New Treasures: The Godstone by Violette Malan

New Treasures: The Godstone by Violette Malan

Comments 1 comment

The Godstone (DAW Books, August 2021. Cover design by Faceout Studio/Jeff Miller.

Violette Malan will be familiar to many of you. She’s the author of the acclaimed Dhulyn and Parno series of modern sword & sorcery novels, and The Mirror Prince fantasy series. She was also our Friday blogger here at Black Gate for many years.

Her new novel The Godstone vaults her into the front ranks of modern fantasy. Publishers Weekly raves that it “transports readers to an exciting world of high-stakes magic,” and Kirkus Reviews calls it “An original, enigmatic fantasy about reluctant heroes drawn into a quest to save the world.” It’s the launch of a major new series, released in hardcover by DAW in August. Here’s all the details.

…

Read More Read More

Now Streaming: Better Off Ted

Now Streaming: Better Off Ted

Comments 1 comment
Better Off Ted
Better Off Ted

Better Off Ted was a workplace comedy that ran on ABC for two seasons from 2009 through 2010 for 26 episodes.  The series focused on Ted Crisp (Jay Harrington), a middle manager with something of a conscience trying to find the right balance between his conscience and fulfilling the needs of the soul-sucking international conglomerate he worked for.

Ted worked for Veronica Palmer (Portia de Rossi), who was all-in for the company, although it is not entirely clear that she draws a distinction between herself and the company, except when it serves her purposes. Ted oversees a couple of scientists who create the strange inventions the company, Veridian Dynamics, require, only rarely questioning if making things like a weaponized pumpkin means that they are mad scientists. The two scientists, Lem Hewitt (Malcolm Barrett) and Phil Myman (Jonathan Slavin) form an excellent comedy team, able to play off each other with either taking on the role of comic or foil (although Barrett tends to take the straight man role a little more often). Linda Zwordling (Andrea Anders) also works for Ted as a quality assurance analyst who views the scientists as nerds and fears Veronica’s mercurial moods.

Although primarily a contemporary mainstream workplace comedy, Phil and Lem’s inventions clearly have a science fictional element to them. In the first episode, the company decides the cryogenically freeze Phil and later episodes see the scientists creating a hover vest for children to wear (which, of course, would be a prototype for later military use). Veronica’s first line is telling Ted that the company wants to make a metal that is hard as steel, can bounce like rubber, and is edible, to which Ted responds, “We can do that.”

…

Read More Read More

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Old School Pirates

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Old School Pirates

Comments 3 comments

The Spanish Main (Warner Bros, 1945)

“Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.” –H. L. Mencken, 1919. And when more than during the winter holiday season, the Festival of the Taillights? Bring me my whetstone and cutlass! This week we celebrate old school Hollywood pirate epics, stories of charming rogues and swaggering scallywags. Come on, me lads, heave to and turn aside from It’s a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Carol, for it be time t’ wallow in a different nostalgia, one with more pointy edges to it. An’ ye can lay to that.

…

Read More Read More

Forbidden Magic, Murder, and Disco: The Carter Archives by Dan Stout

Forbidden Magic, Murder, and Disco: The Carter Archives by Dan Stout

Comments 3 comments

Dan Stout’s The Carter Archives: Titanshade, Titan Day, and Titan Song (DAW, 2019-21). Covers by Chris McGrath

Whenever an author wraps up a trilogy, we bake a cake in the Black Gate offices.

But what if it’s not actually, like, a trilogy? What if the third book is just a rest stop on a long and exciting journey toward five books? Or seven? Or, Wheel-of-Time like, a stupendous 12 volumes (or 14, or whatever the heck it is)?? If it’s not clear should we bake, or not bake?

Ha! You’re right, of course. Like we’d let nuance like that get in the way of cake. Fire up the oven, lads.

…

Read More Read More

Surviving World War III in Iran– Twilight: 2000

Surviving World War III in Iran– Twilight: 2000

Comments 4 comments

In the RPG by GDW released in 1984, Twilight: 2000, the action starts in Europe, specifically Poland. The players, members of the US Army’s 5th Mechanized Division, find themselves stranded in enemy territory when the last major offensive of World War III flounders and then implodes. The world inched across the line of nuclear holocaust. The American, Soviet, German, and Polish governments are hardly worthy of the name “government.”

The adventures and setting information that GDW published in subsequent releases favor heavily game play in Eastern Europe and then the war-shattered United States. While excursions to Greece and Norway are to be found, for the most part, players wander Poland, Czechoslovakia, and perhaps Ukraine in an effort to simply survive and find a way home — even if that is making a new home.

…

Read More Read More

Explore Jack Vance’s Rich and Dangerous Universe in The Gaean Reach from Pelgrane Press

Explore Jack Vance’s Rich and Dangerous Universe in The Gaean Reach from Pelgrane Press

Comments 8 comments


The Gaean Reach and The Gaean Reach Gazetteer (Pelgrane Press, 2014). Covers by Chris Huth

The great Jack Vance doesn’t get a lot of love from role players. Despite his huge influence on the field (Gygax based the fundamental cast-and-forget spellcasting system of Dungeons and Dragons on the Vancian magic system the author developed for his Dying Earth tales, just as an example), there aren’t a lot of ways to use dice to explore the wonderful worlds Vance created.

