Adventure in the Magellanic Cloud: The Mote in Time’s Eye by Gérard Klein

Adventure in the Magellanic Cloud: The Mote in Time’s Eye by Gérard Klein

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The Mote in Time’s Eye (DAW, January 1975). Cover by Josh Kirby

This is the latest in a series of posts I’m doing covering relatively obscure SF novels of the ‘70s and ‘80s. This novel was first published in French in 1965, but as it didn’t appear in English until 1975, I figure it fits this series.

One of the things on the good side of the Donald A. Wollheim ledger is his willingness to publish SF in translation. This was one of four novels by Gérard Klein that DAW books published. (Perhaps half a dozen translated short stories appeared in various places.)

Gérard Klein was born in 1937. He began publishing SF at the age of 18, and he seems to have mostly stopped in the mid-70s. He has also been a significant anthologist, and a critic, receiving the Pilgrim Award in 2005 for his scholarly work. His day job was as an economist. He is still alive, now 86 years old.

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Vintage Treasures: To the Resurrection Station by Eleanor Arnason

Vintage Treasures: To the Resurrection Station by Eleanor Arnason

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To the Resurrection Station (Avon, October 1986). Cover by Tom Kidd

Eleanor Arnason is a familiar name to anyone who’s been reading short science fiction for the past four decades. Her first story appeared in New Worlds 6 in 1973, and since then she’s published dozens of acclaimed tales in most of the major markets, especially Asimov’s Science Fiction, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Tales of the Unanticipated, and many fine anthologies. Her short fiction has been nominated for the Nebula Award five times, including “The Potter of Bones” (Best Novella, 2003) and “Stellar Harvest” (Best Novelette, 2000), both published in Asimov’s SF.

Her novel output has been a little thinner, though still highly acclaimed. Her fourth novel, A Woman of the Iron People, won both the inaugural James Tiptree Jr. Award in 1991, and the 1992 Mythopoeic Award. But today I want to talk about her first science fiction novel, the quirky and original far-future tale To the Resurrection Station.

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A to Z Reviews: “Deal with the Devil,” by Carol Gyzander

A to Z Reviews: “Deal with the Devil,” by Carol Gyzander

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A to Z Reviews

Although the most famous iteration of the Beatles featured George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and Ringo Starr, the band had a variety of lineups prior to settling on the Fab Four. Many know of its famed lineup during their Hamburg Days: Harrison, Lennon, McCartney, Pete Best, and Stu Sutcliffe. In “Deal with the Devil,” Carol Gyzander elects to write about a lesser known lineup, which allows the story to be dated to a one week period between Christmas 1960 and the end of that year, when the Beatles played in Liverpool with Chas Newby replacing Stu Sutcliffe, who had elected to remain behind in Hamburg.

While they wait to begin a set to begin, Lennon hands around some pills and suddenly the nascent Beatles find themselves staring at two boys on a television screen. More surprisingly, they are able to have a conversation with the two boys who claim to live in the Beatles’ distant future and were trying to establish contact with the rock heroes, Black Sabbath, through some sort of séance.

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Goth Chick News: Death Cars, and Blumhouse, and Stephen King Novels – These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

Goth Chick News: Death Cars, and Blumhouse, and Stephen King Novels – These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

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If you just sang the title, we can definitely be friends.

There has been Hollywood buzz for more than five years about whether or not a movie version of Stephen King’s 1983 novel Christine would be getting remade. Finally, in June 2021, our favorite horror production company, Blumhouse (The Invisible Man, Black Phone, Insidious), announced they were in, and a script was in development. At that time, King had been on a tear with the success of IT and IT: Chapter 2, not to mention a reboot of Pet Sematary, and by December of that year King was reading over a draft script for a new Christine. However, by February 2022 King was going on the record as saying he had cooled on the idea of a Christine remake.

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Datlow’s Latest Treat: The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Fifteen, edited by Ellen Datlow

Datlow’s Latest Treat: The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Fifteen, edited by Ellen Datlow

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The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Fifteen (Night Shade, January 16, 2024)

Once again legendary editor Ellen Datlow has released her annual anthology featuring the Best horror stories that appeared in print the previous year.

And once again the volume includes, in the front, a detailed, invaluable overview of the year in horror (this time 2022). Being a short story lover I am particularly interested in anthologies and collections and, as it happens, once again I discovered how many interesting books I missed…

I always enjoy Datlow’s selections but, naturally enough, some I found particularly accomplished. Here they are.

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The Content Warning Debate

The Content Warning Debate

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This is a trigger fish, apparently: Image by Brigitte Werner from Pixabay

Good afterevenmorn!

In an effort to try and get myself “out there,” so to speak, and figure out what marketing tricks I can use that don’t feel horrendously icky to me in order to try and inch towards making a living from my writing, I spend a lot of time on TikTok. I sometimes attempt to get my books out there, but those videos never get any views. When I’m just fooling around with the various filters they have, I often get far more views; in the hundreds or thousands. I don’t understand it. I don’t understand the algorithm, or how to take advantage of it. I am terrible at marketing. Still, I try. And I’ll keep trying. Maybe I’ll have it work out randomly. Mostly, I just waste hours of my life scrolling through my feed, which currently consists of international news, Hozier (I watched two videos and TikTok has decided I’m obsessed), and a lot of book content. As is usually the case in BookTok, there is a debate raging right now regarding content/trigger warning appearing at the front of the book.

