Search Results for: adrian cole

Between the Years When the Oceans Drank (Henry Kuttner’s) Atlantis, and the Rise of COVID-19 — Elak Lives Again!

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Adrian Cole is hardly a stranger to fantasy fiction. Born in Plymouth, Devonshire in 1949, Adrian first read The Lord of the Rings in the late 1960s while working in a public library in Birmingham, and was inspired by the book to write an epic entitled “The Barbarians,” which was eventually revised into The Dream Lords trilogy, published by Zebra Books in the early 1970s. He has been writing various ghost, horror, and fantasy tales, in both short-story and novel-length,…

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The Importance of Good Fantasy Art

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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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Witches, Thieves, and Dead Queens: Tales From the Magician’s Skull #4, edited by Howard Andrew Jones

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Cover by Doug Kovacs My copy of Tales From the Magician’s Skull #4 arrived today, and it is a beautiful thing. Jam-packed with brand new tales of heroic fantasy from its finest modern practitioners, it is a joy to hold. Edited by Black Gate‘s very own Howard Andrew Jones, Tales #4 is filled with names that will be very familiar to BG readers, including James Enge, John C. Hocking, Ryan Harvey, James Stoddard, C. L. Werner, and Milton Davis ….

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Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Good News in Three Acts

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Act I — A Year In Review Heroic Fantasy Quarterly punches well above its weight in the Tangent Online 2019 Recommended Reading List with SEVEN stories. Don’t want to search through their list? I got ya! “Then, Stars” by Michael Meyerhofer (Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #41, 8/19) “Echo of the Siren” by Richard Zwicker (Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #42, 11/19) “A Stone’s Throw” by Howard Andrew Jones, (Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #40, 5/19) “Trail of Ashes” by Caleb Williams (Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #40, 5/19)…

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Weirdbook #41 Now Available

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Cover by Iuliia Kovalova 2018 was a good year for Weirdbook, with three big issues. 2019 was a little more modest, with just one issue in June. (Although editor Doug Draa reports another one is in the pipeline…. possibly a John Shirley issue.) Issue #41 contained stories by Darrell Schweitzer, Adrian Cole, K.G. Anderson, Steve Dilks, S. L. Edwards, and many others, plus poetry by Ashley Dioses, K.A. Opperman, and others. The cover is by Iuliia Kovalova, with interior art…

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Rogue Blades author: Robert E. Howard Changed My Life and Continues to Inspire Me

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Recently publisher Rogue Blades Foundation announced the release next year of the title Robert E. Howard Changed My Life. Award-winning author Adrian Cole will appear in that book. Below he offers some of his memories of discovering Howard and how such affected his writing career. Having been a big fan of Robert E. Howard’s work since I first discovered it back in the 1970s (when like many others I got hold of those wonderful Lancer paperback editions of King Kull…

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Why We Write: Rogue Blades Foundation and the Future of Heroic Literature

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Covers: Johnney Perkins, Dleoblack, Didier Normand Fantasy readers, like those who dwell together here at Black Gate, are long familiar with notions of heroes and the heroic. Each of us might have our own ideas about what makes a hero, but we would likely find common ground in a discussion of the matter. That being said, is there any doubt our world today is in need of heroes? Heroes do continue to exist in our entertainment, but often enough they…

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The Golden Age of Science Fiction: “The Button Molder,” by Fritz Leiber

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In 1972, the British Fantasy Society began giving out the August Derleth Fantasy Awards for best novel as voted on by their members. A Short Fiction/Short Story category was added the next year, with the first one being won in 1973 by L. Sprague de Camp for his novella The Fallible Fiend. In 1976. The name of the awards was changed to the British Fantasy Award, although the August Derleth Award was still the name for the Best Novel Award….

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The Golden Age of Science Fiction: “The Last Defender of Camelot,” by Roger Zelazny

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The Balrog Award, often referred to as the coveted Balrog Award, was created by Jonathan Bacon and first conceived in issue 10/11 of his Fantasy Crossroads fanzine in 1977 and actually announced in the final issue, where he also proposed the Smitty Awards for fantasy poetry. The awards were presented for the first time at Fool-Con II at the Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kansas on April 1, 1979. The awards were never taken particularly seriously, even by…

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Ancient Astronauts, the Thing in the Pond, and the Cobweb Queen: The Weirdbook Annual #2: Cthulhu

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Weirdbook‘s editor Doug Draa explains the rationale behind the magazine’s new line of Annuals in his editorial this issue. We here at Weirdbook decided to do a yearly themed fifth issue. An annual if you will. Last year’s theme was “Witches” and it turned out to be one of our most popular issues to date. After much soul searching it was decided that this year’s theme would be the ever popular “Cthulhu Mythos”… even after more than 9 decades, Mr….

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