Black Gate – Page 234 – Adventures in Fantasy Literature

Andrew Liptak on 15 New Science Fiction and Fantasy Books to Check Out in May

Friday, May 29, 2020 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

I don’t know where John DeNardo vanished to this month. Ever since The Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog shut down, taking their excellent monthly summary with tbem, I’ve grown to rely on John’s monthly SF book survey at Kirkus Reviews pretty heavily. It didn’t appear in May — but fortunately Andrew Liptak at Polygon came through, so I don’t have to wrap up the month dangerously uninformed. What does Andrew recommend for us in May? Let’s have a look.

Westside Saints by W.M Akers (Harper Voyager, 304 pages, $27.99 hardcover/$14.99 digital, May 5, 2020)

W.M. Akers follows up his debut novel Westside with Westside Saints, a mystery set in an alternate, Jazz-era New York City. The city has been split into two zones, where the east side is a prosperous metropolis and the west an overgrown wasteland. In Westside, Akers introduced readers to Gilda Carr, a detective who specializes in “small mysteries,” and who ended up trying to solve the mystery of her missing father.

In this new adventure, Carr stumbles upon a new mystery when she’s hired by a group of street preachers from the Electric Church to recover the severed finger of a lost saint. They believe that this digit will bring about a resurrection, and Carr drawn in when her dead mother unexpectedly returns…

We covered the first book in the series, Westside, right here almost exactly a year ago. Read an excerpt from Westside Saints here.

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Goth Chick News: The Shining Opera. And No, I’m Not Joking…

Thursday, May 28, 2020 Sue Granquist Comments 0 Comment

As much as I love the movie The Shining, I never thought I’d ever see that title in the same sentence with the word ‘opera;’ and yet here we are.

Turns out the Minnesota Opera, located in Minneapolis, has become known for showcasing rare and unusual operas. For instance, they’ve performed operatic versions of Where the Wild Things Are, Frankenstein, and The Handmaid’s Tale. They’ve even done one called Nixon in China. Admittedly, I’m not much of an opera fan. However, I understand there are those aficionados who make it a hobby of ‘collecting’ performances of strange operas and if this happens to be your thing, keep reading.

The Minnesota Opera’s head musical director, Eric Simonson and the artistic director Dale Johnson, came up with the idea to turn Stephen King’s novel into opera. They contacted Pulitzer Prize winning composer Paul Moravec, and Grammy Award winning lyricist Mark Campbell, and three years later The Shining opera premiered at the Ordway Music Theater in May 2016.

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Magical Odes and Mysterious Trilogies: The Poet King by Ilana C. Myer

Wednesday, May 27, 2020 John ONeill Comments 0 Comment

Covers by Stephan Martiniere

Every time a fantasy trilogy wraps up, we bake a cake in the Black Gate offices. (As you can imagine, our diet consists of a lot of cake. Man, we need a gym.)

Ilana C. Myer’s new novel The Poet King brings to a close the trilogy that began with Last Song Before Night. One of the reasons I love this series is all the mystery. Like, what’s the trilogy called, exactly? Amazon refers to it as the Tower of the Winds series. Unless you’re buying the Kindle version, in which case it’s called The Harp and Ring Sequence. The Internet Science Fiction database clears the issue right up by calling it, definitively, Last Song Before Night / The Harp and the Ring, and then listing all the books in the wrong order.

Well, no one said the life of a science fiction book blogger would be easy. Let’s move on the the Publishers Weekly review, because at least that’s straightforward. Hopefully. Here’s an excerpt; you can judge for yourself.

Myer concludes the Harp and Ring Sequence (after Fire Dance) with this opulent, ambitious fantasy. Political upheaval in Kahishi leads to Elissan Diar declaring himself the land’s first Poet King, capable of weaving magic into his odes. Embittered Lady Rianna Gelvan plots to kill Elissan before he takes the throne… Myer’s intricately braided plot strands culminate in a clash of supernatural Otherworld powers. Those new to the series will have no trouble connecting with the well-drawn protagonists but may struggle to untangle the history of this rich universe which draws from a welter of world mythologies. Still, readers will be blown away by the lush, lyrical prose and epic scale of this novel.

