Black Gate – Page 1183 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

The Future of Bookstores Latest Update

Saturday, February 4, 2012 Soyka Comments 1 comment

29-barnes-jp4-articleinline So it now it seems publishers are counting on Barnes and Noble to help them stay in business. Which is funny because it wasn’t that long ago when Barnes and Noble was a slayer of independent bookstores and an enemy of the books business; now it’s considered the only thing that stands in the way of total world domination by Amazon.

Interesting that the notion of a bookstore is beginning to look more and more like an Apple store. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. My kid just got a Nook and she goes to our local Barnes and Noble because she can read certain e-books online for free there. Meanwhile she can consume some mocha lattes and maybe even take home a real book. Like everyone else I shop on-line, but the atmosphere of a bookstore leads to impulse buys that isn’t the same as scanning some algorithm’s suggested reads.

Speaking of physical books, I just finished Richard Morgan’s The Cold Commands, Book Two of presumably a trilogy ironically titled A Land Fit for Heroes (in which the land is neither fit for heroes nor populated with behavior typically classified heroic) by Richard K. (whose middle initial is used on book jackets only on the American side of the pond for some reason) Morgan describe it as “genre busting.” That’s not just some publicist’s hyperbole. You can read the complete review over here at the SF Site.

Blogging Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon, Part Nineteen – “Fiery Desert of Mongo”

Friday, February 3, 2012 William Patrick Maynard Comments 1 comment

“Fiery Desert of Mongo” was the nineteenth installment of Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon Sunday comic strip serial for King Features Syndicate. Originally published between November 8, 1942 and July 11, 1943, “Fiery Desert of Mongo” picks up where the preceding installment, “Jungles of Mongo” left off with Prince Brazor trailing Queen Desira to the border of Tropica’s Flaming Desert.

Flash causes an avalanche to delay Brazor’s men. The river of lava and the fire dragon that lurks within menace the fugitives as they proceed into the increasingly unbearable heat of the Flaming Desert. A volcanic eruption nearly finishes them off. Flash escapes to safety by managing a broad jump of over thirty feet. Alex Raymond and script writer Don Moore make the escape from the volcanic eruption a tension-filled drama that makes one forgive the implausibility of Flash’s near-superhuman feat.

As they near the edge of the Flaming Desert, the fugitives run out of water. A delirious Flash sees pixies emerge from a volcano and float through the air and set upon him, beating him senseless. On the verge of collapse, they are rescued by desert raiders.

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Transcendent Fantasy, or Politics as Usual?

Thursday, February 2, 2012 Brian Murphy Comments 33 comments

My Black Gate post this week is not a review, nor an essay proper, but a question: Is it possible for fantasy to move beyond the political? Or because it is written by authors of a particular time and place, must fantasy—however fantastic its subject matter—forever remain trapped within the circles of our own world?

China Mieville and others say that no, you cannot read fantasy except through the lens of politics, and that there is no escape. In this interview from 2000, Mieville says:

The problem with escapism is that when you read or write a book society is in the chair with you. You can’t escape your history or your culture. So the idea that because fantasy books aren’t about the real world they therefore ‘escape’ is ridiculous. Fantasy is still written and read through the filters of social reality. That’s why some fantasies (like Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels) are so directly allegorical–but even the most surreal and bizarre fantasy can’t help but reverberate around the reader’s awareness of their own reality, even if in a confusing and unclear way.

I think that as we’ve grown more secular and rational fantasy is following suit. Led by writers like George R.R. Martin and Joe Abercrombie, fantasy has become less whimsical and more historical, less hopeful and more gritty and pessimistic. Many “fantasies” now actively grapple with issues like racism and misogyny, or conservatism vs. liberalism, which lurk beneath the veneer of strange secondary worlds that in other fundamental ways closely resemble our own.

