Search Results for: Magician's Skull

A Tale of the Last Free Humans: Fletcher Vredenburgh on Jack Vance’s “The Dragon Masters”

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Various covers for Jack Vance’s novella “The Dragon Masters” over the years: the original appearance in the August 1962 Galaxy, the 1972 Ace Double, and the 1981 Ace paperback edition. Cover art by Jack Gaughan, Josh Kirby, and David B. Mattingly Over at Goodman Games Bill Ward, Howard Andrew Jones and a team of thousands have assembled a world-class fantasy blog around their magnificent magazine Tales From the Magician’s Skull. Recent articles include Bill Ward’s delightful survey of the Classic…

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Give Yourself Some Weird Horror for Christmas

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Weird Horror issues 4 and 5 (Undertow Publications, Spring & Fall 2022). Covers by Drazen Kozjan and Barandash Karandashich. I love watching a new fantasy magazine get its sea legs. It’s been a real treat to see this decade’s crop of best new mags — including Tales from the Magician’s Skull (edited by Howard Andrew Jones), Startling Stories (helmsman Douglas Draa), New Edge Sword and Sorcery (edited by Oliver Brackenbury), and Wyldblood (Mark Bilsborough) — carve out unique identities, and grow better and…

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BAEN BOOKS SIGNS HOWARD ANDREW JONES TO FIVE-BOOK DEAL: THE CHRONICLES OF HANUVAR

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We have exciting news to share about Howard Andrew Jones and Sword & Sorcery. Howard Andrew Jones in Magazines Howard Andrew Jones is a titan amongst the Black Gate staff, having served as Manager Editor of the paperback magazine from 2004 onward. He has also been a champion of adventure fiction, being the driving force behind the rebirth of interest in Harold Lamb’s historical fiction (assembled and edited 8 collections of Lamb’s work for the University of Nebraska Press). On…

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New Treasures: Skallagrim – In the Vales of Pagarna by Stephen R. Babb

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Experience Skallagrim – In the Vales of Pagarna by Stephen R. Babb in all its forms. This post covers everything to get you hooked, from a summary, review, excerpts, and links to the complementing albums from Glass Hammer. Reading Skallagrim feels like you are a witness to the live version of Frazetta’s “Against the Gods” painting! You actually witness a hero grab a sword from the sky. The opening scene poses a set of mysteries as the titular protagonist is…

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Making Weird Fiction Fun: Grilling Dorgo the Dowser!

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We have an ongoing series at Black Gate on the topic of “Beauty in Weird Fiction.” Usually we corner an author and query them about their muses and ways to make ‘repulsive’ things ‘attractive to readers.’ Previous subjects have included Darrell Schweitzer, Anna Smith Spark, Carol Berg, Stephen Leigh, Jason Ray Carney, and John C Hocking. (See the full list at the end of this post). I’m excited to corner Joe Bonadonna this round. When his Dorgo character grilled/interviewed me in…

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Invasion! The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells

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Across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. One hundred and twenty-five years after its first publication, H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds (serialized 1897, published 1898) remains a brutally effective tale of alien invasion and a critique of imperialism. I can’t remember how young I…

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It All Started in Lockdown: An Interview with Wyldblood Editor Mark Bilsborough

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What pushed you to get Wyldblood up and running? And for the uninitiated, what exactly is Wyldblood? It all started in lockdown, as many things do. I’ve published magazines before, but nothing like Wyldblood, and it just felt like the right time. More importantly, I had the time, though for some reason that’s been quickly sucked away in a nasty combination of too much reading to do and the real world returning with full force. Wyldblood is a small press…

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So I’m Writing a Novel: A Sword & Sorcery Podcast

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There is a swell of community growing around Sword & Sorcery (S&S) fiction. At least on the amateur and semi-professional level, there are a wealth of markets to enjoy and submit to, including (a partial list in alphabetical order): DMR books, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Parallel Universe Publications, Pulp Hero Press,  Rogue Blades, Swords and Sorcery Magazine, Tales From the Magician’s Skull, Weirdbook. and Whetstone: Amateur Magazine of S&S. As the ranks of authors, readers, and platforms grow, members are gathering across platforms such as…

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Set in Stone: N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season

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The Fifth Season (Orbit, 2015). Cover by Lauren Panepinto So, there I was, strolling through the endless corridors of Black Gate’s Indiana compound, when I chanced upon a book shelf I hadn’t noticed before. Over it hung a sign, carved in blasted stone, reading, The Fifth Season. I picked up the lone book on the shelf, toted it home, and read, with increasing awe, one of the finest science fiction novels of my adult life. Strike that. The Fifth Season…

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