We covered the previous books in the series here and here. The Poet King was published by Tor Books on March 24, 2020. It is 320 pages, priced at $29.99 in hardcover and $14.99 in digital formats. The cover is by Stephan Martiniere. Read Howard Andrew Jones’ feature interview with Ilana here.

See all our coverage of the best new fantasy series here.

Vanguard Dream! A Sampling of Bushiroad Media, Part II

Wednesday, May 27, 2020 John MacMaster Comments 0 Comment

RAISE A SUILEN

Part I of this 3-part survey was an introductory overview of the Bushiroad titles Cardfight!! Vanguard and BanG Dream!, and a look at how how the band Roselia was a feature of both projects. This time we examine how the newer female rock group RAISE A SUILEN is involved in both as well…

RAISE A SUILEN, the newer of the main girl-groups from the BanG Dream! universe, has a style of heavy keyboard-laden rock similar to Roselia, the band they consider their main rival. They also have some very distinct differences (aside from just being a completely separate band, with their own specific songs, I mean). They are not only newer, but their whole means of coming into existence was substantially different.

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Adventure and Tragedy on a Far Future Earth: Keith West on Zothique by Clark Ashton Smith

Tuesday, May 26, 2020 John ONeill Comments 4 comments

Zothique by Clark Ashton Smith. Ballantine Adult Fantasy #16, 1976. Cover by George Barr

Some years back Keith West wrote a series of articles for Black Gate on the legendary Ballantine Adult Fantasy series edited by Lin Carter. In fifteen pieces between 2013-2015 Keith covered the first fourteen or so titles, including The Blue Star by Fletcher Pratt, The King of Elfland’s Daughter by Lord Dunsany, and The Doom that Came to Sarnath by H. P. Lovecraft. Yesterday I was delighted to see that Keith picked up the reins again at his own blog, Adventures Fantastic, to review the 16th book in the series: Zothique by Clark Ashton Smith. Here’s a taste.

Zothique was the first of four collections of Clark Ashton Smith’s short fiction that appeared in the BAF series. The wrap-around cover is by George Barr. (One of the best things about this line of books was their covers.)… Zothique is the last continent on a far future Earth in which much science and history has been forgotten, and magic has returned. If this reminds you of Jack Vance’s Dying Earth, keep in mind Smith did it first. Some of the stories are better than others, but all are well-done. Here are a few of my favorites.

“Xeethra” tells the tale of a young man who wanders into a magical vale, and when he returns he travels to the far side of the continent, where he makes a bargain that ultimately brings him sorrow.

In “The Isle of the Necromancers,” a man is searching for his lover, who has been kidnapped by slave traders. When his ship is caught in a current, he finds himself on an island of necromancers. And then things get interesting…

“The Dark Eidolon” tells the story of an abused beggar who returns years later to seek revenge on the prince who injured him. This is a close second for my favorite story in the book. There are passing references to Hyperborea and Poseidonis, two other story cycles Smith wrote that were collected in the second and third volumes of Smith’s stories in the BAF series. Shucky darn, I guess I’m going to have to read those, too. How awful.

Check out the whole thing here, and Keith’s previous articles for BG here. While you’re at his website, leave a comment encouraging Keith to keep going! I’d love to read his thoughts on all 65 books in the set.

Future Treasures: The Ghosts of Sherwood and The Heirs of Locksley by Carrie Vaughn

Tuesday, May 26, 2020 John ONeill Comments 3 comments

The Ghosts of Sherwood and back cover, and The Heirs of Locksley. Tor.com, June and August 2020

Carrie Vaughn is the author of the bestselling Kitty Norville urban fantasy series, the superhero saga After the Golden Age, The Bannerless Saga from John Joseph Adams Books, and Martians Abroad. Her latest, The Ghosts of Sherwood, arrives in two weeks and kicks off a new series of adventure novellas from Tor.com. The second installment, The Heirs of Locksley, follows in just two months.

I don’t know about you lot, but I’m always open to a quality retelling/reinterpretation of the Robin Hood myth. Publishers Weekly raved about the first one; always a good sign. Here’s an excerpt.

