Search Results for: Literary Wonder

Art of the Genre: Top 10 Literary Sci-Fi/Fantasy Covers of the 1970s

I was born in 1971, which makes me old, but not too old, at least in my mind. Although I was indeed a living creature on this planet during the bulk of the 1970s I didn’t really have much conscious thought that was dedicated to anything resembling fiction. Sure, I saw Star Wars at the local cinema, I had the action figures, but that was about as close to anything literary as I got, the bulk of my time sucked…

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American Fabulation, Literary Fantasy, and The Kingdom of Ohio

How to describe Matthew Flaming’s book The Kingdom of Ohio? Well, at least it’s a good story. (Of course I’d have to say that, wouldn’t I? But really: it is.) It’s a story about conspiracies and struggles to reshape the world; about secret wars between men like J.P. Morgan, Thomas Edison, and Nikola Tesla. It is about one of the strangest and least-known mysteries of American history: the existence and disappearance of the Lost Kingdom of Ohio. It is about…

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Vintage Treasures: Poseidonis by Clark Ashton Smith

Poseidonis (Ballantine Adult Fantasy #59, July 1973). Cover by Gervasio Gallardo I’ve been collecting Clark Ashton Smith recently, and I keep coming back to the wonderful Ballantine Adult Fantasy editions edited by Lin Carter in the early 70s. It’s not nostalgia (well, maybe it’s a little nostalgia). And it’s certainly not that the stories aren’t available in other editions — Smith’s work has been annotated and collected by more than half a dozen publishers this century alone, including Night Shade,…

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Vintage Treasures: The City of the Singing Flame by Clark Ashton Smith

The City of the Singing Flame (Timescape, 1981). Cover by Rowena Morrill We’ve written a lot about Clark Ashton Smith at Black Gate. Like, a lot. Over two dozen articles over the last decade or so by my count, by many of our top writers, including Brian Murphy, Matthew David Surridge, Fletcher Vredenburgh, Thomas Parker, James Maliszewski, M Harold Page, Steven H Silver, John R. Fultz — and especially Ryan Harvey, who’s penned a third of our coverage all on…

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The Importance of Good Fantasy Art

Art by Frank Frazetta, Michael Whelan, and Jeffrey Catherine Jones An adventure tale isn’t good just because it features a bare-chested hero and a sword, and neither is a painting. Stories and art are successful because they are created by talented people who have devoted long hours (usually 10,000 or more) to educate themselves about their field and develop the proper skills and style to express that talent. And the presentation of that talent is absolutely vital to the success of the…

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Sword-and-Sorcery and the Problem of Genre

Cover by Tom Barber Among the many challenges I had when I sat down to write Flame and Crimson: A History of Sword-and-Sorcery was the problem of genre itself. Many of the genres we know, and love, and live in — mystery, horror, historical fiction — are old, in a relative sense, culturally ubiquitous, and therefore intensely familiar. We’ve enjoyed them for so long that we typically don’t bother to question who set them down, or when, or why. Their…

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The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in March

The most popular topic at Black Gate last month was the Gary Con gaming convention in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, Gary Gygax’s home town. Part 1 of my convention report, in which I detailed the angry fallout among Pathfinder licensees to Paizo’s announcement of an impending Second Edition — including the “Pathfinder by the POUND!!” liquidation at the Frog God booth — was our most popular post for the month, by a pretty wide margin. Part 2 of my report, a 17-photo pictorial…

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Hugo Nomination Thoughts, 2018

Time for my annual post on what I’m thinking about for Hugo nominations. As ever, I’ll caution that I have read a lot of short fiction, but that I am less up on the other categories. I have seen a fair quantity of movies, too, however. Let me reiterate something I said last year – though I participate with a lot of enjoyment in Hugo nomination and voting every year, I am philosophically convinced that there is no such thing…

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The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in October

Sword and Sorcery dominated the stage at Black Gate last month. The most popular topic in October was the new S&S magazine from industry pioneers Joseph Goodman and Howard Andrew Jones, Tales From the Magician’s Skull, which showed up twice in the Top Ten, first with a far-ranging interview with Joseph and Howard (and their undead overlord, the Talking Skull), followed by a report on the blockbuster Kickstarter that funded the first two issues. Gaming and game news were definitely popular as well….

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The Top 50 Black Gate Posts in September

The top articles at Black Gate in July and August were both features on Conan, and last month Bob Byrne managed to nab the top slot with his look at a strange mash-up of police procedural and sword & sorcery, the Conan tale “The God in the Bowl.” Conan was created by Robert E. Howard in the pages of Weird Tales in 1932; 85 years later, he’s still the most popular character among our readers. That’s durability. The second most popular article at…

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