Mordicai Knode and Tim Callahan are making me look bad. I know, what else is new. But seriously, these two have taken on the project of a lifetime — reading every author in Gary Gygax’s famous Appendix N (all 29) and reporting back in great detail every week at Tor.com. I took on the project of a lazy Saturday afternoon: read their posts whenever I got around to it and report back here every two weeks or so. Sounded easy…
Linwood Vrooman Carter (1930-1988) was one of the heroes of my youth. In the decades since his death his reputation has wallowed in the aftermath of the Last Great Sword & Sorcery Boom. He helped start it, with the Conan books he and L. Sprague de Camp brought back into print, edited, and in many cases wrote, as with the Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series of works he edited and thus brought back into print. (Not adult fantasy as in sex,…
The Saturn Game was originally published in Analog in February, 1981. It was nominated for the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award, winning the latter. The Saturn Game is the second of three Anderson stories to be published in the Tor Doubles series after No Truce with Kings. In 1978, Andre Norton published the novel Quag Keep, widely considered to be the first representation of role playing games in fiction. Norton’s story had a role player fall into Gary Gygax’s…
Swordsmen in the Sky (Ace, 1964). Cover by Frank Frazetta Swordsmen in the Sky, edited by Donald Wollheim If our genre has a holy grail to find, this would be it. I read this collection as a kid. Found it in our local library. And loved every single story in there. Took me a while to find a copy as an adult but it’s one of my pride and joys.
The Strange (Saga Press, March 21, 2023). Cover uncredited I wish I could take credit for the headline of The Martian Chronicles Meet True Grit for Nathan Ballingrud’s terrific novel, but according to the author, Karen Jay Fowler came up with it. I hope she won’t mine me stealing it because it is as spot on as any description I could come up with. The more prosaic version is that The Strange is a Western riff on Ray Bradbury’s vision…
Dan Stout’s The Carter Archives: Titanshade, Titan Day, and Titan Song (DAW, 2019-21). Covers by Chris McGrath Whenever an author wraps up a trilogy, we bake a cake in the Black Gate offices. But what if it’s not actually, like, a trilogy? What if the third book is just a rest stop on a long and exciting journey toward five books? Or seven? Or, Wheel-of-Time like, a stupendous 12 volumes (or 14, or whatever the heck it is)?? If it’s…
The Magic Toyshop (Dell, 1969). Cover art by Michael Leonard The Magic Toyshop, first released in 1967, was Angela Carter’s second novel. She eventually published over a dozen novels and collections between 1966 and 1992, when she died of lung cancer at the much-too-young age of 51. Three decades later she’s still remembered as a feminist icon and master of magical realism; in 2008 The Times ranked her 10th in their list of “The 50 greatest British writers since 1945.”
The J. Lloyd Eaton Award was established in 1977 and initially was presented to the best critical science fiction book of the year. It was not presented in 1981, 1992, 1997, 1998, or 2000 and was put on hiatus after the 2001 awards were presented. When the award was started again in 2008, it was no longer given for a critical work, but rather for lifetime achievement. The award is presented at the annual Eaton Conference, held at the University…
By Joe Bonadonna This is an excerpt from The MechMen of Canis-9 by Joe Bonadonna. It is presented by Black Gate magazine. It appears with the permission of Joe Bonadonna, and may not be reproduced in whole or in part. All rights reserved. Copyright 2018 by Joe Bonadonna. This time out, Sergeants Seamus O’Hara, Claudia Akira, Fernando Cortez and a platoon of Marines are deployed to Canis-9 — Devoora, the Ocean Planet. Their mission: find seven indestructible robot warriors hidden…
It’s been a bit of a shock, even if a somewhat welcome one, to be done with Glen Cook after so many weeks. I’ve been so immersed in the world of the Black Company that it feels a little weird to be moving on. Fortunately, I was able to turn around and pick up the brand new collection containing all of Clifford Ball’s short stories. Who’s Clifford Ball, you ask? Well, let me tell you. Actually, let Dave Ritzlin tell…