Vaughn (the Kitty Norville Series) turns her formidable talents to the legend of Robin Hood in this impeccable novella and series launch. When Robin of Loxley learned of the death of heroic King Richard, he reluctantly swore loyalty to Richard’s wicked brother, King John. Though the decision caused tension among Robin’s former merry band, it enabled Robin and his beloved wife, Marian, to settle down and raise their children in peace. But when a band of rogues kidnap the three Locksley children, the aging Robin and Marian brave Sherwood Forest once again, reuniting with old friends as they confront a new threat… Vaughn’s masterful worldbuilding and lovable cast promise more good things to come in future adventures.

Here’s all the deets.

The Ghosts of Sherwood (104 pages, $12.99 trade paperback/$3.99 digital, June 9, 2020)
The Heirs of Locksley (128 pages, $13.99 trade paperback/$3.99 digital, August 4, 2020)

See all our coverage of the best upcoming fantasy books here.

The Mechanics of a Post-Apocalyptic World: Degenesis Rebirth and KatharSys

Monday, May 25, 2020 Patrick Kanouse Comments 2 comments

Degenesis Rebirth
Six More Vodka

In early January, I was at my local game shop (Hero’s Emporium) chatting with a clerk. I was there to run a game and was awaiting the players to show up. As gamers do, we talked about all the games we wanted to run, and he brought up Degenesis Rebirth. I scratched my head. “What is this you speak of?” He found an online trailer (and another). I then found their website (now replaced).

You may recall that in late 2019, Black Gate published a couple of articles (encountering it at Gen Con and discussing the setting) about the game they discovered at Gen Con. Those articles dive into the stupendous design and thought of this game by a German company called Six More Vodka. I will simply add that these are some of the most gorgeous RPG books ever created with one of the most interesting and thorough settings, and like E.E. Knight, I have been obsessing over them. Six More Vodka recently relaunched their website dedicated to the game with a ton of short fiction and setting information and — everything in digital format for free. Free. FREE. Did I say, “Free”?

Set in a world centuries after a series of asteroid collisions with Earth, Degenesis Rebirth’s games take place in a post-apocalyptic world. The asteroids carried (or did their destruction and opening up of the Earth allow something to escape?) an extraterrestrial substance — spores, etc. — that infect the land and people, twisting both to unrecognizable and dangerous new things. This infection upon the land and people was rightly called Sepsis. As Europe and Africa recovered and adapted, a number of cultures and societies (called cults) have established or compete for dominance.

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Looking for a Heist Show? Lemme Tell You About ‘Leverage’

Monday, May 25, 2020 Bob Byrne Comments 7 comments

I recently rewatched most of the episodes of Leverage, which streams 24/7 on a Pluto TV channel. I had watched every episode during the initial run on TNT, from 2008 through 2012. It’s said to bear a strong similarity to a British show called Hustle, which aired from 2004 through 2012, though I’ve not seen the latter. Leverage is a throwback to the classic caper/heist movies of the sixties and seventies. If you like Mission Impossible, or Ocean’s Eleven – or even The Rockford Files, for a feel good tone – this is your kind of show, developed by Dean Devlin. Devlin wrote the screenplay for the Will Smith smash, Independence Day.

Timothy Hutton, who I’ve written about as Archie Goodwin in A&E’s A Nero Wolfe Mystery, is the show’s star, though it’s as ensemble-centric as you’re likely to find. Nathan Ford had been the best insurance investigator in the business (maybe Johnny Dollar trained him), but then the mega-company he worked for refused experimental treatment for his critically ill son. When the son died, Nate went off the rails. Job, marriage, everything: he becomes an unemployed alcoholic.

In The Nigerian Job (the pilot), the chance to get back at his former employer draws Nate to team up with three thieves he had pursued before. They form a team to retrieve some stolen airplane plans which had been stolen in the first place. The con goes awry when the client, played by the excellent Saul Rubinek (another Nero Wolfe regular), double crosses the team. Nate adds a fourth member to the team, plans a new con, and they take down the client, for a satisfactory ending. In episode two, The Homecoming Job, a soldier wounded in Iraq comes to Nate for help. Nate summons the team from around the world for another job, and Leverage Consulting & Associates is born.

