Black Gate – Page 1185 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

Burial Day Books releases Gothic Blue Book, The Haunted Edition

Saturday, May 12, 2012 John ONeill Comments 1 comment

Okay. Technically this was released back in October. But I just found out about it, so I’m going to pretend it came out this week so I don’t look out of touch.

Ahem. Burial Day Books, a boutique publisher of supernatural horror, has just released its first short story collection. You heard it here first.

The Gothic Blue Book, The Haunted Edition is a collection of short stories and poems that resurrect the spirit of the Gothic Blue Book. Gothic Blue Books were short fictions popular in the 18th and 19th century. They were descendants of the chap book trade. The Gothic Blue Book, The Haunted Edition is a collection of twelve short stories and two poems written by established and emerging horror authors that honor the Gothic story. Misery, fear, despair, regret and dread are highlighted in this collection, stirring old ghosts, witches, and awakening death. The authors in this collection weave together brilliant tales of terror celebrating the history of the Gothic story with a new twist.

I’ve never heard of Gothic Blue Books. Man, I’m more out of touch than I thought. Anyway. 18th Century chap books honoring the Gothic tradition of misery, fear, despair, regret and dread? Sounds pretty good to me. It’s not too late to make up for lost time.

The Gothic Blue Book, The Haunted Edition includes fiction from John Everson, M. N. Hanson, Ben McElroy, Greg Mollin, and many others. It is 114 pages and is available in print ($7) and Kindle editions ($0.99) through Amazon.com.

Apex Magazine #36

Saturday, May 12, 2012 Soyka Comments 0 Comment

apexmag05-12 May’s Apex Magazine features ”Decomposition” by Rachel Swirsky (who is interviewed by Maggie Slater), ”Tomorrow’s Dictator” by Rahul Kanakia and “The Chaos Magician’s Mega Chemistry Set” by Nnedi Okorafor.

Naoto Hattori provides the cover art. Nonfiction by Tim Akers and editor Lynne M. Thomas round out the issue.

Apex is published on the first Tuesday of every month. While each issue is available free on-line from the magazine’s website, it can also be downloaded to your e-reader from there for $2.99. Individual issues are also available at Amazon and Weightless. A version for the Nook will also be available in the near future. Twelve issue (one year) subscription can be ordered at Apex and Weightless for $19.95; Kindle subscriptions are available for $1.99 a month.

New Treasures: War & Space, edited by Rich Horton & Sean Wallace

Friday, May 11, 2012 John ONeill Comments 7 comments

My copy of War & Space: Recent Combat finally arrived today, and it’s everything I hoped it would be: a thick anthology reprinting some of the best tales of space warfare from the last few decades, including one of my recent favorites, Ken MacLeod’s tale of a man who investigates a civilization implosion in a far-distant human habitat and the startling horrors he discovers, “Who’s Afraid of Wolf 359?” Here’s the opening lines:

When you’re as old as I am, you’ll find your memory’s not what it was. It’s not that you lose memories. That hasn’t happened to me or anyone else since the Paleocosmic Era, the Old Space Age, when people lived in caves on the Moon. My trouble is that I’ve gained memories, and I don’t know which of them are real.

Exactly the kind of book I like to snuggle into my big green chair with. (Side note to website editor C.S.E. Cooney: yes, I ended a sentence with a proposition. Give me a break, it’s Friday). Here’s the book description:

Conflict: a basic human instinct, helping humankind evolve even while threatening the very existence of the species… an instinct that will be as much a part of the future as it is now and always has been. For all the glories of war-the defeat of evil, the promise of freedom, justice, protection of the innocent, the righting of wrongs, technological innovation, heroism-there are also the horrors: individual grief, mass destruction, the elimination of entire cultures and great achievments, injustice, villainy, the annihilation of the innocent, and pain beyond bearing. War and Space offers the ultimate speculation on the future of warfare-stories of insectoid anguish, genetically-engineered diplomats who cannot fail, aliens plundering humanity, a weaponized black hole-scenarios of triumph and defeat, great heroism and vile depravity… and more.

