Art of the Genre: An Interview with Michael Whelan

Art of the Genre: An Interview with Michael Whelan

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whelan-white-254
As L.A. does its best to cope with the overcast and chilly mornings of what we call ‘June Gloom’, I find myself drifting in and out of an office catnap, Ryan Harvey’s Writer’s of the Future acceptance speech echoing through the office for the hundredth time. Kandline, one of our aspiring actresses turned receptionists, pokes her head into the office and announces that another package has arrived for me from Chicago.

Now of course this means John O’Neill is again up to no good, our intrepid leader having found yet another way to get me Zeppelin riding for some reason. His note, attached to a rather daunting itinerary, indicates that I’m to head to the Connecticut via the Empire State for an interview with none other than artist Michael Whelan.

Well, if there is one thing that can get me moving out of L.A. in a hurry [other than Ryan’s WotF speech] it’s a chance to swap stories with a Hugo award winning artist. To that end, I packed my things and made the trip to the east coast.

Whelan lives in the pleasant little college town of Danbury Connecticut, but having had some experience in the area, I chose to meet him at Lucia Ristorante in New Milford for a nice lunch, no other place outside NYC having the kind of brilliant lunch fare found there.

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A Review of The Isle of Glass, by Judith Tarr

A Review of The Isle of Glass, by Judith Tarr

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isle-of-glass2The Isle of Glass, by Judith Tarr
The Hound and the Falcon Trilogy, Volume 1
St. Martins Press (276 pages, hardcover, February 1985)

Isle of Glass is the sort of book that will work excellently for some people and not for others, based both on the knowledge needed and the subject matter.

It’s fairly short, but dense and somewhat challenging. For instance, I think I have a fairly decent vocabulary, but I encountered a few words, like “crozier” or “thurifer,” that I didn’t know.

(According to my dictionary, both words are church terms. A crozier is an abbot’s staff; a thurifer is someone who carries a censer.)

The story centers around Alfred of St. Ruan’s Abbey, a monk who doesn’t seem to age. He was found in the snow, on the solstice, being warmed and protected by three white owls. Between his origin, his age, his inhuman beauty, and his ability to work magic, it’s quite clear to anyone who knows Alf that he is one of the Fair Folk, and the fact torments him.

Although Isle of Glass is technically an alternate history – this world contains at least one extra country, and the real countries seem to have somewhat alternate names – it’s still set in a version of medieval Europe, and not a sanitized or tolerant one. It’s widely accepted that sorcery is evil and elves have no souls.

Alf buries himself in the small world of the monastery so he doesn’t have to think about such things – he’s only somewhat successful – but his isolation is broken by the advent of an injured knight named Alun. Alun is a member of Alf’s species, the first he’s ever met, and he was trying to prevent a war before he was captured and brutalized.

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Board Games Don’t Have to be Boring

Board Games Don’t Have to be Boring

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dominant-speciesWhile my last few columns have focused on solitaire games, I thought I’d take a look at some relatively new boardgames with surprising themes and game play.

In the first, Defenders of the Realm, you and your fellow players cooperatively work to defeat evils invading your kingdom.

The second, Dominant Species, is set in the moments before the ice age and enables you and your fellow players to jockey for position to see who will best weather the coming climate change.

Though you may not find either game in your local Target or Walmart, they are beautiful, professional products. Neither’s as straightforward as, say, Monopoly or Scrabble, where you can get a feel for what to do after a brief tutorial, but for the family or game group willing to invest a little bit of time, they’re sure to provide years of entertaining play.

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A New and Digital DC Universe

A New and Digital DC Universe

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The Justice LeagueI admit I’d been planning to write another post this week about my new fantasy web serial, The Fell Gard Codices, and why I was using the serial form, and how I thought it worked for this particular story. Then DC Comics dropped a bombshell, and since I know some of the readers here are interested in comics, it seemed worth trying to explain what happened and what it could mean.

DC has announced that they’ll be relaunching their entire line of DC Universe comics in September with new first issues. That includes all their big superhero titles — Superman, Batman, Justice League of America (to be renamed Justice League) — but excludes books from the Vertigo imprint, such as Fables. It seems that these relaunches will include some revisions to the character histories; Superman, apparently, will not only have a new costume, but some rumours suggest he’ll no longer be married to Lois Lane.

But DC announced something else as well. Starting with the September relaunch, digital copies of all DC’s books will be available online (legally) the same day they go on sale in stores. This is potentially far more important than the line-wide relaunch, and in fact the two things seem designed to play off each other.

