A Political Thriller in a Gaslamp World: The Grand Illusion by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

A Political Thriller in a Gaslamp World: The Grand Illusion by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

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The Grand Illusion novels: Isolate, Councilor, and
Contrarian (Tor Books, 2021-2023). Covers by Chris McGrath

L. E. Modesitt Jr. is one of the most popular and prolific authors of modern fantasy. He’s written over 80 novels, including the long-running Saga of Recluce (22 books), The Imager Portfolio (12 books), the Corean Chronicles (8 books), the Spellsong Cycle (5 books), and the Ecolitan series (4 books).

His latest series is The Grand Illusion, in which he is “Masterfully blending gas lamp fantasy, mystery, and political thriller” (Booklist), and it’s the first set of books from Modesitt that have worked their way to the top of my TRB pile in a long time. The opening novel Isolate won wide acclaim — Publishers Weekly said it “skillfully melds mystery and supernatural elements [into] a taut thriller,” and Library Journal said “Anyone who likes to delve into the way worlds work will be riveted” — but these days I like to wait until the first three books are available before I make a serious commitment.

The third novel, Contrarian, arrived in hardcover from Tor on August 15, and I’m finally ready to settle into my big green chair and put myself in Modesitt’s hands.

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Goth Chick News: This Is Your Invitation to The Brimstone Club

Goth Chick News: This Is Your Invitation to The Brimstone Club

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If you’ve been coming here for a while, then you’re likely aware of my deep admiration for the musical duo of Edward Douglas and Gavin Goszka, known as Midnight Syndicate. In perusing the GCN articles which have featured them going back to 2009, I can see I often referred to Midnight Syndicate as my goth-boy-band crush, but I won’t apologize for fan-girling over moody musicians in black capes.

Beyond their aesthetic, it’s their talent for creating music to match your imagination that makes them fan favorites from Universal Studio’s Horror Nights to Cedar Point’s Halloweekends. To put it another way, Midnight Syndicate’s show is the only concert Black Gate photo Chris Z and I made a 12-hour round trip to see, and if you could imagine the two of us stuck in a car together for that long, then you know how great this music is.

So, it is a bit of an understatement to say I’m excited about their newest release, just in time for my favorite time of year.

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The Film That Almost Killed Disney Animation: The Black Cauldron

The Film That Almost Killed Disney Animation: The Black Cauldron

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The Black Cauldron (Disney, July 1985)

The Black Cauldron, an animated feature from Disney, was released on July 24th in 1985. It was one of a number of films I consulted on for the studio. At the time, it was purported to be the most expensive animated film ever made (though cheap by today’s standards). It had quite a turbulent history and almost killed off Disney animation entirely.

The film is based on two volumes of Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain series, a five-volume series of fantasy novels, aimed at the YA audience. Personally, I love these books. The story goes that Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, two of Disney’s “Nine Old Men,” recommended the books to Walt to adapt. Disney Studios acquired the rights back in 1971 and began adapting.

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Future Treasures: Cave 13 by Jonathan Maberry

Future Treasures: Cave 13 by Jonathan Maberry

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Cave 13 (St. Martin’s Griffin, August 29, 2023). Cover design by Rob Grom

Brandon Crilly introduced me to Jonathan Maberry’s Joe Ledger novels, with his enthusiastic review of the ninth volume in the series Dogs of War in 2017.

This series is about way more than its main protagonist, Joe Ledger, and is filled with a host of deeply-imagined heroes and villains… Every Joe Ledger novel features some sort of established horror premise – like vampires, zombies, and even Cthulhu – and gives it a mad science twist…

But amid the nonstop, Die Hard-esque action that inevitably occurs, there remains that core character development, which continues from several books previous, as Joe Ledger’s allies struggle to remember who they are, why they fight, and why they can win, no matter what odds they face. And with a touch akin to J.J. Abrams, Maberry slowly reveals some key mysteries that go back to the beginning of the series and which, I hope, will be continue to be explored in an eventual tenth book.

The latest installment Cave 13, published in trade paperback next week by St. Martin’s Griffin, is the third volume of spin-off series Rogue Team International, in which detective Joe Ledger leads a team of elite specialists to deal with global threats.

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Ten Pulp Things I Think I Think (August 2023)

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Ten Pulp Things I Think I Think (August 2023)

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“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep

(Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun)

Ten Things I Think I Think has become an occasional feature in my column here. I’m always up to my elbows in various reading, writing, gaming, TV/streaming, radio plays, and audiobooks.

So it’s probably no surprise I like the idea of picking one of those areas, and sharing my sorta-random thoughts on things. Similar to my What I’ve Been Watching/Reading posts. Because I like to use my column here at Black Gate to share things I like with folks, I’m usually pretty positive. But in talking about ten different topics, I’m bound to hit on some things I’m not as crazy about. So be it.

I wrapped up our Talking Tolkien series with a Tolkien-centric version a few weeks ago. It was fun. So, I figured why not do one for A (Black) Gat in the Hand as we get up to full steam.

Not making the list are recent items such as I re-watched a couple episodes of Powers Boothe’s Philip Marlowe series. It’s still really good. I also watched a few of Stacy Keach’s second-run as Mike Hammer. Those shows are my favorite version of Hammer, but  one or two at a time is enough. They seem a little cheesy – they didn’t age particularly well. But still fun to watch. Keach is my picture of Hammer.

