Blogging Austin Briggs’ Flash Gordon, Part Three – “War on Earth”

Blogging Austin Briggs’ Flash Gordon, Part Three – “War on Earth”

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kgrhqeokoye6e8e4gwiboubtkfbng60_35kgrhqiokkqe6pillh-yboubzz4w60_35“War on Earth” was the third installment of Austin Briggs’s daily Flash Gordon comic strip serial for King Features Syndicate. Originally published between August 22 and December 13, 1941, “War on Earth” was the third story in the daily companion to Alex Raymond’s celebrated Sunday strip. The strip is due to be reprinted in 2013 as part of Titan Books’ ambitious Flash Gordon reprint series.

“War on Earth” runs on a parallel path to Raymond’s contemporaneous Sunday strip with the story opening with Flash, Dale, and Zarkov traveling from Mongo via rocketship back to Earth to deal with the unnamed dictator who has plunged their home into a Second World War. While Alex Raymond dealt with the Red Sword in the Sunday strip, “War on Earth” sees their rocketship touch down in Scandinavia, where our heroes quickly befriend refugees from the ruthless dictator who has invaded their homeland.

The refugees are attacked by enemy bombers. Flash perches on the edge of a cliff and easily picks the planes off with a disintegrator rifle they have brought from Ming’s armory. This act of bravery earns Flash the military leadership of the villagers. The Prussian-looking Colonel Ruvich of the Red Sword orders further bombardment by plane and tanks until the mountain pass is cleared. The siege drags out for several days with Flash successfully holding off the bombers with Mongo’s superior military technology.

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Goth Chick News: Fear, Nudity and More Seasonal Fun…

Goth Chick News: Fear, Nudity and More Seasonal Fun…

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image006Now that the seasonal Halloween fun is in full swing and the Goth Chick News interns have gone mad on Red Bull and candy corn, it’s down to me to sample the best-of-the-best of the “holiday” offerings and hand them over to you to fill up your two remaining October weekends.

Oh, and if you are under 16, I’m going to need to ask you to leave. All of the events I’m about to describe have a non-negotiable age limit.

The last thing we want is lawsuits to claim reimbursement for PTSD therapy sessions.

Youngsters firmly in front of Sesame Street? Pencils ready?

Then let’s break this down by location…

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Tangent Online on “The Daughter’s Dowry”: “A Story Such as This Deserves a World of its Own”

Tangent Online on “The Daughter’s Dowry”: “A Story Such as This Deserves a World of its Own”

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daughters-dowry-cropTangent Online has weighed in on Aaron Bradford Starr’s novelette “The Daughter’s Dowry,” published here on Sunday, October 14:

A tale… that has the feel of being told around the fireplace in a fantasy setting. The protagonist, Gloren Avericci, is a freelance Gallery Hunter. This may be code for thief, but to hear Gloren tell it, he is an adventurer in true fantasy style. Even after knowing the story, it is debatable whether his cat, Yr Neh, is a familiar or a travelling companion, though said cat is presented as former royalty and sentient. One of the funniest bits here revolves around Yr Neh trysting with a female cat under Gloren’s bed. To say more would be to spoil the scene…

That very little is resolved in this tale is part of its charm… At times, he fills in his back story or gives teasers about other adventures by incorporating associated bits into his retelling of events. However, he warns us that he’s telling us what actually happened rather than embellishing with any of the literary conventions that a Chronicler might use. Just a moment before any of his many tangential anecdotes could become as annoying as a pebble in one’s shoe, Gloren draws his audience back into the main event — that of his happenstance finding of a very special key, and the events that occurred afterward.

This was a fast and pleasant read. A story such as this deserves a world of its own and more adventures from its hero.

Not surprisingly, we feel the same way. Aaron Bradford Starr’s “The Daughter’s Dowry” is the first in an exciting sequence of classic adventure fantasy tales. “The Tea Maker’s Task,” in which Gallery Hunter Gloren Avericci and Yr Neh journey to a remote and dangerous island which conceals a dark secret, will be published here in January, followed quickly by two major novellas. Stay tuned for details.

You can read the entire review at Tangent Online, and read the novelette “The Daughter’s Dowry” completely free here.

The complete catalog of Black Gate Online Fiction, including the 25,000-word novella of dark fantasy “The Quintessence of Absence” by Sean McLachlan, Harry Connolly’s thrilling mystery “The Whoremaster of Pald,” and Jason E. Thummel’s adventure fantasy novelette, “The Duelist,” is here.

