Ryan Harvey was the man to beat at Black Gate in January. He claimed three of the Top Ten articles — including our overall most popular post last month, a review of the new animated film Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters. Bob Byrne came in at #2 with his Conan pastiche review round-up, “By Crom: Some Conans are More Equal Than Others…” Fletcher Vredenburgh took third with a look at J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Children of Húrin. Derek Kunsken’s review of…
Bob Byrne ruled the charts last month, with no less than three articles in the December Top Ten — a new record. Well done Bob! (But you’re still not getting a new office.) Bob’s most popular piece was his report on the new Robert E. Howard pastiches coming in 2018, followed by a detailed look at the notorious takeover of gaming company SPI by its arch-rival TSR in 1982. His investigation of Heroic Signatures, a new venture to create digital properties based on…
Sword and Sorcery dominated the stage at Black Gate last month. The most popular topic in October was the new S&S magazine from industry pioneers Joseph Goodman and Howard Andrew Jones, Tales From the Magician’s Skull, which showed up twice in the Top Ten, first with a far-ranging interview with Joseph and Howard (and their undead overlord, the Talking Skull), followed by a report on the blockbuster Kickstarter that funded the first two issues. Gaming and game news were definitely popular as well….
The top articles at Black Gate in July and August were both features on Conan, and last month Bob Byrne managed to nab the top slot with his look at a strange mash-up of police procedural and sword & sorcery, the Conan tale “The God in the Bowl.” Conan was created by Robert E. Howard in the pages of Weird Tales in 1932; 85 years later, he’s still the most popular character among our readers. That’s durability. The second most popular article at…
Pirates in Hell (Heroes in Hell, Volume 20) Edited by Janet and Chris Morris Perseid Press. (456 pages, $22.40 in trade paperback, $8.99 in digital formats, April 10, 2017) Cover Design and Cover Art: Roy Mauritsen Book Design: Chris Morris Fifteen men on the Dead Man’s Chest Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! Drink and the devil had done for the rest Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! ― Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island Ahoy there! Well here we are — another…
The top article at Black Gate in December was Foz Meadows’ “Unempathic Bipeds of Failure,” a look at the relationship between fiction and politics, which was read over 4,000 times in a scant handful of days here, before moving to its permanent home at Amazing Stories. The second most popular blog post last month was Derek Kunsken’s enthusiastic film review for Star Wars: Rogue One, “I Am One With the Force and the Force Is With Me,” which I edited and…
If there was a popular topic at Black Gate last month, it was Jeffrey Talanian’s role playing game Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea. Gabe Dybing interviewed Jeffrey for us on November 11, and Bob Byrne wrote a brief feature on the runaway success of the Kickstarter campaign to fund a second edition of the rules — and both articles leaped into the Top Ten for the month. The number one post at Black Gate in November was our report on the…
The most widely-read article last month — by a wide margin — was Bob Byrne’s look at classic role playing, “Why I Went Old School — or Swords & Wizardry vs. Pathfinder.” In fact, Bob’s piece is the most popular feature we’ve had at Black Gate all year (with the exception of our May announcement that we declined a Hugo nomination). He’s posted three recent updates to it so far, re-capping his group’s exploits in Matt Finch’s Hall of Bones adventure module, so check…
Black Gate had 1.16 million page views in May, slightly more than our monthly average last year. We’ve gotten used to significant traffic increases year after year, so it’s actually something of a relief to have traffic stabilize for a bit. Nonetheless, we’re grateful to you, our readers, for all the time you spend with us each month, and we hope we keep things interesting for you. How did we keep things interesting last month? Our top story for May was Black Gate‘s second Hugo…
Good to see Star Trek is still enormously popular with our readers. The most widely read post at Black Gate last month was William I. Lengeman III’s review of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, the latest installment in his ongoing Star Trek Re-Watch (his review of ST III was #2 last month). Or maybe we’re just old. The most popular category last month was Vintage Treasures (that’s my favorite too!) When I get old enough, my eyesight will fade enough that I can’t…