Search Results for: Terry Carr

Only the Beginning: The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett

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IN A DISTANT AND SECONDHAND SET OF DIMENSIONS, in an astral plane that was never meant to fly, the curling star-mists waver and part… See… Great A’Tuin the turtle comes, swimming slowly through the interstellar gulf, hydrogen frost on his ponderous limbs, his huge and ancient shell pocked with meteor craters. Through sea-sized eyes that are crusted with rheum and asteroid dust He stares fixedly at the Destination. In a brain bigger than a city, with geological slowness, He thinks…

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A (Black) Gat in the Hand: Carroll John Daly & the Birth of Hardboiled Pulp

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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) Quiz time: Who invented the hard-boiled school of fiction? And who was the first hard-boiled private eye? Hint – Dashiell Hammett is not part of the answer. Another Hint – if you answered Carroll John…

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Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: Columbia College Chicago Alumni Fantasy Writers Look at the Changing Role of Heroes in Terry Pratchett’s Troll Bridge Film

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Troll Bridge, Snowgum Films (2019) The air blew off the mountains, filling the air with fine ice crystals.It was too cold to snow. In weather like this wolves came down into villages, trees in the heart of the forest exploded when they froze. In weather like this right-thinking people were indoors, in front of the fire, telling stories about heroes. This is the epic, atmospheric opening to Sir Terry Pratchett’s marvelous short story, “Troll Bridge,” set in his Discworld series. …

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Going Postal with Terry Pratchett (and David Suchet)

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I think that the late Terry Pratchett was an elite satirist. He used humor in a fantasy world as the vehicle, which probably causes many to dismiss how good he was at writing satire. I’m a huge fan of the Discworld books, and I’ve written a post on the City Watch, and one on Troll Bridge, a short story featuring Cohen the Barbarian. I think an overview of the Discworld series would be a worthy post here someday. Moist Von…

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Birthday Reviews: Terry Dowling’s “The Last Elephant”

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Terry Dowling was born on March 21, 1947. Most of Dowlings fictional output is at short story length, although the stories about Tom Rynosseros are connected and have been collected in four volumes. Dowling has also published the novel Clowns at Midnight. He edited the anthology Mortal Fire: Best Australian SF with Van Ikin and worked with Richard Delap and Gil Lamont to edit The Essential Ellison. Dowling has received four Aurealis Awards and twelve Ditmar Awards. In 1988, he…

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Carroll John Daly and the Birth of Hard-Boiled

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Quiz time: Who invented the hard-boiled school of fiction? And who was the first hard-boiled private eye? If you answered Carroll John Daly and Race Williams, you’d be like most folks. And you’d only be half right. In December of 1922, Daly’s “The False Burton Combs” appeared in Black Mask Magazine and the hard-boiled school was born. In April of 1923, “It’s All in the Game” (which I’ve yet to read), with an unnamed protagonist, was printed. And on May…

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Terry Pratchett’s ‘City Watch’

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As readers of this column are certainly aware, I’m quite the fan of detective and private eye novels. Beyond just the guy that the whole thing is named after. As I mentioned in last week’s post on Isaac Asimov’s Caves of Steel, I’ve made several posts about the genre. Related yet distinct is the police procedural (though some stories, like the aforementioned Caves, fit in both genres). As you can guess from the name, these focus on police officers, rather…

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New Treasures: Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction, edited by Stephen Kotowych

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Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction , Volumes 1-3 (Ansible Press, December 13, 2023, November 22, 2024, and October 21, 2025). Covers by Tithi Luadthong, Xiaofan Zhang, and Pascal Blanché I was delighted to see (on S. M. Carrière’s Facebook feed) news of the upcoming launch of Volume Three of Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction, edited by Stephen Kotowych. The book is already available in digital and print formats, and the big launch party happens at Bakka-Phoenix…

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Tor Doubles #25: Gene Wolfe’s The Death of Doctor Island and John M. Ford’s Fugue State

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Tor Double #25 was originally published in September 1990 and collects Gene Wolfe’s The Death of Doctor Island and an expanded version of John M. Ford’s Fugue State. Both stories have settings which question the nature of reality, although in very different ways. The Death of Doctor Island was originally published in Universe 3, edited by Terry Carr and published by Random House in October, 1973. It was nominated for the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award, winning the latter….

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Cover Reveal: Space Ships! Ray Guns! Martian Octopods!: Interviews with Science Fiction Legends, edited by Richard Wolinsky

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At Black Gate, we’re all about science fiction legends. Specifically, science fiction legends who appeared in paperback in spinner racks in the 70s and 80s. Or pulp magazines. Or wrote adventures at the dawn of the role playing industry. You know what, forget all that. We’re not picky. What makes a true science fiction legend? This is the sort of thing that’s hotly debated on social media, and at science fiction conventions, and in lengthy blog posts titled “Towards a…

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