Richard L. Tierney’s Sorcery Against Caeser; Review and Tour Guide of Simon of Gitta’s Sica & Sorcery!

Richard L. Tierney’s Sorcery Against Caeser; Review and Tour Guide of Simon of Gitta’s Sica & Sorcery!

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Sorcery Against Caesar: The Complete Simon of Gitta Short Stories (cover art by Steven Gilberts) Pickman’s Press, 2020, 405pages.

Greg Mele recently paid tribute to Richard L. Tierney at Black Gate. That memorial post covers the author’s life and bibliography very well, so check that out; Tierney co-authored books with David C. Smith will be echoed here. The Goodreads S&S group is hosting a two-month group read of his work presently (March-April 2022), which spurred me to read Scroll of Thoth; Simon Magus and the Great Old Ones.

That book lingered way too long on my shelf. It was packaged as horror influenced by history, with a mage protagonist; however, having read it now, I argue that it is more Fantasy than Horror or Historical Fiction. If assigning genre categories floats your boat, then Sword & Sorcery is more accurate.

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Vintage Treasures: The Gods of Bal-Sagoth by Robert E. Howard

Vintage Treasures: The Gods of Bal-Sagoth by Robert E. Howard

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The Gods of Bal-Sagoth (Ace, 1979). Cover by Sanjulian

I didn’t discover Robert E. Howard through Conan. In fact, it was decades after I started reading fantasy before I read my first Conan story (“The Tower of the Elephant,” for the record.)

No, it was Howard’s rich fiction collections from Ace Books in the late 70s and early 80s that really introduced me to the master of 20th Century sword & sorcery. They were filled with enthralling tales of blood-stained history, dark adventure, and unexpected horror, like “Worms of the Earth,” “Pigeons From Hell,” and “The Gods of Bal-Sagoth.”

And those gorgeous Sanjulian covers!

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Invasion! The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells

Invasion! The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells

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Across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.

One hundred and twenty-five years after its first publication, H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds (serialized 1897, published 1898) remains a brutally effective tale of alien invasion and a critique of imperialism. I can’t remember how young I was when I read it for the first time, but I totally missed the anti-imperialism angle, even though it’s spelled out quite explicitly. Instead, like most readers I’ll bet, what got me were the Martians landing meteor-like in Surrey, the heat ray, and, above all else, the Martian war machines; the great metal tripods. In fact, when I first saw George Pal’s 1953 movie version, I was outraged (and I still am) that he cheaped out and turned Wells’ tripods into legless, floating discs.

Along with Jules Verne, H.G. Wells is responsible for turning science fiction into a popular genre. While Verne seemed more concerned with cool technology, Wells’s literary imagination turned to the big ideas of his age: evolution, class, imperialism, among others. His early run of novels — The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Invisible Man, and The War of the Worlds — are some of the most iconic and influential novels, let alone science fiction novels, of all time. They’ve been filmed numerous times and inspired hundreds of other books. Each one of them is absolutely worth your time (and, hey, they’re all free on Project Gutenberg).

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Goth Chick News: A House of the Dead Remake? Yes, Please!

Goth Chick News: A House of the Dead Remake? Yes, Please!

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Back in 1997 I happened to find myself in Dallas, TX at the original Dave & Busters location. Walking around with a pocket full of tokens (the arcade was beyond actual quarters, but still several years away from the credit-card-like payment system), I came across a new shooter called The House of the Dead.

The game had what was, at the time, a fairly unique gameplay driven not by a controller, but by a pistol reloaded by firing off screen. My initial couple tries easily turned into a couple of hours, gleefully wiping out zombies and other heinous creatures unleashed on the world by the mad biochemist and geneticist Dr. Curien.

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Random Reviews: “The Passing of the Beacon Star” by Chuck Rothman

Random Reviews: “The Passing of the Beacon Star” by Chuck Rothman

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Tomorrow, 4/94, Cover by Jacek Yerka
Tomorrow, 4/94, Cover by Jacek Yerka

Chuck Rothman’s story “The Passing of the Beacon Star” appeared in the eighth issue of Tomorrow Speculative Fiction in April of 1994.  Although it has a strong fantasy feel, the story is a science fiction tale, set on another planet in which the human settlers carry around insect-like jerritch on their shoulders.

The jerritch act as retainers of the human’s memories, so individuals have no long term memory. If they need to access details of something that has happened in the past, whether to them or to the world at large, their jerritch plugs its antenna into a port on the human’s neck and allows the person to access the memories they need. This allows each individual to essentially live a variety of lives without reference to their earlier existence and in the process they take on new names and identities.

The story is set in the city of Amak during a festival known as “Choosing Day.” On this date, the citizens of Amak not only choose their new identities, but also choose which House of Guidance, essentially a sect, will guide the city for the next year.

Rothman focuses on a woman who is using the name “Weaver of Colors.”  Wandering through the crowded city aimlessly, she connects with her jerritch looking for a place to get away from the crowds. The jerritch leads her to the Cult of the Beacon Star, which is the current Guiding House for Amak. Unlikely to be selected again, the house is empty except for one of its Holies, the priest who oversees the sanctuary.  Weaver and the priest learn, through their jerritches, that they were once lovers, and although their recollections are limited, they reconnect with each other until the votes are cast and the Cult of the Beacon Star is not longer the guiding light, at which time, Weaver learns more about herself from her jerritch.