War & Space includes short stories from Nancy Kress, Paul McAuley, Robert Reed, Alastair Reynolds, Catherynne M. Valente, Tom Purdom, and many others. You can get additional details here.

The Best of Modern Arabian Fantasy, Part III: Kai Meyer and The Stormkings

Friday, May 11, 2012 Emily Mah Comments 11 comments

While I was looking for more authors of modern Arabian fantasy, Kai Meyer found me, after reading part of my series here on Black Gate. Already a bestselling author in English (his book, The Water Mirror, went into three printings before its release date), he’s written 51 novels in his native German, including the Middle Eastern influenced, The Stormkings, a trilogy which has not been translated into English… yet. After hearing the description, I’m hoping it will be. The film rights have already been acquired by Oliver Scholl, who has worked on movies such as Independence Day and Jumper.

It’s interesting to note that the Arabian trend isn’t confined to English language fantasy, and it’s very interesting to hear the direction Kai took the genre when he created a Middle Eastern milieu.

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Blogging Austin Briggs’ Flash Gordon, Part One – “Princess Lita”

Friday, May 11, 2012 William Patrick Maynard Comments 0 Comment

“Princess Lita” was the first installment of Austin Briggs’ Flash Gordon daily comic strip serial for King Features Syndicate. Originally published between May 27, 1940 and February 22, 1941, “Princess Lita” was the story that launched the daily companion to Alex Raymond’s celebrated Sunday strip. It is one of two Briggs strips available in a reprint collection from Kitchen Sink Press. We shall examine the second strip in next week’s column.

The most rewarding part of delving into Austin Briggs’ first two Flash Gordon storylines has been the discovery that the sloppiness of the first few Austin Briggs’ Sunday strips printed a few years after the daily debuted were likely more the result of the artist being overworked than they were an adequate representation of Briggs’ work on the property. “Princess Lita” shows the artist in full command of the material drawing the characters as well as their creator, albeit without the benefit of the Sunday page to showcase the exotic flora and fauna of Mongo to full advantage. The transition from Sunday continuities to a daily strip is jarring at first and the smoothness of Don Moore’s scripting and Alex Raymond’s plotting is sorely missed, but Briggs does an admirable job of staying true to the source material.

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Goth Chick News: What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas; Blood-Letting Included

Thursday, May 10, 2012 Sue Granquist Comments 5 comments

As the saying goes… what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. And while this may be true, that doesn’t stop us here at Goth Chick News from wishing that each state had a Goretorium of its own.

Just when we thought that New York might be home to the most disturbing, torture-porn fright attraction of all time in the form of Blackout, comes the May 1^st announcement that the man who brought the tourism horror of Hostel to the big screen is bringing a whole new type of fright to Sin City. Eli Roth’s Goretorium haunted attraction is scheduled to open on September 27 in Las Vegas, just in time for Halloween.

Aiming to tap into the $7 billion a year Halloween industry, the 24/7, year-round, multi-level Goretorium, situated at the corner of the Strip and Harmon in Vegas (on top of the local Walgreens), aspires to become “the world mecca for horror fans,” says Roth.

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The Nightmare Men: God’s Madman

Thursday, May 10, 2012 Josh Reynolds Comments 3 comments

vanhelsing Abraham Van Helsing only had one truly canonical appearance, arriving as he did mid-way through Bram Stoker’s Dracula. However, so strong was the Dutch professor’s hold on the public imagination, and so fierce his rivalry with the Lord of the Undead, that he has followed his nightmare enemy into the Twentieth Century like a gin-drinking Fury.

Described by Stoker as ‘a man of medium weight, strongly built, with his shoulders set back over a broad, deep chest…’ Van Helsing radiates physical and mental vitality, placing him in dynamic opposition to the ambulatory black hole that is Dracula. Van Helsing exudes the stuff of life, where Dracula only consumes. Besides his physicality, Van Helsing is ‘a philosopher and metaphysician, and one of the most advanced scientists of his day’; again, this is in contrast to Dracula, who is mired in Old World nightmare and squalor. One represents life, knowledge and light, while the other brings only darkness and decay. Van Helsing, like John Silence, is a representative of all that is good in man, set in opposition to malign forces which seek to pervert the natural world.

