Goth Chick News: Unwrapping the 80’s… Again

Goth Chick News: Unwrapping the 80’s… Again

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last-starfighter“The 25th anniversary edition of The Last Starfighter.”

This is the response I got when I asked a friend about the holiday gift he was most excited about. Frankly, I wasn’t sure I heard him right the first time so I asked for a repeat and sure enough, I had heard correctly.

This confusing bit of trivia caused several questions to spring up in my holiday-addled brain.

First, was The Last Starfighter really twenty-five years old? Not possible.

Was there really a marketing department somewhere in the world that actually believed there was an audience desperately waiting for a twenty-fifth anniversary edition of this movie?

Apparently. Was THIS the gift that a friend of MINE was actually the most thrilled to unwrap on Christmas morning? Who knew?

Obviously not me, because it actually took some time before I could conjure up the movie plot line and a few vague faces of the actors who starred in it. If a twenty-fifth anniversary tribute was actually on the market, then The Last Starfighter hit the mall movie theaters right smack in the middle of gravity-defying AquaNet hairdos and skinny, neon leather ties worn with white linen blazers.

In other words, the 80’s.

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Portals: A Writer Blogs About Process

Portals: A Writer Blogs About Process

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Dangerous Doorways
Dangerous Doorways

According to the powers that be, Black Gate will be publishing a trilogy of mine starting in the fall of this year (2011). Please note that I do not say “fantasy” stories, or “high fantasy” or “heroic fantasy” or “sword and sorcery,” although all apply, and accurately enough.

Indeed, precisely because those identifiers fit, my three stories, “The Trade,” “The Find,” and “The Keystone,” would find a poor welcome in almost any current venue except for Black Gate.

Why, then, do I chafe at these terms, and why do they cause me such angst as I dash toward the finish line of the novel, The Portal, that succeeds the stories?

If I must answer at all, let it be to say that I am, like Arlecchino in traditional commedia, the servant of two masters, and that these two masters are at war, they truly are. If I had to reduce them to their simplest, most essential forms, I would call the first Story and the second Style. The first is simple, direct, goal-oriented; the second is impulsive and flighty, the filigree on story’s solid cake. Both have value. Both, indeed, are essential for creating solid, timeless fiction.

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Chris Braak Reviews Julian Comstock

Chris Braak Reviews Julian Comstock

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julian-comstock-mmpJulian Comstock: A Story of 22nd Century America
Robert Charles Wilson
Tor Books (624 pp, $8.99, June 2009 – May 2010 mass market edition)
Reviewed by Chris Braak

Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd Century America is not your typical story of a futuristic dystopian United States. There are no mutant cannibals, no hidden super-technologies, no weird psychics or alien visitations. Even “dystopian” isn’t quite right; Robert Charles Wilson’s 22nd century America has its problems, yes, but it is arguably not any more dystopian than any other civilization that crawled its way to the top of the heap in the last two thousand years. The story takes place after the End of Oil, a hotly-debated potential real-world crisis that, in this case, has caused America to revert to a feudal nation with Victorian values and technology.

In his imagining of this future America, Wilson has created a beautiful, brilliant narrative that smoothly carries its characters through the trials and tribulations of the eponymous Julian Comstock, heir to the Presidency of the United States — an office that has, since the End of Oil, become a position of dynastic, imperial privilege. The topsy-turvy, almost-apocalyptic future is a ripe breeding ground for social satire, casting clever barbs at our own past presidents who insisted on being referred to as Commanders-in-Chief by those Americans who were not actually in the army, at the religiously-motivated political institutions that seek to recast the American government as a branch of the celestial kingdom, or the industrialists and captains of industry that tacitly support an economic system so unbalanced that it almost couldn’t help but lead to a return to slavery.

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Art Evolution 17: Echo Chernik

Art Evolution 17: Echo Chernik

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Yep, it’s Art Evolution Wednesday here on Black Gate! If you’ve been absent on Wednesdays for the past three months you can find what has come before here.

shadowrun-rule-255Now my ‘Goth Lyssa’ was in the ring of honor and I was looking to continue my collection with someone I’d grown kind of gaga for after attending GenCon 09, but let me set the stage…

I love fantasy art, that’s a given, but I have to admit if I’m not looking over dragons and knights I like to sit back with a chai tea and dream of the work of Alphonse Mucha. I’ve had a Mucha calendar above my desk for seven straight years, and you know, the images just keep getting better.

