Black Gate – Page 1156 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Mars, Part 9: Synthetic Men of Mars

Wednesday, September 5, 2012 Ryan Harvey Comments 1 comment

1st-edtion-synthetic-men-of-mars Greetings, late 1930s ERB! How have you been? Oh, not that great? Yes, I know how it is. I’ve read enough of your output from these days.

In this long trip across Burroughs’s Mars, I have now reached the conclusion of Phase #3 of the Barsoom books, with the last work of the 1930s. Synthetic Men of Mars is also the last novel Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote in the series. He turned to novellas after this, resulting in two collections, one posthumous. So the ninth book of Barsoom is a eulogy of sorts.

And “eulogy” is the appropriate word: let’s pause to remember the good times, because the good times are gone.

Our Saga: The adventures of Earthman John Carter, his progeny, and sundry other natives and visitors, on the planet Mars, known to its inhabitants as Barsoom. A dry and slowly dying world, Barsoom contains four different human civilizations, one non-human one, a scattering of science among swashbuckling, and a plethora of religions, mystery cities, and strange beasts. The series spans 1912 to 1964 with nine novels, one volume of linked novellas, and two unrelated novellas.

Today’s Installment: Synthetic Men of Mars (1939)

Previous Installments: A Princess of Mars (1912), The Gods of Mars (1913), The Warlord of Mars (191314), Thuvia, Maid of Mars (1916), The Chessmen of Mars (1922), The Master Mind of Mars (1927), A Fighting Man of Mars (1930), Swords of Mars (1934–35)

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Art of the Genre: The Art of Robotech and a lifelong affair with Giant Robots

Wednesday, September 5, 2012 Scott Taylor Comments 7 comments

When you ride a Super Veritech, you know it's going to be a good game! — When you ride a Super Veritech, you know it

There was this time in my misty past, well before that advent of cable television in my home, when I didn’t have access to giant robots. During those dark days of the 1970s, when I was sick and had to stay home from school, my mother would drive me early in the morning to my grandmother’s trailer before she had to go to work. It was there, snuggled on an old floral patterned couch, that for at least an hour each day I achieved a moment of pure heaven.

I can well remember the incredible color of her small television as it displayed Star Blazers and Thunderbirds cartoons in those wee hours of weekday mornings. God, how it made being sick SO worth it, and during those episodes I grew to love space even more than I did when I watched Star Wars.

Fast forward to 1986, cable having found its way to my household as well as a wonder of wonders in a new piece of technology called a VCR. My oldest friend Mark (then a new friend), having just introduced me to Dungeons & Dragons, told me that there was this program on at 7 AM each morning called Robotech and I ‘had to watch it.’

Where Star Blazers began as a child’s infatuation, Robotech took things to the next level in a true love affair. I mean, I was just 15, couldn’t program a VCR (I mean who could, right?), and got my tired teenage butt up before 7 every day for a year so I could record every single episode personally.

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Singularity & Co. use Successful Kickstarter to Rescue Out-of-Print SF & Fantasy

Tuesday, September 4, 2012 John ONeill Comments 6 comments

The ever-vigilant Jason Waltz has called our attention to this article on Singularity & Co., who are rescuing extremely rare SF and fantasy titles and bringing them back into print as e-books.

It began with a Kickstarter campaign by Ash Kalb, Cici James, Jamil V Moen, and Kaila Hale-Stern, which raised $52,276 (350 percent of their $15,000 goal). The campaign ended on April 2 and the team wasted no time setting their dream in motion. Each month they have carefully selected one out-of-print science fiction novel, tracked down the copyright holders, and re-packaged it in DRM-free PDF, Epub, and Mobi format for subscribers.

So far they have reprinted A Plunge Into Space by Robert Cromie (first published in 1890) and Jack Bechdolt’s 1948 novel The Torch. They have also opened a Brooklyn bookshop where vintage science fiction and fantasy paperbacks are filed chronologically by publication date, which I find weirdly compelling.

Tracking down old books — both rights and physical copies to scan — has proven more challenging than they expected. Their planned third book is Mr. Stranger’s Sealed Packet by Hugh MacColl, first published in 1889. But according to a Wired article about the group, locating a copy took some effort:

The team tracked down the lone copy [of Mr. Stranger’s Sealed Packet] out of university archives, and went on a thousand-mile drive just to scan it. Despite being out of copyright, none of the universities who owned a copy of [the book] permitted scanning.

