Michael Moorcock on the Birth of Hawkmoon
Last week Tor.com ran a terrific article by Michael Moorcock about the origins of his (recently reprinted) Hawkmoon stories. In ‘The Genesis of Hawkmoon‘ Moorcock talks about method, motive, and how the big cultural changes of the sixties heavily influenced his work. Firstly, the man’s writing MO is legendary, and he wrote fantasy fiction with a journalistic mindset: fast with no revisions. The political elements of Hawkmoon, in which a far-future Britain is the ‘Dark Empire’ opposed by a German hero, was a direct protest of the lingering prejudice and division left over from WWII in England. Moorcock sees the books, and himself, as a product of the times — and the times they were a’ changing.
Finally, Moorcock expresses his quiet astonishment over the longevity of Hawkmoon and all the Eternal Champion stories, and remarks “Not bad, I guess, for twelve days hard work!”
No, Mr. Moorcock, not bad at all.
Rumors about our new venture have been spreading for weeks, and it’s time that John and I finally came clean. Next month we’ll be launching a call for submissions to our new, bi-monthly sister magazine, Spicy Troubadour.
The Sorcerer’s Guild 
How to Train Your Dragon (2010)
Black Gate 14 is now shipping. Foreign and domestic subscriber copies went in the mail last week.
Over at 
Occasionally a bit of book-to-film news seems to come out of nowhere and create some genuine surprise. So, amidst reports of this-or-that being remade, rebooted, retread, reimagined, or reduxed (what is it this week? Lord of the Ring Tones? Aliens vs. Predator vs. Chucky vs. Tony Montana? T.J. Hooker on Mars?) it seems there is actually an original, never done before, not part of a hot franchise redo, SF book adaptation slated for television. Gordon R. Dickson’s Childe Cycle, better known by the name of the first book in the series, Dorsai!, is being made into a live action series by MDR productions (
I wanted to point all of you to the fine series of articles over on