Search Results for: Darrell Schweitzer

Retro Review: Fantastic, August and October, 1972

Fantastic magazine, edited by Ted White. August and October 1972. Covers by Jeff Jones and Mike Hinge My Retro Reviews of Amazing have concentrated on the Goldsmith/Lalli years, but I recently read this pair of issues from Ted White’s era, which extended from 1969 to 1979. As a youngster, I started reading Amazing in late 1974, so right in the middle of White’s editorship. These two issues, then, date a bit earlier than my first encounter with Amazing. I bought them…

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Heroic Fantasy Quarterly # 58 Now Available

Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #58 hit the electronic shelves on November 26th.  We’ve got three stories and three poems — a full complement! Fiction Contents “Dragon Tears Part II,” by Caleb Williams.  Exiled sorcerer-scribe Larohd du Masiim continues his quest to  gather the rare artifacts needed to gain back his lost love, the princess Yadira.  Catch up with Part I here. “Isle of the Thousand-Eyed Strangler,” by R. A. Quiogue.  Quiogue returns to our pages with a tale of fantasy south-seas derring-do among the…

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Beautiful Dark Worlds: An Interview with John R. Fultz

JRF has deep roots in the weird fiction community and especially Black Gate, and you can learn about those in this post.  We recently reviewed his collections Darker than Weird and Worlds Beyond Worlds which were published after I interviewed the author in 2017 for my Weird Beauty interviews series (right before Black Gate began hosting them; see the listing of those interviews below). This reposts that interview and teases an updated one specific to Fultz’s Zang Cycle (to be…

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David Guy Compton, August 19, 1930 — November 10, 2023

Farewell, Earth’s Bliss (Ace Books, 1971), Synthajoy (Berkley Books, September 1979), and Ascendancies (Ace, January 1985). Covers by Reginald Lloyd, Richard Powers, and Barclay Shaw I learned this week that David Guy Compton died on November 10. He was born on August 19, 1930, in London, the child of two actors. He lived to the age of 93. He wrote SF as “D. G. Compton,” mysteries as “Guy Compton,” romance novels as “Frances Lynch,” and also radio plays, some non-fiction…

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Beauty and Nightmares on Aliens Worlds: Interviewing C. S. Friedman

We have an ongoing series at Black Gate on the topic of “Beauty in Weird Fiction” where we corner an author and query them about their muses and methods to make ‘repulsive’ things ‘attractive to readers.’ Previous subjects have included Darrell Schweitzer, Anna Smith Spark, Carol Berg, Stephen Leigh, Jason Ray Carney, and John C. Hocking (see the full list at the end of this post). Inspired by the release of Nightborn: Coldfire Rising (July 2023, see Black Gate’s review for more information), we are delighted to interview C.S. Freidman! …

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400 pages of the Best of the Modern Weird: Weird Fiction Review #12 from Centipede Press

Weird Fiction Review #12 (Centipede Press, October 2022). Front and back covers by Stephen Fabian Weird Fiction Review, edited by John Pelan and published annually by Centipede Press, has gradually established itself as the premier magazine of modern dark fantasy. It’s published a dozen issues so far and has included fiction by Simon Strantzas, Steve Rasnic Tem, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Laird Barron, Victor LaValle, Stephen Graham Jones, Marc Laidlaw, Joseph S. Pulver, Brian Stableford, Darrell Schweitzer, John Shirley, and many,…

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Monsters, Mech Warriors, and More: Startling Stories Magazine, 2022 Issue

The first two issues of Startling Stories in 65 years, courtesy of Wildside Press and Douglas Draa. Covers: uncredited, and GrandeDuc. One of the big news stories of last year was the return of Startling Stories, the legendary science fiction pulp mag of the 40s and 50s, which published classic SF by Arthur C. Clarke, Jack Vance, Leigh Brackett, Fletcher Pratt, Henry Kuttner, A.E. van Vogt, Manly Wade Wellman, Edmond Hamilton, Stanley G, Weinbaum, and numerous others. The new venture…

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Making Weird Fiction Fun: Grilling Dorgo the Dowser!

We have an ongoing series at Black Gate on the topic of “Beauty in Weird Fiction.” Usually we corner an author and query them about their muses and ways to make ‘repulsive’ things ‘attractive to readers.’ Previous subjects have included Darrell Schweitzer, Anna Smith Spark, Carol Berg, Stephen Leigh, Jason Ray Carney, and John C Hocking. (See the full list at the end of this post). I’m excited to corner Joe Bonadonna this round. When his Dorgo character grilled/interviewed me in…

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See The Northman If You Can

See The Northman if you can. I went by myself. Mattie did not think it was what she needed just now. There are, I think, three other people in the theater. Price may have been an issue. I got in at a senior discount and it cost $12.09. I can prove I am a senior by remembering when kiddie matinees were 25 cents and regular movies were about a dollar. In any case, it is superb for what it is….

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Vintage Treasures: Heroic Fantasy edited by Gerald W. Page and Hank Reinhardt

Heroic Fantasy (DAW, 1979). Cover by Jad If you were a sword & sorcery fan in the 70s and 80s, there wasn’t a lot to get excited about. Lin Carter’s Flashing Swords anthologies. Andrew J. Offutt’s Swords Against Darkness, naturally. And the occasional Conan pastiche and Lancer paperback. And there was Gerald W. Page and Hank Reinhardt’s one-shot anthology Heroic Fantasy, which came out of nowhere, never had a sequel, but was packed with terrific original stories by Charles Saunders,…

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