It’s a great week for lovers of fantasy fiction!
A brand-new Tanith Lee story, “The God Orkrem” has just been posted for free reading at FANTASY Magazine: http://www.fantasy-magazine.com/new/new-fiction/the-god-orkrem/
Also a special treat for Lee fans is the brand-new interview: www.fantasy-magazine.com/new/new-nonfiction/author-spotlight-tanith-lee-2/
Have you read Nicole Kornher-Stace’s wickedly twisted fairy tale retelling The Winter Triptych?
I have, and this is what I had to say about it.
“Nicole Kornher-Stace ‘The Winter Triptych’ is an icily glittering marvel of storytelling construction. This wicked tale of evil queens, mad huntsmen, martyred witches and a terrible curse that unfolds over a century executes its sleight-of-hand in diabolical layers. The immediate tableau before your eyes never flags as it pulls you in with its sweeping cast of characters, coldly terrifying villains and earnestly compelling heroines. And underneath it all, piece after piece locks and turns into place, until the entire triptych unfolds in a stunning revelation of inexorable fate, time-bending wonder and blood-curdling horror. I hold Nicole in both awe and envy: at the start of her career, she has already produced a masterwork.”
Although it’s hard to beat this line from Black Gate editrix C.S.E. Cooney:
Nicole Kornher-Stace plays with Time like it was her very own Tetris game.
But you don’t have to take our word for it. You can check out check out this review from Tori Truslow at Sabotage And this one from the indomitable Charles Tan of Bibliophile Stalker.
You can order it directly from the website of the publisher, Papaveria Press, or, if you don’t want to wait on overseas snail mail, you can snag it for your Kindle.
If you buy the book now, or buy anything from the Papaveria Press website, you’re helping out a good cause. Nicole is currently donating all her royalties from book sales to Doctors Without Borders. That includes both The Winter Triptych and her challenging debut novel, Desideria, which Booklist called “exceptionally well-crafted” and “spellbinding.”
Erzebet YellowBoy Carr, the totally awesome artist behind Papaveria Press, is doing likewise. Aside from many beautiful handbound volumes from the likes of Hal Duncan and Catherynne M. Valente, Papaveria published Amal El-Mohtar’s The Honey Month and C.S.E. Cooney’s own Jack o’ the Hills.
These past two weeks I’ve found myself writing here about science fiction, or speculative fiction, as the literature of ideas. It seems to me that ‘the literature of ideas’ implies something other than what we normally find in sf; I feel that it suggests writing that uses ideas to establish the structure of a work, instead of relying on traditional narrative. I’ve found a couple of early examples in Olaf Stapledon’s Star Maker and Jack London’s The Iron Heel. As a way to wrap up the discussion, I thought this week I’d look at a more recent example of what I mean by the literature of ideas: Ursula Le Guin’s Always Coming Home.
The book’s mostly set in a post-apocalyptic or at least post-industrial future, on the Pacific coast of the United States. It examines the folkways of the people called the Kesh, giving examples of their dramas and poems, examining their way of thinking and symbol-systems, and, since autobiography is one of the arts practiced by the Kesh, incidentally giving the life story of several members of the culture — most notably the extended narrative of a woman called Stone Telling. Stone Telling’s tale can easily be seen as the backbone of the book; divided into three parts, it functions as a recurring structural element that ties the mass of material together. But the book also has the feel of a well-stuffed anthology, a collection of fables and lore and myth that make the people as a whole come alive. And, as well, there are brief sections in which Le Guin herself ruminates on the difficulties and joys of writing this sort of “archaeology of the future” when the future does not yet exist, and must be imagined.
Howard Andrew Jones’s first novel has been chosen as a Feature Selection of The Science Fiction Book Club. Rave reviews continue to accumlate for The Desert of Souls, including this recent article from The Green Man Review:
Barely into the third month of 2011, I’m wondering if I’ll read anything else this year as good as The Desert of Souls. In it, Howard Jones proves himself a rare master of the storyteller’s art, a talent uncommon even amongst successful novelists. He’s written a pure, unapologetic, classically-structured adventure tale. In the vein of the Arabian classic, One Thousand and One Nights, Jones invites us into a fictional ninth-century Baghdad: one of mysterious figures, magical artifacts, frightening djinn, and lost cities damned by God…
Brilliant and immediate characterization, not only for Asim, the narrator, but Dabir, as well, perfect pacing, and a truly intriguing mystery draw the reader deeply into the world of the story. At one point, a story within the story allows Jones to comment on the act of storytelling itself. The novel is polished to a mirror sheen, but it has that something extra that takes a story beyond technical excellence and into the human heart.
