Dressed as People Available On Demand until June 27th!

Dressed as People Available On Demand until June 27th!

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Margo MacDonald in Dressed as People

When I was at Kelly Robson’s launch for Alias Space and Other Stories, she got the inevitable question, “What are you working on next?” And she surprised everyone (or at least me) by revealing she’d been working on a stage play with fellow Canadian authors A.M. Dellamonica and Amal El-Mohtar, to be performed by actor/playwright Margo MacDonald. Even better, it would premiere as part of this year’s Ottawa Fringe Festival – which is happening right now!

Full disclosure, I’ve known the three authors behind Dressed As People for years, so I went into this with the sort of jittery excitement you get in Writer Land when your friends announce cool things. And I was not disappointed. This “triptych of uncanny abduction” is so good, courtesy of the care and attention to detail Kelly, A.M. and Amal put into their work and Margo’s stunningly amazing performances.

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Going Home Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up to Be: Twilight: 2000’s American Campaign, Part I

Going Home Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up to Be: Twilight: 2000’s American Campaign, Part I

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This is the first of three articles covering GDW’s published adventures in the “American Campaign” for Twilight: 2000’s first edition.

The published adventures for Twilight: 2000 did not stop with the players returning home in Going Home, the final adventure in what is referred to as the Polish Campaign. A series of nine adventures followed, all set in the United States — or what the United States as become the setting. The first three published adventures, Red Star/Lone Star, Armies of the Night, and Allegheny Uprising presume the players did manage to return to the United States from Europe.

Unlike the linked — albeit loosely — adventures of the Polish Campaign, with its opening escape, fleeing to Krakow, working toward Warsaw, and then eventual crossing into Germany, these three first adventures of the American campaign exist independently. An enterprising game master (GM) and players could find a way to connect them, though the distances are vast — particularly for Red Star/Lone Star and the other two — at least vast in a post-apocalyptic world.

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Hither Came Conan wins REH Foundation Award!

Hither Came Conan wins REH Foundation Award!

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frank-frazetta-conan-the-barbarian1_smallHither Came Conan, Indeed!

I think it was early in 2015, I decided I wanted to gather a bunch of folks who know more about Robert E. Howard than I did (THAT was an endless list!) and have them write about all kinds of different facets of Howard and his life. Sure, there would be a little Conan, but I wanted to minimize that. I wanted to introduce folks (and further teach others) about various aspects of this amazing writer. And so was born Discovering Robert E. Howard; almost three dozen essays by an All-Star cast of REH experts and fans. Here’s the final post in the series, with links all the prior ones.

It went over great, and I got to know the REH community a lot better than I did before. Inspired by an irregular series I was writing about Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe stories (I’m a gargantuan fan), I thought it would be fun to ‘round up the usual – and unusual – suspects’ (if you know me, you know that’s from my favorite movie of all time) and tackle Conan. Each contributor would explain why that story was the best of REH’s original Conan tales (no pastiches here). The twist was, each story was randomly assigned! I used an Excel spreadsheet and did a blind assignment – the modern technology equivalent of names out of a hat.

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Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen: Piper’s Connecticut Yankee Tale

Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen: Piper’s Connecticut Yankee Tale

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Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen (1965), Ace, cover art by Jack Gaughan (left)
Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen (1984), Ace Science Fiction Books, cover art by Michael Whelan (right)

I think most people are familiar with Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889). (Certainly, there’s a delightful musical from 1948 featuring Bing Crosby that I loved as a kid.) Twain’s hero is an engineer from Connecticut who receives a blow to the head and is somehow transported in time and space to King Arthur’s England. Although the story is a social satire, it celebrates homespun ingenuity and democratic values, among other things. Although not a satire, Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen (1965) by H. Beam Piper, similarly celebrates good old American ingenuity and values, but takes place on an alternate 20th century timeline instead of the far past. It’s Piper’s last work and part of his Paratime universe.

In this article I’m going give you six (relatively) spoiler-free reasons to read the book, and one reason that has a spoiler, but that I think will only enhance your enjoyment of the work.

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Guided by an Unknown Destiny: Eda Blessed II by Milton J. Davis

Guided by an Unknown Destiny: Eda Blessed II by Milton J. Davis

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Eda Blessed II Cover Art by Stanley Weaver, Jr.
Publisher: ‎ Mvmedia, LLC (June 19, 2021) / Paperback: ‎ 330 pages

Eda Blessed II

Juneteenth was just marked a federal holiday in the United States to commemorate the June 19th, 1866 end to slavery. Like many memorial dates, it resonates with equal parts celebration and reflection. This June 19th, 2021, we highlight the book release of Eda Blessed II, appropriately published by a champion of Black Speculative Fiction, Milton Davis (author and editor of MVmedia, a publishing company specializing in Afrofuturism, and Steamfunk). Notably, Milton Davis has been a proponent and publisher of works by Sword & Soul originator Charles Saunders who is known for his Imaro/Nyumbani series (check out the tour guide to the Imaro Series on Black Gate). Omari Ket is the protagonist of Eda Blessed and his first name is an anagram for Imaro, but apparently, that was not done intentionally; in any event, Omari is a very different personality than Imaro.

Omari Ket is a rogue warrior; an Agency onto himself

From the first Eda Blessed, we know that Omari Ket is a rogue warrior, not a spy, but he is as suave, cunning, and as lethal as any Secret Agent Man. ‘Agency’ is a term for the capacity of a character to act independently, and Omari is an Agency onto himself: he reports to no one. Omari is a ladies’ man in a dog-eat-dog world. If you like a cut-throat, libertine, action-oriented protagonist, then you are ‘Eda Blessed.’ 

