Black Gate – Page 208 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

New Treasures: Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

Wednesday, November 11, 2020 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse (Saga Press, October 2020). Cover by John Picacio

Rebecca Roanhorse burst on the scene in 2018 with her debut novel Trail of Lightning. I remember pretty vividly because my own debut The Robots of Gotham was released the same month, and I watched in awe as Trail of Lightning outsold it by a comfortable margin — and then went on to be nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards, and won the Locus Award for Best First Novel. It was certainly humbling, but I’m still proud we were both part of the same June 2018 graduation class, and I’ve followed her career enthusiastically every since.

Her latest is Black Sun, the first book in the Between Earth and Sky trilogy, an epic of forbidden magic and celestial prophecy, set in an imaginary Pre-Columbian North America as it was before European explorers invaded. Here’s an excerpt from the review at Kirkus.

The winter solstice is coming, and the elite members of the sacred Sky Made clans in the city of Tova are preparing for a great celebration, led by Naranpa, the newly appointed Sun Priest. But unrest is brewing in Carrion Crow, one of the clans…. Meanwhile, a young sailor named Xiala has been outcast from her home and spends much of her time drowning her sorrows in alcohol in the city of Cuecola. Xiala is Teek, a heritage that brings with it some mysterious magical abilities and deep knowledge of seafaring but often attracts suspicion and fear. A strange nobleman hires Xiala to sail a ship from Cuecola to Tova. Her cargo? A single passenger, Serapio, a strange young man with an affinity for crows and a score to settle with the Sun Priest. Roanhorse’s fantasy world based on pre-Columbian cultures is rich, detailed, and expertly constructed… A beautifully crafted setting with complex character dynamics and layers of political intrigue? Perfection. Mark your calendars, this is the next big thing.

Black Sun was published by Saga Press on October 13, 2020. It is 454 pages, priced at $27.99 in hardcover and $11.99 in digital versions. The cover is by John Picacio. Listen to an audio excerpt or read the complete first chapter at the Simon & Schuster website.

See all our recent New Treasures here.

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: 3 Musketeers + 1 Long Nose

Wednesday, November 11, 2020 Lawrence Ellsworth Comments 2 comments

The Three Musketeers (1948)

When you say “French swashbuckler,” two names leap instantly to mind: d’Artagnan and Cyrano. Both were actual historical figures, but it’s through their fictional incarnations that they’re known around the world. Both d’Artagnan and Cyrano de Bergerac have been fictionalized repeatedly dating back to the 17^th century — zut alors, Cyrano even fictionalized himself! — but they’re overwhelmingly best known from two sources, d’Artagnan from Alexander Dumas’s The Three Musketeers and it sequels, and Cyrano de Bergerac from Edmond Rostand’s play of the same name. There have been several memorable screen versions of Rostand’s Cyrano, but none more so than the version reviewed below. The Three Musketeers, of course, is one of the greatest adventure novels ever written, and has been filmed for movies and TV dozens of times, with varying degrees of quality and fidelity to the source material. This week we’re looking at one of the best, and throwing in an oft-overlooked sequel as a bonus.

The Three Musketeers

Rating: *****
Origin: USA, 1948
Director: George Sidney
Source: Warner Bros. DVD

There were a lot of movie and TV adaptations of The Three Musketeers in the 20^th century, but three of them tower above all the others: the Fairbanks film from 1921, Richard Lester’s 1973 version, and, falling almost exactly in between them, MGM’s star-studded entry from 1948.

This is an interesting adaptation: it starts out as a typical Hollywood vehicle for star Gene Kelly, bright, colorful, charming, and light-hearted, a musical without songs, as d’Artagnan (Kelly) finds camaraderie with the musketeers and romance with Constance (June Allyson). But the top-billed actor at the time was actually Lana Turner, then at the height of her fame, and based on her roles as a femme fatale in films noir, she was cast as the wicked Milady de Winter. Now Milady appears mostly in the second half of Dumas’s novel, so to give Turner enough screen time, the movie races through the Affair of the Diamond Studs in its first hour, enabling it to spend its second hour on the schemes of Milady.

