its flesh. It thrashed but kept swelling outward until it was twice as high as a man and its limbs writhed toward the manor windows.

A man was screaming. Inside the stables, horses whinnied and crashed against their stalls. The stench of putrefaction choked him.

Manvayar took a few steps forward. His sword was already in his hand.

“The Poison Well” originally appeared in Black Gate 7, and was widely acclaimed. Patrick Samphire at Tangent Online wrote:

Mage and warrior Manvayar fled his former master when he discovered his master was a secret necromancer. Now he is assisting the death priest, Seppan, in a search for a necromancer whose creations have killed two men. Their hunt leads them to an unwelcoming manor house where the deaths occurred… Berman is an excellent writer. She smoothly juggles the various elements of the story — the secret of the poison well, the hidden necromancer, the hostile family of the lord of the manor, and Manvayar’s past… Manvayar is haunted by vivid dreams of his former master, yet his master has no part to play in this story… the reader is left wondering whether “The Poison Well” is the first part of a series. I certainly hope so; this was a fascinating and well-written piece that deserves its place opening the issue.

“The Poison Well” is a complete 14,000-word novelette of adventure fantasy offered at no cost. As Patrick astutely surmised, it was the first in a thrilling series; the second installment, “Awakening,” which explores the back-story of Manvayar’s former master, appeared in Black Gate 10 and was nominated for a Nebula Award for Best Novella of 2007. We will present “Awakening” in its entirely next week.

You can see the complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction here.

Read the complete story here.

Phyllis Ann Karr’s At Amberleaf Fair

Phyllis Ann Karr’s At Amberleaf Fair

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At Amberleaf FairFor some time I’ve had the idea that there are unknown treasures yet to be mined in the deep veins of 80s fantasy. That among all the many titles published in those years are overlooked tales that are worth digging up. I don’t necessarily mean neglected masterpieces, though that’s possible. I mean little gems: books offering unexpected or idiosyncratic takes on the genre. Books that to some extent operate by conventions of their own. Books that suggest slightly different ways to do things. I want to write here about an example of what I mean: Phyllis Ann Karr’s At Amberleaf Fair.

Karr’s published poetry, essays, and short stories, as well as The Arthurian Companion, are a sort of encyclopedia of Arthuriana I find immensely useful. Her first novels were published in 1980, which saw both the romance My Lady Quixote and the fantasy Frostflower and Thorn. She’s published several other novels since, some under the name Irene Radford; At Amberleaf Fair came out in 1986. The Encyclopedia of Fantasy tells me that several of Karr’s short stories feature Amberleaf Fair’s main character, but that (as of the Encyclopedia’s publication) none have been collected.

Amberleaf Fair is named for the gathering at which its story takes place. It’s an autumn trade fair in the community of East’dek. A toycrafter, Torin, proposes marriage to Sharys, a magician and healer in training; but it looks like she’ll instead choose Torin’s friend, an adventurer named Valdart. Then Torin’s brother, an accomplished ‘magic-monger,’ is struck down with some sort of illness; Valdart’s ceremonial present to Sharys, effectively his marriage proposal, is stolen and the evidence points to Torin. Torin and his friend, the storycrafter Dilys, try to work out what has happened, along with a judge named Alrathe — but the story is less about the mystery and more the tale of the relationships of the various characters as the fair goes on, and their choices in life, and how they balance their desires and their duties to their family or society. It’s understated, quick, and entertaining.

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Vintage Treasures: Alfred Hitchcock’s Monster Museum

Vintage Treasures: Alfred Hitchcock’s Monster Museum

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alfred-hitchcocks-monster-museum-smallLast month, my son came home from school and began poking through our library. “I have to read a short story collection for Lit block,” he explained.

I think “Lit block” maybe means English class. I’m not going to ask, I already get enough grief for not understanding what kids today are talking about. After a few minutes, Drew gave up. “I’ll check the school library tomorrow,” he said. Please. This is what eBay is for. And sure enough, after a short search, I found a collection he found suitably intriguing. With story titles like “Slime” and “Shadow, Shadow, on the Wall,” how could he not? There was a copy in great shape for just $2.75, and very soon it was ours.

