Gulo Gulo IV

Gulo Gulo IV

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X-Men Origins: Wolverine is zapped into obscurity by the twin phaser-blasts of Trekstalgia and JJAbramitude, I would like to point out that the movie doesn’t actually suck.

I don’t know why I care. Big-budget summer blockbusters don’t weep for me; why should I weep for them? What’s Hecuba to me, or me to Hecuba?

Still, there was a lot of Wolverine hate fogging up the internet in the last week. A fair sample is the AV Club review (and the AV Talk segment that followed). If it hadn’t been for some dissenters, like the wide-ranging, always shrewd Ryan Harvey, I probably wouldn’t have bothered to see the movie at all. But I think it is worth seeing, for anyone who liked X-Men and its sequel, anyway.

More maundering, speckled with caveats and spoilers, after the jump.

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Kobolds Ate My Baby! Super Deluxx Edition

Kobolds Ate My Baby! Super Deluxx Edition

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Kobolds Ate My Baby! Super Deluxx Edition
By Chris O’Neill and Dan Landis. Illustrated by John Kovalic. (Dork Storm Press, 2005; $14.99)

I’ve previously mentioned in a comment thread that when it comes to tabletop role-playing games, I lean toward the rules-lite side of the equation. I’d rather have a system that allows flexible play, with minimal die-rolls and looking up charts, and greater focus on the “role-playing” instead of the “game.” Given a good Game Master, rules-lite games can feel as close to realistic as any of the more simulationist systems. My favorite RPG of all time, Fudge, has managed to adapt and handle any other game system, setting, or style I’ve thrown at it. In fact, it’s almost the only system I use. Any RPG that comes out I translate into Fudge…

…with the exception of “Beer and Pretzels” RPGs, in which sheer simplicity and ludicrousness are the norm.

Most rules-lite systems are geared toward the Beer and Pretzels genre: RPGs that are played for comedy and speed and with minimum planning and plenty of bad bad bad beer. Risus is the Beer and Pretzels equivalent of Fudge, a complete generic system (six pages long!) usable for quick ‘n’ silly RPGs late at night. I might discuss Risus in another post—it’s interesting both as a rules-lite system and as a purposeful parody of all other early RPGs. Fudge also deserves a long review, because it’s so wonderful that it’s a shame it isn’t spread like a beautiful pandemic to every corner of the hobby.

But today I bring you the most popular setting-specific Beer and Pretzels game, a funny and witty spoof on the concept of “cannon fodder” in Dungeons & Dragons: Dork Storm Press’ Kobolds Ate My Baby! Super Deluxx Edition, written by Chris O’Neil and Dan Landis—and hereafter abbreviated KAMB! (The manual loves exclamation marks! With a passion! See!)

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Bill Ward reviews Black Gate 13

Bill Ward reviews Black Gate 13

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Welcome back Bill!

We’ve missed Bill during his sabbatical from the BG blog. But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been busy. On Sunday he posted another in his regular series of Black Gate magazine reviews. Here’s what he said about our latest issue, in part:

One look at Black Gate and you understand what makes it the leader in this field. Gorgeous cover and interior art, a huge amount of content including short stories and novellas, non-fiction, and an extensive reviews section that takes on both gaming and current fiction offerings, makes Black Gate a magazine that delivers on all cylinders…

Fans of John C. Hocking’s story in Lords of the Swords, ‘Vali’s Wound,’ will be excited to see the precursor story to that tale of vikings, ‘The Face in the Sea.’ Peadar Ó Guilín returns to Black Gate with another weird tale, ‘The Evil Eater,’ a contemporary fantasy in which a forbidden food leads to an underworld of horror. And John R. Fultz offers another strong fantasy, one of the best in the issue, with a tale of wizards and rebels in a most compellingly drawn setting in ‘Return of the Quill.’

You can find the full review here .