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Rich Horton Reviews Blood of Ambrose and This Crooked Way

Rich Horton Reviews Blood of Ambrose and This Crooked Way

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World Fantasy Award Nominee

Blood of Ambrose
James Enge
Pyr (416 pp, $15.98, April 2009)

This Crooked Way
James Enge
Pyr (414 pp, $16.00, October 2009)
Reviewed by Rich Horton

A few years ago Black Gate featured the first published story from James Enge, “Turn Up This Crooked Way” (in BG 8). I admit I regard first stories with skepticism – but despite limited expectations I was entirely delighted, and at the end of the year it made my “Virtual Best of the Year” list. Enge continued to place stories in the pages of Black Gate, all featuring the main character from “Turn Up This Crooked Way,” a rather dour magician named Morlock Ambrosius. Morlock’s reputation is bad, but, perhaps predictably, he is actually on the side of good. There were some hints of a tortured history for him in those initial stories, but little real details about his past.

Now we have two novels from Enge, each also about Morlock. The first, Blood of Ambrose, is more conventionally a novel – though quite episodic in structure – and while Morlock is a major character, he shares the stage with another protagonist. But we are vouchsafed some revelations about Morlock’s back story. As for the second book, This Crooked Way, it is straightforwardly a fix-up of several of the Black Gate stories, as well as some new episodes and linking material. For all that, it does feature an overarching narrative arc, so it ends up working effectively enough as a novel.

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Not So Short Fiction Review: The River of Shadows

Not So Short Fiction Review: The River of Shadows

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96714827The River of Shadows (Book III of the Chathrand Voyage Series)
Robert V.S. Redick
Del Ray (592 pages,$16.00, April 2011)
Reviewed by David Soyka

My purpose here is simply a warning. If you are part of that infinitesimally small [and ever smaller] band of dissidents with the wealth, time and inclination to set your hands on the printed word, I suggest you consider the arguments against the current volume.  To wit: the tale is morbid, the persons depicted are clumsy when they are not evil, the world is inconvenient to visit and quite changed from what is here described, the plot at this early juncture is already complex beyond all reason, the moral cannot be stated, and the editor is intrusive.  The story most obviously imperils the young.

p. 107-108

There are various reasons for such “editorial” intrusions into a narrative rolling along quite nicely seemingly without need for meta-fictional comment.  One is in fact to be meta-fictional, to purposely draw attention to the illusion of storytelling.  But, another, opposite tact, is to give the text the illusion of legitimacy, that what we’re reading, however improbable, is an actual historical document.  The latter is the approach of the modern über-fantasy, Lord of the Rings, in which the tale  is presented as an ancient manuscript edited for a contemporary audience by a medieval scholar.

Given that this was J.R.R. Tolkien’s day-job, this might have been intended as a kind of inside joke, albeit from a guy who wasn’t particularly jokey.  In the case of Robert V.S. Redick, whose The River of Shadows, the penultimate volume in the Chathrand Voyage Series, is a sort of Tolkien at sea, he pointedly wants us to be in on the joke.

There are a lot of “paint by the numbers” Tolkien clones for the simple reason that there is a market for people who want more of the same.  They’ll probably enjoy this series.  But while Redick may be guilty of a little too slavish attention to both fantasy cliché and Perils of Pauline dilemmas resolved by convenient magical cavalry to the rescue, it’s all in good fun. Not the sort of fun that’s saying, “Ew, how stupid all this heroic questing stuff is.” Rather, it’s the sort of fun that’s saying, well, isn’t this all great fun?

Which, it is.

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WISCON SUNDAY: In Which Goblins, Floomps, Flying Spaghetti Monsters and Ice Cream Robot Kings Abound

WISCON SUNDAY: In Which Goblins, Floomps, Flying Spaghetti Monsters and Ice Cream Robot Kings Abound

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"Like FIRE, HellFIRE, this FIRE in my skin!"
"Like FIRE, HellFIRE, this FIRE in my skin!"

It was a stormy Sunday morning in Wisconsin. Guests of the Madison Concourse startled awake to the tune of “Hellfire,” from Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame, floating in from a nearby hotel room.

The voices were tuneful (well, mostly — given the amount of sleep the singers were operating on) and vigorous (especially for that hour of the morning), and, after all, who could resist lines like:

Voice 1: It’s not my fault!

Voice 2: MEA CULPA!

Voice 1: I’m not to blame!

Voice 2: MEA CULPA!

Voice 1: It is the gypsy girl, the witch who sent this flame!

Voice 2: MEA MAXIMA CULPA!

The guests, satisfied that no poor soul was being murdered and flung from a bell tower in a righteous rage — that, after all, it was only Ms. El-Mohtar and myself greeting the morning in our usual way — rolled back over and went to sleep…

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Blogging Marvel’s The Tomb of Dracula, Part Four

Blogging Marvel’s The Tomb of Dracula, Part Four

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tod-20tod-19The Tomb of Dracula # 19, “Snowbound in Hell” is a sentimental favorite for me. This was the unlikely choice for Power Records to package with a 45 RPM record dramatizing the story, but it gave me my first taste of the series as a kid. This issue is a great character study with a snowbound Dracula and Rachel Van Helsing battling the elements to survive after their helicopter crashes in the frozen Alps. The ongoing subplots continue to build toward future storylines with Dr. Sun (still unseen) putting the vampire Brand through his paces while Quincy Harker learns Blade’s secret immunity to vampire bites. The story’s finish has Frank Drake successfully rescuing Rachel just seconds before she is about to fall victim to a starving Dracula who has been keeping her alive as a blood reserve. A nice change of pace issue that works well in developing the characters while advancing toward the inevitable showdown with Dr. Sun.