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Matthew David Surridge Reviews The Last Page

Thursday, February 2, 2012 Bill Ward Comments 0 Comment

the-last-page-huso The Last Page
Anthony Huso
Tor (431 pp, $25.99, 2010)
Reviewed by Matthew David Surridge

Anthony Huso’s debut novel The Last Page is something of a problem. It’s not that it is a bad book; in many ways, it is quite a good one. In fact, it is good enough, creative enough, smart enough, that it raises expectations. You want it to be great. And that is the problem, because I don’t think it is.

The Last Page is a high-fantasy steampunk novel, and a love story. We follow the sexually charged relationship between the improbably named Caliph Howl, heir to the throne of the northern country of Stonehold, and a witch named Sena. The two of them meet at university, go their own ways, and then come together again after Caliph has become king and Sena has acquired a vastly powerful magical tome. Unfortunately, Caliph is facing a civil war against a national hero, and Sena’s book has a lock which can only be opened at a fearsome emotional cost.

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Goth Chick News: Taking the Week Off

Thursday, February 2, 2012 Sue Granquist Comments 0 Comment

The interns are between semesters, the temperatures in Chicago are sub-zero and most important, the Boss is in Belize.

Belize…? What’s in Belize? Anybody?

Well, no matter. What we have here is the perfect storm of opportunity to take the week off and get ready for Goth Chick News’ second busiest season besides Halloween.

Convention season.

In the coming weeks I’ll be road-tripping to St. Louis to cover the 2012 Halloween Costume and Party Show, chatting up the disturbing participants of C2E2 and joining my fellow Black Gate staffers at something called Capri-con (where I’ll appear incognito to see what all you Sci-Fi-er’s get up to when you get together).

Until then, it’s frozen blender drinks and days nights on the sand.

See you next week.

Are you hitting up any conventions this year? If so, which ones? Post a comment or drop a line to sue@blackgate.com.

Fantasy Out Loud – Part II

Thursday, February 2, 2012 markrigney Comments 4 comments

bgfairport-liege-lief Yes, Black Gate’s focus is on the literature of the fantastic. But sometimes, fantasy needs a soundtrack.

In my first installment of “Fantasy Out Loud,” I focused on the act of reading adventure fantasy aloud. To children, by and large. But what happens once the darling tots are tucked into bed, with visions of sugarplums (or online MMO’s) dancing in their heads?

I’ll tell you what happens. I go downstairs and crank up the music. And what makes it onto the stereo more often than not? The music of the fantastic.

I’m not referring to film soundtracks, no, nor Wagnerian opera, though both surely count as fantastical (and I hope to treat both in future editions of “Fantasy Out Loud”). No, I’m talking here about rock music and its venerable forbear, folk. Folk music, with special attention here to the tradition of the British Isles, is positively rife with fantasy settings and tropes: swordplay (of both kinds), fairy abductions, marauding giants, the works.

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Art of the Genre: Dark Sun

Wednesday, February 1, 2012 Scott Taylor Comments 2 comments

The summer of my sophomore year in college a friend of mine bought a copy of TSR’s Dark Sun Campaign Setting circa 1991. As I’d just gotten into my newest comic book obsession, I didn’t have the cash to spend on RPGs so I was content to let him spend his money on the game as I relegated myself to being a player.

I found the world fun, surprisingly new for stodgy old TSR, and although the campaign I played in ended abruptly when my human gladiator decided he’d had enough of a Halfling in the party and clove him in two, it was still something that stuck with me for many years afterward.

To me, the demise of the setting in 1996 revolved more around the rise of Magic the Gathering and less about TSR’s new age of design that was being brought forth around 1990. This isn’t to say that those works are innately perfect and simply died as the foundation of the industry was eroded away because I often found them lacking, particularly in the department of art.

Now certainly I couldn’t have dreamed that the newest member of TSR’s pit, Gerald Brom, would go on to be one of the greatest fantasy artists of his generation, but he did bring a very different feel to this new universe.
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Atomic Fury: The Original Godzilla on Criterion Collection Blu-ray

Tuesday, January 31, 2012 Ryan Harvey Comments 6 comments

bill-sienkiewicz-godzilla-criterion-cover

This week’s release of the original 1954 Japanese Godzilla (Gojira) on Blu-ray from the Criterion Collection is a major step in recognition for the film in the US. Yes, that’s the Criterion Collection, the premiere quality home video release company, acknowledging that Godzilla is a world cinema classic.