Of course, I ended up being even more interested than Drew. Alfred Hitchcock’s Monster Museum was one of roughly a dozen anthologies published under Hitchcock’s name and ghost-edited by Robert Arthur, including 12 Stories for Late at Night, Scream Along with Me, and Stories That Scared Even Me. This one contains a terrific mix of pulp fiction from 1929 – 1954, from Murray Leinster (Will F Jenkins), Manly Wade Wellman, Theodore Sturgeon, and many others. Here’s the complete TOC:

A Variety of Monsters — Introduction by Alfred Hitchcock
“Slime” — Joseph Payne Brennan (Weird Tales, March 1953)
“The King of the Cats” — Stephen Vincent Benét (Harper’s Bazaar, Feb 1929)
“The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles” — Idris Seabright (F&SF, Oct 1951)
“Henry Martindale, Great Dane” — Miriam Allen deFord (Beyond Fantasy Fiction, Mar 1954)
“Shadow, Shadow, on the Wall” — Theodore Sturgeon (Imagination, Feb 1951)
“Doomsday Deferred” — Will F. Jenkins (The Saturday Evening Post, Sep 24 1949)
“The Young One” — Jerome Bixby (Fantastic, Apr 1954)
“The Desrick on Yandro” — Manly Wade Wellman (F&SF, Jun 1952)
“The Wheelbarrow Boy” — Richard Parker (Lilliput, Oct 1950)
“Homecoming” — Ray Bradbury (Mademoiselle, Oct 1946)

The paperback is abridged from the original 1965 hardcover, which also included “The Day of the Dragon” by Guy Endore, “The Microscopic Giants” by Paul Ernst, and Jerome Bixby’s “The Young One.” I prefer the trade paperback however, mostly because of the gorgeous and moody cover (click on the image at right for a bigger version).

Alfred Hitchcock’s Monster Museum was published by Random House in trade paperback in 1982; the original cover price was $2.50 for 213 pages.

Wake Up to a New World With Awakening: The Art of Halo 4

Wake Up to a New World With Awakening: The Art of Halo 4

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awakening-the-art-of-halo-4-smallI took the family to Best Buy yesterday to buy a new phone for my wife. They didn’t have anything below $250, so we trooped back to the car to return to the Verizon store. My teenage boys, flush with dog-sitting money, were the only happy shoppers, chortling excitedly in the back seat over a copy of 343 Industries’ Halo 4.

I got some scattered details over breakfast this morning. Master Chief, hot-babe AI Cortana, abruptly awakened from deep sleep, a Covenant fleet, a giant Forerunner planet, alien mysteries, and a lot of shooting. Sounds like Halo to me.

So when I sat down to sort through the week’s stack of review copies, my hand naturally gravitated towards the copy of Awakening: The Art of Halo 4, a thick oversize hardcover sent our way by Titan Books. It turned out to be an excellent choice, and  it thoroughly captivated my interest for the next 90 minutes.

Awakening is probably not a good choice if you’re not a fan of art, cutting edge computer games, or far-future science fiction. But if you’re interested in any of those things, you’ll find it very interesting and if, like me, you have more than a passing interest in all three, you’ll find it fascinating.

Awakening is packed with nearly 200 pages of full-color art, concept designs, and sketches from some of the top artists in the field, including Sparth, Robogabo, John Liberto, Glenn Israel, Jhoon Kim, and Thomas Scholes. The descriptive text, by “incurable Halo fanatic” Paul Davies, is brief and to-the-point, rarely more than a slender paragraph on each page. Davies wisely lets the artists do most of the talking, quoting Senior Art Director Kenneth Scott and concept artist Sparth at length.

And the art is indeed spectacular. The design breakdowns — for Master Chief, his mostly naked AI companion Cortana, numerous weapons, the truly splendid vehicle fleet, and the gun-toting alien Covenant and mysterious Forerunners — are detailed and a lot of fun, but it’s the gorgeous alien landscapes and breathtaking unexplored vistas that really fire the imagination. I guarantee there are sights here that you’ve never seen before, from the nebula-like clouds trapped between two vast constructs to the massive Didact ship, so large it can only be explored using a UNSC Broadsword fighter.  More proof that it’s computer entertainment pushing the sense-of-wonder envelope for SF and fantasy fans today.

Awakening: The Art of Halo 4 was published in hardcover by Titan Books on November 6. It is $34.95 for 192 pages. Get more info, including reproductions of some of the artwork, at the Titan website.