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A Far Future Journey Across a Strange Earth: The Song of Phaid the Gambler (Phaid the Gambler/Citizen Phaid) by Mick Farren

A Far Future Journey Across a Strange Earth: The Song of Phaid the Gambler (Phaid the Gambler/Citizen Phaid) by Mick Farren

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The Song of Phaid the Gambler (New English Library, October 1981). Cover by Tim White

Mick Farren (1943-2013) was for a time a sure enough rock star, front man for the Deviants, a sort of proto-punk band in England in the late 1960s. He did a couple solo albums too, then turned to journalism, particularly for the important UK magazine New Musical Express, where he was one of the first to herald the arrival of the official punk movement. And he also began to write fiction, much of it SF — some two dozen novels in all.

The Song of Phaid the Gambler was published in the UK in 1981. It was split in two (sensibly enough, I think, for marketing reasons) for US publication, from Ace in 1986 and 1987 as Phaid the Gambler followed by Citizen Phaid. There are differences between the two versions — I suspect, though I’m not sure, primarily to smooth out the separation into two separate books. I read the US version.

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This is Hanuvar’s Moment: Howard Andrew Jones’ Lord of a Shattered Land

This is Hanuvar’s Moment: Howard Andrew Jones’ Lord of a Shattered Land

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Lord of a Shattered Land (Baen Books, August 1, 2023). Cover Art by Dave Seeley

From the beginning, Sword and Sorcery has been an existentialist literature of the outsider. The rogue, the mercenary, the outcast, the criminal: from Conan to Elric, Fafhrd to Corwin of Amber, Jirel of Joiry to Grimnir the Corpse-maker, the S&S protagonist finds themselves at odds with their society, confronted with aggressive meaninglessness and called upon to carve out their own meaning in a chaotic, ever-changing, and often hostile world. This allows them to critique their society, test its values, and even challenge its assumptions. It is an intriguing literary tradition that has been a creative sandbox for several ambitious literary artists.

But this is not how most readers vaguely familiar with the term understand the genre. Sword and Sorcery has a reputation for being puerile and violent male wish-fulfillment fantasy. This stereotype derives from several obscure causes. One major cause might be the 1960s and 70s “Clonan” (Conan + clone) type of Sword and Sorcery, an assembly of several barbarian warriors and their formulaic adventures inspired by the commercial success of the Lancer reprints of Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Cimmerian stories (beginning in 1966 and featuring the famous covers by Frank Frazetta). Though not entirely without entertainment value, this group of works features the adventures of Lin Carter’s “Thongor,” John Jakes’ “Brak the Barbarian,” Gardner F. Fox’s “Kyrik,” and many more.

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New Treasures: Loki’s Ring by Stina Leicht

New Treasures: Loki’s Ring by Stina Leicht

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Loki’s Ring (Saga Press, March 28, 2023). Cover by Tomer Hanuka

Stina Leicht’s previous novels include Persephone Station, And Blue Skies From Pain, and Cold Iron. Loki’s Ring is her first space opera, but I strongly suspect it won’t be her last. Publishers Weekly calls it “Thrilling… a riveting cocktail of high-stakes adventure, philosophical musing, complex family dynamics, and cloak-and-dagger intrigue,” and Locus Online proclaims it “really strong and engaging, sciency and full of adventure.”

Loki’s Tale is the story of Gita Chithra, captain of the Search and Rescue ship The Tempest, who receives a frantic distress call from Ri, the AI she raised like a daughter. Ri is trapped on Loki’s Ring, an alien-constructed world, and when Gita and her crew arrive they discover everyone in the vicinity has fallen victim to a highly contagious biomechanical agent from an illegal mining operation. Things quickly degenerate from there as Gita and her team find themselves up against horrors at every turn.

Mysterious contagions, artificial megastructures, competing corporate entities, shadowy government agencies, spunky AIs, and horrors in the dark of space — this one checks all my boxes. I’ve already cleared the weekend and got my snacks ready.

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Goth Chick News: The FAN EXPO Chicago Was Epic

Goth Chick News: The FAN EXPO Chicago Was Epic

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For the past 13 years, Black Gate photog Chris Z and I have been regulars at the Wizard World Chicago Comic Con, one of the largest conventions we cover each year. However, in August 2021 Wizard World announced they would be selling the convention events business to FAN EXPO HQ, making them the largest comic convention organization across the globe according to Newsarama. Schedule conflicts conspired against us in 2022, but this year we were excited to learn FAN EXPO HQ was extending us press passes so we could finally check out what had changed since the event was sold.

Before I tell you about the awesomeness of this four-day convention, causing widespread FOMO, I’ll let you know that FAN EXPO will be coming to thirteen cities in the US and Canada over the next year, before making its way back to Chicago next August; meaning if you’re in the US there’s likely an upcoming event near you. You can find all those details here.

Now let’s wade in.

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Deuces Wild

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Deuces Wild

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The Swordsman II (Hong Kong, 1992)

In our last Cinema of Swords article, we talked about sequels gone wrong, follow-up films to surprise hits that just went off the rails. But sometimes, at the other end of the spectrum, you get sequels done right, movies that take the strengths of the first film in a series and then build and improve on them. As an example of this, I don’t think we can do better than three wuxia films from the early ‘90s, each of which managed to incorporate the good qualities of its predecessor and then exceed them. And it’s no coincidence that all three of these films were produced by that eclectic polymath of Hong Kong cinema, Tsui Hark.

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