New Treasures: The Fantasy Fan

New Treasures: The Fantasy Fan

the-fantasy-fanLast month, I got a great e-mail from Black Gate blogger Barbara Barrett. In between her entertaining comments on The Avengers, Arthur Machen, and re-discovering comic books, was this fascinating tidbit:

I’ve started reading The Fantasy Fan — a fan’s tribute to Hornig.  It’s a book containing a compilation of all the Fantasy Fan magazines… I’m only on the first zine but I’m amazed how closely the format matches that of Black Gate. Is this a *coincidence*? The first zine was published in September 1933 and it’s chilling because I keep in mind Robert E.Howard was still alive at that point… the breadth and depth of authors, articles and stories are wonderful. It’s definitely a page out of Living History.

Among fantasy collectors The Fantasy Fan is legendary. The world’s first fanzine dedicated to weird fiction, it lasted for 18 issues, from September 1933 to February 1935. Its contributors included some of the most famous names in the genre — H.P Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, Bob Tucker, Julius Schwartz, Forry Ackerman, Robert Bloch, August Derleth, Eando Binder, and many others — and its young editor Charles Horning so impressed Hugo Gernsback that he hired him to edit Wonder Stories in 1933, at the age of 17. While at Wonder Stories he published Stanley G. Weinbaum’s “A Martian Odyssey” and many other famous pulp stories.

Barbara’s reference to a compilation of The Fantasy Fan was so intriguing I had to track down a copy for myself, and it finally arrived last week. Copies of the original fanzine are so rare that I’ve never even seen one, so to hold a facsimile reprint of all 18 issues in my hands was rather breathtaking. The man behind the book is Lance Thingmaker, and here’s what he says in his introduction:

These fragile gems were so unique. They were simple little fanzines, but were filled with stories, articles and comments by history’s most important weird fiction writers and fans. I felt like I was looking back in time… Since they are extremely hard to find, it seemed many others probably never had the chance to check out the world’s first weird fiction zine. I wanted to make it happen.

The end product is a top-notch piece of work. The magazines are presented in facsimile format, with painstaking restoration of the original barely legible pages, hand printed and hand-bound in hardcover by Thingmaker. The book is over 300 pages, including the complete text of H.P. Lovecraft’s famous essay “Supernatural Horror in Literature,” which was being serialized when the magazine folded. It is limited to 100 copies and sold for $50. Thingmaker’s next project, due to ship later this month, is a facsimile reprint of all four issues of the ultra-rare pulp Marvel Tales.

You can find a detailed breakdown of the contents of The Fantasy Fan here. My thanks again to Barbara for alerting me to this before it sold out!

Andrea Grennan reviews The Infernals

Andrea Grennan reviews The Infernals

the-infernalsThe Infernals
John Connolly
Atria Books (309 pp, $22.00, 1st Hardcover Edition, October 2011)
Reviewed by Andrea Grennan

Almost-Armageddon books are a marvelous niche in the fantasy market, ranging from serious examinations and thrillers to horror and gore. One of this reviewer’s favorites is the lighter side of Armageddon, as seen in Neil Gamain and Terry Pratchett’s Good Omens or Richard Kadrey’s Sandman Slim series.

John Connolly’s approach fits right into this niche, with a marvelous blend of suburban London quirk and the Large Hadron Supercollider in Cerne, Switzerland.

Sound a bit on the these-two-things-don’t-go-together side? Relax, set aside your concerns, and go for ride with Samuel Johnson and his faithful dog Boswell through the looking glass and straight to Hell.

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Art Evolution Challenge 2012: Anna Steinbauer

Art Evolution Challenge 2012: Anna Steinbauer

schleiertanzIn January I contacted Jon Schindehette over at the ArtOrder about possibly running a contest on the site that would help show some of the promising talent in the field of fantasy. It was my concept to devote five special spotlight posts right here on Black Gate to a collection of new artists as judged by a panel of veteran artists and art directors in the field.