As a life-long Godzilla and giant monster fanatic, I can tell you what a long journey we’ve taken to get to this point. When I became feverishly interested in Japanese fantasy cinema, beyond the boyhood love, in my early twenties, Godzilla and its brethren had almost zero respect in North America. And zero quality home video releases. Even as the awful Roland Emmerich Godzilla hit screens to howls of hatred, there was no corresponding move to get the real films out to North American viewers in editions with subtitles and decent widescreen presentations.

In the mid-2000s, the shift started. The original Godzilla, not the Americanized version with Raymond Burr, got a theatrical stateside release, and then a DVD from Classic Media. G-Fans such as myself were finally freed from having to see the movie on bootleg VHS tapes and could recommend it easily to friends, promising them that the Japanese original would blow their mind with its quality. Now, we’re getting into the big-time cineaste world with Hi-Def and the Criterion Collection.

However, I’d like to temper my enthusiasm for 1954’s Godzilla with this statement: although a great film, it is not my favorite Godzilla movie, nor is it representative of the series.

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Steampunk Spotlight: Cherie Priest’s “Tanglefoot” & Clementine

Monday, January 30, 2012 Andrew Zimmerman Jones Comments 3 comments

Clementine (Amazon, B&N)
Cherie Priest
Subterranean Press (208 pages, Sept. 2010, $4.99)

“Tanglefoot” (free online)
Cherie Priest
Subterranean Press (Fall 2008, free)

Reviewed by Andrew Zimmerman Jones

Cherie Priest has become one of the biggest names in the steampunk sub-genre, starting mostly with her groundbreaking 2009 book Boneshaker that introduced most readers to “The Clockwork Century,” the alternate history 1880’s storyline that she created. There are three main features of “The Clockwork Century”:

The Civil War has been going on for over 20 years.
There are airships (and other steampunk accoutrements, such as goggles).
There are zombies (or close enough approximations)

Boneshaker focused on features 2 and 3, with the Civil War really just a background note that has little direct bearing on the story. After all, it’s set in Seattle, which is far outside the territory where the Civil War is being fought.

Clementine, on the other hand, leaves the zombies behind to focus on the Civil War (and the airships) in far greater detail.

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J.M. McDermott’s Never Knew Another

Sunday, January 29, 2012 Matthew David Surridge Comments 3 comments

Never Knew Another
by J.M. McDermott
Night Shade Books (240pp, $14.99 USD, trade paperback February 2011)
Reviewed by Matthew David Surridge

J.M. McDermott’s third book, Never Knew Another, is a secondary-world fantasy tale told in a sparse yet elegant style, about hunters seeking dangerous magical prey — and also about two people drawing closer to each other without knowing it, despite having to hide their true natures from the world around them. Perspectives nest one inside another; the book’s always clear, but leaves much meaningfully unsaid, and effortlessly holds the voices of its characters in a delicate balance, allowing them to contrast with each other without any given one being overwhelmed. It’s a remarkable accomplishment, and a strong, unconventional beginning to a promising trilogy.

It starts with a pair of holy werewolves, following a trail to a human city they call Dogsland. The werewolves are hunting demons, or humans with demonic ancestry. Creatures with demons in their family tree are dangerous; their sweat is acidic, and their blood can wither plants, or make normal humans very sick indeed. It’s as though they’re radioactive, potentially causing illness and death around them even if they don’t consciously intend evil. The hunters see their task as a sacred duty. Their story, though, is effectively a frame for the main action; one of the hunters communes with the memories of a dead demon-descended man, searching through those recollections for hints of the whereabouts of others of his kind. The stories of that man, Jona Lord Joni, and of the others of his kind that he knows, provide the meat of the book.

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