New Treasures: Ashen Stars by Robin D. Laws

New Treasures: Ashen Stars by Robin D. Laws

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ashen-stars2Back in August, we reported that Pelgrane Press’s new space opera RPG Ashen Stars had won a 2012 ENnie Award for Best Setting. That was enough to pique my curiosity, and I ordered a copy.

I’ve been waiting for a science fiction role playing game with a truly rich setting for a long time. Our Managing Editor Howard Andrew Jones has been exploring Traveller in a series of occasional articles — most recently on the Netherell setting and The Third Imperium — but to be honest I always found the setting for Traveller to be fairly generic, at least in the early editions. The last SF RPG to really impress me was Rogue Trader by Fantasy Flight, a gorgeously produced game set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe; before that I have to go all the way back to Holistic Design’s future-medieval setting Fading Suns, first released in 1996.

I’m very pleased to be able to add Ashen Stars to that short list. Drawing heavily upon his successful GUMSHOE mystery system, author Robin D. Laws has created an extremely appealing game of space opera procedural mysteries. In the tradition of the best hard boiled detective fiction, players are constantly scrambling for money, equipment, and respect… all of which they’ll need to succeed in a war-ravaged perimeter where trust is a precious commodity, and very little is truly what it seems.

The players in Ashen Stars are private eyes — excuse me, licensed mercenaries — acting as freelance law enforcement on a rough-and-tumble frontier called “the Bleed,” where humans and half a dozen alien races mingle, compete, and trade. The Mohilar War that devastated the once powerful governing Combine ended seven years ago, and no one is sure exactly how. The Combine is in no shape to govern the Bleed, and rely on loosely-chartered bands like the players to maintain peace in the sector, keep a lid on crime, and investigate odd distress signals from strange corners of space. Like the crew of the Serenity, your loose band of players operate on both sides of the law, secure lucrative contracts, scramble to maintain your ship and upgrade your aging equipment, and maintain a code of honor in a place where reputation is the most precious commodity there is.

The writing and color art are impressive throughout, and the book is filled with fascinating tidbits that will make you anxious to play, and re-introduce you to the essential joy of role playing.

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Teaching and Fantasy Literature: Murphy’s Law (Pedagogical Corollaries)

Teaching and Fantasy Literature: Murphy’s Law (Pedagogical Corollaries)

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the-once-and-future-kingWhen teachers write publicly about teaching, we usually write about the things that went well. It’s not just that we’re full of ourselves or want to save face — though we fall prey to human nature like anybody else. It’s that we like being helpful, and talking about the things that worked seems more likely to help our readers than talking about the things that didn’t. Maybe some offhand comment that accidentally turned out to be illuminating for a student will help some other student, somewhere, so off I send it into the ether.  If teachers are more visibly full of ourselves than other people are, it’s because the work we do can be utterly humbling.

Of course, some lesson plans just fall down and spit. Some things that could be done well go horribly wrong in the execution. We all have bad brain days. Only a small minority of disasters are fun or useful to read about, though. If teaching mistakes were as frequently entertaining as parenting mistakes are, you’d see a lot more sitcoms set in the faculty lounge.

Why did I make my Intro to Myth students read such very long stretches of Tolkien’s “Valaquenta,” when I myself nod off reading it? What was I thinking when I sent my minimally English-proficient Mandarin speakers off to read The Once and Future King? Why did I hector that poor creative writing student to make his dragon-riding antihero more sympathetic, when an antihero was so clearly what he wanted to write?

For every awesome thing I can’t wait to tell you guys about, there’s an equal and opposite gaffe.

Sarah Avery’s short story “The War of the Wheat Berry Year” appeared in the last print issue of Black Gate. A related novella, “The Imlen Bastard,” is slated to appear in BG‘s new online incarnation. Her contemporary fantasy novella collection, Tales from Rugosa Coven, follows the adventures of some very modern Pagans in a supernatural version of New Jersey even weirder than the one you think you know. You can keep up with her at her website, sarahavery.com, and follow her on Twitter.

A Starred Review from Publisher’s Weekly for The Bones of the Old Ones

A Starred Review from Publisher’s Weekly for The Bones of the Old Ones

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bones-of-the-old-onesI’ve been anxiously awaiting the arrival of Howard Andrew Jones’s The Bones of the Old Ones, the sequel to my favorite novel from last year, The Desert of Souls.