It’s quite an interesting debate.

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Glen Cook: The Garrett, PI Q&A – at Black Gate

Glen Cook: The Garrett, PI Q&A – at Black Gate

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Today we’ve got a real treat here at Black Gate. Glen Cook, best-selling author of The Black Company, as well as The Dread Empire, talks about his fantastic Garrett, PI, series. Glen is one of the founding fathers of dark fantasy, and The Black Company is a bedrock series. I wrote about his wonderful hardboiled fantasy series starring Garrett, here. Today, he’s doing a Q&A about the Garrett, PI books.

Garrett is a private investigator in the fantasy city of TunFaire. He has a huge, brilliant, dead-but-sentient partner, known as the Dead Man. Garrett gets swept up in some large-scale problem each book. There’s far more involved than just figuring out why someone got themselves dead. ‘Cataclysmic’ sometimes applies, without hyperbole. It is a fun, mystery, fantasy adventure series, which is one of my favorites. I often recommend it to folks who ask for something after Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. And if you like Nero Wolfe, this should be your very next read (that vibe starts in book two).

 

Hi Glen. You are probably best-known for your terrific dark fantasy series, The Black Company. I’ve read through that three or four times. But my favorite work of yours is the hardboiled fantasy PI series featuring a rugged ex-Marine, Garrett. It’s a terrific mix of fantasy and hardboiled private eye, with some other classic influences.

Thanks for agreeing to answer a few questions about the Garrett books.

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Neil’s Horror Corner: The Weird, Weird West, Part 2

Neil’s Horror Corner: The Weird, Weird West, Part 2

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The Wind (IFC Midnight, 2018), Devil Rider (Curb/Esquire Films,
1989), and Luz, the Flower of Evil (Afasia Films, 2019)

The Wind (2018) – Prime

Stand-off with six guns?

A bit of shotgun.

Uncomfortable chaps?

Demons of the Prairies.

Any good?

Yes, very good. A slow burn, ensemble production with stunning cinematography and an awesome soundtrack.

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The Red Magician by Lisa Goldstein

The Red Magician by Lisa Goldstein

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In the town where Kicsi grew up there was a rabbi who could work miracles. It was a small town, and borders — Hungarian, Czech, Russian — ebbed and flowed around it like tides. Once, Kicsi remembered, she went too far from home and came to a place where the people spoke a different language. In the distance, on the horizon, stood the mountains, fat and placid as cows.

The Red Magician (1982) by Lisa Goldstein is a young adult, magical realist novel about a Jewish girl, during, and after the Holocaust. The author, herself the daughter of two Holocaust survivors, won a National Book Award for paperback original. The book, while short by today’s dreadful standards, is a compelling meditation on willful blindness in the face of great horror, misplaced vengeance, and the harrowing effects of survivor’s guilt.

Kicsi, which means little in Hungarian, lives with her family in a small town completely isolated from the evil smothering much of Europe. We meet her as she listens in on a conversation between her father, Imre, and the town’s rabbi. The rabbi threatens anyone who doesn’t remove their child from the town school with a curse. The school, in defiance of traditional belief, teaches Hebrew. The language, the rabbi insists:

will be spoken only when the Messiah comes and we return to the Holy Land. That is to say, when God wills it. Until then Hebrew is to be spoken only in prayer.

As punishment, the rabbi curses anyone connected to the school to be tormented by forty demons for forty days and nights. Imre insists that he isn’t scared of any curse and that his daughters will continue to attend the school Fortunately, a stranger arrives in the town, first appearing in the synagogue on Friday night.

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A to Z Reviews: “The Scapegoat Factory,” by Ofir Touche Gafla

A to Z Reviews: “The Scapegoat Factory,” by Ofir Touche Gafla

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A to Z Reviews

Over the past several years, I’ve embarked on a series of year-long review cycles at Black Gate. In 2018, I reviewed a story-a-day to coincide with an author whose birthday it was. In 2022, I selected stories completely at random from my collection to review. In both of those cases, the projects served to find forgotten and minor works of science fiction that spanned a range of years. They also served to make me read stories and authors who I haven’t read before, even if they were in my collection.

For this year’s project, I’ve compiled a list of all the stories and novels in my collection. I then identified the first and last works for each letter of the alphabet and over the next twelve months, I’ll be looking at those works of fiction, starting with Vance Aandahl’s “Bad Luck” and ending with David Lee Zweifler’s “Wasted Potential.” Looking at the 52 works (two for each letter), I find that I’ve only reviewed one of the works previously. Interestingly, given the random nature of the works, only three novels made the list, while four anthologies have multiple stories on the list. The works range in publication date from 1911’s “The Hump,” by Fernan Caballero to Zweifler’s story from last year.

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