This love of Art Nouveau is kind of core deep for me, and during that 09 GenCon I was trying to get over my horrible intro debacle with Jeff Easley in 08 by being a cool and collected art aficionado. Yeah, that lasted all of three seconds when I’m walking past a Chessex dice display and ran into the art of Echo Chernik.

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Web Freebie – Cortex Game System Review

Web Freebie – Cortex Game System Review

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cortex1Years ago, one of the biggest names in the gaming industry, the woman behind the Dragonlance world of Dungeons & Dragons, struck out by creating her own gaming company: Margaret Weis Productions.

Their first game was the Serenity Roleplaying Game, reviewed back in Black Gate 10 (Spring 2007). Based upon the tragically short-lived “space cowboy” Joss Whedon television series Firefly, the game mechanics were a proprietary system which they called the “Cortex” system. It has provided the basis of their numerous games based on television series: Supernatural, Smallville, Leverage, and Battlestar Galactica. (Coincidentally, the Supernatural RPG is reviewed by yours truly in the upcoming Black Gate 15.)

In 2009, Margaret Weis Productions came out with a stand-alone rules for the highly-adaptable Cortex system. Unfortunately, space considerations kept the review from making it into Black Gate 14, but we share it now for your internet reading pleasure:

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The Most Interesting Books I Read in 2010

The Most Interesting Books I Read in 2010

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bambi1As a new year begins, the Internet explodes with lists covering the previous year.

I have a January tradition on my website of listing all the books I read during the last twelve months, with some commentary appended. This year I am expanding that commentary and depositing it here on Black Gate.

This is not a list of “My Favorite Books” I read in 2010. These are the books I found most “Interesting.” Which can mean “Stupid but Memorable.”

I’ve placed no upper or lower limit on the books; if I will have strong memories of it—for good or ill—then I’ve placed it here.

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Favorite Fantasy Films of 2010

Favorite Fantasy Films of 2010

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While fantasy on television has suffered a bit over the last couple of years, films are doing better than ever. Animated films, especially, seem really able to grasp the complex worlds of fantasy. Looking over a list of 2010 films, some real highlights come to mind. What’s amazing is that the films oriented toward adult audiences, such as Clash of the Titans and Alice in Wonderland (both reviewed in the upcoming Black Gate #15), were almost entirely underwhelming, while the young adult films contained some surprising (and not-so-surprising) gems. I previously spoke about Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (along with compelling follow-up commentary by Magille Foote), so I’ll focus on some other films from the year.

how_to_train_your_dragon_posterHow to Train Your Dragon

Hands down, of the fantasy films I’ve seen this year, my favorite was the unexpectedly charming How to Train Your Dragon. Any film with vikings and dragons guarantees to entertain, but I did not anticipate that this film would tug at the heartstrings quite as much as it does.

The main character, Hiccup, is the scrawny young son of a Viking chieftain who decides that rather than killing a wounded dragon, he will instead befriend it. Out of this strange new friendship he calls into question everything he’s ever known about the Viking way of life … and about a threat that’s even more deadly than the dragons they’ve encountered in the past.

It’s really a wonderful coming-of-age story about standing up for your principles even when it’s difficult, when everyone around you believes that you’re not only wrong, but outright foolish.

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2011: Wikileaks and Cyberpunks

2011: Wikileaks and Cyberpunks

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NeuromancerThe first days of a year always have a feel, to me, of science fiction; of a piece of the future made real. You’re looking at a new date everywhere you turn. The name of the year is not the old name. You find yourself living inside something whose coming you have been awaiting, a future now present. But typically this strangeness doesn’t last long; sooner or later the human tendency to adapt makes a new normal, and life as it has been reasserts itself.