Jon loved the idea, and by February we had a contest running that ended up featuring more than a hundred and twenty-five entries from all over the globe. What were they painting? Well, if this is Art Evolution, then of course they all took a stab at Lyssa, the now iconic female wizardress that has been defined by fantasy art legends since the series began in 2010.

I must say, the experience of running this challenge was a total thrill. Watching a bevy of incredible artists use WIPNation to show the progress of their vision for Lyssa on an almost daily basis allowed me a vision of what working in an old school art department at TSR must have been like.

There were science fiction Lyssas, primal Lyssas, steampunk Lyssas, you name it, and each artist brought such a fantastic flair to what he or she did. However, when it all came down to nuts and bolts, there could only be three winners for 2012, as judged by such talents as Todd Lockwood, Jeff Laubenstein, Jeff Easley, and Lauren Panepinto.

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Mage: The Hero Discovered by Matt Wagner

Mage: The Hero Discovered by Matt Wagner

mage-the-hero-defined1It’s nothing new: taking old mythic tropes and adapting them to modern-age stories. The social commentary thinly-veiled as mysticism, the peek-a-boo mythology references, the obligatory explanation for why most people in our modern times don’t notice magic, the unassuming youth who will one day become a great hero … we’ve all read them.  he secret is in the execution.  How well is this ancient story re-told? How compelling are the characters? Are the truths revealed deep or trite?

Matt Wagner was only twenty-two when the first issue of Mage was published and it’s surprising that someone so young could write something both this introspective and this self-aware. His hero, Kevin Matchstick, is already a cynical, disillusioned man at the story’s beginning. He acts like a man who already has the weight of the world on his shoulders, yet has no true responsibilities. It’s telling that the mysterious wizard who approaches him with news of his great potential is named Mirth. The journey that follows over the next fifteen issues concerns Kevin’s quest to understand and fight forces of supernatural evil; but it’s just as much Mirth’s quest to make Kevin stop being a jerk. The adage that the only thing evil needs to succeed is for good men to do nothing rings through this series.

Kevin, Mirth, the supporting cast and even the incidental characters are written with a surprising depth. No one is merely a follower (on the side of good or evil), each having his or her own reasons for the decisions made. The storyline is equally divided between action scenes and “downtime” where the heroes relax and talk about how they see the world and their place in it. The baseball-bat-wielding Edsel and supernatural civil servant Sean Knight work just as hard to guide Kevin towards self-discovery as they do covering his back during fights with quintuplet casino bosses, hordes of redcaps and the occasional succubus. They also have to face down a dragon. And a staple gun.

This series has been in and out of print for years and a collected edition shouldn’t be difficult to find. But if you have the means, definitely find a comic shop that carries the original back issues. There you’ll get the letter page debates on the nature of magic and morality, Matt Wagner’s comments on the state of the comic industry and the amazing Grendel stories (originally published in the back of each issue as a series of four-page mini-stories). Volume One is subtitled The Hero Discovered. Fifteen years later, there were another fifteen issues subtitled, The Hero Defined. And, someday, we may see the final volume, “The Hero Denied”. Until that day, magic is green.

Vintage Treasures: Poul Anderson’s After Doomsday

Vintage Treasures: Poul Anderson’s After Doomsday

after-doomsdayI’m putting away all the paperbacks that arrived with my two Philip K. Dick lots, and I stumbled across the fabulous artifact at right.

After Doomsday was published by Ballantine Books in 1962, two years before I was born. It was originally serialized in Galaxy magazine (as The Day after Doomsday) between December 1961 and February 1962.

What truly makes it fabulous isn’t just the great cover art by Ralph Brillhart, with a bug-eyed alien stumbling on some guy surveying a road during his evening constitutional. No no no. It’s this wonderful description on the back cover:

CARL DONNAN was a space engineer — a man of action who did his job well and didn’t think much beyond that — but now his home planet was destroyed and he found himself with two burning ambitions:

– FIND the beings who blew up the Earth.

– SEARCH the galaxies until they located another Starship with female humans aboard.

BOTH PROJECTS were vital to the survival of the human race — and both were monumental tasks.

THIS was the time when the galaxies discovered how grim and purposeful a handful of homo sapiens could be.

