Black Gate Goes to the Summer Movies: Prometheus

Black Gate Goes to the Summer Movies: Prometheus

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prometheus-posterIf you plan to see Prometheus this weekend, know that you are in for an endless buffet of visual astonishment, especially if you spring to see it in IMAX 3D. Ridley Scott belongs to the breed of filmmaker who can justify the use of the 3D gimmick. He poured everything at his disposal to make his new science-fiction film worth the extra dollars, euros, pound notes needed to watch it in an immersive environment. Prometheus is visual and aural splendor for the cinema.

Know also that you will meet flat characters who often do idiotic things (“Don’t pet the freaky alien snake-thingy! You call yourself a scientist?”) and more idiotic things (“Don’t take off your helmets, you morons! You call yourselves space-explorers?”) and more idiotic things (“Don’t go down into the basement alone!” Well, that doesn’t specifically happen, but many equivalent things do.); a script that turns its initial concept into a shapeless mess by the halfway point; and the general disappointment of watching what promised to be an amazing return for Ridley Scott to the Alien universe he helped create ending up as standard science-fiction thriller pulp.

Does this add up to a good film? Uh, I’m willing to say it does. And whether “good” is enough for you when it comes to Prometheus will depend on how much you anticipated its release and how much you devoured of its brilliant promotional and viral campaigns.

Prometheus presents a puzzle for me personally: It is far below what I wanted as a dramatic experience, yet the cinematic experience of it is stupendous. The tension here offers plenty to ponder, but in a meta-critical sense that has little to do with the story that Prometheus offers. What makes a good film? What makes a good story? What makes a good film story? How much do expectations alter those questions? Are they all the same questions? Yes? No? Buy a vowel?

I guess what I am trying to say is that you should go see Prometheus for yourself, no matter what the critical consensus says, simply because it engages in questions about filmmaking and will no doubt begin tons of debate.

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June Page XX Available — get the latest Pelgrane Press News

June Page XX Available — get the latest Pelgrane Press News

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the-13th-ageSimon Rogers, publisher of Pelgrane Press, tells us a bumper-sized issue of their newsletter Page XX is now available.

I’ve been a huge fan of Pelgrane Press since they published the superb The Dying Earth role playing game nearly a decade ago, and began supporting it with one of the best small press gaming magazines ever published, The Excellent Prismatic Spray, which included articles by Gary Gygax, Robin D. Laws, Phil Masters, Steven Long, and many others.

More recently Pelgrane Press has produced Trail of Cthulhu, Mutant City Blues, Night’s Black Agents, and the highly acclaimed science fiction RPG Ashen Stars.

This latest issue of Page XX is packed with updates on three major new releases and lots of news, including the latest on their new fantasy RPG 13th Age by D&D designers Jonathan Tweet and Rob Heinsoo:

And lots more! Check out the latest issue of Page XX here.

This Week’s Bargain SF & Fantasy Books at Amazon.com

This Week’s Bargain SF & Fantasy Books at Amazon.com

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nights-of-villjamurFour packages from Amazon.com piled up on my doorstep today, which reminds me it’s time to do another bargain book round-up. Ah, I love bargain books.

Here’s the latest remaindered SF & fantasy titles I’ve found on Amazon, including two new titles by Cory Doctorow; Fergus and the Night-Demon, a great-looking illustrated fantasy from Jim Murphy & John Manders; the recently-reviewed Black Blade Blues by J. A. Pitts; plus books by Kage Baker, Kat Richardson, Fiona McIntosh, Gordon Dahlquist, Michael Marshall Smith, Christina Meldrum, Galen Beckett, and the debut of a promising new fantasy series from Mark Charan Newton, Nights of Villjamur:

Nights of Villjamur, Mark Charan Newton [$10.38, was $26]
Makers, Cory Doctorow [$10, was $24.99]
For the Win, Cory Doctorow [$7.20, was $17.99]
The Dark Volume, Gordon Dahlquist [$10.40, was $26]
Myrren’s Gift: The Quickening Book One, Fiona McIntosh [$5.98, was $14.95]
Downpour (Greywalker, Book 6), Kat Richardson [$9.98, was $24.95]
The Magicians and Mrs. Quent, Galen Beckett [$9.20, was $23]
The Servants, Michael Marshall Smith [$5.98, was $14.95]
Madapple, Christina Meldrum [$6.80, was $16.99]
The Empress of Mars, Kage Baker [$10.38, was $25.95]
Fergus and the Night-Demon, Jim Murphy & John Manders [$6.40, was $16]
Black Blade Blues, J. A. Pitts [$6.40, was $15.99]

Most books are discounted from 60% to 80%. As always, quantities on these bargain books are very limited. All are eligible for free domestic shipping on orders over $25. Most of last week’s discount titles are still available; you can see them here.

Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Golden Scorpion, Part Three – “At the House of Ah-Fang-Fu”

Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Golden Scorpion, Part Three – “At the House of Ah-Fang-Fu”

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golden-scorpion-5golden-scorpion-3Sax Rohmer’s The Golden Scorpion was first printed in its entirety in The Illustrated London News Christmas Number in December 1918. It was published in book form in the UK the following year by Methuen and in the US in 1920 by McBride & Nast. Rohmer divided the novel into four sections. This week, we shall examine the third part of the book, “At the House of Ah-Fang-Fu” which comprises eight chapters.

The story picks up at Scotland Yard where Gaston Max, Inspector Dunbar, and Dr. Keppel Stuart have gathered in the Assistant Commissioner’s office. Max suggests that the veiled figure known as the Scorpion that Dr. Stuart glimpsed in China five years earlier is likely the same criminal known as the Scorpion currently operating out of Limehouse. The Frenchman also believes that Mademoiselle Dorian, aka Zara el-Khala, aka Miska, is likewise an essential key to unravelling the mystery.

Max suggests a connection exists between Mr. King (from Rohmer’s 1915 novel, The Yellow Claw) and the Scorpion. Specifically, the Frenchman theorizes that the two criminals belong to the same Chinese or Tibetan organization whose tentacles have seemingly enveloped the globe. Having named the secret criminal society in the third and, at the time, final Fu Manchu thriller, The Hand of Fu Manchu published the previous year; Rohmer now desired to link his two Gaston Max Limehouse mysteries to the earlier series’ continuity. This is an interesting change of direction as Rohmer had originally taken great pains to separate the more realistic Yellow Claw from the outlandish mayhem of his Fu Manchu thrillers. This reversal not only signalled the fact that he wasn’t entirely ready to be done with the character, but was seeking creative ways of continuing the series without resorting to a purely formulaic approach.

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A Brief Tribute to the Stories of Ray Bradbury

A Brief Tribute to the Stories of Ray Bradbury

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the-october-countryI came to Ray Bradbury at what is likely a later age than most. I never had to read Fahrenheit 451 in school; if I read one of his short stories as a student I have no recollection. Several years ago, in a desire to start filling in some gaps I had in classic genre fiction, I gave Fahrenheit 451 a try. It was a powerful read and made a profound impact on me. It prompted me to seek out more Bradbury—and I’ve been hooked ever since.

Since then I’ve marveled in the wonders of Dandelion Wine, The Golden Apples of the Sun, The October Country, The Halloween Tree, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and The Martian Chronicles. If somehow you haven’t read any Bradbury yet, my advice is to pick any of the above titles and dive in. I’d recommend one over the others, but there’s no need. They’re all pretty much brilliant. You won’t be disappointed.

I’ve always been a little leery of science fiction and have read far more deeply of fantasy. Rightly or wrongly, my perception is that SF worships at the altar of technology, and is fixated upon cold, clinical subject matter for which I have little interest. But if the genre contained more books like The Martian Chronicles, I might view it a lot differently (a parenthetical aside: Though it may be the subject of a catchy song, to call Bradbury “the greatest sci-fi writer in history” isn’t accurate. Dark fantasy, horror, soft sci-fi, traditional literary fiction—Bradbury has written in them all, and sometimes all at once. He is in many ways genre-defying). Bradbury’s stories are in tune with our humanity and his fiction is life-affirming. They remind us that We’re human, and we’re alive, damn it. Bradbury often said that he loved life and was driven to write not only by his love of libraries and of reading, but of the very act of living itself. And that’s potent fuel for a lifetime of stories.

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Goth Chick News: 13 Questions for the Creators of Outpost 13

Goth Chick News: 13 Questions for the Creators of Outpost 13

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image001As you know, we here at Goth Chick News are great fans of the indy film industry and there’s nothing we love better than getting a peak behind the clapboard.  Well, there was that one intern who refused to watch any film that didn’t have a title soundtrack by Celine Dion, but oddly enough he got sent out to pick up a YooHoo for Scott Taylor on his second day and just never came back.

Funny that.

So you can imagine the excitement when Wyatt Weed (Pirate Pictures), Billy Hartzel and Corey Logsdon (State of Mind Productions) agreed to give Black Gate an exclusive look at their short film Outpost 13 before it launches into what will surely be an exciting journey.

Clearly recognizing a bandwagon headed down the yellow brick road of success, it was obvious the only thing to do was jump on.  But not before squeezing a little insider information out the boys on how they turned their creative imaginations into movie magic.

