Search Results for: Weird Beauty

The Beauty in Horror and Sadness: An Interview with Darrell Schweitzer

Comments 10 comments

Cover by Stephen Fabian Intro It is not intuitive to seek beauty in art deemed grotesque/weird, but most authors who produce horror/fantasy actually are usually (a) serious about their craft, and (b) driven my strange muses. This interview series engages contemporary authors & artists on the theme of “Art & Beauty in Weird/Fantasy Fiction.” Previously we cornered weird fantasy authors like John Fultz, Janeen Webb, Aliya Whiteley, and Richard Lee Byers. Today we hear from the legendary author and editor…

Read More Read More

Mythic Landscape: The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner

Comments 5 comments

Halfway through my recent reread of Alan Garner’s 1960 debut novel, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, it became clear to me that the true protagonist was the land, not the ostensible ones, sister and brother Susan and Colin. Alderley Edge, in Cheshire, England, is the name of both a village and a great sandstone cliff “six hundred feet high and three mile long.” For Garner there’s a connection between land and myth, artistically at least, that is deep. His depiction of a land…

Read More Read More

Future Treasures: The Beauty by Aliya Whiteley

Comments 1 comment

I don’t know about you lot, but I like my dystopian horror filled with cosmic weirdness, strange fungi, and terrifying tales told around post-apocalyptic campfires. Okay, that’s fairly specific. I blame the pre-release copy for Aliya Whiteley’s novella The Beauty, which has admittedly sparked my imagination. The Beauty was originally published in the UK in 2014 by Unsung Stories, where it was promptly nominated for the Shirley Jackson and Saboteur awards, and chosen by Adam Nevill as one of his favorite…

Read More Read More

Weird Tales Meets Planet Stories in Space Eldritch

Comments 7 comments

I stumbled on this little beauty today while browsing the latest Kindle releases on Amazon. The cover art by Carter Reid is spectacular, and the contents — seven original novelettes and novellas of Lovecraftian pulp space opera — look pretty darn promising too. Contributors include Huge and Nebula nominee Brad R. Torgersen, Schlock Mercenary-creator Howard Tayler, and Michael R. Collings (The Slab, The House Beyond the Hill). Here’s the complete TOC: Foreword, by Larry Correia “Arise Thou Niarlat From Thy…

Read More Read More

A Weird Fiction Kindle Story Giveaway

Comments 1 comment

Hello, Black Gate denizens. Mike Allen here of the Monstrous Posts on Monsters and the Clockwork Phoenix anthologies. John O’Neill has asked me to write you folks a follow up on how the Clockwork Phoenix 4 Kickstarter I told you about earlier this year turned out (SPOILER ALERT: it was a smashing success) and share tips on some of the tricks I learned. I’ve got something laden with all sorts of graphics that I’ll post for you later in the…

Read More Read More

DANGEROUS BEAUTY: The Kung Fu Fantasies of Zhang Yimou

Comments 16 comments

“Even without a weapon, the warrior can slay his enemy from a hundred paces. But the ultimate ideal is when the sword disappears altogether. The warrior embraces all around him. The desire to kill no longer exists. Only peace remains.” –The King of Qin, HERO Back in 2000 director Ang Lee reinvented the kung fu film (or “wuxia film”) with his Oscar-winning CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. Inspired by the great tradition of Chinese martial arts films, Lee brought solid storytelling,…

Read More Read More

Goth Chick News: 13 Questions for Artist and Dark Beauty Editor Topher Adam

Comments 0 Comment

Yes, even Goth Chicks sleep with something under their pillows. It started with a Deady Bear, then a vintage Rocky Horror Picture Show t-shirt and then a Living Dead Doll. But until now, it had never been a magazine. About a month ago, I became acquainted with Dark Beauty and fell instantly in love. Not in a Johnny-Depp-as-Jack-Sparrow kind of way, but in a David-Bowie-in-jodhpurs-with-a-riding-crop-in-Labyrinth kind of way. In other words, hopelessly. A little digging led me to artist extraordinaire and Editor…

Read More Read More

Weird Tales 356 Arrives

Comments 39 comments

The latest issue of the Grand Old Lady of dark fantasy, Weird Tales, arrived at the Black Gate rooftop headquarters last week. This is issue 356, Summer 2010, of a magazine that’s been published semi-regularly since 1923. This issue’s theme is “Uncanny Beauty: A celebration of the eerily sensuous.” Fittingly, it includes fiction from the eerily sensuous Catherynne M. Valente, as well as a tarot card riff on an eerily sensuous Lady Gaga video, written by the entirely sensuous Amal…

Read More Read More

Original Fiction: “THE WEIRD OF IRONSPELL” by John R. Fultz

Comments 4 comments

  “The Weird of Ironspell” by John R. Fultz Illustrations by Alex Sheikman ( CONCLUSION! ) 8. The Breaking of the Weird   His name was a legend in every kingdom of Arboria although some scholars argued that he had never existed. Ironspell was a myth, an allegory, a fireside yarn that grizzled storytellers traded for ale and roasted meat. Long after the War of Darkness had ended, long after the Death Plague was wiped from the continent, and decades…

Read More Read More

Original Fiction: “THE WEIRD OF IRONSPELL” by John R. Fultz

Comments 3 comments

  In the grand tradition of the heroic fantasy pulps comes “The Weird of Ironspell” — a serialized novella of original Sword-and-Sorcery adventure coming to you over the next few weeks. Catch a new self-contained chapter every Wednesday right here at blackgate.com. The saga continues…    “The Weird of Ironspell” by John R. Fultz Illustrations by Alex Sheikman    2. The Moon God’s Bride They marched out of the wasteland, where the bones of dead cities lay smothered beneath a sea…

Read More Read More