Publisher’s Weekly isn’t making that wait any easier. In a starred review just last week, the magazine raved:

This rousing sequel to The Desert of Souls offers a mélange of ancient adventure myths populated by convincing, endearing characters… Asim el Abbas and scholar Dabir ibn Khalil rescue alluring and aristocratic Najya binta Alimah from her kidnappers, the Sebitti, seven sinister wizards from the remote past. In Asim and Dabir’s subsequent quest to find and destroy the ancient and powerful bone-weapons also sought by the Sebitti and free Najya from the weapons’ soul-threatening spell, the friends experience one fearful ordeal after another, while brave Asim falls more and more for Najya’s wit, courage, and charms. As intricately woven as the magic carpet of Greek sorceress Lydia, Jones’s tale incorporates real historical personages and settings like Mosul of “haggard beauty” from the early days of Islam, and fills the pages with gallantry and glamour to provide a thrilling spectacle.

You can read the complete review at Publisher’s Weekly‘s website here.

Like I didn’t want this book enough already. Now I know why publishers want us to wait until the month a title is published before we blab about it on the blog. I want this book right now.

We first reported on The Bones of the Old Ones in August. It will be released in hardcover and eBook by Thomas Dunne Books on December 11. If you’ve got an advance proof you’re willing to part with, we should talk.

Universal Classic Monsters: The Essential Collection

Universal Classic Monsters: The Essential Collection

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universal-classic-monsters-the-essential-collection-classicmonsters_bluraycollection_3d_rgb-560x739This year, the home video divisions of all the major distributors banded together and plotted a full-scale assault on the wallets and bank accounts of Blu-ray owners during September and October. Only the wealthiest could possibly survive an attack that began with the first Hi-Def release of the Indiana Jones films. But the supreme weapon, the ultimate October Surprise, is Universal’s huge ebony slab of fear, nostalgia, and latex make-up: Universal Classic Monsters: The Essential Collection. Spanning twenty-three years and nine films (advertised as eight, sorry Spanish Dracula), the long-anticipated set brings the Masters of Halloween into glorious 1080p for the first time, and in perfect seasonal position to drain your money before you waste it on a Jack Sparrow costume that forty other people are also going to wear to that same party.

Few movie series have had such an impact on filmmaking and popular culture as Universal’s stable of ghouls. They are as much a part of Halloween as Pixie Styx and pumpkin carving. I can’t imagine there are Blu-ray owners with any shred of geek cred out there who won’t want to add this to their shelves. When I received mine in the mail, I rejoiced at the anticipation of a week full of evenings revisiting some of my favorite movies in beautiful restored editions. The box set did not let me down—except for the one film that doesn’t really belong on it, but I anticipated that.

Universal Classic Monsters: The Essential Collection comes packaged in a black slipcase with a side-bound color booklet of trivia. The eight discs contain Dracula (1931), the Spanish-language Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Invisible Man, Bride of Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, the 1943 color re-make of The Phantom of the Opera, and Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Taking the discs in chronological order, as I did during the week:

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In Defense of Red Sonja: The Vow

In Defense of Red Sonja: The Vow

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red-sonja-pinupThough interest in a modestly-dressed Red Sonja was strong in 1973, it skyrocketed in 1974 with the debut of her famous chain mail bikini in Savage Sword of Conan 1. Sonja returned in her trademark outfit later that year in Conan the Barbarian, issues 43 and 44. Titled “Tower of Blood” and “Of Flame and the Fiend!” respectively, the two-part story finds Conan and Sonja on the run from bounty hunters, sent by the sons of the king Sonja killed two stories earlier. They escape from the bounty hunters, only to find themselves trapped in a mist-enshrouded tower haunted by vampires. By this stage, I don’t understand why this sort of thing would even surprise Conan.

Beyond the predictable motivations of the brother and sister vampires (the brother vampire lusts after Sonja, while the sister vampire lusts after Conan, and the story ends with two dead vampires), we also get further glimpses into Red Sonja’s character. When Conan suggests that her lifestyle is not a woman’s way, her response is, “You’d have me marry, I suppose, raise brats instead of hell.” (That quote should be on a t-shirt.) Further, when the vampire woman attempts to seduce Conan, he asks Sonja if she’s jealous. Her response is neither a passionate denial nor an admission: “There is no place for such womanish things in my life! Sometimes, I almost want there to be, but there is not and there never will be.” Again, her vow is something she will staunchly uphold, but it seems to be one she regrets. Which begs the question of to whom she made the vow, if not to herself.

Further, we see Sonja several times bristle over the Cimmerian helping her. She hates being in anyone’s debt. She’s not above manipulating others into helping her, but aid freely and knowingly given unnerves her. Of course, after rescuing her from bounty hunters and vampires this issue, the debt between them appears to be fairly even (if one counts the times she rescued Conan in earlier adventures). So it’s understandable that the story ends not with a friendly handshake or even a chaste kiss, but with Sonja bashing Conan on the back of the head with a rock, knocking him out so she can make her escape and not risk falling into his debt.