A Dark and Glorious World: The New Midgard Campaign Setting

A Dark and Glorious World: The New Midgard Campaign Setting

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midgard-smallI confess that I have a problem with a lot of RPG campaign settings on the market. Some of them are simply tired and played out. Some are designed to lock customers into purchasing adventures and sourcebooks, leaving little room for customization. Some take a “kitchen sink” approach, avoiding anything too distinctive in an effort to support every type of campaign.

As the lead designer and publisher at Kobold Press, I decided it was time to launch a project that would reinvent a few fantasy traditions, and restore all that I think is great and good in classic fantasy RPGs. It would be based on time-tested elements of my own homebrew campaign, not on market research, potential licensing opportunities, or maximizing shareholder value. It was time to let slip the drakes of war, sharpen up the great ax, and split some skulls with a new setting!

With that in mind, I worked with my talented colleagues Jeff Grubb and Brandon Hodge, and the Open Design community, to create the Midgard Campaign Setting. It’s made for conflict, plunder, deep magic, and horrific secrets. That’s reflected in the design choice to provide clear adventure hooks for every place described in the book, for instance, and in the decision to provide a system of ley line magic. Better yet, much original material for Midgard is written by newcomers, so it’s a place where everyone can sharpen their game design chops (more on that in a minute!).

When you’re in Midgard, you’ve got big missions, mythic adventures, and lots of options — but the setting is designed to be compact and easy to pick up. There’s also the part that’s harder to explain, the getting-fantasy-right part. To quote a new fan TwistedGamer

Not since I was a teenager and first peeled back the plastic that had been wrapped around my first Forgotten Realms campaign boxed set have I felt the giddiness that I feel right now…

The masks of the gods, the blending of myth and pure invention, the shadow roads and some new, lighter elements like the beer goddess and the school of clockwork magic all make Midgard sing.

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New Treasures: Legacy of Kings, Final Volume of The Magister Trilogy

New Treasures: Legacy of Kings, Final Volume of The Magister Trilogy

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I rarely read introductory volumes of fantasy series these days. Truthfully, I don’t pay much attention to them. What I do pay attention to is the final volume, as that’s (usually) a sign it’s safe to sit down and enjoy a complete fantasy adventure. That’s why I was very pleased to see Legacy of Kings, the final volume of C.S. Friedman’s Magister Trilogy, arrive in paperback in September. It is the sequel to Feast of Souls and Wings of Wrath.

the-magister-trilogy-cs-friedman

I’ve followed Friedman since she published her first novel, In Conquest Born, in 1986. She is the author of The Coldfire Trilogy, the Braxi/Azea duology (In Conquest Born, The Wilding), and the standalone novels The Madness Season and This Alien Shore. Kings was originally released in hardcover in August 2011; the captivating cover sequence for the trilogy is by John Jude Palencar.

The young peasant woman Kamala has proven strong and determined enough to claim the most powerful Magister sorcery for herself — but now the Magisters hunt her for killing one of their own. Her only hope of survival lies in the northern Protectorates, where spells are warped by a curse called the Wrath that even the Magisters fear. Originally intended to protect the lands of men from creatures known only as souleaters, the Wrath appears to be weakening — and the threat of this ancient enemy is once more falling across the land.

Legacy of Kings was published by DAW Books in September, 2012. It is 498 pages, and priced at $7.99 for both the paperback and digital versions.

Undiscovered Treasures: An Open Call for Self-Published Books

Undiscovered Treasures: An Open Call for Self-Published Books

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harpers-pen

John O’Neill has been kind enough to invite me to blog more regularly here at Black Gate. This gives me the opportunity to do something I’ve been wanting to do for a while.

Nowadays, it’s really easy to self-publish a book. However, it’s very, very hard to stand out in the crowd. For every author who breaks through, there are hundreds out there who do not. While many of these self-published books are deservedly unknown, I believe that there are self-published books out there that deserve more attention than they’re receiving, and I’d like to help them get it. So I’m offering to review one self-published fantasy book each month. Considering that there are hundreds or thousands published every day, I’m sure that this won’t even scratch the surface. So in order to help me find out which books I should be reviewing, and to give you the best opportunity to sell yourself, I’m going to set up a submission system.

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