Singularity & Co. currently don’t offer individual e-books for sale; titles are available only to subscribers. Subscription plans start at $29.99 for a year, or $129.99 for a lifetime subscription. Learn more at their website, savethescifi.com .

You’ll Never See it in Galaxy

Tuesday, September 4, 2012 Matthew Wuertz Comments 4 comments

In my last post, Discovering Galaxy Science Fiction, I shared my excitement in discovering Galaxy magazine and getting my hands on some issues. While I was still admiring my recent collection, my wife surprised me with the first twelve issues of Galaxy Science Fiction!

Galaxy’s first issue was October, 1950. Upon the back cover are the words, “You’ll Never See it in Galaxy.” Below that header, two short narratives appear about Bat Durston – one set in space, one set in the old west. Other than the setting and descriptions, the paragraphs are nearly identical. Following that is this great statement: “If this is your idea of science fiction, you’re welcome to it!” [Click on the image at right for the complete text].

Editor H.L. Gold writes in the opening letter that science fiction is finally coming of age and that media sources are treating science fiction intelligently. Gold writes that Galaxy “proposes to carry the maturity of this type of literature into the science fiction magazine field, where it is now, unfortunately, somewhat hard to find.” With stories akin to Bat Durston in heavy supply, that’s no surprise.

In addition to Galaxy’s content, Gold writes that even their cover art

is proof of [Galaxy’s] break with the amateur and/or shoddy tradition… We never were convinced, in any case, of the actual commercial appeal of naked maidens, prognathous youths in winter underwear… and monsters that can exist only on the nutrients found in India ink and Bristol board.

He describes cover artist David Stone as “weary of tearing covers off magazines to avoid embarrassment.”

Clearly, Galaxy’s founders found a dearth in excellent science fiction, presented in a professional format. I admire them for their boldness, to proclaim what’s needed and to publish it. I look back on the golden age of science fiction with renewed interest; editors like Gold forged that age through their publishing and promotional endeavors.

As to what lies within the pages of these magazines, I can only grin, for I’ve just finished reading one of the issues. In a future article, I’ll reveal what I’ve read and perhaps entice some of you to join me. Here’s a spoiler: you won’t find any tales about Bat Durston.

2012 Hugo Award Winners Announced

Monday, September 3, 2012 John ONeill Comments 2 comments

Lynne and Michael Thomas show us the 2012 Hugo Award for SF Squeecast. — Lynne and Michael Thomas show off the 2012 Hugo Award for SF Squeecast.

If it’s seemed a little quiet here on the Black Gate blog for the past five days, it’s because many of our staff and bloggers — including John O’Neill, Howard Andrew Jones, Rich Horton, Andrew Zimmerman Jones, Joe Bonadonna, and David C. Smith — have been at Chicon 7, the World Science Fiction Convention here in Chicago, over the Labor Day weekend.

It was a 5-day party and convention, culminating in the Hugo Awards ceremony Sunday night. We’ll have more complete con reports right here in the next few days, but for now here’s the big news: The 2012 Hugo Award winners. Congratulations to all!

BEST NOVEL

Among Others, Jo Walton (Tor)

BEST NOVELLA

‘‘The Man Who Bridged the Mist,’’ Kij Johnson (Asimov’s, Oct-Nov 2011)

BEST NOVELETTE

‘‘Six Months, Three Days,’’ Charlie Jane Anders (Tor.com, June 2011)

BEST SHORT STORY

‘‘The Paper Menagerie,’’ Ken Liu (F&SF, March-April 2011)

BEST RELATED WORK

The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Third Edition, John Clute, David Langford, Peter Nicholls & Graham Sleight, eds. (Gollancz)

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Romanticism and Fantasy: William Wordsworth, Part Two — The Prelude

Friday, August 31, 2012 Matthew David Surridge Comments 2 comments

William Wordsworth This post is part of an ongoing series about fantasy and the literary movement called Romanticism, specifically, English Romanticism in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The series began with this introductory post, continued with an overview of the neo-classical eighteenth century that the Romantics revolted against, considered the Romantic themes in English writing from 1760 to about 1790, then looked at elements of fantasy and Romanticism in France and Germany before returning to England to consider the Gothic. I wrote about the work of William Blake here, and last time I began a consideration of fantasy elements in the work of William Wordsworth.