Issue 20, “The Coming of Dr. Sun” has Frank and Rachel hunting Dracula across the Alps by helicopter. Rachel reveals her traumatic childhood encounter with Dracula when he murdered her parents as part of his vengeance against the Van Helsing family. She reveals how Dracula was about to kill her until Quincy Harker’s timely arrival saved her. Dracula is captured by Dr. Sun’s minions who bring him to a secret hideout where Dr. Sun is revealed as a disembodied talking brain floating in a fish tank straight out of a 1950s B-movie. Clifton Graves survived the explosion aboard the ship and has been stitched back together and physically augmented by Dr. Sun. Graves attacks Dracula. Frank and Rachel stumble into the hideout and Graves is inadvertently killed by Rachel when she fires her crossbow at Dracula. The issue ends on a cliffhanger with Dracula, Frank and Rachel held captive by Dr. Sun.

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Goth Chick News: Traveling the YellowBrickRoad With Andy Mitton and Jesse Holland

Goth Chick News: Traveling the YellowBrickRoad With Andy Mitton and Jesse Holland

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image002Last week I had the pleasure of bringing you an early look at the new indy horror film YellowBrickRoad. But much like the elusive Great and Powerful Oz himself, YBR writers and directors Andy Mitton and Jesse Holland wished to remain firmly behind the curtain until the movie was released. YBR hit select AMC theaters nationwide on June 1st and true to their word, the magicians responsible for this amazing story have come over for a chat.

And a good thing to, because it wasn’t like the curiosity hadn’t already gotten to me when I picked up last weekend’s Chicago Tribune to find a sizable write up about YBR. After spending the first moment gloating over how I’d gotten there first, I spent the second moment amazed at how the local movie critic, who generally hates everything but foreign films with subtitles, seemed to have fallen breathlessly in love the YBR.

In the third moment I was manic with questions (how the heck does an indy film get a distribution deal with AMC and a Chicago Tribune accolade anyway?) and sprinting for the computer.

Thankfully, Jesse and Andy were ready to dish the deets on what is so far my favorite horror flick of 2011, indy and mass market included.

So grab a munchkin and a lollipop and come in a little closer; the men on the YellowBrickRoad have an interesting tale to tell.

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WISCON SATURDAY: In Which We Encounter Monsters, Tacos, Traveling Fates & Faerieland

WISCON SATURDAY: In Which We Encounter Monsters, Tacos, Traveling Fates & Faerieland

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Terrifying banana of later acquaintance.

The Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood woke with much gusto. A puppy pile was had, as was a deliciously free, Con-Suite breakfast. There was a random, rather interruptive child building a trebuchet at the table. Sadly, the trebuchet didn’t work.

[The Critic suggests that you never attempt to give C.S.E. Cooney a banana at breakfast or otherwise. She has a mild anger at bananas.]

Overlord O’Neill went down to the dealers’ room. His Saturday activities included zapping book mites with a nano-taser, shouting to all and any of the merits of Black Gate and entertaining Bradley P. Beaulieu, the author of The Winds of Khalakovo. Yes, dear reader, there were so many authors at WisCon you couldn’t itch your back without knocking one off your shoulder.

O'Neill and Beaulieu
O’Neill and Beaulieu

While O’Neill was go-go dancing and having the Drexler-Smalley debate with those that walked by, C.S.E. Cooney and I attended Monsters!, a panel exploring the fascination of anomalous villains, led by David Peterson, P.C. Hodgell, Richard S. Russell and Tuppence.

What is the definition of a monster and how has it changed throughout history? The general consensus was that a monster is that which is unexplainable, unnatural, uncontrollable and has no culture.

frankensteinToday’s monsters usually cause psychological discomfort, whereas Medieval monsters were more of a spiritual bane.

Extending the question to who can be a monster, the experiments of Stanley Milgram and Solomon Asch were examined. Two continually referenced texts were On Monsters by Stephen T. Asma and The Monsters by Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler.

milgram-experimentMeanwhile, Katie Redding attended the Human, Cyborg or Just Another Robot? panel that, well, I refuse to talk about. We are not convinced that our Ms. K. is all that she used to be. In fact, we think she is more. There was a mech-hole in her noggin, (think Terminator 2 where they unscrew the back of Arnold’s head) and now she can lift mid-sized sedans and calculate large sums quicker than Rain Man.

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