A starship with “female humans” aboard. I think the first task for this guy Carl should be to look up “female humans,” find out they’re called “women,” and then put an ad on Craig’s List. The survival of the species is on your shoulders, dude. Time to put down that survey equipment and pick up a clean shirt. And maybe some mouthwash.

There’s a lengthy plot synopsis of After Doomsday here. Don’t expect it to be as entertaining as that back cover copy, though.

Selling Philip K. Dick

Selling Philip K. Dick

the-simulacra-philip-k-dickAlmost exactly a year ago this weekend I was in downtown Chicago, selling books and Black Gate magazines at the Printer’s Row book fair. It was hot and I got sunstroke, and I had to cancel dinner plans with the charming and beautiful Patty Templeton. Stupid, stupid sunstroke.

But I learned something fascinating. Well, two fascinating things. The second was that no one wants print fiction magazines anymore. I can’t tell you how many people picked up copies of Black Gate 15, dazzled by the look and heft of the thing, asking “What is this?” The moment they learned it was a magazine, they put it down and wandered over to the booth selling travel books.

But the first fascinating thing I learned is that vintage Philip K. Dick paperbacks sell at almost any price.

I learned this mostly by accident. I had a few hundred recently-acquired vintage paperbacks bagged up, but didn’t have time to price them. The night before the show they were spread out in stacks on our bed, all with cheerful blank price stickers, and Alice was threatening to sleep on the couch.

So I just priced them at random. Most I listed at 2 – 3 bucks, occasionally as high as 10. When I got to the more valuable stuff, like the Philip K. Dick , I wrote “$35” on most of ’em, even the stuff I’d only paid a buck or two for. I figured I’d do my homework and re-price everything that didn’t sell later.

Instead, I sold all the Philip K. Dick in less than two days.

Obviously, this was an unusual test case. For one thing, this wasn’t an SF convention and my buyers generally weren’t science fiction readers. They were book collectors who knew just enough about Philip K. Dick to know he’s in demand. There was a lot of impulse buying, and hardened rare book collectors are maybe less reluctant to fork over $30 – $40 on impulse than a typical SF reader.

Still, it was very educational. Dick was one of the only authors browsing customers frequently asked about (the others were Samuel R. Delaney and Ursula K. LeGuin), and if I could put a book in their hands, it was a short step to a sale. It didn’t hurt that many of his paperbacks look terrific, like the Emsh cover on the 1964 Ace edition of The Simulacra, above.

I don’t sell much anymore, but I do have two tables reserved for Chicon 7, the World Science Fiction convention coming up this Labor Day here in Chicago. In preparation, I’ve been accumulating as many Philip K. Dick titles — and other vintage SF paperbacks — as I can find. eBay is one fertile hunting ground, especially if you’re willing to buy larger lots. Last week I purchased lots containing The Simulacra and Dr. Bloodmoney (plus 10 other mixed SF paperbacks) for $6.05 each. I’m pretty sure I can re-sell the Dick titles alone for a lot more than that.

Just how much more remains to be seen. I’ll let you know after Chicon.

Octavia E. Butler’s “Bloodchild”

Octavia E. Butler’s “Bloodchild”

isaac-asimovs-science-fiction-magazine-june-1984I’m still putting away boxes of stuff that’s piled up in my library. Today it’s a collection of science fiction magazines I purchased from Craig Sandford, a guy I met on eBay, a few months ago. Craig kept his magazines in great condition. I had most of them already (don’t tell Alice), but Craig offered me a sweet deal. And realistically, I won’t be content until my basement is so stuffed with games and magazines it’s impossible to move. So this is progress.

As I slid each magazine into a protective plastic bag, daydreaming of the future age when SF digests from the 1980s are near-priceless cultural artifacts (not far off now), I came across the June 1984 issue of Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, with Wayne Barlowe’s brilliant and chilling cover for Octavia E. Butler’s story “Bloodchild.”

“Bloodchild” is a stunning work of short fiction. It won both the Hugo and Nebula awards for best novelette, and was the title story of her slim 1995 collection, Bloodchild and Other Stories. Although I had magazines and boxes scattered all over the floor, I curled up in my big green chair to re-read it.