Only for me the strangeness came early this year, and I’m not sure when it’ll go away. I’ve been following the ongoing Wikileaks story, or set of stories, and increasingly I have come to feel as though I’m watching a cyberpunk novel unfolding in real time. The release by the Wikileaks site of confidential diplomatic cables, following on the heels of similar releases of confidential documents to do with American military activity in Iraq and Afghanistan, has spiralled into an array of interlocked narratives and events that seem to me to suggest something about the shape of the world in the year 2011.

Specifically, it suggests that cyberpunk has turned out to be the wave of the future after all.

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Rich Horton on Black Gate in 2010

Rich Horton on Black Gate in 2010

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blackgate-issue-14-cover-150Over at The Elephant Forgets, Rich Horton continues with his review of every science fiction and fantasy short story published in Engish in 2010 (I know — wow.) On December 30th, he reached Black Gate:

Once again, Black Gate managed only a single issue in 2010, though also once again one more is nearly ready and presumably will appear early in 2011. It remains a beautiful thick magazine — and 2010’s issue was particularly thick! — with a strong and successful focus on adventure fantasy, and with a welcome (to me) tropism towards longer stories. The magazine also has a tropism towards series stories, but this issue mostly avoided sequels. This year the one issue includes 19 new stories: 1 novella, 8 novelettes, and 10 shorts (1 short-short), for a total of almost 160,000 words.

I will mention again that I am on the masthead of Black Gate as a Contributing Editor, which means that I contribute a regular column and regular reviews, and also, I suppose, that I meet with Publisher/Editor John O’Neill occasionally and amidst eating and drinking and selling books we chat about the future of the SF industry and so on.

My favorite story this year was Matthew David Surridge’s “The Word of Azrael”, which will appear in my Best of the Year book. It’s a first rate story that manages to both satirize numerous fantasy cliches and to celebrate them. Other strong stories include the novella, Robert J. Howe’s “The Natural History of Calamity”, which is basically Urban Fantasy, but with quite a clever central idea, a private detective with a difference: she detects what’s wrong with someone’s “karmic flow”, and restores the balance. Also strong was “Devil on the Wind”, by Michael Jasper and Jay Lake, concerning a group of magicians whose power arises from their own suicides (and revivals). Add strong work by James Enge, Pete Butler, Alex Kries, and Sylvia Volk — another very enjoyable issue of an always fun magazine.

5 of 19 stories (26%) are by women, a bit less than usual. Though they have published SF stories in the past, despite the Adventure Fantasy label, this year I don’t think any qualified.

Rich selected Matthew David Surridge’s “The Word of Azrael” for his Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2011 Edition. His assessment of Black Gate in 2009 is here.

Fantasy Game Review: Ascension – Chronicle of the Godslayer

Fantasy Game Review: Ascension – Chronicle of the Godslayer

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ascensionlogo

Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer is a deck-building game from Gary Games. “What is Ascension?” you may ask. Here’s a quick intro from the Ascension website:

Ascension is a fast-paced deckbuilding game that’s quick to learn, easy to setup, and packed with endless hours of replay value! Our goal with Ascension was to make a game that we would bring out again and again for our own game nights. With an all-star team working on design and development, including Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour Champions Justin Gary, Rob Dougherty, and Brian Kibler, we spent the better part of a year making a game that will appeal to fans of the board games, trading card games, and non-gamers alike.

It’s also useful to have a bit of the background for the world in which the game is set. Again, from the Ascension website:

The game takes place in Vigil, a world that has been protected for millennia by the Great Seal, keeping the realm free from divine influences. It was put in place after an ancient war with a corrupt god, Samael the Fallen, when it was decided that none of the gods should be able to interfere. But now, the Seal is failing, and nightmarish Monsters that had been forgotten are breaking through. Your job, as a hero of Vigil, is to take your small, ragtag band of Apprentices and Militia, and gather an army powerful enough to lead you to your destiny as the Godslayer, and in doing so, slay Samael once and for all.

The next obvious question is: what is a deckbuilding game? Deckbuilding implies that you do not start with a predetermined deck, i.e. one of your own choosing before the game begins. Rather, you begin with a starter deck and customize your deck through the course of the game, hopefully in such a way that allows you to outplay your opponents, who are customizing decks of their own.

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