Jones is an editor at Black Gate, a Harold Lamb scholar, and has written short stories in the world of his novel for many years. The Desert of Souls doesn’t read like a first novel, and perhaps that’s why. If you have any interest in historical fiction, fantasy adventure, Robert Howard, Harold Lamb, or the One Thousand and One Nights, you will love this book… Stories that stay with me as this one has don’t come around very often.
I’ve been a member of the Science Fiction Book Club for many years, and enjoy their low-cost editions of popular SF bestsellers. The Desert of Souls will be featured in their June catalog, mailing out May 20, 2011. You can read the complete Green Man Review of Desert of Souls here.
Congratulations Howard!
The news of Jim Roslof’s battle with cancer took a negative turn this week. I was informed by Jeff Easley that time was limited, and I was crushed to hear that Jim passed away in his bed at home on Saturday morning, March 19, 2011.
As many of you who read my art blog know, Jim is one of the finest individuals I’ve ever had the honor of working with. Jim was bright, humorous, and a joy to correspond with. His beautiful contribution to the Art Evolution Project was done with a love of the industry that shown in his brush strokes, and sadly that image was the last he ever produced.
For all of you who’ve known Jim or appreciated his work, especially the art direction that brought us his TSR hires like Larry Elmore, Jeff Easley, Keith Parkinson, and Jim Holloway, I hope you’ll find the time to send a card. Trust me when I say this, that when they made Jim, they broke the mold, but the world was much better for having him in it.
To me, Jim represented the very best of what gaming and the art that defined it should be. He never took himself too seriously, never fell in line with a corporate view, and had an eye for talent that very few in the industry ever will. I salute you, Jim, and thank you for being a friend when I needed it most, your insider information about the dawn of RPGs always bringing a smile to my face.
Cards can be sent to: Jim & Laura Roslof W5409 Kenosha Dr, Elkhorn, WI 53147
I ranted and raved in the previous installment of this monstrous undertaking about how all the mere morsels who responded to my first post in the the series did little to address my actual question — which was, who are the great monster of modern heroic fantasy? What crevasses do they haunt, what lonely paths do they prowl?
As you can see, many monstrosities were discussed, but little from the preferred topic of this here Black Gate blog.
However, as those comments were coming in, I also received an email from one Massimiliano Izzo of Genova, Italy, who dealt out all sorts of fantastical fantasy monsters the way Grendel dealt out death to drunken Danes — in large amounts, with enthusiasm.
Here is how this morsel describes himself: “You can just say that I became addicted to fantasy when I was 13 and ‘The Lord of the Rings’ blew me away…since then I’ve read a little bit of everything from William Morris and Dunsany to recent authors like Erikson and Robin Hobb, but I still do prefer the old school (before-Brooks). I’m also interested in mythologies from all over the world (by the way, Filipino folklore rocks! They have some terrific monsters.)
“Currently I’m a little bit bored with multi-volume series and I prefer standalone books. My favoutite authors, besides Tolkien are Patricia McKillip (hands down!!), Jack Vance and GRRMartin. I could add R.E. Howard, J.K. Rowling and another thousand of pretty predictable names but I’m stopping here… Ah, and I love old school hard rock/heavy metal/AOR.”
All monster lovers should adore metal, of course.
Okay, I’m a little late with my brackets, but here they are anyway.
Obviously, there are some odd choices and upsets here. First of all, how did Kiri from Beastmaster make it into the women’s tourney?
Pure 80s hotness. One does have to put bums in seats.
(Click on the tumbnail pics for larger images.)
You may ask what James T. Kirk and the Gorn Captain doing in a Sword and Sorcery tournament? Well, Kirk wanted in, so he rewrote the computer program allocating arena space and logistics. He doesn’t like to lose.