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Panic at the Inferno: MYSTICS IN HELL, published by Perseid Press

Panic at the Inferno: MYSTICS IN HELL, published by Perseid Press

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Mystics in Hell, published by Perseid Press. Copyright © 2021, Janet Morris  
Book design, A.L. Butcher. Cover design, A.L. Butcher and Roy Mauritsen. Edited by, Janet Morris and A.L. Butcher. Cover painting: Portrait of Sir Francis Dashwood, 11th Baron le Despenser, by William Hogarth, 1764. Oil on canvas. Mystics in Hell cover image, copyright © Perseid Press, 2021

“It’s just because I have picked a little about mystics that I have no use for mystagogues. Real mystics don’t hide mysteries, they reveal them. They set a thing up in broad daylight, and when you’ve seen it it’s still a mystery. But the mystagogues hide a thing in darkness and secrecy, and when you find it, it’s a platitude.” ― G. K. Chesterton

After a few unforeseen delays, Mystics in Hell has finally arrived. This is the latest edition in the long-running, shared-universe series, Heroes in Hell™. The gathering of real people from across our historical timeline, and the casting of fictional characters born of myth and legend, folklore and literature, is what makes this such a unique and fun series. Now, for those of you unfamiliar with the series or for those readers who may wish to be brought up to date, once again I’ll do my best to recap what’s been happening in our favorite Afterlife. 

Mystics in Hell follows on the hot hooves of Lovers in Hell and the two volumes preceding it. The plagues which first manifested themselves in Doctors in Hell are evolving and mutating. In Pirates in Hell, disastrous floods swept through Hell, leaving behind wrack and ruin, and new islands and coastlines. The damned sought the help of pirates and other seafarers, seeking refuge and passage, hoping to escape to dry land and whatever safe harbor they could find. But there is no such thing as a safe harbor in Hell, and there is no escape. 

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Goth Chick News: Zombies in Vegas? We Already Sort of Knew That

Goth Chick News: Zombies in Vegas? We Already Sort of Knew That

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With regards to movies, my mantra has always been that if you tell me a good story, I’ll willingly suspend my disbelief. I’m not one to pick apart details or demand every plot hole be plugged if, overall, the story is entertaining. For example, I thoroughly enjoyed Wonder Woman 1984, even though critics were all over it for a number of plot-related reasons. However, even I have my limits, such as Godzilla vs. Kong. Since when is King Kong as big as the buildings he used to scale? That said, I was ready to go all in for Army of the Dead, especially as I really love a good zombie movie. I probably did have a bit of lingering doubt as I did not rush out to see this one during its theaters-only first week of release. Instead, I avoided all reviews and spoilers until I could watch it on Netflix where it debuted on May 14th.

The verdict? A firm split decision.

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Future Treasures: The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2020, edited by Rich Horton

Future Treasures: The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2020, edited by Rich Horton

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The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2020,
edited by Rich Horton (Prime Books, June 2021). Cover by Argus

The print version of Rich Horton’s 12th Year’s Best volume was delayed roughly six months by the pandemic, and it finally arrives next week. The delay was a little frustrating for those of us who look forward to this book every year, but considering how deeply the pandemic impacted the publishing world overall, I figure it could have been a lot worse. (The digital version has been available since December, but I remain stubbornly a print guy.)

Rich’s introductions to the early volumes belonged to the get-out-of-the-way-and let-the-fiction-do-the-talking school, but over the years they’ve loosened up a bit, and this year’s is one of his best, a lively and thoughtful look at the impact of this very eventful year on science fiction, and some thoughts on famous genre pandemic fiction. Here’s part of his comments on the tales within.

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Rejecting Bushido, Part 2

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Rejecting Bushido, Part 2

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Sword of the Beast (Japan, 1965)

As outlined in Part One, in the Fifties postwar Japan’s film industry gradually returned to making chambara movies that glorified the samurai warrior code of bushido, but in the counter-cultural Sixties some filmmakers took an opposite tack, blaming bushido for supporting a culture of rigid oppression and cruelty. Some remarkable films came out of this movement, pictures of high art that depict the samurai’s wonderfully skilled swordplay while skewering the society that relied on the sword as a tool of domination. Let’s look at three films that exemplify this movement from three brilliant directors: Hideo Gosha, Kihachi Okamoto, and Masaki Kobayashi.

Sword of the Beast (or Samurai Gold Seekers)

Rating: ****
Origin: Japan, 1965
Director: Hideo Gosha
Source: Criterion DVD

Co-writer and director Hideo Gosha’s follow-up to Three Outlaw Samurai takes an even less forgiving view of society than its predecessor: individuals may be good, bad, or both, but hierarchical authority cares only for power and does only ill.

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Intrigues, Wagers with the Gods, and Double Wights: Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #48

Intrigues, Wagers with the Gods, and Double Wights: Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #48

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Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #48 was uploaded to the world on May 1, 2021! We’ve got a full compliment, three short stories, three poems, art and audio!

Fiction

Intrigue in Aviene, by Steve Dilks,  Hardened mercenary Bohun of Damzullah, finds himself between wars and trying to get by in the great city of Aviene.  But even in peaceful times, there are plots and dangers aplenty.

King Yvorian’s Wager, a classic reprint by Darrell Schweizter, Young king Yvorian is swept up into the games of the gods, and of that most mysterious and dangerous god, Rada Vatu.

A Night in the Witherlands, by Daniel Stride, with artwork by Simon Walpole, Manfred is hired to guard a merchant and his wares through the mysterious wasteland known as the witherlands.  The ghosts of the witherlands have different plans for them both.

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