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C.S.E. Cooney’s How to Flirt in Faerieland & Other Wild Rhymes On Sale

Wednesday, May 9, 2012 John ONeill Comments 4 comments

The multi-talented C.S.E. Cooney — poet, editor, web mistress, bookseller, performer, author, spiritual leader and world renowned zombie wrangler — has just released a new poetry collection, How to Flirt in Faerieland & Other Wild Rhymes. You need a copy.

I’m not kidding. This book is your path back to a meaningful life. It will teach you how to love poetry again. You need it because your soul is dead, you don’t even know it, and this book will resuscitate it. It’s a compact, 2,000-volt defib unit for your very soul. Here’s the description:

Do you know how to flirt in Faerieland? C.S.E. Cooney does. In this collection of seventeen poems — four never before published — you’ll find goblins, crones, robber brides, coyotes, and even a sea king. Cooney draws from folklore and myth to create something entirely her own, something glimpsed only in Faerie. From the raucous and bawdy to the sorrowful dirge, these poems will work upon you like a spell. Inside you’ll find seven original illustrations by artist/tattooist Rebecca Huston, who also provided the artwork used on the cover.

Here’s some advice, for after you get the book: Read it out loud to someone you love. Or someone you hate, I don’t care. Just climb up on a chair and start belting it out. You’ll feel your life start to change right then and there. You can thank me later.

Our last C.S.E. Cooney news was the release of the Jack o’ the Hills audiobook, her interview with Aesthetically Speaking, and that time she won the Rhysling Award for her poetry. She’s busy, C.S.E. Cooney.

How to Flirt in Faerieland & Other Wild Rhymes is 86 pages in paperback, published by Papaveria Press. It includes an introduction by Amal El-Mohtar. Read more details — including blurbs from Delia Sherman, Jane Yolen, S.J. Tucker, Pamela Dean, Nicole Kornher-Stace and Sharon Shinn — at the Papaveria Press website. It sells for $10 and is available from Amazon.com and other fine booksellers.

Andrea Grennan Reviews The Burning Soul

Wednesday, May 9, 2012 Bill Ward Comments 4 comments

the-burning-soul The Burning Soul
John Connolly
Atria Books (404 pp, $25.00, 1st Hardcover Edition, September 2011)
Reviewed by Andrea Grennan

This is a rather odd review, in that The Burning Soul is the tenth book in a series by John Connolly, and I have not read the previous nine. I hadn’t planned on reading it at all, as reading the tenth book in a series seemed a bit like trying to watch Breaking Bad starting with season three, so I set it aside in favor of other books. I’d asked for it to review because I had read The Gates by Connolly and liked it a lot, so I thought I might like this.

Then one day I found myself with nothing in the house to read (in personal terms rather a disastrous situation) and thought, “Well, I won’t know what’s going on or who anyone is, but The Burning Soul is a book, so it’ll do until tomorrow.”

I was captured from the first page. The use of language, the mood so quickly and beautifully created, the building of a creepy and atmospheric setting, all wove a spell. I settled in with that lovely feeling of being in very good hands, and finished it two days later.

So this is the review of a book in a series that this reviewer has not yet read.

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Art of the Genre: The Basic D&D Gazetteer

Wednesday, May 9, 2012 Scott Taylor Comments 10 comments

At some point in my distant past I fell in love with something I didn’t have. I suppose it happens a lot to gamers, especially with younger folk and those who grew up before the advent of the internet. In days now long gone, I would flip through a Dragon Magazine and marvel at all the titles I found available in the advertisements.

How many times have I kicked myself for not being able to lay hands on a copy of Aftermath? Could I imagine a more Tolkien-like fantasy system with Runequest? What incredible fun would it have been to play a round of Talisman?

So many games, so little time, and certainly even less money. In those days I was required by circumstance to create most of my own worlds and adventures, although I did partake of Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms.

Still, if there was one world that I always felt I missed out on it was the D&D Basic Mystara. I’d begun my gaming career with Basic D&D, but with Mark [my lifelong DM] having all the AD&D hard cover books, I moved on to ‘bigger and better’ before I really had a chance to fully vest myself in the Basic system, especially the setting.

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