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Vintage Treasures: The Trail of Cthulhu by August Derleth

Tuesday, November 10, 2020 John ONeill Comments 15 comments

The Trail of Cthulhu by August Derleth (Ballantine, 1976). Cover by Murray Tinkelman

August Derleth is revered among modern fans chiefly for his singular accomplishment: founding Arkham House to publish H.P. Lovecraft. The fact that Lovecraft, who remained obscure throughout his life and was published solely in low-circulation pulp magazines like Weird Tales, is remembered at all is arguably due to the tireless efforts of Derleth and his fellow editors, who reprinted Lovecraft in quality hardcover editions and brought his work to a wider audience.

Derleth was also a prolific writer, and here his reputation is less steller. He chiefly wrote what we’d call Lovecraft fan fiction today, and his adventure-themed tales were often very far removed from the cosmic horror tone of his idol. Perhaps his most popular story cycle was The Trail of Cthulhu, a series of interconnected stories that chronicle the heroic struggles of Laban Shrewsbury and his associates against the Great Old Ones, especially Cthulhu. Perry Lake at Goodreads has a fine (and very concise) review.

Derleth never really understood Lovecraft’s mythos, with a cold, unfeeling universe and humanity as an afterthought. But Derleth did understand a derring-do adventure with good guys versus bad guys, and that’s exactly what he wrote here. Laban Shrewsbury is probably the only real hero in the Mythos and in him we see the terrible costs of staring into the Void. This book is a treat for all fans of the Cthulhu Mythos.

Hugo Negron offers a counterpoint that’s a little harsher, but equally on target I think.

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Adding to My List of Obsessions: The Untamed

Tuesday, November 10, 2020 S.M. Carrière Comments 3 comments

I have a new obsession. I seem to be switching obsessions a lot, but the truth is I’m not switching anything at all. I’m simply adding. This time around, I’m absolutely infatuated with a show on Netflix that I’m a little mad took me so long to check out. That show is The Untamed, a 2017 live-action adaptation of the Chinese fantasy novel Mo Dao Zu Shi (Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation is the English title) by author Mo Xiang Tong Xiu. The novel is not yet officially translated into English, but I’m desperate for it to be. I want this thing on my shelf. Like, yesterday. Granted, since it’s a web novel, it’s not likely to be on anyone’s actual shelf, but lordy do I want this book as a real thing in my hands.

Anyway, the show is wonderful. I understand that, from my very basic research from this post, that the live-action adaptation is quite divergent from the novel, so I’m content to watch the show while waiting for that official English translation (there are unofficial online translations, but I would like to put money into the hands of the author, you know?), knowing that the two are different enough that my enjoyment of the novel won’t be impacted by having watched the adaptation first. Also, apparently this adaptation is only one of many, and so I might have to go and find other adaptations.

The story itself is a multi-layered fantasy epic drama with grand themes of belonging, family, clan rivalry, justice and love. Centering around Wei Wuxian, also known as Wei Ying or the Yiling Patriarch, an orphaned child who was adopted by his father’s master’s family and is considered a sibling of the master’s two children Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli, the story is often funny, and terribly sweet, and also very, very dark.

It doesn’t pull punches, killing many folks, straining and breaking relationships, and turning heroes into villains. Everything is difficult, and you can understand why people act the way they do, calling into question what you might do if you were caught in these positions. Essentially, it’s my favorite kind of story. Give me the darkness. Give me unsure characters and well-meaning people who unwittingly make bad choices. Give me consequence and heartache and despair. Those alone, however, do not make this one of my recent favorites. What really makes it for me is the thread of a deep abiding love that moves like gossamer throughout the whole piece; a glittering filament of hope that grabs a hold of the heart and doesn’t let go.

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Mutants and the End of Days: Mutant Year Zero

Monday, November 9, 2020 Patrick Kanouse Comments 4 comments

The premise of Mutant: Year Zero is simple. You play a mutant (“human but more than human”) living amongst the wreckage and devastation humanity left behind and searching for something called Eden, but the world is full of dangers, ruins, and other mutants. You live in the Ark, the only safe haven. Even it is struggling. A person simply known as the Elder — the only person above the age of 25 – is declining in health. Factions in the Ark are vying for a place in the post-Elder Ark. More importantly, supplies are dwindling. Food. Water. Even Mutants. No one has been born in the Ark.

To provide the Ark the precious resources needed to survive, some brave (or foolhardy) mutants explore beyond the Ark’s protective walls and out into the Zone. Rare artifacts of unknown purpose can be found. The Stalkers, as they are called, bring back valuable items, scrap, clean water, and tales of a better place, Eden. If they come back that is. If they survive the monsters, the Rot, and any number of untold disasters.