Still, Titus Pullo should knock him unconscious in the second round, but I expect Kirk will lose his shirt.
You might accuse me of basing my picks on pure emotion.
If it were that, I’d have Etain and Titus Pullo going all the way, both because 2010’s Centurion deserved better notice than it received, and I’d love to see howling Pictish fury set against the trained brutality of everyone’s favorite drunken, whoremongering Roman legionary.
Those who cry “80s nostalgia” might have a better case, but Dragonslayer‘s Galen does fall to Titus Pullo in the first round…
It’s been a long time coming and the rumors have been flying for years now. Negotiations have been made, directors have been won and lost and won again, and now it seems the Dwarves are about about to arrive in Hobbiton. The movie adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy classic THE HOBBIT finally begins filming this week, specifically on March 21, in Wellington, New Zealand.
Reports coming in from Middle Earth are extremely encouraging…
You can read my review of Steampunk II: Steampunk Reloaded by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer over at the SF Site. Here’s the general gist:
The various VanderMeer collections stand out because of their sense of humor about genre classification lacking in most academic treatments and that they supplement terrific fiction with offbeat critical discussions, typography and other diversions of interest. A prime example here is “A Secret History of Steampunk,” a collage incorporating graphics, multiple authors, and just plain weirdness to satirize the academic research and discussion of obscure literary fragments…many of these tales are positively brilliant. Margo Lanagan’s “Machine Made” is a disturbing fable of a sexually repressed newlywed taking revenge on a doltish husband whom she discovers seeks pleasures of the flesh through a mechanical servant. Caitlín R. Kiernan’s “The Steam Dancer (1896)” relates the desires of a woman rescued from death with bionic appendages who only feels truly whole as a saloon dancer before an audience of opium addicts attentive to her body, but oblivious to her artistry. As long as we’re on the subject of mechanically enabled creatures, “The Cast Iron Kid” by Andrew Knighton presents a Western gunfight in which the title character is undone not by a six-shooter, but by principles of subatomic physics. “As Recorded on Brass Cylinders: Adagio for Two Dancers” by James L. Grant and Lisa Matchev probably could have been recast as a “mainstream” SF story in which a pair of androids share the troubling human emotions of love and loyalty; however, put in a steampunk context, it seems to me that much more poignant..
James Van Hise, renowned comic and pulp expert and editor of The Rocket’s Blast ComicCollector magazine, has compiled a terrific collection of non-fiction articles from the dawn of the science fiction pulp era.
Science Fiction in the Golden Age arrived in the mail a week ago, and I’ve been mesmerized by it ever since. It gathers articles, letters, interviews, advertisements and artwork that appeared in pulps, fanzines and other sources between 1908 and 1955, including a H. G. Wells piece in a 1908 issue of Cosmopolitan speculating about life on Mars – with four illustrations, all reproduced here in color – a 1938 report on John W. Campbell’s plans as the new editor of Astounding Science Fiction, a review of E.E. “Doc” Smith’s Galactic Patrol from 1950, a report from “Inside the Graf Zeppelin” from Science & Invention (1929), and a lot more.
Authors include Hugo Gernsback, Leigh Brackett, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Thomas Sheridan, and Ray Bradbury, and the vintage art from pulps and fan magazines includes classic work by Frank R. Paul and others, as well as unused art intended for the first edition of The Skylark of Space. I particularly enjoyed the house ads for magazines and novels, including Amazing Stories and Otis Adelbert Kline’s The Planet of Peril.
This is clearly a labor of love from someone who spent years reading and gathering literary gems and curiosities from some extremely rare sources, including Air Wonder Stories, Fantastic Adventures, Scientifiction, Fantasy Review, Boys Magazine, Writers Digest, Fantasy Advertiser, and many other pulps and fanzines. The only criticism I have is that the page numbers in the TOC are rather useless, given that most of the magazine isn’t paginated.
Science Fiction in the Golden Age is the first in a planned series, although since this one came out in May 2005 and no new volumes have followed, I’m not sure about the state of those plans. Volume One is 160 pages, 8 1/2 x 11 (side-stapled) with full color front and back covers by Frank R. Paul. I bought mine from the author on eBay for $20; additional copies are still available.