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Christopher Paul Carey on Gods of Opar: Tales of Lost Khokarsa

Christopher Paul Carey on Gods of Opar: Tales of Lost Khokarsa

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gods-of-opar2In July 2005, I was alerted to an amazing find: the partial manuscript and detailed outline to Philip José Farmer’s third Khokarsa novel had been located among the author’s files.

At the time, I was serving as editor of Farmerphile, an authorized, digest-sized magazine devoted to bringing into print rarities and previously unpublished material by Farmer, and so naturally I had been contacted by the magazine’s publisher, Michael Croteau, when the new Khokarsa material turned up.

I was a huge fan of the original two books in the cycle — Hadon of Ancient Opar (1974) and Flight to Opar (1976) — considering them to be at the highest tier of Farmer’s adventure fiction, and it was with quivering fingers that I typed a reply to Mike’s email and requested a copy of the pages. When the photocopies promptly arrived, I was astounded. Here on an epic scale was the entire arc of what Farmer had planned for the third novel of the series, minus a few finishing touches where he had speculated on alternate courses for the story’s finale.

What’s more, the novel didn’t star Hadon, the duty-bound protagonist of the first two installments, but rather Hadon’s giant cousin Kwasin in all his larger-than-life stature — the wild, unrestrained antihero of the series, who was last seen on stage in Hadon of Ancient Opar, swinging his massive ax of meteoritic iron against impossible odds to give Hadon and his companions a chance to escape the forces of the power-hungry King Minruth.

It was a story that I instantly knew needed to be told — the conclusion to a trilogy for which Farmer’s fans had been waiting almost thirty years.

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New Treasures: R.A. Salvatore’s War of the Spider Queen

New Treasures: R.A. Salvatore’s War of the Spider Queen

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war-of-the-spider-queenAh, the lure of the fat fantasy novel. There’s really nothing quite like it.

Yes, I love short fiction and, by extension, I love short novels. But when you really fall in love with a book or series, nothing satisfies like a volume that weighs as much as a phone book.

Which is why I was delighted when two fat fantasy compendiums landed on my doorstep this week: R.A. Salvatore’s War of the Spider Queen, Volume I and Volume II.

These aren’t written by R.A. Salvatore.  You can tell because his name is in the title. R.A. Salvatore created the popular character Drizzt Do’Urden and has written nearly two dozen novels featuring the drow ranger, several of them best-sellers. War of the Spider Queen returns to Drizzt Do’Urden’s homeland, the Underdark, to spin a tale of a ragged band of four dark elves on a desperate quest to find Lloth, drow goddess and the demon Queen of Spiders, and save their subterranean city of Menzoberranzan and the entire dark elf race.

The two-volume War of the Spider Queen collects all six novels: Dissolution by Richard Lee Byers, Insurrection by Thomas M. Reid, Condemnation by Richard Baker, Extinction by Lisa Smedman, Annihilation by Philip Athans, and Resurrection by Paul S. Kemp. All were published between 2002 and 2005, with R.A. Salvatore overseeing the development of the entire series.

These are handsome and satisfactorily hefty volumes. I took them out and photographed them on the bricks of my front patio, so you can get a sense of their size. (Click on the image above to get a bigger version).

Volume I contains the first three novels; it is 1,074 pages for $15.95 in trade paperback. Volume II gathers the last three; it is 1,076 pages for $15.95. Both have cover art by Brom. They are published by Wizards of the Coast and are now available.

Chris Braak Reviews The Last Four Things

Chris Braak Reviews The Last Four Things

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the-last-four-thingsThe Last Four Things
Paul Hoffman
Dutton Books (384 pp, $26.96, hardcover August 2011)
Reviewed by Chris Braak

The Last Four Things is the sequel to Paul Hoffman’s runaway hit The Left Hand of God – a droll, sword-and-more-swords epic set in a kind of topsy-turvy analog for Europe during the Hundred Years War. Like all second books in a trilogy, the proof of this one will lie in how the third book ties these loosened strings altogether.

The signature elements of Hoffman’s first novel are here in abundance: the dry wit, the simple but cleanly drawn characters, the tense and stirring depictions of large-scale military conflict; as well are some of the more troublesome elements, like Hoffman’s tendency to distractingly remix and incorporate recognizable bits of history and literature into the narrative.

After the events of The Left Hand of God, Thomas Cale (the eponymous Left Hand) and his friends — Kleist, Vague Henri, and IdrisPukke — find themselves separated by the machinations of the Lord Militant Redeemer Bosco. While Thomas Cale begins waging a series of campaigns on behalf of the imperialistic and puritanical Redeemers, Kleist the archer ends up making a home for himself in a tribe of cowardly, philosophical bandits called the Klephts. Cale’s hunger for escape and the Redeemers’ bloody-mindedness drive the two of them apart at first, and then slowly back together; the stage is set for a climax in the upcoming third book.

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