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: James Lee Burke’s Cajun Hardboiled

Monday, November 9, 2020 Bob Byrne Comments 14 comments

Burke_JonesFrenchPoster — There was no American release for ‘In the Electric Mist.’ 90% of the world-wide gross came from France, where Bertrand Tavernier is well-respected.

Today, I’m going to write about James Lee Burke and Dave Robicheaux. It’s not going to be like my look at Tony Hillerman and his Navajo Tribal Police series, where re-read the first nine books and dug into his autobiography. This column is due in about 36 hours. But I put Burke back on my radar Friday night, and I’m glad I revisited him.

Two days after my birthday in 1987 (giving you the opportunity to do some research, find the date, and get me a birthday gift in 2021…), Burke’s first Dave Robicheaux novel, The Neon Rain, came out. He had already written a few books, in sort of the ‘Americana’ genre. The year before, The Lost Get-Back Boogie had given indications of what was coming. If you haven’t read that latter book, but you’ve read Burke, give it a try. I think you’ll like it.

Robicheaux is an alcoholic ex-cop, who runs a charter-fishing and boat shop in New Iberia parish (county), Louisiana. His best friend, another ex-cop named Cletus Purcell (who is a train wreck and a wrecking crew rolled into one) is a series regular. Robicheaux mostly just wants to be left alone with his wife and adopted daughter, but it never works out that way. And while he’s more than willing to go outside of the law, he’s an honorable guy.

There have been twenty-three books in the series. I’ve read the first twelve. I will read all of them, I just get sidelined and am always reading something else. I believe that Burke is probably the best hardboiled writer of the Post-Classic Era. I’ve read Elmore Leonard, and I know Ross MacDonald, and I’d put in myself a plug for the excellent Joe Gores. But before moving on to a movie adaptation, I’m just going to say that Burke is a phenomenal writer. His prose – especially in the latter books – is wonderful. It’s almost poetic in its imagery. And his books are violent, and there is evil in them. But Burke never glorifies evil.

Okay – Last week, I was reading a Cormac Mac Art book by Andrew J. Offutt. And it was the best sword and sorcery I’ve read in some years. I was also reading a Jack Higgins book. I have about forty of them, and I was tackling this one for the first time. And I was reading part of a book on famous Victorians as research for a story. And…re-reading a Solar Pons story for an article.

But as I was loading up a Psych re-watch (that was last week’s topic, you’ll recall), I saw that Prime has In the Electric Mist. I had watched that some years before, and it didn’t do much for me. It was based on the sixth novel in the series; In the Electric Mist with the Confederate Dead.

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Uncover the Frozen Secrets of the Forbidden Lands in The Bitter Reach from Free League

Sunday, November 8, 2020 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Forbidden Lands The Bitter Reach-back-small

The Bitter Reach by Free League, an expansion for the Forbidden Lands RPG

Last year at the Spring 2019 Games Plus Auction (when it was still legal to go to such things), I was supposed to be saving all my pennies for auction bargains. But before I even reached my seat, a new games on the shelves caught my eye: Forbidden Lands, a boxed RPG developed by Swedish development house Free League, and distributed in the US by Modiphius. Here’s what I said about it at the time:

What drew me to Forbidden Lands? Truthfully it was the cover art by Simon Stålenhag, and the impressively sized (and heavy!) box. Once I picked it up however, it was the back-cover text that fired my imagination.

In this open-world survival roleplaying game, you’re not heroes sent on missions dictated by others — instead, you are raiders and rogues bent on making your own mark on a cursed world. You will discover lost tombs, fight terrible monsters, wander the wild lands and, if you live long enough, build your own stronghold to defend.

Last thing I need is another fantasy RPG crowding my shelves, especially one in a generic fantasy setting. But the evocative text sold me on the promise of a dark world far-removed from routine high fantasy tropes, and characters that sounded a lot closer to sword & sorcery archetypes than I’m used to. The price on the box was $49.99, and I decided to take a chance.

Well, I’m very glad I did. Forbidden Lands proved to be one of the most exciting and successful new role playing games of 2019, and the early expansions looked very promising. So when I returned to Games Plus for Free RPG Day in July and found a brand new expansion, The Bitter Reach — a handsome and imposing 312-page hardcover — I snatched it up immediately.