Twenty years ago Pelgrane Press released The Dying Earth Roleplaying Game by Robin D. Laws, which went a long to rectifying this artistic injustice. More recently Laws and Pelgrane Press took the versatile Gumshoe System, designed for running investigative games like Trail of Cthulhu and Ashen Stars, and used it as the basis for The Gaean Reach, a science fiction RPG set in the lusciously detailed setting for much of Vance’s best science fiction, including The Demon Princes novels, the Cadwal Chronicles, the Alastor Cluster trilogy, and the Ports of Call novels.

…

Read More Read More

The Big 50! Heroic Fantasy Quarterly Issue #50

The Big 50! Heroic Fantasy Quarterly Issue #50

Comments 8 comments

Heroic Fantasy Quarterly’s big 50th issue hit the world in early November and we’ve already had two rounds of great reviews! Tangent Online delves into our five fiction works, then Quick Sip Reviews follows it up reviewing both fiction and poetry

The pieces range but do manage a pretty good thematic cohesion, with issues of inheritance and theft being front and center in almost all of them. This might take the shape of a Shakespearean tragedy, an uncle usurping a throne, or might be more of a romping heist, but whatever the case, the stories keep things moving quickly, with plenty of action, a bit of humor, and a touch of heart. The poems nicely round out the offerings, and it’s a very strong issue worth checking out, and a wonderful celebration for a publication reaching its fiftieth issue! Cheers!

-Charles Paysuer, Quick Sip Reviews

With those accolades, I’m eager to point you in the direction of our offerings!

…

Read More Read More

Vintage Treasures: The Best of Robert Silverberg

Vintage Treasures: The Best of Robert Silverberg

Comments 3 comments


The Best of Robert Silverberg (Pocket Books, February 1976). Cover by Alan Magee

Recently James McGlothlin wrapped up an ambitious multi-year review project at Black Gate, reading each of the 23 volumes in Del Rey’s Classic Science Fiction Series from the 70s, including The Best of Fritz Leiber, Edmond Hamilton, John Brunner, Philip K. Dick, C.L. Moore, Robert Bloch, and over a dozen others. Over the years many of our contributors have shared their love for these seminal volumes, including Ryan Harvey, Jason McGregor, and others.

Del Rey wasn’t the only publisher to pick up on the idea of promoting authors in their catalog with Best of volumes, however. Between 1976 and 1980 Pocket Books produced nearly a dozen weightily collections showcasing their own impressive stable of SF authors, including Poul Anderson, Jack Vance, Harry Harrison, John Sladek, Keith Laumer, Damon Knight, Barry N. Malzberg, Mack Reynolds, and Walter M. Miller. Pocket (and others) did a splendid job keeping these fine books in print over the years, sometimes freshening up the covers in the process.

One of my favorites in the set is The Best of Robert Silverberg (1976), published no less than half a dozen times over the next decade by five different publishers. It’s a terrific volume that’s still easy to find to today.

…

Read More Read More

The Controversy over Nebula Awards Showcase 55, edited by Catherynne M. Valente

The Controversy over Nebula Awards Showcase 55, edited by Catherynne M. Valente

Comments 6 comments

Nebula Awards Showcase 55 (SFWA, August 2021). Cover by Lauren Raye Snow

I’m hearing some grousing about the latest Nebula Awards Showcase, edited by the distinguished Catherynne M. Valente.

This is the 55th volume in the long-running series, and the second to be published directly by SFWA, the Science Fiction Writers of America. As is customary, it contains the complete Nebula award-winning stories, as selected by that august body, as well as a tasty selection of the other nominees, as selected at the whim of the editor.

Well — not exactly. And that seems to be the crux of the problem. For the first time I can remember, the Nebula Awards Showcase contains only one of the winners from last year, A. T. Greenblatt’s short story “Give the Family My Love,” originally published in Clarkesworld. All the others — including the winners in novelette, novella, and novel category — are represented only by brief excerpts.

…

Read More Read More

Now Streaming: The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension

Now Streaming: The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension

Comments 13 comments
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eight Dimension
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eight Dimension

On August 10, 1984, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eight Dimension made its first appearance in theatres the United States. The film did not do well in its initial box office release, but over the years it has amassed a cult following based on its subsequent releases on home video. In addition, the two graphic novels have been released to follow the story of its protagonist, Buckaroo Banzai.

In an article I published in World Watch One, a Buckaroo Banzai zine, earlier this year, I argued that one of the issues with the film is that it is so different from anything else, people who go in with any expectations (or even none), have a tendency to bounce off the film, wondering what it was, exactly that they had just watched. A second viewing, in which the basic outline of the film is known, however, allows the viewer to fully appreciate the weirdness which interlaces every moment of the film.

At one point in the film a thoroughly confused President Widmark (Ronald Lacey) comments, “Buckaroo, I don’t know what to say. Lectroids? Planet 10? Nuclear extortion? A girl named ‘John’?” which, I imagine, is how many viewers feel about the movie.

…

Read More Read More