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New Treasures: Destroyer of Light by Jennifer Marie Brissett

New Treasures: Destroyer of Light by Jennifer Marie Brissett

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Destroyer of Light (Tor Books, October 2021. Cover uncredited)

Looking for a good standalone science fiction novel? (I know I am. Everything is part of a series these days.) Jennifer Marie Brissett — whose first novel Elysium was nominated for the Tiptree and Locus Awards, and won a special citation from the Philip K. Dick Award jury — has a new novel out, and it looks like something that could kill a weekend for me nicely.

Destroyer of Light was published in hardcover in October of last year, and it made several Year’s Best lists, including the Kirkus Reviews 2021 Best of the Year, Bookriot‘s 20 Must Read Space Fantasy Books for 2021, and BiblioLifestyle‘s Most Anticipated Fall 2021 Sci-fi, Fantasy & Horror list (which summed it up as “The Matrix meets an Afro-futuristic retelling of Persephone set in a science fiction underworld of aliens, refugees, and genetic engineering.” That ain’t like nothing else in my TBR pile, I can promise you that.)

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Blood-Red and Blind – The Crimson Bat

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Blood-Red and Blind – The Crimson Bat

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The Crimson Bat (Japan, 1969)

Here’s a pretty decent samurai series even I wasn’t aware of until recently: the Crimson Bat, four films starring Yoko Matsuyama as the eponymous hero. Moreover, all four movies are now relatively easy to find, available on YouTube with good English subtitles. There aren’t enough chambara movies with female heroes, in my opinion, so I was pleased to discover these — and hopefully, you’ll be pleased as well.

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Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: Stay at Home – Days 50 & 52

Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone: Stay at Home – Days 50 & 52

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So, in 2020, as the Pandemic settled in like an unwanted relative who just came for a week and is still tying up the bathroom, I did a series of posts for the FB Page of the Nero Wolfe fan club, The Wolfe Pack. I speculated on what Stay at Home would be like for Archie, living in the Brownstone with Nero Wolfe, Fritz Brenner, and Theodore Horstmann. I have already re-posted days one through thirty-nine. Here are days fifty (May 10) and fifty-two (May 12). It helps if you read the series in order, so I’ve included links to the earlier entries.

Day Fifty – 2020 Stay at Home

No surprise that it’s been quiet here in the brownstone. Getting out to investigate a crime at Lewis Hewitt’s place was a flurry of activity during the lock down. With so many cases of the virus still being discovered daily, I’ve resisted the urge to call Bascom for a new assignment. Though, I may soon.

At lunch, Wolfe talked about the recovery of the American economy from the Pandemic. Supply chains, consumer fears of infection, strained cash reserves of businesses, social distancing and other health guidelines; It will be a slow return towards normal. Fortunately for him, and also for my paycheck, he expects clients to return. He was suitably grumpy at the prospect, of course. Work remains something to only undertake when forced by circumstances.

But crimes continue. And there will be more crimes of the type clients bring to him, as activity ‘out in the world’ increases. Which will keep him in beer, books, food, and flowers. I may have to practice badgering him into taking on jobs. I’ve gotten out of the habit.

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Spider-Societies, Alien Structures, and Grim Wastelands: March/April 2022 Print SF Magazines

Spider-Societies, Alien Structures, and Grim Wastelands: March/April 2022 Print SF Magazines

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March/April 2022 issues of Asimov’s Science Fiction, Analog Science Fiction & Fact, and The
Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Cover art by Shutterstock, 123RF, and Mondolithic Studios

One of the bennies of digital publishing is the luxury of enjoying magazine reviews while the magazines are still on the shelves. I haven’t purchased the March/April F&F yet, for example, but my interest has been sharpened by reviews like this one, by C.D. Lewis at Tangent Online, for Tobi Ogundiran’s “The Epic of Qu Shittu.”

[It] opens on a stowaway sneaking into the ship’s hold of a deadly enchanter in the hope of meeting the legend himself. What could possibly go wrong? Ogundiran’s language makes it a pleasure to read room descriptions; horror and humor meet in descriptions of “skulls wearing identical smiles as if sharing some secret joke…”  The story elements laid before the reader support so many directions it’s not initially clear whether “The Epic of Qu Shittu” will turn out to be a tragedy, a heist, a revenge plot, or something else; it’s an exciting read that adds psychological elements and moral problems to the physical conflicts.

The March/April print magazines contain stories by Matthew Hughes, Adriana C. Grigore, Ray Nayler, Will McIntosh, Marta Randall, Paul McAuley, Steve Rasnic Tem, William Ledbetter, Mark W. Tiedemann, Michael Swanwick, Alvaro Zinos-Amaro, Michael F. Flynn, and many others.

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Neverwhens, Where Fantasy and History Collide: Tanith Lee’s Cyrion

Neverwhens, Where Fantasy and History Collide: Tanith Lee’s Cyrion

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Cyrion (DAW, 1982, cover by Ken W. Kelly)

The Empress of Dreams

I hardly need to sing the praises of the late Tanith Lee (1947 – 2015).  A two-time World Fantasy winner, Horror Grandmaster, Hugo nominee, yadda yadda yadda, she rose out of nowhere writing sword & sorcery (generally a male-dominated field) with the Nebula-nominated The Birthgrave, and went on to pen 70 novels, 300 short stories and create a style of lush, dark fantasy perhaps best represented by her two best-known series: The Tales of the Flat Earth and The Books of Paradys.

Lee was goth before goths, and alternative before we knew that was a thing. Her style, which was lush and baroque, but not always straightforward for the reader, prose designed to read aloud. Her settings and atmospheres were strongly in the tradition of “the Weird,” owing much to the influence of writers such as Lord Dunsany and Jack Vance.

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