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Corum and Me: The Redemption of the Scarlet Robes

Sunday, November 8, 2020 Steven H Silver Comments 6 comments

The Chronicles of Corum, Berkley Medallion (1983, artist uncredited) and Grafton (1987, Mark Salwowski)

In late 2017 I published an article at Black Gate called Elric and Me, in which I discussed revisiting Michael Moorcock’s most famous creation. Three years later, I’ve decided to revisit another of his creations, Corum Jhaelen Irsei, the Prince of the Scarlet Robe. Recently I published the first half of the essay, Corum and Me: The Disappointment of the Swords, which discussed my reaction to the first trilogy of Corum novels, frequently called The Swords Trilogy and comprised of The Knight of the Swords, The Queen of the Swords, and The King of the Swords. I came away from the trilogy disappointed and not looking forward to the follow-up trilogy, for my fond memories of Corum were rooted in the first trilogy. (Greg Mele presented a thoughtful counter argument here, in In Defense of Corum, Elric’s Brother-from-a-Vadhagh-Mother.)

The second trilogy, The Chronicles of Corum, including the novels The Bull and the Spear, The Oak and the Ram, and The Sword and the Stallion, is set centuries after the first. It opens several decades after The King of the Swords. Corum’s love, the Margravine Rhalina, has died and he is living an empty existence, occasionally kept company by his companion Jhary-a-Conal.

Suffering from dreams in which people are calling him, he discusses the situation with Jhary-a-Conal, who has a greater than typical understanding of the way the multiverse works. Jhary-a-Conal explains that Corum is being summoned by Rhalina’s distant descendants who are in need of a hero. Their calls are getting weaker as Corum continues to ignore them but if he chooses to go to their aid, it is not too late. Being a hero and an aspect of the Champion Eternal, Corum allows himself to be dragged into his future.

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Uncanny X-Men, Part 22: 1978 – The Savage Land, Japan and Psionic Throwback Thursday!

Saturday, November 7, 2020 Derek Kunsken Comments 3 comments

screenshot_20201004__teZ45

Welcome to my increasingly Quixotic reread of the Uncanny X-Men. I started in 1963 and am now in 1978, and in my favorite period, the legendary Claremont/Byrne/Austin run. In this installment, I’m covering Uncanny X-Men #115 – 119. It’s a special run for me. As a kid, issues #116 and #118 were among the earliest great trades I’d made, but as with all filling of back issues, I didn’t get the in-between stories until years later. But in those days, I suppose we just lived with the chapters we had and filled in the gaps with our imaginations.

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On a Mission to Disable a Gigantic Robot: Tangent Online on “The Ambient Intelligence” by Todd McAulty

Saturday, November 7, 2020 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

It’s been a while since I’ve been reviewed at Tangent Online, so it was a delight to find a review of my Lightspeed story “The Ambient Intelligence,” written by Tara Grimravn.

Due to a mysterious government program called the Deep Temple Project, the water in Lake Michigan has been steadily boiling away. Its shoreline is now little more than a series of mudflats and interconnected stagnant pools that go on for at least a mile before one reaches the water. Barry Simcoe is on a mission by AGRT, an international peacekeeping organization, to disable a gigantic robot destroying large portions of Chicago and killing its citizens. According to his friend Zircon Border, it was spotted coming and going from the exposed remains of an old shipwreck. In order to do this, Simcoe must navigate the treacherous bog that is now the lakebed and try to disable his opponent before it can kill him.

McAulty’s SF story is a great read. It takes a little while to get to the more exciting bits, but that’s necessary to give the reader enough background to understand what’s happening and why. The ending doesn’t disappoint either. The characters are quite well-done, and I especially liked the interactions between Simcoe and True Pacific. Give this one a read!

“The Ambient Intelligence” appeared last month in Lightspeed magazine, and it’s free to read online. It’s published under the name Todd McAulty, the name all my stories appeared under in Black Gate magazine all those years ago. It’s the story of Canadian Barry Simcoe and his robot friend Zircon Border, who face off against a mysterious 60-ton killer robot hiding in a shipwreck on the shores of Lake Michigan… one that’s hiding a very big secret. It shares a setting (and two characters) with my debut novel The Robots of Gotham, but it’s not otherwise related to that book, and stands completely on its own.

Read “The Ambient Intelligence” in its entirety here. And if you enjoy it, why not help support Lightspeed with a subscription? Six-months subs will run you just $17.94, for more than 50 stories — a whopping 350,000 words of fiction. It’s one of the true bargains in the field.