Nathan is represented as an honest man, who knows all the ins and outs of thieves. Which makes him the perfect head for the team. Dungeons and Dragons players know that a well-rounded party is of great benefit. Computer-generated parties often give you a fighter, a thief, a magic user and a cleric of some sort. That’s so the party has the myriad of skills required for different demands. The Leverage team is built on the same principle.

Sophie Deveraux, played by Gina Bellman, is a grifter. She was the late addition to the team. As an attractive female who is also an actress (in the role), she is an asset to any con. She also has the strongest emotional ties to Nate as the series progresses, and is the only one who can get through to him when despair and his recurring alcoholism come into play. She becomes Nate’s voice of reason, though she’s often unsuccessful at it. Bellman had starred in the British show, Coupling.

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The Art of Author Branding: The Ace Robert Silverberg

Sunday, May 24, 2020 John ONeill Comments 32 comments

The Ace Robert Silverberg: skewed titles and unclutterd art. The Seed of Earth, The Silent Invaders, Recalled to Life,
Next Stop the Stars, Collision Course and Stepsons of Terra. All from 1977. Covers by Don Punchatz

If you cruised the bookstore and supermarket racks in the 70s and 80s for science fiction paperbacks, Robert Silverberg was everywhere. I mean, everywhere. It wasn’t just that he was enormously productive — that was certainly true. But his books remained in print, or were returned to print, countless times by different publishers.

This was the era when agents would package up backlists by top writers en masse, selling the rights to multiple novels, and publishers would release them virtually simultaneously, usually with the same cover artist. If you had a popular novel — and Silverberg had many — a diligent agent could package and re-package it many times. That’s how Silverberg’s Hawksbill Station was released by Doubleday, The Science Fiction Book Club, Avon, Tandem, Berkley, Star, Warner Books, Tor, and many others between 1968 and 1990, just to pick one example.

The 1977 paperback edition of Robert Silverberg’s Collision Course was one of the first science fiction books I bought (the other was Star Trek 2, by James Blish). Mark Kelly reviewed it for us here last month, calling it “a fascinating, ordinary 1950s science fiction novel.” The mix of far-flung space adventure and galactic intrigue was perfectly pitched for a 13-year old however, and I loved it. Naturally I returned to the bookstore to find more in the same vein, and lo and behold, I did: five more Robert Silverberg novels, cleverly packaged by Ace Books to capitalize on the natural brand loyalty of young SF fans (see above).

This practice of bundling authors, and creating custom cover designs for each, was by no means unique to science fiction, of course. But if you’re a student of SF art there’s an enormous amount to learn by examining the visual language built up around the most popular SF authors in the 70s and 80s, and the ways editors and Art Directors at the major publishers used that language to draw in readers with familiar images and themes, and simultaneously differentiate themselves from the competition on overcrowded paperback racks.

There are countless examples, of course. But for our purposes, I’m going to single out Robert Silverberg, mostly because he’s the one I think of when I think of author branding. Well, Silverberg and Larry Niven (whom we’ll get to in a minute).

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Uncanny X-Men, Part 11: Storm, the FF and Phoenix in John Byrne’s The Hidden Years

Sunday, May 24, 2020 Derek Kunsken Comments 0 Comment

Welcome to my 11th installment of my epic rereading of the X-Men, starting in 1963. I say that like it’s a big thing I’ve done, but to put things in perspective, I’ve done 10 posts before this and I haven’t even gotten to Giant-Sized X-Men #1 yet! Partly for that reason and partly because there are some swings and some misses in X-Men: The Hidden Years, and I really want to get back to the Bronze Age appearances of the X-Men.

Let me start with some of the negatives with X-Men: The Hidden Years. I don’t start here to scare anyone off. I think the things that don’t work are generalized problems with this series and are also certainly not fatal. X-Men: The Hidden Years was in fact selling well and was only cancelled at 22 issues because Marvel saw it had too many X-Men books at the same time and needed to cut one.

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