Butler has described “Bloodchild” as a tale of male pregnancy, which is apt even if it isn’t very descriptive. The young Gan lives with his family on a Preserve on an alien world, where humans are protected from the dominant species — the huge, powerful and intelligent insect-like Tlic, who lay their eggs in humans and nearly wiped them out when the first human settlers arrived. Gan’s father gave birth to three alien broods before he died, including the noble T’Gatoi, a female Tlic who’s become one of humanity’s strongest protectors. But now it’s time for T’Gatoi to lay her own eggs, and she has chosen Gan as her mate. When Gan witnesses the violent and bloody birth of a clutch of grubs, he realizes for the first time exactly what he’s being groomed for. He’s unsure he can go through with it, but to refuse now will have dangerous ramifications for his family. “I knew birth was bloody and painful, no matter what,” he reasons. And how does T’Gatoi see her mate? Is he just a pet? Or is it possible she feels… something like love?

Barlowe captures the innocence and horror of “Bloochild” perfectly in his cover, which depicts a new-born alien grub leaving a trail of blood as it emerges from the adolescent boy Gan, who watches with a calculating look. Click on the image above for a bigger version.

This is why I love science fiction and fantasy magazines. They’re not just slender collections of stories. They are a refined meeting of fact, art, and fiction, and when that meeting turns into a wild night of necking in the back seat, as it does here, it’s worth telling your friends about. You’re my friends, so I’m telling you. (And as we’ve discussed, kindly don’t mention this to Alice).

I don’t know any place where you can read “Bloodchild” online, but you can get a copy of the June 84 issue of Asimov’s online for only a couple of bucks. Just buy it soon, before the inevitable day 80s SF magazines become priceless. Why not hoard them in your basement, like me? You’ll thank me later.

Steampunk Spotlight: Cherie Priest’s Ganymede

Steampunk Spotlight: Cherie Priest’s Ganymede

Ganymede by Cherie PriestGanymede (Amazon | B&N)
Cherie Priest
Tor (350 pp., $14.99, October 2011)
Reviewed by Jackson Kuhl

On the eve of the fall and subsequent occupation of New Orleans by the Union in 1862, lawyer and amateur engineer Horace L. Hunley, along with his two investment partners, scuttled their submarine Pioneer in a canal to prevent its seizure by the Federals. They may, or may not, have likewise scuttled a second submarine near Lake Pontchartrain; there are no records for this sub and its design departs from Hunley’s other efforts. The trio fled to Mobile, Alabama, to build another sub, which sank, and yet another, the H.L. Hunley, which drowned its namesake, then successfully torpedoed the Union blockade ship Housatonic before itself swamping in Charleston Harbor during its return.

In the alternate history of Cherie Priest’s latest Clockwork Century novel, Hunley and his partners constructed a fifth submersible, the titular Ganymede, which sank near New Orleans. The Civil War has stretched into the late nineteenth-century and the city is occupied by the Confederate-allied Republic of Texas. Now a team of pro-Union guerrillas has recovered Ganymede and, hopeful the machine can end the war in the Union’s favor, intends to transport it down the Mississippi River — past the Texians searching for it — to a waiting U.S. battleship in the Gulf. All of this is orchestrated by freedom fighter Josephine Early, a black whorehouse madam and Union agent. With no one experienced enough to pilot the sub, Early hires airship captain Andan Cly (who also happens to be her ex-lover, natch) to “fly” Ganymede under the river and the Texians’ noses to the rendezvous.

Priest has cooked together espionage, a rich setting, intriguing characters, and a plot that could have been stolen from Alistair Maclean. It’s a great gumbo — providing you ignore there’s not an ounce of suspense to be tasted. Spoilers ahoy!

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Vintage Treasures: TSR’s Amazing Science Fiction Anthologies

Vintage Treasures: TSR’s Amazing Science Fiction Anthologies

amazing-the-wonder-yearsD&D publisher TSR generally gets a bad rap for their brief venture into science fiction in the 1980s. Much of their D&D related fiction — especially the Weis and Hickman DragonLance novels, which launched their entire publishing line — is still remembered fondly today. But does anybody remember Martin Caidin’s Buck Rogers novel, or Martin H. Greenberg’s Starfall anthology?