As I said then, Wordsworth is not a writer with many overt fantastic elements in his major works. Still, I find there’s a fantastic feel that emerges from the use of certain structures and imagery. Comparing his work to the motifs of fantasy fiction in Clute and Grant’s Encyclopedia of Fantasy, I found parallels between his use of nature and the way “the Land” has been imagined in secondary-world fantasy. The notion of “thinning,” the fading of enchantment and meaning, seems to resonate with Wordsworth’s poetry as well.

Bearing all this in mind, I want to look here at perhaps Wordsworth’s greatest accomplishment, The Prelude, his epic poem on the growth of his own mind. Before doing that, though, I want to introduce some more concepts from the Encyclopedia of Fantasy, and then bring in some ideas from M.H. Abrams’ excellent critical study of Romanticism, Natural Supernaturalism. And with all that will come some ideas from J.R.R. Tolkien.

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The Top 30 Black Gate Posts in July

Friday, August 31, 2012 John ONeill Comments 5 comments

Summer months are for sports, gardening, and getting together in the back yard with close friends. But apparently nobody told you people, because you spent the entire month on the computer, reading Black Gate blog posts.

July 2012 was one of the best months we’ve ever had, with solid traffic growth and nearly 70 new articles from writers such as Howard Andrew Jones, Joe Bonadonna, Patty Templeton, Patrice Sarath, D.B. Jackson, and many others. Here are the Top 30 most popular articles and links for the month.

And while I’m instructing you, don’t forget to go outside once in a while, maybe get a little sunshine. It’s good for you.

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

Friday, August 31, 2012 William Patrick Maynard Comments 0 Comment

Sax 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 fourth and final installment.

The novel’s finale gets underway at a breakneck pace. Sir Lionel Barton has retreated to Abbots Hold, his estate in the English countryside. Sir Denis Nayland Smith and Police Superintendant Weymouth are there to oversee Sir Lionel’s safety as well as that of his right hand man, Shan Greville, and Sir Lionel’s niece (and Greville’s fiancée), Rima. Dr. Petrie and his wife, Kara are delayed while both Shan and Rima are ill-at-ease locked up in Sir Lionel’s ancient and mysterious home with his requisite menagerie of exotic wildlife (including his pet cheetah).

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Plethora of Howard Days Panels on Youtube

Thursday, August 30, 2012 Brian Murphy Comments 0 Comment

If you didn’t make it out to Cross Plains Texas for Robert E. Howard Days this past June (I didn’t, and have not yet made the trip, though it is on my bucket list), despair not: You can experience the panels, vicariously, through the magic of Youtube.

Videographer Ben Friberg filmed several of the panels and generously posted them for public consumption. They’re all incredibly interesting and fun, if you like this sort of thing. Here’s a quick list of links.

First up is Howard and Academia, a panel discussion led by Mark Finn (author of the excellent REH biography Blood and Thunder), Jeff Shanks, and guest of honor Charles Hoffman. Despite the old labels (lightweight, escapist, etc.) that continue to dog his works, Howard is starting to creep his way into academia. Here Finn, Shanks, and Hoffman describe some of REH’s academic inroads and discuss what it will take to push Howard studies into the classroom.

It Came From GenCon 2012: Young Kid Edition

Thursday, August 30, 2012 Andrew Zimmerman Jones Comments 2 comments

GenCon is fun for gamers of all ages, but now that I have young children, I always have a special place in my heart for games that I can play with one or both of them. Given that my oldest is currently 7, though, this puts some pretty massive restrictions on what I can actually play. It has to be age-appropriate in both content level and rule complexity.

This year saw a number of games that caught my fancy in this regard. The charming Magician’s Kitchen, the enchanting Dixit, and, last but certainly not least, the upcoming game Mice and Mystics, which is available now for online pre-order with a significant discount.

Magician’s Kitchen

This is a fun little game where you’re playing a magician’s apprentice who is running around, trying to get potions in the cauldrons and then starting a fire. The trick to this game is that there are hidden magnets that cause your piece to drop the potions. For a more detailed description of Magician’s Kitchen, I recommend my review over at the About.com Physics site, where I even proposed some ideas about how you could use this fantasy game to teach some cool scientific ideas to the young ones.

Magician’s Kitchen is designed for up to 4 players, aged 5 to 15. My youngest son (age 2) really gets enjoyment out of making the apprentices drop their potions. The game is available from Amazon.com and other retailers nationwide, with a retail cost of $29.99.

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