After that two-parter, the four Red Sonja stories published in 1975 were all solo tales. Apparently, the character had finally become popular enough to not need the additional presence of Conan. The first of these stories, “Episode,” (originally published as a back-up story in Conan the Barbarian 48) is a fairly light piece where she is attacked by a giant spider, then a wizard determined to sacrifice her to demons. The second story, “She-Devil with a Sword,” (originally in Kull and the Barbarians 2) is a strange re-interpretation of Little Red Riding Hood, albeit with more tragedy.

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Vintage Treasures: World of Wonder, edited by Fletcher Pratt

Vintage Treasures: World of Wonder, edited by Fletcher Pratt

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world-of-wonder2I’m gradually making my way, with considerable delight, through the vintage science fiction and fantasy anthologies I bought for a few bucks from the collection of Martin H. Greenberg.

I’ve already covered From Off This World (1949) and The Giant Anthology of Science Fiction (1954), both edited by Leo Margulies and Oscar J. Friend. This week, I’ve been fondling Fletcher Pratt’s 1951 World of Wonder, subtitled An Introduction to Imaginative Literature.

Pratt, author of The Well of the Unicorn and The Blue Star, was already a noted fantasy author in his own right by 1951. The science fiction anthology was still a relatively new beast, but the handful that had been published at that point had been generally well received.

Nonetheless, Pratt felt it necessary to grouse about lack of respect in his lengthy introduction:

Now let us not kid ourselves. The stories in this book are fiction, they are literature, whatever definition one chooses to give to those often-disputed terms. A good many people tend to look down on science fiction and fantasy (there is no word that really covers both exactly) because the bulk of it has appeared in magazines with garish covers. They forget that the color of the skin is no guarantee of the flavor of the apple.

Like many books in Greenberg’s collection — especially the vintage anthologies — this one had notes scrawled in the margins, the most prominent being “Fantastic — use. Conflict resolution?” beside H. Beam Piper’s “Operation RSVP.” Greenberg reprinted “Operation RSVP” in Amazing Science Fiction Anthology: The Wild Years 1946-1955 (which I discussed back in June.)

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The Paris Fashion Week of Fantasy Games

The Paris Fashion Week of Fantasy Games

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empires-of-the-voidSix months ago, I attended the Spring Games Auction at Games Plus in Mount Prospect, Illinois, the premiere auction in the country for serious game collectors. Last Friday, I was checking the calendar. They occur every six months, which meant the next one was… holy cats! Saturday morning. I packed up my rental car the next morning and headed out, after making a blood oath to my wife Alice that I would be fiscally responsible this year. Or at least act within the bounds of forgiveness, I told myself.

The auction did not disappoint. The Saturday auction focuses on science fiction and fantasy board games, as well as role-playing games of all kinds. They start promptly at 10:00 am and run for the next seven hours, rattling off about ten games per minute; hundreds every hour, and thousands over the course of the day. For me, it’s the Paris Fashion Week of games — my chance to see all the latest and greatest in new games without having to leave the comfort of my metal folding chair.

Just as last time, the real wonders weren’t dusty artifacts from the early days of gaming, but a panorama of gorgeous and enticing new titles. And again, my knowledge of modern science fiction and fantasy gaming proved woefully inadequate, as time after time, games I’d never seen before made their way to the auction block.

Now, it’s dangerous to be ignorant at an auction. It’s easy to overbid on an item that looks expensive and rare, only to find Amazon has it on clearance for ten bucks. It’s even easier to drop out of the bidding when the going gets tough, confident you can find it cheaper online — only to find copies commanding outrageous prices on eBay. I’ve done both, and while most collectors agree that the greater pain is the memory of that rare item that got away, that’s because they haven’t met Alice and her corrective-therapy broomstick of agony.

So I played it safe this time. I watched a lot of marvelous games go to other bidders, jotting down the titles as they did. I gave up on a used copy of Fantasy Flight Games’ Sky Traders, a game of intrigue and trading in an era of skyships, when bidding shot past $27; it’s in stock at Amazon for $35. Same with Guards! Guards!, a fabulous-looking Discworld game from Z-Man Games, which sold for $40 (new for $57 online), and — perhaps the hardest to let go — a magnificent space combat game based on David Weber’s bestselling series, Honor Harrington: Saganami Island Tactical Simulator, which the fellow next to me bought for $40 (cheapest copy I can find online is $75). And plenty of others, including Zombietown, Dark Minions, Peregrine Games’ Prince of Chaos, and the curious Gnomes of Zavandor.

Later this week, I’ll talk about those items I did bring home, including Empires of the Void, a terrific-looking space exploration game from Red Raven Games. That post will be much more cheerful, I promise.