It’s been more than a piece, heck, even more than a while, since I’ve done one of these. I’m glad to be back because there’s been some really good short fiction published in the last couple of months. I’m not going to get to everything, but I am going to get to the best — Heroic Fantasy Quarterly 37 and Tales From the Magician’s Skull No. 2. HFQ 37 has four stories and three poems. The continued use of evocative black…
Saturday, July 28, saw me arrive at the Hall Theatre early for a showing of the Japanese historical fantasy Laughing Under the Clouds, yet another manga adaptation. Following that, I’d head across the street to the J.A. De Sève Theatre, where I’d watch a short film showcase called Afromentum. It’d feature four short films by Black filmmakers from around the world — including an adaptation of Nnedi Okorafor’s short story “Hello, Moto.” Laughing Under the Clouds (Donten ni warau, 曇天に笑う)…
I had two movies to see on Friday, July 29. The first, perfectly fitting the small De Sève Theatre, was The Witch in the Window, a quiet character-centred horror film. The second was another live-action manga adaptation, Ajin: Demi-Human, a fast-paced explosion-oriented semi-super-hero story which fit the larger Hall Theatre as well as The Witch in the Window suited the De Sève. I had certain hopes for both, and in both cases those hopes were wildly exceeded. These are two…
Yesterday I reviewed three of the movies I saw on Monday, July 23. Today I’ve written up my notes on the post-film question-and-answer sessions with the director of all three, Shinsuke Sato. All of what follows comes from my handwritten notes, and so may contain errors that crept in due to my hearing or transcription skills. Further, Sato spoke in Japanese, which was translated into either English or French depending on what language the questioner used, and while my French…
The Fantasia International Film Festival is one of the largest genre film festivals in North America, typically drawing more than 100,000 viewers each year. Fantasia plays movies from around the world, across any number of genres: fantasy, science-fiction, horror, crime, western, and many more. Matthew David Surridge has covered the festival for us each year from 2014 on. Below is a list of Black Gate’s reviews from Fantasia: Fantasia 2021 Introduction and preview for Fantasia 2021 Beyond The Infinite Two…
The Immortal (1970) ABC Television TV Movie and 15 episodes, based on The Immortals by James Gunn. John Wayne’s real name was Marion Morrison. I know this because my father told me. Along with a hundred other small stories he told me while we watched television together. Whatever was on the screen would almost always prompt him to tell me something about the cast or the production or even, rarely and more precious because of it, what the particular story…
O long, long have I anti…cipated (yes, just like that) the sequel to Nicole Kornher-Stace’s Archivist Wasp. A book about ghosts and girls, ferocity and friendship, catastrophe and cataclysm and katabasis and a whole badass bunch of other alliterative nouns, Archivist Wasp published in 2015 by Big Mouth House, an imprint of Small Beer Press. So you see, that was ALMOST THREE WHOLE YEARS AGO! I’ve been WAITING and WAITING and WAAAAIIIITIIINNNGGG! But fear not. That time of endlessly unfulfilled appetite has not been wasted. I have not waited…
Beyond the Farthest Star is a stark work. It offers no illusions. There’s a dash of humor and some winking satire, but the overwhelming sensation is resignation to carnage.
As I’m sure you’ve figured out, I’m a huge fan of propping up and promoting other writers. Most of the time that has been spotlighting and reviewing new novels and short fiction, but today I present to you Archipelago, a serialized online adventure fantasy series jointly written by authors Charlotte Ashley, Andrew Leon Hudson and Kurt Hunt. This isn’t just serial fiction that you can read and enjoy – it’s collaborative and competitive, where the readers get the opportunity to…
And so we come to the end of M. John Harrison’s trilogy of novels set in the far, far future of our world. For In Viriconium (1982) Harrison drops almost all elements of heroic fantasy in presenting the story of the artist Ashlyme. Ashlyme’s effort to rescue another artist, the reclusive Audsley King, from a plague outbreak is set against the antics of two manic deities. Woven through the novel are characters and clues that tie it to the previous two, The Pastel City and…