Nope.

Which is a shame. At one point — riding high on the success of the DragonLance books — TSR claimed it was the largest publisher of SF and fantasy titles in the nation, and it sure looked that way whenever I walked into a bookstore. There were literally racks of the stuff: DragonLance books, Forgotten Realms books, Dark Sun novels, Birthright novels, SpellJammer novels, Greyhawk books, Ravenloft novels, Planescape novels… and on and on and on.

If you were a serious genre reader in the late 80s, you gradually trained your eyes to ignore it all as you scanned the shelves for anything new and original.

What many of us never knew — because they were hidden alongside all their gaming fiction — was that TSR published dozens of new and original SF and fantasy novels, unconnected to any of their gaming fiction, including bestselling author Sharyn McCrumb’s famous science fiction pastiche Bimbos of the Death Sun (1987), Paul B. Thompson and Tonya C. Cook’s Red Sands (1988), Ardath Mayhar and Ron Fortier’s Monkey Station (1989), Robin Wayne Bailey’s Nightwatch (1990), and many others.

They also discovered several major authors, publishing Nancy Varian Berberick’s first novel The Jewels of Elvish (1989), Nick Pollotta’s first novel Illegal Aliens (written with Phil Foglio, 1989), and first novels from L. Dean James, Chrys Cymri, K.B. Bogen, and others.

But my favorite books published by TSR during this period weren’t novels at all. They were five anthologies collecting stories from the pulp days of Amazing Stories, edited by Martin H. Greenberg.

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New Treasures: Zombiegeddon

New Treasures: Zombiegeddon

zombiegeddon2I’m still unpacking from the horrible bout of auction fever I suffered back in March. I uncovered a box of games buried by loot from the April Windy City Pulp and Paper Show in my library on Friday … man, I go to too many auctions.

It’s fun to dig through unexpected boxes of games, though. It’s sort of like archaeology, especially since each item still has the auction tag and price on it. Man, what kind of primitive barbarian would pay 28 bucks for a copy of StarSoldier?? Since it’s in the box … me, apparently.

Still, there’s some intriguing surprises. Like this copy of Reiner Knizia’s Zombiegeddon I found. [Click on the image at right to embiggen.]

I don’t remember buying this game. In truth, twenty minutes ago, I didn’t even know it existed.

But I can imagine what happened. They rattle through items pretty fast at the Games Plus Spring Auction. The auctioneer held it up, I got a quick glimpse of a rare and mysterious gaming artifact with an old lady with spider legs and an undead dog on the cover, I heard the words “mumble mumble ZOMBIE mumble,” and everything went black.  Three months later, I’m holding a copy of Zombiegeddon and someone has fifteen bucks of my money.

Zombiegeddon looks pretty neat, though.  I mean, how could it not? Here’s the text on the back:

Well, it was nice while it lasted! You have gotten word that the end is near, and Armageddon is right around the corner. (Actually, it begins tonight!) Since it may be a while before you can get to the store, today would be a good time to gather as many supplies as possible. After all, tomorrow might be the beginning of a long, cold, (nuclear) winter!

Reiner Knizia’s Zombiegeddon is a fast-paced, perfect-information, strategy game. Each player spends the first half of the game rushing around the board collecting supplies and trying to stop your pesky neighbors from taking stuff that is rightfully yours … The second half of the game is spent trying to survive. Sure their is some good stuff around, but it certainly isn’t plentiful and let’s face it, everyone is still trying to take it before you do! (Whoever has the most stuff at the end of the game wins!)

The board looks pretty pedestrian — essentially just a blank grid — but the components are sturdy, and the rule book is only two pages. Maybe Drew will play this with me, once we finally find that frickin’ holy grail.

Reiner Knizia’s Zombiegeddon is available from Twilight Creations. It was published in March 2009, and retails for $24.99. The complete rulebook in PDF is here.