Targetted Book Recommendations for Non-Existent Readers

Targetted Book Recommendations for Non-Existent Readers

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You and Me

Once upon a time, I met a guy who only ever ate fries*. Anything else, it was claimed, would make him violently ill. Now, he looked healthy enough and suffered no heart attacks while I was watching him, so who knows? Maybe it worked out well for him. But it’s rare in life to find an adult whose belly is so cantankerous that it rejects even pizza with such colourful speed. And it is equally rare to meet an adult reader who only wants Sword and Sorcery, or Flying Carpet Wonder tales. Or whatever.

Most people, enjoy a bit of variety. Personally, I feast at many tables — historical fiction, mysteries, SF hard and soft; fantasy high, low, light and dark. I love it all depending on my mood, and I imagine that most of you will have similar lists, maybe replacing the SF with Romance, or the mysteries with Great American Novels. The only thing we can be sure of having in common, is a penchant for character-driven SFF adventure stories — i.e. the type of thing that BG does best. You probably wouldn’t be reading this otherwise.

Targeted Book Recommendations

Recommending books, as we all know, is a bit like giving presents to a loved one. You can give something that you would like, or, if you’re feeling more generous, you can take their tastes into consideration too.

I remember one particular disaster when a friend of mine suggested George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones to One-Footed Jimmy, even though everybody knew poor Jimmy has had an aversion to swords since that time the display came loose during his visit to a museum… OFJ wouldn’t touch Black Gate with a barge-pole, but imagine, if you will, that you had to buy a book for somebody who loved the magazine. What would you pick? You’re not trying to educate this person, you’re not allowed to show-off. The one thing you know about your victim’s diet is that he or she drools twice a year over the brown envelope that Mr. O’Neill sends from Chicago.

What would you choose? Why?

I’ll be putting up my answers to these questions some time next week.

* In Ireland, we refer to them as “chips”. Do NOT be confused.

Finding a cure…

Finding a cure…

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While public health officials and the vice president fear for the worst, I haven’t started wearing a face mask. If there’s anything that looks to me like something out of a sci-fi movie, it’s people going about their daily business with those things on. Can designer face masks be far behind, maybe just the sort of thing to stimulate consumer spending and get the economy going again?

In any event, Steve Carper has devised a particularly ironic solution to the problem in A Kiss is Just a Kiss, which is a sample of his tales collected in Tyrannosaur Faire. You can buy his book here as either a downloadable PDF or good-old fashioned print. The collection includes Steve’s “Pity the Poor Dybbuk,” which first appeared in Black Gate’s second issue, back in the Summer of 2001, when everyone was breathing easier.

A Life of Ideas

A Life of Ideas

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idea-bulbIn brainstorming topics for my ‘getting back on the horse’ return post here at Black Gate after my absence of a few months — I’ve come up with a few mildly interesting ideas. Firstly, I thought about looking at the nature of escapism, how it shouldn’t have the unfair pejorative connotation it does, and how it certainly isn’t limited to works of prose or film or video games designed solely to entertain. Then too I was considering a weird phenomenon I’ve only really just been made conscious of, that of how utterly mainstream fantasy, or, let’s say ‘the fantastic,’ has become just in the last few decades — and I mean aside from the obvious stuff like the popularity of fantasy and science fiction books and movies, but everything from television commercials and product packaging to childrens’ toys and popular expressions bear out the reality that the once distant worlds of speculative fiction are now familiar place names in the cultural atlas of modern life.

But then it struck me that what I was doing, actively ransacking my mind for ideas, has to be a fairly unusual practice, all things considered. And one worthy of a blog post, at least.

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Black Gate now open to Fiction Submissions

Black Gate now open to Fiction Submissions

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Black Gate magazine is open to fiction submissions until June 30.

Black Gate publishes epic fantasy at all lengths, including novel excerpts. We’re looking for adventure-oriented fantasy fiction suitable for all ages, as long as it is well written and original.

Please look over our Submission Guidelines before sending us anything. If you have any questions, drop me a note at john@blackgate.com.

It’s worth mentioning that we accept both electronic and physical submissions, and will consider simultaneous submissions. Our response time is about two months.

Our submission address is:

New Epoch Press
Attn: Submissions Dept
815 Oak Street
St. Charles, IL 60174

submissions@blackgate.com

Physical Submissions must contain a SASE (self-addressed stamped envelope) or an e-mail address. Please send us only disposable manuscripts. If you need your manuscript returned, please so indicate (clearly) on your cover letter, and make sure you have sufficient postage on your return envelope.

If you are submitting via e-mail, please ensure the e-mail address you use is the one you wish us to reply to. In the event your e-mail address changes, be sure to drop us a note.

Electronic submissions must be sent as plain text pasted into the body of an e-mail message, not as an attachment or separate file (which are more prone to carrying viruses). Special formatting (such as italics or bold) should be indicated _like so_. To safeguard our computer systems, submissions sent as attachments will be deleted unread.

And good luck!  We’re looking forward to seeing something from you.

New Review of Black Gate 13

New Review of Black Gate 13

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Long time reader Matthew Wuertz has posted a splendid review of Black Gate 13 on his blog.  Here’s what he said about “Bones in the Desert, Stones in the Sea” by Amy Tibbetts:

Aleem’s sister was alienated from the rest of her village after conceiving a half-breed child from one of the uttuk pillagers because she sought to carry it to full term. Aleem arrives after her death that occurred during childbirth, and he must deal with the tragic loss of his sister as well as figure out the most merciful way to kill her offspring.

I felt like this was the heart of the issue. A brother torn by the loss of a sister he’d had little contact with once they became adults, forced to confront his duties of honoring her wishes to have a child that she conceived out of rape. This was a really moving piece that seemed to go beyond just the story itself, one that I’d like to see up for an award.

And “The Merchant of Loss” by Justin Stanchfield and Mikal Trimm:

Galen brings a wagon of strange wares into the Bitter Hills, an assorted collection of “effluvia of daily life.” He encounters a secretive woman who seeks a trade between the breath of her name and a locked box from Galen’s wagon.

This was my favorite story of the issue. Haunting, captivating and engaging. The story grabbed me and pulled me through to the end.

You can find the full review at matthewwuertz.blogspot.com/2009/04/black-gate-issue-13.html.

Thanks Matthew! Glad you enjoyed the issue.

Write your own review, and let us know about it, and we’ll post it here for others to enjoy.

Memories of Ultima IV

Memories of Ultima IV

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If a single positive resulted from the work of that woefully misinformed but correctly acronymed organization BADD (Bothered about Dungeons & Dragons), a group that waged a crusade to stop children from jumping into the Bags of Holding that they learned to construct from an $11.99 hardcover rulebook purchased at a hobby store, it was the computer RPG Ultima IV: The Quest of the Avatar. To this day, it’s only video RPG I’ve ever loved. And I’m not the only one who got sucked into this fantasy computer game when it was first published by Origin Systems in 1985 for a variety of platforms. (This was also the year of The Bard’s Tale from Electronic Arts; a major time for computer RPGs.)

By the middle of the decade, Richard Garriott, who programs under the pseudonym “Lord British,” had completed the first three of the Ultima games, featuring standard RPG plots where heroes had to vanquish a series of Dark Lords and their descendants. He had received complaints from parents about the demonic nature of these games—and the cover of Ultima III: Exodus in particular—and certainly knew about BADD’s anti-fantasy game campaign. But Garriott did something interesting instead of shrugging off the complaints. He used them to see if he could devise a new challenge for a computer game that wouldn’t use the standard “defeat the Big Bad Guy” of fantasy RPGs. What if the players had to actually live up to the extraordinary standards of acting as great, chivalric heroes? In fact, what if that was the whole point of the game: achieve the highest level of moral heroism so the players turned into ethical cynosures for the whole world? What was called, in game terms, an “Avatar”?

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Twilight

Twilight

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I finally saw Twilight.

Even with the aid of my snarky spouse and the Rifftrax team it was still tough going. I ended up downing an entire bottle of red plonk to help things along.

Of course I don’t expect teenage girls to get excited by the boys of Glengarry Glen Ross and I am glad they’re reading something and I’m all in favor of the local jailbait exerting a modicum of sexual self-control but cripes. This? It’s flippin’ Smallville with candy-cane vampires.

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